Why Guatanamo Bay and Iraq were wrong for the U.S.

I have several friends who aren't nearly as left leaning as I am. I am probably the most liberal person in my family and among the circle of friends I have. I recently got into a knockdowwn, drag out fight with a friend of mine about what we were doing in Guatanamo Bay and the Iraq war in general. While he agreed with me that Bush was horrible as a president, and he hurt our standing in the world by his decision to go into Iraq under false pretenses and creating Guatanamo Bay; he wasn't completely convinced that there was no need for a prison like Guatanamo Bay in Cuba. The point I made was to ask him how he might feel if one day, while walking down the street, a van pulled up and men jumped out of said van, put a hood over his head, grabbed him and put flexi-cuffs on him and pushed him into a van. This has been done to certain people it is called "Rendition". 20 Something hours later said person would have been flown to another unknown destination and his questioning and torture would begin. Just imagine if you will that you were an innocent person and had never contemplated a terrorist act or even disliked the United States? By holding many of these prisoners, some for over 5 years with no access to a lawyer or their families, aren't we in a sense creating more radicals? The same idea is true for the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Israel refuese to let Palestinians have any real economic or personal freedom. So they breed a hate amongst many Palestinians for all Israeli's, they build walls to keep them in and restrict their movement outside of that wall. This tactic never works and what we are doing in Guatanamo bay won't work either. It just creates more hatred. While my friend agreed with this premise, he still wasn't convinced. He felt that there were some bad people in Guatanamo Bay, and it was necessary. I agree that there probably are some bad people in there, but the point is, what about those that are their under false pretenses? Why is it ok for the United States to hold a person with no access to a lawyer or their families, simply because we have classified them as a terrorist and not part of an army. By saying that these people are not wearing a uniform and thus can't be treated as enemy combatants, we are basically giving our government carte blanche to arrest anyone we deem a threat with or without proof. I don't like to get political, I think as a country and people we have gone past that. But just the other day, Dick Cheney made public comments that closing down Gutanamo bay he feared might leave us open to another attack. It is this type of rhetoric of fear and propaganda that we don't need anymore. Even after their presidency, Bush and Cheney still try to put their hands into the pot and pull something out.
For anyone who still believes that Iraq was a noble cause and one we had to fight. I urge you to read the Rolling Stone article entitled "The Great Iraq Swindle by Matt Taibbi. It came out in Rolling stone in 2004 and blew the lid off of what was really occurring in Iraq . By the way, Rolling Stone magazine has long been known for excellent and fair investigative journalism which can't be said for many other magazines or newspapers in this country anymore. Of course, this article didn't do much good and didn't raise much rancor with the public. We as a people continued to shell out over 8 billion dollars a month to fund this fiasco not to mention over 4000 American lives lost so far. This article goes into specific detail of how graft and corruption made their way into how we did business in Iraq and who got rich off of it.
The Great Iraq Swindle By Matt Taibbi Rolling Stone 2004

Since I suck at putting links into my blog posts here is the link so you can copy and paste into your browser if this link doesn't work.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16076312/the_great_iraq_swindle

The full force and brunt of this war and our practices is yet to be felt both emotionally and economically, but the reality is, it has scarred a generation of Americans just as the Vietnam war did. That it was the wrong war is now obvious and has been for some time, but hindsight is 20/20 and we can't go back and undo what we have done, we can only move forward. We also fail to mention how many innocent people we have killed in our bombing campaigns both in Iraq and Afghanistan. A teacher in a class I once took made a good point. That the American press seems to be obsessed with U.S. casualties, how many die each day in Iraq or Afghanistan, but why is an Iraqi or Afghani life worth any less? I make this point not to diminish anyone's life because all life is precious but we seem to be in an age where some feel that American lives are more valuable somehow. That we are this noble country doing good in the world. The reality is something much different in my opinion. While we might have noble goals and in the past might have fought wars for the good of the world (World War Two for example), we also have a lot of blood on our hands throughout history and have done some pretty heinous things. Go to any American Indian reservation sometime and have a look around, we have decimated their culture all in the name of progress and gold. Weren't these the guys that helped our starving pilgrims when they first arrived? Nice payback for that kindness. I digress. I don't like to speak about politics but it must be spoken about. We must examine what we do and how we are viewed in the world because of it. With great power comes great responsibility. Hopefully we won't forget that.
More to come in my next post and no it won't be political I promise. Thanks for reading.