Thursday, January 15

Closing Guantanamo

For those of us who think harboring prisoners who want to destroy this country is in some way immoral (remember, even treason is punishable by incarceration or worse in America). Or for those who think that these captives are being mistreated (taking water-boarding out of the equation for the moment), please consider the horrors of the real, historical and ungodly prisons in America's past, namely Andersonville, Libby and Millen during the Civil War. Even northern prisons weren't exempt from inhumane and shameful treatment of prisoners.

The picture is of Philander Lewis, father of Mary Lewis Pleas Hill who lived in Lodi, CA at the turn of the last century. He enlisted in Michigan, was captured and died in Andersonville in May, 1864. That was a month before my g-great-grandfather was captured in Virginia and sent to Libby, Andersonville, and Millen prisons. Thankfully, the war ended early the next year or he would have probably died also.

Guantanamo by comparison is like being on vacation in paradise.