Dispatch from The War on Brains

Scrubbers: start your scrubbing! You have your work cut out for you: lots of shit happened. It's your job, should you choose to accept it, to make that shit UN-happen. Confused? Here's an example you can use to learn how the big-boys do it:

Dateline: Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The United Nations has rejected America's offer to inspect JTF Gitmo on the grounds that they will not be permitted to interview prisoners without military supervision. Unknown numbers of prisoners have been engaged in a hunger-strike protest since August 2005. Human rights groups estimate the number of hunger-strikers to be in excess of 200. Lawyers for some of the prisoners have reported that conditions are growing increasingly desperate inside the facility and that many are at high-risk of suicide. Two weeks ago, following a meeting with his detainee-client, an American lawyer actually witnessed his client's suicide attempt at the facility. The prisoner had requested a military-escort to the washroom. When the man failed to return, his lawyer went to check on him in the washroom, only to discover the man "hanging unconscious from a noose tied to the ceiling, his eyes rolled back, his tongue and lips bulging, blood pouring from a gash in his right arm."

Dateline: The Tropical Paradise Retreat of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The proud servicemembers of JTF GITMO were pleased to extend an invitation to the United Nations to drop by for a friendly chat. The Pentagon has long maintained that it has "nothing to hide" and would be happy to introduce the UN team to some of the guests at the facility. Responding to chatter regarding so-called "abuse" or "hunger-strikes," the commander at JTF GITMO stated that the facility was operated "in a humane manner." Guantanamo spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jeremy Martin said the military would not comment on specific cases, but that it was Department of Defence policy to prevent "the unnecessary loss of life of detainees through standard medical intervention ... to overcome a detainee's desire to harm themselves." He estimated that there were 26 detainees taking part in the "voluntary fast" and that rumours of "up to 200 detainees are currently on a hunger strike, near death or are being treated inhumanely is absolutely false." Martin explained that the detainees "will continue to receive appropriate nutrition, fluids, and excellent medical care."

Exercises for the new recruits:

1. Examine how U.S. National Security Agency documents were doctored improved to leave Americans with the bogus correct impression about the Gulf of Tonkin [bonus: how did the NSA keep their own historians gagged loyal for >3 years?]
2. Find the most effective way to turn this: "A local hospital doctor in the town of Qaim said 40 people were killed and 20 wounded, many of them women and children, and a tribal leader said there were no guerrillas in the area." into this: A US military air raid in western Iraq near Qaim "was a precision strike designed to avoid civilian casualties." **Extra credit: make these Kumbaya hippies go away.