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Guantanamo Bay prison's future divides Senate panel
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Los Angeles Times
Posted: July 31st, 2013
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-guantan...
Sharp disagreement over the future of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp dominated the first Senate hearing on the issue in four years. The meeting [on July 24] of a Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee, held in the wake of a high-profile hunger strike by inmates ... made clear that deep partisan divisions remain over whether keeping the prison open is a threat to national security or a necessity. Opened at a U.S. Navy base in Cuba in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack, Guantanamo was established by President George W. Bush to hold detainees suspected of connections to global terrorism organizations. Allegations of abuse and torture of inmates have led to repeated calls for Guantanamo's closure, and Obama has campaigned twice on the issue, though Congress has passed repeated measures to keep the prison open. Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), who is chairman of the panel, urged Congress to support Obama's efforts, which would end the indefinite detention of prisoners without trial and either release them or charge them in American courts. "The risk of keeping it open far outranks the risk of closing it." Retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, who trained the Iraqi armed forces from 2003 to 2004, testified that by continuing to violate human rights and American law, the practices at Guantanamo proved more harmful to the U.S. national security interests. "Guantanamo is a terrorist-creating organization," he said to a reporter after the hearing. "It's a terrific recruiting tool."
Note: Whether or not detainees were truly terrorists before they were imprisoned at Guantanamo, how do you think they feel about the US government after years there? You have to wonder if this isn't being done to create terrorists, just as many prisons become training grounds for criminals.
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