Thank you for your recent letter roundly criticizing our
treatment of the Taliban and al Qaeda detainees currently being
held at Guantanamo Bay, as well as those sequestered at
undisclosed locations under the rendition protocol in an effort
to protect you and your family, your friends and neighbors, your
colleagues and associates. Our administration takes these matters
seriously, and your opinion was heard loud and clear in our
nation's capital.
You'll be pleased to learn that, thanks to the concerns of good
citizens just like you, we are creating a new division of the
Terrorist Retraining Program, to be called the "Liberals
Accept Responsibility for Killers" project, or LARK
for short. In accordance with the guidelines of this new
government program for winning the war on terrorism, we have
decided to place one captive terrorist under your personal care.
Your personal detainee has been selected, and is scheduled to be
transported by a heavily armed guard for delivery to your private
residence not later than next Monday.
Your detainee, Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud (you can just call
him Ahmed), is to be cared for pursuant to the standards
you personally demanded in your recent letter of admonishment. It
will likely be necessary for you to hire some assistant
caretakers, but we know that you will not permit minor
inconveniences to hinder your absolute dedication. We will
conduct weekly inspections of your detainee and his detention
area to ensure that your standards of care for your personal
detainee (ie: Ahmed) are commensurate with those you so
strongly recommended in your letter.
Your detainee's meal requirements are fairly simple, given the
dietary restrictions imposed by Islam, but we strongly suggest
serving meals that do not require utensils, particularly knives
and forks. Also, meals should be composed of "one-handed"
foods since your detainee (ie: Ahmed) will not eat
with his left hand, reserving it to wipe himself after purging
his bowels — which he will do anywhere except a toilet
— but look on the bright side: no increase in the water
bill or grocery bill for toilet tissue, no environmental impact
from wasted water or trees pulped for toilet paper.
Your detainee generally bathes quarterly with the change of
seasons, but only if it has lately rained, and like most medieval
primitives, he uses this happy occasion to simultaneously wash
his minimal clothing. We know that you, as a doctrinaire
ecologist, believe that this abstinence is a higher form of
devout environmentalism, but it is actually only another case of
cultural bias, which entails some unfortunate ramifications. We
regret to inform you that your detainee has a really bad case of
body lice that's resistant to medical treatment, and will
probably never be remedied. We recommend that children and pets
be kept at a safe distance from your personal detainee to avoid
contagion.
Please heed the large orange notice attached to each side of your
detainee's cage: "Does not play well with others."
Although your detainee (ie: Ahmed) is sociopathic and
extremely violent, we hope that your immoderate sensitivity to
what you described as his "attitudinal problem" will
help him overcome these character flaws. Think of this
arrangement as a testing laboratory where you will have the
opportunity to prove your hypothesis: "Give
love a chance!"
Perhaps you are correct in describing these problems as mere
cultural differences. He will bite you, given the chance,
but we have had him tested, so you are not at risk from rabies
and other diseases transmitted by saliva and sputum. We
understand that you, as a laudable gesture of benevolence, plan
to offer counseling and homeschooling. Your adopted terrorist is
very proficient in hand-to-hand combat, and can extinguish human
life with such simple everyday items as a pencil or nail
clippers. We recommend that you do not invite him to demonstrate
these skills at your next yoga session or play date. He is also
expert at making a wide variety of explosive devices from common
household products, so you may want to keep access to those items
locked away — unless (in your opinion) this eminently
reasonable precaution might offend him.
Because Muslims regard females as a subhuman form of property,
your detainee will not welcome interaction (except sexually) with
the female members of your household, so your wife and daughters
should be isolated from the possibility of any inadvertent
exposure to a cross-cultural conflict. Although this cultural
bias is contradicted by the teachings of the suras, your adopted
terrorist follows the crazed mumblings of fanatical imams and
other zealous bigots. Consequently, this orientation makes him
eager to assist with the education of your male relatives, so
provide him with several copies (some in translation) of the
Koran / Qur'an for this proselytism.
And rest assured that your personal detainee loves animals,
especially cats and dogs. He prefers them cooked on a skewer in
the traditional shish kebab manner, but raw is fine, too, if they
aren't more than two or three days dead. You may want to keep
smaller children out of his reach.
In fact, you may consider the responses of your adopted terrorist
to culture shock to be somewhat over reactive and absurd
— although they are quite predictable to an ordinarily
observant and rational adult. Your detainee will consider books
and magazines, secular music and sensual videos to be
satanic and such fiendish fare will provoke him to
violence! He cannot be soothed by soft tunes and pretty pictures
— it will only remind him of Western decadence!
Thanks again for your letter. We truly appreciate it when good
folks like you, who always know so much more than the rest of us,
take the time and effort to keep us informed of the proper way to
do our job. We think that this watching over each other's
shoulder is such a positive way for people to interact that
we will soon be sending a team of federal officials with almost
no expertise in your line of work to your place of business, just
to help you do your job better. Don't be concerned that they have
the power to close your business, seize your property, and arrest
you for any violation of the 4,850,206 laws, codes, regulations
and rules that apply to your profession. They're really there
just to make sure you're doing everything the proper way —
that's what you wanted — right?
Well, thank you for this opportunity to interact with such a
valued member of the citizenry. Be sure to take good care of your
personal detainee (ie: Ahmed) — and remember
— we'll be watching.
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