Sunday Steyn :This Week's Terror Bill & Club Gitmo

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Mark Steyn :: At Gitmo, detainees get La-Z-Boys, pastries: "This is not just a bad bill,' said Sen. Patrick Leahy, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. ''This is truly a dangerous bill.' And it's not just a dangerous bill. It's also 'unconstitutional' and 'unconscionable' and represents the loss of the nation's 'moral compass.'

Wow! That's quite a lot for a humble bill on military trials for terrorist (OK, 'alleged terrorist') detainees. But Vermont's lefty colossus wasn't done yet in his excoriation of the Bush administration. 'Even they cannot dismiss the practices at Guantanamo as the actions of a few bad people,' he continued. 'Before they just did it quietly, and against the law, on their own say-so, but now they are obtaining license to engage in additional harsh techniques that the rest of the world will see as abusive, as cruel, as degrading and even as torture.'"

Hmm. I should say a word about "the practices at Guantanamo." As it happens, I've just got back from Gitmo. (That glitch on my green card was finally straightened out.) I've visited several prisons in several countries over the years and never seen anything like this one. Granted, most of what I know about enemy detainee camps comes from what Rear Adm. Harry Harris, who runs Guantanamo, calls "bad movies and worse TV shows," and from a distance very little seems to have changed: the basic look -- barbed wire and watch towers -- would be recognizable to any World War II POWs. But, close up, pretty much everything else has been flushed down the toilet of history. Indeed, even the toilet has been flushed down the toilet of history: In the interests of cultural sensitivity, Gitmo cells were fitted with "Asian-style toilets," because "that's what the detainees prefer." full commentary

Blogger Category:War on terror

---