Guantanamo Closing Countdown

When President-elect Barack Obama appeared Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” he was measured [1] in answering whether or not he would close the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay in his first 100 days in office:

OBAMA: It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize and we are going to get it done but part of the challenge that you have is that you have a bunch of folks that have been detained, many of whom who may be very dangerous who have not been put on trial or have not gone through some adjudication.

And some who may not have been dangerous to start.

Former Guantanamo prison guard, Christopher Brandon Arendt, spoke about his experiences there in a BBC interview [2] broadcast over the weekend. He bluntly calls techniques used there torture and accuses fellow guards of "psychotic" cruelty.

Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld of Erie, PA spoke to the BBC in December [3] about how disturbing experiences as a prosecutor at Guantanamo caused him to consult a Jesuit priest who advised him to resign. He did. As a country, Vandeveld concluded, "we had abandoned our American values and we had defiled our constitution."

Moazzam Begg, a former Guantanamo detainee, along with fellow ex-detainee and Aljazeera journalist, Sami al Haj, and Christopher Arendt began a series of appearances in England this weekend to publicize their Guantanamo experiences. Their tour is entitled "Two Sides : One Story."

Writing for The Edinburgh Journal on Sunday [4], Begg notes that the world will not forget it was “a black man with the Muslim name” who closed the infamous prison, “if he remains true to his word.”

Difficult or not, Obama had best keep his word. Americans are not the only ones with high expectations and hopes for an Obama administration, yet still cautious. Guantanamo is an early test. Recovering America's moral standing and the incoming administration's foreign policy prospects hang on it. How much patience the international community will grant while waiting for the change Obama promised remains to be seen.

Time is Obama’s enemy. Should he fail to find a swift way to shut down Guantanamo and relocate and/or adjudicate the remaining prisoners, he risks being seen as not just a disappointment, but a Bush accomplice. With the passing of the Bush administration will come more Arendts and Vandevelds eager to tell their Guantanamo stories, stories that – so long as Guantanamo remains an open wound – will circulate until they become legend.

At home, tales of former detainees have received little press and are casually dismissed. Former soldiers [5] are harder to ignore.