Army Military Police escort a detainee to his cell in Camp X-Ray at Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Jan. 11, 2002. (AP)
It was seven years ago this month that the first prisoners arrived at Guantanamo Bay.
The images are seared in the mind of the world, from the earliest days of George W. Bush’s war on terror. Hooded prisoners, black goggles, orange jump suits, in chains, in chain-link cages at Guantanamo.
The White House called them the “worst of the worst.” And some were. But most, apparently, were not. Hundreds have been released. Human rights and torture accusations swirled.
Today, word is coming from Barack Obama’s administration that the detention camp at Guantanamo — “Gitmo” — will be closed, shut down, along with a shadowy global network of CIA secret prisons. Also to be ended: the interrogation methods that brought charges of torture.
Gitmo became a symbol of American rage. Closing it is complicated. This hour, On Point: Shutting down Guantanamo.
You can join the conversation. Is this a weight off your shoulders? A step toward getting right with the world? With the law? Is it a danger? A worry? Share your thoughts.
-Tom Ashbrook
Guests:
From Charlottesville, Virginia, we’re joined by Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor and legal analyst for Slate.
And from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, we’re joined by Carol Rosenberg, reporter for the Miami Herald covering Guantanamo and Camp X-Ray. She reports today on Obama’s move to close Guantanamo.
From Washington, we’re joined by Major David Frakt, Air Force Reserves judge advocate and defense counsel in the Pentagon’s Office of Military Commissions. He is representing Guantanamo detainees Mohamed Jawad and Ali al Bahlul. He is also Director of the Criminal Law Practice Center and professor of law at Western State University.
Joining us from New York is Matthew Waxman, professor of law at Columbia University. He held several positions in the Bush administration, including deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, special assistant to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, director for contingency planning & international justice at the National Security Council, and principal deputy director of policy planning at the State Department.
Tags: Al Qaeda, Guantanamo Bay, national security, Obama administration, torture, war on terror
this place should be closed, it a stain on our great nation.
ty obama, the country and world wants this,besides the small simpleminded,hateful and fearful few
Posted by mike, on January 22nd, 2009 at 8:55 am UTCAfter two years Obama is here!!!!!!!
Posted by Charles Wegrzyn, on January 22nd, 2009 at 10:21 am UTCWhy couldn’t the senate or congress have shutdown Guantanamo?
Has this ever been discussed?
What mechanisms exist (if any) to reverse a President’s decision short of impeachment?
Posted by JSR (Rags847), on January 22nd, 2009 at 10:24 am UTCEvil done in your name is insidious in that if you are cognizant of it it becomes your sin unless you act against it. I hope God will forgive me for my trivial efforts aginst torture and false imprisonment. I am thankful that Obama is working to remove this stain from my soul.
Posted by rudi Aldridge, on January 22nd, 2009 at 10:28 am UTCShutting down Guantanamo is great, will be great, but as long as we have “Close” relationships with regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and China to name but a few, it is but an eye wash.
Posted by MOHAMMED N. RAZAVI, on January 22nd, 2009 at 10:41 am UTCWhy are we using the word “detainee”? I don’t recall hearing this word much before 9/11. It implies a kind of temporary and convenient legal limbo. The more accurate word is “prisoner,” and using it is important because it implies a less ambiguous legal status.
Posted by Gordon, on January 22nd, 2009 at 10:58 am UTCGuest of the state?
Tropical resort patron?
Abducted persons?
Hostages?
Posted by JSR (Rags847), on January 22nd, 2009 at 12:37 pm UTCI almost choked when I heard Carol Rosenberg at the top of show tell us in such sensitive tones how Bin Laden’s driver (Salim Hamdan)had been released and was home and was enjoying the company of the child who he had never seen before. How about all of the families from 9/11 who will never get to see their loved ones come home? Salim Hamdan was a part of, and supported the chief executive of the organization that executed this attack.
More people were killed on 9/11 than at Pearl Harbor. Any Japanese service men who were captured early in the war remained POW’s of the US until the end of hostilities, and not a day less. This applied to everyone from the highest general to the lowest clerk. If al-Qaeda were a foreign country, Salim Hamdan wouldn’t have had a chance to see his child until al-Qaeda gave up it’s war on the US. To date this hasn’t happened. It seems to me that Salim Hamdan got off easier then he should have.
Posted by JEHL, on January 22nd, 2009 at 3:26 pm UTCI love that sanity is returning to government! How saavy and brilliant is this new president!
May he next shut down the idiotic and damnably missnamed “war on terror” and return terrorism to what it should be, namely a criminal act suitable for criminal prosecution.
Posted by Shaman, on January 22nd, 2009 at 3:31 pm UTCBy the way, nothing highlights the complete abject idiocy of the Bush years – the interminable damnation of that horrific president from hell – like the incompetent use of language.
Beautiful to hear today the words from a White House press secretary saying “Closing Guantanamo will make us safer”.
You ask what took so friggin’ long?
Damned Bush. That is what took so damn long! With every day that passes Bush looks dumber – which I didn’t think possible.
Couldn’t possibly be happier with Obama today. He vindicated my vote in one stroke of his pen! Obama has salvaged everything I believe in about America.
Posted by Shaman, on January 22nd, 2009 at 3:38 pm UTCShaman – embodiment of the Obama vision…can’t get over ‘00 and ‘04 and proud of the scumbag Clinton…(he thanked Monica with perfect diction)
Posted by Tiger, on January 22nd, 2009 at 6:32 pm UTCHey, lets shut the place down, move the poor terrorist to America so our lawyers can have them on our streets within a few weeks. Barney Frank said they could come to his state and stay in one of their medium security prisons. Gitmo is officially closed. Americans are happy, the world is happy, I am happy and the terrorist are happy. Why waste a perfectly good prison. Nobody in the world wants these people, except us maybe, why not leave then there till they are either tried or released. We would save so much money that way and these people, who hate America anyway, would not have to be forced to come here. I live in terror everyday in my own backyard, my house is a security zone, my neighborhood is full of dope dealers, thiefs and robbers. Tuesday nite, a husband in an attempt to retrieve his wife from a dope house,was beaten up and shot in the back trying to run to his car to escape. His dead body lay in the middle of the road till a car coming by nearly ran over him. This was just down the road from the biggest dope dealer in the county. Yes People!!! lets have bleeding-hearts for the evil people of the world, we have done a great job of it here in America.
Posted by David, on January 22nd, 2009 at 9:10 pm UTCgood that these fools presidents is finally gone and still think bush did a great job
know our country can use thought-out and intelligent thinking instead of hate and fear and shooting from the hip thinking that got us into this mess. and no bush has not made use safer. as i recall most of the bush speeches on keeping us safer were him tilling use we are not safe and there threats everywhere.
nice try though
Posted by mike, on January 23rd, 2009 at 12:24 am UTCI was dismayed to hear this program promoted as a discussion of Pres. Obama’s closure of the Guantanamo camp for terrorists. Tom Ashcroft you should have known better! The reason why the camp must be shut down, and why it never should have been created in the first place is that the Bush administration’s ineptitude made it impossible to determine whether any of the detainees who were kidnapped by U.S. forces and brought there were, in fact, terrorists.
Quite apart from any moral questions, the outrages committed against the detainees at Guantanamo ensured that any “intelligence” gained has been worthless. Even under the arbitrary and standard-less criteria employed by Bush, 2/3rds of the detainees were released prior to January 20 without explanation and certainly without any apology to those whose lives we destroyed so that the Government could appear to be responding substantively to the 9/11 attacks.
Throughout history, sacrificing due process of law in the name of national security has been a hallmark of tyranny and has rarely even provided the claimed security. As Benjamin Franklin told us long ago, “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
Posted by Nicholas Trott Long, on January 23rd, 2009 at 2:06 am UTCI feel so sorry for people who think Guantanamo should stay open.
Guantanamo is a disgrace to America.
Thinking that terrorists will be ‘let loose’ as a result shows how Bush has failed in yet another area – education.
Bush taught Americans like Tiger (above) nothing about our country. Bush was a bastard!
Posted by Shaman, on January 23rd, 2009 at 3:02 am UTCHi Tom,to the USAF Reserve Major and Professor Waxman: This is Chip,(former USAF Security Forces Security Police and 919th Special Operations Group,50th TFW Security Police Hahn AB Germany,315th SFS Charleston AB SC and 332nd Expeditionary Security Forces Kuwait)from Columbia South Carolina. Thank You for your show on Gitmo. Of course anyone can speculate on GITMO on Abu Gahrib,on the many secret CIA etc jails under the Bush Regime and those currently in place. But I stand behind the President’s decision I am glad you had the JAG Major on and Professor Waxman. They seem to agree with President Obama’s decision also. So many questions what to do with those “innocent Chinese Prisoners”,that 16 yr old losing his eye-sight from your show and then the real bad guys that would only get out like some have and go back to killing Americans again. I don’t carry my m-16 or my police badge anymore my connection from Special OPS has long been retired. I can only hope and pray that when GITMO closes that our Commander in Chief will have made the right decision for us all.
Posted by SSGT USAF Sheldon "Chip"Rice, on January 23rd, 2009 at 9:34 am UTCclosing Guantanamo represents a step in the right direction; pretty soon the U.S. will be able to join the world community once again
Posted by coffee, on January 24th, 2009 at 7:02 pm UTCThat’s great Osama-I mean Obama. Yeah, shut Gitmo down and set the prisoners free. Where? Next door to your house. I don’t think so. Back to our neighborhoods to plan their next terrorist attack. Bush may have acted dumb, but at least he had balls, and the protection of America in mind after 9/11. Everyone likes to forget that he stepped up in a critical time in our Nations History.
Posted by chris coleman, on February 23rd, 2009 at 1:12 am UTC