Free Republic

Resale of Meals, Ready to Eat questioned after eBay trading spottedBy Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Saturday, February 18, 2006 WASHINGTON — Meals, Ready to Eat, the prepackaged rations infamous among servicemembers, remain hot collectibles on the online trading site eBay.com, despite defense officials’ efforts to stop the practice. MREs typically cost about $4.50 to produce, and are intended solely for use and distribution by members of the military, according to Defense Department rules. But the water-activated rations are being marketed on the site as both survival gear and collector’s item, with some cases of 12 going...

By TREVOR PADDENBURG 18dec05 A WA hospital has scrubbed baked ham from its Christmas menu, fearing Muslim patients could be offended. It has also overhauled its entire menu so that all meals are now halal – containing only meat and other food prepared according to Muslim customs. But Port Hedland Regional Hospital staff and many non-Muslim patients are outraged, saying it is a case of political correctness gone mad. Kitchen staff are so angry that they have organised a petition demanding ham be put back on the Christmas menu. Other WA hospitals are also introducing halal dining, though the Health...

After speaking with soldiers, sailors, and civilians who collectively staff the Joint Task Force - Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on my recent visit to that base, I left convinced that abuse definitely exists at the detention facilities. But not the slander and hyperbole about alleged mistreatment of the unlawful combatants confined there that we've all heard. There is far more serious abuse: the relentless, merciless attacks on American servicemen and women by these same terrorist thugs. Many of the orange jumpsuit-clad detainees fight their captors at every opportunity. They attack guards whenever the soldiers enter their cells, trying to reach up...

The latest hysteria alleging American human rights abuses of suspected terrorists comes from Amnesty International, which apparently hopes to turn even the slightest supposed mistreatment of prisoners into a full-scale Abu Ghraib-type scandal. According to the Washington Times, Amnesty International "last week called on foreign governments 'to uphold their obligations under international law by investigating U.S. officials implicated in the development or implementation of interrogation techniques that constitute torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment' at the U.S. military base known as Gitmo." Furthermore, in a report titled "The State of the World's Human Rights," the organization charged that "the...

CONVICTED terrorist will have to wait until next year to argue a claim that prison authorities are discriminating against him by not serving enough halal meat. Halal meat, including chicken and beef, has to be killed in the presence of a Muslim who prays to Allah as the carcass is left to bleed out.

Contrary to various media reports, "over 1,000" Arab security prisoners in Israeli jails are not hunger-striking. In fact, says Prison Service Commissioner Yaakov Ganot, only 570 prisoners are involved, "and what they're actually doing is refusing to receive today's meals - which is very different than a hunger-strike." Several reasons were given for the strike. Palestinian Prisoners Union Chairman Isa Kraka said that it was a response to yesterday's "wounding" of 18 prisoners in the Shikmah Prison in Ashkelon, and that they were striking in solidarity with them. Yesterday's rioting in the Shikmah prison broke out after a map of...