Apparently good old Yankee ingenuity is alive at Gitmo.
“The sands are white, the sea laps gently and crowds of bronzed Americans laze in the Caribbean sunshine.
They have a cinema, a golf course and, naturally, a gift shop stocked with mugs, jaunty T-shirts and racks of postcards showing perfect sunsets and bright green iguanas.
Only the barbed wire decoration, a recurring motif, hints at anything wrong.
Welcome to “Taliban Towers” at Guantanamo Bay, the most ghoulishly distasteful tourist destination on the planet.
As these astonishing mementoes show, the US authorities are promoting the world’s most notorious prison camp as a cheap hideaway for American sunseekers ‚Äì a revelation that has drawn international anger and condemnation.
Just yards from the shelves of specially branded mugs and cuddly toys, nearly 300 “enemy combatants” lie sweltering in a waking nightmare.
It is six years since foreign prisoners, many captured in Afghanistan, were first taken to this US-occupied corner of Cuba. Yet even now, no charges have been brought against them.”
Awwww, and they are such nice people too!
In case you haven’t been to Club Gitmo it offers:
“While the detainees lie incarcerated, visitors can windsurf, take boat trips and go fishing for grouper, tuna, red snapper and swordfish.
The United States’ 1.5million service personnel and Guantanamo’s 3,000 construction workers are eligible to visit the “resort”, which boasts a McDonald’s, KFC and a bowling alley.
They even have a Wal-Mart supermarket.
The vacation comes at a knock-down price: just $42 (£20) per night for a suite of air-conditioned rooms, including a kitchen, bathroom, living room and bedrooms.
But it is the souvenirs that have led to the greatest criticism. One T-shirt from the gift shop is decorated with a guard tower and barbed wire. It reads: “The Taliban Towers at Guantanamo Bay, the Caribbean’s Newest 5-star Resort.”
Another praises “the proud protectors of freedom”. A third displays a garish picture of an iguana and states: “Greetings from paradise GTMO resort and spa fun in the Cuban sun.”
A child-sized shirt says: “Someone who loves me got me this T-shirt in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.”
This of course is being reporting by yet another british activist hack for the Daily Mail in London. While I have to chuckle a the fact that this is great way to show terrorist that their terrorism doesn’t stop the enjoyment of our freedoms, there is much - including absolutely no evidence (outside a staged photo) that this is taking place. Moreover the writer Angela Levin is a known leftist advocate of terrorist “rights”.
This is also a flat out lie.
“There are currently 280 prisoners sweltering in cages in temperatures of up to 100F (38C). The camp, where 7,000 soldiers are stationed, was established in 2002 following the invasion of Afghanistan.
Guantanamo bay: The U.S. was accused of deliberately pushing detainees to the edge
In 2004, photographs of cowed Guantanamo prisoners in orange jump suits shocked the world.
“The majority are kept in isolation in cells that are no bigger than a toilet,” said Katznelson. “There is no sea view. Instead, if they have a window, it looks out on to a bleak corridor. The cells are lined with steel from floor to ceiling, including the toilet, sink and bed base.
“There is a popular misconception that these men have had trials and been found guilty. Nothing is further from the truth. Not one of them has.
“The tortures that the Americans use are wide-ranging and inhuman. One is to blast the cell with freezing cold air. Another is to pretend to take the prisoners to a country like Egypt where prisoners are tortured, even to the extent of taking them on a mock flight, so they can be treated in a barbaric fashion.”
Katznelson continued: “Inmates are offered three meals a day, but there are eight prisoners who have been on hunger strike for over a year asking either for a trial or to be set free.
“These men are force-fed twice a day. First they are strapped down with 16 different restrictions, including one that jerks their head back. Then a tube is fed through their nose and down into their stomach.
“The guards don’t always use lubrication and regularly use the same tube for several different prisoners without bothering to clean it.”
All of this was debunked long ago and I would remind Levin that more than twenty visits to Gitmo by Congressional delgations showed nothing of the kind. Additionally the quarters that inmates are housed in are air conditioned - have been - as the barracks where inmates are housed being renovated in 2004-2005. This isn’t recent by the way as the Red Cross cited considerable improvement in the facilities in 2006.
Moreover there are ongoing renovations which began last year to provide such atrocities as cable TV in recreational areas.
It’s a shame that the article is most likely bogus, I need a vacation this summer.
3 Responses
crosspatch
May 4th, 2008 at 10:18 am
1“All of this was debunked long ago”
I don’t understand why the government isn’t more aggressive in debunking stories like this. Why doesn’t the White House spokesman call the newspaper on it during the daily press briefing in a highly public way?
And why don’t the readers of the paper do so? Comment on the story or write a letter to the editor if you have the specifics to debunk the story.
DubiousD
May 4th, 2008 at 10:38 am
2“I don‚Äôt understand why the government isn‚Äôt more aggressive in debunking stories like this.”
Because Bush is in charge. End of discussion.
Sunday Links : Stop The ACLU
May 4th, 2008 at 11:00 am
3[...] MacRanger talks about Club Gitmo! Jon Ham, and Michelle Malkin talks about the absurity of the screams of asparagus. Dan Collins wonders if mineral rights are far behind. Don Surber discusses Obama’s boiling point. Scared Monkeys talk about Hillary’s horse. Doug Ross discusses political correctness during times of war. Rick at Brutally Honest discovers that global warming is causing shark attacks! Macker is playing with the moonbats. [...]
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