Mutiny Fallout

The fallout from the prison mutiny has led to some immediate results, most notably the reassignment of the director of prisoners to a post called the "temporary list" (getting paid to wait for his superiors to find a job for him), and replacing him with another officer. Clearly, he was blamed for getting himself taken hostage by the prisoners. Clearly, this is not something that he should put on his CV, but is the issue deeper? Treatment of the situation at the time was humane and reasonable, but why did this mutiny happen in the first place?

Questions raised by this episode are numerous, and span from between policy and implementation. First, policy.

It is quite obvious that these prisoners are being treated with kid gloves. The prisoners got a chance to take the guards and the director of prisons hostage because they were unarmed. It seems that this is prison policy, which is clearly candy assed. I mean, do they think they are dealing with mischievous boy scouts? One of them murdered an American diplomat. I wonder what these people need to do to be treated as DANGEROUS. The job of prisons is to protect society, not please Human Right Watch. Frankly, I don't give a rat's ass about these guys' human rights. I am sure that if they had their way, their opponents wouldn't enjoy the treatment that they are receiving.

They are also mixed with regular prisoners, rather than kept in their own sections. This mixing allows for common criminals to be indoctrinated into the Islamist ideology. This is the same system that transformed Zarqawi from a common street thug to the world class terrorist he is today.

As for implementation, questions about how these guys had cell phones by which they could coordinate with prisoners in different facilities and to call our friends at Al Jazeera, to complain about how badly they are being treated. Boo Hoo. Prisoners at Suwaqa rioted a couple of months ago, but the lessons from that incident were not internalized. There seems to be a common thread here.

Honestly, if we have too much trouble warehousing these terrorists, we should simplify our job by giving them quick trials and swift executions. That way they can meet their virgins post haste.

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UPDATES: Deputy Abduljalil Ma'aitah has some pointed questions for the minister of interior. He questions why prison officials went into the cells (unarmed) rather than speaking with a representative of the prisoners outside. He also questions dragging out the negotiations, which he said lowers the credibility of the police (I would argue with that), and why another prisoner was asked to intervene on behalf of the prison officials (I wouldn't argue with that).

Columist Sultan Hattab says today that he had known before during visits to prison officials that the prisoners were making weapons in their cells. I am pulling my hair right now.