Wednesday, December 05, 2007
High court probes Guantanamo prisoners' rights
The issue of Guantanamo Bay and prisoners' rights is in the news again. On Wednesday, the constitutionality of how the prisoners were detained without a right to trial, some with little knowledge of what they were being held for was disussed. The Bus administration has been holding fast to the fact that this is what needs to be done, it is a "new style war on terror". Further, they have been claiming that the situation now is better than it was in the past, with war prisoners having more rights now that for example during the World Wars. This was on terror has seen prisoners' rights be affected, but so have the rights of individual US citizens. Are you willing to give up one right for the right of security? Are you willing to be silenced in order to maintain peace? Should you be suspicious or accepting of an administration that slowly undermines civil rights, whether of war prisoners or citizens "for your own good"?
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3 comments:
The price of security is sometimes free speech because protecting human life comes at a cost. The prisoners have been detained in such a way in order to protect our right of security. However, I dont think that remaining silent about such courses of action is always useful. There will come a time when the average citizen may be abused and interrogated 'for the good of the people.' Sometimes the government can go too far. With that said, how do we know its too far? What happens if we try to maintain the prisoners rights and end up causing injury to the general public in some way?
I think that this issue demonstrates one way in which the current administration could be considered idiotic. It is impossible to know whether or not the government is going to far because as always they have "information" we as the public do not.
That said i think another interesting point is that while our government considers it "torture" to hold the detainees in Guantanamo Bay, without sufficient health care or air conditioning, there seems to be no problem in water boarding them. Also, these prisoners, who we are told are important terrorists, receive better more comprehensive health care than almost a third of Americans. How does that make any sense?
The Guantanamo Bay situation reminds me of the book, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The people of the book were so brain washed by society and government, no one thought for themselves. They even took pills to feel certain ways on a daily basis. Before they were born, it was decided what they would be, what social class they would live in, etc. This may seem like a stretch from today's society, but not if our government continues to keep the US public in the dark. The public gets no information on the prisoners in G.Bay-we're told, "everything's fine" and "it's for your own safety". I agree that we have a president and his council to decide things for the good of the country, but without free speech, there is no good of the country.
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