Durbin and Other Guantanamo Bay Coverage

Most of you have probably already heard about Sen. Dick Durbin's (D-IL) recent remarks concerning Gitmo. Let's review them:

When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here [at Guantanamo Bay]--I almost hesitate to put them in the [Congressional] Record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in
a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their
prisoners.

Oh, yeah, that's exactly what I recall from my history reading, that the Nazis abused the Jews by screwing around with the a/c and playing rap music. Let's review, shall we? Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge killed about 1.5 million in its camps, plus had summary executions of about 200,000 other political opponents. The Nazis and Soviets were responsible for, by various estimates, 7 million and 20 million deaths, respectively. Keep in mind that we're talking about innocent civilians here. Exactly how many have died at Guantanamo Bay? And we're talking about terrorists there, not innocents.

The United States bends over backwards to not offend the sensibilities of Muslims with its treatment of prisoners. They are allowed to pray their five times daily, instructed which direction Mecca is in, provided with an imam, provided complimentary copies of the Koran (which U.S. troups serving as guards there go out of their way to avoid even touching), provided special meals (the military spends more per person for a meal there than it does on rations for its own troops), and provided with excellent medical care. Give me a break. Most of these people would be treated worse in prison in their country of origin (there have been a few Brits and the like that came through, but most are from Arab countries). Think any of those countries would provide a Bible to Christian prisoners? In Saudi Arabia, owning a Bible is grounds for throwing you in prison. Yeah, real religious tolerance there. The average prisoner in a country like North Korea would consider a transfer to Guantanamo Bay a blessing. Heck, the average North Korean citizen would consider it a blessing.

They turned the a/c down enough that the prisoner was shivering? Ooh, wow, I've never been that cold. They turned off the a/c, making it over 100 in the room? I live in Arizona, try again (and from what I hear, several of the countries they come from aren't much better). They played really loud music? I've been to parties that did the same. They were chained to the floor for so long that they urinated and defecated on themselves? Messy, smelly, but not even close to the treatment the Nazis would have provided. Also keep in mind that these descriptions are of the interrogation rooms, and not the normal living standards at Guantanamo Bay. People, on average, are more likely to give you information when they're made uncomfortable. Putting them up at the Hilton wouldn't get much information out of them.

As for the prisoners' allegations of various mistreatments, we've recovered Al Qaeda training manuals that instructed them to do as much. They've observed enough western behavior that they knwo how to use our own weaknesses against us. And too many politicians, activists, and others are all too ready to help them do it. Moreover, there have been more instances of the prisoners themselves defacing the Koran than of the guards doing it. What I find most interesting, however, is that allegations of one guard flushing, kicking, or dropping a Koran is cause for more outrage than terrorists bombing a mosque. Isn't that merely evidence that the Koran "mishandling" really isn't so bad, it's merely an excuse to riot/protest/whatever against Americans (or the Bush administration, as the case may be).

Another take on this can be read here.