The "Death Camp"

From Claudia Rosett's article on the Guantamino Bay dentention center comes this scary description (and not in the way you think). Hat tip to the Corner.

What we saw is a place so steeped in political correctness that it comes close to caricature. Make no mistake: The detainees occupy cells in a high-security facility. But almost every room has an arrow on the floor pointing to Mecca. Signs demanding silence stand ready for prayer time. Korans are cradled in surgical masks. Detainees are interrogated while sitting on sofas or cushioned reclining chairs.

They choose from a halal menu including such home-style treats as dates and baklava. Doctors, dentists and psychiatrists (offering confidential counseling) are on 24-hour call. Good behavior is rewarded with access to board games, books and communal areas, including more time in recreational yards - where we saw a group of detainees chatting around a table, while one of their cohorts nearby, at leisurely speed in the afternoon heat, pedaled an exercise bike.

An officer tells me that earlier this year Guantanamo was buying bottled water that had an American flag on the label. Lest this upset the detainees, base personnel were put to work stripping off the labels.

At the same time, there is a deadly game going on in this camp.

Security guards detach name strips from their uniforms when going near the detainees. Some of the guards, we are told, have been on the receiving end not only of direct attacks and threats from the inmates, but threats against their families. Detainees have made weapons out of light bulbs, fan blades, the footpads of their Asian-style toilets, and the springs in their push-button sinks. Guards tell us that detainees use the lawyer-client privileges they enjoy as a clandestine communications network both inside and outside the camp. What exists in the inmate culture, Harris explains, is, in effect, "a fully tricked-out al-Qaeda operating cell."

The conundrum in running Gitmo is how to contain and learn from this scene without getting killed by the inmates on the one hand and clobbered by the critics on the other. I asked Harris how he and his colleagues manage to navigate this maze and remain sane. He answers that this is their job: "We're the most transparent detention facility in the world."

As we head for the plane back to Washington, it seems to me that if the critics of Guantanamo are not satisfied by now, they never will be. If the real aim of the criticisms still directed at this place is truth, justice and security for the Free World, we would be better served were some of the critics to turn their attentions to the countries that spawned this terrorist jihad - countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, countries with prisons whose names most of the world does not remember, and, in many cases, has never even heard.

Rember this is the place described by Dick Durbin

"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."

Described by him after he hard of a whopping five cases of abuse.