> > Maybe I'm going slumming, but I'm going to try to get inside the head of a Taliban foot soldier who has just been captured.
> >
> > In all likelihood, this guy has been miserable most of life. He has traveled on foot or a bicycle or on horseback. Maybe a few times he has ridden in the back of a truck. He has lived in a harsh climate in very crude surroundings, the food probably hasn't been exactly first class, he has been treated like an animal, slept in a cave or a tent or in the open, and has never had any hope for anything better. Then everything gets worse. He gets captured. In his army, captives have probably not been treated very well, and he knows what to expect. But he is wrong.
> >
> > At first he has his weapons taken away and is roughly taken to a pen, maybe chained up and he fears for his life. But then things take a different turn. He gets food, clean clothes, maybe even a bath. He gets medical attention and a comfortable place to sleep. People ask him lots of questions, but nobody harms him. After a time, he rides in trucks, maybe an airplane or a helicopter. Sooner or later, he is placed on a large airplane or a ship and taken to a tropical paradise. Sure, it's Cuba, but compared to where he has been all his life, it's a paradise. He will be housed in a new building, he will continue to be well fed and cared for. He will see sunshine and feel the balmy breezes and be more comfortable than he has ever been. Barbed wire and armed guards are nothing new to him so they don't bother him much. It's a soft life.
> >
> > Now I wonder if this will be a little confusing. What are all these Americans up to? Don't they know who their enemies are? Or maybe he will just wonder what all that fighting was all about.
> > Howard
>
> Umm... I don't know where this is quoted from, and it's probably misquoted, but:
>
> A Golden cage is still a cage, and gilded fetters chafe.
>
> He still does not have his freedom, either to move, or to believe in what he used to believe in. You could say what you have said about most people in prisons, whether prisoners of war or of societies' rules, but does it make prison any more desirable? (On the other hand, Shawshank Redemption, Anyone?)

Yesterday I read a news story about the conditions Taliban prisoners will be detained in. I don't know if this applies to all of them or just some, but the ones mentioned in the article are going to be living in smallish cells with wire mesh walls and a soft pad on the ground to sleep on but no blankets or pillows. They each get a bag containing two towels (one for washing and one to use as a prayer mat if they so wish), toothbrush and paste, soap and a couple of other things. They will get three meals a day, two of which will be hot.

I certainly wouldn't say it sounds like a "soft life", and I don't know whether sleeping on a pad on the ground in a wire mesh cage in the tropics will count as "more comfortable than they've ever been." However, it more than covers the basics a person needs to survive in good health, if not a great deal of comfort, and sounds like reasonable treatment for a prisoner of war based on what little I know of the rules governing such things.

However, I wonder if a lot of these prisoners even have the right turn of mind to compare their treatment with the potential treatment of prisoners taken by their own side.

I don't see why they won't be able to believe what they used to believe. I can't see that being a prisoner would affect my own beliefs, just in itself. They will still be allowed to pray and other things necessary to their religion, if they wish. Since freedom of religion is a basic right in U.S. law it could hardly be otherwise.

Prolonged contact with their captors might have the effect of changing whatever opinions and beliefs they hold about the U.S and the West in general, or it might reinforce those beliefs. A lot of that would depend on the capacities of the individual, and what type of people they meet while imprisoned.