Guantanamo: The Shame of the United States of America

A classic example of Washington's hypocrisy and many questions to answer

Human rights, freedom of expression, the rule of law, the state of law, the importance of following legal norms...words and expressions used by Washington over the years as it criticizes governments which restrict access for US companies to their markets. At the end of the day, Washington is the one which perpetrates the worst crimes. A shining example is provided by Guantanamo, the US concentration camp in Cuba.

500 people held without charge for four years, all except nine, that is. Where is the legality in that, and how many billions of the US taxpayers' dollars will Washington eventually be forced to pay up for false imprisonment, kidnapping and forced loss of earnings?

Under which court of law is this concentration camp legalised – on Cuban territory – and which court of law authorised the shocking and barbaric treatment meted out to the inmates? Which court of law and which legal code deemed it legal to seize prisoners from a war zone – Afghanistan – where many of them were simply fighting back after being attacked by the US Armed Forces and hold them for four years in a foreign country? Which court of law deemed the attack on Afghanistan legal in the first place?

If any one of these questions cannot be answered with a clear-cut legally valid argument, then the whole process is void and the USA will be liable for massive payment of reparations/damages. And more – those liable for kidnapping and torture must be brought to justice.

Why were the British detainees released without a military trial, when others are still held against their will, without even a charge being levied against them? Because their skin is brown? Because they have moustaches? Or because Washington makes and breaks the laws it chooses, when it chooses and deep down knows that the whole foreign policy followed by the Bush regime, lock, stock and barrel, is a tissue of lies, criminal and murderous practices and self-centred greed by the energy lobby which Bush has allowed to dictate his country's policy, right from the beginning?

Does the US public know that 40 detainees are on hunger strike, complaining against the systematic use of torture by the US authorities? Does the US public feel good about the systematic use of torture, not only in Guantanamo, but also in Iraq and Afghanistan, and apparently in many other locations as well?

How do the Christians who voted for the Bush regime feel about that? Does the Christian Bible in the USA condone torture? Don't these people feel implicated, having voted for a regime which conducted an illegal war based on lies, forged documents and no casus belli, which committed an act of wholesale slaughter in Iraq, which targeted civilian infra-structures with military hardware, which murdered innocent children in their homes, which will cost them up to two million million dollars (2,000,000,000,000), two trillion or two thousand billion dollars, according to budget experts? Will they feel good about their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren being saddled with that debt and that shocking moral responsibility? Do they think for a moment that those responsible will pay a cent towards it?

Does the US public know that a high-level UN team called off a visit to Guantanamo in December because “the Americans have not accepted the minimum requirements for such a visit”, namely not allowing free access to the kidnapped inmates?

Does the US public know that a report by Amnesty International (the organization which they would expect to denounce human rights violations in some fascist dictatorship in a third world country) has just claimed that there are increasing allegations of appalling conditions at Guantanamo, together with fresh cases of torture?

Does the US public know what its authorities are doing at Guantanamo? Do the Christians who voted for the Bush regime know that prisoners are allegedly urinated on, threatened with homosexual rape (what is it with US soldiers?), their heads smashed on the floor, deprived of sleep, their food defecated on?

Do they know that some prisoners have made up to ten attempts at suicide? And the US authorities deny all of this? Like they lied about WMD in Iraq? Like they lied about Iraq trying to get uranium from Niger? Why does a prisoner try to commit suicide ten times, because he doesn't like the gravy? Because someone is tickling his bottom with a feather duster?

Do the Christian voters who backed the Bush regime agree that it is OK to subject people to religious abuse? To sexual perversions? To physical degradation? And to finish, answer this - if the authorities are so innocent, why don't they allow the UNO to investigate?

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