Several hundred detainees are being held in stir at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba. These men are not terrorists, or even enemy combatants; they are suspected terrorists and/or enemy combatants. Some probably are terrorists; some probably are enemy combatants (whatever that means); many were probably the victims of the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Now it's been suggested by one Cully Stimson, "deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs" it says here, that law firms providing pro bono representation to these men should be the subject of boycott and reprisals by their regular customers, since they are apparently in the business of representing terrorists.
Suspected terrorists, I point out again. Not one of these men has ever been proven to be a terrorist.
It is astonishing to believe that someone like Stimson could have grown up in the same country I imagined I grew up in, where the accused were considered innocent until they were proven guilty, and where everyone had the right to be represented before a court of law.
Or has something terrible happened to America?
One hopeful sign — even the Pentagon is backing off from Stimson's diatribe.