11 January 2012

Guantanamo: A shameful anniversary

Today, January 11, 2012, marks the 10th anniversary of the arrival of the first prisoners to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In 2009, just two days after taking office, President Obama issued an executive order calling for the Guantanamo prison to be closed. Three years later, we're still waiting for that to happen - with no closure in sight.

Today, some 171 prisoners remain there, denied their right to due process. And it remains a black mark on our record in the U.S.-led "war on terror".

Osama bin Laden may be dead, but he has succeeded in exposing the U.S. hypocrisy on human rights through the overreactions of the Bush and Obama administrations and Congress.

As I've written before, it seems that the "war on terror" has become a war on human rights. And that can only make us less safe, not more so.

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