Guantanamo has to be shut down because it is a cancer in our relations with the world. It is much more than that, but because it exists, it is a constant reminder to the world of the new image that the United States has acquired since 9/11.
One may protest that torture does not take place there, prisoners are being released, and that terrorists are often tried in normal courts. This does not matter. When the French stormed the Bastille on July 14, 1789, they did not care that it no longer served the purpose of torturing the King's enemies by superceding the law and only had six prisoners in it. They only saw it as a symbol; a constant reminder of despotism. This reminder brought down Louis XVI and if we continue to disregard our standing in the world, we could find ourselves bereft of traditional allies.

I am a bit concerned today after reading an article in Aftenposten, a Norwegian newspaper, that quotes a Russian, Sergei Markov, accusing Dick Cheney of a conspiracy to start the Georgian war in order to get McCain elected. I am no friend of Cheney's and such a theory might not be that shocking if it came from a random Russian citizen. The problem here is that Sergei Markov is the head of the Moscow Institute for Political Studies! That's right, the head of a supposedly respectable, academic institution is spouting off conspiracy theories. I know that the university of Moscow had come under suspicion lately of un-academic anti-semitism but delving into improbably conspiracy theories to bolster the regime's image is a new low.