Ray McGovern: The Deepening Shame of Guantanamo
from Consortium News:
The Deepening Shame of Guantanamo
May 13, 2013
Exclusive: For more than a decade, the Guantanamo Bay prison has been a blot on Americas conscience. President Obama vowed to close it but acceded to congressional demands to keep it open. Now, an emerging humanitarian crisis a mass hunger strike is drawing only scant attention, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
By Ray McGovern
There have been nine congressional hearings on the Benghazi controversy with more to come but almost no one in Congress dares put the spotlight on the unfolding scandal surrounding the Guantanamo Bay prison where most of the remaining 166 inmates have opted to escape from indefinite detention via the only way open to them starving themselves to death.
One exception to the congressional cowardice is Rep. Jim Moran, D-Virginia, who sponsored a highly instructive panel discussion on the prison at Guantanamo last Friday. Why simply a briefing, rather than a formal House hearing? Simple. Not one of the majority Republicans who currently chair committees in the House and have the power to call hearings wants Americans to hear the details of this blight on the nations conscience.
To be completely fair, the reigning reluctance seems, actually, to be a bipartisan affair. Moran is one of the few Democrats possessed of a conscience and enough moral courage to let the American people know what is being done in their name. For other lawmakers, it is a mite too risky.
Folksy folks like Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, a member of the Armed Services Committee which is supposed to exercise oversight of the lethal operations carried out by the Joint Special Operations Command, make no bones about the dilemma they prefer to duck when it comes to letting detainees die at Guantanamo or letting the president blow up suspected terrorists via drone strikes. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://consortiumnews.com/2013/05/13/the-deepening-shame-of-guantanamo/