Am I Not Human: Guantana-Close

By Jose Vilson | January 27, 2009

Am I Not Human: Guantana-Close

By Jose Vilson | January 27, 2009
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Guantanamo Bay, the Parody

Guantanamo Bay, the Parody

This morning on NY1, I saw some random meeting between some of the families of 9/11, and, when they were asked about President Obama’s closing (essentially) of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, they were outraged, OUTRAGED, and wanted them tried immediately. While I sympathize with their point of view about 9/11, I also have to wonder if they can get past the myopia and noticed that, like most Americans, they’ve been hosed.

Imagine having 775 hostages (because the word “detainees” sounds like the US government was following the Geneva Conventions to the letter, and it wasn’t) who were allegedly enemy combatants in a camp somewhere in Cuba, and very few people had any idea when any of them would be tried or whether any of them were even going to live. Our country just kept them there and whenever they felt like it, you released them. And they did it with all the money they needed because it would a) show the Muslim world that our country means business and b) they can and no one’s going to stop them.

I don’t know about you, but to say that the logic of having those hostages contained (in a foreign land, mind you) is akin to refrigerating a rotten egg: a reactive solution to a pre-existing problem. If we’re saying that the 775 original hostages or prisoners of war were guilty as sin, then why were 505 of them released through May ’08? Why were only three of them actually convicted of anything? Why, then, if they are just detained, did we decide to let them rot there when, upon release, they’ll be even more invigorated and create even more soldiers when they go back to their respective countries?

Now, I’m not saying that the detainees were innocent men (seems like there are no women in there). I just know that, as far as 9/11 is concerned, I just think that the families are sniffing up the wrong trees (or forest in this case) when it comes to finding who helped blow up the buildings. Rather than demand for answers from those hostages, they should demand answers from the ex-Commander-in-Chief who’s preferred corporate interest over true peace in the Middle East, who planted troops for private infantry than any actual fighting, and who used all that money we now so desperately need for this tomfoolery.

Or for that matter, why your families were used as the “image” of the average suffering American, but when it came time for answers, those using your images never really responded. I’m glad we’re getting rid of Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp; maybe we can focus on the prisons in the United States first.

Jose, who doesn’t always advocate for the devil …


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