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The Truth About Guantanamo Bay (Michelle Malkin Must-Read!!!)
townhall.com ^ | 6/01/2005 | Michelle Malkin

Posted on 05/31/2005 9:59:15 PM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: dhimmis; dhimmitude; guantanamobay; islamofascism; liberalmediabias; michellemalkin; unholyalliance; waronterror
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

Believe Michelle and discard Newsweek (maybe one day it will be plugging toilets as its one good use may be toilet paper -- and then a bad use at that...)


41 posted on 06/01/2005 3:54:11 AM PDT by topher (One Nation under God)
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To: philetus
I believe islamic killers should be afforded all the perks and niceties a Christian would get. No more and no less.

I'll put a bullet in, after I find out when, and how, they're going after my kids, or my friends!


42 posted on 06/01/2005 4:05:07 AM PDT by pageonetoo (You'll spot their posts soon enough!)
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
By all means treat them with respect till you find out they are terrorists. Then execute them by hanging, leaving their carcases hanging in the lunch yard for a couple of days before you bury them in the latrine.

The Islamics are masters at liberal whining, "Oh you touched a Koran, I am so Offended", but are not offended when they blow up a Mosque full of fellow Muslims all reading their Korans.

Islamics use Political Correctness as a main weapon in this war. They see it as weakness and frankly, so do I. They must bust a gut laughing reading stuff like this, how we get our panties in a twist over a panty hat, while they enjoy torturing people to death.

Our enemies are evil, and we are acting like a bunch of pansys.
43 posted on 06/01/2005 4:55:05 AM PDT by American in Israel (A wise man's heart directs him to the right, but the foolish mans heart directs him toward the left.)
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
Suicide Bomber Strikes Afghan Mosque
By NOOR KHAN

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -AP- A bomb from a suicide attacker tore through a southern Afghanistan mosque during Wednesday's funeral for a Muslim cleric opposed to the Taliban, killing at least 20 people, and the local governor said an al-Qaida-linked militant was responsible.

At least 42 people were wounded...

How many Qurans were destroyed?

44 posted on 06/01/2005 6:02:00 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection (http://hour9.blogspot.com/)
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

Yeah, well, when the Saudis start allowing Christians to have Bibles in their possession in the Kingdom, I might be concerned about how the Koran is treated at a prison.


45 posted on 06/01/2005 8:38:41 AM PDT by SuziQ
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mark for later read


46 posted on 06/01/2005 8:42:42 AM PDT by eureka! (It will not be safe to vote Democrat for a long, long, time...)
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

Michell kicked ass when she subbed for O'Reilly. Awesome. Keep that bony ass giraffe Coulter off my screen...I want more Malkin.


47 posted on 06/01/2005 8:49:35 AM PDT by montag813
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To: hatfieldmccoy

"An AMerican government artist did that" (put Christ in a toilet).

----Hey, EXCELLENT point---I haven't heard ANYONE make that very apt analogy since this whole "KoranFlush" has been in the news, but it is PERFECT! His name was Miguel (or Juan) Serrano, and his "artwork" was "Piss Christ".


48 posted on 06/01/2005 9:06:35 AM PDT by willyboyishere
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
Great story and of course in compliance with the rules:
49 posted on 06/01/2005 10:18:23 AM PDT by texson66 ("Tyranny is yielding to the lust of the governing." - Lord Moulton)
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To: willyboyishere
His name was Miguel (or Juan) Serrano, and his "artwork" was "Piss Christ".

His name is Andres Serrano. When Christian symbols are desecrated, it's "Freedom of Expression." When Islamic symbols are rumored to be treated with a lack of respect, it's a "Human rights violation."

Don't you GET it?
50 posted on 06/01/2005 10:31:17 AM PDT by Antoninus (Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini, Hosanna in excelsis!)
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To: atomicweeder
It's not about Iraq. It's never been about Iraq. It's about Bush being an anti-gay, pro-life, born again Christian. That's why the libs hate him. Everything else is just a prop in their hatred campaign. Does anyone believe that libs actually care about the Gitmo detainees anymore than they cared about the Serbian civilians killed by Clinton's Kosovo adventure?

It's just part of the Unholy Alliance :

Vindication: There Is An Unholy Alliance

51 posted on 06/01/2005 12:01:54 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (This tagline no longer operative....floated away in the flood of 2005 ,)
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To: Antoninus

"Don't you GET it?"-----Sir, with all due respect, what is it you don't think I "get". I was congratulating the other FReeper I responded to on the aptness of his analogy, which
makes the same point as yours, unless I am reading either or both of them wrong. The point should be obvious and not exceedingly, ungraspably subtle for any thinking person, but I have not heard or read anyone drawing upon that issue of the Serrano work , which was all over the news for awhile in my part of the country, credit due, I believe, to either Rudy Giuliani, Bill Donohue, or both.I wasn't trying to correct him, or be facetious. Sorry I got Serrano's first name wrong. There is no reason to get needlessly agressive with a total stranger, online or in life. I've done this myself, and apologized when I was called on it. Goodbye.


52 posted on 06/01/2005 1:56:04 PM PDT by willyboyishere
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