UN Tells US to Close Guantánamo Prison

The latest UN news is a 54-page report in which the world body demands that the US close its prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The folks in Bush administration, and a substantial number of Americans, believe that the UN is pretty good at making a nice, secular holiday greeting card but little else. So, while the UN is right, the US has the might, but it has no intention of closing the place.

The administration believes the inmates are worth keeping in custody no matter what, so Guantánamo Bay Naval Base is ideal for this purpose. First, it is a military base, meaning US military law applies. Second, it is overseas, meaning that in instances where US military rules don’t apply, those of the local government do, meaning the US constitution doesn’t enter into things. Third, because the local government belongs to Fidel Castro, a regime the US doesn’t recognize, the second point becomes moot. Stealing Cuba from Spain at the end of the 19th century is still paying dividends today.

Unfortunately for President George “LBJ” Bush, and Vice President Dick “Elmer Fudd” Cheney, previous American administrations have signed treaties regarding human rights that still apply. For example, the UN correctly cites the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (Third Convention) and the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (Fourth Convention), of 12 August 1949. The men taken held at Guantánamo were captured during the US led overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and as such, were taken during a war as defined under international law.

The administration claims that these people are “enemy combatants” not covered by the Conventions, but they are being treated in conformity with those rules out of the goodness of America’s heart. This is nonsense, even bullshit. One is either a civilian or not, one is either covered under the Third or the Fourth Convention. There isn’t any middle ground. The Third Convention permits prisoners of war (a status the White House denies these men) to be held until the war ends, and even afterward if there is to be a trial for war crimes, etc. The Fourth allows civilians to be held for the same amount of time, and to be further detained until tried if facing criminal charges.

Well, the war in Afghanistan is over; the White House said as much itself. The men at Guantánamo must either be freed or tried on criminal charges. The US has arranged military tribunals (kangaroo courts really) but very few of them have begun some four years after the war ended. During the Cold War, when America’s survival was truly at risk, the US did a great many nasty things but it never resorted to such wholesale internment of individuals. Now, with a far less serious risk to the nation (Usama bin Laden ain’t Joe Stalin or Nicky Khrushchev), this administration seems quite happy to maintain an American gulag. What was the point of defeating the Soviet Union if America was only going to start imitating it?

The Danish flag appears here as a protest against the violence being done to the free press of that country and elsewhere by those offended by some cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed, peace be unto him. A perceived insult is not an excuse for intimidation and violence, even in the name of the Creator. One cannot insult God, only small-minded men who falsely claim to speak for Him. © Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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