Crummy letter in my local paper today

Respecting the culture and religious beliefs of a terrorist

To the editor:

Someone wrote a letter to the White House complaining about the treatment of a captive taken during the War in Afghanistan. Follows a copy of a letter they received back:
The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20016

Dear Concerned Citizen:
Thank you for your recent letter roundly criticizing our treatment of the Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Our 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 like you, we are creating a new division of 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 personal detainee has been selected and scheduled for transportation under heavily armed guard to your residence next Monday.

Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud (you can just call him Ahmed) is to be cared for pursuant to the standards you personally demanded in your letter of admonishment. It will likely be necessary for you to hire some assistant caretakers. 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 these character flaws. Perhaps you are correct in describing these problems as mere cultural differences. He will bite you, given the chance. We understand that you plan to offer counseling and home schooling. 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. We suggest you do not ask him to demonstrate these skills at your next yoga group.

He is also an expert at making a wide variety of explosive devices from common household products, so you may wish to keep those items locked up, unless (in your opinion) this might offend him. Ahmed will not wish to interact with your wife or daughters (except sexually) since he views females as a subhuman form of property. This is a particularly sensitive subject for him, and he has been known to show violent tendencies around women who fail to comply with the dress code that he will undoubtedly recommend as appropriate attire. I'm sure your wife and daughters will come to enjoy the anonymity offered by the bhurka over time. Just remind them that it is all part of "respecting his culture and his religious beliefs" - wasn't that how you put it? Thanks again for your letter. We truly appreciate it when folks like you, who know so much, keep us informed of the proper way to do our job. You take good care of Ahmed - and remember, we'll be watching. Good luck!
Cordially...Your Buddy,
Don Rumsfeld

Rick McCormack
Colonial Heights

much less what is being done to them, much less what they are accused of having done.

So it's easy, if you are a rightwing nutbag, to declare them psychotic and extremely violent, even though you couldn't get the Bush Administration to say so. Even easier to just never acknowledge their existence, which our government does when it hides prisoners from the Int. Red Cross.

It's a little less easy for the rightwing nutbag to explain why, if it's so obvious that they are trained killers, why our government regularly sends our GITMO prisoners back to their home countries without charges. Has our governemnt finally learned how to cure criminality? No, its because those people never did anything bad.

Bottom line, I wouldn't want any stranger in my house. But for all I know, the asshole who wrote the letter is a worse houseguest then the gitmo prisoner. All I know about the gitmo prisoner is that Bush did him dirt. All I know about the letter writer is that he is dumb enough to believe Bush wouldn't do the same to him.

much less what is being done to them, much less what they are accused of having done.

So it's easy, if you are a rightwing nutbag, to declare them psychotic and extremely violent, even though you couldn't get the Bush Administration to say so. Even easier to just never acknowledge their existence, which our government does when it hides prisoners from the Int. Red Cross.

It's a little less easy for the rightwing nutbag to explain why, if it's so obvious that they are trained killers, why our government regularly sends our GITMO prisoners back to their home countries without charges. Has our governemnt finally learned how to cure criminality? No, its because those people never did anything bad.

Bottom line, I wouldn't want any stranger in my house. But for all I know, the asshole who wrote the letter is a worse houseguest then the gitmo prisoner. All I know about the gitmo prisoner is that Bush did him dirt. All I know about the letter writer is that he is dumb enough to believe Bush wouldn't do the same to him.

Respond either with the fact that 90% of those we've taken prisoner have not been charged with any crime, nor is their evidence for crime. This fundie's flaw is that he believes that everyone we arrest MUST be a terrorist.

Or respond with a "Put your ass where your mouth is" letter and offer him the addresses of local Army infantry recruitment centers if he wholeheartedly supports this war.