Friends of mine in the Navy who have visited Gitmo over the last couple of years tell me the place is pristine
You know, I've lost sleep over this post of yours, Bill. "Pristine"? That word, applied to that place... well, it made me feel despair. My intuition is that you aren't a bad person, that you would be a good neighbor, friend.... but I know there are a million miles between what "pristine" means to you and what it means to me, and between what I honor about America and what you do.
I know this has been talked about on SI a hundred times, so I'll just paste some excerpts that mean something to me and nothing to you.(I think you defended Abu Ghraib, didn't you? No torture there? Or was that someone else?)
"The reason why we selected our base in Cuba for a prisoner camp was so that we could argue that our own courts had no jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus petitions originating there.
Then we went and swept up suspects in countries around the world, denying them status even as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions...."...
...Rumsfeld personally approved a December 2002 memorandum that permitted unlawful interrogation techniques including stress positions, prolonged isolation, stripping and the use of dogs at Guantánamo Bay.
As we slowly and grudgingly have started releasing them, it has become apparent that we have nothing specific on many of these men, who apparently were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Time and time again, after releasing inmates without bringing any charges against them, we have sent them to their home countries--including quite Western places like Australia and France--who have declared that they are unable to find any trace of any crime committed by them...."
spectacle.org
Maybe you would read this NYT piece on the hunger strikes and forced feeding. I don't recall if it mentions the dozens of attempted suicides and three successful ones. People are going mad there.
seattlepi.nwsource.com |
