The BBC is reporting "uncomfortable details" regarding the "enemy combatant" prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.
Do any of us know how these prisoners arrived there?
Turns out only 5% of them were captured by Americans. Most of the others were turned in by people responding to flyers handed out by Americans, some of which read:
"Get wealth and power beyond your dreams... You can receive millions of dollars helping the anti-Taleban forces catch al-Qaeda and Taleban murderers.
"This is enough money to take care of your family, your village, your tribe for the rest of your life."
And it turns out that 92% of the 517 Guantanamo detainees had not been al-Qaeda fighters.
Of these, 40% have no clear connection with al-Qaeda, and 18% have no connection with either al-Qaeda or the Taleban.
In total, 60% are there because they have been accused of being associated with a group which the US government regards as a terrorist organisation.
Who accused them? Apparently, the bounty hunters who turned them in.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
During the past few weeks there has been a widespread hunger strike among the prisoners [in Guantanamo Bay].
It was effectively ended last week when the prison authorities took tough action to deal with the hunger strikers.
It seems as though they were worried about the effect on international opinion if one or more of the prisoners were to die.
The hunger strikers were strapped into "restraint chairs" and forcibly fed. The Pentagon says the tactics used were humane and compassionate.
According to American lawyers representing some of the prisoners, one of the methods was for riot control soldiers to hold the prisoners down while long plastic tubes were inserted into their nasal passages and down into their stomachs.
A Washington lawyer who visited Guantanamo last week called it "a disgrace".
But why did the prisoners decide to go on hunger strike in the first place?
Because they claimed that they had no link to al-Qaeda or other extreme Islamist groups, and were demanding to be released.
And apparently, odds are that they are right.
Most detainees are regarded as enemy combatants.
Among the criteria reportedly used to define an enemy combatant are these: possession of a rifle; possession of a Casio watch; and wearing olive drab clothing.
In Afghanistan it has long been regarded as normal for every adult male to have a gun, because there was so much violence in the country.
Casio watches and olive-coloured clothes can be bought in every market in every town in the country.
But where do all these prisoners come from, anyway?
According to the Pentagon, 95% of them were not captured by the Americans themselves.
Some 86% were handed over in Afghanistan and Pakistan after a widespread campaign in which big financial bounties were offered in exchange for anyone suspected of links to al-Qaeda and the Taleban.
So today, as we see more photos from Abu Ghraib, and as some of us sit comfortably sipping wine and contemplating our love lives on Valentine's Day, the United States of America is, with all of us passively complicit and with all of us footing the bill, imprisoning men, indefinitely and with no hope of trial, in dog kennels -- men who mostly have absolutely no reason to be there save for the greed of some dishonest bounty hunters half a world away.
And now we're shoving tubes into their stomach so they can't even kill themselves.
Let's recapitulate briefly. According to the US Department of Defense, only 8% of the prisoners at Guantanamo were al-Qaeda fighters, and only 5% of them were captured by the Americans themselves.
The overwhelming majority of the others were handed over to the Americans by people who could reasonably be called bounty hunters.
Maybe the majority of those who went on hunger strike were telling the truth when they said they had no links to terrorist organisations.
Happy Valentine's Day.