Evils of Guantanamo

From transcript of Fox News Sunday:

Discussion between Chris Wallace of Fox News, and Duncan Hunter (R-CA) Chairman of the House Armed Service Committee and Tom Malinowski, Washington Director of Human Rights Watch (by the way... served in the CLINTON Adminstration).

HUNTER: [F]or people that don't understand Guantanamo, that's where we have, for example, the 20th hijacker -- the one guy that we did catch while he was on his way to meet the other hijackers. He was pushed out of the -- caught in the airport, deported. And we picked him up in a firefight in Tora Bora and realized he was the 20th hijacker.

HUNTER: We have, for example, Osama bin Laden's bodyguards in this location.

Now, how do we treat these people? I sent down yesterday for the menu from Guantanamo so that the average American could understand how we're brutalizing people in Guantanamo, and I've got it right here.

For Sunday, they're going to be having -- let me see -- orange glazed chicken, fresh fruit grupe, steamed peas and mushrooms, rice pilaf -- another form of torture for the hijackers. We treat them very well.

If you go back to Sunday, it looks like it's honey-baked -- or lemon-baked fish as an entree. And if you look at the food and you also look at the list that has been prepared for the Armed Services Committee which lists abuses of the -- a way that you can abuse a prisoner, feeding them the food that we feed our soldiers, that is, the MREs, which is the new C-rations, is considered actually to be a form of abuse, something probably the manufacturers of C-rations or the new rations don't agree with.

But the point is, we treat these people very well. We supply every one of them with the Koran. We supply them with oil. We supply them with prayer beads. Five times a day on the prison system, we do the call to prayer with arrows pointing in the direction of mecca and assist them in their prayer ritual.
...

WALLACE: The International Committee for the Red Cross, said that there were practices there that were, quote, "tantamount to torture." The FBI did have e-mails from agents complaining about abusive treatment. How do you respond?

HUNTER: Well, I respond very simply, not one person has been killed in Guantanamo. Mr. Gitani (ph) had so-called stressful methods applied to him. Those methods included embarrassing him, I think we saw the "Time" article this morning, having dogs nearby, which barked, did not bite.

So here you have a guy who was on his way to kill 5,000 Americans in the towers, was caught, the 20th hijacker, pushed out of the country before he could do that.

And we have people complaining because he had a dog bark at him in Guantanamo. Didn't touch him but barked at him....

MALINOWSKI: We're talking about a series of detention facilities around the world, in which according to the Pentagon, there have been between 28 and 31 deaths that were the result of criminal homicides. That is a huge number, because you have to understand, torture rarely leads to death.
...
HUNTER: Now, let's go back to Guantanamo, because we quickly shifted the subject. Because what I said was absolutely true. Nobody has been killed in Guantanamo. If you're a guard and you touch a prisoner in Guantanamo, you're subject to an Article 15.

When you handle the Koran, which we give to all the prisoners, Koran, prayer beads -- and we broadcast their prayer over the loudspeaker five times a day -- when you handle the Koran, you have to use gloves and you have to use both hands because otherwise you would insult the Islamic faith.

So we have the legend that end that there is so-called gulag-like treatment and the reality is honey glazed chicken on Sunday, and we give them honey and dates to break the fast on Ramadan.