Remember when Obama said the first thing he would do when he got into office would be to close down Gitmo? Funny thing, it’s still operating although nobody in America seems to care anymore. Well it seems on of the prisoners there had himself an accident:
An Afghan inmate at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has collapsed and died after exercising, according to US military officials.
It was of course due to mysterious circumstances. But what’s more interesting is the following paragraph:
Awal Gul, 48, was accused of being a Taliban commander and part of the al-Qaeda network. He had been held without charges since October 2002.
Think about that. He’s been held for over eight years without so much as being charged with a crime. Eight years in prison without any charges or trials. I don’t care if you support the War on Terror, you have to believe that this kind of treatment of people is unacceptable. If we really believed this man was part of al-Qaeda he should have been charged as such. If we lack the evidence to charge this man he should have been released. I don’t think I’m making any unreasonable demands here, just treat so-called prisoners of war as prisoners.
What kind of message does this send out to the world? “Oh hey we love freedom, but only for people inside of our borders the rest of you can all take flying fucks at rolling doughnuts.” Our country is supposedly a “bastion of democracy and freedom.” Maybe we should start acting like it.