photo: KClvey, Flickr Creative Commons

Yes, the past eight years were torturous. I  can breathe more freely and deeply now.   One area that caused me to hold my breath and frown intensely was my sense of horror and shame at our government’s torture policies.  Not the torture we felt from living under Bush & Co., but the actual torture that our government sanctioned policies literally inflicted on both US and non-citizens. After essentially putting our nation’s legal foundations  through a paper shredder, the Bush Administration moved us into a dark era with policies that created such national shames as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. However, those days are finally over and President Obama already acted on some of his campaign promises on his first day in office to reverse many Bush policies. While others were stumbling over each other to analyze Obama’s inauguration speech and waltz at inaugural balls last night, Obama swiftly moved to address one of the most eggregious policies–Guantanamo–before the evening had finished.  According to the New York Times, he issued “an immediate halt to all pending military war crimes trials for 120 days as he reviews the handling of terror suspects.” Bush’s Guantanamo policies are like Cinderella’s carriage and before the clock struck midnight on Tuesday, it had gone poof! and reversed into a pumpkin. The Obama Administration is already acting a bit like a fairy-tale already where the ruler who, in one swoop with his pen,  can swiftly change evil forces in the world into good. His first steps to close Guantanamo are fantastic, but it will take more than the magic of a fairy tale. It will take the ongoing work and commitment of human rights organizations, many of whom we’ve worked with on Standard Operating Procedure. These organizations have been stalwarts throughout the past eight years to close down Guantanamo. takepart with them today to get involved to ensure that the doors of Guantanamo are finally closed.