Trump Botches Yemen Raids, Plans to Expand Gitmo

FEATURING JENNIFER GIBSON – Fifteen years after the US opened it notorious gulag in Guantanamo, Cuba under President George W. Bush, Donald Trump’s administration has indicated it will keep the prison open, and even expand it. Media outlets have obtained the draft of an executive order to keep Guantanamo open to house prisoners from the Islamic State, although the CIA’s so-called “black sites” will not be revived.

President Barack Obama had attempted to shut down Guantanamo but was unable to follow through. Still, under Obama’s tenure, the number of prisoners in Guantanamo was reduced to about 55 men.

If Trump’s first foreign policy action in Yemen which resulted in a number of women and children killed by US soldiers is any indication of how he will pursue war, we can only expect more death and destruction. And that, coupled with the planned expansion of Guantanamo, pays exactly into the Islamic State’s narrative of the US as a dangerous nation.

Find more at www.reprieve.org.uk.

Jennifer Gibson, Staff Attorney covering abuses in counter-terrorism at Reprieve, a UK-based human rights organization.