The timing is poor for linking to this article, <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/893ibjxl.asp" source="Weekly Standard" author="Jacob Laksin">Club Gitmo: What it's really like behind the wire.</a> because it's reads so much like an April Fool's joke or an article from <a href="http://theonion.com">the Onion</a>. The tour the writer claims to have received from the base staff sounds nothing like those given to members of the Red Cross or Amnesty International or the UN. He makes Gitmo sound like a pleasant place to spend some time to unwind. Consider this description of the chair on which detainees (read: prisoners) are interrogated/tortured: <bq>Perhaps the most curious room at Camp 5 is furnished with a plush blue couch for the detainees. Were it not for the leg restraints at its foot, one might never guess that this is where interrogations take place. Of the steel-floored cells were detainees are alleged to be beaten for information there is not a trace of violence. Those who consider Gitmo an affront to international law might also be surprised to learn that Camp 5's recreation yard not only has news bulletins from the Middle East but also a prominently displayed copy of the Geneva Conventions. While Gitmo is not officially governed by the treaties, the military makes every effort to make sure that detainees are treated in accordance with them. There is even a so-called "habeas room" for detainees to meet with their counsel. A gulag, plainly, this is not.</bq> A plush couch with leg restraints is still an instrument of torture, even if the president has distracted the Congress with a flurry of signing statements allowing all manner of behavior that any thinking, feeling human being would call torture. There is no question of whether <iq>Gitmo is an affront to international law</iq>; it is illegal under both national and international law. The only reason it continues is that the US no longer cares about following any laws. Displaying a copy of the Geneva Conventions and <iq>making every effort</iq> to follow them is not the same as actually following them---or being required to by law to do so (which Gitmo is conveniently not, supposedly putting it outside of the purview of any form of law other than that of the US military). It's heartwarming that there is a habeas room, though there is no requirement that habeas corpus be followed---and for most inmates, it's not. Gitmo's biggest failing, according to the author, is in failing to talk about how great and open they are, how they're standing on the wall for America, protecting us from terrorists---92% of the inmates are "demostrated threats", "potential threats" and on and on. Didn't Jack Nicholson already do this whole rigamarole in <i>A Few Good Men</i>? Luckily for the astute reader, the author is required to indicate his affiliation with the <a href="http://www.thephillipsfoundation.org/">Phillips Foundation</a>. Their politics are somewhat masked by fluffy language, like that they promote <iq>a democratic society and a vibrant free enterprise system</iq>, but their <iq>Ronald Reagan College Leaders Scholarship Program</iq> is a dead giveaway.