Closing Guantanamo Bay and transferring its prisoners to other countries or to facilities within the United States has long been a goal of the left. A recent tactic has been to attack the costs associated with running Gitmo in the midst of government austerity measures. In a piece for Newsweek, Kurt Eichenwald recently called Guantanamo an “irrational celebration of failure—one that robs this country of our moral standing worldwide and our expressed commitment to justice—that is untouchable because it’s good for rounding up votes from the uninformed.” “Guantanamo Bay is a stunningly expensive failure,” stated the Newsweek headline. And, in a recent piece for The New York Times, Charlie Savage exposes what he calls the “decaying” facility that is Guantanamo, and how officials perceive it as maybe staying open for another 20 years or so. Savage’s piece also focused on how “Obama has argued that Guantánamo should be closed because of its high costs, nearly $3 million per detainee annually, and because it endangers national security; it has become an anti-American symbol of past torture and other detainee abuses.” Savage is more than happy to continue in that vein and support the President’s justifications. “Extremists of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, who beheaded an American reporter in Syria last month, exploited those sentiments by forcing him to wear orange clothing like the garb worn by some Guantánamo detainees,” writes Savage. The Washington Post recently did a feature on the use of the Guantanamo-inspired orange suits as propaganda props by radical Islamists, and their utility in the propaganda efforts surrounding journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley. The latter has been confirmed as having been beheaded by ISIS—the Sunni jihadist group that has taken over much of Iraq—and as of this writing a video believed to be that of the beheading of Sotloff is currently being analyzed for authenticity. The video, which purports to show the death of Sotloff, also features David Cawthorne Haines, described as a British aid worker, “in the same kneeling position and wearing the same orange jumpsuit as Sotloff and Foley before him,” reports The Washington Post. The message is clear: Haines is the next high-profile ISIS victim. Allowing ISIS to claim the Guantanamo orange as a publicity stunt without mentioning the improvements that have been made at Guantanamo Bay is irresponsible journalism. American soldiers and prison guards have not publicly executed detainees on the worldwide stage, disseminating the footage as a spectacle for terror recruitment, as ISIS appears to have done. trevorloudon/2014/09/guantanamo-remains-a-dilemma-for-obama-and-the-media/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NewZeal+%28New+Zeal+Blog%29
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 18:06:22 +0000
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