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Cellular world at Guantánamo (photo Matt Sprake)
As Mr Obama continues his (feeble) efforts to close Guantánamo, the military jail for proxy prisoners taken - or purchased - in the "war on terror", the New Yorker has reviewed the earlier use of America's Devil's Island by Bush Snr and Bill Clinton.
Many of those presently detained are symbolic hostages in a rhetorical war, held by mistake or in violation of the laws of war; indeed, many Pentagon "profiles" presented to Periodic Review Boards artlessly admit these "law of war" prisoners have no connection to 9/11 or the Afghan war that ostensibly authorises their confinement. Not one of them has been provided appropriate Geneva Convention rights.
Only five percent of the Guantanameros were actually captured by Americans on a battlefield, a fact that goes unremarked by the media, as well as politicians who read the Pentagon's "transparency reports."
The 779 men and boys have been gradually released - some through death - and after the latest mass expatriation, the count stands at 61, leaving a staff-to-prisoner ratio of 33-1 and an annual per capita cost of $6 million.
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