Donklephant points to an interesting story at the Washington Post regarding the current status of some prisoners incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay:
More than a fifth of the approximately 385 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been cleared for release but may have to wait months or years for their freedom because U.S. officials are finding it increasingly difficult to line up places to send them, according to Bush administration officials and defense lawyers.[.]
In many cases, the prisoners’ countries do not want them back. Yemen, for instance, has balked at accepting some of the 106 Yemeni nationals at Guantanamo by challenging the legality of their citizenship.
Another major obstacle: U.S. laws that prevent the deportation of people to countries where they could face torture or other human rights abuses, as in the case of 17 Chinese Muslim separatists who have been cleared for release but fear they could be executed for political reasons if returned to China.
And, of course, the feds don’t want to grant these folks asylum in the U.S. Because, after all, even if these folks weren’t terrorists before their stay at Gitmo, presumably their newfound “love” of Uncle Sam may make them more susceptible to considering antisocial, anti-American behavior in the future.
Perhaps this is something that should have been considered before hauling these folks halfway around the world.
The article mentions that some are chiding other countries for failing to offer asylum to some of these folks. To be honest, if I were in those countries’ shoes, I too would be reluctant to just throw open the door, if only on the basis that this is America’s problem that America ought to clean up. But really, I think someone has a point with the following comment from the WaPo story:
“If the U.S. is willing to do something to close down Guantanamo, then it should be done in a cooperative manner with the international community,” Nowak said. “It’s a question of burden-sharing. Otherwise, every individual country that the U.S. approaches says, ‘Why us?’ “