Akmed's Heroes

So I’m having lunch with my buddy Sandy Frank, and we’re laughing about his idea to update ‘Hogan’s Heroes,’ but have the series set in Guantanamo Bay Prison. You know, a guy pulls back his prayer rug, revealing a tunnel that goes to Raul Castro’s rape room; the fat lovable guard who “knows nada!” and of course the foreign guy who kisses everybody… wait – I fused the wrong Richard Dawson in there for a second…

… Anywhoozer, I’m thinking later how crazy it was that they even got Hogan’s Heroes on the air, but at least the fascists were the bad guys and the Americans were the good guys. CUT TO: Any given night this week, no less than three contemporary movies are running on cable where the fascists are the good guys and the Americans are the bad guys… wow, talk about crazy.

And everyone over 35 remembers that, amazingly, the farcical sitcom Hogan’s Heroes grew out of the Hollywood-made drama; “Stalag 17,” where – get this – the fascists were the bad guys and the Americans were the good guys! Hey Sandy, looks like all you gotta do is make the Gitmo terrorists the good guys and the Americans the bad guys, and its green-lightville, baby!

But it’s all moot because our new president signed an executive order to shut down Guantanamo Bay Prison requiring it be closed within a year. And I say; “More power to ‘ya, President Obama – close down Gitmo!” Now I know what you’re thinking: “But Rodney Lee, if you close down Gitmo, where do you put the prisoners?” Answer: American prisons… “But Rodney, then they’ll get the same rights under the Constitution that regular American prisoners get.”

This is true.

But for you folks who don’t want Gitmo closed and the “detainees” relocated to American prisons to get fair trials and rights and lawyers and book deals and remote interviews on Oprah; I ask you: What good are rights under the Constitution when you, yourself are under a 270-pound Samoan cellmate named; “Chester”?… Say what? Chester lost a friend in the 9-11 attacks? Ouch, mommy!

And good luck chatting with your ACLU lawyer with a mouthful of shower soap and a shiv in your ear. Oh, and about that speedy trial? Hope it’s speedier than ten minutes because that’s about how long these guys are going to last in an American prison. “But Rodney, they’ll segregate them from the other prisoners – they’ll be protected.” … Oh yeah, a lot of good that did Jeffrey Dahmer, who was “protected” in prison – yet was beaten to death with a meat tenderizer (kind of ironic, eh?).

But I digress… Back to Guantanamo – I hear you get to read the Koran, eat three squares and what – pray five times a day? I got bad news for the idiots who think the enemy are being treated poorly at Gitmo: Put these guys in Rikers Island and the only thing they’ll be praying for is to be back in Cuba. Give these fanatics a choice between San Quentin and Abu Ghraib and they’ll form a naked pyramid faster than you can say; “Thank-you Slave-mistress Lynndie, may I have another?”

Put them in American prisons, my friends, and as Ross Perot used to say; “Problem solved.”