Russia Today reports on the hunger strikes among Guantanamo prisoners, 166 of whom are said still to be living in small “animal cages” and to lack any hope of ever coming to trial. They are “condemned, dead men who just happen to breathe” according to one attorney. This, despite the fact that the vast majority of remaining prisoners are “cleared for release.” Apparently the US would be willing to let them go but their home countries won’t take them?
The US constitution guarantees all prisoners the right to a speedy trial, and the phony fascist idea that non-US citizens in US custody don’t get constitutional rights is contrary to the Declaration of Independence, which says these rights belong to “all men.”
Defense attorneys say they are systematically stonewalled by the prison authorities. RT interviewed one of the defense attorneys:
“Lt. Col Barry Wingard: The last time I saw my clients was between the February 25 and March 8. I visited with them multiple times. I was shocked at the condition they were in. In fact, we were the first people who broke the story that the hunger strike had begun around February 6 or 7 and had continued on. My client at that point had lost 26 pounds (12kg) and at this point it’s official that he’s lost almost 40 pounds (18kg) – one third of his body weight from 147 pounds (67kg).
RT: How long can they go on like that?
BW: I can imagine we’re getting near to the end when something serious is going to happen. The administration down in Guantanamo Bay initially denied the report that the hunger strike was occurring. They then said it was seven, then 14, then 21 people. They then said it wasn’t the largest hunger strike in history. Then they came out and said it’s 24, 25, and today 26 people. So the story is getting more accurate as we go, but we’re running out of time.”
In my experience the American starting point when it comes to foreigners in general, Muslims in general, and Muslims from MENA and South Asia in particular is viciously racist.
It never seems to occur to them that a regime that will behave in the way the American government does to foreigners will eventually bring that behaviour home and use it against its own citizens.
It was always a pack of self-congratulatory lies that America was a ‘shining city on a hill’ but I am deeply saddened to see it become a filth encrusted pigsty in a swamp.
Keep on posting and writing please Professor Cole, I often disagree with what you say but Americans need to exercise their free speech and engaged in reasoned debate far more than they do lest those too perish from what was once a republic but is now a demagogic oligarchy.
mfi
There are multiple countries that have volunteered to take the prisoners, including Venezuela.
I guess embarrassment when Chavez would have trotted them out is worse than keeping people in cages.
In the land of the free the 1 per centers manage to keep a near total blackout on this story. Pretty much like they are silent about the Israelis stealing Palestinians land. I wonder how long Diane Sawyer or Brian Williams would last if they even once made an honest report on these stories. Freedom of the press in the U.S.A. Is only a myth.
I am in complete agreement. And I figure Rachel Maddow et al would not broadcast about this issue?? or NPR ????
Thanks for posting about this. I am ashamed of my own government (Canada) for taking so long to bring Omar Khadr home, and for being almost forced to do so by the American justice system. I don’t know how many of those prisoners are actually “terrorists”, I suspect very few of them, but none of them deserve this kind of treatment.
We are supposed to be ‘Proud to Be an American’?
“It never seems to occur to them that a regime that will behave in the way the American government does to foreigners will eventually bring that behaviour home and use it against its own citizens.”
Given the attacks on Aaron Swartz, Bradley Manning and other whistleblowers it seems “eventually” began a long time ago.
America treats it’s own no better…
“JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to the case of Albert Woodfox, who has been in solitary confinement for 40 years. That’s right, 40 years, most of that time locked up in the notorious maximum security Louisiana state penitentiary known as Angola.”
Democracy now Feb 2012.
link to democracynow.org
correction, the program was aired 28th of Feb 2013.
“HONOR BOUND” @ Camp Justice?? WHAT of GENEVA CONVENTION human rights protocols?? what would Goerhing say?
“…these rights belong to ‘all men’.”
On his radio program in the late 1990s, the late Harry Browne, erstwhile libertarian candidate for president, regularly made the point that the Constitution squarely applies to the government itself, and not to whomever might be on the receiving end of the government’s actions.