Why Bulgaria Should Accept Guantanamo Prisoners

With the (apparently renewed) US request that it take in Guantanamo prisoners, Bulgaria finally has the chance to make a noticeable gesture to the world’s sole superpower on which Bulgaria relies for its security.

Bulgaria is located on the Balkans - or in Southeast Europe, to use the more politically correct term - a region which is more like the Middle East or Central Asia in terms of its security situation and potential for instability than like Europe proper. However, today’s Bulgarian society has very little appreciation for the fact that in the 20 years since the collapse of the Soviet security system, the country has been saved the horror of entanglement in wars on its own soil largely thanks to the USA.

With the Bulgarian Army severely underfunded, improperly trained, and just being generally negligible in size and capabilities, Bulgaria has clearly been relying on the stability provided by the United States, including through the Euro-Atlantic Alliance NATO, which Bulgaria was allowed to join in 2004.

Practically all Bulgarian governments since 1997 have recognized the key importance of the US for the country’s security. Some, including a couple of Bulgarian Foreign Ministers, have even made statements along the lines that "NATO (understand: USA) will guarantee our security, and that is why it is ok for us to slash the army size and scrap older arms; our role will be to participate in international missions with small troop contingents." (Although Bulgaria has hardly managed to even equip properly tiny missions of up to 500 troops.)

In pursuit of this policy - and apparently a realization of the security situation on the Balkans, Bulgarian governments in past dozen of years, whether justified or not, have indeed made a number of gestures to the Americans going as far as allowing NATO to use Bulgarian air space for bombing Yugoslavia of Milosevic during the 1999 Kosovo War, allowing US military presence in four Bulgarian bases, and even being among the more eager participants in the ill-conceived “Coalition of Willing” of the Bush Administration in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Today many in Bulgaria - and in the EU – oppose violently the taking in of even a single Guantanamo inmate on Bulgarian soil. This seems to be a sorry state of mind since it fails to account not just for the ways, in which Bulgaria has benefited from its alliance with the United States, but also for the qualitative differences between the old and the new US Administration of President Barack Obama.

Because the request for accepting Guantanamo inmates is the golden chance of tiny Bulgaria both to repay the Americans in some way for their support and guarantees for Bulgaria’s security in the last two decades, and to give a hand to President Obama in his quest to implement policies of real multilateralism and good-will international cooperation that differ decisively from the go-it-alone (or with the willing UK, Bulgaria or Togo) approach of his predecessor.

The fact of the matter is that the entire world has had great expectations for Obama since he took over a year ago but no one has demonstrated much good will towards him out. Even Western European partners of the US have proven unwilling to meet Obama halfway.

For example, the Europeans who clearly supported the war in Afghanistan in 2001, and only stand to benefit from a stable and potentially democratic Afghanistan, don’t really want contribute to the war effort but leave all the fighting to the Americans. So basically, it was really cool when the Americans protected us from Soviet missiles and tanks in the Cold War, and it is even better today when the Americans could do all the fighting, their thinking goes. But when America has problems of its own – such as the Guantanamo debacle – it should be left on its own.

For a country such as Bulgaria, the current situation with the Guantanamo inmates is even more perverted. We are no Franco-Germany so when the Bush Administration made it really "clear" really "nicely" that we really "should" send troops to Iraq, we did. Now when the new US President who is revising the previous more ruthless methods by kindly requesting support, we figure we should go about debating it but with a very negative attitude. Paradox, isn't it - we would complain about the Bush Administration "liberating" countries at will and still go along, but when the "nicer" guy comes in - to hell with him just because he is "nice".

Obama is a reformer in a tough situation who deserves to be met halfway. Bulgaria should have offered to take in Guantanamo prisoners on its soil before it was asked to do so. And this would have been a real gesture very, very different from supporting the war in Iraq.

Bulgaria is a tiny nation with limited security resources which cannot afford to ignore its key ally, and especially to miss one of the few opportunities where it actually has something to offer in exchange for what it has been receiving.

In the Cold War Era, Bulgaria was a Soviet satellite but even that had the benefit of extending the Soviet missile shield to include its territory. If there was a common EU defense policy, an EU army, or at least if the Franco-Germany core had - or could really - provide security guarantees - perhaps Bulgaria could dismiss making gestures to the Americans. But that is definitely not the case. There is no European superstate to rely on.

Many have criticized Obama for his "war speech" during the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony. But there is one key thing many forget that the Americans know well - this is really not a cliché even though it might have been misused - freedom - and security for that matter - is not free. Unfortunately, after 1945 many people in much of Europe have gotten this the wrong way making the realization of the opposite very painful and unsettling.

That is why, on the whole, the benefits for Bulgaria from accepting of 1, 3, 5, or even 10 Guantanamo prisoners - having to do with the robust US commitment to Bulgaria's security and integrity - vastly outweigh the costs.

Why Bulgaria Should Not Accept Guantanamo Prisoners READ HERE

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