Let Them Eat Cake...

Some of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay have gone a hunger strike. Depending on whom you believe the number is either 50 or 180. Either way, who cares? Who has instructed these guys that going on a hunger strike will get them media coverage? They claim that they are doing it to protest the mistreatment at the military facility in Cuba. Some are also doing it to protest the amount and quality of their drinking water. Huh?? Is it not chilled enough? Not sparkling enough? Perhaps it doesn’t come with a wedge of lemon. Maybe they would be much happier in a Syrian or Iranian jail. Maybe the jail in Kabul would be a good place for them. What do you think would happen if they started a hunger strike there? Nothing. More food for the other inmates. They would be allowed to starve if that was really their intent. I think in those prisons they might have a real complaint about the water. A spokesman at Guantanamo Bay has said that some have begun eating again. I suppose the brook trout almandine with steamed vegetables, warm dinner rolls and desert was a little too much to pass up.

My feelings on hunger strikes is to let them do it if they want but to completely ignore them. This goes for any hunger strike. If someone refuses to eat that’s his or her business not mine. They will eat when they get too hungry or too weak. The only reason people do this is to try and draw attention to some cause and the media is only too happy to accommodate them. All too often during these “hunger strikes” the person is drinking juices, protein drinks and vitamin pills. Sounds like someone on a diet to me. Maybe Ted Kennedy and Michael Moore should go on a hunger strike to draw attention to the national problem of obesity…