Ready For A Little Rest And Relaxation? Try Some Sunbathing, Windsurfing And Charter Fishing In Gitmo
I realize this is a hard website to follow for some folks. We tend to use a lot of irony, play some “devil’s advocate” every here and there, employ some twisted humor a LOT, and occasionally even hit the reader with some hardcore, deep, “right between the eyes” Truth with a capital “T”. But let me assure the reader — this post is most certainly no “joke”. There really IS a Wal-Mart, a KFC, a Mickey D’s and previously little-known resort called “The Taliban Towers” on the lovely beaches of Guantanamo Bay, just yards from where prisoners detainees are suffering through the toughest times of their lives.
And folks, I have a little “problem” with it. It’s not only a bit “goulish” to say the very least; it’s not very “helpful” toward our already tarnished international image, which, at one time not so long ago, conjured the mental picture for most as “The Beacon Of Liberty”. To better understand my point, try for a moment to imagine the Statue Of Liberty on the shores of Guantanamo Bay with American Citizens suntanning behind Her on the beaches with forty-foot barbedwire fences behind the “tourists”. Something wrong with that picture? Does the term “ugly American” creep into your mind? How about adding the smiley face logo on a nasty-looking, gray and blue “Wally World” into your mind’s eye now. Getting the point yet?
To learn of this disgusting revelation, do not rely of the U.S. mainstream media (“MSM”) to bring it to your attention. Nope — today, we must turn to The Daily Mail’s (UK) Angela Levin for the embarrassing Truth:
Greetings from Guantanamo Bay … and the sickest souvenir shop in the world
The sands are white, the sea laps gently and crowds of bronzed Americans laze in the Caribbean sunshine.
They have a cinema, a golf course and, naturally, a gift shop stocked with mugs, jaunty T-shirts and racks of postcards showing perfect sunsets and bright green iguanas.
Only the barbed wire decoration, a recurring motif, hints at anything wrong.
Welcome to “Taliban Towers” at Guantanamo Bay, the most ghoulishly distasteful tourist destination on the planet.
As these astonishing mementoes show, the US authorities are promoting the world’s most notorious prison camp as a cheap hideaway for American sunseekers – a revelation that has drawn international anger and condemnation.
Just yards from the shelves of specially branded mugs and cuddly toys, nearly 300 “enemy combatants” lie sweltering in a waking nightmare. …”
(Snip!)
“… While the detainees lie incarcerated, visitors can windsurf, take boat trips and go fishing for grouper, tuna, red snapper and swordfish.
The United States’ 1.5million service personnel and Guantanamo’s 3,000 construction workers are eligible to visit the “resort”, which boasts a McDonald’s, KFC and a bowling alley.
They even have a Wal-Mart supermarket.
The vacation comes at a knock-down price: just $42 (£20) per night for a suite of air-conditioned rooms, including a kitchen, bathroom, living room and bedrooms.
But it is the souvenirs that have led to the greatest criticism. One T-shirt from the gift shop is decorated with a guard tower and barbed wire. It reads: “The Taliban Towers at Guantanamo Bay, the Caribbean’s Newest 5-star Resort.”
Another praises “the proud protectors of freedom”. A third displays a garish picture of an iguana and states: “Greetings from paradise GTMO resort and spa fun in the Cuban sun.”
A child-sized shirt says: “Someone who loves me got me this T-shirt in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.” …
WOW. No matter what your feelings are on the topic of torture, Gitmo Bay, who’s there and who should or shouldn’t be there, or whether or not the United States should have anything to do with a (so-called) “prisoner of war” camp in Cuba — folks, we ARE BETTER THAN THIS. We must be better than this. There is nothing “cute” or “funny” at ALL about what is going on over there unless you HAPPEN to go by the name of “Rush Limbaugh” or boast of being one of his many proud “dittoheads”. For the latter, the Limbaugh crowd will be proud to know their “Camp Gitmo” spoof is now a reality, again, by the name of “The Taliban Towers Resort”. I also have a gut feeling the Panamanian-born U.S. Senator from the Great State of Arizona, Senõr John McCain has no problem with the scenario either, but the jury’s still out on that one to be fair.
If nothing else, hopefully this will drive yet another nail in the well-deserved, proverbial “coffin” of Wally-World; our Cold War Lite enemy, China’s NUMERO UNO customer. The “Smiley One’s” participation in this rude, crude, twisted and offensive version of a “capitalist enterprise” should turn the stomaches of ALL Americans and in a perfect world, even those of the good citizens of China.
SICK
***
H/T goes to Fark
Other blogger reactions (very few at this point), thanks to Technorati: TigerHawk (Right – seems to think it’s “A-Okay”); JammieWearingFool (Right – says “lighten up“)
And now MORE bloggers (all still Right-leaning thus far) are picking up on the story due to MemeOrandum’s auto-decision to finally pick up the link: Michelle Malkin (As “snarky” as you’d expect, still — admits a small degree of “tackiness”); Don Surber (“Snarky” isn’t the WORD for his response…)
UPDATE:
In a SEMI-Related Op-Ed article from The New York Times entitled “A Prison of Shame, and It’s Ours” by Nicholas D. Kristof (H/T to MemeOrandum), we learn just WHY “The Taliban Towers Resort” is an utterly classless “bidness idea” of President Bush’s Administration. Give it a read.
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7:28 pm on May 4th, 2008 1
[...] Gun-Toting Liberal didn’t like my remark on the Gitmo critics. As I said, when they complain about the beheadings and apologize to John McCain for Hanoi, then I will consider their remarks about Gitmo as something more than posturing. [...]
3:36 am on May 6th, 2008 2
[...] How about visiting The Taliban Towers on on the lovely beaches of Guantanamo Bay…. [...]
10:11 am on May 6th, 2008 3
“…detainees are suffering through the toughest times of their lives.”
Yeah, this about sums it up.
The detainess are suffering through the TOUGHEST TIMES of their lives, being held by the nation against which they declared total war, a war in which they find NO action off limits; in which NO civilized behaviour is to be respected or even encouraged.
The TOUGHEST TIMES of their lives means they will not be killed, they won’t be starved (well-fed, actually), they will be given their Korans and their times for prayers, educated (for those willing to learn something other than “death to the infidel”) and they will live IN SUCH A HOSPITABLE AND PLEASANT LOCATION THAT TOURISTS CAN ENJOY A BEACH VACATION WITHIN A FEW YARDS!
Their ideological kin, meanwhile, who have not yet been captured are actively engaged in mass murder of anyone who gets in their way; with the organized rape and oppression of women; with the use of the retarded and their own children as suicide weapons; with beheadings and torture (the real kind) as the SOP of their “military” code; and seeking the means with which to commit acts of mass destruction in order to topple the entirety of civilized society and bring it under a theocratic fascism.
So, I am supposed to feel some sort of unmitigated shame over the fact we have people wind-surfing within earshot?
Are you friggin’ kidding me?
When the history is written about this phase of planet’s history (assuming anyone civilized enough to write it is still alive), it will be with a mix of awe and horror at the self-flagellation civilized societies visited upon themselves while engaged in an existential war with their utterly ruthless enemies.
Our moral authority you are so concerned about stems from the millions of people we have liberated and currently fight to protect from the same sort of vicious slime which inhabit Guantanamo Bay, at the cost of our billions of dollars and warrior’s lives.
If this sort of thing is really keeping you or any of the hand-wringers up at night, then your priorities are REALLY out of whack.
The kind of people who are SO concerned about America’s moral standing in regards to its treatment of terrorist suspects rarely if ever exhibits itself when it comes to the numerous odious regimes around the globe who make human rights violations a national sport.
Those thugs and dictators don’t look at the beach resort and think, “Oh, the humanity! If only the United States respected human rights, perhaps we might too! But Alas!”
They look at the soft treatment of our self-avowed enemies, see our moral trembling, and think us fools and weak ones at that.
Jeezus!
Weary G