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| Club Fed inmates are going nutz |
| 2002-04-27 |
| They pace like caged animals and stay awake all night under the glare of spotlights. They scream at the world - when they're not staring into space. Months of confinement in crude, chain-link cells at Camp X-ray have left its 300 detainees from the war on terrorism at best a little stir crazy, at worst, suicidal. "A couple have had those thoughts, but none have acted on it," said Navy Lt. Pam Herbig, a psychiatric nurse at Guantanamo. Gosh. That's terrible. Maybe they'd like to go back to Afghanistan and live in shipping containers. So far, 13 suspected Taliban and al-Qaida fighters have been put on medication for mental disorders ranging from post-traumatic stress disorder to the early stages of schizophrenia, Herbig said. The total has nearly doubled in recent weeks. The patients "have had trouble sleeping," she said. "They're anxious. They have a lot of ruminations. There's sadness." On the other hand, how many of them were nut cases before they got there? Muslim chaplain Abuhena M. Saiful-Islam - who had frequent contact with the detainees before leaving the base last week - described growing dismay over what detainees consider cruel and inhumane conditions. You mean, it's occurred to them that they're not going to die heroic deaths fighting against the infidel, but are simply caged animals waiting for somebody to decide what to do with them? U.S. military commanders say detainees flown here since Jan. 11 are well-fed, free to practice their religion and get good medical care. "The standard of care is the same for detainees as we have for our own people," said Navy Capt. Samuel Alford, head of a field hospital for detainees. Yep. They just can't come out of their cages. Tough, ain't it? Think of the boredom. No guns to shoot. No women to beat. No prisoners to execute, except maybe themselves. No hostages to take. No bombs. No planes to hijack. Terrible. Just terrible. These are men who haven't heard an explosion in months. It's a fate worse than death. But Lt. Col. Bill Kline, commander of Camp X-ray, conceded some "may be depressed. They've been asking, 'When am I going to trial? When am I going to get out of here?'" In a just world, they'd never get out of there. We'd keep them there until they died of old age. And we'd make sure all the other Islamofascists and Islamonutjobs knew it. Kinda takes the glamor out of being jihadi, doesn't it? |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #1 So they need "medication for mental disorders," do they? I prescribe several ounces of lead, topically applied, using that marvel of medical equipment, the .50 cal. M2HB. |
| Posted by: Mike Morley 2002-04-27 20:45:08 |