Obama’s Guantanamo Failure

The decision, announced yesterday, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will not stand trial in New York or any other corner of the United States hardly came as a surprise. He will be tried before a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay instead. The Obama administration gave up fighting for its own policy a long time ago. Sometimes retreats are sensible. Sometimes it’s necessary to acknowledge blunders or superior firepower. But even allowing for those considerations – and a Congress* more than happy to demagogue the issue – there’s a tinge of shame to this retreat.

Power need not corrupt but it always changes those who hold it. Obama’s approach to terrorism and justice once seemed robustly optimistic and liberal. That seems a long time ago now. Most of the Bush-era counter-terrorism apparatus remains and so too, it is now confirmed, does the notion that terrorists cannot be tried in civilian courts. Some of this is a matter of necessity, some the product of the changed perspective – and responsibility – that follows victory and some of it is a capitulation to hysteria, fear-mongering, ignorance and stupidity.