FOURTEEN years ago, in January 2002, the first twenty men were brought to the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba to be detained as “enemy combatants” of the United States. Eventually nearly 800 suspected terrorists would be housed in the facility, with reports later emerging of wretched conditions, Koran desecrations, aggressive interrogations and torture-induced suicides. When Barack Obama took office in 2008, he sought to fulfil a campaign promise to close Guantánamo, issuing an executive order to that effect on January 23, 2009. But he was soon forced to backtrack on the plan when paperwork on the detainees was found to be missing or incomplete, and the closure was put off indefinitely.
On February 23rd, Mr Obama renewed his push to close the detention facility, calling on Congress to finally shut it down. Guantánamo “does not advance our national security”, he said at a press conference held in the Roosevelt Room at the White House. “It undermines it.” The facility serves as a recruiting tool for terrorists, hurts America’s relationship with other...Continue reading
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