Major newspaper proclaims:Durbin right about 'hellhole'

A major U.S. newspaper is voicing strong support for Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, regarding his criticism of U.S. treatment of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, as he likened it to treatment by the Nazi Gestapo, Soviet KGB, and Pol Pot's killers in Cambodia.

"Durbin was spot on in his assessment of Guantanamo," says today's editorial in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "That's why he was so roundly attacked. He told the truth. And his message is of vital importance; the United States is better than this."


The editorial continues:


The issue of whether Durbin's rhetoric crossed a line is small potatoes compared with the undeniable truth that American treatment of its prisoners has crossed many, many lines -- of morality, of international law, of practical benefit.
But instead of discussing what goes on at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and other prison camps, the right would prefer to get into a senseless argument about whether "we" are better than the Nazis or Saddam Hussein or the Soviets or Pol Pot or whomever a critic of Guantanamo might raise as a comparison. It's a tactic the group running Washington now has used again and again: They're quite deliberately changing the subject -- from Guantanamo to words spoken on the Senate floor.

It's not too late, as Durbin said of Bush in his speech: The senator should stop apologizing and keep up the criticism of the hellhole America's military has created at Guantanamo. He has no reason to be defensive; he's telling the truth. It's a truth Americans need to hear, and its tellers must resist intimidation.