Gitmo - Refusing to Shutterdown!

I want to know how we justify this. Sure there is the war on nightmares, oh sorry, fear, goshdarnit, terror. There is also the blanket label of “enemy combatants” and “terrorists”. And of course no information is being released. There is yet another report, this one being the UN report that is a direct result of 18 months of investigation. This administration wouldn’t allow access to the prisoners but offered the press tour of the facility which the UN declined. The standard refrain used in response to the illegal wiretaps has been if you don’t have anything to hide, if you aren’t conversing with terrorists then you have nothing to worry about. Well, then, why not let the Red Cross, Amnesty International, the UN and any other legitimate agency or individual into Gitmo to talk to these guys? Why the refusal? Sure. We don’t want people wandering in and out, journalists or others that might give away critical information. But something is amiss. For over four years, people have been forced to live their lives in cages. Never charged with any wrongdoing. When they try to express their desperation through hunger strikes they are forcibly tied to a chair and a tube is jammed through their nose to their stomachs. As some of the prisoners were fainting, vomiting and bleeding going through this brutal exercise twice a day, those in charge opted to keep the tube in place, and keep the prisoners strapped into these chairs continuously, all the while forced to sit in their own excrement. What a proud moment. Five hundred people. These are not terrorists. Well, they weren’t when they were picked up. They might be now, but they weren’t before we got our hands on them.

I know we are better than this. I know we are. How can we allow this in our name? A business man in Yemen is swept up by the Egyptian police and handed over to the US. Transported from prison to prison. Spending over a year in total darkness, with metal music pumped in 27/7, chained to a wall, the only light is a strobe light in his eyes during interrogation. They wanted his Yemen contacts. He refuses to talk about his time in Bagram – where it is believed he was sodomized with a broomstick. This presumption is based on other prisoner testimony claiming that sodomy, the use of dogs, being suspended from the ceiling for up to four days by their hands, twisting of handcuffs as well as horrendous beatings were happening daily. Two of the prisoners that died there, were beaten so severely that had they lived, their legs would have been amputated.

I suppose I will be accused of having a pre-9/11 mentality. Sigh. How is that possible? How is it possible to witness the horror of people jumping out of buildings, watching that disaster unfold and still have a pre-9/11 mentality? That’s just plain stupid. It is stupid because it is a typical baseless allegation that distracts away from the fact that we are targeting a group of people and labeling them – all of them – as enemies. We keep throwing gas on the fire and then screaming and pointing, dancing around saying look! the flames! The flames grow bigger! It’s out of control! It’s spreading! Arrrgghhhh!

What are we doing?

What on earth are we doing?

Not only is this simply moronic but do you have any concept of how outnumbered we are? And with our terrible mistreatment of completely innocent people we are managing to turn those who might have sided with us, against us. As much as this administration clings to secrecy, there is no way you can keep all this stuff concealed. Inevitably you will have someone who witnesses something he cannot stomach. You will get someone who cannot sit by and watch as babies are blown apart, women are tortured, teenagers are beaten, men are sodomized and humiliated and the story gets out. It is met with the usual dismissal of exaggerations by the “enemy”, claims of uncorroborated testimonies, attacks of the messenger, etc. But at what point do we as a people say, no more?

No more torture in my name.

No more families torn apart on baseless allegations.

No more beatings.

No more destruction.

I don’t know how anyone can equate this fiasco to any prior wars, especially WWII.

A. Yes, Hitler was invading other countries and conducting genocide in his own country and in other countries. Are we equating Saddam with Hitler? Saddam was sitting on his ass in his own country. He had nothing to do with 9/11. That was Osama. I realize that there is an s, an a, an m and an o in the names, but that’s all I can give you as to why the focus shifted.

B. Didn’t they call WWII the war to end all wars? Why would they say that? Because war is no answer. War does nothing but destroy. Oh, sure, many corporations and conglomerates profit quite nicely during times of conflict but generally speaking war is pointless.

C. We were hit by a terrorist attack. That’s a fact that no one can deny. Should we have retaliated? Absolutely! We should have attacked the people who attacked us, instead we move from Afghanistan to Iraq.

D. Wasn’t it called a world war because so much of the world was involved? What countries did the “coalition” for this war include? This has been an unpopular war from the onset.

If this war did mimic WWII, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor we would have invaded Japan, then turned around and attacked the ominously threatening country of Liechtenstein. There is no equating of this war to any others because this one set a precedent. It was the first preemptive war ever waged. Hooray for us! We’re number one! Woohoo.

We are holding innocent people, who have families and lives thousands of miles away from them. Every day they are brutalized and humiliated. Is that ok with you? If you can, put your son, your husband, your uncle, your brother in that situation. Innocent. Beaten to death. Kept in subzero temperatures with no blanket, naked, ice on the chain that holds him for months. In a cage. In darkness. For being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

At some point our society, which claims to be Christian will have to answer to not only our God but also to our children why this was allowed to continue. I will hang my head in shame at the travesty of justice which has prevailed during this dark time. But at the very very least my children know that I have spoken out and done something to resist this ground-swelling of brutality, arrogance and intolerance in my country.