After seven years of operation, Guantanamo will soon be offering detainees classes like English, art, and geology. Evidently, the mental stimulation keeps them from being bored and causing trouble. Ya think?
I applaud any effort to treat a human being like a human being, but this is a case of too little too late.
Obama has pledged to shut down Guantanamo. Though of course, the devil's in the details.
From Chicago Tribune:
People close to Obama's transition team say officials have not decided how to deal with the aftermath of Guantanamo. Obama has said repeatedly he plans to close the prison.
But some experts on detention policy, including close Obama allies, are convinced that problems posed by many of the detainees are insoluble: They may be too dangerous to release, but will never be able to stand trial in U.S. courts because of tainted evidence or alleged mistreatment.
For those prisoners, closing Guantanamo could require pasasage of a law allowing long-term detention.
"There are 20 to 30 people in Guantanamo that present serious, serious problems," said Donald Guter, a retired rear admiral who served as the Navy's top uniformed lawyer and was an adviser to the Obama campaign. "If you can't take them to a court and get legitimate convictions what do you do with them? Do you hold them, or do you release them?"
Regardless of whether we release or keep these 20-30 detainees, we must insist on humanitarian treatment of them while they are in custody. Anything less than would be un-American.
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