It's still a gulag, even with `Harry Potter'

It was during this time that Foshee spoke to me about North Vietnamese prisons -- to give me hope that I would go home someday. Coming from anyone else, his words would have sounded patronizing -- even hypocritical. But Foshee understood. He was not happy at the way people were treated in Guantanamo. It was, he told me, no way to win the battle for hearts and minds. He was particularly offended by how younger soldiers mistreated detainees, some of whom were older than he was.

Some people think that Amnesty International's description of the camp as the "gulag of our times" is too harsh. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, for instance, recently rejected the "gulag" label, telling conventions of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion that Guantanamo is more akin to a holiday resort, complete with a volleyball court, basketball court, soccer field and library.

During my years of incarceration, I never once encountered the things Rumsfeld mentioned and never met anyone who had. What people don't seem to understand about Guantanamo is that the prisoners there who protest their innocence have no way to prove it. The principle "innocent until proven guilty" is turned on its head. Everyone's guilty without charges, convicted without a trial. That is why it's like a gulag -- even if it's one that provides "Harry Potter" books for reading material (as Rumsfeld noted).

"We cannot allow the terrorists' lies and myths to be repeated without question or challenge," Rumsfeld said in his speeches. But where exactly have the "terrorists' lies and myths" been repeated? Detainees at Guantanamo are denied access to media, human rights groups, U.N. representatives, even family members. The many reports of abuse have come from conscientious U.S. military personnel and FBI and CIA agents appalled by some interrogation techniques and camp conditions. Soldiers have been charged with a range of abuses against detainees, including killings (at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan) that I witnessed.

It seems odd, but Rumsfeld lamented in his speeches that too few people will recall how many Medals of Honor were earned in the "war on terror" versus the numbers of detainee abuses. But how can one man's bravery possibly override the abuse of thousands -- or even of one detainee?

It's little wonder that there are powerful voices -- including European allies, former U.S. presidents, Hollywood stars and even veterans of conflicts such as the Vietnam War -- joining Amnesty International and former detainees in calling for the closure of Guantanamo.