Does George Bush ever listen to himself? Last Friday, he told Cuban-Americans that their country of origin was “a dungeon” bereft of human dignity and swore to maintain America’s embargo on Havana until the Cuban government released political dissidents from jails and improved its human rights record. But before you applaud those fine-sounding sentiments, take a moment to think about the hypocrisy inherent in this message.

On the southeastern end of that same island, so near and yet so far from the US mainland, lies a US naval base turned torture gulag. Cuba wants it back but Washington maintains it has the right to hold Guantanamo in perpetuity according to a treaty that is more than a century old.

More than 800 men and boys, referred to by the Bush administration as “enemy combatants” or “detainees” as opposed to prisoners of war, have been sealed within its walls since January 2002, without the protection of the Geneva Conventions and without a voice. One was more than 80-years-old; others were little more than children.

Four suicides

Most have been released without charge, their lives and their livelihoods decimated forever. Some were driven insane, others have some kind of psychological disorder, yet others emerged physically impaired, almost all suffer from depression and they were the lucky ones. Unspecified numbers have attempted suicide. At least four succeeded.

Today, approximately 255 crushed souls still remain, awaiting the leader of the free world’s pleasure.

Ah, but who cares about those “terrorists” you might be thinking. But as time and thousands of interrogations have revealed, the majority of “detainees” weren’t terrorists or even insurgents. The majority simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time or they had been sold to the US military by unscrupulous bounty hunters. Several were victims of mistaken identity.

Published transcripts from military tribunals, which lawyers agree are entirely illegal, provide statements from bemused farmers, shopkeepers and goat herders who had no idea how they had arrived in this hellish place or why. It’s hardly surprising that, to date, four army prosecutors have resigned in what the Miami Herald calls “a crisis of conscience.”

These include Lt Col Darrel J. Vandeveld, who said he went from a true believer to one who felt deceived by the tribunals and a dysfunctional system that deprived “the accused of basic due process” as well as subjecting the “well-intentioned prosecutor to claims of ethical misconduct.”

One of his predecessors, Air Force Col Morris Davis, quit, saying he had been pushed to rush through tribunals in the run-up to elections and to forego transparency. Even if tribunals could be construed as being properly conducted, detainees pronounced innocent can rightfully be detained until the “war on terror” ends, so says the Bush administration.

Detained without cause

Recently, a Washington district judge ruled that 17 Chinese Muslims, who were labelled “no longer enemy combatants” as long ago as 2004, should be released as their continued incarceration contravenes the US Constitution prohibiting indefinite detention without proper cause.

Now even though these men have been deemed innocent of any association with Al Qaida - and a senior US interrogator has admitted that he and his colleagues knew this almost from day one of their captivity, Bush and his cohorts are apparently furious about the judgment.

The Department of Justice says it presents “serious national security and separation of powers concerns and raises unprecedented legal issues,” while threatening to take the issue to the Supreme Court if necessary. This is a further irony when one recalls that this year the Supreme Court ruled that detainees had constitutional habeas corpus rights, and was ignored.

Surely the holding and torture of known innocents for six years by a country once known for its impeccable human rights record is an unprecedented legal issue in itself. The US says it is holding the men because no country apart from China, which it fears will torture them, will take them in.

China refutes this accusation but, in any event, the US abducted these men, stole their freedom and destroyed their lives, so it is not only morally obliged to open its gates to these wronged people but should also handsomely recompense them for their suffering.

The idea that either the White House or the Pentagon cares a hoot about their future well being is laughable when most have been locked up for 22 hours each day in solitary confinement all these years.

Both John McCain and Barack Obama say they will close Guantanamo down and, hopefully, this dark chapter that has so deeply scarred America’s claim to moral high ground will die with it.

The question remains, will this ugly history be erased from the public consciousness or will there be a settling of scores? I can think of at least two I would love to see making a fashion statement in orange but the cynic deep within tells me not to hold my breath.