{"id":114593,"date":"2018-07-16T12:00:28","date_gmt":"2018-07-16T11:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=114593"},"modified":"2018-07-14T15:21:32","modified_gmt":"2018-07-14T14:21:32","slug":"as-eight-guantanamo-detainees-ask-for-freedom-the-trump-administration-says-it-could-hold-them-for-100-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/07\/as-eight-guantanamo-detainees-ask-for-freedom-the-trump-administration-says-it-could-hold-them-for-100-years\/","title":{"rendered":"As Eight Guant\u00e1namo Detainees Ask for Freedom, the Trump Administration Says It Could Hold Them for 100 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Troops stand guard outside Camp Delta at the Guant\u00e1namo Bay detention center, in Cuba, on June 5, 2018.
Photo: Ramon Espinosa\/AP; reviewed by U.S. military officials<\/p><\/div>\n

12 Jul 2018 – <\/em>On Wednesday [11 Jul] a federal court in Washington, D.C., heard the first major challenge to the Trump administration\u2019s policy on Guant\u00e1namo Bay \u2014 a case arguing against the ongoing detention of\u00a0eight of the 40 Muslim men still left at the island prison. The judge\u2019s decision in the case could impact any future attempt to bring detainees to the detention center and torture site, and become a judgment on the United States\u2019s endless war on terror.<\/p>\n

Twenty-six prisoners at Guant\u00e1namo remain detained without charge or trial, including the\u00a0eight men represented in court Wednesday, who have been at Guant\u00e1namo between 10 and 16 years. Two of them have been cleared for release by a government review panel. Lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights, along with other attorneys, are challenging the prisoners\u2019 detention both as a violation of due process and also under the laws of war as dictated by the authorization\u00a0for the use of military force, or AUMF.<\/p>\n

Passed by Congress in 2001, the AUMF granted the executive branch license to \u201cuse all necessary and appropriate force\u201d against individuals or groups responsible for the 9\/11 attacks or those who helped them. Critics say the law is now being stretched beyond recognition to legalize military action around the globe, including against groups that did not exist in 2001.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, we could hold them for 100 years if the conflict lasts 100 years.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While the government originally used the broad powers granted by the AUMF to justify the detention of their clients, CCR attorneys argued that this authority has since \u201cunraveled.\u201d Under the AUMF, limited detention was justified for the narrow purpose of preventing the return of the detainees to the battlefield. Calling today\u2019s war on terror an \u201camorphous, interminable morass\u201d and a \u201cconflict disconnected from reality,\u201d CCR urged the court to recognize the vastly different landscape from when the AUMF was passed by Congress.<\/p>\n

The government countered that as long as operations continue against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, the original theater of the war on terror, the authority underpinning the AUMF still holds. When Judge Thomas Hogan asked if, in the government\u2019s view, the war could last 100 years,\u00a0Justice Department\u00a0attorney Ronald Wiltsie said, \u201cYes, we could hold them for 100 years if the conflict lasts 100 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baher Azmy of CCR, in an interview with The Intercept, dismissed the idea that these detainees would return to the battlefield. \u201cNo one is going to be returned to Afghanistan,\u201d he said. \u201cFor example, two of the cleared petitioners were set to be released to Morocco and Saudi Arabia, under security arrangements or into custody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Azmy also pointed out that the government had submitted to the court assessments from generals who described how they have \u201cconstrained Al Qaeda\u2019s effectiveness\u201d and now largely preside over counternarcotics operations against the Taliban, who have \u201clost their ideological underpinning.\u201d Though the U.S. remains engaged in combat operations in Afghanistan, it ended Operation Enduring Freedom, which launched the war on terror in October 2001, at the end of 2014.<\/p>\n

While Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush released nearly 750 men over the course of their terms, only one man, Ahmed al-Darbi, has been transferred out of Guant\u00e1namo during President Donald Trump\u2019s tenure, based on arrangements made after he pled guilty to war crimes in 2014. Though his clients have all renounced violence, Azmy asked the court whether they would likewise need to confess to war crimes in order to leave the prison.<\/p>\n

The lawyers for the detainees also argued that the Trump administration has made a blanket decision not to transfer prisoners out of Guant\u00e1namo \u2013 in line with comments the president made before entering office. Though Trump\u2019s January executive order on the prison granted Defense Secretary Jim Mattis the power to transfer detainees,\u00a0Mattis admitted last month in a CNN interview<\/a> that he was \u201cnot working on that issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese detentions are, in general, not about real threat. \u2026 They\u2019re arbitrary and \u2026 they\u2019re just being held out of\u00a0[Trump\u2019s] animus and punishment.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pardiss Kebriaei, a CCR staff attorney who appeared on behalf of the detainees, said before the hearing that \u201cTrump\u2019s statements and his actions \u2026 demonstrate that these detentions are, in general, not about real threat, but that they\u2019re arbitrary and that they\u2019re just being held out of his animus and punishment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawyers filed the habeas case in January, on the 16th anniversary of the prison\u2019s opening. In the months since, the White House announced new criteria<\/a> drawn up by the Defense Department to transfer new detainees to Guant\u00e1namo if they \u201cpresent a continuing, significant threat to the security of the United States.\u201d Prison guards at the island base recently drilled to practice receiving a new detainee<\/a>, and proposals for the first permanent barracks<\/a> and a hospice wing<\/a> for the aging prison population are under discussion. While Obama never fulfilled his campaign promise to close Guant\u00e1namo, he remained nominally committed to it throughout his term. Under Trump, by contrast, a commander at Joint Task Force Guant\u00e1namo recently told reporters<\/a>, \u201cWe\u2019re going to be enduring and stick around for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

Any attempt to bring new prisoners \u2014 such as Islamic State detainees currently held by U.S.-allied forces in Syria and Iraq \u2014 to the base would likely invite legal challenges, and Hogan\u2019s judgment in this case could provide an important referendum on such transfers. Hogan expressed sympathy with the detainees at Guant\u00e1namo, noting that they had already\u00a0spent a long\u00a0time\u00a0in prison. He could order them released. But he also indicated that he may not offer any bold pronouncements that could contradict or reinterpret previous rulings on the president\u2019s war powers \u2014 including those shaped by Trump\u2019s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh<\/a>.<\/p>\n

_____________________________________________<\/p>\n

Related:<\/em><\/p>\n

An American Century of Brutal Overseas Conquest Began at Guant\u00e1namo Bay<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Force-Feeding, Fasting, and Big Macs: the Doublespeak of Food at Guant\u00e1namo<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Camp America Comes Home: Debi Cornwall\u2019s Photos Capture the Eerie Aftermath of Guant\u00e1namo<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Tortured, Mentally Ill Guant\u00e1namo Prisoner Asks Court to Be Repatriated to Saudi Arabia<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Shilpa Jindia is a freelance journalist and researcher whose work covers conflict, security and impunity in the U.S. and abroad.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

12 Jul 2018 – The men have been at Guant\u00e1namo up to 16 years with no trial or charges, and lawyers say the war on terror justification for their detention has expired.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":114595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}