Iranians Use Gitmo To Justify Mistreatment

As you've probably heard by now, the Iranian government has released a couple of American hikers who wandered into their country -- supposedly by accident. They were accused of being spies and imprisoned for more than two years under less than desirable conditions. The prison conditions were poor and they were forced to spend long periods of time in isolation. And when they complained about their treatment, the guards justified the treatment by because of the way the U.S. treats prisoners at Guantanamo Bay (and other CIA prisons around the world). The hikers said:

In prison, every time we complained about our conditions, the guards would immediately remind us of comparable conditions at Guantanamo Bay. They would remind us of CIA prisons in other parts of the world, and the conditions that Iranians and others experience in prisons in the U.S. We do not believe that such human rights violations on the part of our government justify what has been done to us. Not for a moment. However, we do believe that these actions on the part of the U.S. provide an excuse for other governments, including the government of Iran, to act in kind.

This could have been (and was) predicted many years ago when the Bush/Cheney administration set up Gitmo and authorized the mistreatment (and even torture) of prisoners. And sadly, while the Obama administration says they have stopped the torture, the prison at Guantanamo continues to operate. This is what happens when this country decides it doesn't have to abide by international law -- it frees other countries to do the same to American citizens.

Isn't it time to close Guantanamo? Isn't it time to climb back up to the moral high ground? Torture and mistreatment of prisoners gains us nothing in security, but it has hurt our reputation around the world.