The Down Low on GITMO

Christopher Merola
Monday, November 30, 2009

President Obama is now bringing terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay (GITMO), the American military base in Cuba, to the USA for trial. He is risking our safety by bringing these terrorists to the USA; he is also setting an ugly legal precedent, one where terrorists who are not even American citizens, are given the same legal rights as the citizens some of these same terrorists have harmed or killed.
What is behind the decision to bring terrorists to the USA for trial and then place them in American prisons? It appears that the Democrats in Congress believe the Bush administration was somehow abusive to the terrorists held at GITMO.

Just a few years ago, when President Bush was in office, the American media were abuzz concerning the alleged abuse of terrorists and enemy combatants being held at GITMO. Well, here we are some years later and the hard evidence of abuse occurring at GITMO has yet to surface. If anything, the hard evidence demonstrates the American news media engaged in nothing more than a modern day witch hunt against the Bush administration.

The American media were hoping to throw enough mud at the Bush administration that something would stick. It never did. As it turns out, the most pressing issue of concern, as it pertains to GITMO, was the admission by the Bush Administration that several members of the American military "might have" mishandled a Koran.

While no evidence surfaced to prove these claims, the American media insisted there was evidence of abuse at GITMO.

In 2005, Newsweek, the traditionally liberal magazine, released a story alleging American soldiers flushed a Koran down a toilet. Many Muslims around the world were up in arms. Riots ensued overseas and more than a dozen people were killed during violent protests against the supposed Koran flushing American military.

Well, as it turns out, no such Koran flushing incident occurred. Newsweek retracted its story and the cat was finally out of the bag. The American media were exposed as mudslinging reactionaries, as were the Democrat leaders in Congress, who tried and failed to capitalize on the perceived abuse of GITMO prisoners.

One Democrat Senator in particular, Dick Durbin of Illinois, overstepped his scripted dramatic role and accused GITMO of being equal to Hitler's concentration camps, Stalin's slave labor camps and Pol Pot's killing fields. The outrage to Durbin's statements was fierce. The mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, a Democrat whose son was serving in the U.S. military at the time, spoke out against Durbin's statements.

Durbin finally apologized after more than a week of saying he would not. Once again, the cat was out of the bag. There was no abuse at GITMO. The Red Cross even said so after inspecting GITMO several times. So why do the Democrats in Congress and Obama continue to sell the lie?

One reason is the Democrats want to exploit the GITMO issue for the upcoming 2010 races. If the terrorists go to trial in the USA, instead of a military trial, then the Democrats can use the trials for constant drama -- drama that further demonizes Bush and the Republicans in hopes of winning over more voters. It is nothing more than political grandstanding.

The Democrats simply want to use the GITMO issue as a battering ram against the Republicans. The irony here is that no abuse has occurred at GITMO. Yet, all this talk of abuse by the media and the Democrat Party only draws attention to the real civil rights abuses that occurred during a time of war; abuse that is never discussed by the Democrats or the American media.

During World War II, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) began a policy of abuse that would make civil libertarians scream bloody murder had it occurred under GW Bush's watch. On February 11, 1942, FDR ordered the War Department to prepare for the entire evacuation of all Japanese-American citizens on the west coast of the United States. Using the War Powers Act to justify his power grab, FDR signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of Japanese-Americans from their very homes and placing them in prison camps.

FDR's power became absolute and corrupt simultaneously. He then turned his attention to rounding up German-American and Italian-American citizens and making them work in soup kitchens against their will. I know this for a fact as my grandfather, an Italian immigrant, was forced to work in a soup kitchen simply because he was of Italian decent.

Remember, these were American citizens who did not break the law. Their only crime according to FDR was their ethnicity. For this, these law abiding American citizens were taken from their homes and treated like terrorists. Talk about ethnic profiling!

Democrat President Woodrow Wilson also engaged in the abuse of civil liberties during WW I. Wilson used the Sedition Act (1918) to stifle speech against his policies. The Seditions Act made it a crime to utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, or abusive language about the US government. Using this new weapon, Woodrow Wilson shut down newspapers that printed articles against his policies. Can you imagine the outrage if GW Bush shut down newspapers that printed articles against his policies?

Wilson even used the Sedition Act to arrest anti-war protesters for speaking out against the draft and the war. Could you imagine the outrage if GW Bush ended protesting against his policies?

Think about the twisted logic here: those who truly are terrorists were held at GITMO by the Bush administration to keep America safe. For this act of defending our national security the left has cried foul, all while denying the true civil rights abuses of Democrat presidents FDR and Woodrow Wilson.

I find it quite interesting that FDR, specifically, has always been an icon to the political left. He has taken on a mythical god-like status over the years. For this reason, the charges of abuse at GITMO, aimed against the Bush administration, are outrageous to say the least. Even more outrageous are the claims that GITMO prisoners are denied their Constitutional rights. Those imprisoned at GITMO are not even American citizens. They have no Constitutional rights. Therefore, their Constitutional rights can't be violated.

Secondly, those imprisoned at GITMO are terrorists who fit the legal category of "enemy combatants." Even when it was unclear if enemy combatants were entitled to the protection and rights of the Geneva Convention, the Bush Administration afforded these terrorists the protection rights agreed upon at the Geneva Convention anyway. That's right, the Bush administration actually treated the enemy combatants -- some of who were caught in the very act of attacking American military personnel in Iraq -- better than the terrorists deserve to be treated.

Now let's consider the conditions at GITMO.

The conditions at GITMO are far superior to the conditions these terrorists were accustomed to in their own countries of origin. Some of these terrorists used toilets, drank clean water and ate three square meals a day for the first time in their very lives. The enemy combatants at GITMO were treated to Muslim diets daily -- diets that met their strict religious standards.

GITMO terrorists were given the Koran (paid for by American tax dollars), along with ample time to pray 5 times per day. All while our nation's military was under investigation for alleged, "Christian proselytizing" at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

You may find it interesting to know that after breaking up Osama Bin Laden's terrorist network in Afghanistan, our nation's military forces came upon the Al Qaeda training manual. In the manual were instructions for a member of Al Qaeda to cry "abuse" if captured by the American armed forces. The manual went on to say that forces within America would be sympathetic to the terrorists' cause if they only cried, "abuse."

Judging by the behavior of the American media and the Democrat Party of recent years, it is easy to figure out who is more sympathetic to terrorists.