Small Reminders

I’ve never thought of myself as a history person but I made it out to Andersonville today and it was a very enlightening trip. Andersonville was the site of the largest Confederate prison. It was very sobering to walk through the field and see the 15 foot walls, the small creek that served as the only water source for upwards of 30,000 prisoners of war.

Besides seeing the actual prison itself, there was also a National Cemetery with around 14,000 graves and the National POW museum.

The museum was well put together expanding from Civil War POWs to POWs from all wars America has participated in. The narrative painted by the museum was of perseverance from their captors. There was video of released POWs and their will to survive.

The thing about POWs is that they’ve done nothing wrong. Their honest men and women who are serving their country put into prison due to the circumstances they are in. There is no trial, their just held captive till they are either killed or released.

 In light of trip to Andersonville, I couldn’t help but think about the bill President Obama is about to sign. Buried within the new defense bill authorization, the US is given permission to indefinitely detain anyone. To put this in more technical terms, during war time, anyone deemed a terrorist can be detained indefinitely. This can be very broad as we have now been fighting the war on terror for 10 years now and when you create a war with vague phrases it can create unsure beginnings and ends. The same can be said with the term terrorist, an act “dangerous to human life”. These vague terms leave the possibility for anyone to go to jail on American soil without having a trial, ever.

This means people can be locked away forever as enemy combatants, and never stand the chance of a fair trial.

It reminds me of Andersonville- in the name of war- we are locking up people who may or may not have done wrong but they will sit, without trial and wait. When will we learn from the past, war is hell, war does not preclude human rights. I feel like I’ve been saying this a lot lately but put yourself in someone else’s shoes, picked on the street and left to sit. As a country we detest anyone else from doing so but are actively legalizing it in our own country.