Gates Says Guantanamo Should Be Closed

It looks like some in the Bush administration may finally be figuring out what a public relations disaster the torture facility and illegal prison at Guantanamo Bay really is. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is now calling for Guantanamo to be closed.

But don't confuse his call for "Gitmo" to be closed with any desire for justice or fair play. He just realizes that the facility's existence is stark proof to the rest of the world that the United States does not believe in justice for anyone who is not an American.

Gates thinks that if the facility was closed down, we could go on mistreating people and no one would be the wiser. He obviously thinks the leaders of other nations are as stupid as he and his boss. He wants to destroy the symbol and continue the injustice. He says at least 100 of the prisoners would need to be incarcerated "forever".

He's even gone so far as to say Congress needs to pass a new law to "address the concerns about some of these people who really need to be incarcerated forever, but that doesn't get them involved in a judicial system where there is the potential of them being released."

How much clearer could he be? He wants Congress to pass a law that would deny any kind of fair trial to these people. Evidently, he thinks that even the rigged military tribunals are not unfair enough.

Didn't we stage a revolution in the late 1700's because we were not being treated fairly by the British government? What would Jefferson, Washington and the other founding fathers think of passing a law specifically to deny a fair trial to anyone? I think they would be shocked at the unfairness of the Bush administration! I think they would use words like "scandalous", "traitorous" and "unconstitutional".

Our forefathers understood that if you can deny a fair trial to anyone, then you can do it to everyone. They established our system of justice because they believed that even the most villainous among us deserved a fair trial. Now Bush and his henchmen are doing their best to destroy that system of justice.

Closing Guantanamo will not make the world think we are wonderful (even though it does need to be closed). They will still judge us by how we treat our enemies. The rest of the world is well aware that if we mistreat these prisoners now, we could do it to them tomorrow.

By the way, Guantanamo now holds about 385 prisoners. If only about 100 are truly dangerous to us, why are we still holding the other 285?