Why guantanamo bay is good

Among them is Saifullah Paracha , a Pakistani man who at age 74 is the oldest detainee at Guantanamo and who has never been charged with a crime. Ten men face still face military commission proceedings. One is nearing the end of a military sentence and is due to be released in February. Others are being held indefinitely without trial. The Bush administration transferred about detainees out of Guantanamo by the end of , and the Obama administration transferred nearly out of the facility by the beginning of Among the challenges US authorities face in transferring detainees out of Guantanamo is obtaining agreements guaranteeing humane treatment from their home countries, or getting a third country to agree to resettle them and prevent their return to hostilities against the US.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Slovakia and Albania have been among the largest recipients of nationals from other countries. In , five Taliban prisoners were transferred to Qatar in exchange for the release of American soldier Bowe Bergdahl, who was held captive for five years in Afghanistan and Pakistan after deserting the US Army. Four of those five are now members of the new Taliban government in Afghanistan.

Two men have been released since Obama left office in January Both were returned to their home countries. After more than 15 years at Guantanamo, Ahmed al-Darbi was returned to Saudi Arabia in to continue serving a prison sentence for a bomb attack on an oil tanker off the coast of Yemen. On July 19, the Biden administration released its first detainee, Abdul Latif Nasser , a Moroccan, four years after he had been cleared for transfer in Held for 19 years, Nasser was never charged with any crime.

The military commissions are tribunals organised outside the framework of US and international law by the US Department of Defense to bring charges against detainees at Guantanamo. US constitutional protections of due process do not apply, allowing the government to maintain secret evidence derived from torture and to hold detainees indefinitely. Detainees are required to use the lawyers assigned to them.

They are not allowed to see all the evidence against them. Privately administration officials express skepticism about getting the support they will need from Congress.

Representative Mike Waltz, one of the signatories. Of the prisoners who remain, nine have been charged or convicted by military commissions. The most notorious is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused Sept.

About two dozen have not been charged but have been deemed too dangerous to release. Six inmates have previously been cleared for release by a government panel yet remain jailed with no arrangements for transfer.

Biden aims to close Guantanamo Bay prison by the time he leaves office. Factbox: U. Ex-detainees have reported beatings and cruel treatment, but it may be that the worst abuses at Guantanamo were endured by a prisoner who remains detained. Muhammed al-Qahtani, a Saudi citizen who is alleged to have been implicated in the September 11 plot, was physically and mentally mistreated from mid-November to early January For six weeks, he was intentionally deprived of sleep, put into painful stress positions, forced to stand for long periods, and subject to sexual and other physical humiliation.

He was refused trips to a latrine, so that he urinated on himself at least twice. He was also threatened with forced enemas, and on one occasion was subjected to one. Human Rights Watch has obtained an unredacted copy of al-Qahtani's interrogation log, and believes that the techniques used during al-Qahtani's interrogation were so abusive that they amounted to torture.

Weakening the Counterterrorism Effort and Undermining U. Leadership on Human Rights. Another reason to close Guantanamo is that abuses committed in the name of counterterrorism have aggravated the terrorist threat. International counterterrorism cooperation has weakened, as courts in places as varied as Spain, France and Kuwait have condemned Guantanamo and refused to accept information obtained there.

Worse, the use of torture and arbitrary detention against Muslim detainees has alienated Muslim communities whose good will and cooperation is needed, both in reporting suspicious activity and in bolstering shared norms against terrorism. A final reason to oppose Guantanamo is that its existence has severely weakened the U.

Worse, abusive governments now claim that Guantanamo gives them license to engage in similar practices. The good news is that the detainee population at Guantanamo has been steadily shrinking since late There are currently detainees at Guantanamo, and over more are slated for release. The bad news, however, is that Guantanamo shows little sign of readying for closure. Right now, in fact, it's expanding. Congress, which will soon be debating legislative proposals to correct the worst aspects of the Military Commissions Act, should also consider ways of blocking this unnecessary new mistake.

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