Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

The real Gitmo that Amnesty International will not tell you about

Deroy Murdock:

WHILE Newsweek has re tracted its deadly tall tale about interrogators shoving the Koran down a toilet to rattle Guantanamo detainees, the magazine's "flush to judgment" (in the words of this newspaper) fits what Manhattan Institute scholar Heather MacDonald calls the prevailing "torture narrative."

Possibly harmless Muslims languish without trial in U.S. custody. America's soul dies a little as each GI's sucker-punch shatters one more Arab's jaw. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Amnesty International Wednesday called Gitmo "the Gulag of our times."

Journalists and Bushophobes should stop crying for these Islamo-fascists long enough to read a largely overlooked Pentagon document on Guantanamo detainees. They appear pampered, chatty and dangerous.

"Americans are very kind people," one English-challenged detainee said in the March 4 paper. "If people say there is mistreatment in Cuba with the detainees, those type speaking are wrong, they treat us like a Muslim, not a detainee."

In a Feb. 16 Gitmo dispatch, the American Forces Press Service's Kathleen Rhem described the treatment of Camp Delta's roughly 520 detainees from about 40 nations.

Troublemakers wear prison-style orange jumpsuits and mainly are confined to rudimentary accommodations. But those who follow camp rules wear white outfits and exercise seven to nine hours daily, often playing soccer and volleyball. In quieter moments, "chess, checkers and playing cards are the most requested items," Rhem wrote.

Detainees eat culturally sensitive meals and follow arrows painted on dorm floors to face Mecca. "Prayer calls are broadcast over loudspeakers five times a day," Rhem added.

The report — drearily titled "JTF-GITMO Information on Detainees" — explains that interrogating these men "has expanded our understanding of al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations and continues to prove valuable." (defenselink.mil/news/detainees.html) Among these findings:

* Detainees "provide useful information on locations of training compounds and safe houses, terrain features, travel patterns and routes used for smuggling people and equipment, as well as for identifying potential supporters and opponents." U.S. questioning has "expanded our understanding of the extent of their presence in Europe [and] the United States . . ."

* "Detainees provide information that helps sort out legitimate financial activity from illegitimate terrorist financing operations," the report says.

Despite this apparent cooperation, enemy combatants remain viciously anti-American and dedicated to mayhem, even after release.

* "I will arrange for the kidnapping and execution of U.S. citizens living in Saudi Arabia," one detainee threatened, if freed. "They will have their heads cut off."

How did Amnesty International miss that story? They must have been looking for something else.