The Guantánamo Bay Internment Camp Is an Unresolved Vestige of the American Occupation of Afghanistan

AS THE U.S.-LED OCCUPATION of Afghanistan draws to a close, it is my hope that fair-minded people will begin to reexamine the history of this long and bloody conflict. There are two especially prominent episodes from the opening stage of the war that deserve renewed attention due to their historical significance as well as their direct relationship to the unresolved issue of the Guantánamo Bay internment camp.

During the final week of November 2001, a total of around 5,000 unarmed Taliban prisoners of war were massacred in two closely related incidents near Mazar-e-Sharif. Several dozen survivors were among the earliest detainees sent to Guantánamo Bay. These massacres received widespread media coverage at the time but elicited minimal sympathy from an American public still deeply shaken by September 11. Reporter Robert Young Pelton spoke for many Americans when he said, “We could have wiped out every Talib on earth and no one would have cared.”