The shame of Gitmo
Re “America’s legal black hole,” Opinion, Oct. 5
Reading Clive Stafford Smith’s article on Guantanamo Bay has left me outraged at how our government has taken and is treating its prisoners, and ashamed at how it is displaying to the world our hypocrisy and our slippery fall into human cruelty.
Others used to look up to us as a beacon of human liberty and justice, values we embedded in our Constitution and Bill of Rights. At Guantanamo, we are trampling these values underfoot and, by our own standards, are traitors to our democratic American conscience.
Our forefathers came to this continent to escape all kinds of repressive, autocratic and tyrannical systems, and we all recognize human injustice when we see it.
Kudos to Smith for reminding us what the ageless tools of tyranny -- secrecy and the appeal to national fear -- have created at Guantanamo.
How can we continue to abide complicity in this blot on our heritage and on our role as a model of freedom and human?
Peter W. Knoles
Los Olivos, Calif.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
