Rebuff this rogue state

And the facts revealed in the leak fully justify calling that establishment a concentration camp rather than the multiple US euphemisms of "navy facility," "detention centre" or whatever other protective coloration it chooses to use.

That there are innocent people in Guantanamo will not come as a surprise to anyone on the left or, indeed, any reader of this paper whatever their politics. We have been loudly proclaiming it for years.

What is rather more of a surprise is that the US concentration camp authorities are fully aware of the innocence of their victims, without even a trace of self-delusion to be found.

Which makes the whole situation even worse and the US attitude even more cynical than we believed previously.

Old gentlemen with senile dementia, 14-year-old kidnap victims, working journalists going about their lawful business, even people who just happened to be on the wrong street corner at the wrong time, this woeful catalogue makes up the bulk of the detainees at the shameful US camp.

Even the jailers' own records indicate that there was no reason for detaining most of them.

And that leads to a real question. If, as the US insists, it is in a real "war against terror" and its opposition are all by definition "enemy combatants," the detention of innocent civilians without charge and without a stain on their characters must constitute a war crime, especially where torture and abuse are involved.

If, as more rational sources would have it, you can't be at war against a tactic then, rather than war crimes, we are talking about crimes against humanity.

No matter which way you slice it, the very existence of Guantanamo involves criminal activity by the US, making it the very definition of a rogue state. Which makes it all the more startling that US President Barack Obama, who started his term of office with the laudable declared intent of closing Guantanamo, has found it impossible to do so because of internal political considerations.

One is tempted to wonder if rather more material considerations, such as the flood of evidence that would hit the world's press if all those detained were released to relate their experiences, are involved.

Torturing the innocent, detaining the geriatric and disturbed and banging up schoolchildren certainly wouldn't guarantee the US a terribly good press.

The relationship of the US with the rest of the world over the post-second world war period has been characterised by a growing arrogance and a refusal to stand accountable to any international pressure.

Its attitude over Israel and the occupied territories, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and even its conduct towards its supposed allies Pakistan has demonstrated a heavy-handed and dictatorial attitude to what it considers its essential national interests.

And the rest of the capitalist world has done little except to ask "how high" when told to jump by every US president since Dwight D Eisenhower.

But this lawless and domineering attitude cannot be allowed to continue.

Certainly the emergence of China as a great economic and political power will eventually resolve the issue. But in the meantime, millions continue to suffer under the boot of US hegemony.

The South American continent is showing every sign of throwing off the domination of the US.

It's time we rebuffed this outlaw rogue state as well.