President Barack Obama recently spoke to the nation about a hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay. "I don't want these individuals to die," he said, but some of more than 100 prisoners on the hunger strike will die. Meanwhile, President Obama has lacked the political will to close the facility as he promised he would do five years ago.
The United Nations called on the U.S. government "... to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities ... and to refrain from any practice amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. ..." This prison is recognized around the world as a place of shameful torture and as evidence of the United States' disregard for international law.
As long as Guantanamo Bay remains open, it shows the world that we have become like those we abhor and will serve as a recruitment tool for extremists with deep hatred against our country.
Although there are many to blame for this open wound on the face of our nation beginning with former President George W. Bush, President Obama and Congress, we should not exempt ourselves if we haven't lifted our voices in protest. Rabbi Abraham Heschel, a Jewish philosopher and theologian reminds us: "In regard to cruelties committed in the name of a free society, some are guilty, while all are responsible."
Rev. Rich Broderick
Cambridge