Rage in the Monkey

Gitmo Schmitmo. Grow up Durbin.

June 20th, 2005

Why on earth do we coddle people like Senator Dick Durbin?

At the very least he should be forced to resign, or better yet tried for sedition. He (a United State Senator) is comparing the mild interrogation techniques we use to obtain information from detained terrorists and enemy combatants to the horrific practices employed by the Nazis in 1940’s deathcamps, those of the Soviets in their gulags, and the Khmer Rouge in the killing fields of Pol Pot’s Cambodia. Quoting from Durbin

“On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food, or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.”

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.

More on this silliness:

The Washington Times’ Rowan Scarborough points out that while many millions died in Nazi deathcamps, the Soviet Gulag system, and at the hands of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, not one detainee in the care of the US military has died at Gitmo. Mark Steyn has a great take.

Michelle Malkin is, of course, all over it.

PowerLine blog’s got it here and here.

The LA Times has a superb piece (I know, I know) about the perils of lackluster history education.

Bob Parsons, the founder of GoDaddy has an interesting and thoughtful piece on Gitmo. Hmmm… I think I’ll register a domain (at GoDaddy.com).

Entry Filed under: 9/11, History, Military, Politics, Senate, Treason, War on Terror