More and more comes out. Do I believe them? Why would they lie?
http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050531135109990006&_ccc=1&cid=842
I really don’t want to believe that this is true, as that is very disturbing. If this turns out to be true, then they need to send everyone home, with big giant checks for their time. I’m still crossing my fingers that some Pentagon spokesperson won’t be stepping forward in a few days saying something like “Well, it happened, but not quite as often as they claim it did” or something similar.
We can’t be that evil (or stupid, take your pick), can we?
This is something that was mentioned a while back in an article I read. I see no reason to doubt that the military and militia in Afghanistan and Pakistan were rounding up people for bounties to sell as AQ insiders. It became even more clear to me when many of the prisoners were being released because they were found not to have any involvement at all.
Why do these things still shock us?
Sam
Without substantiation, it’s another unsupported allegation. I’m not shocked by lies and liars on both sides of the equation.
Unsubstantiated in terms of the particulars of this case, but our payments to Afghans for information leading to arrests, or bombing runs, have been raising eyebrows for years:
Why Afghan civilians still being bombed? (May 2002)
Liabilities of using Afghan informants (Dec 2001)
How could we ever have expected anything else? Its like offering Al Capone a bounty to turn in Bugs Moran! Of course they ratted out thier political enemies, we should have expected exactly that!
Two bit says it happens again in Iraq, if it hasn’t already. Everybody there has an agenda.
But that amazing part: $25 million for Al-Zaq and no takers. That has all kinds of implications, none of them good.
What’s the current bounty on Osama bin Laden, dead or alive? I notice that hasn’t been claimed yet, either.
What do you mean, Osama bin Who?
There is no Al-Zaq.
Well, bounty hunters take people for money all day in the good ole USA. The problem is, they get to face a judge in a specified period of time after being taken. The guys in Gitmo don’t get that right. Do they deserve that right? Well that’s another matter . . .
I beleive it’s a war and that they should be treated as POW’s, but the administration seems to want to leave it in limbo for now. Not that I have a real problem with that.
These allegations and those of abuse are why the Bush Administration should allow an open and public, non-DOD investigation of the actions at Gitmo, the Downing Street minutes, and other things called into question related to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Anything else than openness stinks of a cover-up, no matter which party’s in charge.
I find your ideas intriguing, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
(But seriously folks, welcome to the Leper Colony…)
[quote]
Without substantiation, it’s another unsupported allegation.
Funny, that’s what those who support human rights say about those who are being held without access to the court system and labelled as “terrorists.”
The Bush Administration says they are guilty and they are not going to be allowed to prove they are innocent. The Supreme Court said last June that the prisoners at Guantanamo have a right to have access to the judicial system.
And look, it’s June again.
Thanks for the welcome!
How the fuck can you not have a problem with that? How do you rationalize away the fact that a major civil right is being denied these people? How does anyone?
They (the folks who don’t have a problem with it) don’t give a toot since it’s not their ass on the line.
BOOM! 
I’m not sure who’s being pitted here, but from the linked article, it should be Pakistan. The US offered rewards for Taliban members. They were delivered people about whom the Pakistanis lied. The US interrogated the people to determine whether they were in fact who the Pakistanis said they were, and released the ones who weren’t. According to the article, the US was paying for specific named people. Since this is Reeder’s thread, I suppose it goes without saying that Bush is being pitted, but where is the evidence that the US intended to pay for random bodies?
America offered money to people in an impoverished country and you want to think they did something wrong?
I have no evidence that America offered one dime to anyone but if dimes were offered it is not surprising if the offer was taken up.
Nowhere in the article does the U.S claim that they have given reward money to any Pakistani, and in the article Pakistan denies accepting any money. Why would we want to pit Pakistan based on the information in the article?
Are we reading the same article? I saw no evidence of this. Heck, not even a claim by someone that this is what happened.
According the the article, the U.S. claims it was only paying for specific people. Based on what has come out after similar allegations have been made previously during this “war”, I’m not willing to give their claim any more credence (and perhaps less) than those who are making the claims against us.
Once again, I’m willing to wait until we have further evidence, but if it turns out that we were indeed offering money simply for turning in unnamed “al-Qaida fighters”, who are then flown to Gitmo without any evidence other than someone pointed them out for money, I’m damned well going to pit this administration.
If the police went into some poor neighborhood in the U.S. and offered $5000 to anyone who could name a drug dealer, would you expect them to end up with a jail full of drug dealers, sans innocents? I didn’t think so.
Because claiming to be an innocent victim is a more logical choice than admitting that you enjoy blowing things up and killing people.
I’m not saying that they are lying, but anyone that is actually guilty of crimes has a reason to lie.
All the more reason that we need a well defined legal process to deal with the prisoners in Gitmo.