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2 more articles on this subject:
Since its opening, the Guantanamo concentration camp has been a shame and humiliation to the US, sparking widespread hatred of America and prompting many countries that were once our allies to refuse cooperate in the "war on terror."
Last Thursday the ever secretive Bush administration asked the Supreme Court to help them cover up details of their shameful treatment of prisoners claiming that the lower court's order that they provide evidence to support their claim that the prisoners are so called "enemy combatants."
This is a great embarrassment to the Bush crowd since the majority of prisoners who have been held in this hell hole, often for years, and subjected to abuse and even torture, have turned out to be innocent.
Of the 775 captives held without rights or trial since the opening of this gulag 420 have already been released, it having been discovered that they were, just as they had said, innocent of any crime. Of the 355 remaining captives more than one fifth have also been found innocent but are still being held because U.S. officials are having a hard time finding anywhere to send them.
Among the captives whose detention has proven to be the most shameful for the US were the more than 60 children, some as young as 12, who were held in solitary confinement, repeatedly subjected to brutal interrogation and in some cases tortured. After the news media got wind of the underage captives they were transferred to a separate dormitory -style prison.
Many of the children were later found to be innocent and were released, often having served a year or more in confinement. In many cases the children's families had not even been told of their whereabouts and feared that they were dead.
A former US Army Guantanamo chaplain, James Yee, who told the world of the existence of the child prisoners, and of the torture of suspects he had witnessed, was arrested and held for 76 days by the US on trumped-up charges of "espionage" and denied the rights guaranteed to US citizens under the Constitution. According to Mr Yee:
"I was arrested in secret, held incommunicado. I never showed up at the airport in Seattle like I was supposed to have, where my wife and daughter were waiting. They didn't know what happened to me. My parents in New Jersey had no idea what had happened. I essentially disappeared from society, from the face of the earth."
Mr Yee was held in solitary confinement and subjected to many of the same abuses that the captives at Guantanamo have suffered. Reflecting on his confinement Yee said:
"One of the most ironic parts of this situation is that down in Guantanamo, as the Muslim chaplain, I was able to protect certain religious rights for the alleged, suspected, Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners down in Guantanamo. The point is, I was denied my religious rights as a U.S. citizen in military custody, the very same rights that I was able to uphold for prisoners down in Guantanamo."
Another prisoner who has caused the US extreme embarrassment is Sami Al Haj, better known to the world as Prisoner 345.
Prisoner 345.
The case of Sami al-Hajj has become the center of an world-wide anti-American firestorm whipped up by his illegal detention and brutal treatment. Al-Hajj, a journalist for Al-Jazeera, was arrested in Pakistan in December 2001 while he was traveling with a valid visa and press credentials to report on the war in Afghanistan.
Although listed as an "enemy combatant" it has long been known that Al-Hajj was innocent, but the US continued to hold him anyway because he refused to spy for them against Al-Jazeera or to show what the military considered proper remorse.
Since his arrest Al-Hajj has been subjected to brutal abuse, but the thing that has most inflamed world opinion against the US has been the sheer pettiness of some of the torments that his captors have subjected him to. Severely beaten when he was arrested, he has trouble bending his knees, but for no apparent reason the jailers have decided to remove his doctor-prescribed toilet chair, making it extremely painful for him to use the squat toilet that remains. Al-Hajj, a devout Muslim, has been allowed a Qu'ran, but his glasses were confiscated so he cannot read it.
Sami al-Hajj began a hunger strike over a year ago and since then he has been strapped down twice daily and had a plastic tube shoved up his nose and down his throat to his stomach so that he can be force-fed. The guards often "forget" to use lubricant on the tube so that al-Hajj's nose and throat have been rubbed raw. Sometimes a tube, sill bloody from use on another hunger striker, is used instead of a clean one.
After 2073 days in captivity Sami al-Hajji, who has long been known to be innocent of any crime and is now suffering from kidney, heart and rheumatism problems as a result of his imprisonment, is due to be released from bondage at the end of March.
Now that it is known that hundreds of innocent prisoners, including children, have been held in brutal conditions for years at a time and subjected to torture and humiliation, the Bush administration wants to clamp a news blackout on the gulag to prevent any more embarrassing details from slipping out. This at the same time that they are preparing show trials, which they hope will culminate in executions, carefully timed to coincide with the Presidential elections.
While it is easy to condemn Bush and the other members of his regime for this tremendously shameful and damaging atrocity, the truth of the matter is that we all share in the blame. As Thomas Jefferson put it:
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
The American electorate has remained silent on this travesty for far too long. For a while, following 9/11, we hid behind the threadbare excuse that we needed to give up liberty and justice
and the rule of law in order to protect our security choosing, to our shame, to ignore Benjamin Franklin's warning that:
"He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security."
Following 9/11 the world rallied to our side. From all around the world came messages of sympathy and support, even from countries not normally friendly to the US. Leaders in most Middle Eastern countries, including Afghanistan, condemned the attacks and in Italy crowds of demonstrators marched to the port in Gaeta where the US 6th fleet is based proudly waving signs which read “Siamo tutti Americani adesso”... ”We are all Americans now."
Now, following seven shameful years of the Bush administration, we have lost the moral high ground and the US is more reviled in the world than at any time our history. Bush and his cronies have dragged America's honor in the mud, and yet and there is no evidence that we are one jot more secure today than we were before 9/11.
If anything we are less secure since many of the countries who use to look up to us will no longer share intelligence with our government nor will they extradite prisoners, even those suspected of terrorism, to the US for fear of what we may do with them.
It is enough to make the Statue of Liberty weep for shame.
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.
Thomas Jefferson
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Good report, lensman. This whole Guantanamo mess still baffles me...how could the country that we call home be just a downright dirty as those we've fought against?
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@ Debra Myers (skyangel)
Good report, lensman. This whole Guantanamo mess still baffles me...how could the country that we call home be just a downright dirty as those we've fought against?
Bush is the first Terrorist President. Not in the sense that he fights terrorism, quite the contrary, he uses the threat of terrorism to tear down this country and the freedoms that it stands for.
The great tragedy is that it is unlikely that Congress has the spine to put him and his henchmen in prison. When people talk of the low approval ratings of Congress they often over look the fact that they are so low mainly because the American people who elected them are disappointed with them for not going after Bush with all they had. He should have been impeached five minutes after the Democrats recaptured Congress. -
@ lensman67
Bush is the first Terrorist President. Not in the sense that he fights terrorism, quite the contrary, he uses the threat of terrorism to tear down this country and the freedoms that it stands for.
The great tragedy is that it is unlikely that Congress has the spine to put him and his henchmen in prison. When people talk of the low approval ratings of Congress they often over look the fact that they are so low mainly because the American people who elected them are disappointed with them for not going after Bush with all they had. He should have been impeached five minutes after the Democrats recaptured Congress.
I know that my opinion of Bush has changed...as well as my thoughts about this government and how's being run. -
@ Debra Myers (skyangel)
I know that my opinion of Bush has changed...as well as my thoughts about this government and how's being run.
I wish I could say the same but I had been reading Molly Ivans back when he was governor of Texas and knew what a sleezebag he was even then. I also knew in those days that he was jonesing even then to invade Iraq.
Alas he turned out exactly as bad as I had feared. -
Wow, quite the extensive article there Lensman......Guantanamo is really a hell hole from all I have read.
I would say, however, that I can understand to a point how 15 and 16 year old boys ended up in there. I mean, we have all read on numerous occasions how the "radical" Muslim youth strap bombs to their chests and blow themselves up in crowded centers, believing that what they are doing is just.
If you are going to take actions that result in the deaths of innocent people - well you have to pay the consequences if caught.
We in the US often times try juveniles as adults, sending them to adult prison facilities where they are held in solitary if they don't behave, etc.......so why should it be any different for a juvenile Muslim terrorist? We treat our bad apples the same way don't we?
I am not trying to justify Guantanamo, I am just making an observation regarding your comment about juveniles being held there is all.
Good report.
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Excellent job Lensman, well done.
One more story involves a man who commits suicide one day before he was set to be released. If only the Americans had had the decency to let him know his struggle was almost over, his life would have been spared.
Scoop, not all children are tried as adults, only certain occasions involving particularly heinous crimes. If you wanted to treat them the same way then afford them the same privileges. Proper access to legal representation and a fair trial.You don't torture your suspects in the U.S nor deny them a fair trial if they are particularly bad.
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@ Bocephalus
Excellent job Lensman, well done.
One more story involves a man who commits suicide one day before he was set to be released. If only the Americans had had the decency to let him know his struggle was almost over, his life would have been spared.
Scoop, not all children are tried as adults, only certain occasions involving particularly heinous crimes. If you wanted to treat them the same way then afford them the same privileges. Proper access to legal representation and a fair trial.You don't torture your suspects in the U.S nor deny them a fair trial if they are particularly bad.
Valid points - though sometimes in the US I think we waste far too much time, money and resources giving obvious murderers and sickos "fair trials"..... -
Wow Lensman what a disturbing report. Very well written.
I knew that it was bad there but your report that listed one after another atrocity shows it even worse than can be imagined
It is hard for me to understand how humans can be so uncaring and cruel to their fellowman.
"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever"
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@ Pamela Jean (GotTheScoop)
Valid points - though sometimes in the US I think we waste far too much time, money and resources giving obvious murderers and sickos "fair trials".....
It's the price we pay for justice. Think of all the death row inmates that have been exonerated in recent years by dna testing. -
LENS,
Great article of what not only what we hide and minimize, but what our own agents (FBI) see as needs lots of work and using extreme tactics and torture.
First, these kids are FORCED into war-via brainwash tactics and ultimate death and dishonor if they don't. They don't have choices. It isn't like our 12 year olds texting their bff about what color bands they are getting on their braces.
Second, they don't need to be tortured - they need sensitivity therapy to teach them to be kids! So if you do call their parents and inform them of their whereabouts, the parents will simply pimp them out again. CLEAN UP THE CAMP.
We treat our prisoners....our child rapists, molesters, murderers, drug traffikers, thieves, rapists, university shooters, etc. they get clean cells, exercise, coffee, cable tv (and in californià, I'm sure organic something or other...hehe) so if this is our camp and the red cross keeps saying its a dive and isn't utilizing due process......and is implementing torture and doing so on kids in a concentration camp environment, I have deep deep concerns.
If its crimiminal interrogation extremes necessary to protect national security.....take the ones you need to get info from to secret locations, get your info and well......enuf said. I need my national security.
But I don't for a second believe in doing these things to kids in the same environment as the adults! And I do not believe in Hitleresque environments for the detainees.
As for the extremeist adults, I've said it before.......DO UNTO OTHERS
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@ Pamela Jean (GotTheScoop)
Wow, quite the extensive article there Lensman......Guantanamo is really a hell hole from all I have read.
I would say, however, that I can understand to a point how 15 and 16 year old boys ended up in there. I mean, we have all read on numerous occasions how the "radical" Muslim youth strap bombs to their chests and blow themselves up in crowded centers, believing that what they are doing is just.
If you are going to take actions that result in the deaths of innocent people - well you have to pay the consequences if caught.
We in the US often times try juveniles as adults, sending them to adult prison facilities where they are held in solitary if they don't behave, etc.......so why should it be any different for a juvenile Muslim terrorist? We treat our bad apples the same way don't we?
I am not trying to justify Guantanamo, I am just making an observation regarding your comment about juveniles being held there is all.
Good report.
You are absolutely right, there are child soldiers and they can be dangerous. However there are a few stories that have come out that just chill the blood.
Two boys, 12 and 13 when they went in, had been "sold" to the US by tribal leaders in Afghanistan for the reward and not because they had done anything wrong. Their parents had no idea where they were and the US figured out very early on that they were innocent but held them anyway because they were embarrassed to let them go.
When the chaplain Yee spilled the beans they were finally flown to Kabul and simply dumped on the street, even though they were from the mountains hundreds of miles away! They were not even given any money just pushed out of a car.
They went to a mosque and told the people there who they were and where they were from and finally someone got word to their parents and they were picked up.
That really helped win some hearts and minds. -
@ Pamela Jean (GotTheScoop)
Valid points - though sometimes in the US I think we waste far too much time, money and resources giving obvious murderers and sickos "fair trials".....
More than half of these people have already been proven to be INNOCENT! They were held for years and tortured and then dumped somewhere without so much as a "sorry about that!"
So far there have been NO convictions and it is a safe bet that most of the remaining prisoners are also innocent. These people own the US some heavy payback and I really can't blame them if they are pissed.
I hope to God that the murderers and sickos in the Bush regime get the same sort of treatment that they have given to these innocent people. -
@ Cynthia T. [Picasso]
Wow Lensman what a disturbing report. Very well written.
I knew that it was bad there but your report that listed one after another atrocity shows it even worse than can be imagined
It is hard for me to understand how humans can be so uncaring and cruel to their fellowman.
"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever"
We have sown the wind and God help us we are going to reap the whirlwind. -
@ Nikki W (karateblossom)
LENS,
Great article of what not only what we hide and minimize, but what our own agents (FBI) see as needs lots of work and using extreme tactics and torture.
First, these kids are FORCED into war-via brainwash tactics and ultimate death and dishonor if they don't. They don't have choices. It isn't like our 12 year olds texting their bff about what color bands they are getting on their braces.
Second, they don't need to be tortured - they need sensitivity therapy to teach them to be kids! So if you do call their parents and inform them of their whereabouts, the parents will simply pimp them out again. CLEAN UP THE CAMP.
We treat our prisoners....our child rapists, molesters, murderers, drug traffikers, thieves, rapists, university shooters, etc. they get clean cells, exercise, coffee, cable tv (and in californià, I'm sure organic something or other...hehe) so if this is our camp and the red cross keeps saying its a dive and isn't utilizing due process......and is implementing torture and doing so on kids in a concentration camp environment, I have deep deep concerns.
If its crimiminal interrogation extremes necessary to protect national security.....take the ones you need to get info from to secret locations, get your info and well......enuf said. I need my national security.
But I don't for a second believe in doing these things to kids in the same environment as the adults! And I do not believe in Hitleresque environments for the detainees.
As for the extremeist adults, I've said it before.......DO UNTO OTHERS
What part of MOST OF THE PRISONERS WERE INNOCENT did I fail to make clear? How can we justify torturing innocent people and denying even US citizens basic human rights?
He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security."
Justifying torture and "extreme measures" is what NAZIS and other evil people do. America is better than that. Those who would lower us to their standards hate America and are traitors to our values.
If we give up the virtues that made this country great then we do not deserve to survive nor do we deserve the sympathy or respect of the rest of the world. -
@ lensman67
What part of MOST OF THE PRISONERS WERE INNOCENT did I fail to make clear? How can we justify torturing innocent people and denying even US citizens basic human rights?
He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security."
Justifying torture and "extreme measures" is what NAZIS and other evil people do. America is better than that. Those who would lower us to their standards hate America and are traitors to our values.
If we give up the virtues that made this country great then we do not deserve to survive nor do we deserve the sympathy or respect of the rest of the world.
Lensman - did you even BOTHER to read KarateBlossom's comment? Because if you did, you have a comprehension issue, as she was speaking in DEFENSE of your position and saying that Guantanamo is a horrid place.
Geez, you just seem to need to go off half cocked before you have even legitimately identified the enemy.
I think you owe her an apology for your previously posted attack.
Go read what she said and actually Pay Attention, eh? -
@ Pamela Jean (GotTheScoop)
Lensman - did you even BOTHER to read KarateBlossom's comment? Because if you did, you have a comprehension issue, as she was speaking in DEFENSE of your position and saying that Guantanamo is a horrid place.
Geez, you just seem to need to go off half cocked before you have even legitimately identified the enemy.
I think you owe her an apology for your previously posted attack.
Go read what she said and actually Pay Attention, eh?
I read it and agree, so far as the children are concerned. What I objected to was this statement:
If its crimiminal interrogation extremes necessary to protect national security.....take the ones you need to get info from to secret locations, get your info and well......enuf said. I need my national security.
NOTHING justifies that sort of behavior! The US does not benefit from secret locations or extreme interrogations. Not even the Spanish Inquisition believed that torture ever got to the truth and there is still no evidence that it does today any more than it did back then.
Added to that is the demonstrated incompetence of the government when it comes to figuring out who is and who is not a "terrorist" and torturing innocent people is simple unforgivable.
Even if we go with the "24" style wet dream and find the one terrorist who will give accurate information under torture we will have so lowered our creditability in the world that other countries will not trust us enough to extradite suspects to our custody.
For every "guilty" person we have already tortured we have tortured hundreds of innocent ones. Those innocents who suffered at our hands unjustly--they, their families and friends--have a right to revenge on us and we have no moral standing to complain about what they do.
If we are such cowards that we are willing to compromise our ideals for a the illusion of security then we deserve what we get. -
@ Bocephalus
Excellent job Lensman, well done.
One more story involves a man who commits suicide one day before he was set to be released. If only the Americans had had the decency to let him know his struggle was almost over, his life would have been spared.
Scoop, not all children are tried as adults, only certain occasions involving particularly heinous crimes. If you wanted to treat them the same way then afford them the same privileges. Proper access to legal representation and a fair trial.You don't torture your suspects in the U.S nor deny them a fair trial if they are particularly bad.
The fact that he was set to be released proves that he, like most of the captives at Guantanamo, was innocent. This means that the US has murdered one more innocent person in the name of our cowardliness.
I frankly am sick to my stomach whenever I hear some Right Wing nut pretending that they can't figure out "why they hate us so much." All we have to do as ask ourselves how we would react if we had done unto us what we do not hesitate to do to others. -
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Posted Feb 16, 2008 by MEA |
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#18
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Yet most of you will still be voting for John McCain or Hillary Clinton--probably even Barrack Obama.
All three of whom will continue the BUSHI war on terror due to the ill effects of stopping it on our Sacred Economy!
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I guess that what really shames me about these representatives of our country is their sheer pettiness. Taking away an cripple man's doctor-prescribed toilet seat, giving him a book and then taking away his glasses so that he cannot read it. That is just sick.
Holding a man that they know to be innocent because he refuses to spy for them or "show remorse" for things he did not even do? Sick, sick, sick.
Dumping innocent people who we have help prisoner back on the street without so much as an apology? Unforgivable! Holding US citizens without constitutional rights? What kind of police state are we becoming?
The Bush regime is not merely the most incompetent in US history, they are vile, cowardly, criminal and wholly contemptible. The last few years of this administration has devolved into a criminal conspiracy to keep George Bush's ass out of prison where it belongs.
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@ MEA
Yet most of you will still be voting for John McCain or Hillary Clinton--probably even Barrack Obama.
All three of whom will continue the BUSHI war on terror due to the ill effects of stopping it on our Sacred Economy!
I have seen no evidence to support your contention. McLame will continue it but I believe Clinton and Obama when they say that they will end it.
As for the economy, two thirds of Americans believe, correctly by the way, that the war is actually hurting the economy. What we need to be spending the money we piss away in Iraq is rebuilding our infrastructure, which will also help rebuild our economy, shattered by seven years of Republican kleptocracy. -
Thanks scoop! I was defending lens' position on guantanamo.
I was in no way suporting torture for the innocent. I believe that almost all of those guys are doing what they believe in.
I do believe there will always be the exceptions and I stand fast on my belief that for nat security we must what is necessary to keep our country safe.
I understood his reference to those who were innocent.
I, at times, feel blingfolded, hogtied and tortured by having my face stepped on and shoved into the twisted muck of what he wants everyone else to see so his agenda is fulfilled. In that twisting, he torturted the wrong prisoner in his concentration camp. Thanks Hitler!
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@ Nikki W (karateblossom)
Thanks scoop! I was defending lens' position on guantanamo.
I was in no way suporting torture for the innocent. I believe that almost all of those guys are doing what they believe in.
I do believe there will always be the exceptions and I stand fast on my belief that for nat security we must what is necessary to keep our country safe.
I understood his reference to those who were innocent.
I, at times, feel blingfolded, hogtied and tortured by having my face stepped on and shoved into the twisted muck of what he wants everyone else to see so his agenda is fulfilled. In that twisting, he torturted the wrong prisoner in his concentration camp. Thanks Hitler!
Do you support torture of the "guilty" and if so how do we tell which are guilty and which, like the vast majority at the Guantanamo concentration camp, are innocent? -
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Posted Feb 16, 2008 by MEA |
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#23
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@ lensman67
I have seen no evidence to support your contention. McLame will continue it but I believe Clinton and Obama when they say that they will end it.
As for the economy, two thirds of Americans believe, correctly by the way, that the war is actually hurting the economy. What we need to be spending the money we piss away in Iraq is rebuilding our infrastructure, which will also help rebuild our economy, shattered by seven years of Republican kleptocracy.
Perhaps I am just a cynic, lensman, but the only difference between the CIA's action since 2003 and US action since 1776 has been the explicit approval of torture by BUSHIs.
I refuse to believe a soldier who would kill a prisoner to avoid the bother of guarding him would quibble much about torturing a prisoner.
And I'm afraid the key word in my first paragraph is explicit.
As for the economy:
It is nothing but consumption.
There has been no real public investment since 1981 -
I also heard there is another secret prison with Guatanamo no one seems to get precise answers for that. All the Geneva conventions have discarded forever, I hope the future governments bring it back.
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@ Chris V. (cgull)
I also heard there is another secret prison with Guatanamo no one seems to get precise answers for that. All the Geneva conventions have discarded forever, I hope the future governments bring it back.
When they built the "death chamber" at Guantanamo (before they were sure they would need one) world newspapers went wild with headlines screaming "US builds death chamber at Guantanamo concentration camp."
That really did the image of the US a lot of good in the world. -
@ MEA
Perhaps I am just a cynic, lensman, but the only difference between the CIA's action since 2003 and US action since 1776 has been the explicit approval of torture by BUSHIs.
I refuse to believe a soldier who would kill a prisoner to avoid the bother of guarding him would quibble much about torturing a prisoner.
And I'm afraid the key word in my first paragraph is explicit.
As for the economy:
It is nothing but consumption.
There has been no real public investment since 1981
History is never as one sided as cynics like to pretend.
Public investment in infrastructure would help pull the economy out of the ditch that Bush has driven it into with his failed wars and his run away spending coupled with tax cuts for the rich. -
LENS-Children aside (18 and older)Of what crimes are they innocent?
Those who pick up arms and simply defend their territory the best way they know how? They are doing what they believe is right for their country and they don't get to volunteer for this honorable position.
They aren't 'guilty' of doing anything except defending their country. They do what they know, are told to do, or die-either way.
Not much different from our guys who believe they sre doing the right thing.
AS FAR AS war crimes or terrorist activities against our country-I support a do what we need to do attitude. I couldn't give a rats bum if someone who killed thousands of his own people ended up tortured because their was knowledge he was connected to terroristic activity.
How would I personally determine guilt or innocence? I wouldn't WANT that job and in no way presume I could do so! untuh! Not me. I leave that up to my military leaders and as long as they are keeping my country free and safe-then if they need to x ray my ass walking through an airport, strip search me, detain me because my breast milk is suspicious (and ya know...it is weird looking!), monitor my husband and my intimate conversations abut 3-ways or anything else to keep me safe in my country.....I'm all about it.
I know you'll twist that into some bizarre 'thing' so I will clarify-I'M NOT ABOUT hurting in anyway those who have no ties to terroristic threats to OUR country (AMERICA); I DO NOT believe in any way that children should be there and in some way set up and housed in a sensitivity reintigration environment!; Guantanamo is a concentration camp, only dachau housed innocent people being persecuted for being a race and religion....whereas guantanamo houses detainees or presumed enemy combatants.
Ok, kick in me in the head some more lens...seems you enjoy it. :*(
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@ Nikki W (karateblossom)
LENS-Children aside (18 and older)Of what crimes are they innocent?
Those who pick up arms and simply defend their territory the best way they know how? They are doing what they believe is right for their country and they don't get to volunteer for this honorable position.
They aren't 'guilty' of doing anything except defending their country. They do what they know, are told to do, or die-either way.
Not much different from our guys who believe they sre doing the right thing.
AS FAR AS war crimes or terrorist activities against our country-I support a do what we need to do attitude. I couldn't give a rats bum if someone who killed thousands of his own people ended up tortured because their was knowledge he was connected to terroristic activity.
How would I personally determine guilt or innocence? I wouldn't WANT that job and in no way presume I could do so! untuh! Not me. I leave that up to my military leaders and as long as they are keeping my country free and safe-then if they need to x ray my ass walking through an airport, strip search me, detain me because my breast milk is suspicious (and ya know...it is weird looking!), monitor my husband and my intimate conversations abut 3-ways or anything else to keep me safe in my country.....I'm all about it.
I know you'll twist that into some bizarre 'thing' so I will clarify-I'M NOT ABOUT hurting in anyway those who have no ties to terroristic threats to OUR country (AMERICA); I DO NOT believe in any way that children should be there and in some way set up and housed in a sensitivity reintigration environment!; Guantanamo is a concentration camp, only dachau housed innocent people being persecuted for being a race and religion....whereas guantanamo houses detainees or presumed enemy combatants.
Ok, kick in me in the head some more lens...seems you enjoy it. :*(
I guess it is my fault for not making things more clear. MOST of the people at Guantanamo have turned out to be INNOCENT of any crimes at all! Now work with that fact. Those who you are willing to entrust to decide who gets tortured and who does not are WRONG more often than they are right.
I wrote:
Of the 775 captives held without rights or trial since the opening of this gulag 420 have already been released, it having been discovered that they were, just as they had said, innocent of any crime. Of the 355 remaining captives more than one fifth have also been found innocent but are still being held because U.S. officials are having a hard time finding anywhere to send them.
Now here is the important question. Do you support the torture of innocent people? If so how many innocent people is it permissible to torture in order to find one guilty one?
Are you willing to be one of the innocent people who are mistakenly tortured? If an All Points Bulletin went out for women roughly matching your description would you willing submit to being one of those rounded up and tortured even though you know you are innocent?
If this is not acceptable to you then why should the torture of other innocent people be any more acceptable?
If an innocent person is tortured and then found to be innocent and released (and so far 420 innocent people from Guantanamo have been released) do these people have a right to be pissed and if so do they have the right to seek revenge?
Final question. Do other countries have the same right as the US to torture people and what, if anything, should the US do if some of its innocent citizens are treated the way we have treated the innocent captives at Guantanamo? -
Lens, I will answer your last question first....no, no one deserves torture and in a utopic world, we we could all coexist. Those thousands of people that you and I watched innocently tortured for being american and living in New York City. Some so much, they were crazed and jumped to their death because the torture of what was done directly to them was too much to bare. I ASK What is in the mind of one who can do that? Reardless of who knew what, who hid what...these people were innocent.
That being said I'm not advocating a they did to us so.....attitude. :)
Lens, I wished to hell I could say I had access to comsec info so I could make a totally informed comment....I don't. I don't believe these guys have knowledge that deems them an immenent threat and I don't believe with my heart and soul that torture is the way to get them to spew what they don't know. The innocents shuld be released because we would demand no different if it were our own. And you know, I cannot even say that SOME TYPE of restitution be paid to the families of these innocents..but you know, that money wouldn't go to the families. :(
They are POW'S....IN MY OPINION.....and I think they should be treated with the same rules. Although we aren't at WAR. And if we arent at war, and there is no reason (written, oral, suspect comsec, intelligence..etc) to keep them, then let them go. Then its false imprisonment if they are known innocent.
so as not to evade your question, I do not condone the torture of innocent people. But like I said, of what crimes are these guys innocent? killing? communication and contributing in some way to the 'big plan' or are they truly innocent of any involvement or participation in anyway that connects directly or indirectly to a threat to our nations security? That's the question I ask before I can feel comfortable with innocent. And torture of those who maybe look away while the crazed leaderer devises plans to truly torture thousands is necessary. A very difficult and tender topic lens. I'm not a monster, this I hope you see (and feel sad if you dont) because I despise pain of any person on any level. If I could, I would live in a commune, I swear it! :o)
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http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/249776
Can you folks go there, read the comments and do the action? I do http://freedetainees.org and one of the profiles is Abdel Al-Ghizzawi who is dying of liver disease in Guantanamo.
I have a sample letter that needs to be sent or faxed to Judge Bates ASAP!
Thanks! It means a lot!
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@ Linda Richard
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/249776
Can you folks go there, read the comments and do the action? I do http://freedetainees.org and one of the profiles is Abdel Al-Ghizzawi who is dying of liver disease in Guantanamo.
I have a sample letter that needs to be sent or faxed to Judge Bates ASAP!
Thanks! It means a lot!
Your article is very profound and moving. I hope people follow your advice and your links.
What part of INNOCENT are people having trouble understanding? People who were taken without cause and held without rights and then set free without charge are an admission by the US Government that it screwed up in holding them in the first place.
Four hundred and twenty people held in this hell hole without rights have been released without so much as a "sorry about that" because they were exactly what they had said all along--INNOCENT people unjustly held against their will and tortured without justice or reason.
No wonder civilized countries will no longer extradite people to a country with so little respect for justice, the rule of law and human rights as the United States of George W. Bush has become. Add a Comment
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Op-Ed: The Shame of Guantanamo
