Sunday, December 9, 2018

6177 Days....

That is how long Guantanamo has been open. Sixteen years, ten months and 28 days. Andy Worthington, our Gitmo historian, comments on the time these men have spent in prison ( i am reporting this two days later which is why the number of days has fluctuated from Andy's.

When I first volunteered to represent a man at Guantanamo (first one man and then a few months later I took on another client-- my second client still remains at Guantamamo) I remember discussing the probono project with a few of my friends and I naively thought that my representation would last about a year. That was in 2005. Unfortunately I was way off the mark on that one!

Unfortuantely, I had not come to terms with just how cruel and lawless my country had become (yes, my country has had a long history of lawlessness). Depite our lawless past the detention of these men and the positions taken by our justice department were still shocking to me. Now, nothing my country does shocks me as I watch every day with horror the new lows we continue to reach.

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