Guantanamo Bay

Ok, I admit it: I picked up this month’s issue of Vanity Fair because of the cover story on Viggo Mortensen. I’ve enjoyed the Lord of the Rings movies so much that I’m eager for any little tidbit of information about them. (Although, frankly, the appendices on the DVD’s themselves are much more interesting than anything I’ve seen in print.) Nevertheless, I actually began to read the magazine, not for that article, but rather for David Rose’s article on the detainees and conditions at Guantanamo Bay. I’ve been distressed by the US government’s actions at Guantanamo for a long time, and this article only reiterates the many, many reasons why Americans who care about the rule of law, due process, justice, and yes, the free expression of religion, ought to be outraged by what is going on there. Some small notes from the article include the reality that there have been so many suicides and attempted suicides that the base has “reclassified” such attempts as “manipulative self-injurious behavior,” rather than deal with the conditions that are producing such widespread depression in the captives. Or consider this: the Muslim chaplain, Yousef Yee, was arrested in September on charges of mishandling classified documents and not replaced. Instead his responsibilities now devolve upon the head chaplain, a man named Colonel Steve Feehan, a self described “conservative Southern Baptist” who is quoted by Rose as believing, among other things, that “I believe the Bible is literally true, yes. The world was created in seven days… Without believing in and accepting Christ, without faith, you cannot be redeemed… it’s impossible.” Some other interesting factoids, hard for the author to uncover since reporters are barred from speaking to captives, and the detainees’ names and reasons for arrest are also classified. From what has been gathered, it appears that there are people being held there “from Afghanistan and the Islamic states of Asia and the Middle East, as well as people from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Almost 85 percent are between 20 and 40; there are three juveniles, the youngest 13.”Perhaps even more damning is the author’s conclusion — based on conversations with military specialists — that there is very little useful “intelligence” being “produced” there, and even the rules of military law are not being followed.I doubt that these people are very high on anybody’s priority list right now, politically, least of all our presidential contenders, but I can’t help believing that the way we treat the “least of these” demonstrates how we meet Christ. Some of the organizations who are actively seeking to change what’s going on there include Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. I think the Center for the Victims of Torture (and let’s be honest, that’s what’s going on at Guantanamo) is also a great resource.