Guantanamo jailhouse rumba
UNITED NATIONS — Captured Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists from Central Asia are being transfered to the Caribbean. The plan in which Afghan/Arab/and some European detainees will be sent to the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, marks a new stage in the information vetting process through which Washington wishes to gain both information and possibly carry out trials of terrorists by military courts. The Taliban may soon be trading in their turbans for Guarberras; at least fifty of the terrorists are already in Guantanamo and there are plans for up to 2,000 at the US Navy base on the eastern edge of Cuba. The 45 square mile facility seems uniquely poised to process these thugs far from the madding media crowd and equally distant from any civilian towns which could be targeted by terrorists in reprisal. Taking the Taliban to Cuba still seems a mixed message if only because it may needlessly stir up Latin American resentment over the base and moreover will allow the Castro regime to somehow make a shoddy moral case that the "American Yanquis" are setting up a kangeroo court in Cuba. Though the U.S. has every legal right to use the "Gitmo" facility as a processing, holding and interrogation center, the point is that, as time passes both the Cubans, many Latin Americans, and the American left wing will be needlessly energized over the entire presence in Guantanamo which dates back to the Spanish American War. Naturally Guantanamo offers easier access from Washington and the Central Command in Tampa to speak to the prisoners — rather than flying halfway round the world and suffering a dozen time zones of jet-lag to speak to these thugs in Central Asia — one can have easier access via a US Navy shuttle, stay in the same time zone, and take in some Caribbean sun. Actually that is not such a bad idea given the season. But does this have to be done on Castro's doorstep? While I don't feel that Castro will be so foolish to claim that the captured Taliban are actually "freedom fighters" or for that matter take up the Al Qaeda cause publically, the issue offers the Havana regime the chance to politically grandstand the Guantanamo case and gain political currency concerning the "Yanqui occupation" of Cuban soil which actually dates to a formal agreement between Havana and Washington during the time of Teddy Roosevelt in 1903 which allowed the US a "coaling and Naval station." Interestingly, while I expected the Cuban communist propaganda machine to be at "full Fidel spin" in churning out diatribes about the long lingering point of the Guantanamo Bay base, the Castro regime seems almost too understanding. Though Cuba's Attorney General Juan Escalona Reguera made some ideologically pavlovian remarks about hoping some Al Qaeda prisoners would escape and kill Americans, for the most part Havana seems to be what I would describe as almost cooperative. The Havana government turned out a statement which, while advancing the standard case, then adds that the American operation "is not any threat to the national security of Cuba" and that Cuba is willing to cooperate. Mind you for communist Cuba, long a patron of so many militants in Central and Latin America, to renounce international terror with a straight face, is a bit like Colonel Gadaffi going on the lecture circuit to speak about the rule of law. Though there's the ritualistic call that Guantanamo remains sovereign Cuban territory, it appears that the Castro regime has bigger fish to fry — in other words play up to reopening commerce and trade with the "Yanquis," long frozen by the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba. Recently Senator Arlen Specter (R — PA) visited Cuba and amidst a banter session with the El Maximo Leader, presented Fidel with a New York Fire Department (NYFD) Cap. This was a plainly stupid choice of mementos for the dictator, (a New York Yankees hat would have been better given that Fidel was not only a Yankee farm team consideration in the early 1950's but remains an avid baseball fan). Still there's momentum from the U.S. for some closer commercial ties to Cuba. The good part of about the Guantanamo venue is that the US military controls access; this is not the sort of place that paparazzi or gliterati Gucci lawyers are going to show up in droves . While I originally felt that the US territory of Guam would have actually been a better setting as the military base areas are as easily secured, but without any sort of double entendre politically, Guam remains remote in East Asia. The real issue will come when caputured Al Qaeda terrorists such as British subjects (the first of six to arrive) or any other Euro-kooks who joined the Taliban, will wish to be treated by the kid gloved standards of Euro law to which they have been accustomed. In this case, should a Brit or a Frenchman be brought before justice in Gitmo, they should be treated with the same standards afforded the thugs they willfully joined. Naturally many human rights groups will beg to differ. Still we must ask an obvious question — why are the prisoners here in the first place?? Importantly the detainees are not legally "prisoners of war" and thus entitled to the protection under the Geneva Conventions, but rather "unlawful combatants" thus offering the US more judicial leeway. The Bush Administration is prudent in proceeding with this path of justice as opposed to sending Al Qaeda terrorists to a UN Interntional Tribunal such as that which considers war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. Getting back to Castro. There's a strange juxtaposition of players in Gitmo. In gracious deference to fellow Columnist Gerogie Ann Geyer who understands Cuba well, it's a bit ironic to bring these terrorists to the doorstep of a longtime state sponsor of terrorism. In fact, this may be a lesson for the dictator Castro himself now 75. Perhaps the Gitmo trials are coming attractions for Fidel and his impending justice — in The Hague? John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
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