Close your eyes, listen really closely, and you can almost hear the holier-than-thou remonstrations coming from across the pond. From England to Germany, "intellectuals" across the Continent (and in America, for that matter) are sniffling about the treatment of prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay. This despite a complete lack of evidence that any Al Queda members there have suffered anything more serious than suntans.
Indeed, the Al Queda terrorists at Camp X-Ray probably deserve, at best, a quick bullet in the head (this is Cuba, after all) and a quick trip to the dark eyed virgins, but instead are handled with kid gloves by Marines who's time could be better spent doing almost anything else. Instead, Al Queda members are given three meals a day for 2,600 calories, which have been altered to make them more appetizing. The Marines, on the other hand, don't get 2,600 calories a day and must make do with the traditional fare. The prisoners also get the same sleeping mats as those used by the Marines, are pointed in the direction of Mecca, receive doctors visits from, among others, optometrists (the better to see the escape plans) and podiatrists (so they can run faster during the escape). And, as Matt Labash reported after visiting X-Ray, the prisoners also receive anti-dandruff shampoo that is a "luxurious shampoo in a gentle formula that restores moisture, shine, and body to your beautifully clean hair."
Of course, this hasn't stopped any number of mealy-mouthed journalists from proclaiming that the conditions at Guantanamo are cruel. As Julian Borger, of the Guardian, put it: "It may not be torture, but the cramped metal cages baking in tropical heat in the US base in Guantanamo Bay seemed to belong to another, more brutal era. This is a sort of Caribbean gulag, and without doubt the scene would raise concern if it was being run by any other country." Those "cramped" metal cages are about 8' x 8'. By way of comparison, a South Hall single is 9.3' x 8.2' As for the gulag, I don't think I have the nerve to ask the one person I know who spent time in one whether he would think they were similar. I couldn't find the weather report for Guantanamo Bay for this week, but I did manage to find Havana's. According to weather.com, the "baking tropical heat" for this week will be as high as a full 82 during the day, changing to an arctic 59 at night!
The Independent, which penned a particularly dimwitted editorial about X-Ray wrote: "Even if we were to take [Rumsfeld] at his word, it still remains the case that Guantanamo Bay resembles nothing so much as a concentration camp, its captives housed without privacy and open to the elements in what amount to chicken coops... The abuse of human rights, which borders on torture, is not what we in Britain stood shoulder to shoulder with America for... to take one example, the shaving of heads and beards of some prisoners is not just degrading; it also hands America's enemies a priceless
propaganda gift." The Independent, which appears to be populated with the same sorts of people who felt that the Soviet Union was misunderstood, manages to simultaneously prove its own ignorance and a sense of moral superiority that rests on a foundation of moral equivalency. Prisoners' heads were shaved, in many cases, because they were carrying the sorts of creatures that would cause an American child to be placed in social services.
But even worse than the myriad of inaccurate comments (Alice Thomson, of the Telegraph, worried about the prisoners being exposed to malaria, this despite the fact that malaria was eliminated in Cuba by the United States after the Spanish-American War) is the fact that commentators believe that the terrorists deserve nice conditions. The United States has been far kinder to the Al Queda members than they were to us, or even to themselves. According to one doctor, 25 percent of those arriving at Guantanamo were malnourished. Their living conditions have actually improved in prison. Yet, we continue to coddle them. If we were to be just, we should take away their mats, their Korans, cancel their medical care, and give them one meal a day. Instead, we offer them the equivalent of a Four Seasons prison, with amenities that in some cases outstrip the Marines guarding them.
Fortunately, for the terrorists, the United States has forsworn justice and instead opted for practicality. At this point, it makes sense to treat the prisoners well in the hopes that they will reveal some necessary information. It also makes sense to treat them well because in America the notion of summary justice is an anathema to the American way of life.
Questions about the treatment of prisoners will remain as long as this war continues. The moral relativists, however, who believe that you can equate Camp X-Ray with the gulag, or that al Queda prisoners should not have their heads shaved because it offends their religion, need to take a closer look at reality. The United States came under attack by people who are willing to commit suicide. With men as fanatical as this, harsh measures are dictated to ensure the safety of the American people. This does not mean that all rights should be ignored, but it does mean that there needs to be a recognition of the extraordinary circumstances that are now in effect. The men in X-Ray are just the first in what will probably be many detainees. To let them go would send a message to our enemies, one that will be met by another attack, probably more horrific than the first. While America does need to show leniency when applicable, it does not need to heed the words of sanctimonious journalists and commentators who never have to deal with terrorism itself, but only with its theoretical aspect.
