She writes:
President Barack Obama did, in fact, promise to close Guantánamo by the end of his first year in the White House. That hope began to unravel with remarkable speed. By the end of his presidency, his administration had, in fact, managed to release 197 of the prisoners held there without charges — many, including Mohamedou Ould Slahi, the subject of the film The Mauritanian, had also been tortured — but 41 remained, including the five men accused but not yet tried for plotting the 9/11 attacks. Forty remain there to this very day.The US legal system is perfectly capable of handling these kinds of prosecutions. We can now say, very demonstrably better than the vigilante justice system set up by the Cheney-Bush Administration, perpetuated for eight years by the Obama-Biden Administration, and so far still continued by the Biden-Harris Administration. It's a disgrace. It has always been a disgrace. "As early as June 2005, then-Senator Biden expressed his desire to shut that facility, seeing it as a stain on this country’s reputation abroad."
She notes that there is still pressure from Democratic members of Congress to shut it down:
It’s true that, in 2021, the idea of shutting the gates on Guantánamo has garnered some unprecedented mainstream support. As part of his confirmation process, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, for instance, signaled his support for its closure. And Congress, long unwilling to lend a hand, has offered some support as well. On April 16th, 24 Democratic senators signed a letter to the president calling that facility a “symbol of lawlessness and human rights abuses” that “continues to harm U.S. national security” and demanding that it be shut.Greenberg's article details once again what a travesty of justice the Guantánamo facility has always been.
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