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I don't know why I reserved the header post, but now that I did, go to page 10.

Alright, I think we need a central thread for this. There's been like 4 different threads on it recently, and while there's nothing inherently wrong with that, I'd still like a main place for discussion. I'll either add links in the header post to those threads, or merge them into this one.

Anyway, I read this earlier this afternoon and it boiled my blood. Why did we write a blank check for war again, for this kind of thing?

I'm glad the AP got these FOIA requests, because something is very wrong here.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050531/ap_ ... s_for_sale

AP: Gitmo Detainees Say Muslims Were Sold

By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 30 minutes ago

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - They fed them well. The Pakistani tribesmen slaughtered a sheep in honor of their guests, Arabs and Chinese Muslims famished from fleeing U.S. bombing in the Afghan mountains. But their hosts had ulterior motives: to sell them to the Americans, said the men who are now prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
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Bounties ranged from $3,000 to $25,000, the detainees testified during military tribunals, according to transcripts the U.S. government gave The Associated Press to comply with a Freedom of Information lawsuit.

A former
CIA intelligence officer who helped lead the search for
Osama bin Laden told AP the accounts sounded legitimate because U.S. allies regularly got money to help catch Taliban and al-Qaida fighters. Gary Schroen said he took a suitcase of $3 million in cash into
Afghanistan himself to help supply and win over warlords to fight for U.S. Special Forces.

"It wouldn't surprise me if we paid rewards," said Schroen, who retired after 32 years in the CIA soon after the fall of Kabul in late 2001. He recently published the book "First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan."

Schroen said Afghan warlords like Gen. Rashid Dostum were among those who received bundles of notes. "It may be that we were giving rewards to people like Dostum because his guys were capturing a lot of Taliban and al-Qaida," he said.

Pakistan has handed hundreds of suspects to the Americans, but Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told the AP, "No one has taken any money."

The U.S. departments of Defense, Justice and State and the
Central Intelligence Agency also said they were unaware of bounty payments being made for random prisoners.

The U.S. Rewards for Justice program pays only for information that leads to the capture of suspected terrorists identified by name, said Steve Pike, a State Department spokesman. Some $57 million has been paid under the program, according to its Web site.

It offers rewards up to $25 million for information leading to the capture of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

But a wide variety of detainees at the U.S. lockup at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, alleged they were sold into capture. Their names and other identifying information were blacked out in the transcripts from the tribunals, which were held to determine whether prisoners were correctly classified as enemy combatants.

One detainee who said he was an Afghan refugee in Pakistan accused the country's intelligence service of trumping up evidence against him to get bounty money from the U.S.

"When I was in jail, they said I needed to pay them money and if I didn't pay them, they'd make up wrong accusations about me and sell me to the Americans and I'd definitely go to Cuba," he told the tribunal. "After that I was held for two months and 20 days in their detention, so they could make wrong accusations about me and my (censored), so they could sell us to you."

Another prisoner said he was on his way to Germany in 2001 when he was captured and sold for "a briefcase full of money" then flown to Afghanistan before being sent to Guantanamo.

"It's obvious. They knew Americans were looking for Arabs, so they captured Arabs and sold them — just like someone catches a fish and sells it," he said. The detainee said he was seized by "mafia" operatives somewhere in Europe and sold to Americans because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time — an Arab in a foreign country.

A detainee who said he was a Saudi businessman claimed, "The Pakistani police sold me for money to the Americans."

"This was part of a roundup of all foreigners and Arabs in that area," of Pakistan near the Afghan border, he said, telling the tribunal he went to Pakistan in November 2001 to help Afghan refugees.

The military-appointed representative for one detainee — who said he was a Taliban fighter — said the prisoner told him he and his fellow fighters "were tricked into surrendering to Rashid Dostum's forces. Their agreement was that they would give up their arms and return home. But Dostum's forces sold them for money to the U.S."

Several detainees who appeared to be ethnic Chinese Muslims — known as Uighurs — described being betrayed by Pakistani tribesmen along with about 100 Arabs.

They said they went to Afghanistan for military training to fight for independence from China. When U.S. warplanes started bombing near their camp, they fled into the mountains near Tora Bora and hid for weeks, starving.

One detainee said they finally followed a group of Arabs, apparently fighters, being guided by an Afghan to the Pakistani border.

"We crossed into Pakistan and there were tribal people there, and they took us to their houses and they killed a sheep and cooked the meat and we ate," he said.

That night, they were taken to a mosque, where about 100 Arabs also sheltered. After being fed bread and tea, they were told to leave in groups of 10, taken to a truck, and driven to a Pakistani prison. From there, they were handed to Americans and flown to Guantanamo.

"When we went to Pakistan the local people treated us like brothers and gave us good food and meat," said another detainee. But soon, he said, they were in prison in Pakistan where "we heard they sold us to the Pakistani authorities for $5,000 per person."

There have been reports of Arabs being sold to the Americans after the U.S.-led offensive in Afghanistan, but the testimonies offer the most detail from prisoners themselves.

In March 2002, the AP reported that Afghan intelligence offered rewards for the capture of al-Qaida fighters — the day after a five-hour meeting with U.S. Special Forces. Intelligence officers refused to say if the two events were linked and if the United States was paying the offered reward of 150 million Afghanis, then equivalent to $4,000 a head.

That day, leaflets and loudspeaker announcements promised "the big prize" to those who turned in al-Qaida fighters.

Said one leaflet: "You can receive millions of dollars. ... This is enough to take care of your family, your village, your tribe for the rest of your life — pay for livestock and doctors and school books and housing for all your people."

Helicopters broadcast similar announcements over the Afghan mountains, enticing people to "Hand over the Arabs and feed your families for a lifetime," said Najeeb al-Nauimi, a former Qatar justice minister and leader of a group of Arab lawyers representing nearly 100 detainees.

Al-Nauimi said a consortium of wealthy Arabs, including Saudis, told him they also bought back fellow citizens who had been captured by Pakistanis.

Khalid al-Odha, who started a group fighting to free 12 Kuwaiti detainees, said his imprisoned son, Fawzi, wrote him a letter from Guantanamo Bay about Kuwaitis being sold to the Americans in Afghanistan.

One Kuwaiti who was released, 26-year-old Nasser al-Mutairi, told al-Odha that interrogators said Dostum's forces sold them to the Pakistanis for $5,000 each, and the Pakistanis in turn sold them to the Americans.

"I also heard that Saudis were sold to the Saudi government by the Pakistanis," al-Odha said. "If I had known that, I would have gone and bought my son back."

___

EDITOR'S NOTE: Chief of Caribbean Services Michelle Faul has covered the prison at Guantanamo Bay since it opened in January 2002. Associated Press writers Paisley Dodds in London and Matthew Pennington in Islamabad, Pakistan contributed to this report.

Good luck keeping it here. Gitmo is usually either a part of something bigger, or spills into Iraq and/or Afghanistan discussions. I say that as the man who tried to keep the "War on Faith/DeLay/Frist" discussions in one thread.

I thought you did a pretty good job with that.

GH, thanks, BTW.

Do they still keep prisoners in chain link fences? What happened during last year's hurricane season? I mean Cuba was hit, like, half a dozen times. I'm just curious and suprized this never came up.

There has been much talk about the Koran flushing, but few attention has been paid to something the US definitely has done with detained Muslims: shave off their beards.

Donald Rumsfeld authorized a list of techniques for interrogation of prisoners at Guantánamo, which included “removal of all comfort items (including religious items),” “forced grooming (shaving of facial hair, etc.)
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2004 ... 22doc3.pdf

Human Rights Watch put out a press release about this.
___________________________________________________________


Human Rigths Watch
http://www.humanrightswatch.org/english ... m10981.htm

U.S.: Religious Humiliation of Muslim Detainees Widespread

(New York, May 19, 2005)—U.S. interrogators have repeatedly sought to offend the religious beliefs of Muslim detainees as part of their interrogation strategy, Human Rights Watch said today.

If the U.S. government wants to repair the public relations damage caused by its mistreatment of detainees, it needs to investigate those who ordered or condoned this abuse, not attack those who have reported on it.

Human Rights Watch said that the dispute over the retracted allegations in Newsweek that U.S. interrogators had desecrated a Koran at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has overshadowed the fact that religious humiliation of detainees at Guantánamo and elsewhere has been widespread.

“In detention centers around the world, the United States has been humiliating Muslim prisoners by offending their religious beliefs,” said Reed Brody, special counsel for Human Rights Watch.

On December 2, 2002, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld authorized a list of techniques for interrogation of prisoners at Guantánamo, which included “removal of all comfort items (including religious items),” “forced grooming (shaving of facial hair, etc.),” and “removal of clothing.” Each of these practices is considered offensive to many Muslims. These techniques were later applied in Afghanistan and Iraq as well.

The purpose of these techniques, Human Rights Watch said, is to inflict humiliation on detainees, which is strictly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.

Several former detainees have said that U.S. interrogators disrespected the Koran. Three Britons released from Guantánamo have alleged that the Koran was kicked and thrown in the toilet. A former Russian detainee, Aryat Vahitov, has reportedly made the same claim. A former Kuwaiti detainee, Nasser Nijer Naser al-Mutairi, has said that the throwing of a Koran on the floor led to a hunger strike at Guantánamo that ended only after a senior officer expressed regret over the camp's loudspeaker. Human Rights Watch also interviewed detainees who described a protest at a U.S. detention site at Kandahar airbase in Afghanistan in early 2002 that was set off by a guard’s alleged desecration of the Koran.

Erik Saar, a former Army translator at Guantánamo, has described a female interrogator wiping a detainee with what the prisoner was made to believe was menstrual blood.

U.S. personnel have also used dogs as part of the interrogation process, which—in addition to inducing fear—many Muslims consider to be unclean. In December 2002, Secretary Rumsfeld approved “using detainees’ individual phobias (such as fear of dogs) to induce stress” at Guantánamo. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, then the top U.S. commander in Iraq, authorized Abu Ghraib interrogators in September 2003 to “exploit Arab fear of dogs. ” The interrogators then used dogs on detainees in a manner that was captured in the Abu Ghraib photographs.

On Tuesday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan, referring to the “serious consequences” and “lasting damage” to the U.S. image, called on Newsweek to “help repair some of the damage” that was done by its report. But Human Rights Watch said that it was U.S. policies that had inflicted the greatest amount of damage.

Newsweek was not to blame for the damage inflicted in the riots, Human Rights Watch said.

“The damage in the riots was directly caused by violent protestors and poorly disciplined Afghan police and troops, not by Newsweek’s editors,” said Brody.

Human Rights Watch noted that the Newsweek story would not have resonated had it not been for the United States’ extensive abuse of Muslim detainees.

“If the U.S. government wants to repair the public relations damage caused by its mistreatment of detainees, it needs to investigate those who ordered or condoned this abuse, not attack those who have reported on it,” said Brody.

Common Article 3 to the Geneva Conventions, which sets out minimum requirements for the treatment of persons in armed conflicts, requires detainees to be treated humanely without adverse distinction based on religion or faith. Outrages upon personal dignity are prohibited, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.

How quaint!

On 23 March 2003, following the news that US soldiers had been captured by Iraqi forces during the US-led attack on Iraq, President George Bush said that "we expect them to be treated humanely, just like we’ll treat any prisoners of theirs that we capture humanely... If not, the people who mistreat the prisoners will be treated as war criminals."

Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld added that "the Geneva Convention indicates that it’s not permitted to photograph and embarrass or humiliate prisoners of war".

On the same day, about 30 more detainees were flown from Afghanistan to Guantanamo. This brought to about 660 the number of foreign nationals held in the base. Many were held in Guantánamo, without charge or trial, and without access to lawyers, relatives or the courts, for more than a year.

From the outset, the US Government refused to grant any of the Guantánamo detainees prisoner of war (POW) status or to have any disputed status determined by a "competent tribunal" as required under Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention. In April 2002, Amnesty International warned the US administration that its selective approach to the Geneva Conventions threatened to undermine the effectiveness of international humanitarian law protections for any US or other combatants captured in the future. The organization received no reply to this or other concerns it raised about the detainees.

Rumsfeld's selective approach to the Geneva Convention is remarkable.

I just snorted Coke out my nose.

- On 14 March 2005, announcing the nomination of Karen Hughes as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice noted that "too few in the world… know of the value we place on international institutions and the rule of law". The nominee herself stated her commitment to "share our country’s good heart and our idealism and our values with the world", and to "always do my best to stand for what President Bush has called the non-negotiable demands of human dignity", including "the rule of law", "limits on the power of the state", and "equal justice".

She faces an uphill task in the absence of substantive change in US government’s policies, which tell a different story.

- In a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell resigning from the Foreign Service of the United States, US diplomat John Brady Kiesling wrote: "We are straining beyond its limits an international system we built with such toil and treasure, a web of laws, treaties, organizations, and shared values that sets limits on our foes far more effectively than it ever constrained America’s ability to defend its interests."

US diplomat’s letter of resignation. New York Times, 27 February 2003.

We shaved their beards. WHAT! And DOGS! NOT MORE DOGS!



I'm sorry, I'm exhausted and don't have the time to read all this or respond right now. I just found that rather amusing.

I'm glad I made you laugh.

See, this is one of the gigantic reasons why I absolutely despise the media. It's just another example of media bias in my opinion. Here you sit, fully aware that we SHAVED THEIR BEARDS and we use DOGS! NOT DOGS! The media irresponsibly reports that Qurans are being flushed down the toilet. But even after...two years now...you still don't know that Camp X-Ray no longer exists. I wonder why the media never told you that a new huge, permenant facility was built in Cuba. I know that Camp Delta existed in 2003, because that's around the time frame when I was supposed to be there.

U.S. personnel have also used dogs as part of the interrogation process, which—in addition to inducing fear—many Muslims consider to be unclean.

You guys are really making me laugh today. This is such great relief.

If you tend to laugh when faced with indisputable proof of grossly human rights abuse, you have a lot to laugh about.

The humor is in the fact that AI uses an example of gross human rights abuse to indict Rumsfeld of SHAVING SOMEONES BEARD and using DOGS! That's the humorous part. Shaving beards, using dogs, even flushing qurans down the toilet...those things are considered gross human rights abuses and compared to SOVIET GULAGS! I'm sorry, but that is funny shit. Hilarious. I mean, if what has been proven is indeed gross, then feel free to clasify an actual Soviet gulag. Do feel free to classify what took place in Kurdistan back in the 80's.

And then you wonder why I and so many others consider you, the UN, and organizations like AI out of touch with reality.

yea, im going to agree with LW here. we cant use dogs because they consider them unclean.


then i guess i should ask terrorists not to use bombs, i consider them deadly

Yeah, I must be wrong if I care about the humiliation and degradation of one's faith, the detainees and the Islamic world should just suck it up and get over it.

What some people don't seem to understand is that it's not just the Koran that's being flushed down the toilet.

As to the forced shaving of heads, at least let's hope they're using clean razors, it's important when humiliating these people that at least they're doing it safely.

Okay then.

So let's start calling a spade a fucking spade.

what do you want them to do, dress them all in powder blue flowery shirts, have nice winnie the pooh sheets on their beds?

i understand you dont want people from their families brought before them and have guns shoved down their throats and the military saying, talk or they die, but nothing that has been described is all that terrible

Because clearly, that's the only alternative to religious and sexual humiliation.