One step not far enough

With Barack Obama recently being awarded the Nobel Peace prize for creating a renewed focus on reducing the worlds stockpiles of nuclear weapons, his previous actions on banning torture in the US (during the decommissioning of Guantanamo bay), were excellent for human rights, but they didn't go far enough.

Barack Obama's promise and policy of closing Guantanamo bay by January 22 looks like it will fall short. However his promise to close Guantanamo remains strong, with plans and inmate transportation still under way. Though the first hurdle main hurdle in achieving this step was selling to the US public the notion that "convicted terrorists" were going to be housed in US jails, on US soil! Despite the Republican party trying to make the situation look as though US jails would become al-Qaeda training camps, it has been publicly accepted without too much public backlash that these terrorists would be held on US soil, in SuperMax prisons (to which no prisoner has ever escaped from).

But the real concern comes from the 100 or more Yemen terrorists who the US government claim are too dangerous to be released, despite enough evidence for them to be convicted of any terrorist charges. These terrorists, the US government and Barack Obama have acknowledged, may be withheld indefinitely without trial or prosecution (the exact number of terrorists and their sentences has not been released). This blatant disregard for human rights and the US justice system can not continue. If there is enough evidence to prove that these people being detained are terrorists, or are too dangerous to be released, then let that evidence stand up in court. If not, then there is no grounds or evidence to prove that these so called "terrorists" are dangerous to US national security and they should be released. The only benefit that comes from this situation is that US citizens can sleep well at night believing that the bad bad terrorists are rotting away in a jail somewhere. Though infinite detention without trial or conviction doesn't make slumber any more easier for me.

Despite Barack Obama abolishing torture in the US, reaching out to long sworn cold war foes, trying to rid the world of nuclear weapons and with limited success attempt to convince the Islamic world that the US was not at war with them (ending the War on Terror), he didn't take that last step and really prove that the US had changed its ways. The US, despite and new president, needs to follow its own rules and ethics that it would like the rest of the developed and developing world to embrace, freedom, liberty and justice 


Links
Gitmo closure deadline fading - The Age