All new inmates at Guantanamo start in Camp Three, the highest-security unit. (There is no logic to the camp names: Camp Three is tighter than Two or One, but Camp Four is the least restrictive.) Cells are 6 ft. 8 in. by 8 ft., with a squat-style toilet, a metal sink and a sleeping berth affixed to green steel-mesh walls. Each new detainee is issued a pair of shorts, a pair of long pants and two T shirts, all in orange, plus shower shoes, a towel and washcloth, toothpaste and shampoo, a prayer mat, beads, prayer oil, a prayer cap, a copy of the Koran and basic bedding, though no pillow.I’m not insinuating that the camp is anything less than a prison; however, I do believe the world ignores any attempts to be sensitive to the religion of the prisoners. Yet a single unverified rumor of a very wrong and insensitive action taken by an individual gains immediate attention and provokes severe riots. The other thing that comes to my mind is to consider the situation in the reverse. When a Christian or Jew or any non-Muslim person who actively practices their religion is imprisoned in any of the Muslim nations, what kind of respect is shown toward their special needs? Are they provided with a chaplain compatible with their beliefs and a copy of their holy scriptures? Are they given a mat to meditate on or rosary beads or perhaps phylacteries? It is obvious that Newsweek was unwise in bringing something unverified to print, but honestly the riots do not bother me that much, aside from causing sadness at the needless loss of life. Yet, if it was not this thing, it would be something else. Muslim fundamentalists will carry on and rouse up the masses for as long as there are nations in the world that do not subscribe to their beliefs. Their religious sensitivity ends at the threshhold of their mosques.
”...The other thing that comes to my mind is to consider the situation in the reverse. When a Christian or Jew or any non-Muslim person who actively practices their religion is imprisoned in any of the Muslim nations, what kind of respect is shown toward their special needs? Are they provided with a chaplain compatible with their beliefs and a copy of their holy scriptures? Are they given a mat to meditate on or rosary beads or perhaps phylacteries? ...”
Where are there detention centers quite like the ones US is maintaining in Cuba and many other locations?
Well, for starters, there are the numerous hostages who are (and have) been held in Iraq by the insurgents. I must agree with you though - those detention centers are drastically different than ours.
Of course you could argue that those prisoners were not held for very long. Most were released after a short stay, granted - their heads were separated from their bodies but the were not held as long as the Guantanamo inmates.
What is the US gaining by detaining people in this unique manner? Without classing them as prisoners of war nor as criminals; but, in this gray special, albeit unique form of detention (used only once that I am aware during the pre-US involvement in WWII for detaining several nazi spies)?
Additionally, what others do… is not a valid reason for justifying something that we do in the USA.
Then again, i doubt detainees in muslim prisons are forced to strip naked and pose in a naked human pyramid. Regardless of whether the U.S. military attends to prisoners spiritual needs, the integrity and self-respect of each prisoner must be maintained if the U.S. wants to wage a war under the pretence of the moral highground. Detaining prisoners for extended terms without charge is not the best way to maintain this integrity.
There are really two possible responses to your point.
The first (and best choice) is to point out how off topic you are. My original post was constrasting the religious sensitivity at Guantanamo to that in prisons in the Muslim world. Your argument (boiled down of course) discounts this because of the incidents at Abu Graib.
It doesn’t matter that we are sensitive to the Muslim practice of religion and that they are insensitive and even hostile to the practice of any non-Muslim faith because one time some soldiers mistreated prisoners.
Real effective argument.
The other approach is to ignore that your argument has nothing to do with religious sensitivy and counter with what actually did happen with regularity in Muslim prisons. (And yes, this is well documented from Saddam’s regime including video footage from the prisons there, actual living (but mutiliated) persons and the mass graves that continue to be uncovered.)
Torture, removal of limbs, of eyes, of tongues, lengthy beatings, hanging prisoners with arms behind their backs, and executions. Of course, I’m certain the response to that will be the Abu Graib card once again. Because an isolated event of stacking naked prisoners is definintely equivalent to 20 years of systematic torture and executions.
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