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Building a Better Guantánamo
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The brutal prison will close. But the idea, Dan Abrams argues, wasn’t all bad. How President Obama can construct another offshore site for America’s enemies.
As human-rights advocates and most civilized nations around the world celebrate the order from President Obama to shutter Guantánamo, it seems few are asking an all too crucial and controversial question: Could it have worked? Shouldn't it have become an important and useful military detention center rather than merely another symbol of the disdain the Bush administration demonstrated for the rule of law?
News that Said Ali al-Shihri, a released detainee, has become a leader of Al Qaeda in Yemen serves as a reminder that some of the "worst of the worst" really are, and were, housed there. That's not just Bush team evil-doer hyperbole. It's really not just another prison. But the Bush administration's version of Guantánamo, was not, is not, and should not be, the only option. That administration's false choices of evil versus good need be rejected in favor of a tough but more nuanced approach.
The failings of the Bush administration do not change the fact that a new facility outside of the United States is, and should be, evaluated to house and secure certain terror suspects captured abroad.
There is no question the facility, as it currently exists, had to be closed. In their zeal to protect the country from "new attacks," the Bush team offered critics a mass of moral and legal ammunition to fire at every turn. They tortured detainees, included American citizens in what was supposed to be a prison for foreign fighters, waited years before initiating military tribunals, and then attempted to deny them access to lawyers and evidence. Again and again, the Bush administration was reined in by the very courts that they repeatedly claimed should have no jurisdiction over the facility. Guantánamo came to reflect the Bush team's utter disregard for law in general—a sort of microcosm of their misguided faith in the absolute power of the executive branch.
But what if?
What if from Day One the Bush administration had agreed that the Geneva Conventions should apply to all the prisoners? What if they had quickly initiated a fair military tribunal? What if they had treated the prisoners humanely? What if they had really worked with legal groups at the outset to establish rules and regulations? And what if they had enacted necessary changes as time passed rather than having them forced upon them by the courts?
For one thing, we would not now be in the odious and agonizingly difficult situation forced upon us by that administration in which we cannot try alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and perhaps others in any genuine court—civilian or military—since our water-boarding and who knows what other types of torture make a trial nearly impossible. Nonetheless, the new administration is right in recognizing that while a civilian trial or the release of many Guantánamo prisoners should be the norm, not all prisoners can be so treated. Ongoing deliberations within the Obama administration are rightly addressing the issue of whether some sort of military tribunal might properly administer justice. Nor do the failings of the Bush administration change the fact that a new facility outside of the United States is, and should be, evaluated to house and secure certain terror suspects captured abroad.
If Al Qaeda or another terror group with camps in some foreign land strikes us again, President Obama would certainly order necessary military strikes in response. Terror suspects, and almost certainly non-suspects, would be killed. We don't call that the death penalty, we call it a military strike. There is and must be a different standard no matter how this "war" is defined. President Obama recognizes that. He has not halted all "renditions," where a suspected terrorist is transferred out of one country to another, and Capitol Hill sources have been quoted saying that new interrogation techniques are being evaluated. What Obama has done is to immediately outlaw the true sins of the previous administration. No torture, no suspects being sent to prisons where they would be tortured, and no Guantánamo.
The Bush Administration has disserved us. That sad legacy, however, should not lead us to overreact. If we do, the result could legitimize their cries of safety versus danger, instead of crafting the very system they should have initiated from the start.
Dan Abrams is the CEO of Abrams Research, a lawyer, and the chief legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. He launched Abrams Research in November 2008 and is an outside consultant to NBC.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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"A tough but more nuanced approach," he says. The left doesn't understand tough but it can talk about nuance until the end of the day.
How can the writer call Guantanamo "brutal?"
The inmates were fed better and treated better than the soldiers!
This must have been written by a far-left loon who has no contact with reality. Argh.
You are asking the wrong question. The question isn't whether Guantanamo could have worked or not. Frankly no American is realling in a position to know if it did or not work and that is tied to the greater question.
The real questions are (1) how many thousands of people went through the secret prison system over the last eight years. One pulitzer prize winning journalists puts this number into low six figures. Symore Hersh.. (2) How long specifically and on average did we keep these guys and how were they treated in detention. (3) What were the youngest and oldest detanee's/victems of this policy? (4) What was the specific actionable inteligence that was gathered based upon these extra judicial incarsorations. (5) What were their suspected crimes/ and actual crimes prior and post detention.
Only after these quesitons are looked at in a scholarly way will the actual value or cost of Guantanamo be known...
Right now all we have are Cheney's and Bush's word that this prison was of any value to the nations securith at all. No citizen who followed the argument for war in Iraq could or should accept that evidence. Not for merit, nor for debate.
(1) Seymore Hersh put the number at 100,000 in 2005.
(2) Based on the Hersh number and Abu Grab published statistics coroberate it... 98% of the folks detained got released after months or years of detention due to no evidence against them.
(3) The youngest detanee's were released after two or three years of detention just before Bush's re-election. They were pre-teen when captured... 11, 12 years of age when captured.. 13-15 when released.
(4) None has been published, Cheney's given us his word that American lives have been saved.. For what that's now worth after Cheney's mistruths spoken about Iraq, Valery Phlam, WMD, Iraqi ties to terrorism and Energy policy...
(5) Again we know of folks kidnapped off the streets of Europe, who were subsequently released years no charges. We know of Brits and Australians who were heald for years guilty only of being in Afghanistan when our bounty was offered for any foreigner... They were the lucky ones because their goverments got them out... others weren't so lucky.
Dan, Dan, Dan ... You ask the question, "What if from Day One the Bush administration had agreed that the Geneva Conventions should apply to all the prisoners?"
You miss the whole point. It really doesn't matter where the prisioners are located if the Bush administration had agreed to recognize that the prisoners had rights under the Geneva Conventions whether as combatants or illegal combatants.
The problem from the beginning was that Bush and Cheney wanted to make their own rules and mistreat the prisoners on the pretext that they could obtain information. Abrams comment was about as serious as his attitude in his former role as moderator of food fights (masqueraded as political disucssions) on msnbc.
Yes, you did miss the point. It doesn't matter where the prison is located. If they had done all the things you listed then there wouldn't be a problem. Just like the prisons in the US; they exist perfectly fine because we obey the rule of law when housing criminals.
I love how angry liberals bleat about "due process", yet remain silent when Obama blows up terrorism suspects without trial via missile strikes.
Angry liberals don't care about "due process". They are just mindless partisans who attack any Republican and support any Democrat, principles be damned.
GITMO will never be evaluated objectively because of its close assocation with former President Bush. It will be interesting to see what Obama "uncovers" there. My guess is not a lot, but it won't matter. The subject, and minds, are closed.
GITMO was a delaying action that W could live with. Because he was so unable to "decide," he has left future presidents to clean up the illegal and unholy messes that should have been solved using the time-honored American sense of justice and honor. This is where the "conservatives" are such hypocrites. The hide behind "constructionism" as a sop for their real goal, which is to subvert true democracy.
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This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
I would bet that some of the detainees were not terrorists when they went into gitmo, but converted because of their treatment while they were there.
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