Consistent with Al Qaeda training

An Egyptian is released from Guantanamo. Never willing to admit a mistake, the Pentagon rules that he is “no longer” an enemy combatant. C’mon, he either is or he isn’t, I’m pretty sure they don’t enlist for a fixed period of time.

Speaking of Guantanamo, the hunger strike continues. The Pentagon never uses the phrase hunger strike, preferring “voluntary fasting” (force feeding is called “assisted feeding,” and suicide attempts are “Manipulative Self-Injurious Behavior”) A Lt. Col. Jeremy Martin told the BBC that the practice is “consistent with al-Qaeda training” – also Mahatma Gandhi training (actually I strongly doubt AQ is training anyone in the technique of hunger striking, but it shore do sound ominous when you put it that way, don’t it?) – and “reflects detainees’ attempts to elicit media attention.” Fat lot of good it’s doing them, then; the BBC report refers to the “first” Guantanamo hunger strike in June, but there was one in 2002 the BEEB’s evidently forgotten about, and who knows how many we’ve never heard about. Martin (the BBC never identifies his job, by the way) says the detainees are all being treated well and are given “culturally appropriate” food and drink, albeit sometimes through a tube down their noses.