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The firestorm generated by the recent Executive Order by President Obama ordering the closure of the Prison at Guantanamo Bay in the next year, is fascinating to me. A group of hysterical Neocons, most of which served time in the Bush White House have come out of the woodwork shrieking prophecies of doom, and heavily criticizing the President’s decision to close our beloved domestic concentration camp. Numerous arguments have been put forth for the maintenance of Guantanamo into perpetuity, and the continued use of torture by our government, in particular there is the argument that some of the 200+ detainees being held are actual Al Qaeda operatives, whose release would only strengthen our foes in the War on Terror, thus justifying the right of the government to hold any person it suspects of being threatening for as long as it so desires.
Whatever the arguments, those who seek to justify the continued existence of Guantanamo are merely defending the incompetence and shortsightedness of the former Administration (”Legacy project” anyone?) as all of the problems which these gentlemen bring up stem from extremely poor decisions made in the early months of the War on Terror, with the assumption that such actions would never need be explained, much less justified as to their constitutionality. In short, it was assumed that all that would be necessary would be a chorus of Neocons crying at the top of their lungs how dangerous these detainees were, with a healthy dose of “post 9/11 world” and “oceans no longer protect us” talking points to scare everyone into blindly accepting the need to maintain what is effectively a concentration camp on what is de-facto American Territory, even if it is located in Cuba.
The question which faces us regarding Guantanamo is not whether or not these men are dangerous, (admittedly some of them are, and some of them which were not before their imprisonment certainly are now) it is whether we live in a nation of laws, or one of coercive, arbitrary force. If we live in a nation of laws, then these men must be tried for their crimes, or released. If these men have been tortured, then the evidence gathered against them via “enhanced interrogation techniques” cannot be considered admissable and it must be disregarded, no matter how damning it might be. The danger that these men may or may not pose to society is part of the risks we run for living in an open society governed by laws which are designed to protect the innocent, but in doing so at times provide shelter for the guilty as well.
The alternative to a state of law is a state of force. While this state promises security without the constraints of law, we must realize that this promise is an illusion. Law in the English-speaking world is based on precedent, if Guantanamo is allowed to stand, then the precedent has been set that the government can detain indefinitely anyone, anywhere anytime who they suspect of wrongdoing without the slightest bit of evidence, it never has to bring them to trial, because the threat posed by the detained is considered sufficient to justify their continued detention. Add in torture, and trials become a formality anyway, as it is amazing what a person will confess to when electrodes have been properly applied to certain parts of their anatomy. In essence, allowing the precedent of Guantanamo to stand leaves the door wide open for our criminal justice system (imperfect though it is) to be transformed into one reminiscent of the People’s Republic of China, the Soviet Union under Stalin, or Nazi Germany. Is the threat posed by these remaining detainees so great as to run that risk?
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