In all the media hoopla over particular abuses and instances of torture at the American gulag at Guantanamo Bay, one important issue has gone unmentioned, until today. As the Washington Post reports today, “the fact remains that although one has been promised, no independent military, Pentagon or other body has yet published an extensive investigation into the multiple accounts of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay.’
Every claim by the Bush Administration that everything at Guantanamo Bay is just fine, is nothing more than an assertion without proof. Many of the Bush Administration’s claims have been proven to be absolutely false. So, when Bush Administration officials make statements about what is and what is not happening at Guantamo Bay, we’re all being asked to take their word at it – blind faith with a bad reputation for being dishonest.
As the American people are being asked to give their moral support, along with billions of dollars of financial backings for Bush’s system of secret prisons for people he calls “evildoers”, blind trust in the assurances of government spokespeople is not enough. We deserve a complete, uncensored report on an independent, full-access investigation of Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and all the other prisons maintained by the Bush Administration around the world.
If the Bush Administration continues to be unwilling to provide such information to the American people about these prisons, that is in itself sign enough that he can be trusted to wage his shadowy “war on evil” no longer.
If you don’t understand why the Bush regime doesn’t investigate their own policies regarding Guantanamo Bay, Abu Graib,et al, or for that matter, why ANYONE in the government is unwilling to take on the task, then I will spell it out for you: In ANY totalitarian regime, there must be an outside threat. Without a threat, there remains no reason for the people to tolerate the loss of civil liberties; the loss of which (while the threat is in place) the people are willing to tolerate in the somewhat nebulous name of “Security” (National Security, Homeland Security, Reich Security, People’s Security…They are all the same). Whenever civil liberties are ousted, or even begin to take a backseat to Security, you have the beginnings of a totalitarian government. Usually, the more moderate of the political leadership will feel afraid to speak out for fear of hearing that well-known question,”Just whose side are YOU on? OURS or THEIRS??” When one couples this political climate with other repressive measures, such as restrictions on free speech, severe firearms restrictions, detention in “security facilities” without due process, or even warrants….well, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims and flies like a duck, I’m not gonna call it a moose…