By SJ Otto
It is not surprising to hear that Representative
Mike Pompeo (R-KS) has encouraged the US Joint Chiefs of Staff to deliberately
defy President Barack Obama's policy to shut down the Guantanamo Bay
concentration camp.
Pompeo is probably the most pro-military,
pro-imperialist pro-war congress person ever elected to represent the people of
the fourth district of Kansas. If a Democrat had made such a suggestion he
would be accused of treason, but Pompeo is a Republican and they seem to be
treated as "above the law" here in Kansas .
In a letter to the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US
military Pompeo
said:
“As the urgency of the
threat presented by Islamic extremism grows, we cannot afford to have the
commander-in-chief issue executive orders in direct contravention of laws that
he enacted,” Pompeo said in a statement. “I encourage the Joint Chiefs of Staff
carry out an exhaustive legal review before implementing any executive order
transferring these dangerous terrorists to the United States. ”
Pompeo is using the same fear tactics employed by the former
President George W. Bush when he instituted the Guantanamo Bay
camps. This camp is one of the worst examples of human rights violations every
committed by politicians of this country. Guantánamo,
G-bay or GTMO, was established on Guantánamo
Bay in Cuba.
At the time of its establishment in January 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld said the prison camp was 'established to detain
extraordinarily dangerous people, to interrogate detainees in an optimal
setting, and to prosecute detainees for war crimes.' However,
The Bush administration asserted that detainees were not entitled to any of the
protections of the Geneva Conventions. Because of this action the facility
became a place to just warehouse the prisoners without trial, in cages that
resembled dog pens. Bush called these prisoners of war "enemy combatants,"
even though these were mostly military soldiers who attempted to defend their
countries from a US
invasion. Bus stripped them of any rights normally regarded to prisoners of
war, insisting these were dangerous criminals and terrorists (a term that is in
reality a propaganda label). He also stripped them of any human rights or
dignity. He treated them more like rabid animals than human beings. This camp
was an embarrassing blight on America
and many progressive people and human rights activists wanted it closed down.
Even serial killers in the US are given trials and lawyers.
Even the worst Nazi prisoners of World War II were treated as prisoners of war
and given trials. Bush was trying to dehumanize anyone who got in his way of
"nation building," which was a fancy way of saying this country had
the right to conquer other countries and create puppet governments designed to
serve US political, economical and military interests. This was blatant
imperialism and the creation of colonies in both Iraq
and Afghanistan . In a 2005 Amnesty International report,
the facility was called the "Gulag of
our times."
When President Barack Obama was elected, he vowed to close Guantanamo Bay , but he never fully did that. He has
kept the facility in operation for a few prisoners that no country wants back
and politicians in states, such as Kansas ,
have blocked sending these prisoners to a regular prison. Kansas has several such prisons, such as
Lansing Correctional Facility. There is no reason these people would pose any
safety issues in a regular US
prison. Progressives and activists have demanded that Guantanamo be closed down, but those demands
have been ignored.
These prisoners should either be released or put in a regular
prison so Guantanamo
Bay can be closed down
for good.
Pompeo is a jingoistic war monger and he has set himself up
as an accomplice to war crimes. Guantanamo
Bay was a violation of
human rights and in setting it up President Bush was a war criminal. Pompeo is
also traitor to his own government and he deserves to be kicked out of
Congress. With his crew of jingoistic veterans, we can only expect Pompeo to
ignore the rule of law as he seems to feel military persons are above the law.
This also highlights the policy of US
imperialism, the idea that the US
has a divine right to intervene in other country's affairs to make sure resources,
such as oil, are readily available to the US , in spite of what ever needs the
local people in the Middle-east have. It means that the US has a right
to decide what kinds of governments people in other parts of the world can
have, not what the local people want. It means blatant military domination of
other countries and the theft of resources.
This is a policy we really
need to oppose. Pompeo is a traitor to US democracy!
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