Detainees at Guantanamo Get Holiday Greetings

WASHINGTON — How do you say "Season's Greetings" to an enemy combatant being held at Guantanamo Bay? It's only a guess, but maybe the cheeful holiday cards go like this:

Dear Avowed Enemy of America: Merry Christmas.
Dear I Yearn to Be a Martyr and Hook Up With 72 Virgins in Heaven: Happy Hanukkah.
Dear Friend of Usama Bin Laden: Happy New Year.

It's a well-established tradition for Americans at home to deliver Christmas cheer to U.S. soldiers stationed around the world, but it turns out that prisoners held in the War on Terror are getting good tidings of their own, too.

The 400 or so detainees at Joint Task Force detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have received approximately 500 holiday greeting cards, said Army Col. Lora Tucker, a spokeswoman for the prison.

She said she did not know the faith content of the cards sent to the mainly Muslim detention population, because "Once it goes to the detainee, it's the detainee's mail."

She said the guard force at Gitmo has no interest in the content of the mail after it is screened for operations and security purposes.

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