The Gitmo Fiasco

It has been a while but I am not going to write something funny about the trading floor today. Instead, I am going to discuss the US Government's inability to close down Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo).

Since the opening of the Camp X-Ray in Cuba in 2001, activists in this nation as well as the rest of the world were outraged at the treatment of suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists. At first, I had no time for the points made by the people against the Gitmo facility as it seemed to be prudent to stop impending attacks on US Soil and after all, some of the detainees might have been directly involved in the 9/11 attacks.

However, as the "War on Terror" dragged on and it became obvious many of the prisoners in Gitmo didnt belong there because they were falsely accused or simply guilty by association, the time seemed right to close the facility and either release the prisoners or transfer to the US Mainland the ones who actually had committed crimes of terror. Nonetheless, the Bush Administration lept the facility open and angered many of the Liberal Democrats in the USA, who then used Gitmo as the poster child for the fear of the removal of Civil Liberties in the future.

Were the "liberals" correct? It is very possible that they were. Detaining humans for such an extended period without even the right to a trial or at least to hear the evidence against them is something one would expect from Stalin and the Gulag Archepelego. Even the Nazis were tried at Nurenburg and were subjected to due process of law. Yes, the point exists that the Nazis were proper Prisoners of War and afforded rights under the Geneva Convention while the suspected Al-Qaeda represent an organization instead of a nation and therefore, exempt from Geneva Convention supervision. However, if the prisoners were captured on a battlefield such as in Afghanistan or Iraq, they should be given a fair trial and released.

When President Obama took office, he pledged to close the Gitmo Prison and this decision was hailed around the world. After all, the United States should be the role model for a free and open society. It is simply against what it means to be an American to have a system in place that can detain people indefinately without a trial. After all, where does one draw the line on detaining someone? Is it reserved for planning violent crimes of terror only or does it extend into peoples' right to free speech when they can preach vitriol against the Government? When is the line extended to people who simply speak out against the President?

Yesterday, the Senate (which has a Democrat Majority) voted against shutting down Gitmo because it would involve relocting the prisoners on the US Mainland. To me, this vote is the ultimate in hypocrasy because it says "we think it is inhumane to subject people to torture and detain them indefinately but we dont want to actually intern these said people inside the USA proper."

It is almost a given that if it was Bush who decided against closing it, people would be in the streets and Amnesty International would surely issue an condemnation against the US Fascists. However, everyone is strangely silent now.

I want to see all the people who want to try Bush and Cheyney for War Crimes get outraged now that there was a majority that could have voted to close the US Gulag in Guantanamo and waffled when the moment of truth came.