Guantanamo At 10: U.S. Weighs Future Of Detainees

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A soldier stands guard at the front gate to Guantanamo's Camp 6 maximum-security detention facility in 2009. Wednesday marks 10 years since detainees first arrived at the detention facility.

Brennan Linsley/AP A soldier stands guard at the front gate to Guantanamo's Camp 6 maximum-security detention facility in 2009. Wednesday marks 10 years since detainees first arrived at the detention facility.

The 20 detainees who stumbled down the gangway had been put on a nonstop flight from Kandahar, Afghanistan, to Cuba. The men came from all over the Middle East and Africa: Yemen, Sudan, Tunisia, Afghanistan. They all wore the same blackened goggles, earmuffs and orange socks as U.S. soldiers guided them from the plane by their elbows.

While some of the original 20 are still at Guantanamo today, the prison has changed a lot since then. These days when journalists arrive on the tarmac at Guantanamo, commanding officers ask how many are newcomers and promise "great programs" for the visitors. The "program" includes tours of several of the remaining detention camps or watching military commission proceedings from behind soundproof glass.

There is a certain permanence to Guantanamo that is unexpected, given that President Obama unequivocally promised to close the place. The president is not much closer to closing Guantanamo today than he was on the campaign trail when he made it one of his signature issues. His administration's best hope for shuttering the place rests with Brig. Gen. Mark Martins. He's the chief prosecutor of the military commissions, and he's like a U.S. attorney for Guantanamo. He helps decide who gets a military commissions trial and what the charges will be.

'A Full And Fair Trial'

Over the past 10 years, the military commissions system at Guantanamo has been criticized as second-rate justice. Martins said this year he'll be able to convince the doubters otherwise.

"The reformed military commissions aren't that different from Article III courts," he says, referring to the federal criminal court system. "And if people watch what we do, they'll see that."

He says that will become clear as trials get under way this year. Observers will see stronger rules of evidence and more robust protections for attorney-client privilege.

"I would not be part of this system if I didn't think that a full and fair trial will be held and that justice will be served," he says.

Even if Martins is right, there is a complication — not everyone held at Guantanamo will get a hearing, which means some people may be detained without a trial.

Karen Greenberg, who runs the Center on National Security at Fordham University, says Guantanamo has codified indefinite detention by having detainees who have no legal recourse to contest their detention.

"Unless they try everybody, they haven't tackled the hardest problem about Guantanamo and its legality," she said.

Possible Goodwill Gesture

There are still 171 detainees at Guantanamo, and about 80 of them have been identified for release. Another three dozen will likely be tried in the military commissions, and then there is this other group — the group that seemed destined to be held indefinitely. There are 48 detainees who seem to fall into that category. The U.S. has said they don't have enough evidence to try them, but the men are too dangerous to release.

Recently, one other way to deal with detainees has presented itself: transferring them as part of a broader negotiation strategy. And the first example of this would involve, among others, those Afghans who arrived on that first flight to Guantanamo 10 years ago Wednesday. U.S. officials are weighing whether to allow them to leave as part of a goodwill gesture to kick-start peace talks with the Taliban.

Greenberg says doing so would be a big step forward for the Obama administration.

"It's a philosophical game changer," she said. "It's a wise course to at least consider it, and if it does happen, I think it can change a lot of things in its wake in terms of how we're going to progress in the region."

The three original detainees under discussion include the Taliban deputy minister of intelligence, Abdul Wasiq; a governor from northern Afghanistan, Norullah Noori; and the Taliban's deputy minister of defense, Mohammed Fazl.

A source close to the prisoner transfer discussions said the men could be moved to a third country, possibly Qatar. The transfer would be part of a broader plan that would include setting up cease-fire zones in Afghanistan to test whether the Taliban are serious about peace. If it happens, it would mark the first time that detainees at Guantanamo would be transferred as part of an effort to wind down the war.

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Why A Teen Who Talks Back May Have A Bright Future

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Good arguments can provide lessons that last a lifetime. But psychologist Joseph P. Allen's research shows that yelling isn't the answer. "The teens who learned to be calm and confident and persuasive with their parents acted the same way when they were with their peers," he says.

If you're the parent of a teenager, you likely find yourself routinely embroiled in disputes with your child. Those disputes are the symbol of teen developmental separation from parents.

It's a vital part of growing up, but it can be extraordinarily wearing on parents. Now researchers suggest that those spats can be tamed and, in the process, provide a lifelong benefit to children.

Researchers from the University of Virginia recently published their findings in the journal Child Development. Psychologist Joseph P. Allen headed the study.

Allen says almost all parents and teenagers argue. But it's the quality of the arguments that makes all the difference.

"We tell parents to think of those arguments not as nuisance but as a critical training ground," he says. Such arguments, he says, are actually mini life lessons in how to disagree — a necessary skill later on in life with partners, friends and colleagues on the job.

 

Teens should be rewarded when arguing calmly and persuasively and not when they indulge in yelling, whining, threats or insults, he says.

In Allen's study, 157 13-year-olds were videotaped describing their biggest disagreement with their parents. The most common arguments were over grades, chores, money and friends. The tape was then played for both parent and teen.

"Parents reacted in a whole variety of ways. Some of them laughed uncomfortably; some rolled their eyes; and a number of them dove right in and said, 'OK, let's talk about this,'" he says.

It was the parents who said wanted to talk who were on the right track, says Allen. "We found that what a teen learned in handling these kinds of disagreements with their parents was exactly what they took into their peer world," with all its pressures to conform to risky behavior like drugs and alcohol.

Allen interviewed the teens again at ages 15 and 16. "The teens who learned to be calm and confident and persuasive with their parents acted the same way when they were with their peers," he says. They were able to confidently disagree, saying 'no' when offered alcohol or drugs. In fact, they were 40 percent more likely to say 'no' than kids who didn't argue with their parents.

For other kids, it was an entirely different story. "They would back down right away," says Allen, saying they felt it pointless to argue with their parents. This kind of passivity was taken directly into peer groups, where these teens were more likely to acquiesce when offered drugs or alcohol. "These were the teens we worried about," he says.

Bottom line: Effective arguing acted as something of an inoculation against negative peer pressure. Kids who felt confident to express themselves to their parents also felt confident being honest with their friends.

So, ironically the best thing parents can do is help their teenager argue more effectively. For this, Allen offers one word: listen.

In the study, when parents listened to their kids, their kids listened back. They didn't necessarily always agree, he says. But if one or the other made a good point, they would acknowledge that point. "They weren't just trying to fight each other at every step and wear each other down. They were really trying to persuade the other person."

Acceptable argument might go something like this: 'How about if my curfew's a half hour later but I agree that I'll text you or I'll agree that I'll stay in certain places and you'll know where I'll be; or how about I prove to you I can handle it for three weeks before we make a final decision about it."

Again, parents won't necessarily agree. But "they'll get across the message that they take their kids point of view seriously and honestly consider what they have to say," Allen says.

Child psychologist Richard Weissbourd says the findings bolster earlier research that finds that "parents who really respect their kids' thinking and their kids' input are much more likely to have kids who end up being independent thinkers and who are able to resist peer groups."

Weissbourd points to one dramatic study that analyzed parental relationships of Dutch citizens who ended up protecting Jews during World War II. They were parents who encouraged independent thinking, even if it differed from their own.

So the next time your teenager huffs and puffs and starts to argue, you might just step back for a minute, take a breath yourself, and try to listen. It may be one of the best lessons you teach your child.

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