Treatment of Prisoners in Guantanamo Bay is Despicable

I cannot full articulate my shock over learning of the reported manner in which our government is treating the prisoners being held in our Guantanamo Bay, Cuba military facility. To have these fanatical murders indefinitely detained against their will is simply not enough for us, is it? Even beyond the questionable indefinite detention, the atmosphere we have enveloped them in at Gitmo is despicably tyrannical and wholly un-American.

Just because these illegal combatants are being held on Cuban soil that is insufficient reason to allow us to get away with subjecting them to the brutalities of forced religion. Our nation was founded on religious freedom. This was done with the intention of allowing citizens and residents to worship any deity in any way they choose; as well as the undisturbed freedom not to honor or acknowledge any higher power.

I was overwhelmed with despair when I found out that the terrorists we are holding in custody are given copies of the Koran, subjected to religious services, encouraged to practice religious procedures, taunted with religious relics and fed menus in accordance with Muslim traditions. Their air-conditioned cells are even adorned with large arrows pointed in the direction of Mecca. We as a nation of freedom loving people cannot allow such conditions to persist!

Even in our own schools we do not subject our children to such religious fervency. We do not allow the Holy Bible or any religious text to be present in the classroom and we certainly would never utilize it in any course of study or student discussion. We discourage prayer, belittle those who are weak-minded enough to feel a need for religion, do not allow the Pledge of Allegiance and would NEVER go so far as to have an arrow painted on the floor pointing to the U.S. Flag! By many accounts we strive to prevent our nation's population having any knowledge of the church or its teachings or any embarrassing reference to the Biblical principles on which or country was established and built.

Why do we allow such hypocrisy at Gitmo? Let's insist that all religious influence be removed from these poor extremist detainees and provide them the same freedom from religion that many in our government work to provides us. Maybe by providing them with this small taste of liberty they will forgo their sworn intent to destroy our nation and kill us all.