There is a frantic search going on in and around the Pentagon these past few days. President elect Obama served notice some time ago on Guantanamo. The search is on for feasible and practical solutions to the problem of what to do with several hundred prisoners, held without charge, some of them for over five years, in conditions unacceptable by any standards of civilised policing, the significant majority of these detainees having been tried in no internationally recognised court. There is also for the Pentagon and those allied with US policy, the political problem of now trying to justify such blatant abuse of human rights and international standards for the treatment of prisoners. Because such an orchestrated closing down process will inevitably expose the brutal systemic cruelty inflicted on hundreds of detainees by means of which a major modern democracy set out to defend democratic rights and liberties. That is not only ironic – it is morally embarrassing and disabling to such a severe degree that its future consequences for political and diplomatic integrity are incalculable. If democracy can only defend itself by brutalising others, just what is it that is being defended? And why should anyone ever again trust the leaders of the "free world" (sic), enough to call them friends?
I want to reflect on this more fully, both theologically and ethically in another post, probably tomorrow. Advent scriptures abound with the cry of prisoners for liberation, are interrupted by howls of prayer and protest against the oppressor, and make much of the encroaching threat of darkness, and of the fatal threat to darkness of the surely coming light.
As a Christian, a citizen of the UK, a beneficiary of a democratic way of life which for all its shortcomings confers certain rights and privileges, and as a representative of "the West", I look on Gunatanamo with deep shame, and a deep felt urge to repentance.
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