WHERE'S ANDERSONVILLE WHEN YOU NEED IT:

Make no mistake, Gitmo is no gulag: Guantanamo Bay is a humane place for enemy combatants that is worth keeping (Morris Davis, June 29, 2007, The Australian)

IT is disappointing that so many people embrace a contrived image of Guantanamo Bay. Reality for Guantanamo Bay is the daily professionalism of its staff, the humanity of its detention centres and the fair and transparent nature of the military commissions charged with trying alleged war criminals. It is a reality that has been all but ignored or forgotten.

Today, most of the detainees are housed in new buildings modelled on US civilian prisons in Indiana and Michigan. Detainees receive three culturally appropriate meals a day. Each Muslim detainee has a copy of the Koran. Guards maintain respectful silence during Islam's five daily prayer periods and medical care is provided by the same practitioners who treat American service members. Detainees are offered at least two hours of outdoor recreation each day, double that allowed to inmates, including convicted terrorists, at the supermax federal penitentiary in the US state of Colorado.

Standards at Guantanamo rival or exceed those at similar institutions in the US and abroad. After an inspection by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe in March last year, a Belgian police official said: "At the level of detention facilities, it is a model prison, where people are better treated than in Belgian prisons."