10 Years When 9/11 Guantanamo Still Open, Still Controversial

The young guard squints into the blazing sun that beats down on the penitentiary at Guantanamo Bay.  Around him lines of chain link fence stretch out to a view of the blue-green waters of the Caribbean sea.

A little beyond the penitentiary are small hills, some hard-scrabble grass, cactus, and rocks – a stark, nearly desert-like surroundings. Closer in, are the newer, nearly sterile detention camps, with looming guard towers, and seemingly endless layers of razor wire. giant iguanas and banana rats scurry around the sprawling naval base on the southeastern tip of Cuba. 

This is the U.S. Guantanamo Bay penitentiary these days, a place that gained notoriety when 2002 when images of shackled detainees in orange jumpsuits captured in America’s war on terror hit the front pages. Quickly, human rights teams began questioning the interrogation techniques getting used here.

But today, guard Daniel Snell, a Navy Master-at-Arms, takes pride in his job.  “For me,” he says, “it is a sense of duty, honor.”

Camp X-Ray, where detainees were held in open-air cages within the tension-filled months following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the us, has long since closed. Grass is growing through the buildings, elements of it have collapsed and therefore the previous guard tower is leaning over.  

Employees 

New detention camps are built, with air con, medical facilities, a library, a communal center, and art classes. but those working here understand they’re in a very place that generated hostility around the world and is still controversial. 

“We maintain the very best standards of conduct with our guards,” says Navy Rear Admiral Jeffrey Harbeson, the commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo.  “We hold ourselves up as a model of professionalism for detention operations.”

But critics of the decision by then President George W. Bush to send detainees to Guantanamo, where most are held while not trial, say the move was “catastrophic.”

“It caused incalculable harm to the present country’s name around the world,” says Eugene Fidell, a tutor on military law at Yale University.

Of the nearly 780 detainees that were dropped at Guantanamo over the past decade, concerning 600 have since been came to their home countries or elsewhere. 

Detainees

According to a 2010 report by the Guantanamo Review Task Force, nearly 50 of this detainees are “too dangerous to transfer, but not feasible for prosecution.” 

Under authorization from the U.S. Congress, these detainees is also held indefinitely, although they can challenge their standing in court.

The most dangerous detainees are held in most security facilities at Guantanamo. They pay 20 hours daily in a very cell by themselves. after they leave their cells to watch tv or scan, they’re shackled.

Most of the others are held in a very medium security jail, where they need to be in their cells four hours a night. they’re absolve to walk around the cell blocks and may meet in common areas to scan, eat and pray. Meals and magazines are dropped at them. 

Interaction with guards is at a minimum, and face-to-face contact with individuals within the outside world is sort of non-existent. Photographers can solely film through double-paned dark-tinted glass and reporters don’t seem to be allowed to speak to any detainee.

Top Secret 

There is one camp at Guantanamo Bay that is thus protected its very location is high secret. Camp Seven is believed to hold the suspects behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but no-one wants to debate it.

“Well, I can’t speak an excessive amount of concerning Camp Seven the least bit for national security reasons,” says Donnie Thomas, the military colonel in charge of the Joint Detention group.

Shortly when his inauguration in 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama signed govt orders he hoped would close up the Guantanamo detention sites inside one year. but Congress blocked plans to maneuver detainees to the us and prosecute them in federal court. 

Earlier this year, Mr. Obama cleared the approach for military trials to resume at Camp Justice, part of the Guantanamo Bay complicated, and signed another govt order creating an indefinite detention system. There are periodic reviews to determine a detainee’s standing.

Nearly ten years when the first detainees were brought here, because the guards walk within the Caribbean sun past layers of razor wire, guard towers and strengthened cell blocks, there’s no proof this controversial site can shut anytime soon.