US Guantanamo Bay detention center

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swatiraohnlu

Swati Rao
The US Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba is operated by the Joint Task Force Guantanamo of the American Armed Force with the primary purpose of acting as a detention facility for "terrorist suspects" captured in the US War on Terror, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq. Following years of debate on the legitimacy of the detention facility and the legal rights of detainees, President Barack Obama announced on 21 January 2009 that he was suspending all ongoing military tribunals, and that the detention facility would be shut down within the year. This action has renewed debate on the pros and cons of the detention facility, and whether or not a similar detention facility and/or legal apparatus should replace the facility elsewhere.

Is the US Guantanamo Bay detention center justified or should it be closed?
 
* Guantanamo violates habeas corpus, obstructs proof of innocence Prisoners have been detained at Guantanamo for long periods without a clear charges being filed and without trial. This is a violation of the international legal principle of habeas corpus. One of the primary problems is that, without clear charges and a presentation of evidence against a suspect, the suspect cannot contest the charges and prove their own innocence. And, as a matter of fact, numerous detainees have been found innocent, but only after excessively long periods with being charged or brought before a court.
o Guantanamo Bay prisoners have no way of proving innocence.

* Guantanamo is inconsistent with American principles of justice "The President's Prison". New York Times. March 25, 2007 - "the Bush administration says no prisoner should be allowed to take torture claims to court, including the innocents who were tortured and released. The administration's argument is that how prisoners are treated is a state secret and cannot be discussed openly. If that sounds nonsensical, it is. [...] The Bush administration has so badly subverted American norms of justice in handling these cases that they would not stand up to scrutiny in a real court of law. It is a clear case of justice denied."
 
* Detainees have a right to due process and protections in US courts Colin Powell: "I would get rid of Guantanamo and the military commission system and use established procedures in federal law.It's a more equitable way, and more understandable in constitutional terms.

* US courts can successfully try Guantanamo detainees Thomas Wilner. "We Don't Need Guantanamo Bay". Wall Street. December 22, 2008 - "Our courts are fully capable of [trying terrorists]. They have rendered 145 convictions in terror-related cases in the past. And their decisions have far greater credibility than any jerry-rigged commission system ever could."

* Closing Guantanamo need not free un-triable, dangerous detainees

* Dangerous Guantanamo detainees should be held as POWs Many ask, if Guantanamo is closed, what should be done with the clearly dangerous and guilty detainees? One option supported by many legal scholars is to simply hold these detainees as prisoners of war until hostilities cease in the "War on Terror". This will ensure these individuals are not released and allowed to wage terrorism, while also affording them appropriate international legal protections.
 
* US prisons are capable of handling Guantanamo detainees The US prison system, which holds over two million prisoners, is fully capable of holding an additional one or two hundred detainees from Guantanamo. The added costs should also be very minimal for taxpayers.

* Guantanamo was wrongly created to avoid US law and courts Thomas Wilner. "We Don't Need Guantanamo Bay". Wall Street. December 22, 2008 - "closing the detention facility there does not mean that we cannot detain people. Guantanamo is only a place. But it is a place chosen by the Bush administration for a single purpose: to avoid the law. Because it is outside our borders, the administration argued that prisoners held there were beyond the jurisdiction of our courts and the protections of the Constitution. The Supreme Court has now rejected those arguments."

* Difficulty closing Guantanamo is fault of Bush for creating it There are challenges in closing Guantanamo, for instance in dealing with detainees for which their is scant evidence of wrong-doing, or for detainees that have been tortured, but this is the fault of the Bush administration in creating Guantanamo Bay and implementing poor due process practices in the first place, not of those seeking to dismantle Guantanamo now.
 
* US courts have rules for classified info in terror cases Thomas Wilner. "We Don't Need Guantanamo Bay". Wall Street. December 22, 2008 - "There is no need for 'new rules' to handle classified information. Congress has already established detailed rules and procedures in the Classified Information Protection Act. They carefully balance the defendant's right to be informed of the charges against him with the government's need to protect classified information from disclosure. Those procedures have worked in the past and would work again. There is also no need for specialized, extra-constitutional 'national security courts.'"
 
* Guantanamo bay's existence fuels terrorist causes The existence of Guantanamo Bay is cited by terrorists as a tool of "the great Satan" and is seen by Muslims in general as a demonstration of US disregard for their dignity. It is, in turn, an effective tool used by terrorists and Jihadists to bring recruits on-board.

* Closing Guantanamo renews US moral authority against terrorists President Obama said following his inauguration in January 2009, "the message we are sending around the world is that the United States intends to prosecute the ongoing struggle against violence and terrorism, and we are going to do so vigilantly; we are going to do so effectively; and we are going to do so in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals. We think that it is precisely our ideals that give us the strength and the moral high ground to be able to effectively deal with the unthinking violence that we see emanating from terrorist organizations around the world. We intend to win this fight. We're going to win it on our terms."[4]

* Preventive detention at Guantanamo trades liberty for security

* Guantanamo is based on a false choice b/w security and principle

* Closing Guantanamo clarifies detention policy in military

* "Deterrent effect" of Guantanamo on terrorists cannot be confirmed. This is mainly due to the fact that terrorists' feelings or fears in regards to the Guantanamo Bay prison cannot be statistically gathered. Similarly, the terrorists posing a threat to the safety of Western Nations are typically so ideologically fanatical and assured that their path is the righteous one, that there is nothing that would persuade them otherwise, including the risk of imprisonment at Guantanamo. A case study to show the lack of effectiveness of detaining prisoners can be seen in Northern Ireland. There the detainment of "unsavory characters" during the crisis coincided with an increase in the number of IRA members and attacks. The detainment without trial adopted by the government at the time seemed to fuel the fire of fanatics.
 
* Guantanamo undermines the security of US troops against torture. Human Rights First issued a statement on behalf of the retired military officers in mid January 2009: "It is vital to the safety of our men and women in uniform that the United States never sanction the use of interrogation methods that we would find unacceptable if inflicted by an enemy against captured Americans."[5]

* Released Guantanamo detainees are unlikely to return to terrorism

* Any released detainees would be a drop in the bucket for terrorism. There are tens of thousands of anti-American terrorists around the world. Releasing a handful of the 250 detainees that are actually terrorists but that can't be tried in the US (let's say 20 - it will be very few), would be a drop in the bucket for terrorism and the war on terror.
 
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