Two US Army (USA) Military Police (MP) escort a detainee, dressed in his new orange jumpsuit to a cell at Camp X-Ray, Guantanamo Bay Navy Base, Cuba. Camp X-Ray is the holding facility for detainees held at the US Navy (USN) Base during Operation ENDURING FREEDOM.

By Patricia L Johnson

Rocky and Crisco – they’re the two little guys that rule the roost – if you don’t believe me come over some time when they want a dog biscuit.  Or wait – you don’t even have to come over, you can hear Rocky barking from miles away.

One dog, Rocky, was brought home by our son Chris – he’s a Dobie and has been in control of the house, trees, and every blade of grass in the yard for the past 8 years.  Crisco, was brought home by my husband Mike -Crisco’s a mixture of Spot the Dog, and sugar and spice and everything nice – he is a wonderful 7- year old that never barks and it doesn’t get any better than that.  If he really wants something he lets Rocky do his bidding.  There’s nothing more impressive than a 125# big-mouth Dobie wanting something.

We have a 12 x 12 pen for the dogs, but I have a problem with it.  I don’t like the dogs to be ‘ penned up’ – They should  be able to roam around the yard and chase squirrels, rabbits, birds, each other, fireflies and butterflies or just lie out on the deck catching rays of sunshine.

When Crisco came we put in an electric fence which worked really well until Crisco lost his collar.  Somehow shelling out another $125 dollars so a little doggie could get an electric shock when he was naughty didn’t strike me as the right thing to do so we got rid of both collars and taught them to stay in the yard.  Not nearly as difficult as teaching them to wipe their feet on the rug after they come in from the rain or snow.

So it all works – they have their freedom and except for an occasional infraction of the rules, they pretty much stay inside the invisible lines.

Whenever I read about our Guantanamo Bay, Cuba prisoners, I inevitably compare their loss of freedom to that of the dogs being caged in their pen and my heart just absolutely breaks for these people.  I cannot imagine anything worse than being kept in prison for imaginary crimes.

What this country did to these people is absolutely criminal – to take away their freedoms and lock them in a prison thousands of miles from their home and family is almost unbelievable, except we did it, over and over and over again.

Since 2002 we have released 420 detainees, while 355 continue to be held.  On August 9, 2007 we transferred six more detainees – five were transferred to Afghanistan and one was transferred to Bahrain.  80 of the 355 now held, have also been determined to be eligible for transfer or release.

These people – have been held without access to legal representation for sometimes years and years on end.  Because they are considered by this government as "enemy combatants" instead of prisoners of war, they are not normally afforded the opportunities to speak to organizations checking into the health and well-being of ‘prisoners of war’.

They are simply held in pens, undoubtedly with much to say, but no one to listen to their barking.  The shame these people suffer is on the hands of every American in this country.

"The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame." ~ Oscar Wilde