Gitmo lunch — torture!
Torture! “Gitmo good life: U.S. spends millions on landscaping, art classes for terror detainees,” by Jim McElhatton for the Washington Times, November 18 (thanks to Kenneth):
Thanks to a multimillion-dollar federal contract, Guantanamo Bay prisoners can enroll in seminars to learn all about basic landscaping and pruning, calligraphy and Microsoft PowerPoint while the U.S. figures out what to do with them.
Prisoners also can get in touch with their artistic sides.
“At a minimum, the art seminar shall include water color painting, charcoal sketching, Arabic calligraphy, acrylic painting and pastel painting,” contract records reviewed by The Washington Times state.
The documents surfaced last week in a U.S. Court of Federal Claims lawsuit stemming from a dispute over a more than $5 million contract to provide library and seminar services to detainees at U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The papers offer a glimpse at just how military detainees can pass the time while officials decide their fates.
President Obama is pushing once again to make good on his promise to shut down the prison, hoping to make it easier to transfer detainees out of the facility as part of the upcoming debate on the annual defense policy bill.
He will face strong opposition from congressional Republicans who argue that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility remains the best place to hold suspected terrorists.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, said Monday that Democrats support Mr. Obama’s request for more transfer authority but that the Republicans” position will get a vote.
“We should have a debate on that and have a vote on that,” he said.
As the fight plays out in Washington, detainees at Guantanamo can enroll in seminars lasting an hour to 90 minutes once or more every day. Class ratios are low, with no more than 20 prisoners allowed in a class.
In horticulture, detainees learn the “principles of horticulture 1& 2, basic landscape plants and landscape pruning practices,” records show.
A “life skills” seminar teaches prisoners, among other things, about computers and typing, including Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint at basic, intermediate and advanced levels.
A nutrition class instructs prisoners about the “principles of nutrition and scientific foundations of exercise and fitness,” records show.
Detainees, who also can learn English, appear to get something akin to report cards, too, though it’s unclear whether they see their grades….