Be Careful What You Ask For: Part 743

George W. Bush
President
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, District of Columbia

Dear Mr. President:

I am taking time to write to you to protest the treatment of the detainees at Guantanamo Naval Base’s Camp X-Ray. The Muslim individuals you have detained there are being held under conditions reminiscent of what was done in Abu Ghraib, Auschwitz, and the Gulags and as an American, I do not appreciate what you are doing in my name.

I cannot believe that you do not understand that their cultural differences mandate that we treat them humanely, with kindness and compassion. They have been removed from their culture on, what at best, seem to be spurious circumstances and their having an attitudinal problem with their captors seems perfectly normal. I understand that you have a war to fight, but these people are prisoners of war and are entitled to all the considerations of Prisoners of War.

Please insure that these POW’s and any future POW’s have all of their rights protected. Their food must be culturally acceptable, prayer rugs must be provided, copies of their holy book must be provided and their cultural needs met. They should never see women in circumstance other than what they are used to in their culture.

America stands for acceptance and tolerance of differences and these people deserve our kindness and consideration and nothing less. I demand that you begin to treat them as guests in our country until this unpleasantness with other cultures be resolved.

Sincerely:

John Q. Liberal, Atty.
American Civil Liberties Union

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The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington D.C.

Dear Mr. Liberal:

Thank you for your recent letter criticizing our treatment of the Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The administration takes these matters seriously, and your opinion was heard loud and clear here in Washington.

You'll be pleased to learn that thanks to the concerns of citizens such as yourself, we are creating the Terrorist Retraining Program, to be called the "Liberals Accept Responsibility for Killers" program, or LARK for short. In accordance with the guidelines of this new program, we have decided to place one terrorist under your personal care.

Your detainee has been selected and scheduled for transportation to your residence next Monday. Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud is to be cared for pursuant to the standards you personally demanded in your letter of admonishment. We will conduct weekly inspections to ensure that your standards of care for Ahmed are commensurate with those you so strongly recommended in your letter.

Although Ahmed is sociopathic and extremely violent, we hope that your sensitivity to what you described as his "attitudinal problem" will help him overcome this character flaw. Perhaps you are correct in describing these problems as mere "cultural differences."

Your adopted terrorist is extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat and can extinguish human life with such simple items as a pencil or nail clippers. He is also expert at making a wide variety of explosive devices from common household products, so you may wish to keep those items locked up, unless you feel that this might offend him.

Ahmed will not wish to interact with your wife or daughters since he views females as a subhuman form of property. This is a particularly sensitive subject for him. He has been known to show violent tendencies around women who fail to comply with the dress code that he considers appropriate, but I'm sure that over time they will come to enjoy the anonymity offered by the bhurka. Just remind them that it is all part of respecting his culture and his religious beliefs.

Thanks again for your letter. We truly appreciate it when folks like you inform us of the proper way to do our job.

Take good care of Ahmed and good luck!