Freedom's Foes

Marc Cooper has a link to the weblog of Slate journalist Eric Umansky, whose reporting from Cuba shows both sides of an increasingly murky political divide that - strangely, some may think - now exists there. Cooper notes that Umansky's

first post reports on the sickening charade now underway at the Gitmo base where the detainees at Camp X-Ray are being given "hearings" by U.S. military authorities. These military tribunals have all the due process you might find in a Castro-run kangaroo court. Any American who holds dear our principles of civil liberties should be outraged by the reports coming out this week from Guantanamo.

Right after that post, Eric makes available his piece from Sunday's New York Times profiling the courageous Claudia Marquez. She's a brave and tragic 27 year old Cuban independent journalist whose family has been ripped apart for Thought Crimes. Nothing like State Security arresting you and threatening your 6 year old because you have published articles criticizing overcrowded busses, cultural machismo and poor treatment of AIDS patients. All this after your husband has been tossed into the can for 18 years for similar "crimes" against the Almighty State.

Kudos to Umansky for reminding us that the word freedom requires no modifiers or qualifiers.