Guantanamo and the Politics of Fear | Center for Constitutional Rights

31.3.16

Guantanamo and the Politics of Fear | Center for Constitutional Rights:

The idea that the men detained at Guantánamo were all sent there
after being captured on “the battlefield” by U.S. forces because they
posed a threat couldn’t be further from the truth. Eighty-six percent of individuals
were arrested by foreign forces, not by the U.S. military. Most
Guantánamo detainees were ensnared in a slipshod bounty-system in which
the U.S. paid handsome cash rewards to locals for turning over anyone
who seemed out-of-place. Many of the men who arrived in Gitmo were
simply in the wrong place at the wrong time—fleeing from, not fighting
in, the erupting conflict in Afghanistan.


Over the course of six years and, notably, without strong opposition
from either party, the Bush administration transferred over 500 men out
of Guantánamo. Since 2002, hundreds of men have been released from Gitmo
and the overwhelming majority of them worked hard to try to rebuild
their lives (though with no help from the U.S.). Former prisoners have
gone on to study at universities, written books, taken up jobs, and
started families of their own. Republicans do not want the public to
hear the stories of Muslim men, once falsely deemed dangerous, living
peacefully. Nor do they want the public to hear of the torment and
suffering of individuals who have spent over a third of their lives
imprisoned without charge. Those stories do not advance the political
agenda of keeping Guantánamo open.