A Political Speech on Guantanamo Bay - Essay Example

In the guise of national security, we seek to inflict pain and torture on the prisoners to extract what "-information to justify their presence in camps like Guantanamo Bay in Cuba" As POW's, these men are the mere forgotten and dispensable "soldiers-made-puppets" of another ambitious man wielding a form of power. These men are ordinary humans just like every American soldier we send to battle. They had homes and families who took care of them before being uprooted to fight for a cause and we are slowly draining them of their capacity to lead normal lives.

Like spectators in a barbaric show of strength, we take pride in stripping them of the last vestiges of sanity. Instead of nurturing these men to erase possible traces of hate, we are evoking the primal instinct of man to fight back and defend. We try to insult a person's faith and his right to religion and what do we have to offer in returnWe are engaged in endless arguments over the prisoners in Guantanamo yet at the moment, we can never prove which side speaks the truth regarding the actual treatment and legalities for such.

The government has invoked the right to "permissive interrogation techniques". The Geneva Convention of 1949 clearly defines a different provision for the treatment of prisoners of war. Yet morally, we have an obligation to treat these prisoners in a civil way. Our fight against terror would be more convincing if we all learn to show an example to the whole world how civilized people should react in the same circumstance. Different nationalities have regarded America as a civilized society of freedom-loving people.

A civilized society adapts its own knowledge to accept a person regardless of his ancestry and belief. We shall not have a separate perception of justice for every group of people. We need to treat each person fairly regardless of his faults and failures. In our quest for peace let us all close our eyes and imagine, just simply imagine that our well-loved brother or father; or maybe a friend; or perhaps even boyfriend or husband has been held prisoner of war. He has been there for several months or even years and we couldn't even reach out to him; we couldn't even murmur some words of assurance for the hunger pangs that he might feel and the solitude that continues to haunt him day by day; we would've like to touch him because we missed him so much and that we are more than thankful that he is alive and that someday the time would come when we would all be reunited" (pause) For only then would we be able to accept all these possibilities and thereby treat each person the way they should be treated.

Thank you!