6.29.2010

The Challenge in Closing Guantanamo Bay

The financial crisis. Two wars. An oil spill. Health care reform. Student loan reform. And still people are disappointed in what President Obama has done.

The challenge of relocating the Guantanamo Bay prisoners is resistance to finding out the truth of what happened there. Of course, it's a matter of time. But what time would be good for a dose of reality like that? None. So inevitably it is pushed back and pushed back and excuses are made to postpone having to address such uncomfortable issues as America the Torturer.

You have to wonder what made George Bush and Dick Cheney think that no one would ever find out about what they were doing. The United States has a long history of power shifting between political parties. I can't imagine the hubris it takes to think that your group will never lose power. I guess that's what Hitler thought in relation to the Holocaust. Sending people to the death camps was a priority until the last moment of the Third Reich because they didn't want anyone to know what they did and were hoping to kill everyone first.

There will never be a good time for the United States to find out that innocent people were tortured at our hands. And all the excuses made in fear after the attacks on September 11, 2001 were not valid. "Things are different now." That phrase has been the excuse to do anything we wanted for revenge and false security. Those feelings were exploited to go to war to secure our supply of oil in Iraq, all based on the lie of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Congress needs to realize that to delay dealing with Guantanamo Bay and the crimes committed there will not lessen the impact on them or the American people.

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