I heard this read today on my local NPR station. I've got a pretty strong stomach, but I had a really hard time getting through it. If you haven't yet read it, it's worth a look.

I'm not overly critical of our government here in the U.S. I'm aware, at my own level of limited information and expertise, of the huge forces that inevitably shape our international policy; the nuance required in matters of national security; and the logistical catch-22's that pepper both our domestic legislative agenda and our conflict-management policies.

That said, what's going on right now at Gitmo has nothing to do with any of that. On the ground level-- on the human level-- far removed from the cogs of international primacy and strong national governance, there are a group of people who, despite crimes either real or imagined, are being treated with a callousness and brutality I wouldn't wish on a man-eating goddamn shark. Before all of our political, ideological and spiritual differences, we're all human, and I'm left confounded trying to figure out how one person or group of persons could do this to another. I'm also more than a bit ashamed to be complicit in all of this by virtue of my nationality.

What the hell.