Dear President Obama: Guantanamo will Never be Resolved

By Dr. Maha Hilal

President Obama gave a speech yesterday highlighting his administration’s plan to close Guantanamo Bay, the infamous prison that has been used to house prisoners in the so-called “War on Terror.” Obama offered several rationales as to why the prison should be closed, such as U.S. national security and its standing in the world.

What the president didn’t mention is that Guantanamo Bay should be closed because it has, over the course of 14 years, held close to 800 Muslim men captive — many for crimes they never committed or were ever charged with. What he also failed to mention is that though the offshore prison may close, many Muslims prisoners may could be held domestically in a newly built facility as a cousin to the Communication Management Units that currently hold a disproportionate number of Muslims.

This, however, is not surprising because this is the language and policy of war. It is the language of war that de-centers victims and treats them as a means to an end.  Guantanamo Bay prisoners are only valuable (or not) in the extent to which our national security is protected. At no point in his speech did Obama mention the names of prisoners who died in Guantanamo; the only allusion to their humanity was the speculation that they might return to the battlefield.

Thus, Muslim prisoners, regardless of their actual status can only conceptualized in two ways; being an immediate threat or becoming one. Guilt or innocence is only marginally important in a system that demonizes Muslims whether or not a crime was committed,

Guantanamo Bay prisoners are spoken of in indirect terms.  President Obama spoke in terms that deny them any humanity and position them only as convenient pawns through to address the world’s security concerns. That’s why the president can mention the numbers of those held (close to 800), the number released under Bush (500), and the number released under his presidency (147) without the American public considering for even a minute that these numbers represent lives. That somewhere the prisoners had names, an identity, and bonds to the rest of humanity.

Furthermore, at no point did President Obama state why the prison was opened in the first place. Instead he chose to credit his predecessor with releasing 500 men from a prison opened under the Bush administration with the express intention of evading the law.

Obama’s plan will make it possible for many prisoners to have the chance to leave and resume their lives. But this begs the question of where? Obama’s proposal includes transferring 35 prisoners to other countries with special security measures. If we look at how other former prisoners have fared upon being released to third countries, this will not be a victory but rather a transfer to a different kind of hell.

That’s why Mohammad Bwazir declined to leave Guantanamo Bay; because the hell he knew was better than the hell he didn’t. This makes sense as we continue to witness prisoner after prisoner transferred to a third country with no connections to the culture, language or people and without any family or friends to help them through the transitions.

One former prisoner, who was released to Uruguay along with six others of Middle Eastern origin, stated that (through translator):  “Now we moved to another kind of prison where nothing has changed …We are still under the same pressure. The mental state has not changed. I don’t feel settled down. This is essential for me to move on.”

Should the plan to build a new facility to house these prisoners in the United States be abandoned, the prisoners will be housed in maximum-security prisons — this being a sort of Guantanamo 2.0 that will diffuse the offshore prison’s insidious history. This plan will likely separate the prisoners and dismantle their collective stories, making coherence in policy and advocacy efforts exponentially more difficult.

Either way, indefinite detention will continue or the prison’s legacy will morph into a new and potentially equally egregious chapter in American history.

Wherever prisoners end up, they will still be seen as guilty. After all, you don’t transfer innocent prisoners, you free them. Guantanamo prisoners on the other hand are transferred with significant security measures in place, and no accountability from the United States that provides any vindication on their captivity in the first place.

Thus in the eyes of their new country and for the rest of their lives, they will be stigmatized. They will be known as foreigners, and they will be known as terrorists.   They will always be #innocentuntilprovenmuslim. But that’s not something that you hear President Obama speak to. Because when it comes to security and the right of life, we have effectively excluded these prisoners from having these rights let alone any claim to them.

With all of this said, one thing is clear.  Guantanamo will never be resolved. You cannot unjustly detain, torture and murder prisoners with impunity. You cannot destroy lives and only deal with the physical structure that imposed these horrors.  It is a system that criminalized these men, not the concrete walls.

You cannot tell the world that the war on terror does not target Muslims while erasing the lives of Muslims who have been subjected to detention in Guantanamo. You have to deal with the legacy of the horrors and center their voices.

As a Muslim, whether or not the prison closes and whether or not the U.S. becomes of the site of Guantanamo 2.0, I will stand in solidarity with the prisoners currently detained and those released until they can re-claim their stolen worlds.

Dr. Maha Hilal is the Executive Director of the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms.  She is also an Adjunct Professor at George Mason University.  Dr. Hilal earned her PhD from American University and holds a Master’s degree in Counseling and a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

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