A Few Bad Apples

Before I even start down this road, I want to reassure anyone who might be stopping by for the first time, or for whatever reason doesn’t know my position on supporting the troops, that I do support the troops, and every day I’m grateful for men and women who put their lives on the line in combat. People have died for my right to say whatever I want on this very blog, and I never lose sight of that.

That said, supporting the troops doesn’t mean I give a pass to soldiers who are fucking idiots.

On my lunch hour, I ran out to get something to eat, and I was listening to Rush Limbaugh blathering away (again) about how the likes of Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer, and Dick Durbin are endangering our troops by verbalizing criticisms of the war and/or the administration. In the same segment, he proudly and excitedly hawked his “Club Gitmo” gear—t-shirts and hats designed to mock the mistreatment of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay facility, emblazoned with phrases such as:

Your Tropical Retreat from the Stress of Jihad

My Mullah went to Club G'itmo and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

I Got My Free Koran and Prayer Rug at G'itmo

What Happens in G'itmo Stays in G'itmo

For coffee-drinkers, there’s also a mug labeled “Jihad Java Café.”

He then referred his listeners to a picture on his website of soldiers serving in Iraq wearing the “Club Gitmo” gear.


In case you can’t read it, the caption notes that Camp Ramadi has been renamed “Club G’itmo East.”

So this is how we’re winning hearts and minds, huh? Assholes. And anyone who thinks that’s harsh—well, consider this: pulling that shit endangers the lives of other soldiers, soldiers who actually care about how other people are treated, even enemy combatants, soldiers who realize that ridiculing the mistreatment of detainees in our facilities could mean that if one of them is ever captured, their captors have one less reason to treat them well.

Tell me again how liberal Senators are endangering our troops. Better yet, explain to me how these fuckwits aren’t doing a pretty damn good job of that themselves by putting their contempt for human rights on a goddamn t-shirt in the middle of the war zone.