Hunger striking Gitmo undergrads
The Miami Herald reports that the latest hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay detention center/campus is because the folks who are enjoying their lengthy stays there are angry that staff has been searching their Qurans for homemade weapons and other contraband;
“There have, in the past, been incidents of detainees storing contraband in their Qurans; items found have included improvised weapons, unauthorized food and medicine,” wrote William K. Lietzau, deputy assistant secretary of defense for rule of law and detainee policy.
Yeah, well, that makes sense, since they hide behind school children and make ambush positions in mosques in the field. The Herald continues that there are more than 40 hunger strikes and about 11 of them have been put on IV nutrition.
“They’re not going to desecrate their own Qurans,” said attorney David Remes, who met with several hunger-striking Yemeni detainees and likened a weapon hidden in the holy book to hiding “a saw in a birthday cake.”
Yeah, who would have thought they would desecrate their own mosques either, but yeah, they have.
When [Navy spokesman Capt. Robert] Durand was asked for specific examples, he replied with a general statement: “We always find contraband,” he said in an email Wednesday morning. “Every search, every time. From improvised weapons (clubs, shanks, knives, garottes) to hoarded medications to unauthorized electronics (audio/video recorders, games, etc.). Sometimes in the Quran, but every search results in something.”
Well, we could always just let them starve themselves until we don’t have to discuss where we’re going to warehouse them or have to search their Qurans anymore.
Category: Terror War
Having spent a year dealing closely with detainees (At Cropper- not Gitmo), I am quite certain that the “outrage” over perceived slights to the Koran is entirely manufactured for public consumption. They were not really all that touchy about their favorite book that I saw. Perhaps my experience was atypical- but I think that this is simply manufactured outrage to see if we’ll jump when they say jump.
Their attorney (which I really don’t see any need for them to have access to) is either a liar or a fool.
The reality is that they fall back on the Quran when it fits their narrative. From what I’ve seen so far, they’re mostly a bunch of hypocrites. I’ve yet to meet an Islamist that was peaceful (but I’ll probably catch hell for that – for not being “more tolerant”.
Simply put, they’ve figured out how our justice system works, and using it in a manner that benefits them. There are those who are just stupid enough to not have figured it out yet.
Anon, the attorney is butthurt because he can no longer smuggle anything in to his clients in a Koran/Quran or whatever the spelling of that book is today.
The koran/quran is like birthday cake???
Are you telling me that these knuckleheads can do themselves only by going w/o viddles? Come on. If they can stash contraband, including crude weapons, they can certainly find a way to make themselves go away. Hell, they can gag themselves with crap or the pages from the Koran, just to name two.
I went on a hunger strike when I was 6. My mother made a beef dish that upset my stomach and I wouldn’t eat it. I sat at the table and ignored it, until my mother told my father around 10PM that I obviously wasn’t going to eat it. I won. I was six.
Hunger strikes only work when you’re six years old or an IRA member.
Someone should let slip that IVs and all meds are extracted from swine blood and testicles…problem solved.
So!? They want to go on a hunger strike?! Then let them! Hurt my feelings! (NOT!) From my understanding, they need to lose weight from that diet they have at Gitmo anyway.
aw hell!! issue them a stick with a an airsoft suppressor attached so they can herd pigs disguised as goats!
Hey, I worked in a prison in Iraq as a medic for the detainees. We lived in cells on the other side of the prison. Our treasured detainees got all the best in American medicine, including military issue glasses (which I couldn’t get since I couldn’t leave the facility to have them made after mine broke) and fine meals prepared by a renouned Al’Sulimania chef. Meanwhile I lived on a store of power bars since our generator frequently crashed, causing foodborne illness in the hot meals we did have. When we searched their Korans we usually found plots on how they would all play sick at the same time, then once inside the clinic, kill us with out own scalpels. I loved when they went on hunger strikes, cuz I ate their delicious food!!! And since when is keeping someone alive with IV fluids and force fed torture? Cuz if we let them kill themselves then what do they call it? Manslaughter?
I say SCREW ‘EM, let them starve theirselves !
They have been there for years. Where are they getting prohibited audio/video recorders from?
“We always find contraband . . .”
Wait. Aren’t these scum in jail? Exactly how is the contraband repeatedly smuggled in? By telekinesis? Matter transmission form their outside comrades? BY guards who are sympathetic (i.e., treasonous)? Or perhaps it’s their lawyer(s)?
Maybe an investigation done by military police shielded from political influence would find the source, and those folks can join them behind bars.
I had no sympathy during the early 80s when Bobby Sands and the 9 other IRA folks offed themselves via hunger strike. It was their choice to commit suicide; no one starved them.
I’d have no issue with letting some of the assholes at GITMO do the same.
Carl- some things that are considered “contraband” are items that are allowed, but become contraband through hoarding or trading with other detainees. Food and medications were two things that this was fairly common practice with among our detainees. Other things have included makeshift weapons created pretty much the same ways your normal convicts in a regular prison make them. Our detainees were also allowed touch visits with family which could have facilitated some smuggling- though very little of the contraband that we confiscated actually would have been necessarily smuggled in. Just my experience and I’m not suggesting that it was true everywhere.