War Crimes Continue Unnoticed By Jaded Public
Sat Mar 15, 2008 at 07:11:35 AM PDT
It used to be if something bad was in the News, bad as in Torture, Secret Prisons, Ghost Prisoners, even Murder, I could count on it being diaried at Dkos. It was great to know others cared enough to bring these issues to the sight of the public. It is pretty amazing the people that just visit dkos to skim the storys to see what reactions we have to them, and how they may even plan their spin. Even with the diary a day limit here nothing was missed. Many a time the analysis made in the diary or even the comments were in the Times or WaPo the next day. Yesterday several of those type of stories weren't even mentioned. One of a New Secret Prison and the Prisoner held in secret also. Another one told us about a denied medical attention for years while held in Gitmo as they have watched him die. I call that "Cruel and Inhumane" and Murder. Yet, one more tells of a 16 yr old kid sent to Gitmo for a crime the report first said another man did until months later the Official Report was changed, cleaned scrubbed, revised, amended.
So I will try to give you a glimpse at each and hopefully remind us all why we and everyone else is desperate for change. Real change.
WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency secretly detained a suspected member of Al Qaeda for at least six months beginning last summer as part of a program in which C.I.A. officers have been authorized by President Bush to use harsh interrogation techniques, American officials said Friday....Officials Say C.I.A. Secretly Detained Suspect
Holding Prisoners in Secret is against the Geneva Convention and SCOTUS has already ruled we must follow the Convention. Bush continues to ignore the Rule of Law, again.
Mr. Bush has defended the use of the secret prisons as a vital tool in American counterterrorism efforts, and last July he signed an executive order that formally reiterated the C.I.A.’s authority to use interrogation techniques more coercive than those permitted by the Pentagon.
Why a Secret Prison when Gitmo is "State of the Art"? Maybe Waterboarding has been banned at Gitmo, it could be the terrible Health Care or for no reason that makes sense.
They discussed their findings with CIA and Pentagon officials, then boarded a plane back to Germany. During a stopover in Washington, D.C., one of the agents visited the local branch of Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, and reported back to headquarters via a secure phone line, saying: "USA considers Murat Kurnaz's innocence to be proven. He should be released in approximately six to eight weeks." A few days later, a Pentagon release form for the detainee was printed and awaiting signature.
"At that point, the picture was clear," says Lothar Jachmann, a retired spy who headed the intelligence-gathering operation on Kurnaz for Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, and was briefed on the Guantanamo visit by one of the agents. "We had nothing on him, and we had gotten feedback that the Americans had nothing on him either. The plan was to let him go."
But Kurnaz was not set free. Instead, he spent another four years languishing at Guantanamo, where he was repeatedly designated an "enemy combatant," despite evidence showing he had no known links to terrorist groups.
The "Worse of the Worse" is what we were told, but how can a innocent man be among the Worse ? Kurnaz was finally released and tells tales of Torture and other abuses. He could very important in the coming yrs.
A plainspoken account, Five Years of My Life focuses on the daily humiliations and surreal texture of life at Guantanamo, a place where iguanas roam the cell blocks and trials take place in the same rooms as interrogations. In the closing pages, Kurnaz explains why he chose to speak out. "It's important that our stories are told," he writes. "We need to counter the endless [official] reports written in Guantanamo itself. We have to speak up and say: I tried to hand back my blanket and got four weeks in solitary confinement." But Kurnaz doesn't dwell on his own suffering. Instead he turns the spotlight on the plight of other detainees, including the ones who are still being held. "While I sit here eating chocolate bars and peeling mandarin oranges, they are being beaten and starved," he writes. "I can eat, drink and sleep much the same as I did five years ago, but I never forget that people are being abused in Cuba." http://www.motherjones.com/...
Next we have the story of Omar, Omars story has eaten away at me and this recent news has made it all the worse. It's a short article so if you only have time for one, read this one.
The U.S. military has charged Omar Khadr with murder for throwing a grenade that killed Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer during a U.S. military raid on July 27, 2002, on an al-Qaida compound in eastern Afghanistan. Khadr's case is on track to be the first to go to trial under a military tribunal system at this U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.
The military commander's official report the day after the raid originally said the assailant who threw the grenade was killed, which would rule out Khadr as the suspect. But the report was revised months later, under the same date, to say a U.S. fighter had only "engaged" the assailant, according to Kuebler, who said the later version was presented to him by prosecutors as an "updated" document. US accused of altering Gitmo evidence
This next story is one that plays itself out daily in many of our Domestic Prisons as well as at Gitmo, the difference is those prisoners have usually had a lawyer , a trial, and can reach out to someone like family, their atty, and even a Judge sometimes. None of this can be said about those held in Cuba.
March 14, 2008 | The U.S. government has long insisted that it provides quality medical treatment to all suspected terrorists imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Even the dependably cynical Michael Moore, in his latest film "Sicko," fell for the hype. But it is time to set the record straight. Five prisoners are now known to have died inside the secretive prison -- at least one under dubious circumstances -- and others are gravely ill. And in the case of one very ill man, there is evidence of extraordinary medical neglect on the part of military physicians.
I am an attorney representing that man, Abdul Hamid Al-Ghizzawi, who has been held inside America's legal black hole since March 2002. The U.S. government has never charged him with any wrongdoing. Military officials claim he has been given proper healthcare. But Al-Ghizzawi appears to have acute liver disease, among other ailments, and the military is allowing his condition to deteriorate without proper diagnosis or treatment, according to a doctor with the International Committee of the Red Cross who has observed Al-Ghizzawi and his medical records at the prison. A leading medical expert who has reviewed Al-Ghizzawi's case agrees with that conclusion, as do I, based on my observations of my client during repeated visits to Guantánamo. Military and government officials have refused to grant me access to my client's medical records. A sickening truth at Guantánamo
Just to close this out with the ridiculous after the tragic this next bit is the height of spin gone mad. Blackwater and the DOD has told us how great, important, professional, etc they are right ? Enjoy this laugh and imagine explaining the contrdictions to a Judge in a yr or 2 when the real bill comes due.
"In all three instances, Blackwater has asserted ... that its security guards are independent contractors because the company does not exercise sufficient control over their activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Blackwater has claimed in official communications that its security guards are 'in no way directly supervised or controlled by Blackwater'; that they 'do not report to any of the Blackwater entities regarding their work in the field'; and that they 'do not report to Blackwater regarding their operations in country.' Blackwater has also claimed that it 'plays no role in the development or planning of the contractors' security missions' and 'has little if any knowledge regarding the location or activities of these independent contractors.' According to Blackwater, its 'only real involvement is to pay the independent contractors.'"
Huh? Congratulations Blackwater. In just one paragraph you have seemingly confirmed every self-appointed critic's worst fears -- that the average security contractor is independent in the worst possible sense of the word, i.e., unsupervised and uncontrolled.
Aren't these the people Condi can't live without ? Cowboys for Bodyguards and no Boss ? Nice spin. So with this new "Writers Strike", what do you think the chances are this diary sticks around ? I'm bettin zero to none but then I was never much good at gambling. Hell I bet of McGoven, Gore and Kerry.
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