The Bill of Rights protects the citizens of the United States from the government. As citizens, we expect the leaders of our country to protect us from the harm of others and our environment. For the most part, this is much easier said than done. As a major world power, we have enemies in practically every corner of the world that disagree with our policies, religious beliefs, and just about any other controversy one could think of. The government, through the Armed Forces and political leaders from all branches, has to consistently defend us through different means to allow us to keep those rights that we have earned. Of course, there are always factions of citizens who disagree with their maneuvers, but what happens when these complaints restrict the government to the point where they cannot properly protect us?
This is the case in the much controversial topic of the Guantánamo Bay prison, where suspected terrorists are being held as “enemy combatants” of the United States that started after the tragic attack of September 11th on our own soil. After watching people throw themselves out of Twin Towers in New York, hearing the last minutes of conversation on the hijacked planes, and dealing with the thousands of mourning families and citizens, everyone knew that something radical had to be done to keep this devastating event from repeating itself. Almost all of America was behind past-President Bush when he declared war on the terrorists and the countries to which they belonged. This included putting people that are known to be or highly suspected of being terrorists into the Cuba prison without the rights of ordinary American citizens while the government tried to clean up the mess that these people left behind.
However, passion waned, as it was bound to do, and people started to second guess whether all of this effort was worth it. Stories about Guantánamo prisoners being mistreated and even tortured leaked into the media and homes- jumpstarting a movement to close down the prison and allow equal American rights to those locked inside. After all, the right to full justice and dignity was embedded into the very foundation of this country, was it not? For these reasons, people began to attack Bush’s policies on the subject, demanding closure of the prison and release of the prisoners in an effort to expand the rights stated in the first 10 amendments of our constitution to the rest of the world. Although this view of universal human rights is great in theory, the government has a duty to protect its own citizens before allowing freedoms to foreigners not under their jurisdiction. However much we would like to see the government save the world; that is not their job. The Bill of Rights apply to American citizens, not to foreigners who are a threat to our country.
In saying this, I still do not believe that our government should be able to torture and kill anyone who is not an American citizen. The difference between detaining and questioning known terrorists and slaughtering innocent foreigners is huge, and I do not believe that our government has crossed that line in the least with the institution of the Guantánamo Bay prison. It angers me when the citizens of a country value freedom so highly, but complain about how their government is achieving it. The hypocrisy of our nation is getting worse and worse. The leaders of our country have tried to the best of their abilities to stop the war on terrorism from ever hitting American soil again, and so far they have succeeded. One could argue that Guantánamo has even played a vital role in this fact. Do we want to tie our government’s hands behind their back in their effort to protect us? If we do, we are daily risking millions of lives for the rights of a few who have betrayed our trust in the first place.
