Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

February 21, 2008

Thomas Paine once warned: ?He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."

We are constantly told that those confined at Guantanamo Bay are our worst enemies. In a handful of cases, this may be true. More frequently, however, those imprisoned there are innocent people who have been turned into enemies of the United States through torture and other mistreatment.

A large majority of Gitmo prisoners were captured by Afghan and Pakistani bounty hunters, who were as indiscriminate as they were greedy. Gitmo has held elderly men too old to carry a gun, and juveniles too young to be detained as prisoners of war. Ahmed Errachidi [ear-RACH-id-ee], who confessed to being a top al-Qaeda commander, was a fry cook diagnosed as mentally ill years before being sent to Gitmo.

What precedents are being set at Gitmo that we will later lament?

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.