This week marked the 20th anniversary of our illegal and profoundly immoral post-9/11 prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (Lord knows I’ve been posting about it long enough.) And though the Afghan war is over, there’s no end in sight for the remaining 39 prisoners captured following our invasion of that unhappy country.

At a time when we should be following through on multiple presidents’ pledge to shut the place down, we’re doing the exact opposite. Biden’s Pentagon is planning another $4 million secret court room in the island compound. Looks like we’re planning on prosecuting some detainees, though under what auspices it’s not clear.

Never the less, let’s look at some of what is clear about Gitmo.

Where the hell is it, again?

Okay, so … the United States has hundreds of military installations around the world, including a significant number in Central and South America. But typically those facilities operate in what we consider to be friendly countries. The reason is simple – our military is an imposing presence, so much so that only a friend could tolerate their presence.

But Guantanamo is located in Cuba, a country that has been under unrelenting attack from the United States since the very early 1960s. You would think we might have packed that place up long ago, but it’s too valuable an instrument of intimidation. Does anyone think Cuba willingly accepts the presence of a U.S. base on their territory, occupying their principal eastern-facing port? It’s a little hard for us to credibly criticize Russia for leaning on Ukraine when we do this kind of shit.

The remaining victims of GWOT

Thirty-nine detainees remain at Guantanamo, of whom 27 have not been charged with a crime. The remaining detainees are basically un-prosecutable by any reasonable standard, as they have been subjected to torture and forced interrogations. The Biden Administration has recently approved five detainees for release, but this means next to nothing. The prison at Guantanamo is a Kafkaesque trap, holding men whose lives mean nothing to their captors.

The fact is, they won’t be released because to do so would have negative political consequences. No president wants to take the heat for releasing “jihadists”, even if none of the detainees cleared for release has ever raised a hand against the U.S. When Obama lost his nerve on this issue back in 2009-10, that was our last chance to shut this dump down. Now the only thing that can kill Guantanamo is us.

What the hell do we do about it?

So glad you asked. We can call our representatives, our senators, our president, and tell them that twenty years is more than enough. Shut that atrocity down now and release the remaining detainees. Recompense them in some measure for the harm we caused them. Represented by a moron? I know the feeling! Call him/her anyway.

luv u,

jp

P.S. just posted an new episode of Strange Sound – the first one in several months. Give it a listen at Anchor.fm or wherever you get your podcasts.