Guantanamo 
Tue Jul 28, 2009 at 20:52:33 PM EDT
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As I was looking over Jeralyn's top post on TalkLeft today, this paragraph caught my eye...
Some prisoners say they watched fellow detainees being beaten to death by guards, in overcrowded, stinking holding pens. Others said they had their fingernails ripped off, or were forced to lick filthy toilet bowls.
...and I immediately thought...
"More abuse at Guantanamo."
"Or Abu Ghraib."
"Or Bagram."
But I had overlooked the title of Jeralyn's article, "Iran's Abuse of Post-Election Detainees," and for the first and probably the only time in my life, I looked at a story about prison abuse with a mix of emotions which included relief.
"At least this time it wasn't my government."
I invite anyone else to try this out as a thought experiment, and imagine that you read Jeralyn's paragraph without knowing where it came from.
Wouldn't you probably assume that the abusers were... us.
We Americans, who were formerly citizens of "a city upon a hill."
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Mon Jun 29, 2009 at 19:40:25 PM EDT
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For all of you who uphold the abomination at Guantanamo, or consent to it, or pass over it in silence, an ever-lasting fire is prepared in the darkness of Hell.
What excuse will you claim?
Were you afraid?
Now fear the Lord, and burn.
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Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 10:03:22 AM EDT
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On January 20, 2002, six Algerian men who had been arrested in Bosnia arrived at the American prison on Guantanamo Bay. One of them, Lakhdar Boumediene, won a landmark case in the Supreme Court, and was subsequently released to France on May 15, 2009. Others, including Saber Lahmar, are still "detained."
Melissa Hoffer, one of the lawyers who represents the Algerian prisoners, has described the conditions of their imprisonment and the circumstances of their transfer from Bosnia to Guantanamo.
After a three-month investigation, the Bosnian federal prosecutor recommended to the Bosnian Supreme Court that all six be released. But again under heavy pressure from the United States, the Bosnians caved, and as the men were released from a jail in Sarajevo, the Bosnians turned them over to the United States.
"We could not understand what he was saying."
When we last saw Saber in November, he was in his sixth month of solitary confinement. Since August, he has seen us, his legal team, twice and a psychiatrist on three brief occasions. For a few minutes each day, he sees the camp guards who bring his meals. He has had no other human contact. The glaring lights in his cell are on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When we left the cell, we could hear Saber shouting -- brief, truncated cries.
We could not understand what he was saying.
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Tue Jun 02, 2009 at 09:18:10 AM EDT
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Hot off the wire from Gannett News Service, June 2, 2009...
Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to closing the detention center for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay and moving some of the detainees to prisons on U.S. soil, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds.
By more than 2-1, those surveyed say Guantanamo shouldn't be closed. By more than 3-1, they oppose moving some of the accused terrorists housed there to prisons in their own states.
In the survey, Americans were inclined to accept the argument by Cheney and former president George W. Bush that the detention center had made the U.S. safer. By 40 percent-18 percent, they said the prison had strengthened national security rather than weakened it.
Power to the people!
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!"
And in other news...
"According to Deadline Scotland, Glasgow video game company T-Enterprise has hired Moazzam Begg, a former inmate at Guantanamo Bay, as a consultant on upcoming video game Rendition: Guantanamo, a title set in the infamous U.S. prison camp."
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