The warden of Fallouja
By Mike Carlson
Mike Carlson served as the officer in charge of the Camp Fallouja Regional Detention Facility from March 2006 to October. He is now a graduate student in creative writing at the University of Central Florida.
March 4, 2007
Read the whole story at LA Times
By Mike Carlson
Mike Carlson served as the officer in charge of the Camp Fallouja Regional Detention Facility from March 2006 to October. He is now a graduate student in creative writing at the University of Central Florida.
March 4, 2007
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They're not prisoners, they're "detainees."
It sounds better, as if they're merely inconvenienced rather than shoehorned into cinderblock cells, thumbing their military-issued Korans and waiting to be interrogated. One-third are innocents caught up in sweeps; one-third are jihadists who will slit your throat, and one-third are opportunists who will rat out their neighbors. You will hold them for 14 days, no more, while the interrogators try to figure out who is what. Each gets a CF, for Camp Fallouja, and a four-digit number. No names will be used, mainly because numbers fit more easily onto spreadsheets. They will be forever known as entas. "Enta" means "you" in Arabic, and that's what you call them day after day, meal after meal, port-a-potty call after port-a-potty call. "Enta, ishra mai," you say, and the enta drinks his water, and if you say, "Enta, ishra mai kulak," he drinks all of his water, every drop, and holds the bottle upside down to prove it.
Read the whole story at LA Times
