I promise to move back to some lighter stuff, but I highly encourage you to read this first hard report of the first days of Guantanamo. It's told by the most clean-cut American youth you can imagine. It's a window into a world we never saw and many wish had never happened.
This testimony does not relate to how detainees were interrogated. This is just the story of a kid who was put in charge of guarding "the most dangerous men in the world" who mostly turned out to be undernourished and frail foreigners sold to the Americans for $1000 a pop. He is very detailed in what he personally witnessed and what he did not witness.
Some of what you will read may not seem, on the surface, to be all that bad. If you don't think stress positions, beatings, degradation, intimidation and anal penetration are all that bad then I suggest you try them for yourself. You will likely change your mind. This story is just a small piece of the overall system put in place by the Bush administration. A system that disregarded the Geneva conventions and many of the standard operating procedures of our own military for treating detainees. What this kid witnessed was Guantanamo-Lite and it's a fascinating read.
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Time for balance--Check This Article Out---It is par for the course in Pakistan and Afaganistan for the Taliban--They just destroyed 20 girls schools, since girls are not to be educated, and beheaded barbers for shaving beards. Time for some balance and healing
US Muslim TV boss 'beheaded wife'
Aasiya Hassan had recently filed for divorce, alleging domestic violence
The founder of a US Muslim TV network has been charged over the beheading of his wife, media reports say.
Muzzammil Hassan, 44, is accused of second degree murder of Aasiya Hassan, whose body was found last week at the TV station in New York state.
Both Mr Hassan and his wife worked at Bridges TV, a station aimed at countering stereotypes of Muslims.
Authorities said Mrs Hassan, 37, had recently filed for divorce. The couple had two children, aged four and six.
Bridges TV, a satellite-distributed news and opinion channel, was founded by Mr Hassan in 2004 and was based in a suburb in Buffalo, in upstate New York.
Mrs Hassan had filed for divorce after enduring previous incidents of domestic violence, her lawyer told the Buffalo News.
In a statement on its website, Bridges TV said it was "deeply shocked and saddened by the murder of Aasiya (Zubair) Hassan and subsequent arrest of Muzzammil Hassan".
A family court hearing was due to address the future of the couple's two children.
Their grandparents have travelled from Texas and Pakistan to attend the hearing, John Tregilio, a lawyer for the children, told the Buffalo News.
Mr Hassan also has two other children, aged 17 and 18, from a previous marriage, according to reports.
Sir Constantine
Ah, religion and family values.
What you posted here is truly horrific, but doesn't relate directly to how we treated people detailed at Gitmo.
But on a tangent here, some of the people we brought in may well have been some of those whacked out Taliban types. These guys don;t want women to go to school or men to be anything but ultra radical muslims. The are religious fanatics.
In Africa, a male dominated society still imposes female genital mutilation. Men and women have been murdered because they were accused of 'stealing' or 'shrinking' mens' penises. In China, unwanted female children are murdered by parents who drive needles into their skulls and bodies.
Why aren't we sending smart bombs into these rural towns?
The answer? It's their country. They get to do all the crazy crap they want to. You do what you can to bring people into the 17th century, but you can;t force them at gun point to abandon their crazy ways.
Constantine has a valid point that the Taliban(and several other radical whabiist sects) want more than their own little crazy patch of misery. They want their crazy Muslim system to be the ONLY game in town. EVERYWHERE. World wide.
And in this case, when someone starts training an army, building bombs, and actively working to harm another country, you have a right to take some action. It what KIND of action you take that is REALLY important. I honestly don't have much of a problem with a cruise missile hitting a training camp in Kandahar. The countries that house these camps may be sovereign, but they often don;t have the will or resources to do it themselves.
What might not work is offering cash rewards to the Northern Alliance for "Taliban fighters" without any evidence they aren't just some goat herding schmoe.
An example of working smarter (to a small degree) is the Sunni "awakening" in Iraq where we pay insurgents $25 a day NOT to shoot at us. It costs us almost nothing, it keeps these guys employed and cuts down the violence. Happy people with money tend not to join radical groups as much. Is it right? I don't know, but the drastic drop in violence hasn't hurt. Just my 2 cents.
Your 2 cents has always been valued at more than that--a Royal Gold Kruggerand, at least!. I appreciate your letting me vet while respecting my thoughts and those of your admirers. With lasting friendship...
Sir Constantine
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