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On at least two occasions the Taliban killed delegations of Hazara elders who had attempted to intercede with them. These are just the massacres that Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International were able to document. There were doubtless more. To say nothing of the Taliban's other crimes, such as the destruction of 1,500-year-old Buddhist statues at Bamiyan, and thousands of Buddhist statues at the National Museum in Kabul. Besides forced conscription of boys and forced marriages for girls, Afghan girls were prohibited from attending school and women were prohibited from working outside the home, or to leave their homes except in the company of a male relative. (This proved devastating for thousands of Afghan war widows, reduced to selling their possessions or begging to feed their families.) The Taliban beat women to enforce their medieval dress code for women and disrupted international relief agencies efforts to deliver food and medical supplies. They also seized control of U.N. food warehouses, looted offices of NGOs, beat workers and stole hundreds of vehicles.

Muslim writer Turki Al Hamad summed up the Taliban's cultural legacy this way: "At a time when the rest of the world [was] de-coding the genome, experimenting with cloning, inventing information chips, exploring outer space and tackling the wonders of laser beams and infra-red radiation, [the Taliban were banning kite-flying, listening to music and female education.]"

These are the "victims" we have detained at Guantanamo Bay. Of course Americans who fell into the hands of Taliban and al Qaeda have never once complained about being cursed at or having their holy book desecrated. That's because it's hard to complain when you've had your throat slit and your head cut off.

The detainee's biggest gripe remains the high temperatures. This from former Taliban footsoldiers who lived in rocky crags of the Afghani desert. Yes, the heat is awful on the Caribbean beach. That's why Americans and Europeans spend millions of dollars annually to vacation there.

By all means we should shut down Guantanamo Bay. Then open a new camp at Point Barrow, Alaska, where there will be no more complaining about the hot ocean breezes, and no problems with prisoners throwing urine (because it will be frozen), and where we won't need Pine-Sol since germs are inactive in subzero temperatures. As for chair tossing, Muslims would probably prefer Turkish carpets to steels chairs anyway. I know the MPs would.

Fortunately there is often a common sense solution to every problem.

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Education, Mainstream Media, Military, Alaska