A searing op-ed in the New York Times on Monday broke open the floodgates of public interest in the remaining detainees at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay detention center. Combined with news of a violent clash between the guards and the detainees on Saturday, Guantanamo is in the spotlight like it hasn’t been in years. Here’s what you need to know:

Who is left in Guantanamo?

Despite pledges to close Guantanamo Bay’s detention facilities in his first year in office, the base still remains quite open and recently received a new commanding officer. Human Rights First has a look at the numbers of who remains in Gitmo, including those who have been approved for release but still remain behind bars:

• Detainees currently held at Guantánamo: 166.
• Remaining detainees approved for release: 86.
• Detainees convicted by military commission before 2009 and still held at Guantánamo: 1
• Detainees Obama Administration designated for trial or commission including those tried since January 2009: 36.
• Detainees Obama Administration has designated for indefinite detention without charge or trial: 46.

Of those remaining, the U.S. military says that 42 detainees are currently on a hunger strike under military guidelines, which includes nine missed consecutive meals, with 11 force-fed via nasal tube to keep them alive.

Is this the first hunger strike in Guantanamo?

No, this is not the first time detainees have launched hunger strikes to protest mistreatment. A similar case occurred in 2005, when as many as 200 detainees refused food and water while maintaining their innocence and protesting their handling while in detention. Another such case took place in 2007 and yet another in 2010. Each of those incidents also included detainees’ force-feeding through nasal tubes.

Why are the detainees striking this time and for how long?

The strike goes back to early February, launched against guards at Guantanamo searching for weapons hidden in detainees’ copies of the Quran. Word spread among detainees that these searches involved possible mistreating of the Quran, leading them to forgo meals in protest.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense William K. Lietzau wrote in a letter in response to the Center for Constitutional Rights’ inquiries about the searches, denying that any mishandling had occurred. In his letter, Lietzau insisted that incidents have occurred with detainees “storing contraband in their Qurans; items found have included improvised weapons, unauthorized food and medicine” and other other items deemed able to harm themselves, other detainees, or Gitmo personnel.

At present, no data has been provided to the media regarding confiscated contraband supposedly hidden within the searched Qurans. Defense lawyers also insist that their clients would not hide weapons within their own holy books, as that would itself be desecration. There is also no sign that the hunger strike will voluntarily end in the near future.

What’s the story behind this weekend’s violence?

The clash this weekend began following the decision to move the hunger-strikers currently being force-fed into single-cell, rather than communal, facilities. According a media statement from U.S. Southern Command on the incident, the decision was not well met among detainees:

In order to reestablish proper observation, the guards entered the Camp VI communal living spaces to transition detainees into single cells, remove obstructions to cameras, windows and partitions, and medical personnel conducted individual assessments of each detainee. The ongoing hunger strike necessitated these medical assessments. Some detainees resisted with improvised weapons, and in response, four less-than-lethal rounds were fired. There were no serious injuries to guards or detainees.

The “weapons” wielded included “batons, broomsticks, and plastic water bottles” precisely how many detainees and guards were injured has yet to be provided to the media.

Why is Guantanamo still open?

Despite President Obama signing an Executive Order in 2009 to have Gitmo closed within a year, several Congressional acts have prevented the transfer of detainees from the Cuban base to the United States. In light of accusations of torture, however, the Central Intelligence Agency lost its ability to hold and interrogate suspects in detention centers around the world, also stemming the flow of new detainees into Guantanamo.

The result has been a broken detention policy, seen in a sharp fall-off in the number of captured foreign fighters and a sharp increase in the use of armed drones to kill suspected terrorists. The Obama administration has recently warily begun to send suspected terrorists to civilian courts, rather than trying them in military tribunals in Guantanamo, but Republicans have heavily derided even this small step towards reforming detention policy.

In a bid to lend a patina of “bipartisanship” to its ideas, the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has made former Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) the co-chair of its newest foreign policy initiative. The move has been met with raised eyebrows, as progressives have not considered Joe Lieberman an authentic representative of their foreign policy positions for quite some time, if they ever did in the first place.

Lieberman will co-chair the new “American Internationalism Project” with former Senator John Kyl (R-AZ). As the project is intended to “rebuild and reshape a bipartisan consensus around American global leadership and engagement,” Lieberman’s participation is aimed at blunting the perception that anything coming out of AEI is a dogmatically Republican plan. AEI generally hews to a hardline neoconservative standard on foreign policy; its staff in the area includes former Bush Administration officials John Bolton, Richard Perle, and Marc Thiessen.

Lieberman’s dogged support for George W. Bush’s foreign policy played a critical role in his in 2006 Democratic primary defeat (he subsequently won as an independent). endorsed arch-hawk John McCain over Barack Obama for President in 2008 on grounds that McCain was “the strongest candidate on security of all the candidates running.” Indeed, Lieberman’s views are far closer to AEI’s than they are to the progressive mainstream, as a quick survey of his particular positions will show:

1. Iraq. Lieberman himself credits his vociferous support for the Iraq War for making him “persona non grata with the Democrats.” As recently as 2011, Lieberman defended his vote to invade Iraq, saying “I believe that the evidence is very clear that [Saddam] was developing weapons of mass destruction.” During the height of the war debate in 2007, Lieberman accused war critics of committing “a kind of harassment” and being “invested in a narrative of retreat and defeat.”

2. Torture. Lieberman voted against legislation banning waterboarding in 2008 on grounds that it wasn’t torture. Because the torture technique “has a mostly psychological impact on people,” Lieberman argued, “we ought to be able to use [it],” adding that President Obama’s decision to release the Bush torture memos “help[ed] our enemies.” Though he once signed a letter that included a clause condemning waterboarding, it is unclear how he reconciled that with his long record of support for the practice.

3. Iran. When asked point-blank if he was endorsing an attack on Iran during a 2007 interview, Lieberman said “I am… We’ve got to use our force and to me that would include taking military action.” More recently, he has said a strike on Iran is highly likely, and that, in its aftermath, we should “hope and pray that there will be a regime change.”

4. Israel. Though Israeli leaders have praised Obama’s policy towards their country (even awarding him a prestigious medal), Lieberman has been persistent critic of the President’s policy — from the right. Lieberman denied that settlements were “a major impediment to peace” and suggested that Obama’s foreign policy “has encouraged Israel’s enemies.”

And it’s not just national security policy – Lieberman has tacked to the right on a variety of domestic policy issues as well, ranging from tax cuts to health care to energy.

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden's son-in-law (Photo: AP)

Abu Ghaith was taken into custody in Jordan, then transferred to the custody of the CIA and FBI under the extradition treaty between the two countries. Abu Gaith served as a spokesman for the core Al Qaeda group that planned the September 11th, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. Shortly after that attack, Abu Ghaith issued a video address to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, in which he warned that “the storms shall not stop, especially the Airplanes Storm,” and advised Muslims, children, and opponents of the United States “not to board any aircraft and not to live in high rises.”

Rather than being transferred to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Ghaith has been indicted in U.S. District Court in Southern New York on charges of conspiracy to kill United States nationals. That step has already been criticized by several Republicans who are in favor of Guantanamo remaining open, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). “We believe the administration’s decision here to bring this person to New York City, if that’s what’s happened, without letting Congress know is a very bad precedent to set,” Graham said in a press conference with Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH).

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, also agreed that Abu Ghaith should be sent to Guantanamo rather than brought to the U.S. for trial. Fox News contributor Geraldo Rivera, however, this morning defended the decision to bring Abu Ghaith to New York, citing the much higher conviction rate seen in federal courts:

RIVERA: We have convicted 67 of these terrorist in our federal courts. We have only convicted seven in the military tribunals in Guantanamo Bay. 67 in Federal Court. Just seven in the military tribunals. This is exactly the venue where he should be tried and convicted.

Watch Rivera’s defense here:

Civilian courts have also proved in the past to be better at gaining usable information from suspected terrorists than their military counterparts. This fact hasn’t stopped the outrage from pouring forward from conservatives whenever a civilian court is utilized to try suspected terrorists.

It’s that outrage that allows Abu Ghaith to be the highest-level Al Qaeda official tried in civilian courts. The last attempt to have a high-ranking member of Al Qaeda tried — Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind behind September 11th — was virulently opposed by Republicans, such as Sarah Palin and Rep. Steve King (R-IA). The outcry that sprung up around that trial forced the Department of Justice to drop their move, resulting in Sheik Mohammad’s trial to be moved to military tribunal.

Fox News's Sean Hannity

When ThinkProgress’s Scott Keyes asked about the 2009 pledge on his radio show last week, Hannity got a little agitated. “Here I am bringing you on the program and give you an opportunity to give your pretty radical left-wing point of view, that’s kind of the way you treat me,” Hannity said, later calling Keyes on the telephone to complain about the question.

But Hannity isn’t backing down, at least from his contention that waterboarding isn’t torture. The issue came up during an interview on Thursday with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC):

HANNITY: Last question, you’re against enhanced interrogation and you and I had a disagreement on that.

GRAHAM: I’m against torture.

HANNITY: I don’t believe the three people water-boarded were torture, not to digress.

GRAHAM: OK.

Watch the clip:

There’s bipartisan consensus that waterboarding is torture. A large majority of Americans think it’s torture. The U.S. military has no use for waterboarding and the practice is illegal under international law.

But if Hannity continues to insist waterboarding isn’t torture, why won’t he follow through on his pledge to be waterboarded for charity?

There is no evidence that torture was an effective source of gathering intelligence against al-Qaeda, according to John Brennan, President Obama’s nominee for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Brennan, who was the Deputy Executive Director of the CIA when the torture program began, was asked repeatedly by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) as to whether he was aware of any evidence that statements by Bush era-officials Jose Rodriguez, Michael Hayden, and Michael Mukasey that information gleaned from torture led to Osama bin Laden were correct. Brennan said there was not, admitting that there was no evidence to contradict the findings of a 6,000 page Senate report concluding that torture did not get bin Laden:

LEVIN: [A]re you aware of any intelligence information that supports Mr. Rodriguez’s claim that the lead information on the courier came from [torturing] KSM and al Libi?

BRENNAN: I am unaware of any. [...]

LEVIN: Michael Hayden, former CIA director said that, quote, what we got, the original lead information, began with information from CIA detainees at black sites. Chairman — the Chairman and I issued in the same statement the following, that the statement of the former Attorney General, Michael [Hayden], was wrong. Do you have any information to disagree with our statement?

BRENNAN: I do not [...]

LEVIN: Michael Mukasey, former attorney general [in] The Wall Street Journal: “Consider how the intelligence that led to bin Laden came to hand. It began with a disclosure from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), who broke like a dam under the pressure of harsh interrogation techniques that included waterboarding. He loosed a torrent of information —including eventually the nickname of a trusted courier of bin Laden.” Our statement, that of the Chairman and myself, is that that statement is wrong. Do you have any information to the contrary?

BRENNAN: Senator, my impression earlier was that there was information that was provided, that was useful and valuable. But as I have said, I have read the first volume of your report which raises questions about whether any of that information is accurate.

LEVIN: I am no referring not to the report, but the statement Chairman Feinstein and I issued on April 27th, 2012. We flat out say that those statements are wrong. Do you have any basis to disagree with us?

BRENNAN: I do not.