Take a Terrorist Home With You

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C.

Dear Sir:

Thank you for your recent letter voicing your concerns regarding our treatment of the Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. My administration takes these matters seriously, and your opinion was heard loud and clear here in Washington.

You'll be pleased to learn that, thanks to the efforts of citizens like you, we are creating a new division of the terrorist retraining program. We call this new division the "Liberals Accepting Responsibility for Killers" program, or LARK for short.

In accordance with the guidelines of this new program, we have decided to place one terrorist under your personal care. Your very own detainee has been selected and scheduled for transportation under heavily armed guard to your residence. Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud (you may just call him Ahmed) is to be cared for pursuant to the standards you demanded in your letter.

Above all, please heed the large orange notice attached to his cage: "DOES NOT PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS."

Although Ahmed is an extremely violent sociopath, we hope that your sensitivity to what you described as his "understandable attitude problem" will help him overcome these character flaws. We hope you are correct in describing his problems as mere "cultural differences" with heretofore neglected "root causes." Perhaps your plan to offer counseling will turn out to be just what he needs.

It may be necessary for you to hire some assistant caretakers. Note that your detainee's meal requirements are simple, but we strongly suggest serving meals that do not require utensils, particularly knives and forks.

Your adopted terrorist may bite you, given the chance, but the results of his rabies test have so far been negative, so there is probably no reason to worry. He is also very proficient in hand-to-hand combat and can extinguish human life with such simple items as a pencil or nail clippers. We suggest that you do not ask him to demonstrate these skills at your next yoga group.

Furthermore, Ahmed is expert at making a wide variety of explosive devices from common household products, so you may wish to keep those items locked up, unless (in your opinion) this might offend him.

Your adopted terrorist will not wish to interact with the female members of your family (except sexually) since he views women as subhuman. However, he will be eager to assist with the religious education of your sons. And rest assured that Ahmed absolutely loves animals, especially cats and dogs. He prefers them roasted, but raw is fine, too, if they have not been dead for more than two or three days.

I want to thank you personally for taking on this responsibility; and if you have any advice for us regarding how to provide care for drug addicted, homicidal schizophrenics, I encourage you to share those views with us as well.

We can always use the help.

Cordially,
George W. Bush