Why This War Makes My Blood Curdle: Reason #457782

Hey, where are the other 457781 reasons?

OK, maybe there aren't that many reasons on why I think this supposed War On Terror is complete utter bullshit and a disgrace to America, but I have added a new reason to what seems to be a never-ceasing list. I just finished reading Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo by Murat Kurnaz. Kurnaz is a 26 year old Muslim from Germany who made an unfortunate mistake to travel to Pakistan a mere two months after the September 11th attacks. Without saying much, he is apprehended by police, taken into custody, and after a series of interrogations, those who have apprehended him concluded that he was somehow connected to al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, and he is shipped to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. There he endures years after years of relentless beatings, torture, starvation, sleep deprivation, and false hopes of being released or understood by his captors.

It was a compelling read at the same time it was hard and gut-wrenching. A typical interrogation (by American soldiers, nonetheless) consisted of them asking him if he knew Osama or where he was and then beating the shit out of him if he dare say that he had no connection to the 9/11 attacks. I couldn't believe that American soldiers would do such a thing to a person. Is our justice system that fucked up nowadays? Is this country really that hateful towards Muslims? We condemned the Germans (and executed many Nazis) for their treatment of the Jews during the Holocaust, but here we are, 60-65 years later, starving our "POWs," performing unnecessary medical procedures on them on a slightly less sadistic level than Joseph Mengele's medical "experiments" (I'm not kidding; in this book, a guy could have a broken finger and wind up with an amputated hand). Are we any better than the Nazis? Are we any better than the Vietnamese who tortured American soldiers in the 60s and 70s? We pose ourselves as this great nation built on justice and equality, but we throw people into detention without even proper charges or trials.

Am I the only one who thinks that we are contradicting ourselves tenfold? Am I the only one who sees that this nation has not progressed much as people since the colonists came here? Every time we are wrapped up in our fears or in a war, we go on a witch hunt for people to blame for our problems, and a lot of innocent people end up getting screwed over by it. Think of those who were burned at the stake during the Salem witch trials in the late 17th century. Perhaps you may want to recollect learning about the Germans who were persecuted during World War I by simply being German. Read about the internment camps reserved for Japanese-Americans in World War II. It's sad to say that the witch hunt mentality in America lives on centuries later, and will continue to live on as long as shit like this keeps happening. Whatever happened to 'innocent until proven guilty?'

As for Kurnaz, I have nothing but admiration and respect for him. He has a sense of perseverance that is matched by very few people, he stayed true to his faith, and is not letting his experience ruin his future. He deserves that. He spent a good chunk of his early 20s in captivity surrounded by nothing but cruelty and being treated like an animal.

And another thing: a couple of weeks ago, I was reading the New York Times and came across an article that made me furious. Apparently, the torture methods used at Guantanamo Bay were inspired by none other than the tactics the Communist Chinese used on imprisoned American soldiers during the Korean War. Recruits at Guantanamo Bay based their methods on a chart on the effects of "coercive management techniques" for use on captives. Such actions include exposure, waterboarding, sleep deprivation and "prolonged constraint." Such things were used to get false confessions out of Americans in the 1950s, and the same is being done now to those innocent Muslims at Guantanamo Bay (Not all of them are innocent, but I suspect a good number of them are). Well that's just fucking DANDY! We're getting our torture tactics from Commies! Communism was only our enemy during the Cold War, and right-wingers still get red-faced over the mere mention of Communism and still attack those on the left and accusing them of being Communists. Now, over the last five years, America is looking to them for ways to interrogate suspected terrorists.

I'm not going to say any more than this. But this shit needs to stop before we become a dictatorship. We're not progressing as people here. Ever since 9/11 many Americans have become jingoistic, xenophobic, ignorant idiots. I see "Proud to Be American" stickers on the backs of SUVs and Hummers. I see waistlines increasing and intelligence decreasing. Gas is at $4.35 a gallon where I live, and after 8 years of Dubya, our economy is in the shitter, our education system is a joke, and our job market sucks. I have also never seen religion and politics co-existing together so exclusively, and certain details of it are downright Puritanical. If there is any hope for this nation in the foreseeable future, we need to elect a guy in the White House who will help us all out, and not just himself. We need a change in attitude and a change in direction. Who knows? We just might be running out of time.