Opposition to the horrifying, Kafka-style catastrophe that is Guantanamo Bay is finally getting some ink. So why is everybody so fixated on the accommodations?
A few months ago outrage surged when it was reported that interrogators flushed a Koran down a toilet. The Pentagon later clarified that no such flushing had occurred, some guy just pissed on one a little. Then about a week ago, Rep. Duncan Hunter tried to refute all allegations of torture by revealing to the world that lemon chicken is on the detainee menu.
If you are taken from your family in secret and held without being charged, does it really matter what you're eating or who's pissing on what? I would have thought this point was obvious, but most news reports on the issue seem to shift quickly into a lifestyle piece on a day in the life of a detainee.
I've heard at least two dozen pundits debate what constitutes torture (usually it's agreed to be somewhere between an uncomfortable chair and a kick in the nuts). That's an interesting conversation to toss around the old water cooler, but it's not even relevant here. Taking a prisoner without any charge and denying them access to the outside world is a human rights violation on an even higher order than torture.
Why this obsession with how the other half (detainees) live? Is there really some guy eating Chef Boyardee out of the can who hears these prisoners are eating lemon chicken and thinks "the bastards, lock 'em up forever"? Unfortunately, I'm sure that there is. People make the same gripes about our home grown felons. How many times have you heard some yahoo complain that those guys down at the prison have cable TV? When I toured the new jail in Glendale, they told me the TVs helped keep the inmates calm and less likely to stab the guards. That seemed like a pretty good reason to me.
If you're locked up, it doesn't really matter which channels you get or what's on the dinner menu.
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