The right-wing hype machine, led by the hardheaded, vicious former Vice-President Dick Cheney, plus the racist Rush Limbaugh and his fellow bigoted conservative talkshow hosts, is on a jihad to convince the American people that it is better to hold prisoners of the War on Terror on a small American rented plot of land in Cuba, than here in the United States.
America’s base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is the last vestige of America’s colonial past. The base is American territory on the tip of the island of Cuba. America is there under a perpetual lease, a pliant Cuban government made after the Spanish American War made Cuba a nation independent of Spanish control.
The other American enclave created by a sweetheart lease deal was the Panama Canal Zone, born out of American pressure on Columbia to allow President Teddy Roosevelt to build a canal. When President Roosevelt didn’t get what he wanted, mysteriously a revolution occurred that created the nation of Panama, which gave the United States all that it wanted.
The Panama Canal is now Panamanian territory, thanks to a treaty worked out by President Jimmy Carter.
But Guantanamo remains American territory, home to a navy and marine base. After the start of the War on Terror, Guantanamo also became site of a prison to hold those captured during the war.
When President George W. Bush, Cheney and his crowd were running things, they wanted it both ways. They legitimately wanted to hold the top terrorist leaders and soldiers captured in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere without trial. In effect keeping them on ice, in legal limbo, while finding ways to make them talk.
The Bush/Cheney crowd did their job very well. But in doing so they violated the rule of law – American and international.
In war it’s acceptable to take prisoners of war who are held, under humane conditions, until the conclusion of the war. Then they are released.
This is what happened in past wars. Under the Geneva Convention governing prisoners of war, they’re not to be placed on trial. They’re not supposed to be tortured.
Bush/Cheney and their henchmen adhered to the first part of the Geneva Convention, while repeatedly violating the prohibition against torture.
Now comes President Barack Obama. He knows that world opinion hates the idea of America holding prisoners in the Guantanamo detention camp. Both the president and countries overseas wanted America to live up to its ideals and past practices.
The terrorists, our enemies, routinely use America’s use of Guantanamo and illegal use of abuse and torture of prisoners as recruiting tools to enlist more young men and women to kill Americans.
In that context is why President Obama, early in his administration, publicly said that he would close the Guantanamo detention center, and presumably move the prisoners of the War on Terror to American soil.
That’s when all hell broke loose.
The rabid right wing Republicans, using their skillful use of the propaganda machine of radical, bigoted one-sided radio hosts and egged on by the unbalanced Fox News Network, are aiming to convince Americans that the president is shipping “terrorists” next door to American families.
What bunk!
Any terrorist prisoners would be held in America’s Federal “Super Max” prisons. These are modern maximum security facilities, stronger and more secure than Alcatraz. No one escaped from the Rock in San Francisco Bay and no one’s escaped from a Federal “super max” prison.
But the Cheney/Limbaugh scare tactics have Americans convinced that it’s wrong to have “terrorists” among our midst.
But, Americans also have short, short memories.
We’ve forgotten that the most notorious terrorist before the 9/11 attacks was held right here in Indiana.
Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 in the Oklahoma City bombing, was a terrorist who was held at the Federal prison in Terre Haute, IN until he was executed on June 11, 2001.
Americans have forgotten that German and Japanese prisoners were held in camps on American soil during World War II. Americans have forgotten that some of the terrorists responsible for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center were convicted and are serving life sentences in prisons on the American mainland.
President Obama is correct to close the Guantanamo prison and move the prisoners or detainees to “Super Max” Federal prisons in the United States. Those who we have evidence showing they committed the heinous 9/11 crimes should be brought to justice, either in an American court, or the International Tribunal in the Netherlands.
We’re in a war. Let’s fight it the way Presidents Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan and the first Bush did – legally and with moral honor!
What I’m Hearing
in the Streets
Usually around this time of year, local media would be awash with stories about Indianapolis’ blazing homicide rate. But not this year.
The facts are that homicides in Indianapolis/Marion County are far down – sharply.
For the year, through May 22nd, there has been just 35 homicides in the city/county. At that time last year (Jan 1-May 22) there were 45 homicides. That’s a decrease of 22.2 percent. The drop is more pronounced comparing 2009 with 2007. In the same period in 2007 there were 50 homicides compared to the 35 this year. That is a 30 percent drop.
The homicide decline is fueled by a sharp drop in Black homicides. So far this year, just 21 Blacks have been murdered in Indianapolis. Compare that to the 32 Blacks killed at this time last year; or the 29 Blacks killed at this time in 2007. Declines of 34.4 percent and 27.6 percent respectively.
The 34.4 percent drop in Black homicides is encouraging, even though no one knows the reason for the decline, especially in a time of high unemployment.
Speaking of unemployment, we won’t know for another month whether the drop in unemployment for April in Indianapolis/Marion County is an aberration or the beginning that the city/county’s has reached bottom in the number of jobless.
Figures from the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics and Indiana’s Department of Workforce Development reported that in April, Indianapolis/Marion County’s unemployment was 8.8 percent, down from the record 9.3 percent in March.
Black unemployment is still estimated to be between 15 percent and 18 percent here.
The state’s April unemployment was 9.9 percent, down from the record 10.0 percent in March. Compared with other Midwestern states, Indiana now has the third highest unemployment in the Midwest after Michigan (12.9 percent) and Ohio (10.2 percent).
See ‘ya next week!
Amos Brown’s opinions are not necessarily those of the Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper. You can contact him at (317) 221-0915 or by e-mail at ACBROWN@AOL.COM.
