Karen J. Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School, was interviewed for an audio report by NPR about what it is like to cover the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility on the island of Cuba.
PFEIFFER: I think the futility of it. Someone wrote an article in The Atlantic a while back that said this about the futility of Guantanamo – the quote was, “Guantanamo was where you send a mass murderer if you want him to die of old age while those prosecuting him drown in paperwork.” So I’ve tried to convey that futility, but every time I do a story, I get listener comments that say – Guantanamo’s still open? The 9/11 case hasn’t gone to trial? So it’s a reminder how hard it is to convey how dysfunctional it is down there. Someone I spoke with who really gets across the futility of what’s going on and who also told me she’s come to believe that Guantanamo may never close is Karen Greenberg. She’s with Fordham Law school, and she’s followed Guantanamo for years.
KAREN GREENBERG: It’s always been one step forward, several steps backwards. It’s been disappointment after disappointment after disappointment after disappointment since the very opening of Guantanamo. It’s a tremendous failure of leadership and has been over and over and over again.