Closing Gitmo Won't End Bushlag Archipelago

Token gesture is political stunt and a drop in the ocean - By Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Jun. 21, 2006

Exactly four months ago this website reported the following.

"Developments over the past few days indicate that the Bush administration may be on the verge of announcing the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. If this happens it will be a token political gesture and the worldwide torture and rendition program will not cease."

Certain quarters of the media and global humanitarian groups are heralding the stand down of George W. Bush after he gave a speech outlining US plans to close down Guantanamo Bay. Here is a list of things closing Gitmo won't end as the post-9/11 mentality Bushlag Archipelago thunders on.

- Closing Gitmo won't end the existence of countless secret CIA prisons in former Soviet gulags in Eastern Europe and the policy of firing anybody who blows the whistle about them.

- Closing Gitmo won't aid the plight of 70-90% of Iraqis who are arrested, hooded, and thrown into prison camps for the crime of not showing their papers at checkpoints.

- Closing Gitmo doesn't answer why the US government has a penchant for torturing innocents while releasing known terrorists.

- Closing Gitmo will not stop an estimated 1000 detainees a month who are being tortured to death in Iraq, according to former UN human rights chief dropped John Pace.

- Closing Gitmo won't bring to justice the architects of the worldwide Copper Green torture policy immediately following the war on Afghanistan.

- Closing Gitmo won't put a stop to the global rendition policy whereby the US government uses European countries as a halfway house before shipping accused terrorists to countries where torture is commonplace.

Closing Gitmo does nothing to offset that fact that, as the London Guardian reported, Afghanistan is "one huge US jail," and "the hub of a global network of detention centres, the frontline in America's 'war on terror', where arrest can be random and allegations of torture commonplace."