Dear Mr. President
The news has recently been reporting that Obama has made the decision to close the Guantanemo Bay detention center as one of his first acts as president, and I wholeheartedly support this. There is some concern, as the linked article points out, about what to do with the prisoners after Gitmo is closed and what will happen after they are released, if that happens at all. Gitmo has been a blight on humanity and has terribly damaged our national reputation. Prison culture in the US is horrific anyway, but the stories out of Gitmo are beyond the pale. A good acount is Mahvish Rukhsana Khan's My Guantanemo Diary; she was a lawyer and an interpreter there for a few years, and the book gives a mixture of personal accounts and facts about the prison and the "trials" conducted there. I'm so proud of the lawyers and other humanitarians who have aggitated for years for an end to this travesty. I'm appauled that there are still people who believe this place somehow protects Americans.
Dear President Obama,
Congratulations on your recent victory in the election. We have many bright hopes for the future of our country and for our children. I was especially pleased to see that in spite of the ecnoomic and political chaos going on in the world today, you planned to make the closing of Guanatemo Bay one of your first orders of business.
"Gitmo" has been a dark cloud hanging over our country for years. I am sure you are aware of the monstrous travesty of justice that place represents. Only 5% of detainees have ever been charged with actual plots or acts of war against America as discovered by our own intelligence community. Some men are being held there on the sole charge of owning a Casio watch. Some who have lawyers who have handily disproven their clients' charges are given more and more charges, just as flimsy as the first. Two men were there for telling a joke about Bill Clinton. Worse, to me, are the ones who are being held without being told what they are even charged with. Many of these are the victims of flyers dropped in Afghanistan offering financial rewards for turning people in. This money was many times an average citizen's income in Afghanistan, and 86% of the prisoners in Gitmo have been "captured" in this way. This is intolerable and it is not justice. Justice is not something only Americans get to have.
Prison culture in America is notoriously horrible. But what these men have been through in Gitmo is absolutely inhumane. They have suffered every form of torture and deprivation. Sick, old men have had their medical treatments removed or withheld as a form of punishment. Prisoners have frequently reported sexual humiliation and rape. This has been confirmed by military physicians and other personnel. It is absolutely disgusting that members of our military would behave in such a manner.
So I encourage you to go through with your decision to close Gitmo and not to listen to alarmists who claim in spite of all the evidence to the contrary that this gross inhumanity somehow makes us safer. But I urge you not only to close Gitmo but to also be careful of the people coming from there; please do not put them in the general population of regular prisoners in the US. Please do not put them in another military prison, of if you do, please send humanitarian officials to regularly monitor what is going on in those places. Please do not put them in foreign prisons where many of them will simply be abused again. And please bring them to a speedy trial where their innocence or guilt can finally be determined and they can get on with their lives.
In spite of their treatment, many prisoners and their families express a belief in the American people and our justice system. They believe if we just knew the truth, we'd do the right thing. Please help us do the right thing, finally, and restore our dignity and faith in our justice system, by closing Gitmo and monitoring the outcome. I am also writing to my Senators and Representatives to encourage them to support your efforts. Thank you so much for taking this action.
-- DV
I finally feel as though we have a President who can read the letter for himself. I never wrote to GW; even if he could've read it, I doubt he would've, even if it had made it past his handlers.
-- DV
posted by contemplator at Thursday, January 15, 2009
2 Comments:
I have served two seperate independent terms of duty guarding Guanty Prison. I am writing to inform you of the misinformation the media has given you regarding the current situation in Guantanemo. The general prison population are not individuals you would like to cross paths with on your commute to and from work. The vast majority are dangerous inmates who if left unguarded or unprotected can and will take advantage of this situation to attempt and kill prison guards and other inmates. While I am not arguing with your point that there are certain situations where some prisoners maybe falsely imprisoned, which I also believe to be unjust. I believe your post goes too far in trying to make the prisoners out to be "good guys' that ran into bad luck etc.... Not trying to over generalize, but I would say that 95 percent of the prisoner population are people that you wouldn't want roaming around in your community, school systems, and workplaces. There's a reason why they're not allowed to roam around the general population of US citizens, because by granting 100 percent of the world's population freedom and liberty, you'd be jeopardizing the freedom and liberty of honest hard working American citizens who's only desire is to protect those same freedoms for their families.
If you have witnessed these incidents, by not reporting on the conditions in Gitmo that have been independently verified by credible multiple sources, apart from the "media", you must take some responsibility in those conditions yourself. No one is making prisoners out to be "good guys"--but how on earth would you know whether they were or not, since they haven't been allowed to have a trial? Some of them don't even know what they are being charged with. That is not justice, and that is not what this country is about. You should be ashamed of yourself for trying to defend this hellhole. 86% of the people there are there because someone got money for turning them in from countries that have a very low income for the general population . That doesn't strike you as a flawed system? Your own military officials have chronicled the abuse these prisoners have suffered.
Justice is not just for Americans. Prove how we're being "protected" by bringing them to trial and demonstrating why they are so dangerous. Show how American citizens are in danger from "95%" of the people there, and I'll be the first person to pat you on the back for doing a fine job.
It's not the media, buddy. It's your own military folks who provide some of this information. Nobody asked them to be released into the general population of American citizens, no one expects them to just walk without trial. But why won't our government bring them to trial? It's because they can't prove they did anything. If what you say is true, it should be easy to prove. So put up or close that hellhole down.
Gitmo creates a bad reputation for the US, and it puts our boys on the front lines in even more danger because of our damaged reputation for fairness and following the law. Since we will torture people, why should other people care about torturing our boys, if caught? Since we treat our prisoners like shit--not even bothering to offer them basic human rights through the word play of calling them "detainees" instead of "prisoners" (as if they simply missed a fucking flight), why should the people we fight treat us any differently? Why should the people of Afghanistan help us, when we allowed their people to be sold out for money to Gitmo to languish for years without charges or trials? We are damaged because of Gitmo, and our military is compromised because of Gitmo. You of all people should be one of the first people to stand up and decry such a thing. Gitmo creates terrorists; it doesn't stop them.
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