March 31, 2009, Good news, bad news
The good news is that the Obama Administration has doubled the number of GTMO detainees it has released as a result of its executive review process. The bad news is that it has doubled that number... to two, with the release of a Yemeni orthopedist, Ayman Batarfi. Dr. Batarfi fell into that category of those swept up who were guilty of "being in Afghanistan while Arab," a category that was far more likely to pick up aid workers than actual jihadists. Apparently, after seven years, the government has concluded that Batarfi... was an aid worker.
The pace will have to pick up if the Obama Administration means to "close GTMO in one year" by any means other than simply relocating it to Leavenworth or Charleston or Alcatraz... the equivalent, as George Clarke noted in my interview with him, of asking the deer that Joe Pesci is hunting about Pesci's pants... i.e., if the wrongfully incarcerated men are merely wrongfully incarcerated somewhere else... who cares?
Well, the slog goes on... for whatever reason, anything that reduces the scope of the festering problem known as Guantanamo, even a little, is a welcome development, so we will welcome this one, and give plaudits to the Administration when it earns them, which it has for this action. May it earn many more.
Update: Candace tells us that another habeas petition has been granted, to a Yemeni detainee... the courts, it seems, are moving forward...