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Photo of the Day, November 24, 2009: Hook, Line, and Sinker
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Saturday was the third anniversary of the war in Iraq and was marked, as you might expect, by marches and vigils in the more liberal corners of our liberal Commonwealth. Today, the Globe reports that "a small but crucial number" of Guantanamo detainees - many of whom have been there since before the Iraq war began, make up a "hard-core group of firebrands" who have "called down the wrath of God on U.S. officials." And on Friday, Bostonist heard a story on NPR about how the U.S. is being forced to defend its treatment of the Guantanamo detainees, including force-feeding them to keep them alive.
All of this got us to thinking about something that isn't exactly news, but maybe bears repeating: Our government has been holding hundreds of people in prison without any charges for over three years. Most of them probably haven't even done anything wrong. They have no idea when, if ever, they will leave, and we won't even let them commit suicide by starvation. Bostonist hates to get all preachy on you on a Monday, but holy shit. Three years in prison is no joke under any circumstances, but three years in prison when you've never been charged with a crime (let alone convicted) and have no idea when you'll get out is absolutely fucking immoral.
Bostonist remembers when we were in history class in high school, learning about how our government put Japanese-Americans in concentration camps during World War II. We thought, "Damn, if that happened in our day, we wouldn't stand for it." We are beginning to think it's happening, and we're trying to figure out what the hell to do. Any suggestions, dear readers?
Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Photo courtesy of Amnesty International.
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Amen Josh.
I hope folks out there heard you on this point.
You know, why don't you get off you high horse and actually talk about Boston for a change. This blog is called Bostonist, not Liberalist.
Peter:
Considering that neither Bostonist as a whole, nor Josh in particular, writes much about non-Boston things, why don't you get out of your high horse's ass just because you don't like his/its politics?
Have a nice day.
Peter,
I hear you, and to respond to your concerns, I penned a whole post about the Shaw's supermarket in Porter Square - not Boston, I realize, but the Cambridge-Somerville line, which is much closer than Cuba.
As far as my liberal high horse, I had hoped to transcend that with this post. That's why I didn't say the detention of these guys in Guantanamo is "illegal" or "unconstitutional," though I think both are true. I said it is "immoral," a description I hoped would ring true across the political spectrum.
I just want people to think about these detainees as actual people, thousands of miles from home, unsure if they'll ever be free, and probably more and more hopeless. It's hard for me to imagine a more terrifying and soul-crushing fate than being imprisoned for no reason with absolutely nothing I could do or say to get free. We don't even treat accused murderers and rapists that badly in this country - they get a trial, a lawyer, and (in most cases) a release date. The folks at Guantanamo haven't even been convicted of anything, but there they are, still.
Surely anyone, though they support the war in Iraq, the war on terrorism, and a general, far-reaching campaign to rid the world by force of all current and future enemies of the United States, can understand that to hold an innocent person in prison for years on end is a cruel, inhumane, and immoral thing to do. The careless tossing-away of people's lives without so much as a careful inquiry into whether they are guilty of any crime is just the sort of practice that we detest when other governments do it. Oughtn't we detest it now, too?