As this dismal anniversary passes with hardly any notice here in the United States, it's truly impossible to overestimate the damage that Guant谩namo has done to our image and influence abroad, and the nightmare it has become for the men still imprisoned there.
Guant谩namo may feel like yesterday's news -- the Supreme Court already ruled on this, right? -- but hundreds of men remain in indefinite detention at Guant谩namo in circumstances every bit as bleak as before. In some ways, the situation at Guant谩namo has never been worse.
Last month, that the military has "clamped down decisively" on detainees in recent months, eliminating benefits for "compliant" detainees and finalizing plans to convert the entire camp into a maximum security, bricks-and-mortar prison. When I first visited Guant谩namo just a year ago, our military tour guides were full of stories about communal meals and detainee basketball games; in September, the military was still pushing about the popularity of Harry Potter novels among the detainees. No more. Now, in a depressing echo of the earliest rhetoric from Bush and Rumsfeld, the Gitmo commander wants to be sure that we remember that (A previous Gitmo commander was more candid, conceding to The Wall Street Journal: )
There have been hopeful, even celebratory moments in the last five years. The Administration's original plan was to fashion Guant谩namo quite literally as an island outside the law -- a place with no lawyers, no rights, and above all, no public scrutiny. In 2004, the that Guant谩namo detainees could challenge their detention through habeas corpus petitions in U.S. courts -- a decision that opened the island to lawyers who began to bring the detainees' stories to the world. (Yesterday's Los Angeles Times includes -- a harrowing first-person account of one detainee's five-year ordeal at Guant谩namo.) In 2006, in the Hamdan case, the Court dealt another blow to the Administration's Gitmo plans, decisively repudiating the sham military tribunals that had been devised to provide an illusion of legal process in a lawless system. The Court made clear that the President could not unilaterally usurp the roles of the courts and Congress.
Those historic decisions will profoundly affect the ability of any future President to claim monarchical powers. But, so far, they have not brought a single detainee home. Now Congress, in enacting the disgraceful "Military Commissions Act" just prior to the mid-term elections, has purported to overrule both decisions: by eliminating habeas corpus for Gitmo detainees, and by reinstating a military commission system that will once again permit unjust prosecutions. Five years later, we're back to square one.
The struggle is far from over. The 老澳门开奖结果 will be mobilizing to ensure that the new Congress amends the abuses of the Military Commissions Act. And, inevitably, the plight of the Gitmo detainees will return to the Supreme Court -- where, we can only hope, the Court will reaffirm that the right of habeas corpus is guaranteed by the Constitution and cannot be eliminated by Congress.
Until then, the men at Guant谩namo may observe still more anniversaries of lawless detention. Their plight is our shame.