Justice and the prison at Guantanamo Bay

Re “No more excuses,” editorial, May 22

The U.S. detainee facility at Guantanamo Bay now stands as a symbol of American resolve in the war on terror. Closing it would send a message of surrender to the terrorists, demonstrating to them that their propaganda is effective.

Who can doubt that the recent spate of suicide attempts and the following uprising were orchestrated by the detainees to make news? This is an old terrorist trick.

The detainees at Gitmo are suspected enemy combatants. Military justice has been effective in identifying and releasing those who don’t belong there. Let it continue, unless the farce of the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui is to be repeated over and over, providing more propaganda mileage for the jihadis at the taxpayers’ ludicrously large expense.

TERRY NUGENT

La Grange Highlands, Ill.

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Now a United Nations anti-torture panel demands that the United States shut down its Guantanamo Bay prison, a place where torture does not exist (May 20).

This is the same United Nations whose leaders sacrificed the Iraqi people for Saddam Hussein’s handouts. This is the same United Nations on whose Human Rights Commission sit such bastions of tolerance as Saudi Arabia, China, Russia and Pakistan. Please. Spare us the self-righteous drivel from this morally polluted, sanctimonious cesspool.

SCOTT ABRAMSON

San Mateo, Calif.

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President Bush chose to define the 9/11 attacks as “war,” thus allowing people to be kept indefinitely and tortured. Enough of calling this a war. It is not a war. By that assigned definition those at Guantanamo and in secret prisons abroad will never be released.

Terrorism has a long history, and it will continue. Let us proceed against terrorists as alleged criminals in our justice system, but at the same time let us abide by our laws, by international laws and by the moral laws of common decency.

ANN MAUPIN

Los Angeles