Slavery in Guantanamo

[G_j]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/slavery-in-guantanamo_b_46984.html

Slavery in Guantanamo

We Americans like to think the war against slavery was over a long time ago. But when we gave up slavery, did we also give up mastery?

A New York Times report, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/washington/26gitmo.html?_r=1&oref=slogin by William Glaberson on April 26 discloses that the justice department has now moved to choke off the minimal legal protection

still available to "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo. If approved by the D.C. court of appeals, the new proposal would restrict each prisoner to one interview to authorize a lawyer, and three subsequent visits by that lawyer. It would give a team of intelligence agents and military overseers the power to scrutinize mail sent by the lawyer to his client. Finally, it would remove the lawyer's right to examine secret evidence used against the prisoner.

"One after another they have closed the heavy iron doors upon him, and now they have him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of a hundred keys, which can never be unlocked without the concurrence of every key; the keys in the hands of a hundred different men, and they scattered to a hundred different and distant places." Lincoln spoke those words about the Dred Scott decision and the effect of denying constitutional rights to the black man. We are seeing the same pattern today, with one difference. The racism unofficially sanctioned now is racism against Arabs.

Torture and slavery have something in common. They are expressions of a power that admits no restraint on itself. They issue from the instinct for domination, hardened by a savage self-protectiveness. Yet a slave might always assert his freedom by choosing to die. This last resort has been denied to the Guantanamo prisoners. If they refuse to eat, they are force-fed intravenously. We keep them alive, and starve them of justice, and kill them by inches. Is this done to prevent their becoming martyrs? But they are already martyrs from the terms of their imprisonment. The force-feeding is really the last refinement of state coercion and cruelty.

..more,,

[merh]

1. I'm disgusted by the evil that thinks of these limitation, let alone

tries to get them sanctioned.

I'm so saddened and heart broken at the state of our nation, at the soulessness of our leaders and the apathy of so many.

:cry:

[Goat52a]

2. Don't be sad...

Don't be sad.. get angry...

[merh]

4. been there for more years than you know

but the anger doesn't get results and when the destruction increases and the efforts fall short, sadness comes.

too much of too much and far too tired.

[atreides1]

5. I'm as disgusted as you are

But what I find the most disgusting is the fact that the U.S. military is involved in this up to its neck.

If these men and women are willing to do what they are doing to foreigners, what makes anyone think that they won't be willing to do this to other Americans. Remember the Gestapo and the SS were willing to do what they did to other Germans, just like the KGB were instrumental in sending other Russians to Gulags.

What is being developed at Guantanamo Bay, is a section of the U.S. military that will be willing to torture and imprison other Americans, just because they believe that they are patriots, and that their loyalty to the President far outweighs their oaths to the Constitution.

[merh]

6. I agree with you

and that is exactly what has occurred in the DOJ, loyalty to the party and the party leader(s), that the party is the only true patriotic party, the only party that cares about the nation and they will do all they can to protect the party leaders and the party in the name of patriotism and to the detriment of the Constitution.

[Solly Mack]

3. About the only time GTMO is in the news is when a lawyer files an appeal

or the thugs at the DOJ introduce another rule...

remove the reasonable access to lawyers and you bury GTMO even more

keep everything as "secret" as possible and you bury coverage

not in the news often equates to being not in people's minds

and truth be told it is already happening as fewer and fewer people are concerning themselves with what is happening at GTMO


if they can hide GTMO out in the open, they will...people will know it exist but as there is no news about it - it won't matter. The people won't matter....and one day, a few years from now, there will be a story about a major release from GTMO and people will declare, "Hey, I remember GTMO"

[G_j]

7. very well stated

for shame, this is making us all ill

[malaise]

8. Great post

Thanks.

[Jcrowley]

9. Kick and Rec

although the rec didn't work.

I'm not sure why everyone is surprised, torture is as American as apple pie. The tradition is hundreds of years old here.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. This type of thing by itself is grounds for impeachment of

Bush, Cheney, and a whole raft of other people.

I'd love to see them all thrown out of office and THEN sent to The Hague for war crimes trials.

[G_j]

13. that is the only just solution

high crimes, crimes against humanity, international war crimes..

[nam78_two]

11. K&R

Unspeakable..just unspeakable...

[Jcrowley]

12. Kick and Rec n/t