al Qaida masturbating in front of guards
Andrea Bostrom
bring one of them home to mom and dad?:
Guantanamo's Unhappy Campers
ADVANCE COPY from the February 11, 2002 issue: Some strange things are
happening at Gitmo.
by Matt Labash
02/01/2002 6:00:00 PM
GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA
It's 5 A.M. at the Roosevelt Roads Naval station in Puerto Rico, and 20
journalists straggle to the gate in sleep-deprived silence to catch a plane to
Guantanamo Bay. Many of us haven't been up this early in years. But after
flying thousands of miles, then pub-crawling through the streets of Old San
Juan last night, we are here because our military escorts insist we show up at
this time, though the flight actually leaves four hours later. "The military
operates on one principle," explains a savvy veteran: "Hurry up and wait."
If we're not happy, that goes double for our public affairs babysitters. "I'm
up to my ears in Vieques," says Navy Lt. Corey Barker, of the nearby bombing
range/public relations fiasco that has been protested by everyone from Al
Sharpton to obscure Kennedys. Now, Barker is stuck minding us as we light out
for Guantanamo, the American naval station on the southeastern tip of Cuba. It
is there that 158 al Qaeda/Taliban prisoners are being detained because,
depending on who you ask, it is an ideal, sunny clime, it's not subject to the
get-out-of-jail escape hatches of U.S. federal law, or because, as one senior
Pentagon official says, "The lawyers didn't want to go on 14-hour flights to
some guano rock in the Pacific."
Inside the air terminal, our baggage handlers check us in with the efficiency
of Bulgarian DMV workers. A sign on the wall says "Air Terminal of the Year
2000." "I'd hate to see who got second place," whispers one reporter. As we
wait for our flight on a creaky Pan Am jet, we are shunted off to the "VIP"
room, so named because it has a coffee pot and seascape paintings that look
pilfered from a south Florida retirement village. Here, we are given our media
"indoctrination" packages, never an encouraging word if you aspire to
reportorial autonomy. As we sit watching CNN, an unfounded rumor gains
currency. Though it's Saturday, and we're supposed to be in Cuba until Monday,
the military has changed plans and is going to make us leave Guantanamo Sunday
morning. "One thing's for sure," says a wire reporter, "you won't have to sort
through all your notes to decide what to lead with."
Fearing an abbreviated schedule, I commence valuable newsgathering. Knowing
that in some Taliban-held provinces, pederasty rivaled headless-goat polo
(buzkashi) as the favorite pastime, I ask a Naval officer if there are any
reports of Guantanamo prisoners turning to man-love. "Oh God no," he says.
"Though there are some Air Force personnel over there, so who knows what's
going on?"
Another officer relays something we'll hear repeated often: that because of
international political pressure, the prisoners are getting coddled. The latest
report has Army guards directing detainees on which way to pray to Mecca.
"They're actually going to paint arrows on the floors of the cells so they'll
know to face north," he says. "You mean east," I say. "North, east, whatever,"
he replies, "I'm Lutheran--I don't know where the hell it is."
A FEW hours later, we touch down at the Guantanamo landing strip on the
isolated leeward side of the base (Gitmo, as it is nicknamed, is actually
bisected by Guantanamo Bay). After getting sniffed by a German shepherd who's
more interested in bombs than my colleague's Percocet, we're escorted to the
media center, an ugly wood-paneled affair that sits next to a pink hangar.
After another hour or two of waiting, a mouthy reporter loudly calls his editor
so we can all hear him report the latest: "Same shit, different day. Though
they're really cleaning up the media center. Curtains, an air conditioner, even
a freakin' bulletin board!"
The hospitality ends there. A stern sign on the bulletin board admonishes us to
clean up after ourselves. The goodies set out on a table (grape beverage powder
and apple jelly from meals-ready-to-eat packs) practically scream, "Can't wait
till you leave." Many of us had secretly harbored the fantasy that we could
talk our overseers into letting us go right up to the prisoners' cells, the
terrorist equivalent of a field trip to the ASPCA.
But as a gaggle of public affairs officers enter, they lay down two immutable
laws: There will be no access to detainees (the Geneva Convention forbids
making them a "public curiosity"). And we can go only where the officers take
us. Running the public affairs show is Army Lt. Col. William Costello, a
bearish soldier who looks like the kind of guy who enjoys breaking things on
his face. His hard, dark orbs dart to and fro while he delivers a good news/bad
news proposition. The good news is Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will be
visiting the detainees' Camp X-Ray the next morning. The bad news is that the
unfounded rumor is founded--the Pentagon press corps is coming with him, and
we'll be forced to leave a day early.
Immediately, an angry media throng closes in on Costello, the air now
containing an Altamont-like level of violence. "My editors are going to crush
my nuts," says one reporter, probably female. "This is crazy," I say, "How am I
supposed to get enough material for a piece?" "Not my problem," replies
Costello. "This is bullshit," thunders another print reporter. "You're making
us leave as the biggest story gets here." "You're not allowed to stay," says
Costello. "Why not?" snaps the reporter. Costello's blood rises as his
high-and-tight haircut stands up like an angry-dog scruff: "BECAUSE . . .
YOU'RE . . . NOT . . . STAYING!" "Welcome to the Pearl of the Antilles,"
deadpans Lt. Commander Brendan McPherson, in a limp cruise-director chirp.
It's understandable if public affairs types are a little testy. There's an
obvious culture clash (military personnel don't get paid to ask why;
journalists don't get paid otherwise). Besides that, ever since the detainees
started arriving on January 11, Gitmo and the joint forces being run under
Southern Command have experienced the PR equivalent of what my ever-subtle
colleagues--borrowing from Special Forces terminology for disastrous
missions--call a "goat f--." In the richest irony of the war on terrorism, the
Department of Defense, which normally goes out of its way not to make news,
caused an international outcry by releasing still shots of detainees being
brought to Camp X-Ray.
As they were transported and in-processed, al Qaeda members were photographed
kneeling, wearing earmuffs, shackles, and blackout goggles. Though these seemed
perfectly reasonable precautions to take when transporting by C-141 members of
an organization already responsible for one prison uprising (Mazar-i-Sharif,
which resulted in a CIA operative's death) and several suicide plane crashes,
human rights groups and international media, led by a chorus of Euro-whiners,
immediately lapsed into hysterics.
The British press, with typical understatement, claimed prisoners were being
"brutalized, tortured, and humiliated," and that the whole operation was
nothing more than "a sick attempt to appeal to the worst red-neck prejudices."
Tony Blair pointed out that the three British al Qaeda members being held at
Gitmo have had no complaints. But that didn't stop the Mirror's Stephen Moyes
from method reporting by donning an al Qaeda rig. "Wrapped in the suffocating
orange boiler suit," he wrote, "I lost any sense of dignity"--a loss he could
have just as easily sustained by rereading his own copy.
Sillier still were protestations from such humanitarians as Saddam Hussein and
the government of Malaysia (Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has made some of
the loudest noise, though Amnesty International dings him for arresting the
speechwriter of a political rival, who was then blindfolded, stripped naked,
punched, verbally abused, and forced to simulate homosexual acts--none of which
is alleged at Camp X-Ray). About the only foreign leader who has supported the
American detainee camp, ironically, is Fidel Castro, who is either angling to
end the embargo or inching ever closer to dementia. (He declared January
"Americans' Month" and invited Jimmy Carter for a visit.)
All of this has made Camp X-Ray personnel a sensitive lot. On the ferry
crossing over to the windward side where the camp is located, I sit next to a
now mellow Lt. Col. Costello, who has decided to patch things up with the
reporter he snapped at, and who, after getting the sign-off from Southern
Command, has cleared us to stay through Rumsfeld's visit. Costello, like many
Gitmo types, is baffled at the uproar over the prisoners' treatment. "Soldiers
and Marines that are guarding the detainees at Camp X-Ray have worse conditions
than the detainees," he says. Much has been made over their being kept in
outdoor cells, invariably called "cages," which are topped with corrugated
tin-covered wooden roofs that keep what little rain Gitmo gets (six inches a
year) off the prisoners. Costello says their eight-by-eight cells contain about
twice as much space as soldiers have in their crowded, unventilated tents a few
hundred yards away.
"They're getting warm showers, clean laundry, hot chow," Costello says of the
prisoners. "They're getting 2,600 calories a day. I'm not getting 2,600
calories a day. I'm running my ass off chasing you guys around." (One of the
medics treating detainees claims that a full quarter of them were suffering
from malnutrition when they were captured.)
But we don't have to take Costello's word for it. We can see for ourselves,
sort of. After a quick stop at McDonald's (the only one in Cuba), our white
school bus transports us past beautiful seaside vistas and brownish
cactus-infested scrub, past ramshackle housing and up a hill, which features an
abandoned auto yard that the locals used to call Sears. It's where they'd strip
old junkers for parts then used on jerry-rigged jalopies called "Gitmo
specials."
Across from Sears is Camp X-Ray, a teeming hive of concertina wire, canvas
tents, guard towers, and newly constructed plywood interrogation shacks with
window-unit air conditioners. The chain-link cells themselves don't need air
conditioning, since a comfortable Caribbean breeze (temperatures range from the
low 70s at night to the low 80s during the day) continuously circulates through
the encampment.
Restricted to an area about 150 yards away from the open-air cellblocks, we
observe the camp from a slight elevation that CNN's John Zarrella calls
"Heartbreak Ridge," so named "because if you're a journalist, it breaks your
heart that you can't get closer." Gitmo has actually been the site of a lot of
heartbreak over the years.
It broke Christopher Columbus's, when he stopped here on his second New World
voyage. He left after failing to find gold, threatening to cut off the tongues
of his crew if they didn't agree to pretend they'd reached Asia. It also
rankles Castro, who has wanted to throw us off the island for four decades, but
can't because of a pre-Revolution lease agreement. Likewise, when thousands of
Cuban rafters were detained here for months in the mid-'90s, many grew so
unhappy with Gitmo's ghostly desolation that they'd do anything to leave,
including inject diesel fuel into their veins, drive tent stakes into their
limbs, even swim back to Castro's Cuba.
By comparison, the al Qaedans look pretty fat, if not happy. They laze away in
the shade of their cells. They sleep on inch-and-a-half-thick isomats, the same
ones that are issued to our military. With the assistance of a Muslim Navy
chaplain, they pray five times daily. (Quick studies, the al Qaedans didn't
need arrows painted on their cell floors. A single signpost next to an American
flag points the way to Mecca.) And while American prisoners in the Hanoi Hilton
often spent years in solitary confinement and received no medical care (John
McCain to this day can't comb his own hair), X-Ray detainees get daily sick
calls from all manner of doctors, from optometrists to podiatrists. The
prisoners (who represent about 25 different nationalities but mostly are
Saudis) can also freely chat with each other about God knows what: prison
uprisings, the demise of Talk magazine, trades of Froot Loops for garlic bagel
chips.
Their restroom arrangements are pretty spartan. They get a white bucket for
emergency squirts, while they are instructed to hold two fingers up for the
alternative. At that time, a guard shackles them and takes them to the
port-o-loo. While the military has spared no expense in construction costs (in
three weeks, they built a completely operational field hospital staffed by 160
medical personnel--two more than there are prisoners), they've saved a fortune
in toilet paper. It's the detainees' cultural preference not to use any. "We
don't shake their hands," says one camp guard.
In addition to the aforementioned amenities, detainees also receive two towels,
a Koran, a shortened toothbrush (still long enough to file into a shiv), a
canteen, a bucket of water, fluoride toothpaste, and shampoo. Not just any
shampoo, but "Lively" salon anti-dandruff shampoo--a "luxurious shampoo in a
gentle formula that restores moisture, shine, and body to your beautifully
clean hair." Those who think the prisoners are getting coddled (Rep. John Mica,
a Florida Republican, visited the camp and said it's "too good for the
bastards") will be happy to know that the shampoo is not jojoba-enriched.
WHILE public affairs officers these days are going to great lengths to talk
about how docile the prisoners are, detainees have been reported biting a
guard, spitting, and threatening to kill Americans. When I skirt away from my
minders and visit the Marine snipers' tent, I learn it went well beyond that.
The snipers, of course, are the camp's deadliest sharpshooters, ropy young
bucks (21-23 years of age) who seem largely culled from the western or southern
United States, where firearms are often regarded as extra appendages. Their
tent looks like a Marines-issued college dorm room: Skoal-juice bottles,
laundry hanging everywhere, and a spade-like sniper insignia banner tacked to a
tent wall. If there is a prison uprising, it is these gentleman who will man
the guard towers and introduce the rioters to their 72 black-eyed virgins.
At some point, that might become necessary, they tell me, as plotting is
obviously afoot. Sgt. Matt Lampert of Montana says the other day one of the
prisoners was caught "with a piece of cloth stuffed with rocks that was tied
off at the end." Sgt. Rodney Davis says that during chowtime, he sees them
through his scope "making terrain models out of their food." And unlike say,
Afghan prisons, where starving detainees are reportedly begging to be sent to
Gitmo, there's plenty of food to play with. "They get fed better than us, sir,"
says Lampert. When I ask the Marines if they've seen anything weird, they laugh
sheepishly, looking at each other. Finally, Sgt. Josh Westbrook, who sports a
forearm tattoo of flaming baby heads, steps up. "They know they're being
watched," he explains, "so they'll stare at you, and while they stare at you,
they'll, uh, masturbate."
According to these Marines, they don't just pleasure themselves to freak out
the snipers, but also to embarrass the female Army guards in the camp's
interior. The weirdness doesn't end there. They've also eaten their toiletries
and urinated on equipment. "The other day," says Westbrook, "one of the guys
tried to do a naked cartwheel." In the most bizarre twist, Lance Corporal Devin
Klebaur says a few have also been known to "put toothpaste in their ass."
"What's the purpose?" I ask. "I'm not sure," he says, puzzled.
After leaving the snipers, I collar other grunts who say they believe the
prisoners are more apt to act out whenever they see one of the regular visitors
from the International Committee of the Red Cross enter the camp. "They're
looking to be disciplined," says one, so that any aggressive guard behavior
will make it look as if they're being brutalized by the American military in
front of international witnesses. ICRC visits, says another soldier, are the
highlight of a prisoner's day, since they've been spotted "giving the
unshackled prisoners cookies and milk, cigarettes, shaking their hands." Many
organizations who haven't been to Gitmo, like Human Rights Watch, have been
extremely critical of the prisoners' treatment, while the ICRC has aired no
complaints. Still, says another soldier, "They're a pain in the ass. We see
them offering them cookies, hugging them like they're best buddies. They're
undermining everything we're trying to do."
What we're trying to do isn't exactly clear at this point. We are certainly
interrogating the prisoners, though base sources won't divulge any information
that's been gleaned. The prisoners will likely be formally charged and tried,
though when I called a senior Pentagon source to find out by whom and when, the
source said, "If you find out, will you please tell me?"
ON SUNDAY, Rumsfeld visits, and we hope for illumination. Sitting on a bus on
the tarmac, waiting for the secretary to emerge from his plane, we pass the
time as journalists do, discussing the AP-style spelling of "bin Laden,"
speculating whether the prisoners will get an Internet cafe (one of them has
asked for video games), and making fun of the fresh-meat Pentagon press corps,
who are overdressed in heavy wools instead of our much cooler island linens.
One of Rumsfeld's security agents mounts our bus, telling us the ground rules:
no photos on the tarmac, no fighting, no hitting Rumsfeld in the head with a
boom mike. After Rumsfeld tours Camp X-Ray with four senators and the chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers (who is so overshadowed by the
secretary's rock star aura that one reporter has to ask who he is), Rumsfeld
meets the press on Heartbreak Ridge. He gives the sort of hooah performance
that has endeared him to both the troops and the press. While he remains as
firm as ever that the detainees are "illegal combatants," not "prisoners of
war," which would afford them more rights under the Geneva Convention, he
nicely avoids plucking the only hair worth splitting--whether the captives'
status is his call. (Human rights hawks say the matter should be decided by a
"competent tribunal," whatever that is.)
Even if it isn't up to Rumsfeld, the argument seems rather academic. It's hard
to imagine anyone who has actually read the Geneva Convention wanting to confer
POW status on alleged al Qaeda members. Doing so would not only make the
terrorists eligible for repatriation to their home countries, but also would
forbid their being punished for trying to escape, allow them to receive
"scientific equipment" from home, and even confer upon them the right to
dentures--in case they lost their teeth while, say, biting a guard. Most
ludicrous, they would be afforded "advances of pay" in an amount "never . . .
inferior" to that which we pay our own armed forces. If you're a terrorist from
Central Asia, it's not a bad deal: Kill Americans, get arrested, then get a pay
raise from America.
With all the global bellyaching about the detainees' right to humane treatment,
it's hard to imagine them getting better treatment than they're already
receiving. On my last day at Gitmo, all I have time to eat is a stale Ding Dong
and a greasy plate of onion rings. My public affairs keepers couldn't care
less. By contrast, for breakfast and lunch alone, the prisoners are served
oatmeal, an orange, peanut butter, margarine, a "culturally appropriate" halal
meal, and a giant snack pack containing Froot Loops, raisins, a Nature Valley
granola bar, baked garlic bagel chips, and Bullseye barbecue-seasoned sunflower
kernels. Still, the overseers of the prison are concerned that detainees aren't
getting enough pita bread with their meals, and they're planning to make the
food spicier, just the way the prisoners like it back home.
While we wait, we journalists have to stand in the hot sun most of the day.
After hours, we are confined to our Consolidated Bachelor Quarters, sleeping
four to a duplex room on cots, some without pillows or blankets. We aren't even
allowed to go the beach, a few hundred yards away from our building (though,
emboldened by the rum we imported from Puerto Rico, a colleague and I make a
mad dash under a guard searchlight for the bathwater Caribbean anyway). Besides
drinking, our only entertainment is a pool table--one cue is cracked, the other
is missing its tip. The prisoners, by contrast, get to read their Korans, while
novels and more "religious books" are on the way.
At the end of their day, they get a good night's sleep in a single cell. At the
end of our day, we are told that a C-141 (the same plane that transported the
detainees) just became available, and we are prematurely hustled off so the
military can dump us in Nowheresville, New Jersey, on a Sunday night after
every rental car place in the state has closed.
Perhaps the international community is right. The treatment being meted out at
Guantanamo is inhumane. To see for yourself, don't bother canvassing Camp X-Ray
prisoners. Just get a Gitmo press pass.
Matt Labash is senior writer at The Weekly Standard.
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THE WIZ
How can that be? I read in the European newspapers that the US
shaved the Camp X-Ray prisoners' genitals off.
"Andrea Bostrom" <lexl...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020203100258...@mb-fy.aol.com...
DedNdogYrs
Dogs & children first.
Michael Newton
DedNdogYrs <dednd...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020205065138...@mb-bh.aol.com...
> It's too bad we can't just machine-gun them all.
Don't worry. Dubya and Ashcroft are doing their empty-headed best to dispose
of that damned Bill of Rights.
mn
hjkl
<eyeo...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Don't worry. Dubya and Ashcroft are doing their empty-headed best to dispose
>of that damned Bill of Rights.
I'm sure they'll back off when they see your brilliant use of the
first amendment.
Mhw61
Actually, I don't think we want to set a precedent for executing guys who whack
off . . .
Max
(who agrees with Woody Allen's views on masterbation)
Max
"Suppose I accidently got my sh*t together . . ."
--MC Mt. 900 Foot Jesus
Xx North American P51D xX
How does the Bill of Rights apply to foreigners?
-----------------
Ninety7GT
" When roused, we are righteous in our outrage, terrible in our force. When
provoked by this level of barbarism, we will bear any suffering, pay any cost,
go to any length, in pursuit of justice. " - L. Pitts, Jr.
hole@yourknob.com AssMouth
stroking jizz beards. Don't you agree Roedy?
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
Check out our new Unlimited Server. No Download or Time Limits!
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Bill Lindemann
> All those tender young American boys are just TOO much for those camel
> stroking jizz beards. Don't you agree Roedy?
Well, the Marines have always been the gayest, so maybe these
prisoners are focusing in the right direction after all.
-Bill
DedNdogYrs
whack off . . .>
I would for these ones (or at least a damned good ass wupping).
Dogs & children first.
THE WIZ
"Bill Lindemann" <w...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:3C60DFC8...@ix.netcom.com...
> Well, the Marines have always been the gayest, so maybe these
> prisoners are focusing in the right direction after all.
>
> -Bill
>
Just mention masturbation and the military in the same post,
and Bill Lindemann - peter-puffer from Pasedena, won't be
able to resist weighing in with his perverted two cents on
the subject. Seems to be all he thinks about. What a clown!
Bill Lindemann
Read the newspapers, clown, Marines have been involved in all sorts
of gay sex scandals: posing, acting in porn, etc. Only you would
decide that stating the facts needs to be discouraged by labelling
the messenger. And your fascination with Pasadena - what's up with
that? It's a big state. You've obviously never been to California.
Have you even looked at it on a map? Probably not. You probably
figure that even looking at a map of California will make you gay.
What a hick from the sticks!
-Bill
Don Ocean
Bill Lindemann wrote:
Ummm? Do you hang around Marine bases, hoping to get lucky?
Geez, I hope our Marines know what you are!
THE WIZ
Pasadena is where you post from, and if you're a random sample
of what kind of culture is prevelent in your pinko leftist burg,
the godforsaken place deserves any and all derision and scorn
directed at it. Pasadena, Berkely, Marin County, Visalia - all
rotten. Rotten to the core; and mealy with socialist maggots,
communist faggots, and countless malcontents of all stripes.
And Pasadena, if you're any indication, is the worst of all.
Bill Lindemann
> Pasadena is where you post from, and if you're a random sample
> of what kind of culture is prevelent in your pinko leftist burg,
> the godforsaken place deserves any and all derision and scorn
> directed at it. Pasadena, Berkely, Marin County, Visalia - all
> rotten. Rotten to the core; and mealy with socialist maggots,
> communist faggots, and countless malcontents of all stripes.
> And Pasadena, if you're any indication, is the worst of all.
ROTLFMAO!!!
And you determined that I post from Pasadena exactly how? My
ISP would be quite interested to know that my DSL line extends
over 400 miles to their servers, yet gives such good high-speed
service. You really don't know what you're talking about, do
you? Pasadena is one of the most conservative towns in Southern
California, I believe it consistently votes Republican. But do
tell us what conservative God-fearing part of the country you
live in, so we can get to know each other better.
I have a friend who works with Russians who lived under the Soviet
Union. He says they find the phrase "commie pinko fag" quite amusing,
considering the Soviets' policies towards homosexuals.
Imagine. "Malcontents of all stripes"! People who won't just knuckle
under when Billy-Bob boy says God told him to make everybody else do
things Billy-Bob's way, and if they don't then us good 'ol boys is
gonna kick some ass. Well, large parts of the country outside your
little burg don't accept the rule of violent ignorant scumbags like
you. In California we send people to prison when they try to enforce
their views on other. There's a whole bunch of them - called the
"Aryan Brotherhood" - in California's prisons right now. They believe
in exactly what you believe in.
Yes, the Marines are quite gay. And why? Because homophobes like
you send their gay sons to Marines because "they'll make a man of
him" - assuming that somehow people can just be beaten into loving
who they're told. It doesn't make a straight man of them, though -
it makes them into gay Marines. The Catholic priesthood is also
significantly gay (45%, according to estimates) for exactly the same
reason. The Marines are more gay than the other services precisely
because folks like you hate queers.
-Bill
Mika Rantanen
> of what kind of culture is prevelent in your pinko leftist burg,
> the godforsaken place deserves any and all derision and scorn
> directed at it. Pasadena, Berkely, Marin County, Visalia - all
> rotten. Rotten to the core; and mealy with socialist maggots,
> communist faggots, and countless malcontents of all stripes.
> And Pasadena, if you're any indication, is the worst of all.
Fairly, what do you *actually* know about socialism or communism? Except
that your father/big brother/some other family authority has told you
("today we will hate commies. Why do we hate them? I don't know, but my
cousin told me to hate them, because he hates them too!)?
What have they (commies, socialists) done to you?
- Mika Rantanen
t斟暉暗搬暗搪損損搪斟
"Mika Rantanen" <ash...@nospam.saunalahti.fi> wrote in message
news:a44gh6$kg1$1...@tron.sci.fi...
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/2/3/142029.shtml
Marxist Culture Works to Soften Terror War
Wes Vernon, NewsMax
Monday, Feb. 4, 2002
ARLINGTON, Va. -- A former communist says the Marxist-led movement that
moved into the Democrat Party in the sixties has now led to congressional
pressure on President Bush to hold back in the war on terrorism.
David Horowitz, a converted conservative who was a "red diaper baby” raised
in a communist household, said these chickens have come home to roost in the
early 21st Century. This influence, he argued, manifests itself in the
soft-on-terrorism positions taken in many places, including some quarters on
Capitol Hill.
Newsmax.com asked Horowitz, President of the Center for the Study of Popular
Culture, about the sixties Marxists whose movement "seeped into the
Democratic Party.”
"Marched into the Democratic Party,” he corrected us.
"The first act in the [1974 post-Watergate Democrat] congress,” he reminded
us, "was to cut off aid to the Cambodian regime [which empowered butchers
who] killed two million people, but Republicans were too polite to mention
that.”
Less "politely,” the west coast activist and author had just told the annual
Conservative Political Action Conference [CPAC] that the sixties
counter-culture was not about peace activism or civil rights. It was, he
argued, all about Marxist revolution.
"That’s what the so-called anti-war movement was about,” Horowitz said.
"They said bring the troops home,” he recalled, "and to bring them home
now.”
Of course, the conservative strategist added, "If you’re in a war, and you
take one side home now, what happens? The other side wins.” Just in case
anyone missed the point, the author of "Radical Son” and "Uncivil Wars”
added, "The so-called anti-war movement was a movement to help the
communists to win.”
"And what’s important about that,” he went on, "is that the leadership of
the Democratic Party in Congress for the last thirty years has been
recruited from the ranks of the movement.
"One of them [Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt.] is sitting at the head of the [Senate]
Judiciary Committee ... blocking our efforts to fight the terrorists.”
Senator Leahy has used his powerful chairmanship to slam President Bush and
Attorney General John Ashcroft for proposing to use military tribunals to
try foreign terrorists. The Vermont lawmaker has waxed indignant that the
administration did not consult with him before making such a move.
In his interview with Newsmax.com, Horowitz said Leahy was a part of "the
McGovern generation.”
"What these people did [when they came into Congress] was to bring American
troops home and to end the Cold War by defeating America. They then
proceeded for the next thirty years to assault the American military,
American intelligence, and any foreign policy that was anti-communist,” he
added.
Specifically with regard to the Senate Judiciary chairman, Horowtiz reminded
us, "Pat Leahy, of course along with [Sen.] Chris Dodd [D.-Conn.] played the
leading role in the eighties in protecting the Sandinista Marxist
dictatorship in Nicaragua and its supply lines to the communist guerillas in
El Salvador.”
The popular conservative author/talk show host said, in Leahy’s case
especially, the two-party system failed us.
"Republicans never made him pay for that. And so he is now the chief
obstacle to the policies of George Bush and John Ashcroft [for] controlling
the terrorist threat to this country.”