Tag Archive for Guantanamo

So, What’s With Torture?

June is Torture Awareness Month. It happens throughout the world, carried out by many governments, including our own. We can be shocked by it while still condoning it. Even in fraternity houses, where torture is a right of passage into the brotherhood. (Like with the young man who was put into a cold area, sprayed with cold water, and made to drink gallons of water–to the point of hypothermia.)

It’s obviously against U.S. law and morality to torture people we want to get information out of.  Yet the art of torture has been perfected over the decades in places like Guantanamo. Obviously our nation must stop this inhumane practice.

We can still get what we want, though.  Just send prisoners to college and make them rush a fraternity.  The fraternity hazing process will achieve our government’s ends but not really be torture.  After all, unlike torture, hazing is all in good fun.  And if it goes a tad too far, well, we all know that boys will be boys. Or so the thinking goes.

We can still get what we want, though.  Just send prisoners to college and make them rush a fraternity.  The fraternity hazing process will achieve our government’s ends but not really be torture.  After all, unlike torture, hazing is all in good fun.  And if it goes a tad too far, well, we all know that boys will be boys. Or so the thinking goes.

Torture is torture. It’s wrong, immoral, cruel, not a game, and yields no good.

A Tortured Anniversary

Saturday is an anniversary worth taking note of: 12 years ago on Jan. 11 the first prisoners arrived at Guantanamo Bay.  It’s still operating 5 years after the executive order that should have closed it.

Why is this important? Because its existence points to America’s hypocrisy.  That is, we abhor cruelty, lack of due process, and torture when it’s done by others, yet condone it on a daily basis at one of our own prisons.

You have a few days before this anniversary. Please use them to urge President Obama to transfer most of the prisoners out of there—he has the power.  Decreasing the population at Guantanamo is a large step toward its closure…and allows us to hold up our heads again in the world.