Our policy of containment is leaking

[paineinthearse]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05158/516835.stm



Our policy of containment is leaking
Tuesday, June 07, 2005

By Tony Norman

Don't ask me about the morality of what W. Mark Felt did in the 1970s when he dropped a very large dime on President Nixon. I'm too busy trying to figure out how the air vents at Guantanamo Bay work.
How does a guard taking a whiz in another part of the complex -- presumably aiming at a urinal if he has any home training -- manage to accidentally "splash" a detainee along with his Quran in another room? At the risk of sounding indelicate, I want to know how a stream of pee made its way into the air vent in the first place. What kind of, um, delivery system made it possible for urine to travel whatever the distance is between point 'A' and point 'P,' -- I mean -- point 'B.'

What is the dispersal rate of urine as it travels through an air vent? Does the temperature of a vent and the material it is made of affect the evaporation rate, or does urine remain a continuous stream if it has a fan behind it only to spatter as it passes through the grate? The weekend revelations confirming stories of "accidental" holy book desecrations at Gitmo make me wonder whether the U.S. military is secretly equipping all of its detention centers with golden shower capabilities in anticipation of a war with Islamic fetishists. Whatever the logic of the planning that went into Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, this is turning out to be the first war staffed by soldiers weened on too many screenings of "Animal House."

If I didn't know for a fact that John "Bluto" Belushi was dead, I'd swear he was running this war. The evidence is nearly incontrovertible. Can't military intelligence do better than a two word profanity scribbled in a Quran and water balloon assaults on suspected terrorists? The Pentagon even confirmed that a soldier deliberately kicked a Quran like a football. What's next: itching powder on prayer rugs during Ramadan? Still, it's the depraved moments in the war against terror that occupy my mind the most these days. Don't tell me about the systematic erosion of civil liberties at home or the diminution of respect for the United States abroad. Inquiring minds want to know what happened when an alleged member of al Qaeda discovered that he and his Quran had been sprinkled by Yankee tinkle. I imagine the conversation went something like this:

Detainee : I HAVE BEEN DEFILED! By all that is holy, somebody will pay for this barbarism!
Guard ; What's the problem? .
Detainee: MY QURAN HAS BEEN DEFILED!
Guard: Um, I think it's the humidity. Sweat has a habit of turning yellow down here in Cuba. And pay no attention to the smell. I had asparagus for lunch.
Detainee: INFIDEL! DON'T PEE IN MY CELL AND TELL ME IT'S RAINING!
Guard: Settle down, Mohammad. It was an accident. Somebody turned the fan on here in the head and the urine stream got away from me. These things happen. I repeat: This is not part of a well orchestrated plan to demoralize you or debase your holy book. Make sure you tell Amnesty International the truth when they come snooping around. We're tired of all of the anti-American propaganda that comes out of this place.

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(Tony Norman can be reached at 412-263-1631 or [e-mail].)