I've blogged a lot about Guantanamo Bay.  Of course, since the Obama Administration has taken over, the fury over the false imprisonment of many men there has died down significantly, even though their reality has not.  Several months ago I blogged about the problems with Gitmo when Obama began seriously faltering on it's closure.  Among many other things I said:

... with all the controversy surrounding the base there, the government has a large incentive in making sure that nobody finds out that someone might be falsely imprisoned, which explains why so much evidence is not reviewable by a defense.  In fact, many good men who had issues with the tribunals because of this have resigned over it... for the very reason that the evidence in many cases is just that flimsy.

The issue here is that there are both completely innocent, and very guilty people at Guantanamo Bay.  The larger problem is that a strong majority of people have decided to assume that all people there are guilty, and because of that simple (and very wrong) assumption, they have decided to forgo the basic system we have put in place to decide guilt and innocence... a trial.  And because of that base assumption, and the fact that many people have based significant parts of their political careers on that assumption, they will do whatever it takes to keep any contrary evidence hidden.  One of the best cases was of Fouad al-Rabiah.

During his detention in Cuba, he was forced to undergo the entire spectrum of torture that is permitted there (or as some people euphemistically call it... enhanced interrogation methods).  As it turns out, he was completely innocent.  He was guilty, at most, of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Among many of the shocking revelations in the news story about this man (from late last year) was that his interrogators knew he was completely innocent!  Andrew Sullivan points to this quote from the released court record that detailed one of his interrogation sessions:

There is nothing against you. But there is no innocent person here. So, you should confess to something so you can be charged and sentenced and serve your sentence and then go back to your family and country, because you will not leave this place innocent.

I have no words to describe the shame I felt when I read that.  I love my country, and to read about people who do something like this... unilaterally sentencing a man to life in prison merely for refusing to confess to a crime he never committed... making a man choose between his honor and good name or the ability to see his family and the light of day makes me ashamed.  This man was told he had to confess to something (which would more than likely lead to another person being put into the same terrible situation), merely so he could be released, and the political future of someone thousands of miles away could remain intact.

Comparing these actions to those of the Salem Witch Trials, or the Spanish Inquisition are not mere hyperbole... they are exactly comparable.  Confess and you shall be forgiven... resist and you shall be purified by a life in prison.  I suppose we can take a bit of solace in the fact that we don't burn people at the stake any more.

Whether these people are housed in a base in Cuba, or imprisoned somewhere in Illinois does not change their situation, only their zip code.  There are many innocent people there.  We have a system put in place to determine who is guilty and who is innocent.  Until these people are allowed their day in court, where they can challenge their detention... we should all be ashamed.  That people there knowingly imprisoned innocent people is beyond shameful.  It is criminal.