Here's a visual to whack you out of your sleepy Monday frame of mind:
Photo by Jeff Overs
Yep, that's right. Forget the histrionic reports of death and torture, rendition and feeding tubes. It was fun! See, we're all buds....
The BBC is planning a Gauntanamo Reunion Show for a segment of BBC's World News America scheduled for tomorrow.
Apparently, Brandon Neely, a one-time guard at the detention camp, contacted former prisoners via Facebook:
Mr. Neely, an Army veteran who spent six months at the prison in 2002, sent messages to one of the freed men, Shafiq Rasul, and was astonished when Mr. Rasul replied. Their exchanges sparked a face-to-face meeting, arranged by the BBC, which will be shown on Tuesday. Mr. Neely, who has served as the president of the Houston chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War, says his time at Guantánamo now haunts him, and has granted confessional-style interviews about the abuses he says he witnessed there. In a message to Mr. Rasul, Mr. Neely apologized for his role in the imprisonment.
Okay, I guess I get that. Confrontation, reconciliation, perhaps, between guard and detainee. Something of relevance and arguably newsworthy. But the photo? The trivializing nature of the pose, the smiles, the horseplay...well, you can almost hear them saying, "Hey, dude, for the next shot, why don't Shifiq and I pretend we're waterboarding you?"
I really don't know how to take this. It's not on the Onion or any other comedy site, it's a freaking promo shot to publicize the piece.
WTF??? In a country that has thus far failed to take US torture of detainees seriously, this is a huge step backward.