arrest the real criminals!
Nobody has to spell it out again. We all know what it is, and what it represents. We know it should never have been built and we know that it should have been plowed under long ago.
We also know that no one is talking about it any more*.
Its victims remain inside, but it has been arranged that we can never know anything of their innocence or guilt. The only thing we can be sure of is the guilt of so many who are outside, those who built it, those who maintain it still, and all of us who tolerate it.
*
Well, almost no one. In a letter to the editor of the NYTimes published yesterday, Larry Cox, Executive Director of Amnesty International, acknowledges that while Bush has decided to do nothing about Guantanamo, in spite of saying more than two years ago that he wanted to close what I call our Cuban concentration camp, both major candidates are actually on record as saying that they would close it. However, Cox and many others smell the rat:
But they must not transfer the the violations to other locations [my italics]. Detainees should be charged with a recognizable criminal offense, brought to full and fair trial or released.
The next president must also commit to abandon the military commission trials, repudiate secret detention, never again authorize or tolerate torture, and uphold the rule of law at home and abroad.
But my question (and our guilt) remains: Why not now?
[image from Getty Images via Nasir Khan]