The battle to close Guantánamo

You've got to admire the sheer chutzpah of Bush. Having set out to create a Gulag in Guantanamo, outside of the reach of any legal process, and having manoeuvred constantly over a four year period to ensure that this immoral detention centre has remained outside of the reach of any American or international courts, Bush now claims that he wants to shut down Guantanamo but is waiting for direction from the US supreme court.

Talk about trying to sell a defeat as a victory.

Knowing that he is about to lose, Bush now pretends that this coming loss at the Supreme Court is simply the "clarification" that he has been waiting for.

It takes balls to carry off a lie that huge.

"The Bush administration boxed itself into a corner by the choices it made in treating the people at Guantánamo," said David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University. "Had it given individuals hearings at the outset to ensure they were, in fact, fighters for al-Qaida, had it treated them humanely while they were detained there, rather than coercively interrogating them, and had it asserted the authority to hold them only for the duration of the conflict with al-Qaida - rather than the duration of the war on terror, which is never ending - I don't think Guantánamo would be a problem.

But the practicalities of dismantling the prison are daunting. For Guantánamo to go, prisoners must be brought to trial, or released. So far, only 10 have been formally charged by the much-maligned military tribunals. A study this year by a New Jersey law school found 90% of the inmates had nothing to do with terrorism. That means America must now release scores of men who, while innocent, have been branded as terrorists by virtue of their long stay at Guantánamo. While the majority are from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, there are also smaller contingents from two dozen smaller countries. So where do the former inmates go?

So far, the process of repatriating prisoners has been painfully slow, say detainee lawyers. In part, countries are nervous about taking back prisoners whom the US has labelled dangerous terrorists. They are also frustrated with the stonewalling of US military officials when asked for evidence of links to al-Qaida.

The Bush administration has held some of these men for the best part of four years all the while proclaiming them "terrorists".

We are about to discover the size of that lie. Bush will now be forced to do what many of us have been saying he should do for the last four years. Charge them or release them.

More than 750 men and boys have been detained there. It will be very interesting to see, when the demand is made to put their cards on the table, just what evidence Bush and Rumsfeld have against any of them.

I suspect they have very little evidence, as any time they have previously taken their suspicions in front of a court their evidence has been remarkable simply because of how flimsy it has been.

Nor should we celebrate the closing of Guantanamo as a great break through for human rights.

But if Guantánamo does close, what then? Over the last few years, America has moved its detention centres in the war on terror even further offshore to Poland and Romania, as well as to other secret locations where some 30 high-level al-Qaida prisoners are believed to be held. Closing Guantánamo will not bring those detainees closer to a courtroom, or spare them from possible abuse. "They want to shut it down so they can create hundreds of small Guantánamo Bays that will not attract attention or serve as such a symbol," said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University. "The president has not said he wants to stop the policies that created it ... there is no indication the administration wants to comply with domestic or international law in the treatment of detainees."

Guantanamo will close simply because it has become too visible a symbol of the Bush regime's illegality, but this does not signal a desire by the regime to return to operating within the established legal framework, rather it signals a desire by the regime to move it's illegal actions to places where they will come under less scrutiny.

The hidden prisons of Poland and Turkmenistan, where people are ferreted in rendition flights who's very existence are denied by European governments will be the new destinations for those the US wishes to keep out of the reach of any legal process.

I have no doubt that, when historians look back on this period of America's history, they will regard it as it's most shameful.

A time when a great nation, fuelled by grief, lost it's moral compass. And those on the right, who's knee jerk response has always been to defend the governments actions at all times and at any cost, will find themselves in the same position as many Germans did in 1946.

"How could I have supported that?"

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Tags: Bush, Guantanamo, Supreme Court, ruling, closure,