More Gitmo Depth
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base
President Obama’s original deadline of January 2010 as the date to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison (known as “Gitmo”) has been pushed back as Congress continues to do what they do best – debate on issues while failing to come to any clear conclusions.
Another Gitmo-related story this week suggests that a federal prison in Illinois is the front-runner to receive Guantanamo Bay’s prisoners when Gitmo shuts down.
Back in December, Dinner Topics told you where Gitmo was located and what the name stood for. We also promised some depth on the subject in the future. Well, the future is now!
Gitmo has always been known as a controversial place for housing prisoners, but why?
Many of the operating procedures over the decades have caused an uproar due to questionable lack of rights given to the detained prisoners. Often attempted terrorists, one side believes these prisoners should not be afforded the basic rights and protections given to prisoners of war1 because the prisoners were not actually soldiers nor were they acting in accordance with the war regulations in the first place. Some politicians such as Dick Cheney feel that these prisoners are lucky to be held by Americans because their treatment would be far worse anywhere else in the world.
The other side sees Gitmo as a place where the United States is acting inhumanely, offering punishment and torture in ways America has fought so hard against over the years.
Plenty of allegations about Gitmo, from strange torture techniques to religious persecution, have been raised, prompting the Senate and the president himself to get involved and solve this important issue surrounding human rights. Read up on the kind of people detained there and the kind of treatment they are given, and form your own opinion. A necessary evil? A total failure in the quest for humanity? Sound off!
Read on:
WSJ.com – Obama: No Exact Deadline for Closing Guantanamo Bay
Newser.com – Prison in Illinois May Replace Gitmo
Wikipedia – Guantanamo Bay detention camp
- from the Third Geneva Convention ↩
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment