Donald Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1000

Dear Secretary Rumsfeld,

“I’m a survivor.”

And you are! I’ve been wondering what your plans were after you resigned, and now I think I know. You’re going to go on the Survivor show! That’s a great idea! I think you can win!

Maybe you should wait til after January. Then Cheney and Wolfowitz and Powell can go on the show with you. They usually hold the Survivor competition on some island, but I think you should have a special competition at Abu Ghraib prison. You can run an obstacle course of “harsh treatment techniques.” You can stay awake for 48 hours with bright lights shining in your face and a continuous loop of the Beach Boys singing “Fun, Fun, Fun.” You can fend off vicious guard dogs with both hands tied behind your back. You can be subjected to “dietary manipulation.” You can have Condi Rice lead you around naked on a leash.

Do you think you can do a forced squat longer than Cheney? I think you should watch out for Wolfowitz. He looks like he’s in pretty good shape. I guess you’ll vote Powell out of the prison first. He can’t seem to get along with anybody!

I can think of lots of other “harsh treatment techniques” they use at Abu Ghraib, but they couldn’t use them on you because that would be “torture”. Don’t get me wrong--we didn’t torture prisoners at Abu Ghraib. We only treated them harshly. And we didn’t violate the Geneva Convention! The Geneva Convention doesn’t say one word about Iraqi prisoners. It says, “Persons taking no active part in the hostilities...shall in all circumstances be treated humanely.”

You see? It says “Persons.” It doesn’t say “Iraqi persons.” They’re probably talking about American persons. Maybe European persons too. Besides, the Red Cross said that 10% of the prisoners were taking part in hostilities. How are we supposed to know which 10% they’re talking about? Better safe than sorry.

Here are some of the acts that “are and shall remain prohibited” by the Geneva Convention:

--Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture.

--Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.

How do you define “cruel treatment” or “torture” anyway? Rush Limbaugh thinks “humiliating and degrading treatment” is fun--so who are we to judge? I guess if you and Cheney and Wolfowitz got stacked up naked together, you might call it cruel or torture or humiliating and degrading. But we’re talking about Iraqis! We don’t understand their culture! We don’t speak their language! How are we supposed to know what they want?

Anyway, if you win the Abu Ghraib Survivor Competition, you can clamp a hood over your head and go on for a bigger prize at the Guantanamo Bay Survivor Competition and maybe Ann Coulter can run you through a series of tests where you will be treated "for the most part" in "a manner that is reasonably consistent" with the Geneva Convention.

Anyway, I hope you win the Survivor competition. They’ll give you a new car and a million bucks, and maybe that will help you pay your legal bills.

Winning the Hearts and Minds!

Carl Estrada