"Guantanamo is America’s moral failure"
As the latest hunger strike at Guantanamo enters its third grueling month, Americans are getting a long overdue wake up call from the mainstream media. "It’s time to close that shameful political prison and end the lawless indefinite detention," The New York Times proclaimed in an editorial on April 6 that deserves to be quoted at length:
The hunger strike that has spread since early February among the 166 detainees still at Guantanamo Bay is again exposing the lawlessness of the system that marooned them there. The government claims that around 40 detainees are taking part. Lawyers for detainees report that their clients say around 130 detainees in one part of the prison have taken part. The number matters less than the nature of the protest, however: this is a collective act of despair. Prisoners on the hunger strike say that they would rather die than remain in the purgatory of indefinite detention. Only three prisoners now in Guantanamo have been found guilty of any crime, yet the others also are locked away, with dwindling hope of ever being released…. For 86 detainees, this is a particular outrage. They were approved for release three years ago by a government task force, which included civilian and military agencies responsible for national security…The Obama administration justifies the force-feeding of detainees as protecting their safety and welfare. But the truly humane response to this crisis is to free prisoners who have been approved for release, end indefinite detention and close the prison at Guantanamo.
National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation and CBS News have both recently featured Guantanamo, highlighting the lawless morass that is US government policy.
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