Time to Shut Down Guantanamo
Immediately after the events of 9/11, many of us all around the world shared the same experience: a mixture of anger, of dejection, of uncertainty. As the embers continued to smolder in New York and Washington, almost all of us, along with human rights activists (myself included), expected that our government would take some liberties in hunting down and exposing the perpetrators of this mass murder. We were prepared to live with that in the immediate aftermath of the most devastating attack from abroad the U.S. mainland had ever known, as long as the mission focused on justice rather than revenge. But, as seems fated to occur whenever an authority receives a new power, the power was abused. Suspects were being apprehended on intelligence of dubious quality, as age-old feuds and political scores were settled via accusations of terrorism. At the same time those detained saw rights guaranteed under both international and federal law rapidly slip away. The country was afraid, and it showed. Rather than rally the nation to a course that would bring perpetrators to justice while re-affirming our country’s deep historic commitments to human rights and the rule of law, the Bush Administration built a shrine to our fears. The world knows it by a single name: Guantanamo.