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A Prison That Stains US Moral Authority

An editorial in The Independent sums up perfectly all that is wrong with Gitmo and what is going on there.

"The barbed wire fences of Guantánamo's infamous Camp X-Ray have been reclaimed by tropical vegetation and the detainees have been released from their steel shackles. But, as our series of special reports this week highlights, there are still 176 men held in custody in open defiance of the rule of law at the US naval base in Cuba where they have little hope of release. Their continuing detention, eight months after Barack Obama's self-imposed deadline for closing the camps, is an ongoing affront to international law and critically weakens America's moral authority.

That authority was further undermined this week when the US administration resumed the hearings of the discredited military commissions which ensure American soldiers, sailors and airmen sit in judgment on those accused of war crimes against America. The first case to be tried under the new commissions is that of child soldier Omar Khadr, who was 15 years old when he was accused of throwing a grenade which killed a US serviceman in Afghanistan in 2002. Mr Khadr's trial has been condemned by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, who stress that it is America which has led the world in recognising that children caught in war zones in Africa must be treated as victims and not combatants."

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