The Guantanamo blues

I wish I’d have written this Philadelphia Inquirer editorial.

As Thomas Jefferson wrote, certain basic rights belong to all people simply by virtue of being human. At Gitmo and other “war on terror” prisons, that principle is being trampled. The damage being done to American values in the name of safeguarding American lives may be hard to calculate. But it’s real.

Long before the triple suicide, the sorry saga of Guantanamo called into question whether the White House’s lawless policy on detainees was doing more harm than good to Americans’ security. Gitmo may be a better recruitment tool for al-Qaeda than it is a source of useful intelligence.

It should be beyond debate that it’s wrong for a democracy that extols human rights to hold men indefinitely without charge or due process.

The South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press

Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet