Moving Guantanamo to Bagram Could Evade Court Jurisdiction

In President Obama's first week in office, he pledged to close down
Guantanamo within a year.

The year's been up for two months now, and Guantanamo still remains
open.

Making matters worse, it looks like the Obama Administration may
simply move Guantanamo to Afghanistan.

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the "White
House is considering whether to detain international terrorism suspects
at [Bagram Air Base] in Afghanistan, an option that would lead to
another prison with the same purpose as Guantanamo Bay."

And that purpose is to hold suspects indefinitely, without ever
granting them any due process rights.

The Supreme Court has ruled that suspects held at Guantanamo have due
process rights because Guantanamo is effectively U.S. property. But the
Obama Administration, like the Bush Administration before it, says that
this court decision does not apply to Bagram Air Base.

Last September, Obama's Justice Department told a lower court that
"when it comes to military facilities, unlike Guantanamo, that are truly
abroad-particularly those halfway across the globe in an active war
zone-courts in the United States exceed their role by second-guessing
the political branches about the reach of habeas jurisdiction."

Until the Court resolves that question, Obama can ship detainees from
Guantanamo - or anywhere else in the world - to Bagram Air Base and
hold them there for years at a time.

It's against international law, but that hasn't stopped a President
before.

So it looks like make Guantanamo may soon be Spanish for Bagram, and
both will translate into human rights violations.