Revisiting Gitmo (Cuba, detention) -- Nice Place

Great Debates
61

The Observer has an onterview with the Tipton Three released from illegal detention in Guantanamo. Reading it now for more details.

But:

“The existence of a secret super-maximum security facility outside the main part of Guantanamo’s Camp Delta known as Camp Echo, where prisoners are held in tiny cells in solitary confinement 24-hours a day, with a military police officer permanently stationed outside each cell door. The handful of inmates of Camp Echo include two of the four remaining British detainees, Moazzem Begg and Feroz Abbasi, and the Australian, David Hicks.”

62

From the interviewer:

“The horror of their story needs no embellishment. One day, perhaps, there will be an inquiry into Guantanamo. Until then, some of their allegations - which, it can be assumed, America is likely to deny - cannot be corroborated. However, many of the experiences they describe, including gunpoint interrogations in Afghanistan and random brutality both there and in Guantanamo, have been related in identical terms by other freed detainees. Last October I spent four days at Guantanamo. Much of what the three men say about the regime and the camp’s physical conditions I either saw or heard from US officials.”

From the Tipton Three:

"The Americans took them to Shebargan airport, where they were beaten, then loaded on a plane. ‘I wanted to use the toilet,’ Rasul says. ‘Someone smacked me on the back of my head with his gun. I started peeing myself.’

Trussed like chickens, their chains replaced by plastic ties, they were flown to the US detention centre at Kandahar. The weather was freezing. Wearing only thin salwar kameez, with no socks or shoes, they were tied together with a rope and led into the camp, where they waited to be processed."

"Iqbal demonstrates how they were made to kneel bent double, with their foreheads touching the ground: ‘If your head wasn’t touching the floor or you let it rise up a little they put their boots on the back of your neck and forced it down. We were kept like that for two or three hours.’

"Rasul adds: ‘I lifted up my head slightly because I was really in pain. The sergeant came up behind me, kicked my legs from underneath me, then knelt on my back. They took me outside and searched me while one man was sitting on me, kicking and punching.’

"All this time they were still wearing their hoods. Then one soldier took a Stanley knife and cut off their clothes. Naked and freezing, they were made to squat while the soldiers searched their bodily cavities and photographed them. At last, they say, they were frog-marched through a barbed wire maze and put into a half-open tent where they were told to dress in blue prison overalls.
“Repeatedly the guard kicked his leg: ‘I couldn’t move it for days, it was so badly bruised.’”
“Yet all witnessed or experienced brutality, especially from Guantanamo’s own riot squad, the Extreme Reaction Force. Its acronym has led to a new verb peculiar to Guantanamo detainees: ‘ERF-ing.’ To be ERFed, says Rasul, means to be slammed on the floor by a soldier wielding a riot shield, pinned to the ground and assaulted.”

"

"The restraint device they were now forced to wear would become extremely familiar for the next 26 months - the ‘three-piece suit’, a body belt with a metal chain leading down to leg-irons with hand-shackles attached to it. Rasul says: 'I told the guard they’d put it on much too tight and he said: “You’ll live.” ’

Before boarding a military aircraft they were dressed in earmuffs, goggles and surgical masks. Inside, they were chained to the floor with no backrests, and even when they requested the toilet, they were not released from their chains. ‘Basically people wet their pants. You were pissing all over your legs.’"

“Throughout their interviews, the detainees wore their three-piece suits, and were shackled to the floor”
"All are convinced that there are no ‘big-time’ terrorists at Guantanamo: arguably the most dangerous, in American eyes, says Ahmed, is a group of Taliban mullahs. American intelligence sources have confirmed this view to me. The ‘big-timers’ - men such as Khalid Shaikh Mohamed, architect of 9/11, have never been near Guantanamo. One source says: ‘Guantanamo may even be a bit of a front, designed to divert al-Qaeda’s attention. It takes everybody’s attention away from more important matters and locations where big fish are being held. The secrecy surrounding it makes everybody think that very serious stuff is going on there.’

The three say some of the inmates have seen such suspects - not in Cuba, but at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan. According to Iqbal, ‘we spoke to people who’d been with them there when they were being interrogated. They said they flew them out of there alive, but in coffins.’"
Altogether a not too impressive advertisement for US ‘Justice’ or ‘Law and Order’.

Oh, and Beagle, it doesn’t look like these people were paid.

63

I shouldn’t worry too much. The US military invests a great deal in it’s honorable character and will deal with these war crimes, committed by its own personnel swiftly and with impartial justice.

There will be no regard to rank, no claims of ‘following orders’ and nothing unfitting to men and women of honor in its process.

Doubtless apologies to the wronged and compensation will accompany these actions, folowing the finest traditions of US military honor.

These men and women wear their uniforms with pride. None dare compare them with costumed mafias, answering to no law but brute force.

64

Quote:

Beagle
Member Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 3,770

"Why, YES, it is. Anyone see the healthiest “hunchback” standing tall in the Mirror – a leftist rag from the UK. Notice his bulging trapezius muscles and vacant stare? That stare means one thing: “it’s virgins time”

Al Qaeda leaves people in chunks. We allegedly – alleged by people with a pecuniary motive (that’s “money” for idiots) – embarrass them with prostitutes.

Leftist Europeans (Spain’s being the best recent example) lap this crap up like a bitch and afterbirth.

Why don’t I check in all the time? Not much point in debating the fact-deprived. The internet is a big place."

Eh…? Run that by me again Beagle. I must admit - i dont understand any of it.
sin

65

Let me clarify things for you.

Beagle is doing all us lefty pinko faggots a service by coming in here and trying to educate us as to The True Way. Problem is, we’re so “fact-deprived”[sic] that even one of his awesome patience and intellect has a hard time dealing with those of us in here who don’t see the RNC and GWB as The Second Coming (but this time with go-fasta stripes).

The point he was trying to make was that the Evil Escaped Terrorists (the released British citizens) only said all that stuff because they were being paid. Because they were being paid, they obviously fabricated everything. Besides, even if they were telling the truth, those types (assuming they were actually guilty, and not just some poor shlubs grabbed off the streets) are still worse than the good old USA, because the good old USA didn’t blow them into chunks at Gitmo. Because the good old USA didn’t do that, the USA still has the moral high ground over the terrorists. And, of course, these guys are terrorists, because someone, somewhere in the Bush administration said they were.

Finally, the reason that those newspapers paying the Evil Escaped Terrorists were willing to pay them is because all the Lefty Pinko Faggots (such as those in Spain - see recent election) over in Old Europe will lap it all up. Because, see, they’re being paid, and therefore they must be lying. That’s why Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh give out their books for free.

I’ll bet having such tunnel vision in regards to the world must be very liberating. Not enlightening, but liberating.

Because, you see, it’s possible the change your view and admit you don’t like the way things are going. They did it in Spain when they saw what a clusterfuck GWB has made in Iraq, and they punished the people who decided to happily go along with him.

With a little luck, it’ll happen in November, too. And if it does, I bet you’ll see half a dozen major brain meltdowns by the Usual Suspets.

-Joe

66

Thanks Meri - very elegantly explained. Love the word “clusterfuck”.

Class
Sin

67

“Just the basic facts, can you show me where it hurts?” – Pink Floyd

See, I know someone who was tortured and beaten in a prison camp (my father). It does “leave a mark.” If someone was “beaten” where it does not leave a mark that is what we call in the legal profession an “unsubstantiated allegation.”

As I said before, the Western media is reporting these allegations as fact. Some of them are so absurd on their face (prostitutes, probably US servicewomen) that I honesly can’t believe that anyone would believe anything that these people say. Much like John Kerry, the allegedly mistreated detainees are claiming that it was standard for the US to torture people. But then, if you ask other detainees (not suing) they tell a completely different story.

One question, why do these claims get an absolute stamp of approval from those released that are SUING – but not the others released?

The hypocrisy is always at least hip deep around here. Suicide bombing: only option. Healthy prisoners released claiming torture: HR violation.

68

Beagle, I will denounce suicide bombing as an utter violation of human rights whenever you start a thread about it.

You started a thread about how the camp was a “nice place”. The article quoted a single sixteen year old, who was by all accounts treated very well, but was still a prisoner removed from his family.

You were then directed to claims that others were treated very badly, that they thought it was not a nice place, and you ask us to completely disregard their testimony.

Let us consider both sets of claims and, given that both sets of individuals were denied legal recourse for two years, do you stand by your characterisation of the camp as a “nice place”?

69

Here you go Beagle- more comments from people without a press deal:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3515502.stm

"A group of Afghans who have arrived in Kabul after being freed from American custody in Cuba have strongly complained about their treatment.
Several accused US forces in Guantanamo Bay of not respecting their religion and of routinely taunting them.

“They did everything to us, they tortured our bodies, they tortured our minds, they tortured our ideas and our religion,” said Mohammed Khan."

So, what do you say now.

You quote one article partially and imply that Guantanamo is a paradise, and now there is consistent and persistent information that it is not so.

Anything left to defend?

70

…hello Beagle, obviously you missed your pit thread

…following some of the reccomendations of the posters in my thread, I have reproduced my OP here…

71

War is a nasty business. Some people are locked up for months at a time, some people die, some get their arms blown off others watch their parents jumping to their deaths from burning buildings.

As the American philosopher W.T. Sherman once said:
‘War is cruelty and you cannot refine it.’

72

So you are saying there is no difference between Al Qaeda and the government of the USA? Anything they do is acceptable to you as long as they call it “war”?

The only reason I would defend the US government would be that I believed they stood for something better than Al Qaeda but if I would consider that they were both the same and would do the same kind of things then I would carefully stand aside and let them duke it out. Don’t count on me to defend Human Rights abuses. I will always condemn them, whether done by Al Qaeda or by any government.

73

Any abuses are regrettable. Any cruelty is. Still, not all cruelty is abuse, nor is it a violation of the Usages and Customs.

War is cruelty. Cruelty is inseparable from war. I cannot be overly moved by the minor outrages outlined in the article cited. In the Great Scheme of Things they do not even register. Sorry, it sounds terrible I know, but it is the brutal fact.

We will win this war. When we do, the horribleness of it all will stop.

If we do not fight, if we do not win, we will allow the world to slip into a new Dark Ages. Loosing would be much more awful than fighting through the mud and blood to the green fields beyond.

74

Paul amidst the Enlightened Saudis,

Could it be that something of the famous Reversed Wahabbi Reasoning is getting at you? Like: “But Allah knows Best” which is always handy as answer, but especially when facing critical questions and idem reasoning a bit too dificult for holding a position you can’t defend in the world of logic.

If one follows for example your logic… Then what on earth has the world against Hussein?
He was “at war” with the Kurdish population, so why shouldn’t he have killed as much as he ever could? (I don’t go in detail about who said what to the Kurds then in the knowledge that these promesses never would realize. That is an other issue.)
Salaam. A

75

I am not trying to be logical, nor am I trying to make a political point. I am reporting the plain facts.

You may interpret them as you like.

This (or any war) is a nasty business. It is a shame that we are at war, but we are in it. Now we must win it as defeat will certainly mean our destruction.

It is not a matter for the squeamish. Blood will be spilt, lives shattered and suffering inflicted. There is no other way to fight.

We, as civilized nations will try to limit the suffering we inflict, but our efforts will be inadequate. We will cause harm where we ought not to.

As I said, a nasty business.

It is midnight here and I am signing off. Please do not think I am ignoring you.

76

Oh man. Well, I suppose when you are a warrior you have to think in those terms. The warrior on the other side feels just the same: The end justifies the means and when we achieve victory everything will be better.

Well, I disagree. I cannot accept that. Not everything is acceptable in war and calling something a war doesn’t make it so. He who says the ends justify the means should not complain when the enemy says the same thing.

>> We will win this war.

I think I heard Bin Laden say the same thing. First we need to define victory though. Since the USA has no clear definition of the war and its victory I do not think it can be won by the USA. If the other side defines victory as getting rid of American troops on Muslim soil then I think they will win eventually. I doubt America can impose its military presence there for ever. They managed to kick out all previous western invaders and I doubt it will be different this time. It is just a matter of time.

77

Finely turned and polished rhetoric, I must admit, but the problem is, you’re wildly overstating the case. I haven’t a freakin’ clue what you mean by “our destruction”. We are dealing with at best a couple thousand operatives and sympathisers who can barely manage to mount an operation outside the Middle East more than once every 18 months or so. If you want to argue that rule of law must be suspended indefinitely for certain inconvenient people, solely because of this pipsqueak organization, go for it, but IMO you haven’t made much of a case so far.

Man, whatever happened to “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself?”

78

Good Morning, and a happy (Thursday-Friday) weekend to all.

" I haven’t a freakin’ clue what you mean by “our destruction”. We are dealing with at best a couple thousand operatives and sympathisers who can barely manage to mount an operation outside the Middle East more than once every 18 months or so."

You may well be right; but do you want to bet your life on it. These people have said they wish to destroy us. Wouldn’t it be wise to take them at their word?

They have demonstrated a willingness to kill thousands at a time. Shall we make the rookie mistake of underestimating the other guy?

Would you change your mind when they get a radiological device? A chemical weapon? A biological bomb? An actual nuke?

It is quite possible that when they say that they want to re-conquer Khasmir, Palestine, Andalusia, Turkey, Greece, Hungary, parts of India, the Philippines and central Australia that they mean something else. Perhaps it is just rhetoric.

When they say they want to kill all the homosexuals, adulterers and impose strict religious law on us, maybe they mean that in some sort of philosophical sense.

Or maybe not. Do you want to let them hit us again to see if they really mean it?

Will they achieve what they want? Almost certainly not. They will fail because we will resist. We will fight, make war to save ourselves from destruction and enslavement.

This war, like any war, will be nasty with much suffering. That is the nature of war, even one fought by a civilized power. Sometimes people get wrongly locked up. Or killed. It cannot be helped despite our best efforts.

So if your heart breaks because people released from prison where put there wrongly, you will have many more heartbreaks to come in the years to come.

79

Yes, which is why we usually try to avoid fighting wars. In any case, the following is a non sequitur: “War is nasty, so those fellas at Gitmo really ought to shut up”.

They are at Gitmo precisely so that their rights can be abrogated. Otherwise, they’d be in US jails, awaiting those trial things.

80

No, to use an analogy, they are Germans. The year is 1943. They are not criminals. They do not need trials.