(ot) Torture -The Guantanamo Guidebook

[sqook]

The interesting thing about this film was that the majority of the volunteers were proponents of these "advanced interrogation" techniques at the start of the experiment but afterwards had a completely different viewpoint.

I also found it interesting that all but one of the white prisoners cried "uncle" and gave up before the experiment was over, including those who were pro-guantanamo before the experiment started. All of the british-muslim prisoners made it through until the end...

Not that this means anything significant, of course... just an observation.

[pilcrow]

This is a war, kids. These dudes were captured as enemy combatants on the battlefield, and they're likely to be held until the end of the war--their bad luck they picked a long one.

[smartass303]

This is a war, kids. These dudes were captured as enemy combatants on the battlefield, and they're likely to be held until the end of the war--their bad luck they picked a long one.

Holy shit! This why the international community made a *law* for this kind of shit > Geneva conventions! And they say it is in-humane, and it is!
After seeing this documentary i pray to god that some sort of pestilence is going to rage in the mid-western and southern United States killing only white people just before the elections...

That would be just great!

[M. Bréqs]

monty! I thought you were off in Afghanistan fighting for imperialism?

I'm in training right now, we deploy in late summer.

By the way; right now, despite VERY occasional access to a computer, I live in a tent. I work 14-18 hours a day, and I get a shower once a week. I eat what I'm told when I'm told, and I sleep max 5-6 hours at a time. I have a cot, a sleeping bag, and I have three changes of a uniform and two sets of "PT" gear. Oh, and I have to carry all my stuff on my back.

When I deploy, I've got a desk job... But I've requested a transfer to the Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team (OMLT). They deploy with one of the Afghan National Army Kandaks (Battalions) and trains them / fights alongside them. If my request comes through, that means I'll be eating Pashtun food, living in their bivouac, and moving with them in the rural areas of Southern Afghanistan.

I guarantee you my living conditions here in training, and when I deploy are worse than anything currently going on in Gitmo. I should have it so easy.

You lefties wish SSSSOOOOOOO hard that there was torture and inhumane conditions there, just so you could stick it to America; what you fail to realize is that if you got your wish, real people (detainees) would actually be suffering.

For once, can't you suspend your dogma to actually realize that hyper-scrutiny has scrubbed Gitmo clean?!?!?!

[sqook]

By the way; right now, despite VERY occasional access to a computer, I live in a tent.

...and so with your limited, precious internet time, you decided to come here?!?!

[noisetonepause]

This is a war, kids. These dudes were captured as enemy combatants on the battlefield, and they're likely to be held until the end of the war--their bad luck they picked a long one.

Bollocks.

There are formal definitions of war and formal definitions of enemy soldiers and despite the fact that the American government has ratified the treaties where those definitions were set out, they're blatantly disregarding international law.

If you think for a second that what's going on in the Guantanamo base has any basis in US or international law, you're mistaken. They're making it up as they go along, hence the term 'enemy combatant' (which isn't defined anywhere to my knowledge) and putting the base in Cuba instead of on the mainland.

[Tone Deft]

I guarantee you my living conditions here in training, and when I deploy are worse than anything currently going on in Gitmo. I should have it so easy.

Breqs - You have a decision on where you want to be, detainees don't. Ever been to jail? You have your freedom, you know why you're there, you can 'request' to change your activities, you get respect.



Interesting thread btw!!!

[steve-o]

monty! I thought you were off in Afghanistan fighting for imperialism?

I'm in training right now, we deploy in late summer.

By the way; right now, despite VERY occasional access to a computer, I live in a tent. I work 14-18 hours a day, and I get a shower once a week. I eat what I'm told when I'm told, and I sleep max 5-6 hours at a time. I have a cot, a sleeping bag, and I have three changes of a uniform and two sets of "PT" gear. Oh, and I have to carry all my stuff on my back.

When I deploy, I've got a desk job... But I've requested a transfer to the Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team (OMLT). They deploy with one of the Afghan National Army Kandaks (Battalions) and trains them / fights alongside them. If my request comes through, that means I'll be eating Pashtun food, living in their bivouac, and moving with them in the rural areas of Southern Afghanistan.

I guarantee you my living conditions here in training, and when I deploy are worse than anything currently going on in Gitmo. I should have it so easy.

You lefties wish SSSSOOOOOOO hard that there was torture and inhumane conditions there, just so you could stick it to America; what you fail to realize is that if you got your wish, real people (detainees) would actually be suffering.

For once, can't you suspend your dogma to actually realize that hyper-scrutiny has scrubbed Gitmo clean?!?!?!

You can have it so easy - you can choose to leave. And "lefties" don't have to wish for torture and inhumane conditions - that is an unfortunate reality. THe bottom line is that detention facilities like the one at Gitmo:

1) authorize the use of "robust interrogation techniques" which qualify as torture under the Third Geneva Convention, Common Article III, the Convention Against Torture, and the International Convenant on Civil and Political rights;

2) at the same time, detainees are being denied their due process rights - right to have their detneiton reviewed, with access to a fair trial, ability to question evidence (which includes hearsay evidence otherwise inadmissable under the Federal Rules of Evidence of the Military Rules of Evidence), even the right to bring claims *under* the Gevena Conventions, although the MCA claims to follow the Geneva conventions.

Neither of these apply to you, unless the President decides that you are an unlawfl enemy combatant.

To be precise, the issue is not one of right against left, although it would appear to be so considering how the Bush Administration stripped away guaranteed rights and civil liberties, violating the US Constitution and International Law. The Left traditionally has been the proponent of positive social rights and social benefit programs. What we have here is very much a "conservative" issue: the denial of fundamental freedoms and liberties. Rather, it is an issues of fascism versus democracy.

[smutek]

I'm in training right now, we deploy in late summer.

By the way; right now, despite VERY occasional access to a computer, I live in a tent. I work 14-18 hours a day, and I get a shower once a week. I eat what I'm told when I'm told, and I sleep max 5-6 hours at a time. I have a cot, a sleeping bag, and I have three changes of a uniform and two sets of "PT" gear. Oh, and I have to carry all my stuff on my back.

When I deploy, I've got a desk job... But I've requested a transfer to the Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team (OMLT). They deploy with one of the Afghan National Army Kandaks (Battalions) and trains them / fights alongside them. If my request comes through, that means I'll be eating Pashtun food, living in their bivouac, and moving with them in the rural areas of Southern Afghanistan.

I guarantee you my living conditions here in training, and when I deploy are worse than anything currently going on in Gitmo. I should have it so easy.

You lefties wish SSSSOOOOOOO hard that there was torture and inhumane conditions there, just so you could stick it to America; what you fail to realize is that if you got your wish, real people (detainees) would actually be suffering.

For once, can't you suspend your dogma to actually realize that hyper-scrutiny has scrubbed Gitmo clean?!?!?!

That's cool. I live in a three bedroom house, work 50 hours a week at a day job and 7 hours a week for a non-profit arts advocacy group that helps "problem kids" embrace the arts. I'm getting ready to pick up a third job so that I can help my Mother out a little bit. She took a job with a large corporation that promised her a decent wage and overtime, but now is working her 60 hours a week and faling to pay her the overtime.

I sleep in a comfortable bed with my wife, get up, go to work every day and do the best job that I can.

Am I supposed to feel some debt of gratitude to you for doing this? For going to help pacify another country so it can be exploited by my country? Some sort of admiration or respect because you are sleeping in a tent and carrying heavy things? For going off to Afghanistan in support of my governments foreign policy adventures? For risking your life for a bullshit agenda that you choose to buy into? If that's the case I'm (not so) sorry to say its not going to happen. The only thing I hope is that you will come back with no harm having been done to you and having done no harm to others. You are a smart person, but I also hope you will come back with more of an open mind and perhaps the ability to empathize with people who are different than you.

You can label me a "lefty" or whatever you'd like but the truth is you really know very little of my politics aside from the fact that I am opposed to the war and this regime in Washington. You'd maybe be surprised to know that though I am anti war and anti torture I am also pro-defense and extremely pro-intelligence. You'd also probably be surprised by the insight and level of understanding I have into my countries intelligence services. Do you even realize where I live? NSA is my states largest employer. They are located a half hour from my house. CIA is just over an hour away. The Penatagon, with its multitude of agencies and departments, an hours drive.

Everyone here has a family member that works for, knows someone that works for, or themselves work for one of these agencies. I personally have many very bright friends, including many childhood friends and classmates, both from high school and my current college that work for these agencies. I've got a shell shocked Uncle that spent the late 60's and early 70's touring SE Aisa. He's got bullet and stab wounds all over his body but to this day still doesn't talk about who he worked for or what he did.

When my Father's finance's Mother died there was a wreath at the funeral sent and signed personally by John M McConnell, who was then director of NSA. I took computer programming in my last three years of high school. In our second year we had recruiters come to our class to talk to us about careers with the NSA, back in '88 when NSA still stood for "no such agency".

Might seem like drivel or nonsense, but growing up a "political person" that stuff had a huge impact on me and I've always had a keen interest in my countries foreign policy, especially with regard to intelligence. By no means am I an expert, or a scholar, nor am I insinuating that I work for or have ever worked in this field, but I did spend a lot of years and a lot of my time studying and learning about it. I would read a book by William Colby as quick as I would read one by Phillip Agee. I'd read Covert Action, or The Bulletin as quickly as I'd read Foreign Affairs or Foreign policy.

You call me a "lefty". Well, I call myself a realist, a thinking and compassionate person, and a patriot. Yes, a patriot. You'd be surprised to know that I do support the troops. I support them by working to bring them home. I support them by working to let people know that those poor kids are not fighting and dying to protect America, they are fighting for Bush, and for Cheney, for an elitist neo-conservative agenda.

I support democracy by not believing everything I am told. By questioning authority. By sharing information with those who are not too blind to see and not to ignorant to learn. You'd be surprised to know that if there were a genuine threat to my nation I'd be among the first to enlist, but as a thinking person I realize that the true threat to democracy is not in the middle east or central Asia, but right here at home. You might also be surprised to know that I have as little faith or trust in Edwards, Clinton, and Obama as I have of Bush and Cheney.

And let me state, for the record, that I am a non-violent person, but that does not make me a pacifist hippy or whatever the current buzzword may be in your circle. Maybe I am a bit of an idealist because I believe in truth and equality. I empathize with the oppressed. I have a problem with the power structure in my country. I choose not to blindly believe what I am told. As tone deft and steve-o said, you chose to do what you are doing. You chose to pack up and go fight for a lie.

You write: "You lefties wish SSSSOOOOOOO hard that there was torture and inhumane conditions there, just so you could stick it to America; what you fail to realize is that if you got your wish, real people (detainees) would actually be suffering.

You seem to be a nice guy and a smart person, but this statement shows just how clueless and out of touch with reality you are. And please don't insinuate that anyone here is trying to "stick it" to America. You haven't the slightest clue what America is. You prove that again and again in your writings.

Good luck and good speed you. I truly wish you a safe return home.

[smutek]

double post

[leisuremuffin]

i wish he was going to iraq.



.lm.

[steve-o]

Yeah, smutek, I feel you. Personally, I lost some respect for M. Breq's because of the "lefties" comment. Notwithstanding the immaturity of such a statement, it reveals his true ignorance into nature and dynamics of the US political process, as you said.

[steve-o]

Quote: "For once, can't you suspend your dogma to actually realize that hyper-scrutiny has scrubbed Gitmo clean?!?!?!"

On what basis can you make such a claim? Have you been to gitmo?

[smutek]

Ofcourse he hasn't. His view points hinge more on his dislike of "the left" than they do any type of logic or critical thinking.

In defense of the "cleaned up" argument. A friend of my Wife's just got back last week. He said it has been cleaned up and is not like it used to be.

This may or may not be true, and who's to say how much this kid got to see, but assuming it is true it doesn't excuse the fact that it did happen in the first place, that there are still hundreds of people being held there, and elsewhere in similar, perhaps worse conditions, without charge, access to an attorney, or hope of a trial. It doesn't excuse the renditions, ghost detainees and secret prisons. The fact that Guantanamo may or may not have been cleaned up does not by default excuse its existance or make what has happened, and is still happening some how ok.

Though you wont see much of anything about it on maintream news, the horn of Africa is the current hot spot. The usual, death destruction and starvation wrapped in the guise of democracy and stability. US backed Ethiopian tropps fighting the forces of evil in Somalia. Rrenditions, deportations, dissapearances all over the region, and lots of cool new secret prisons in Ehtiopia, ran by Ethiopians, advised, trained and briefed/debriefed by Americans.

Just as a side note, my wife and I were saving for a trip to Ethiopia. It was a drag to explain to her that there is no way in hell we are going there now.

[dango]

This is a war, kids. These dudes were captured as enemy combatants on the battlefield, and they're likely to be held until the end of the war--their bad luck they picked a long one.

that is false, did you listen to the interview i posted?

800 men have been sent to gitmo, these men were classified as the worst of the worst." the men responsible for 9-11" as it was put. so far over 400 of these men have been released because it turns out they were innocent.

these dudes were not all captured on the battlefield, there were bounties put out for people to turn suspected militants in; so any old person that someone did not like was being turned in for a cash bounty. most of the men (not all) there are innocent.

it maybe a war, but it is an illegal war based on a pack of lies. even if someone was on the battlefield they have every right to be. if my village was bombed, invaded and pillaged by a bunch of assholes from far away i would try to defend myself to.