Guantanamo again

Just a couple more things 'celebrating' the detention camp's fifth anniversary...

In the Financial Times: Guantánamo inmates ‘driven insane’:

Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney for the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, says the five years of the Bush administration’s detention policy and related practices may have “done more to reverse 200 years of democracy than any other government act in US history”.

In The Nation: Gitmo Turns Five:

Guantánamo should not be viewed in isolation but as part of a larger regime fundamentally at odds with American law and values. The detention system at Guantánamo operates according to the same fundamental principles that led to Jose Padilla's three-and-a-half-year imprisonment, without charge, in a South Carolina naval brig under conditions so horrific that Padilla may no longer be competent to stand trial.
...As they seek to repair the damage and recast the future, America's leaders should look beyond the last five years at Guantánamo and remember the commitment to justice that made this country great for more than two centuries. The question is not whether America should imprison terrorists. It is whether America will treat all accused persons consistently with its Constitution and values.

(links via Cursor)