This week we discovered
60 teenagers - some as young as 14 - have been secretly kept at Guantánamo for the past 4 years. Since they haven't been charged, it's technically kidnapping - and now we know
our government kidnaps actual kids.
This month the European Union, the United Nations, and Britain's attorney general Lord Goldsmith have all condemned the Guantánamo Bay prison and demanded that it be closed. So have Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Jimmy Carter. So of course our Democratic leaders have taken a stand on this important issue.
At Google News, Democrat+Guantánamo was slim pickings at first, but finally there was Senator Obama, daring to stand up and say what every Democrat is thinking. Finally we know what this party stands for on security, freedom, and the "War on Terror". Read below the fold.
In the current New Yorker piece
Can the Dems Do It?, we hear Obama loud and clear:
Senator Barack Obama and I were talking about Senator Russell Feingold and his desire to make issues like N.S.A. wiretapping and Guantánamo Bay a central part of the Democratic platform. Obama, who is pretty liberal, said, We have to go gently. Of course, we're Democrats and we'll do it differently when we get in power. But Americans feel good about their country and they don't want to be told, over and over, that their country is a failure.
The silence of the other Democrats - except Feingold of course - tracks this perfectly. But no issue could be more important to our security than our treatment of people in places like Guantánamo.
YearlyKos is our chance to hold incumbents accountable and tell them our priorities. Let's tell Democrats they couldn't be more misguided, self-defeating, or life-threatening than when they ape the Republicans' silence on this issue.