SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Suleiman al-Nahdi waits with dozens of other prisoners in a seemingly permanent state of limbo five years after he was cleared for release from Guantanamo Bay. I wonder if the U.S. government wants to keep us here forever," the 37-year-old al-Nahdi wrote in a recent letter to his lawyers.
Under recent Supreme Court decisions, and the Military Commissions Act passed by Congress in 2006, detainees have a right to judicial review both of their classification as enemy combatants and of any criminal sentence passed against them. [...] despite their illegitimate methods of warfare, the Guantanamo detainees have received more due process rights than even soldiers of sovereign states merit under the Geneva Conventions. The detainee can be held only if the board concludes that he is an enemy combatant by a preponderance of the evidence, and this decision is subject to review by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.
According to a New York Times article in June 2010, the Obama administration was suspending efforts to close down the U.S. Naval base detention camp at Guantánamo Bay due to fierce political opposition. [...] despite promises to close down the detention camp, President Obama has never committed himself to returning Guantánamo to the Cuban government. [...] the president's previous attempts at improving relations with Cuba, such as allowing unlimited remittances and giving Cuban-Americans unrestricted travel rights to the island, have proven to be relatively modest.
The Pentagon announced Tuesday that military prosecutors have reinstated charges against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four others for their role in plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The new charges strongly suggest that for the foreseeable future, the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba will remain open, despite public promises by President Obama from his second day in office to close the prison, which is closely linked to his predecessor's war on terrorism.
Today the Guantanamo Bay base (or "Gitmo" as the base has been commonly known by generations of U.S. military personnel) houses around 6,000 members of the armed forces and occupies 117 square kilometers of Cuban soil, for which Washington pays a meager annual rent to Havana of $4,085, the same figure which it has paid since 1934. The base's importance increased during the Cold War, especially during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when it was feared that Gitmo would be used as a secondary Soviet target if Moscow launched a missile attack.
The problem with drawing conclusions from the New York Times' report this week on the American prison at Guantanamo Bay is that its information bolsters just about any view. If you believe the prison should be shut down, the evidence is there. If you believe some detainees are genuinely dangerous to the nation's security, that evidence is there, as well. It is perhaps not surprising that President Obama is dragging his feet on fulfilling his campaign promise to close the facility.
Big Story The big story 50 years ago this week (1961) involved the United States' termination of diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba. The break initiated in the waning days of the Eisenhower administration was designed to spur the anti-Castro movement in Latin America. However, the U.S. vowed to hold on to its big naval base at Guantanamo Bay, claiming the treaty under which it maintained the station could not be abrogated without its consent.
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