This is the second installment in the Webloggin “View from the Left” series. The main focus of the series is to stir discussion concerning the mainstream media’s attempt to lionize and undermine the Bush administration, oppose conservative values and attack Judaeo-Christian teachings. As such I am looking for a better name for the series; please send me your ideas.
oday’s Guantanamo Diary in the Washington Post by Mahvish Khan is a must read. Everyone should understand the depth of anti-Bush and subsequent anti-U.S. sentiment that runs through one of the nations biggest newspapers. I call the WAPO article How to Spread Propaganda in the War against the U.S. Infidels.
The Washington Post is making quite a name for itself in the MSM war against the Bush administration. Today’s front page web link carries a dramatic report of the plight of Guantanamo Bay terror suspect detainees as could only be told by a University of Miami Law student who is acting as an interpreter. She is an American Muslim of Pakistani descent who feels it is her mission to expose the startling disconnect between the beauty of Guantanamo Bay surroundings and the evils they mask
inside the U.S. detention centers.
She heard her calling to service after taking an international law class at the University of Miami. What else are we to expect? This is par for the course for American Universities that are inundated with leftist internationalist professors who have nothing better to do than sit in their ivory towers and come up with ways to indoctrinate America’s youth against the evil imperial U.S. They must be so proud right now.
There are two key quotes in the article that I must point out before I delve into the thick of the heartfelt portrayal of the evil U.S. versus the innocent detainees.
The first quote sets the stage for Khan’s point of view.
“The very existence of the military detention camp at Guantanamo Bay seemed an affront to what the United States stands for. How could our government deny the prisoners there the right to a fair hearing? I didn’t know whether they were innocent or guilty — but I figured they should be entitled to the same protections as any alleged rapist or murderer. – Khan in WAPO”
The second and most glaring quote is presented to us from a Ramsey Clark like lawyer for the detainees who is commenting on Khan’s earlier statement about the polite military escorts.
Over steak dinner, I comment on how nice our military escorts are. They joke and laugh with us. Primo gives me pointers on shooting pool in the CBQ lobby. Everyone brings them beer and cigarettes. I think I had expected them to be more aloof, even hostile.
But Tom Wilner, a partner in the Washington office of Shearman & Sterling LLP, quickly retorts: “Yeah, they’re nice. But this whole place is evil — and the face of evil often appears friendly.”
This is how the article should be presented instead of in the trite WAPO under the table slap we so often read. The face of evil is not of murdering Taliban terrorists but rather that of the U.S. military.
The novelette is 4 pages long so I will attempt to be as brief as possible here. The first thing that strikes me is how the article reads like a dramatic short story as opposed to a report. This is an intentional dramatization that is meant to personalize the victim detainees and tug at your heartstrings.
“The gravel crunches beneath our shoes as we follow a soldier across a dusty courtyard to a painted brown door”
“Ali Shah Mousovi is standing at attention at the far end of the room, his leg chained to the floor. His expression is wary, but when he sees me in my traditional embroidered shawl from Peshawar, he breaks into a smile.”
“I hand Mousovi a Starbucks chai tea… in true Afghan fashion, he urges us to share the food we have brought for him.”
These quotes set the tone for the rest of the homage to an accused supporter of terrorists who murderer U.S. innocents. It takes Kahn less than 4 short paragraphs to paint the image of a smiling, harmless detainee who is willing to share his infrequent gifts with strangers who want to share his story. The assumption must be that he is being treated unjustly as he sits in the room drinking Starbucks while chained to a chair.
My mind is already beginning to spin with disgust at the article. The fact that potential terrorists are sitting in Guantanamo with an occasional Starbucks makes me ill. I guess this classifies as part of the torture the left is so eager to find.
The story continues with oft repeated themes.
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Tales of Torture
- “As I translate from Pashto, Mousovi hesitantly describes life since his arrest. Transported to Bagram air base near Kabul in eastern Afghanistan, he was thrown — blindfolded, hooded and gagged — into a 3 1/2 -by-7-foot shed. He says he was beaten regularly by Americans in civilian clothing, deprived of sleep by tape-recordings of sirens that blared day and night. He describes being dragged around by a rope, subjected to extremes of heat and cold. He says he barely slept for an entire month.”
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Injustice
- “When he asked for evidence, he was told it was classified. And so he sits in prison, far from his wife and three children. More than anyone, he misses his 11-year-old daughter, Hajar. When he talks about her, his eyes fill with tears and his head droops.”
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Nice Guys aren’t Terrorists
- “I don’t know exactly what I had expected coming to Guantanamo Bay, but it wasn’t this weary, sorrowful man. The government says he is a terrorist and a monster, but when I look at him, I see simply what he says he is — a physician who wanted to build a clinic in his native land.”
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I Say So, So it Must Be True
- I’ve interpreted at dozens of meetings with detainees and heard many stories — of betrayal and mistaken identity, of beatings and torture, of loneliness and hopelessness.
So there you have it; the assumptions of innocence by a worldly know it all University of Miami student. After all, she spent many a day with these people drinking tea and sharing snacks. This is an accomplishment that even Joe Wilson didn’t achieve because he sipped tea by himself; so the detainees must be innocent, every single one of them.
The rest of this WAPO diary story is more of the same.
No matter the age or background of the detainee, our meetings always leave me feeling helpless. These men show me the human face of the war on terrorism. They’ve been systematically dehumanized, cast as mere numbers in prison-camp fashion. But to me, they’ve become almost like friends, or brothers or fathers. I can honestly say that I don’t believe any of our clients are guilty of crimes against the United States. No doubt some men here are, but not the men I’ve met.
It is in this statement that we get to the crux of the article. They are “her clients”, her friends, brothers and father figures. It is not like any murderer would lie. It is not like crooks and liars haven’t snookered useful idiots into marrying them from behind bars.
Nope, Khan is an educated UM student. She has been hired by a law firm of which she has now assimilated herself into the circle as being a representative of their clients. She feels the injustice done at the hands of U.S. law that doesn’t jive with her internationalist world view.
Khan’s Guantanamo diary is a perfect follow up to WAPO’s publishing of classified U.S. secrets via liberal activist Dana Priest. What a perfect way to usher in another generation of wannabe 60’s throwbacks who need another Vietnam to feel important in a modern world that has left them without a leader for 6 long years.
The success of the left as lead by the MSM would surely mean the downfall of this great nation. The Washington Post is proof of the left’s view that the war on terror is simply a bumper sticker for the Bush administration. There are no real terrorists, only poor misunderstood victims of the mighty Imperial U.S. whose crimes, if any, should be determined in an international court that is sympathetic to every point of view with the exception of those that support the laws of the United States of America.
Remember this story the next time you go to drop 50 cents into the coffers of self important elitists whose views seem more aligned with the enemies of this nation than of those who view the war on terror as securing the future for our children.
Washington Post, MSM, Bush, terror, Guantanamo Bay, U.S., University of Miami, evil imperial U.S., Shearman & Sterling LLP, Taliban, terrorists, Torture, WAPO, Dana Priest, United States of America
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