The following is a statement from March Forward!
The right wing is making a big deal out of the fact that five Taliban officials were released to retrieve captured U.S. Army infantryman Bowe Bergdahl.
They shriek: “How many soldiers did they kill?”
The answer is none, actually.
None of them were picked up in battle. In the 12 years they were held in Guantanamo, they were never charged with any crime.
If there was even the smallest bit of evidence that they were connected to attacks that killed U.S. soldiers, wouldn’t they have been charged by the scandalous detention facility already struggling to justify holding its captives?
The five people released were held hostage and tortured for 12 years. But for the right wing, their release, and not this abuse, is the crime against humanity.
Of the 779 people who have been held at Guantanamo, over 600 have been released without the U.S. government being able to find a way to charge them—after years of digging hard for any excuse, through brutality and humiliation.
Guantanamo is considered an illegal torture center by the United Nations. Amidst worldwide disgust, then-candidate Obama said “we’re going to close Guantanamo. And we’re going to restore habeas corpus.” Congress has fought this at every turn and Obama has refused to use his executive authority to make it happen.
Washington has been playing politics with the lives of hundreds of its hostages and torture victims at Guantanamo. That is the real crime.
Anti-war veterans and service members say: Close Guantanamo now!