Army Flacks Miss the Point on Guantanamo

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Twenty Army National Guard public information officers based in Madison, Wisconsin, will soon begin a year-long stint at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Commander Rick Morehouse said their mission would be to "get the current image out. ... The media of the world and families need to know what's going on right now, not what happened six or seven years ago. ... The prisoners are being treated very well." Gene Grabowski of Levick Strategic Communications, a firm that works for the families of some Guantanamo detainees, criticized Morehouse's statement. Saying "prisoners [are] being 'treated very well' is entirely beside the point," he told O'Dwyer's PR blog. "As our clients have said repeatedly over the past few years, it wouldn't matter if the prisoners were being kept in a four-star hotel, their detainment without criminal charges is unjust. And the Supreme Court has said so -- twice."