Well, that settles that

The U.S. government has investigated the U.S. government and, shockingly, determined that it's not doing anything wrong:

The U.S. military's Guantanamo Bay prison camp currently complies with the Geneva Conventions' standards for humane treatment, a top U.S. Navy officer concluded on Monday in a review ordered by President Barack Obama.

Vice-Admiral Patrick Walsh led a team of investigators on a 13-day visit to inspect the camp at the U.S. naval base in Cuba and said he had found no violations of the Geneva treaties' ban on cruel, humiliating or degrading treatment.

As usual, though, some misinformed malcontents refuse to accept official self-exoneration:

[The Center for Constitutional Rights'] report, "Conditions of Confinement at Guantanamo: Still in Violation of the Law," covers conditions at Guantánamo in January and February 2009 and includes new eyewitness accounts from attorneys and detainees. The authors address continuing abusive conditions at the prison camp, including conditions of confinement that violate U.S. obligations under the Geneva Conventions, the U.S. Constitution and international human rights law.

"The men at Guantánamo are deteriorating at a rapid rate due to the harsh conditions that continue to this day, despite a few cosmetic changes to their routines," said CCR Staff Attorney Pardiss Kebriaei. "They are caught in a vicious cycle where their isolation causes psychological damage, which causes them to act out, which brings more abuse and keeps them in isolation. If they are going to be there another year, or even another day, this has to end."

Despite President Obama’s executive order of January 22, 2009, requiring humane standards of confinement at Guantanamo and conformity with "all applicable laws governing the conditions of such confinement," including the Geneva Conventions, attorneys assert that detainees at Guantanamo have continued to suffer from solitary confinement, psychological abuse, abusive force-feeding of hunger strikers, religious abuse, and physical abuse and threats of violence from guards and Immediate Reaction Force (IRF) teams.

So we're left with a simple choice: we can either trust the U.S. government, which only has our best interests at heart and hasn't lied to us within at least the last 8 picoseconds, or believe some grant-grubbing nogoodniks at the so-called Center for so-called Constitutional Rights.  I think the choice is clear.

This does unavoidably raise one question, though: why does Pardiss Kebriaei hate us for our freedoms?  We can only speculate, but I have to think it's for our freedoms.

Comments

[BrianM]

What kinda unAmerican name is "Pardiss" anyway? Sounds like an Islamofascist to me! Or, at the very least....an Iranian....

[Harold M]

This does unavoidably raise one question, though: why does Pardiss Kebriaei hate us for our freedoms? We can only speculate, but I have to think it's for our freedoms.

A tautologically sound conclusion. It makes a nice complement to the self-exoneration, and the hopeless solipsism of the self-exonerated.

[americalover]

What kind of ignorant xenophobic asshole would ask that kind of question? You're as un-American as they come, Brian. Ironic how the only "hating" going on is by people like you, and John, and others. My Dad, a former marine, and my uncle, who served in the Air Force, can't stand provincial, hate-filled, racist people like you. You're what gives America a bad name. Your ignorance is astounding.

[americalover]

I must admit, I now realize that Brian's un-American and Iranian comment may have been facetious, and that, in fact, he was mocking such sentiments. If so, I retract my comment, and apologize for missing the sarcasm. If the comment was, indeed, meant in earnest, I would stand by my earlier comment.