Guantánamo has gotta go

The detainment center at Guantánamo Bay is shameful. It is cruel, it is unfair, it is unsanctioned. And despite the calls from the international community and from within the U.S. to shut it down, it remains as a horrible blemish of the already-unpopular United States foreign policy.

First off, Cuba hates it. The naval base is situated in land taken from Cuba against its will in a "one-sided treaty," according to the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de la República de Cuba. To the natives, the site stands as a place of aggression and provocation, of violence and crime. Cubans have declared emphatically that "they will not accept any other negotiation concerning this territory illegally occupied unless the unconditional withdrawal of the foreign troops quartered there against Cuba's people will."

Members and groups within the U.S. government have also challenged the legality and humaneness of the prison. In June, according to William Glaberson of The New York Times, the Supreme Court "stripped away the legal premise for the remote prison camp that officials opened six years ago," allowing prisoners to challenge their detainment in federal courts. Granting detainees the right to habeas corpus means "that federal judges will now have the power to check the government’s claims that the 270 men still held there are dangerous terrorists." This highlights the fact that many of the prisoners are there without significant proof of guilt, perhaps being held captive arbitrarily.

Furthermore, the human rights violations absolutely necessitate the cessation of the center. A report from Amnesty International describes the instances of cruelty and torture; prisoners were taken "hooded, shackled and tied down" and have been subjected to high levels of stress and isolation. "Contrary to international standards, the cells have no access to natural light or air, and are lit by fluorescent lighting which is on 24 hours a day and controlled by guards," the report continues, and the government has ignored the "severe psychological impact on detainees" of the stifling, madness-inducing conditions. It's repulsive that now, in the twenty-first century, in the nation that calls itself most civilized, most democratic, that such centers still exist.

But despite all of this, Bush has still failed to shut down the center. According to Steven Lee Myers (also in The New York Times), our president has adopted the view that closing down the center "would involve too many legal and political risks to be acceptable, now or any time soon" and it could "remain open not only for the rest of Mr. Bush’s presidency but also well beyond." Our leaders, then, are continuing to run this center of torture because it would be inconvenient to close it. For a government supposedly built on the preservation of individual rights, it is insulting, even terrifying, to know that an institution like Guantánamo Bay still exists; hopefully, with the promise of change that surrounds the 2008 presidential election, we will see an end to this bastion of inhumanity.