Day 17 - "The Fate of the Detainees"

Benjamin Franklin is often quoted as saying, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." I wonder what it is that Franklin would have said is deserved by those who forcefully limit the essential liberty of some for the sake of their own feeling of temporary safety?

With that idea in mind, I've thought it interesting to read, hear, and see that that the actions of the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay have again become headlines. However, GTMO as a buzzword sadly hasn't equated to any critical questioning of what is morally right concerning the liberty of the individuals confined there. This is clear from the following byline of a Miami Herald article that reads:

"With the fate of detainees still up in the air, the president will try to reassure the nation that his plan to close the prison camps at Guantánamo Bay will not put US citizens at risk."

First, I think it's crucial to recognize that the phrase, "the fate of the detainees," refers to the life, liberty, and potential for pursuing happiness of hundreds of fellow humans. After all, every "detainee" is an individual person with friends, family, and loved ones, much like you and I. With this understanding, the explicit meaning of the sentence in which the phrase is used becomes vitally important. After all, the sentence makes clear that "the fate of the detainees" doesn't hinge upon the question of what is right or wrong, but rather, it rests on the perceived safety risk to those individuals who have been classified as citizens of the United States. What do you think? Should moral concerns about infringing on others' liberty lose their precedence when confronted with the pragmatic requirements deemed necessary to keep one specific people-group safe?

I believe this question alone has potentially monumental ramifications, but even still, I wonder if it was this same criterion of not wanting to "put US citizens at risk," by which the government decided to label those persons as "detainees" and confine them in the first place? And, was it this same avoidance of perceived risk that prompted the invasion of Iraq? What of Afghanistan? The list, of course, could go on ad infinitum.

However, beyond the possible insight to be gained from following this reasoning backward, I believe there's a more crucial question to ask. Whose liberty will next be violated, not on the basis of right and wrong, but as the result of an action being planned by government right now, in order to keep you safe?