Gantanamo/It's hurting the U.S. cause (hearing on Wed on this)

[rodeodance]

http://www.startribune.com/stories/561/5455274.html

Last update: June 13, 2005 at 7:19 PM
Editorial: Guantanamo/It's hurting the U.S. cause
June 14, 2005 ED0614

As more than 500 prisoners languish indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay and new accounts of torture find their way to the press, the Bush administration has found itself increasingly on the defensive -- to the extent of parsing why the prison should not be called a "gulag" and explaining that the prisoners are "bad people ... terrorists for the most part."

On the defensive is exactly where the administration belongs, because no one has succeeded in justifying the flouting of core U.S. values, laws and the Constitution -- in the name of protecting them.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is planning a hearing on Wednesday. It should first explore the facts, and then evaluate the Guantanamo issue in terms of both principles and pragmatism. In other words, is what we're doing in Guantanamo right -- and is it working?

Absent much better reasoning than anyone has given yet, the answers will be no and no.

Let's take principles first. High on the list of American values is the rule of law. Indeed, when leaders talk of freedom, that's what they're generally referring to. Yet at Guantanamo Bay, prisoners are held in secret, without being charged and without benefit of trial. Occurrences of torture have been documented, including in a secret interrogation log recently obtained by Time magazine.
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