I saw this over at Weasel Zippers and could not resist crossposting it here.

ACLU Fantasy…

NEW YORK (AP) - The U.S. military is holding about 500 juveniles suspected of being “unlawful enemy combatants” in detention centers in Iraq.

A total of 2,500 youths under the age of 18 have been detained for periods of up to a year or more since President Bush’s anti-terrorism campaign began in 2002. Almost all those who have been detained are in Iraq. About 10 are currently being held in Afghanistan.

The ACLU and other civil liberties groups have denounced the practice as abhorrent. And they say it’s in violation of U.S. treaty obligations.

Reality…

BAGHDAD (AFP) — An increasing number of Iraqi detainees are refusing to leave detention centres despite being eligible for release because they want to complete studies begun behind bars, a US general said on Sunday.

“In the last three or four months we have begun seeing detainees asking to stay in detention, usually to complete their studies,” Major General Douglas Stone told a news conference in Baghdad.

The US military offers a wide range of educational programmes to the 23,000 or so detainees — adults and juveniles — being held at its two detention facilities, Camp Cropper near Baghdad’s international airport and Camp Bucca near the southern port city of Basra.

Some parents of juvenile detainees, too, have asked that their children remain behind bars so they can continue their schooling, said Stone, the commanding general for US detainee operations in Iraq.

The harsh reality for the ACLU is that our country treats its prisoners better than many countries treat its citizens.

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ACLU, Features