The Shame at Justice
That painfully grating noise is the alarm on our hypocrisy meter. The Justice Department of the United States of America has decided that 47 human beings held at the Guantanamo prison should be kept incarcerated, without a trial, and indefinitely. They say to try these people would compromise American intelligence. In truth, it is slandering our American soul.
First of all, the notion that anyone should be kept in prison without a trial is appalling. It violates the essence of human rights, dating back to the Magna Carta. Regardless of how guilty of whatever crimes these individuals are alleged to have committed, the fact is that these are only allegations until a trial has been conducted.
Considering how many people have been released from death row in the United States, one must presume that at least some – maybe many – of these prisoners in Guantanamo are innocent of the charges, completely or to some significant degree.
And yet our Justice Department thinks they should be kept in prison anyway, without a determination of their guilty or innocence.
Second, most of these people have been incarcerated for almost ten years. Whatever "intelligence" was involved in their capture is surely stale, if not outright irrelevant. In the odd case where some sources might be jeopardized, surely a judge could determine what information if any might be reasonably allowed in a hearing, or to hold a hearing in private. But at least there should be a hearing.
This isn’t nibbling around the edges. This is a fundamental human right.
Obama promised to have Guantanamo closed a year ago. Now he says there have been complications. Perhaps, but an obvious solution would have been to relocate all of the remaining prisoners to the Bagrahm facility in Afghanistan, which is where they should have been taken in the first place.
©2010 SetonnoteS
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