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by C. William Chattin
I’m still digesting that part of President Obama (PBHO)’s National Archives speech addressed to the disposition of Guantanamo Bay detainees. While the president seems rhetorically committed to closing Gitmo, his fervor to expend political capital in that pursuit remains, at best, suspect .
The movement to close Gitmo has always perplexed me. At bottom, the colorable arguments for shutting the facility down are grounded strictly in symbolism – which is not to say that symbolic gestures can’t produce tangible benefits: like, for example, quelling passions the facility has provoked and terminating a rallying cry to violent Islamic radicalism. But does the symbolism outweigh the consequences?
Gitmo is a highly secure, $200 million state-of-the-art facility, surrounded by miles and miles of water. It’s outfitted with court rooms for the types of military-style tribunals, once conceived by the Bush Administration, which PBHO now says he intends to use to prosecute some Gitmo detainees. And, perhaps most important, the prisoner conditions inside Gitmo (at least as they exist today) are cleaner and otherwise far superior to most federal prisons. With the Supreme Court now having accorded the right of habeas corpus to detainees held at Gitmo, one might wonder: what’s the rush?
If - as appears to be the case - Gitmo is both legally neutral and safer, cheaper, and better for detainees than moving them onshore, is it really worth shuttering the facilities as a purely symbolic gesture simply to curry international favor?
