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AmericanProtest.net > Stand Up for Gitmo! |
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Stand Up for Gitmo!by Wayne Boettcher When serving in the military there are good times and bad times, great bosses and poor bosses, happy jobs and work that is not so pleasant. A quartermaster toiling away in a warehouse late at night may not get much recognition, but is often satisfied at the end of the day with a job well done. During my military service (as many troops do) I reflected each day after knocking off on whether I accomplished very much for my country. Recently I heard more about one of the toughest jobs in the United States Armed Forces. It's hard work and thankless. Besides that, on this assignment our troops are frequently attacked with biological, physical and psychological warfare. Fighting back is sometimes not an option; and while many of our Armed Forces are constrained from doing so after a confrontation for one reason or another, they usually don't have to smile while they're taking it in the chin! I am speaking of the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines stationed at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, known to most as "Gitmo." That is the place where the most evil terrorists are taken. Often trained to hate Americans or "infidels" since childhood, the prisoners are usually violent, corrupt and scheming, about what you'd expect from people who believe using women and children as shields is an acceptable practice. Of course, some are found to have little or no evidence against them and are released, often to tell lurid tales of torture to eager groups of slavering journalists. With few exceptions these reporters hope to win a Pulitzer Prize with an "expose" of "evil America" using Gitmo as an example. The sad part is that many of these "journalists" are Americans themselves. Some of the released terrorists end up being captured again and find themselves back at the remote prison, yet few reporters mention them when speaking of released prisoners. The British revealed a terrorist training manual and named it for the city in which it was found a few years ago. Known as the Manchester Document, it contains misinformation instructions for terrorists, ordering them to claim that they have been tortured if they are ever captured. The American troops at Gitmo understand that many of their prisoners know these instructions well. Liberal news media have a harder time figuring that one out. Their slanted stories often channel terrorist's tricky propaganda campaign to make them look like innocent "martyrs" who only want to sip tea and read the Koran. And liberal lawyers, politicians and "anti-war" protesters voraciously swallow anything a terrorist says, trusting their word without bothering to check the facts. One "anti-war" activist here in Tucson appears with a single worded sign "Guantanamo," knowing that the way has been paved for people to automatically assume America is in the wrong. However, the facts are quite different than moonbat* fantasies of Soldiers kicking hooded, orange clad prisoners while maniacally laughing in an American accent. The reality is that captured terrorists are treated quite well for prisoners of war. In fact, there is probably no other country that treats prisoners of war so well as those at Guantanamo Bay, especially those that violate all conventions of war! (Terrorists really should have no expectation of POW status since they don't follow war rules and are not an official army.) One reason for the kind treatment is that Gitmo is the most scrutinized of prisons. But mostly it's because Americans are not the kind of people who use women and children for shields. “I don’t think people realize how hard we try to keep the detainees as safe and as well cared for as we do, because ‘fair, firm and impartial’ is exactly what we do here,” a Navy master-at-arms working at Gitmo said recently. The guard reported that even if a prisoner's salad wasn't right, he'd try to get him the correct one. The prisoners sometimes respond to this "kid glove" treatment by attacking the detention personnel in any way possible. 3,232 incidents of detainee misconduct (including 432 assaults with bodily fluids, 227 physical assaults and 99 efforts to incite a disturbance or riot) were catalogued between August 2005 and August 2006, according to prison records. Like I said, it's a tough job; thankfully, we have tough troops. However, something that especially frustrates these hardworking men and women of our military at Gitmo is the shabby way they are treated by their own countrymen; specifically the television news media. Instead of showing the modern facilities used in today's detention areas they constantly use old outdated video clips whenever they do a story on Gitmo. The clips show the temporary camp used for 4 months called "Camp X-Ray" even though the detainees now enjoy new buildings at Camp Delta. It's easy to tell if the video clips or photos shown on TV news are old, according to Rear Admiral Harry Harris Jr., commander of JTF-GTMO, who says the outdated images include troops in dark woodland camouflage uniforms moving detainees in orange jump suits in a primitive facility. No guards here have worn these phased-out uniforms for more than a year. So what would liberal news media say about their refusal to use modern photos or news clips? I was curious about that myself so I contacted a local television station that had just shown the old clips last week in a story. An email sent to the station News Manager received no reply. So I called up their news line and spoke to an intern who said they received the old images from the national network news office. He didn't seem to understand that it was possible for this to be an invalid or outdated source. When I told him the Defense Department website of Guantanamo Bay had up-to-date photos, he sneered "We can't just get photos from some website." I explained that the site of a government facility is not just "some website" but a primary source for information about that facility which was obviously better than his national office. He really didn't seem to care until I mentioned I was thinking about staging a protest of the station with a large sign. I explained that I would hand out copies of the Department of Defense article "Outdated Images of Detention Center, Mission Frustrate Guantanamo Troopers" to passersby. This got quite a reaction and he tried to get the News Manager on the phone (the same one who had not answered the email) but was unable to. She did get back to me some days later. She also said they got the images from the national network news center but after much questioning finally admitted that the local station was not required to use outdated images. She tried to imply it was all just a mistake but paused awhile when I asked her why only video from a 4 month window were used if they weren't deliberately trying to show the worst of Gitmo. She refused to comment on whether Dan Rather's fraudulent National Guard memos were a case of partisan news hoaxing, becoming more guarded with every question. Finally the exasperated TV News Manager agreed that she would be sure and check the images before any more Gitmo stories. The idea of handing out copies of the article "Outdated Images of Detention Center, Mission Frustrate Guantanamo Troopers," perhaps at the front door of a TV station, is a good one. (Especially in New York at their main offices!) And there are many other ways to get it into the hands of television news media employees as well. The story has a link for emailing a copy at the end of the article. It could be faxed or even printed and mailed through the post office. Registered mail would really send a message! This is a great project for anyone. After sending the article, try to follow up with a call to the newsroom. Politely tell them about the main Gitmo website with it's many photos, too. Television and other news media will not find this article by themselves. It's up to you to stand up for our troops at Guantanamo Bay, and stand up for America! Wayne Boettcher is the head of AmericanProtest.net Related Links: * Moonbat is a common nickname for extremist "anti-war" protesters |
