Outsourcing indefinite detention

The US is negotiating the release of more detainees from Guantanamo. But when you look closely, they're not actually setting them free. Instead, they're outsourcing their continued indefinite detention to client states:

administration officials denied the move was a precursor to closing the facility. "This is not an effort to shut down Guantánamo," said Matthew Waxman, deputy assistant secretary of defence for detainee affairs.

"We, the US, don't want to be the world's jailer. We think a more prudent course is to shift that burden on to our coalition partners."

(Emphasis added)

Note that they're not saying that they don't want these people locked up; they simply don't want the hassle and the ongoing bad publicity of doing it themselves. And so as with torture, they will get other governments to do their dirty work for them. We have already heard of two Yemenis who were "released" from US custody on the condition that the Yemeni government continue to imprison them (despite neither having been charged or found guilty of any crime); now this program will be massively expanded. An example is the deal recently negotiated for the transfer of Afghan detainees from Guantanamo and Bagram:

The detainees will be transferred to the "exclusive custody and control of the Afghan Government."

"The government of Afghanistan will accept responsibility for the returning Afghan citizens and will work to ensure that they do not pose a continuing threat to Afghanistan, the coalition, or the international community as a whole," a joint US-Afghan statement said.

But the transfers will not begin immediately - instead, they will be delayed until the Afghan government has sufficient detention capacity - capacity the US will help them build. So the US government isn't just demanding that people be indefinitely detained without trial; they are building the prisons to keep them in as well.