OPINION:
There’s grumbling at Guantanamo, the lawyers tell the London Guardian. The remaining prisoners are miffed at President Obama because they think he’s not doing enough to spring them before he returns to organize the Chicago community, which sorely needs it.
Mr. Obama has insisted over the years that Guantanamo is a symbol of an extra-legal violation of the U.S. Constitution, and a recruiting tool for Islamic terrorists. Its sophisticated propaganda masters, however, especially at the Islamic State, or ISIS, hardly ever mention Guantanamo.
Those with longer than the usual short-term memories will remember that President Obama promised on his second day in office to close Guantanamo. He has contributed considerable rhetoric over the past few weeks renewing his promise, despite U.S. law which expressly forbids presidential transfer of Guantanamo prisoners to prisons in the United States. Congress reinforced its clear intent in the National Defense Authorization Act, which the president signed.
The toughened stance followed the swap of five senior Taliban prisoners for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the American stroller (the U.S. Army says deserter) who was captured by Islamic terrorists and held for five years until Mr. Obama ransomed him. Some if not all of the freed prisoners have returned to combat against the United States and its allies. Sgt. Bergdahl faces a court martial on several charges, including desertion.
Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter is reported to be trying to push 17 transfers of lower-level detainees through the system by the end of January, though there was earlier speculation that Mr. Carter and the generals and admirals in the Pentagon oppose closing Guantanamo. There are still 106 prisoners there, 86 of whom could be sent back to their native countries. But there’s probably not enough time to arrange it before Mr. Obama leaves office.
Administration spokesmen, playing the economy card (who knew “economy” could get a hearing in this White House?), make the larger cost of maintaining fewer prisoners as one of their arguments for closing the prison and transferring or releasing the remaining prisoners.
The fog of war confuses everyone, and the nation is engaged now in a different kind of war, in part because the enemy is not a full-fledged state. But it is a war, despite the president’s reluctance to call it that. The end of workplace violence or whatever Mr. Obama thinks it is, probably won’t be concluded with a signature on the deck of an American battleship, as World War II was concluded on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. But it will end.
The trials of Guantanamo prisoners should proceed quickly, and if there are innocents caught in the toils of war they should be released. But trained and thoroughly indoctrinated soldiers, who have had time to network with other prisoners and improve their skills by reading and studying, should not be returned to fight again, as many of those repatriated have done. That is not the way to win a war. Unconventionable it may be, but war it is.
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