Source: Center for Budget and Policy Priorities

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Once again from The Daily Dish: 

Abraham Lincoln’s General Orders, 100 Instructions for the government of the armies of the United States in the field. 

“Military necessity does not admit of cruelty–that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions.”

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago. 

“To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good . . . Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes, so that he won’t hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilization; the Nazis, by race, and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations.

The Daily Dish points out a “factual account of who was seized and imprisoned at Gitmo”.

Andy Worthington: The Definitive Prisoner List

Key Points

1. “At least 93 percent of the 779 men and boys imprisoned in total — were either completely innocent people, seized as a result of dubious intelligence or sold for bounty payments, or Taliban foot soldiers, recruited to fight an inter-Muslim civil war that began long before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and that had nothing to do with al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or international terrorism.”
2. “Overall, as it stood at December 31, 2009, 574 prisoners had been released from Guantánamo (532 under Bush, 42 under Obama), one — Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani — had been transferred to the US mainland to face a federal court trial, six had died, and 198 remained. “

Sullivan also points to an article by Stuart Taylor in the Atlantic to debunk many of the assertions that continue to be made by those who support Guantánamo and the use of torture. There is no doubt that there is a dangerous enemy and it remains a primary responsibility of government to be ever vigilant. However, there were dangerous enemies before and there will be dangerous enemies again. They will become more clever or utilize ever more exotic techologies. It is the nature of the human condition. Why is it necessary to create false information to enhance fear, or to abandon core principles for the purpose of expediency?* This is not an exhibition of sound leadership, or strength in the face of an enemy, but the actions of scared men.

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* Simple act of “due process”  which traces back to English Common Law and the Magna Carta in 1215.