[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 83 (Tuesday, June 21, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H4864]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H4864]]
                  HUMANE TREATMENT FOR GITMO PRISONERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, it is about supper time here in the United 
States. I wonder what is on the plates across our dinner tables. 
Perhaps lemon baked fish, broccoli, steamed carrots, fresh fruit. 
Sounds healthy to me, maybe delicious to some. This menu could be on 
any menu of any home or restaurant in the United States tonight.
  But, Mr. Speaker, this menu is also what is being served in 
Guantanamo Bay prison on any given night. Mr. Speaker, we have a 
purpose in Guantanamo Bay. It is to house outlaws, criminals, radical 
terrorists; they are locked up there.
  These detainees are people that have killed Americans and want to 
keep killing Americans. These are people picked up off the battlefield. 
They were not wearing uniforms. They were not state sponsored, but 
there were there for a reason, and that was to execute innocent people 
on the battlefield.
  The Geneva Convention, Mr. Speaker, protects those people who are at 
war, who have a chain of command. They wear a uniform. They do not have 
concealed weapons and they do not kill the innocents. Mr. Speaker, 
terrorists do just the opposite. They kill innocents. They have 
concealed weapons. They certainly do not wear uniforms, and there is no 
chain of command. They are not protected, Mr. Speaker, by the Geneva 
Convention.
  International law allows any nation the right to detain any 
combatants for a conflict's duration to prevent them from killing and 
to gather further useful information. The detainees at Guantanamo are 
enemy combatants. They are there because they shot our troops. They 
were involved in terrorism. Any many of them have information that 
could prevent further attacks.
  Some of them have been released. And at least 12 of them have been 
recaptured on the battlefield trying to kill Americans.
  Ann Coulter describes the tactics at Guantanamo Bay in her latest 
article. She said, Interrogators there cannot yell at detainees. They 
cannot serve the detainees cold meals except in certain circumstances. 
Cannot poke the detainees in the chest or engage in any type of pushing 
without some type of monitor. And we cannot subject the detainees to 
temperatures changes, of all things.
  Once a suspected terrorist gets to Guantanamo, they are not treated 
like the Nazis treated the Poles and the Jews in World War II. Those 
that compare the Nazi concentration camps to Guantanamo owe an apology 
to those people and those families that died in those concentration 
camps, and they owe an apology to the American troops.
  My dad served in World War II. He helped liberate those concentration 
camps, and 50 years later I went to Dachau and saw what it was like. 
And Guantanamo Bay, to be compared to a Nazi concentration camp, it is 
a sham and it is shameful conduct.
  We even know that some of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have 
actually gained weight while they have been there. Mr. Speaker, before 
I became a Member of Congress, I dealt with criminals all my life. 
First, as a prosecutor, as you did, and then as a criminal court judge 
for 22 years. I saw murderers, thieves and street terrorists. And they 
came through my court. And we sent them to jail. We sent them to Texas 
jails and Texas prisons. And, Mr. Speaker, those are jails, those are 
prisons where no one wants to go. That is what prison and jail is 
about.
  So I invite those that criticize the activities in Guantanamo Bay to 
go there, go with me and see firsthand, before other outrageous 
statements are made about the conduct there.
  So tomorrow night at Guantanamo Bay, orange glazed chicken, fresh 
fruit crepes, steamed peas, and mushrooms and rice pilaf. It does not 
sound like bread and water to me.
  And do you think our troops and in Afghanistan and Iraq are getting 
crepes tonight? Probably not. They are eating C-rations out of cans as 
they stand there in the desert and the heat, protecting the world for 
democracy.
  Those that say there is inhumane torture there in Guantanamo, let me 
say this: That dog just will not hunt.
  We need to be more concerned about Americans being killed by 
terrorists in Iraq than we are about some terrorist that is locked up 
in Guantanamo Bay that gets a cold blueberry muffin.

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