Dean hits one way out of the Park

You remember the "modern-day gulag" crack? You remember our soldiers being likened to the SS, and the soviet era bad guys?

Well here is some balance in presentation on Club Gitmo

Some detainees worry about reprisals from militants who will suspect them of cooperating with U.S. authorities in its war on terror. Others say their own governments may target them for reasons that have nothing to do with why they were taken to Guantanamo Bay in the first place.

A man from Syria who was detained along with his father pleaded with the tribunal for help getting them political asylum -- in any country that will take them.

"You've been saying 'terrorists, terrorists.' If we return, whether we did something or not, there's no such things as human rights. We will be killed immediately," he said. "You know this very well."
....
"If I am sent back to China, they will torture me really bad," said the man, whose name didn't appear in the transcript. "They will use dogs. They will pull out my nails."

The Uighur identified as Mahmut was accused of being a member of al Qaeda, which he denied, and of training with a Muslim militant group -- an organization he insisted was dedicated only to establishing an independent homeland in Chinese Turkistan.

"I want to go somewhere where I can live a free life," he said. "That's why I left my country."

So lets put this here into contyext shall we? If these people in large numbers are demanding assylum I think that is a huge challenge to the claim. If the US was violating their human rights they wouldn't be begging them for the right in some cases to -live- in the US because they know what violations are.

And what did our friends the Europeans say?

Mar 6, 2006 — BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Inmates at Guantanamo Bay prison are treated better than in Belgian jails, an expert for Europe's biggest security organization said on Monday after a visit to the controversial U.S. detention center.

But Alain Grignard, deputy head of Brussels' federal police anti-terrorism unit, said that holding people for many years without telling them what would happen to them is in itself "mental torture."

"At the level of the detention facilities, it is a model prison, where people are better treated than in Belgian prisons," said Grignard.

But thats not the most stunning part of this, though i think the mental torture crack is for political consumption back home. This part is what I find the most (*in some way*) surprising

Grignard told a news conference that prisoners' right to practice their religion, food, clothes and medical care were better than in Belgian prisons.

"I know no Belgian prison where each inmate receives its Muslim kit," Grignard said.

This shocks me. And you know what else shocks me? These people visited the prison and this is what they said... the people who want it closed are the people who never visited.

Why this story isn't on the news ....well I know why.

And it makes me sad