The Truth about Guantanamo Bay
By Michelle Malkin
June 1, 2005
The mainstream media and international human rights organizations have
relentlessly portrayed the Guantanamo Bay detention facility as a
depraved
torture chamber operated by sadistic American military officials
defiling
Islam at every turn. It's the "gulag of our time," wails Amnesty
International. It's the "anti-Statue of Liberty," bemoans New York
Times
columnist Tom Friedman.
Have there been abuses? Yes. But here is the rest of the story -- the
story
that the Islamists and their sympathizers don't want you to hear.
According to recently released FBI documents, which are inaccurately
heralded by civil liberties activists and military-bashers as
irrefutable
evidence of widespread "atrocities" at Gitmo:
A significant number of detainees' complaints were either exaggerated
or
fabricated (no surprise given al Qaeda's explicit instructions to
trainees
to lie). One detainee who claimed to have been "beaten, spit upon and
treated worse than a dog" could not provide a single detail pertaining
to
mistreatment by U.S. military personnel. Another detainee claimed that
guards were physically abusive, but admitted he hadn't seen it.
Another detainee disputed one of the now-globally infamous claims that
American guards had mistreated the Koran. The detainee said that riots
resulted from claims that a guard dropped the Koran. In actuality, the
detainee said, a detainee dropped the Koran then blamed a guard. Other
detainees who complained about abuse of the Koran admitted they had
never
personally witnessed any such abuse, but one said he had heard that
non-Muslim soldiers touched the Koran when searching it for contraband.
In one case, Gitmo interrogators apologized to a detainee for
interviewing
him prior to the end of Ramadan.
Several detainees indicated they had not experienced any mistreatment.
Others complained about lack of privacy, lack of bed sheets, being
unwillingly photographed, the guards' use of profanity, and bad food.
If this is unacceptable, "gulag"-style "torture," then every inmate in
America is a victim of human rights violations. (Oh, never mind, there
are
civil liberties chicken littles who actually believe that.)
Erik Saar, who served as an army sergeant at Gitmo for six months and
co-authored a negative, tell-all book about his experience titled
"Inside
the Wire," inadvertently provides us more firsthand details showing
just how
restrained, and sensitive to Islam -- to a fault, I believe -- the
officials
at the detention facility have been.
Each detainee's cell has a sink installed low to the ground, "to make
it
easier for the detainees to wash their feet" before Muslim prayer, Saar
reports. Detainees get "two hot halal, or religiously correct, meals" a
day
in addition to an MRE (meal ready to eat). Loudspeakers broadcast the
Muslims' call to prayer five times a day.
Every detainee gets a prayer mat, cap and Koran. Every cell has a
stenciled
arrow pointing toward Mecca. Moreover, Gitmo's library -- yes, library
-- is
stocked with Jihadi books. "I was surprised that we'd be making that
concession to the religious zealotry of the terrorists," Saar admits.
"[I]t
seemed to me that the camp command was helping to facilitate the
terrorists'
religious devotion." Saar notes that one FBI special agent involved in
interrogations even grew a beard like the detainees "as a sort of show
of
respect for their faith."
Unreality-based liberals would have us believe that America is
systematically torturing innocent Muslims out of spite at Guantanamo
Bay.
Meanwhile, our own MPs have endured little-publicized abuse at the
hands of
manipulative, hate-mongering enemy combatants. Detainees have spit on
and
hurled water, urine and feces on the MPs. Causing disturbances is a
source
of entertainment for detainees who, as Gen. Richard Myers points out,
"would
turn right around and try to slit our throats, slit our children's
throats"
if released.
The same unreality-based liberals whine about the Bush administration's
failure to gather intelligence and prevent terrorism. Yet, these
hysterical
critics have no viable alternative to detention and interrogation --
and
there is no doubt they would be the first to lambaste the White House
and
Pentagon if a released detainee went on to commit an act of mass
terrorism
on American soil.
Guantanamo Bay will not be the death of this country. The unseriousness
and
hypocrisy of the terrorist-abetting Left is a far greater threat.
--
I am too often shocked by the vitriolic repulsion many people feel for
our
leader and America in general, especially because the loathing is often
poorly informed. I've met people on this campus who see America as the
worst
human rights abuser in the world (unlike the angelic paradise of
Cambodia)
and people who sway liberal not because they actually know anything
about
issues but because it's popular.
Liberalism has to be more than a college fad or a collection of
loudmouths
whose idiotic comments stir headlines. The rabid dislike some people
feel
for a man they've never even met makes me ashamed to be a Democrat.
-- Jennifer McBride, Liberal Democrat
Oregon Daily Emerald (U. Oregon)
05/25/2005
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