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Feb. 8, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Lofty ideals must be followed with grounded applications

Clifford D. May: Letter from the West Bank
Steve Rothaus: Judge OKs plan for gay man, lesbian couple to be on girl's birth certificate
Gloria Goodale: States consider drone bans: Overreaction or crucial for privacy rights?
Environmental Nutrition Editors: Don't buy the aloe vera juice hype
Michael Craig Miller, M.D.: Harvard Experts: Regular exercise pumps up memory, too
Erik Lacitis: Vanity plates: Some take too much license
The Kosher Gourmet by Susie Middleton: Broccoflower, Carrot and Leek Ragout with Thyme, Orange and Tapenade is a delightful and satisfying melange of veggies, herbs and aromatics
Feb. 6, 2013

Nara Schoenberg: The other in-law problem

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. : A see-no-jihadist for the CIA
Kristen Chick: Ahmadinejad visits Cairo: How sect tempers Islamist ties between Egypt, Iran
Roger Simon: Ed Koch's lucky corner
Heron Marquez Estrada: Robot-building sports on a roll
Patrick G. Dean, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: How to restore body's ability to secrete insulin
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: 3 prostate-protecting diet tips
The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen 7 principles for to help you make the best soup ever in a slow cooker
Feb. 4, 2013

Jonathan Tobin: Can Jewish Groups Speak Out on Hagel?

David Wren: Findings of government study, released 3 days before Newtown shooting, at odds with gun-control crusaders
Kristen Chick: Tahrir becomes terrifying, tainted
Curtis Tate and Greg Gordon: US keeps building new highways while letting old ones crumble
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to hear case on arrests, DNA
Harvard Health Letters: Neck and shoulder pain? Know what it means and what to do
Andrea N. Giancoli, M.P.H., R.D.: Eat your way to preventing age-related muscle loss
The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington Baked Pears in Red Wine and Port Wine Glaze: A festive winter dessert
Feb. 1, 2013

Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: Redemption

Clifford D. May Home, bloody, home
Christa Case Bryant andNicholas Blanford Why despite Syria's allies warning of retaliation for Israeli airstrikes, the threats are likely hollow
Rick Armon, Ed Meyer and Phil Trexler Ex-police captain cleared by DNA test is freed after nearly 15 years
Harvard Health Letters: Could it by your thyroid?
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: When 'healthy food' isn't
Sue Zeidler: Coke ad racist? Arab-American groups want to yank Super Bowl ad (INCLUDES VIDEO)
The Kosher Gourmet by Nealey Dozier The secret of this soup is the garnish
January 30, 2013

Allan Chernoff: Celebrating 'Back from the Dead Day'

America isn't a religious country? Don't tell Superbowl fans!
Mark Clayton Cybercrime takedown!
Germany remembers Hitler rise to power
Israel salutes U. N. --- with the one finger salute
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: Get cookin' with heart-healthy fats
Ballot riles Guinness World Records
The Kosher Gourmet by Elizabeth Passarella Potato, Squash and Goat Cheese Gratin
January 28, 2013

Nancy Youssef: And Democracy for all? Two years on, Egypt remains in state of chaos

Fred Weir: Putin: West is fomenting jihadi 'blowback'
Meredith Cohn: Implantable pain disk may help those with cancer
Michael Craig Miller, M.D. : Ask the Harvard Experts: Are there drugs to help control binge eating?
David Ovalle Use of controversial 'brain mapping' technology stymied
Jane Stancill: Professor's logic class has 180,000 friends
David Clark Scott Lego Racism?
The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali The celebrated chef introduces us to PANZEROTTI PUGLIESI, cheese-stuffed pastry from Italy's south


Jewish World Review June 1, 2005 / 23 Iyar, 5765

The truth about Guantanamo Bay

By Michelle Malkin


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The mainstream media and international human rights organizations have relentlessly portrayed the Guantanamo Bay detention facility as a depraved torture chamber operated by sadistic American military officials defiling Islam at every turn. It's the "gulag of our time," wails Amnesty International. It's the "anti-Statue of Liberty," bemoans New York Times columnist Tom Friedman.

Have there been abuses? Yes. But here is the rest of the story the story that the Islamists and their sympathizers don't want you to hear.

According to recently released FBI documents, which are inaccurately heralded by civil liberties activists and military-bashers as irrefutable evidence of widespread "atrocities" at Gitmo:

  • A significant number of detainees' complaints were either exaggerated or fabricated (no surprise given al Qaeda's explicit instructions to trainees to lie). One detainee who claimed to have been "beaten, spit upon and treated worse than a dog" could not provide a single detail pertaining to mistreatment by U.S. military personnel. Another detainee claimed that guards were physically abusive, but admitted he hadn't seen it.

  • Another detainee disputed one of the now-globally infamous claims that American guards had mistreated the Koran. The detainee said that riots resulted from claims that a guard dropped the Koran. In actuality, the detainee said, a detainee dropped the Koran then blamed a guard. Other detainees who complained about abuse of the Koran admitted they had never personally witnessed any such abuse, but one said he had heard that non-Muslim soldiers touched the Koran when searching it for contraband.

  • In one case, Gitmo interrogators apologized to a detainee for interviewing him prior to the end of Ramadan.

  • Several detainees indicated they had not experienced any mistreatment. Others complained about lack of privacy, lack of bed sheets, being unwillingly photographed, the guards' use of profanity, and bad food. If this is unacceptable, "gulag"-style "torture," then every inmate in America is a victim of human rights violations. (Oh, never mind, there are civil liberties chicken littles who actually believe that.)

Erik Saar, who served as an army sergeant at Gitmo for six months and co-authored a negative, tell-all book about his experience titled "Inside the Wire," inadvertently provides us more firsthand details showing just how restrained, and sensitive to Islam to a fault, I believe the officials at the detention facility have been.

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Each detainee's cell has a sink installed low to the ground, "to make it easier for the detainees to wash their feet" before Muslim prayer, Saar reports. Detainees get "two hot halal, or religiously correct, meals" a day in addition to an MRE (meal ready to eat). Loudspeakers broadcast the Muslims' call to prayer five times a day.

Every detainee gets a prayer mat, cap, and Koran. Every cell has a stenciled arrow pointing toward Mecca. Moreover, Gitmo's library yes, library is stocked with Jihadi books. "I was surprised that we'd be making that concession to the religious zealotry of the terrorists," Saar admits. "[I]t seemed to me that the camp command was helping to facilitate the terrorists' religious devotion." Saar notes that one FBI special agent involved in interrogations even grew a beard like the detainees "as a sort of show of respect for their faith."

Unreality-based liberals would have us believe that America is systematically torturing innocent Muslims out of spite at Guantanamo Bay. Meanwhile, our own MPs have endured little-publicized abuse at the hands of manipulative, hate-mongering enemy combatants. Detainees have spit on and hurled water, urine, and feces on the MPs. Causing disturbances is a source of entertainment for detainees who, as Gen. Richard Myers points out, "would turn right around and try to slit our throats, slit our children's throats" if released.

The same unreality-based liberals whine about the Bush administration's failure to gather intelligence and prevent terrorism. Yet, these hysterical critics have no viable alternative to detention and interrogation and there is no doubt they would be the first to lambaste the White House and Pentagon if a released detainee went on to commit an act of mass terrorism on American soil.

Guantanamo Bay will not be the death of this country. The unseriousness and hypocrisy of the terrorist-abetting Left is a far greater threat.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Michelle Malkin is the author of, most recently, "In Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling in World War II and the War on Terror". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.)


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