10 years of Guantanamo

By FARAH STOCKMAN

The Boston Globe

A decade after American Special Forces helped topple the Taliban, there are significant signs that the war in Afghanistan might actually come to an end.

Italian Special Forces are already saying goodbye to the Sicilian pizza oven they painstakingly built at a remote outpost. Most foreign troops intend to leave by 2014. For many Americans, Osama bin Laden’s death took away the raison d’etre of the war. What’s the point of all those night raids on mud huts, now that we know for sure that bin Laden isn’t inside? Even the Taliban seem tired of the war. They recently announced they are opening an office in Qatar — a first step to peace talks, or negotiations for a long-term ceasefire.

Michael Semple, a Harvard Carr Center researcher who has interviewed hundreds of members of the Taliban, says the new office is a big step for fighters who wouldn’t have been caught dead talking to Americans just a few months ago. “We are in a different place in 2012 than we have been in the previous 10 years,” Semple says.

The first thing the Taliban negotiators want is their prisoners out of Guantanamo Bay. Although the collective geopolitical “we” may have moved on since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, 171 men in orange jump suits haven’t gone anywhere. Tomorrow marks Guantanamo’s 10th anniversary.

Some of them are indeed the “worst of the worst” — like Khalid Shiekh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of 9/11. Others were apparently just the househelp of the worst: bin Laden’s cook and chauffeur. Still others remain imprisoned because of their nationality. Five Uighurs cleared of wrongdoing can’t go back to China because the United States fears they will be mistreated there. Some 58 Yemeni inmates were in the process of being sent back home when President Obama imposed a moratorium on their release, due to the terrorism and chaos in Yemen.

So Guantanamo Bay continues. It is that strange netherworld where the lucky guys are those who have enough evidence against them to be tried and convicted of war crimes. Those are the only ones who have a chance of going home, after serving their sentences. The other ones, about whom we know too little, end up in limbo, blowing out the candles on the Guantanamo Bay birthday cake, year after year.

Federal judges have ruled that 26 detainees should be freed. Twelve of them remain, including Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian imprisoned since 2002.

A few weeks ago, Congress passed — and Obama signed — a bill that will make it harder than ever for those at Guantanamo to be sent home, even if they are declared innocent or have served their time. Tucked into the giant National Defense Authorization Act is a small and controversial section that prohibits the use of the military’s money to transfer Guantanamo Bay detainees anywhere.

It also places new restrictions that are almost impossible to comply with on transferring these men to a third country.

Some see the new law as a way to prevent Obama from fulfilling his pledge to close Guantanamo. Others just see it as political posturing. The new law has caused its share of controversy, not least of which is that there is little agreement on whether it allows the military to throw arrested Americans in indefinite detention, with an orange jumpsuit of our very own. One of the worst things about Guantanamo has been its constantly shifting rules of its justice system. Every few years, the courts or Congress roll out changes to make the rules more fair. One wonders why they take the trouble if nobody is going to be allowed to leave anyway.

But now a few people — high-level Taliban officials — have the best chance of getting out one day, as part of some kind of peace deal negotiated in Qatar. Which would be ironic for those in Guantanamo who claim to have no connection to the Taliban or al Qaida, but who could remain in jail for another 10 years, or longer. The end of the Afghan war could be in sight. But, thanks to Congress, the end of Guantanamo isn’t.