Obama promised to close Gitmo six years ago, but although his rhetoric was applauded by the masses at that time, it was decried by Republicans and individuals in the national security and military spheres. They argued that the facility was absolutely necessary in America’s War on Terror and that closing it would send the wrong signal abroad. Be that as it may, the facility still remains open, and both supporters of Obama’s decision as well as his detractors appear to have forgotten about the instances of Abu Ghraib and Bagram, where detainees were also tortured, to say nothing of the numerous CIA black sites that existed across the world. These examples show that another Gitmo, potentially one even worse than its predecessor and operated in secrecy, could replace the notorious prison, if it hasn’t done so already.
The Center Of Attention
Although Gitmo stole the media spotlight after the torture allegations first began to surface, it wasn’t totally unknown to the global audience before then. Most were already aware that suspected terrorist detainees were being held at the facility, which automatically raised concerns about their rights and whether or not Constitutional safeguards applied to them. The torture revelations simply blew the lid off of a scandal that was already brewing and brought with it disgusting details and an even more disgusting reaction from some American officials.
"Half of the detained are cleared but they stay there for decades", Juan Méndez, lawyer and UN Special Rapporteur on Torture based in Washington DC, told Sputnik.
Rightfully so, Gitmo became the symbol of American abuse abroad, but many activists developed such tunnel vision and absolute dedication to the cause of closing it that they may have overlooked the fact that the camp is but a single cog in a larger machine. Although potentially the worst and definitely the most well-known, it’s symptomatic of a larger problem of American ‘leadership’ in fighting the War on Terror. The US casually behaves as it finds fit, regardless of the ethics involved or whether its actions contradict the very principles it claims it is fighting for. One needs look no further than the US’ support of terrorism in Syria or the murderous government in Kiev to see the hypocrisy of values on global display.
The Gitmo Archipelago
The notorious prison can be likened to a single island in a larger chain of camps spread all across the world. Abu Ghraib is its infamous Iraqi cousin, while Bagram is its Afghan brother, and both facilities carried out Gitmo-like torture on their detainees before their closure. These vivid and well-known examples show that Gitmo was far from being an isolated case, and the instance of the CIA black sites is another telling example.
Such locations were set up after 9/11 in order to facilitate the transfer of individuals to Gitmo. While being ‘processed’ in foreign lands en route to their final destination, they were subjected to abuse and torture as a taste for what was to come later on. The US created a series of such sites all across the world, mostly in countries whose governments are closely associated with the US, such as Poland and Pakistan. The concept behind their creation was to ‘interrogate’ the detainees in ways that the US Constitution would never condone, taking advantage of the fact that the sites were located in places where American legal safeguards don’t apply. Suffice to say, they’re accused of being temporary torture locations, or basically smaller-scale copies of Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram.
Snip The Weed But Keep The Root?
Closing Gitmo while not tackling the root problem of its associated archipelago and the ‘exceptional’ US mindset that set it into force would be nothing but a symbolic victory. As is seen by the CIA black sites, barely any information has emerged about each location except for a few notable ones like in Poland. This means that it is unknown exactly what kind of human rights abuses may have been carried out there, demonstrating that the US government has actually done a particularly good job at covering its tracks in these cases. This should serve as a dire warning, however, even if Gitmo is closed, other more secretive ‘detention facilities’ may be opened to replace it, given the ‘need’ that certain influential members of the national and military spheres say there is for keeping it open in the first place. Just as one weed can quickly spread throughout an entire garden, it may be that Gitmo’s final legacy will be that it spread a network of near-identical camps all throughout the world.
