Guantanamo is not "Compassionate", Mr. Bush

It's pretty simple: America cannot live its stated values while operating Guantanamo.

It shouldn't take the United Nations, for the second time this year, to shame our government into closing the prison. Marjorie Cohn writes:

"The UN Human Rights Commission criticized the US government for force-feeding hunger strikers there - calling it torture - and urged the United States to 'close the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities without further delay.'"

The Committee Against Torture stated that it was concerned about "reliable reports of acts of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment committed by certain members of the [United States] military or civilian personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq," some of which resulted in death.

And yet our "compassionate conservative" leaders remain mum, even as three or four Guantanamo prisoners attempted suicide on Thursday.

Is this what America is fighting for?

Related Articles:

• Star-Telegram | 05/20/2006 | Violence erupts at Guantanamo facility


• ABC News: Gitmo Fight Reported; U.N. Seeks Closure


• UN Wants Guantanamo Shut Published: Saturday, 20 May, 2006, 12:44 PM Doha Time

  GENEVA: The United Nations top anti-torture body told the United States yesterday that any secret jails it ran for foreign terrorism suspects, along with the Guantanamo Bay facility, were illegal and should be closed.

• U.N. Urges U.S. to Shut Guantanamo Prison


• Guards and Detainees Clash at Guantanamo


• Press Gaggle by Tony Snow


• Pentagon discloses list of Gitmo detainees

  SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - After years of secrecy, the Pentagon has disclosed the names, ages and home countries of everyone held at the isolated Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in southeastern Cuba as a suspect in the U.S.-led war on terror.
  None of the most notorious terrorist suspects was included in the list, raising questions about their whereabouts.
  
  The U.S. says it has held 759 males, ranging from teenagers to older than 70, from more than 40 countries, according to the list released late Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by The Associated Press.

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