Guantanamo

The letter below appeared in the Guardian on March 23. It requies no comment:

I have never been to Guantánamo. I have never been in jail either. I have, however, been a soldier for nearly 20 years, in Her Majesty's Royal Regiment of Artillery. In that time, I attended lectures, presentations and talks about the consequences of encountering civilians, refugees and guerillas in combat. On no occasion, did I ever hear the phrase "illegal non-combatants". On no occasion did I hear that such persons, or anyone else, could be held overseas, incommunicado, in a place described by your own country's supreme court as a stateless land. On no occasion did I hear that detainees could be tried without legal representation.
Lastly, and worst of all, on no occasion did I hear that prisoners of war could be denied the right to be seen by the Red Cross, unsupervised, as demanded by the Geneva convention, to which the US is a signatory.

Daniel Tanzey Thornton Cleveleys, Lancs