President Barack Obama revealed his decision to keep Guantanamo Bay open and allow detainees military trials Monday, inspiring uproar from civil liberties proponents who have called for military prison’s closing for years. The White House has been particularly mute on the topic of the controversial detention center until now, showing that barriers continue to exist between the president’s view of the center – that it is an abhorrent civil rights snafu on the United States’ part – and many members of Congress’ view that closing Gitmo would endanger American lives and let the masterminds of attacks against the country go unpunished.
It’s commendable that the Obama administration is intent on improving the inherent problems concerning Guantanamo, i.e. the inability of detainees to obtain a fair trial or even a lawyer, the lack of the treatment standards listed in the international Geneva Conventions. The detainees held at the prison are unlike prisoners of war held during other conflicts: there’s no way for a scrutinizing public to know whether most of these men were actively fighting against the United States or if they were innocent bystanders caught up in the chaos of war. Likewise, the enemy America faces isn’t a traditional military, which would keep track of its soldiers and, after the war has concluded, be able to return its countrymen home to their families. Essentially, the only government that has any knowledge of these combatants is the American government, and that could lead to some obvious civil rights abuses.
For the most part, Obama has the right idea. Neither he nor his advisers can be entirely blamed for not following through with his original plan to close Gitmo considering Congress’ general hesitancy to close the facility. Ironically, while national security should be a priority for Congress, America’s safety decreases exponentially every day the center remains open: nothing makes a terrorist’s job easier in rallying supporters to his cause than a international sticking point such as Gitmo.
Allowing prisoners of war an open trial is nothing new. Nazi war criminals were tried by an international military tribunal at the culmination of World War II in front of the eyes of the world. If the prisoners held in Gitmo truly are the conniving enemy the U.S. military claims them to be, there should be no reason for this veil of secrecy to obscure their treatment any longer.
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