Halt of Prosecutions at Guantanamo

By order of the president, a halt to prosecutions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba has been implemented, and the military commissions of the Bush Administration will be paused to provide an efficient review of the closing process.

Mr. Obama has said during the campaign the military commissions were a failure; if detainees were to be prosecuted, it would be at the hands of a true American justice system, not one that lacks basic protections and tortures detainees. Or as the Bush Administration referred to it, “enhanced interrogation methods.”

This doesn’t come as a surprise, and I’m happy the process has begun. To treat “war criminals” so barbarously truly disheartens me; to deprive them of sleep; to enact religious persecution; to drug them, to sexually degrade them; to apply extreme stressors such as extended solitary confinement; or whatever occurred–it’s ludicrous. Amnesty International said it “hopes that today’s announcement is a sign that the U.S. government will reject, once and for all, the past U.S. policies that have caused so much damage to human rights and the rule of law.” I hope our president can appease me and Amnesty and ban such ill-treatment. He would be doing humankind a great deed.