Camp X-Ray Or Club Med?

 


 
 
San Francisco Chronicle  
January 24, 2002 
Pg. 23 
Camp X-Ray Or Club Med?  
By Debra J. Saunders 

  AFTER SPENDING months in frigid Afghanistan caves subsisting on 
Allah knows what, the 158 detainees the United States is holding 
in tropical Guantanamo Bay must think they've died and gone to 
heaven.

  
Well, heaven without the 72 virgins.

  The detainees should look at the balmy Camp X-ray -- replete 
with running water, three square meals a day and modern medical 
care -- as a sort of Taliban version of Club Med. Call it Club 
Gitmo.

  Yet, some Americans and Brits have been hollering about the U.S. 
treatment of these tough guys. British newspaper headlines have 
screamed about U.S. "Torture!" and "Monstrous Inhumanity," while 
stories say prisoners are treated "like wild beasts" in "cages." 
Amnesty International issued a press release accusing the United 
States of "keeping prisoners incommunicado, (using) sensory 
deprivation, the use of unnecessary restraint and the 
humiliation of people through tactics such as shaving them" in 
an effort to 'break' the spirit of individuals ahead of 
interrogation."

  It should be noted that much of the uproar is over photographs 
of the detainees taken as they were being transported from 
airplanes to their cells. The military wisely shackles prisoners 
during transport: That's when it's easiest for violent people to 
hurt others.

  Also, a British Foreign Ministry team, which spent three days at 
Club Gitmo, reported that three British citizens being held 
there had "no complaints about their treatment."

  As the Washington Post reported, Foreign Office Parliamentary 
Secretary Ben Bradshaw also explained that there were "no gags, 
no goggles, no earmuffs and no shackles while (the prisoners) 
are in their cells."

  Still, some people just have to bash the United States. And they 
apparently don't care if the criticism makes them look clueless 
as to what really is inhumane. Take the sensory deprivation 
charge. Does Amnesty International think that wearing a hood on 
an airplane is sensory deprivation, instead of a security 
measure? Isn't the Taliban code all about sensory deprivation?

  As for the "unnecessary restraint," one detainee has announced 
that he wants to kill an American before he leaves Cuba, and 
another detainee bit a guard, according to Pentagon spokesman 
Capt. Riccoh Player. So make that "necessary restraint."

  I was embarrassed by some of the press corps' comments during 
Tuesday's Pentagon briefing. Talk about clueless. First, there's 
the reporter who likened living in the tropics without air 
conditioning to "torture."

  Then there's the reporter who asked Secretary of Defense Donald 
Rumsfeld if American Taliban John Walker will be treated the 
same as the detainees. "Will he be put in an 8-by-8-foot cell 
that has no walls but only a roof?" was the follow-up question.

  
I'd guess that's one journalist who's never been to a prison.

  "In an 8-by-8-foot space, (on some ships) we would cram half a 
dozen sailors," was one U.S. official's reaction.

  Then there's the status of the detainees. Some Brits and Amnesty 
International want them to be officially classified as POWs. The 
detainee status however, gives the U.S. military the leeway to 
interrogate these former operatives about any future terrorist 
attacks.

  White House spokesman Ken Lisaius rightly noted of the Club 
Gitmo guests that, "for the most part, they're members of al 
Qaeda and if they were free, they'd engage in murder once 
again."

  You could understand the outrage if the U.S. military were 
torturing or otherwise mistreating the detainees. Instead, 
Amnesty International and the comrades are outraged that the 
military is treating al Qaeda captives like prisoners. Oh, the 
horror.

  You get the feeling that if Rummy booked these tough guys into a 
Motel 6, they'd complain that there's no room service.