The US is now reportedly seeking advice from the UK on closing Guantanamo. It would be nice if its true - but OTOH, the advice they're reportedly seeking is how to get around their obligation under the Convention Against Torture not to refoul people to jurisdictions where they face a "substantial risk" (interpreted by the US as "more likely than not") of being tortured. And it doesn't mean that the detainees will be either tried or released. Instead, the US wants to solve the problem of the prolonged imprisonment without trial of detainees in Guantanamo by having them imprisoned without trial in their home countries. Which shows you exactly how little the US cares about human rights...
Even terrorism suspects deserve a fair trial. If the US is not going to provide one, and instead works out some squalid deal with its Middle Eastern clients to violate human rights by proxy, then we should make damn sure that there is no question where the ultimate responsibility lies.
Update: Corrected title. Stupid languages which don't use word-order or punctuation...
The US has a bit of a problem what to do with the enemy combantants that they have caught.
ReplyDeleteIf they don't put them on trial for criminal activity the standard practice I would assume is to release enemy combantants back to the country they belong to.
However, what if the country has a repressive regime, i.e. most of the Middle East or doesn't want them back.
If you can't send them back and they have a stated aim of destorying the US or the West at all means possible you can't free them in the US either.
Maybe they can find a third country to release them to - but that's not likely either.