Thoughts on Gitmo

That previous post got me thinking about politics, and the thing that really bothers me these days: that Guantanamo prison. Obama promised he would close it. He hasn't yet. There should have been no delay!

Now, its not a matter of "they are bad-guys, out to get us, we need to do something about them." By all means, defend our country against those who would harm us! But don't violate human rights in the process -- punishing a person for mere suspicion without a proper trial defeats all of our rhetoric about human rights and freedom. Those people detained in Gitmo have (mostly) not received a trial in a court of law, and have been detained there for years -- in other words, we are assuming they are guilty and not even giving them a chance to be proven innocent. One of the wonderful things about our country is that here we go by "innocent until proven guilty."

As I understand it, the people detained at Gitmo are there because there is evidence to believe that they may intend to do harm to American people -- if they really are the bad-guys, then we should definitely take effective and legal measures to thwart their intentions. However, if there is evidence against them, then let it be reviewed in court, so that detaining them is justified. If the court reveals info that should not be available to the public for reasons of security, then fine, let the info be released at a later date. But its just plain wrong to hold them with no evidence against them for years -- I just did a quick research of the legality of it, and it appears to be perfectly legal in this case -- but that doesn't mean its right. I have a head-ache... I know this wasn't the most eloquent blog ever, but I can't write anymore for now. But ya know... God I love this country.... how lucky we are to live here... this is the only country I know of that tries to do the right thing simply because its right... but something I remember from my Political Science class is the "slippery slope" -- lets not slip into the wrong -- lets go back to being the leaders of human rights etc. and lets go back fast!