Club Fed And Our Invisible Troops

 


 
 
DefenseWatch (sftt.org) 
January 30, 2002 
Club Fed And Our Invisible Troops 
By David H. Hackworth

  The brouhaha created by breast-beating human-rights groups over 
our military's treatment of the terrorist scuzz now vacationing 
at the Pentagon's recently opened Cuban Club Fed - eagerly aided 
and abetted by a press too prone to the sensational - is 
something else. These bleeding hearts claim we're brutalizing 
the captives by forcing them to wear orange jumpsuits, sleep on 
mats, exercise daily, shower frequently and eat special food.

  My buddy, a Connecticut cop, finds the protests fascinating. He 
says, "I'm having a lot of trouble concentrating on my job 
because of the prisoners at Guantanamo."

  Then, with a twinkle in his eyes, he adds: "Are they getting 
enough sleep, the right diet, enough prayer time? We have to 
keep them happy and healthy. They only want to murder all of us 
the first chance they get."

  Amen. Their perp pal responsible for the first World Trade 
Center attack jabbed a sharpened comb into a guard's eye while 
he was in the pokey. This time around, they've already bitten 
one of the soldiers guarding them and threatened to kill anybody 
else who gets too close. After all, these are the folks who 
spent their leisure time back in Afghanistan skinning captives 
alive - when they weren't playing soccer with their heads.

  
Think of them as kamikaze killers looking for an edge.

  However you want to categorize these creeps - who are living a 
lot better at Club Fed than they ever did in the caves of Tora 
Bora - Geneva Convention rules are for uniformed soldiers, not 
for skyjackers who fly commercial planes filled with moms and 
dads into office buildings manned by civilians operating 
computers, or for zealots who kill Arab women because they drive 
a car or don't cover their faces. Al-Qaeda is a terrorist 
organization, not a state, and its crazies wear street gear and 
operate disguised as civilians. Terrorists dressed to pass like 
these were often shot right on the spot during World War II and 
the Korean War.

  I'm personally offended that none of the whistle-blowers seems 
to give a damn about the welfare or safety of our sons and 
daughters guarding these thugs. Have you read any stories about 
the dangers they face? Have any of our politicians bothered to 
inspect our kids' living conditions when they've jetted into 
Gitmo to check out the terrorists' treatment and pick up some 
tube time?

  Had anyone checked, they would have discovered that our U.S. 
Army Military Police guarding the terrorists think the prisoners 
are being treated a lot better than they are. They're not 
pleased that the brass, the lawmakers and the press are more 
interested in the well-being of the detainees than the soldiers 
guarding them, and that they might as well be invisible.

  Here's what our soldiers from the Army's 401st MP Company out of 
Fort Hood, Texas, who are the main monster-watchers, are saying:

  "We live like crap down here with no extra pay or tax break, and 
we feel that no one up above gives a rat's ass about us," a 
sergeant says. "Our officers are more concerned with doing 
Pentagon damage control concerning the detainees than looking 
after the troops."

  "The detainees sleep on soft mats on a nice surfaced floor while 
we sleep on cots inside tents with dirt floors. They get four 
hot meals a day, fresh fruit, regular issues of snacks such as 
sunflower seeds, regular clean clothes laundered by the Marine 
supply system," says another soldier. "We get canned food and 
MREs, canned fruit. We buy our own snacks and do our own 
laundry."

  "The Marine general here says we can have a beer when off duty, 
but our Army leadership is running so scared that it set a 
no-drinking policy," says another troop. "We are responsible 
enough to secure the prisoners, but not enough to have a beer."

  "The Red Cross put us in a very dangerous situation with their 
demands, and sadly our leadership went along with it," a soldier 
said. "We've been told to lie to Marine inspectors over 
standards and requirements. The Marines are right, the Army's 
wrong, and we're stuck in the middle."

  Maybe someday, do-gooders, editors, lawmakers and senior Army 
leaders will remember our soldiers are human beings with human 
rights, too, and get their side of the story. Charity should 
begin at home.