The quote in the title of this post is attributed to Marine Brig. Gen. Michael Lehnert, the first commanding officer at Guantanamo who led Joint Task Force 160.   In a superb article in the Washington Post by Karen J. Greenberg – When Gitmo Was (Relatively) Good – we are told of the events of the first few weeks which led to the nightmare we now know as Guantanamo.  Karen J. Greenberg, the executive director of New York University’s Center on Law and Security, gives us a glimpse into that initial period of Guantanamo’s history.

Attempts by Lehnert to run Guantanamo by the guidelines outlined in the Geneva Convention were thwarted by Donald Rumsfeld who brought in a non-military team to Guantanmo to run a parallel command alongside Lehnert’s.  The former Secretary of Defence was focused on one thing only – gathering intelligence – and was willing to do so by any means necessary, including torture.

“…in late February and early March [2002],  the fabric of prisoner’s rights that Lehnert had woven was beginning to unravel. By the end of February, nearly 200 detainees had mounted a hunger strike to protest their treatment. Interrogations, not trials, had become the future of Guantanamo.”

Greenberg further writes,

“Once Lehnert’s troops departed, a new Guantanamo took shape — the Guantanamo that an appalled world has come to know over the past seven years. Inmates were kept in isolation, interrogation became the core mission, hunger strikers were regularly force-fed, and above all, the promise of a legal resolution to the detainees’ cases has eluded hundreds of prisoners.”

The US had made the decision to forego the rule of law and adopted a new creed which has brought shame to its proud history of justice and moral integrity.

“As Obama moves to close Guantanamo down, the story of Joint Task Force 160 takes on new significance. Had the United States been willing to trust in the professionalism of its superb military, it could have avoided one of the most shameful passages in its history. Lehnert still regrets the legal limbo that Guantanamo became — and the damage that did to America’s “stature in the world.”"

Already, some conservatives are justifying the existence of Guantanmo and claim it to be a key reason in the fact that the US has not been attacked within its borders since 9/11.  To these fools I say – you understand little if any of the history of your country which allowed it to become the superpower it is and, just as important, a moral beacon for the world.

The US, until Guantanamo, had never succumbed to fear nor ignored the moral and legal guidlines which led her to greatness.  The time to end the inhumane and undemocratic treatment of prisoners has come.  John McCain, in calling for the closing of Guantanamo last March, said,

“Our great power does not mean that we can do whatever we want, whenever we want,”