"They laughed. 'We are not Guantanamo.' That's what they said," Park said.
Two young women reporters for the news channel Current have disappeared while working on stories in North Korea. Both women, Laura Ling and Euna Lee are American citizens. However, there have been no statement forthcoming from our government asking for their release or demanding to know what charges they are being held on. And when asked by Han S. Park, a University of Georgia professor and member of a private delegation traveling in Korea, if the the Americans were receiving harsh treatment, the Koreans responded by laughing and saying, "We are not Guantanamo."
During the years of the Bush presidency when the prison at Guantanamo was founded and populated by suspected foreign terrorists, many Americans couldn't understand why some of us would think this was not a good thing. Now they have their answer. If the U.S. doesn't hold itself to a higher standard than the rest of the world, then they will hold us to their standards. We can no longer take the high road and demand that our citizens be treated as human beings, that if they are held they must be charged with a crime, or that if they are held and charged, then they cannot be tortured. See, the U.S. has spent the last seven years holding prisoners with charging them. We have tortured them with things such as waterboarding. We have suspended treating prisoners as humans by withholding holy books from them and by subjecting them to humiliation.
The image of the U.S. has been tarnished in the rest of the world. As a result, the available options for obtaining freedom for these two young ladies who are American citizens have been severely reduced. It will take years to repair the damage done by the establishment of Guantanamo. In the future, America has an obligation to its own citizens to treat all citizens of the world with the same respect that we treat our own.
