LARK Program- political humor

[Nephythys]

THE NEW LARK PROGRAM

A person wrote a letter to the White House complaining about the treatment of a captive taken during the Afghanistan war. Below is a copy of the response.

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C.

Dear Concerned Citizen:
Thank you for your recent letter criticizing our treatment of the Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The 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 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 detainee has been selected and scheduled for transportation to your residence next Monday. Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud is to be cared for pursuant to the standards you personally demanded in your letter of admonishment. 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 this character flaw. Perhaps you are correct in describing these problems as mere cultural differences.

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. He i! s also expert at making a wide variety of explosive devices from common household products, so you may wish to keep those items locked up, unless you feel that this might offend him.

Ahmed will not wish to interact with your wife or daughters since he views females as a subhuman form of property. This is a particularly sensitive subject for him. He has been known to show violenttendencies around women who fail to comply with the dress code that he considers appropriate, but I'm sure that over time they will come to enjoy the anonymity offered by the bhurka. Just remind them that it is all part of respecting his culture and his religious beliefs.

Thanks again for your letter. We truly appreciate it when folks like you inform us of the proper way to do our job. Take good care of Ahmed and good luck!

Cordially,
Don Rumsfeld



This e-mail is intended for the use of the individual addressee(s) named above and may contain information that is confidential, privileged or unsuitable for overly sensitive persons with low self-esteem, no sense of humor, or irrational religious beliefs. Unless the word absquatulation has been used in its correct context somewhere other than in this warning, this e-mail does not have any legal or grammatical use and may be ignored. No animals were harmed in the transmission of this e-mail, although the pit bull next door is living on borrowed time, let me tell you. Those of you with an overwhelming fear of the unknown will be gratified to learn that there is no hidden message revealed by reading this warning backwards, so just ignore that Alert Notice from Microsoft. However, by pouring a complete circle of salt around yourself and your computer you can ensure that no harm befalls you and your pets

[Ghoulish Delight]

Yes, I always find ignoring the Constitution a hillarious topic to joke about.

You call it political "humor" but it's not humor when that's the literal argument people use to justify blatant violations of Constitutional protections and international treaty. It's not a joke, it's a sad fact.

[SacTown Chronic]

Funny stuff

This is all being done in the name of fighting terror. But the best evidence seems to show that many of the people rounded up and dumped without formal charges into Guantánamo had nothing to do with terror. They just happened to be unfortunate enough to get caught in one of Uncle Sam's depressingly indiscriminate sweeps. Which is what happened to Shafiq Rasul, who was released from Guantánamo about a year ago. His story is instructive, and has not been told widely enough.

Mr. Rasul was one of three young men, all friends, from the British town of Tipton who were among thousands of people seized in Afghanistan in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. They had been there, he said, to distribute food and medical supplies to impoverished Afghans.

The three were interviewed soon after their release by Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has been in the forefront of efforts to secure legal representation for Guantánamo detainees.

Under extreme duress at Guantánamo, including hundreds of hours of interrogation and long periods of isolation, the three men confessed to having been in a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. They also said they were among a number of men who could be seen in a videotape of Osama bin Laden. The tape had been made in August 2000.

For the better part of two years, Mr. Rasul and his friends, Asif Iqbal and Rhuhel Ahmed, had denied involvement in any terror activity whatsoever. But Mr. Rasul said they eventually succumbed to long months of physical and psychological abuse. Mr. Rasul had been held in isolation for several weeks (his second sustained period of isolation) when an interrogator showed him the video of bin Laden. He said she told him: "I've put detainees here in isolation for 12 months and eventually they've broken. You might as well admit it now."

"I could not bear another day of isolation, let alone the prospect of another year," said Mr. Rasul. He confessed.

The three men, all British citizens, were saved by British intelligence officials, who proved that they had been in England when the video was shot, and during the time they were supposed to have been in Al Qaeda training camps. All three were returned to England, where they were released from custody.

[SacTown Chronic]

I wipe my ass with your constitution

In one hearing that led up to Monday's decision, Judge Green attempted to see how broadly the government viewed its power to hold detainees. Administration lawyers told her, in response to a hypothetical question, that they believed the president would even have the right to lock up "a little old lady from Switzerland" for the duration of the war on terror if she had written checks to a charity that she believed helped orphans, but that actually was a front for Al Qaeda.


Fvcking hillarious!

[Nephythys]

I was not aware that foreign enemy combatants or suspects had the same Constitutional Rights as us as US citizens....gee, no, they don't.

[sleepyjeff]

LOL Nephy. It was funny and I only wish the 1st and 2nd amendment rights of US citizens were defended as zealously as the so called international rights of people who would have us all dead.

Making fun of Charleton Heston, an American Hero, seems to be ok to the same crowd who can't seem to tolerate any laughter at a terrorists expense

[Scrooge McSam]

Originally Posted by Nephythys

I was not aware that foreign enemy combatants or suspects had the same Constitutional Rights as us as US citizens....gee, no, they don't.

You're absolutely right. They do not have the rights guaranteed to US citizens by the constitution.

They DO have other rights as are outlined in the Geneva Convention, to which the US is a signator.

One of those being freedom from torture. I'll look you up a link to the US involvement in that if you want, but I'm pretty sure you've already seen the stories about that.

They are also guaranteed not to be transferred to another country that uses torture. We've (excuse me, this administration) failed to hold to our agreement in that regard as well.

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programme..._4/4246089.stm

We'll be hearing a lot more about this in the coming days, I fear.

[Scrooge McSam]

Originally Posted by sleepyjeff

...so called international rights of people who would have us all dead.

So called, eh? That little nugget is just too precious... Thanks for the laugh.

If you're willing to believe that every person rounded up in our little neighborhood raids over in Iraq (where EVERY male in an area is rounded up and brought in for questioning and possible incarceration) is a terrorist, perhaps it's time for you to go back to sleep.

[SacTown Chronic]

Originally Posted by sleepyjeff

LOL Nephy. It was funny and I only wish the 1st and 2nd amendment rights of US citizens were defended as zealously as the so called international rights of people who would have us all dead.

Let's first determine if we (excuse me, this administration) are detaining the right people. Then we'll talk about what to do with them.

[Scrooge McSam]

Originally Posted by sleepyjeff

Making fun of Charleton Heston, an American Hero, seems to be ok to the same crowd who can't seem to tolerate any laughter at a terrorists expense

No, I don't get a lot of laughter out of indiscriminate killing. I don't laugh when we do it to them and I don't laugh when they do it to us. I guess I'm just funny that way.