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The actions of Guantánamo Bay contradict its motto

Guantánamo Bay is denying prisoners of their basic rights and contradicting their very own motto. Credit: Michael Morales/The Foothill Dragon Press
Guantánamo Bay is denying prisoners of their basic rights and contradicting their very own motto. Credit: Michael Morales/The Foothill Dragon Press

When you think of Guantánamo Bay, do you think of “safe, humane, legal transparent detention”?

For those of you who do not know what Guantánamo Bay is, it is a U.S. military prison in Cuba that primarily holds prisoners suspected of terrorism. Guantánamo Bay is infamous for not having to follow the Geneva Code, which states that the human dignity of all individuals must always be protected. Guantánamo Bay uses methods such as torture to extract information from its detainees, and they are denied basic rights given to most U.S. prisoners.

If you have answered “no” to my previous question, you are certainly not the first to feel that way. Everything Guantánamo Bay does is against its motto. Waterboarding or physically harming their prisoners in order to receive information from them is neither safe, nor humane. Denying prisoners basic rights such as living according to their religious beliefs is neither humane, nor legal, and the prison is not always as “transparent” as it claims to be.

For the past year, prisoners of Guantánamo Bay have participated in hunger strikes, with numbers in participants reaching to 106 out of the 166 detainees, and more recently has dropped to 15, who are eligible to be force-fed (which is deemed as torture by the UN). However, the military will no longer provide the information as to how many prisoners are participating in the hunger strike because they do not want to further the protest by relaying the numbers to the public.

With no longer allowing the public to know the numbers of how many prisoners are participating in the hunger strike, Guantánamo Bay has clouded what little transparency they claim to have.

What Guantánamo Bay is doing is wrong. They contradict their very own motto, “safe, humane, legal transparent detention.”

The main argument that has been brought up in favor of Guantánamo Bay is that it helps ensure national security. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, safety is only second to breathing, food and water. In the case of the U.S. finding Osama bin Laden, torture was proven effective in gathering information.

We should not advocate against torture while turning a blind eye when it benefits us. Most forms of torture are, and will always be, immoral, even if we are able to gain information from it.

Many people, whether they are American politicians, citizens, or foreign leaders, are for the shutdown of Guantánamo Bay. It is not hard to see that Guantánamo Bay is shady at best, and the only reason it is still running is because it seen as necessary for maintaining national security.

Guantánamo Bay practically screams unsafe, inhumane, and mysterious, while the legality of what the authorities do to the detainees is questionable. We should not be supporting an establishment that might be useful at times, but is consistently immoral, and cannot seem to follow its own motto.

Yet another practice Guantánamo Bay is infamous for is holding their prisoners for an indefinite amount of time, regardless as to whether it has been proven that the detainees have committed a crime worthy of being locked up at Guantánamo Bay or not. The amount of prisoners that are unjustly being kept behind Guantánamo Bay’s bars, even when a crime has not been proven, is 86. Basically, 86 people are being held in the prison for an indefinite amount of time without having actually committed any crimes that would land them in Guantánamo Bay.

President Barack Obama has pledged twice now that he would close the prison, however he has yet to act on that promise. Guantánamo Bay is a problem that has been addressed, however it still needs to be corrected.

By keeping the prison, we are saying that what they are doing is okay, that we approve or tolerate their use of torture, violation of human dignity, unreasonably extended sentences of prison time for the innocent, and all immoral acts they have committed.

The practices of Guantánamo Bay are wrong, and need to stop. The only way Guantánamo Bay prison will end their immoral and unjust behavior is if they are shut down.

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  • D

    DoritosFeb 14, 2014 at 9:22 pm

    Oh, BTW, good article though. I didn’t mean to be pushy.

     
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  • D

    DoritosFeb 14, 2014 at 9:49 am

    Guantanamo Bay is ancient history, kept off the front pages by an ever loyal liberal media who would do anything to make Obama look good. Obama said he would close it. Obama is either a liar or incompetent. Choose one.

     
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The actions of Guantánamo Bay contradict its motto