At least a few people object to our nation as it continues to imprison residents of the USA who happen to be Moslem or of Arab descent. In response to the September 11 attacks, we now hold and interrogate in county jails and state and federal prisons over 1,000 persons without benefit of serious criminal charges, without any trial of those charges, and with no access to assistance from an attorney. Indeed, these persons have been allowed little or no contact with family, friends or religious counselors. Authorities don’t even acknowledge the names of persons we have imprisoned. It is for this kind of imprisonment and isolation which the USA has loudly criticized the Soviet Union, Bosnia, Latin American countries and China in recent years.
A recent letter to the editor referred to this imprisonment and interrogation as “an inconvenience” for those imprisoned. I dare say that the writer of that letter would probably lose her or his sanity after a mere two weeks of such inconvenience, much less the two months the victims of this practice have experienced, with no end in sight. At best, jails and prisons are emotionally traumatic for the inmates. At their worst, they can be physically dangerous.
If we in the USA are going to engage in this harsh treatment of persons based upon their religion or ethnic background, let us at least own up to that harsh treatment in the name of national security, self-defense or whatever. We must guard against the self-delusion which causes us to think of imprisonment and interrogation as an “inconvenience.”
Monroe
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