Reporting From Guantanamo
Patterico has posted the second installment of his interview with an Army nurse who spent a great deal of time with the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. It is very interesting stuff. Here are couple of excerpts, but it's all worth reading:
I asked him that very question: what are the detainees like? Stashiu said:For many of them, think Ted Bundy. Educated, charming, and without conscience for those they consider infidels. Some are truly ill and were taken advantage of because of it.
An army of Ted Bundys--rather a chilling thought. I also found this exchange interesting:
Are there any of them who are reasonable enough that Stashiu would feel safe if we were to let them go free?I don’t know that anyone is beyond reason, but I also don’t know more than a couple who I think might be ok to release. “Might” being the operative word there, I wouldn’t give the go-ahead on my own for any of them. There I are couple I could understand and would not go out of my way to protest their release. I can tell you that if I ever saw a detainee face-to-face here in the States, I would immediately assume that I was targeted and do my best to kill them without further warning. If I turned out to be wrong about their intent, I could live with that.
Suffice it to say that this guy doesn't buy the claim that many detainees are innocents who were somehow "scooped up" in East Asia.
One question Patterico was very interested in is whether the detainees think they are going to win the war. The Army nurse said that in his opinion, most of the detainees do sincerely think that their side will win. The idea that Islam is destined to dominate the world is fundamental to their religious training. The anti-war movement in the U.S. is one of several signs of our weakness:
Their leaders consistently stress that jihad is working and our culture is a hollow shell. They point to VietNam, Somalia, 9/11, Madrid (both the bombings and the elections immediately following), and the anti-war propagandists here in the United States. . . . The jihadists are constantly told that America is weak-willed and will turn and run if they can be inflicted with enough damage and peace can be delayed long enough.
