October 04, 2006

Gitmo Absurd

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This cartoon is from December 2, 2004 and was in reaction to a story about the International Committee of the Red Cross. Little did we know that our cartoon was not that absurd.

Mark Steyn visited Gitmo and reported on his tour in the Chicago Sun-Times: At Gitmo, detainees get La-Z-Boys, pastries. (via HB List)

If you're hoping to hear about the old wooden chair under a bare lightbulb swinging on its cord, here's the reality: The detaineeare interrogated on either a La-Z-Boy recliner or a luxuriously upholstered sofa -- blue plush with gold piping.

As for being emaciated [like the actor in the poster for "The Road To Guantanamo"], it's the only death camp in history where the soi-disant torture victims put on weight. In contrast to the undernourished thesp in the movie version, the average gain at Gitmo is 18 pounds. The Afghan detainees were the chunkiest Afghans I've ever seen. If they ever make it home, their old comrades -- the lean wiry warriors of the Hindu Kush -- will wonder why a party of Florida retirees has suddenly shown up. These Pushtuns are pushing a ton....

If I had to summon up Gitmo in a single image, it would be the brand-new Qurans in each unoccupied cell. To reassure incoming inmates that the filthy infidels haven't touched the sacred book with their unclean hands, the Qurans are hung from the walls in pristine surgical masks. It's one thing for Muslims to regard infidels as unclean, but it's hard to see why it's in the interests of the United States government to string along with it and thereby validate their bigotry.

This cartoon will be in our forthcoming book, Black & White World III.

UPDATE -- Oct. 5:: Patterico has a detailed, first-hand account from an "Army nurse who worked at Guantánamo, and who spoke on a regular basis with detainees with psychological and/or behavioral problems.":
Part I: Introduction
Part II: Stashiu arrives at GTMO, and tells us what the terrorists are like.
Part III: Hunger strikes, suicides and suicide attempts, and mental illness.
Part IV: Treatment of the detainees.
Part V: Stashiu reacts to Big Media pieces about GTMO.

(Via Michelle Malkin)

UPDATE II -- Oct. 6: If America's self-defense, instead of "religious sensitivity" and "world opinion," was our primary concern, we would be treating the terrorists at Gitmo a little differently. As it is, it's our own military personnel who are put at risk and abused by the detainees (read here). Detainees even get better medical care than the guards. Harry Binswanger had a suggestion:

If I ran Gitmo, I would have begun these killers' internment by smearing them each with pork fat, telling them that now they can no longer believe they'll get into their imagined Heaven, so they'd better abandon their whole religious dogma and start cooperating.

Posted by Forkum at October 4, 2006 07:06 PM
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