With the signing of yesterday's executive orders to close Guantanamo and end torture, we are finally seeing the beginning of a reversal of some of the nastiest inhuman practices of the Bush administration. Yes, it may take another year to close the notorious detention center and yes, there are some aspects of these orders that could be problematic, such as the suggestion that trials outside of federal courts are possible. But despite some reservations, after seven long years of Bush policies that violated human rights, treaties, law and morality, yesterday marked the end of an era. It was an era that caused untold harm to human beings and to the U.S. reputation in the world. Guantanamo was iconic for everything the Bush administration did wrong in the "war on terror," the first steps of the nascent Obama administration symbolize a true break from the wrongheaded policies of the past.
When the Center for Constitutional Rights, in collaboration with leading lawyers Joe Margulies, Clive Stafford Smith and Tom Wilner, first took on cases on behalf of Guantanamo detainees, we did not expect to win. We began filing them a few months after 9/11. The mood in the country was ugly; hate mail poured in and we did not think the courts were ready to restrict presidential authority. We assumed we would lose, but knew it was necessary to assert a key principle of a government under law: that no person could be imprisoned without the right to go to court and challenge his detention--a right we lawyers call the writ of habeas corpus. It was this right the Bush administration felt could be dispensed with.
It has been a rocky ride since the filing of the first cases. We and other lawyers had victories in the Supreme Court with Rasul v. Bush and Hamdan v Rumsfeld. In each case, the court ruled that Guantanamo detainees had the right to challenge their detentions. We thought each ruling would mean the end of Guantanamo, only to then witness Congress overriding the Court.
Finally, the Court ruled in Boumediene v. Bush that our clients had constitutional rights; rights which could not be overridden. But Guantanamo remained open. Now, albeit slowly, the federal courts are finding, one by one, that the Guantanamo detainees were wrongly held.
When we began these cases we were few; today we are many. Over 600 lawyers from big firms and small firms, working pro bono, are the attorneys for the hundreds at Guantánamo. These many attorneys understood what was at stake at Guantanamo--liberty itself. The response of the lawyers, who include Republicans and Democrats, progressives and conservatives, will be seen as one of the great chapters in the battle for fundamental rights in the United States.
This has been a long struggle, much longer then we and others imagined. We have had some amazing successes. We did not expect to find torture. We were naïve. At Guantanamo the most overt aspects of that program ended because we were able to get attorneys into the prison. Now, two-thirds of the Guantánamo detainees have been released, which could not have been possible without litigation.
Our hopes now are for a swift end to the Guantanamo nightmare, faster than the one year maximum promised in the executive order. Another year is simply too long. We applaud the administration for its plan to close this human rights abomination and we are confident that it will either prosecute or repatriate the remaining 245 Guantanamo detainees while rejecting tactics such as preventative detention. At the same time, to ensure that the U.S. never again goes to the "dark side" we must insist on individual accountability. Only by holding government officials responsible for war crimes, through criminal investigations and prosecutions can we deter future lawbreakers and end the culture of impunity that the Bush administration created. The executive orders Obama has signed can be revisited in the next administration. Our adherence to a world under law should not be determined by who is President. It should be dictated, instead, by an unwavering commitment to protecting human rights and the knowledge that there will be consequences for their violations.
Michael Ratner is president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and author of "The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution by Book."
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Obama Signs Executive Order To Close Guantanamo Bay
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Obama's Second Day To Focus On Foreign Affairs
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Obama To Close CIA "Black Sites"
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Obama Foreign Policy Changes: World Reactions
President Obama is using his second day in office to focus on changing many of former President Bush's foreign policies (read more here from AP)....
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Obama Official: Closing Gitmo Won't Be Easy
At a briefing with a senior White House official on the topic of closing of Guantanamo Bay, one gets the sense that the process will...
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Guantanamo: Obama Executive Order To Close Prison Full Text
On Thursday January 22, President Obama signed an executive order to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Read the full text: By the authority vested...
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Gone-tanamo Bay: the Right Decision
The problem with Guantanamo was never about its bricks and mortar. The problem with Guantanamo is that its very existence stains and defies the moral fiber of our great nation.
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Obama's Decisive Break with Bush's "War on Terror" Policies
Obama's new Orders are a bold start, but more detail is required, dangerous loopholes must be shut off permanently, and other parts of the Bush administration's dark legacy need to be swiftly addressed.
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Last(ing) Days of Indignity..?
The Pentagon reports that 42 GTMO detainees are on a hunger strike. Human rights lawyers estimate the total is closer to 70, roughly 30% of those remaining in this netherworld prison.
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A Great Start to Restoring the Rule of Law
President Obama has shown us how we can strengthen our national security without undermining our ideals. On Tuesday we witnessed history, and now we are witnessing fundamental change.
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Obama's Guantánamo Mistake: He's Not Closing Gitmo the Right Way
Obama has issued an executive order to shut down the prison. That alone is not enough. An executive order can be changed -- easily.
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At Last, an Honest Broker
George Mitchell is going down in history as the man who brought peace to Ireland. It is inconceivable that he would choose to follow that success with failure in the Middle East.
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Obama Says No to Torture; Interrogators Say Yes to Obama
Interrogators are lauding President Obama for signing an executive order that will shut down secret CIA prisons and place the use of coercive interrogation techniques completely off limits.
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Chaos and Lies: Why Obama Was Right To Halt The Guantanamo Trials
In one of his first acts as president, Obama ordered prosecutors in Guantanamo's Military Commission trials to ask for a four-month stay on all proceedings.
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Radical progressives plan to start a world wide campaign of complaing that Pres Obama hasn't rebuilt the economy yet, brought US forces back home from Iraq & Afghanistan, selected a chruch to attend while he's in the White House & a lot more vital & most important things. Some radical progressives are upset that neither the HUFFINGTON POST nor the DAILY BEAST is/are not starting a campaign to impeach Pres Obama for not making everything in the universe much better yet. Pres Obama has been in office for 100 hours, what has he done? Overwrought minds want to know.
T H A T ....also shows the incompetence of the last 8 years. Who knew it was this bad.
NONSENSE.
We have the world's large prison system and one of the world's large legal system. Assign an agent to each prisoner and then get them to a cell in the U.S. Spread them about the country. Take them in federal court according to our laws. Let justice be done.
And do the same to criminals that have had a stranglehold on our nation the last eight hours.
Now, again (you know what I am gotta say, so if you do, stop reading now).
Clean up the toxic waste at Gitmo. THAT may take a year.
Give it back to Cuba. Never AGAIN! REALLY CLOSE GITMO!!! For all time.
> to criminals that have had a stranglehold on our nation the last eight hours.
Eight HOURS??? Hmm. Fascinating. :-)
CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH
Clive Stafford Smith: "US Holding 27,000 in Secret Overseas Prisons; Transporting Prisoners to Iraqi Jails to Avoid Media & Legal Scrutiny," on Democracy Now.
Clive Stafford Smith, British born lawyer for over fifty detainees in Guantanamo Bay. He is the legal director of the UK charity Reprieve and has defended prisoners on death row for over twenty years. He is the author of Eight O’Clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Seeking Justice in Guantanamo Bay.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/19/clive_stafford_smith
ROBERT FISK
"There is just one little problem, though, and that's the "missing" prisoners. Not the victims who have been (still are being?) tortured in Guantanamo, but the thousands who have simply disappeared into US custody abroad or – with American help – into the prisons of US allies. Some reports speak of 20,000 missing men, most of them Arabs, all of them Muslims. Where are they? Can they be freed now? Or are they dead? If Obama finds that he is inheriting mass graves from George W Bush, there will be a lot of apologising to do."
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-obama-has-to-pay-for-eight-years-of-bushs-delusions-1001092.html
Fisk, the same incensed honourable man who fearlessly reported the Sabra and Shatila genocide of Ariel Sharon who, after the Israeli inquiry, was fired as Israeli Defense minister.
Would that there be such an inquiry again, in the U.S.
-Richard Posner
Additionally, the Department of Defense estimates that SIXTY former Guantanamo detainess have returned to the battlefield.
Thanks for your diligence and the other 600 lawyers. But, this citizen doesn't quite see how we can ensure this abomination will never happen again. The culprits go much further than Bush and Cheney or their minions. Sure, Bush gave the orders. But, the Supreme Court, conservative as it is, gave him a green light. A Republican Congress seconded the motion.
As deregulated, unsupervised markets have proven, greed knows no bounds, and to summarily declare that these people should be detained indefinitely is absurd and criminal.
OTOH, if any detainees do actually fall into hysterical fear-driven characterization that you use in your post, then other options will have to come into play; the biggest obstacle for fear-mongering GOPers now is a problem you haven't had for the last eight years--you actually have to know what you are talking about, and then be able to prove it.
You don't want Middle Eastern terrorists coming to this country to attack us? The grow a brain and support politicians that will push policies that keep the US OUT of Middle Eastern government's affairs.
No, that's not a quick fix, but this wasn't a sudden problem either; it took DECADES of US mishandling foreign affairs in the Middle East to bring about the current situation, and it will take decades of sincere effort and fair policies to undo the damage.
And, your reasoning is flawed...when was the last time that cozying up to these fundamentalists in the Middle East gotten us anywhere. Maybe there was a time when the U.S. committed military power to stop a genocide of Muslims in some country in Europe?? Hmmmm?? And look how we were re-paid for our efforts in the former Yugoslavia...continued terror attacks and jihad against us. Don't be gullible, these fundmenalists have so distorted their religion that they have hated the West and any non-Muslims LONG before any of U.S. involvement in the Middle East. And nice thinly anti-Isreal sentiment there too pal.
Is he the one I should vote for, O giant brained one?