TIME TO CLOSE GUANTANAMO

In response to the September 11 attacks, which killed 2,996, the U.S., joined by troops from the U.K., launched "Operation Enduring Freedom," and invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. While in pursuit of Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda fighters, most of which escaped to neighboring Pakistan, the Taliban was driven from power and scattered throughout the countryside. In the process, the U.S. and an expanding contingent of coalition members, captured, held, and expressed the desire to interrogate a large number of suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban combatants, but needed to a find a place to do this. Guantanamo, a 45 square mile U.S. naval base on the south-east coast of Cuba, which the U.S. had been leasing since 1903, was considered to be perfect for this purpose. Guantanamo was secure and far from the front lines of battle. It was technically outside of U.S. territory, yet under complete U.S. control. In legal terms, the Bush administration considered it a zone in which its personnel could conduct detention and interrogation operations with few legal and judicial constraints. Moreover, the administration decided that the Geneva Convention would not apply to the conflict at hand. On January 11, 2002, the first flight with 20 detainees landed at Guantanamo. This total grew to a peak of 780 inmates before it began to shrink. Ultimately, President Bush released 540 prisoners, President Obama transferred 200, and President Trump got rid of 1. Today 39 captives remain. Many are being held without having been charged or tried. Of these, 17 are held in indefinite "law of war" detention as enemy combatants. They are neither facing tribunal charges nor being recommended for release. Another 10 have been recommended for transfer. They are no longer considered a threat to U.S. security, but they are still incarcerated. Of the remaining 12, 3 face proposed charges and 9 have been charged or convicted. The latter group includes Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Mohammed's trial was set to begin January 11, 2021, but it has been postponed because of myriad pretrial motions and complications related to the pandemic. Pressure to close the Guantanamo detention center has been building from the outset.. Early on, even President Bush admitted that the detention facility had become a "propaganda tool for our enemies and a distraction for our allies." Retired Major General Michael Lehnert, the first commander of the prison camp, during a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting in March of 2016, was quoted to have concluded that "Guantanamo was a mistake. History will reflect that. It was created in the early days as a consequence of fear, anger, and political expediency. It ignored centuries of rule of law and international agreements. It does not make us safer and it sullies who we are as a nation." A major segment of consequential office holders, including President Obama, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Senator McCain and others over time also indicated they wanted it closed. The Biden administration picked up where Obama left off, launching a National Security Council review with the intent of closing the facility before the president leaves office. The timing seems appropriate. Since we have officially announced the end of our war in Afghanistan, continued detention of prisoners of war is no longer justifiable. Under the rules of war, combatants can only hold prisoners of war without trial until the war ends. These are supposedly held in preventive detention to stop them from returning to the battle field. They should be released upon cessation of hostilities. (Article 118 of the Geneva Convention). While closing the Guantanamo detention camp is arguably desirable from a number of viewpoints, actually doing it proves complicated. Our moral authority as a nation was seriously compromised when we used torture to obtain information and secure confessions. Guantanamo undermined our security by diminishing international cooperation and alienating Muslim communities. Legally we are skirting the law by denying habeas corpus rights to inmates not being charged, even though the Supreme Court specifically held that federal law applies in these cases. (Rasul v. Bush (2004) and re-affirmed in Boumedienne v. Bush (2008)). Moreover, the cost of keeping the facility open amounts to $13 million per prisoner per year. At $540 million Guantanamo is the most expensive prison on earth. Objections to closing the camp are practical, legal and political. Sending remaining detainees back to their home country may not be easy. They may not all be welcome and could be endangered upon their return. Transferring others to the U.S. mainland for prosecution could also be an issue. Some could be found innocent, simply because confessions were secured under torture. Politically closing Guantanamo remains controversial as well. In 2015, the Senate passed a defense appropriations bill which specifically prohibited the transfer of detainees to the U.S., or the use of funds to build or modify a prison on the mainland to house those detainees. However, there probably are ways to get around these prohibitions. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's statement during his January confirmation hearing that the administration would seek the closure of Guantanamo's detention facility drew a letter of rebuke signed by 7 Republican House members. They expressed their concern that those released would "become rock stars in the Islamist extremist world, posing an even greater threat to America and the world." This probably remains a sentiment held by many. But, after 20 years with a rapidly aging detainee contingent, we ought to cut to the chase, try and convict the master minds behind the 9/11 attacks, transfer or release the remaining prisoners, and close the facility down! The advantages far outweigh any potential ramifications. The place has been an albatross around our collective neck for too long. Theo Wierdsma

THE ESSENCE OF "CRITICAL RACE THEORY”

Well ahead of the 2022 election cycle, our culture wars are already intensifying. One of the not-so-subtle political dog whistles permeating partisan bickering focuses on what is referred to as "Critical Race Theory" (CRT), which relatively recently morphed from an obscure academic discussion point on the left into a political rallying cry on the right. The concept theorizes that racism is not just demonstrated acts of individual bias or prejudice, but is rather embedded in our institutions, policies and legal systems. In short, it suggests that it is systemic. During the 1970s, legal scholars, activists and lawyers, frustrated with the limitations of the civil-rights movement, tried to understand why civil-rights-era victories had stalled and were being eroded. They were exasperated by traditional civil-rights discussions, which predicted that racism would stop once we stop thinking about race. In other words, ignore skin color in everything and the problem of racism will eventually disappear. Acknowledging this incrementalist approach, a growing number of them banned together and developed a coherent framework within which to confront our history of race and racism, and provide us with the ability to think about present-day implications. In light of last year's police killing of George Floyd, 240 other African Americans and 159 Hispanic Americans, parents and educators grappled with the question of how to handle conversations about race and racism in schools. "Critical Race Theory" provided an available academic framework within which to pursue this effort. Politicians and conservative pundits quickly latched onto the concept, arguing that its teachings are un-American, in spite of the fact that there is very little evidence that it is actually being taught to K-12 public school students. In many classrooms the subject never even comes up.However, facts don't matter in today's political environment. CRT opponents now use the term as a catch-all phrase for virtually all examinations of systemic racism. Opponents have argued that "Critical Race Theory" is a Marxist framework that suggests that our nation is inherently evil and that white people should feel guilty for their skin color. More than two dozen states have passed or introduced bills that aim to stymie educational discussions about race, racism and systemic oppression in the U.S. The Florida law specifically stipulates that educators cannot teach "Critical Race Theory." The GOP-controlled legislature in Tennessee passed a sweeping law banning educators from discussing racism, sexism, bias and other social issues with students altogether. Some bills explicitly prevent the teaching of the New York Times' "1619 project," which was launched in August of 2019, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the English colony of Virginia. Its aim was to place the consequences of slavery and the contributions of African-Americans at the very center of our national narrative. And Senators Tom Cotton, Marsha Blackburn and Mitch McConnell recently reintroduced the "Saving American History Act," which would block federal funds to schools teaching about this project. Overall, the mantra seems to be that the subject is divisive, and that it is even racist to examine the role of race in U.S. systems and structures. That doing so would teach kids to hate their country and to hate each other. Academic supporters of the concept suggest that there is nothing in "Critical Race Theory" that promotes any of the adverse consequences critics are blaming it for. Kimberle Crenshaw, law professor at the UCLA School of Law and Columbia Law School, a founding CRT theorist, admonishes that: "When you're really serious about addressing a problem, the last thing you do is punish people for building the tools to see the problem, to analyze the problem and to develop the capacity to remove the problem. "Critical Race Theory" is not a coherent school of thought. It is simply an effort to confront our history of race and racism and to give us the capacity to think about its implications." During a different time, it was political scientist and U.S. National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who argued that the term "war on terror" was intended to deliberately generate a culture of fear, because it "obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue." We could draw a direct parallel to the situation today, given that we are involved in a culture war, and that a significant slice of the electorate has no clue about the essence of "Critical Race Theory," other than what their manipulators suggest. We have to assume that the application of this political dog whistle is solely intended to elicit fear and mobilize constituents in advance of next year's elections. Theo Wierdsma