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Jewish World Review June 20, 2005 / 13 Sivan, 5765 ‘Gulag Gitmo’ grandstanding: Dems fulminate over prisoners, but they are treated well By Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
In a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday, the assistant Democratic leader
likened the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to Nazi, Soviet and
Cambodian concentration camps.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said some detainees were chained to the floor
for long periods of time; subjected to uncomfortable extremes of
temperature, and forced to listen to loud rap music.
"If I read this to you and did not tell you it was an FBI agent describing
what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most
certainly believe that this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their
gulags, or some other mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern
for human beings," Durbin said.
Time magazine obtained, and last weekend published excerpts from the secret
interrogation log of "Detainee 063," Mohammed al Qahtani, an intimate of
Osama bin Laden who, it is thought, would have been the 20th hijacker had he
not been denied entry into the United States in August, 2001. He was later
captured in Afghanistan.
The log, Time said, "offers a rare glimpse into the darker reaches of
intelligence gathering, in which teams that specialize in extracting
information by almost any means match wits and wills with men who are
trained to keep quiet at almost any cost."
Time detailed some of the nefarious methods used by U.S. interrogators to
get Qahtani to talk. He was stripped naked. He was forced to stand for
prolonged periods. He was deprived of sleep. Water was poured over his
head. A female interrogator invaded his personal space. Sometimes
interrogators would poke him in the chest with their fingers. And he was
forced to listen to Christina Aguilera music.
Sounds like Marine boot camp, without the PT that left us gasping for
breath, muscles quivering. (We didn't have females invading our personal
space, but most of the fellows in my recruit platoon at MCRD San Diego
wouldn't have minded that.)
Every American pilot or Special Forces soldier who has gone through SERE
(Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) training has been treated far worse
in mock prison camps than al Qatani and the others have been treated at
Gitmo.
Amnesty International described Guantanamo Bay as the "gulag of our times."
There are some differences worth noting. About 9 million people died in Nazi
concentration camps; 2.7 million in Soviet concentration camps, and about
1.7 million Cambodians (out of a population of 6 million) were killed by Pol
Pot.
The number of detainees at Gitmo who have died is zero. The number of
detainees who have suffered serious injuries at the hands of guards or
interrogators is also zero.
The victims in Nazi and Soviet concentration camps were there because they
expressed unapproved opinions; were Jews or Christians, or owned a piece of
land coveted by a party apparatchik. Pol Pot murdered people with high
school diplomas because they were "intellectuals," and intellectuals were
"corrupt."
Those imprisoned at Guantanamo are terrorists who committed, or were
plotting, the mass murder of innocents.
There is one international organization with a legitimate beef about how the
detainees are being treated: Weight Watchers.
The average weight gain among the prisoners at Guantanamo is 18 lbs, said a
spokesman for the Joint Task Force there. This is because the detainees eat
better than do U.S. soldiers in Iraq, says Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Cal),
chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
Durbin and fellow Democratic senators Kennedy, Biden and Leahy say Gitmo
should be closed because it's giving America a black eye in world opinion.
Are Durbin et. al. such weenies that they actually think having a finger
poked in your chest is torture?
Have they lost all moral sense, to make such outrageous comparisons?
Are liberals such fools as to imagine the detainees could be released
without consequence? (A dozen of those released earlier have been recaptured
or killed fighting again against America.)
What's giving America a black eye is the slander of our troops by Durbin,
Amnesty, and others. Americans should be outraged, but not by the conduct
of our soldiers.
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© 2005, Jack Kelly |
Mitch Albom | |||||||||||
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