Follow up on Senator Blockbuster

I mentioned it yesterday and it's finding it's way into the media today. Arab media, that is. (Way to go Dick!)

This morning, Laura Ingraham interviewed Sgt. Major Steven Short (Ret). Sgt. Major Short prior to his retirement was serving as the senior NCO at Gauntanamo Bay. As such, he had months and months of first-hand observations to share.

Some of them included such things as we've heard recounted by others: three squares a day, culturally sensitive; a Koran and the opportunity to answer the 5 daily calls to prayer, etc. etc.

Alternatively, he offered a few things that we haven't heard before and that raised my eyebrow. The picture of religious tolerance becomes even clearer when you hear about cell markers for detainees, pointing them toward Mecca and informing them of their distance from it.

The other point catching me off guard was that, on average, during his time at Gitmo detainees gained roughly 13-pounds a man. Of course, three-squares a day will do that.

The broader picture--piecing the sergeant Major's observations together with what we've heard before--paints a picture of a level of care that is decent--not without faults, but then again it is a military prison--and a level above what we see elsewhere (if you're interested, remind yourself of how Jessica Lynch was treated after being taken prisoner).

As individual incidents have shown us, it is not all fun and frivolity. There have been times when enemy detainees have in fact been treated in ways that ought to shame. Also note, in the interest of fairness, how those situations have been treated.

In each case, from Abu Ghraib to Gitmo, incidents have been investigated and where merited perpetrators have been disciplined, reassigned and even punished. The single greatest evidence of that is Abu Ghraib; the US Army announced investigations into conduct there months before Mary Mapes got her hands on the pictures and well before Uncle Sy started building his torture narrative. Now ask yourself why...

People like Durbin who make comparisons that are confused in understanding of intent, size and scope not only slights the suffering that victims of the Soviet gulags, Pol Pot and the Holocaust endured, it leaves them no words with which to describe truly similar horrors. Worst of all, it exposes their own moral idiocy.

If you want to understand more about a real Gulag, click here.

If you want to learn more about the Khmer Rouge, click here.

Not that you should have to, but if you want to learn more about the Holocaust, click here.


P.S. To read what others are saying, check out OpinionJournal.com, Hugh Hewitt and Powerline.