US Jail in Guantanamo Provokes World Contempt: New York Times

Washington, Jan 18 .- United States should close the prison at Guantanamo naval base, causing international contempt, and prosecute detainees in US territory, noted today an editorial of The New York Times newspaper.

The White House held since January 2002, a detention center in wartime in that military facility, located on Cuban territory, against the will of the Government and people of Cuba.

Besides moral and strategic considerations, the closing of this prison is also important from a financial point of view, because the executive spends more than three billion dollars a year for each of the prisoners, argues the editorial.

The newspaper added that Republican Senator. Kelly Ayotte, presented on Tuesday a bill against the intentions of President Barack Obama to close the prison, and opportunistically cited as an argument the recent massacre in Paris, France, against the weekly Charlie Hebdo, where 17 people died.

Ayotte intended to prohibit the use of any funds of the budget of the Department of Defense or another agency, to build or modify correctional facilities in the United States to hold terrorism suspects.

According to the Times, this misplaced initiative is not a surprise, as Ayotte usually takes extreme positions regarding national security issues, but more frustrating was that his colleague John McCain is among those who support the measure, which means a turn as so far he was in favor of the closing of the prison.

The editorial notes that in November 2013, McCain supported a failed proposal to transfer some prisoners to US soil and to support it he read a letter signed by 38 ex-generals stating: 'Guantánamo is a betrayal of American values "and those words are truer today than ever.

According to statistics from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, only six of 88 prisoners released since January 2009, returned to extremist groups and is suspected of another who also did it but the information is not yet confirmed.

The former special envoy of the State Department for the prison's closing, Cliff Sloan, recently noted in an article in The New York Times, the reasons for closing are now stronger than ever, and that the White House should speed up the transfer of detainees. (Prensa Latina)