BS: Guantanamo survivors

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 09:01 PM

i think i spelled mercenery wromg, but you know waht i mean,
anywayt , they not going to admit they terrerists are they?
"yes, i'm a terrerist, and i just wanted to make trouble"

obviously they going to lie, bad people awlys do.

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 08:55 PM

hello, i dont believe them, i dont think they was tourists, [my freind called Bad Bob went to Kosovo to be a mercenery] if they caught him, he probably would say he was just visiting etc,
anyway i asked him why he went, i asked if he felt sorry for the people what side he was fighting on, [he only getting about 20 quid a week, and you can get more than that just been on the dole], he says "no, i don't give a shit about them, i just like killing people"
[he is a bit odd like that]

that was aages ago, maybe he's normal now, i dont know, i didnt seen him for ages.

anyway, i dont believe these people, ie = you dont go to a war place on purpose unless you want to be in a war.

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 08:48 PM

I can't see where the different perspective comes in. There were plenty of prisoners who haven't survived. Massacred in Afghanistan, suicides, died for other reasons.

What comes out from reading this report is the impression of a powerful country which has decided to adopt the same techniques as terrorists who are holding hostages.

I suppose living in an unmarked grave for year in year out, and then being released is better than being buried in one permanently.

Once again, we didn't treat the Nazis like this.

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: Gareth
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 08:21 PM

A difference, and I don't defend torture for very good reasons, is that the detainees at G'Bay are there, are alive, are being released, not burried in unmarked graves, and if Kiplins ( and others )commentaties are to be believed, without thier sexual organs amputated and stuffed in thier mouths to choke them.

Ooops - sorry - I should not mention the traditional ethnic customs of Iraq or Afghanistan, besides the victims were only Russians, Tommy's, "Sowars" or fellow Iraquis, Arabs or Afghani's who were in the wrong place at the wrong time - And were suspected of being of the wrong political or tribal affiliation.

Not that that justifies any maltreatment, but I think it puts the matter in a different perspective.

Or am I being cynical ???

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: Peace
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 04:59 PM

Hear, hear, freda.

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: freda underhill
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 04:57 PM

what did 9/11 have to do with Afghanistan (or Iraq for that matter?) those people that flew the planes were saudi arabian!

the US has used this excuse to invade two other countries who were not involved in the 9/11 disasters.

and the Taliban - bred in Pakistan, paid for by Pakistan, infiltrated by Pakistanis.. yes, an ugly, medieval bunch of one eyed freaks and lunatics. David Hicks was an idiot to get involved with them - and as a young religious brainwashee he probably thought he went in there to protect an islamic state from the pinko commie northern alliance. in fact un benown to him he was assisting Pakistan in its program of using the Taliban to gain control of afghanistan.

pawns, all pawns...

at no point did he engage in combat against american soldiers. now he's living in a cage in isolation for 2 years catching mice. and he's not even a muslim any more.

the whole point of human rights is that it doesn't matter how much of a dickhead someone is, how unpleasant, objectionable, or even how guilty they are - they have the right to be trated in a humane way, and offered certain processes and protection, while an objective court tries to find out WHAT THEY ACTUALLY DID.

saddam hussein has the Red Cross checking in to see how he is - the poeple in Guantanamo bay don't have these rights - the are being treated worse than Saddam Hussein.

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: GUEST,guest from NW
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 03:47 PM

"In fact most of the intenational prisioners at Guantanamo are daft young punks with macho tendencies - wannabe polygamists - probably... Let them go, naw, shoot em in the goolies first then let em go!"

so between "In fact" and "probably" we see evidence of your ignorance and in the next line absolute proof of it. you demonstrate in your own words that you know nothing about what is going on in this situation but feel perfectly justified in a solution that is cruel, mean spirted and just plain stupid. no wonder the world is in the state it's in with people who think like this around to spew their ignorance spiced with cruelty.

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 03:16 PM

Which is it, the USA has treated and is treating the detainees in a legal and humane way, as Colin Powell has said, or they deserve everything they get because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it doesn't matter how they get treated?

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 03:09 PM

It is possible that the stories of the prisoners are exaggerated, just as it was possible that the stories of people such as Brtian Keenan or Terry Waites about their experience as hostages in Lebanon could have been exagerated.

What both sets of captivity have in common is that monitoring of the conditions and treatment of prisoners by the appropriate people from outside was not permitted by the captors. And it still goes on.

I don't believe that posting long extracts from articles that are there at the end of a blue clicky is justifiable. But I do urge people to use that blue clicky in my opening post to read that piece in the Observer. Or hunt around and read some of the other coverage of these allegations.

"I'm not saying it's a tea-party in Guantanamo Bay" - I'm, afraid it's not about a tea party, it's about allegations of something disgusting and shameful, and not to be shrugged off flippantly like that.   

If it can be demonstrated that Colin Powell was speaking the truth when he said "we have discharged all of our obligations under the Geneva Convention to treat people in our custody, our detainees, in a very humanitarian way", that would be very good news indeed. But just because he said it, that doesn't dispel the suspicion fuelled by these stories,and by other evidence, such as the pictures we have all seen. After all, if these stories are true, Colin Powell is among those who should be in the dock.

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 02:55 PM

Just want to echo what Strollin Johnny says, and add, Mr Mc Grath you probably don't sense the anger that grew here in the US after the shock of 9-11.

I heard one old timer say it reminded them of Pearl Harbor, eventhough all the people on the planes as well as the Twin Towers were civilians not military.

Also what were those kids doing in Afghanistan at a time when there were high ranking international officials working to get the UN to do something about the abuse, beatings and murder of mostly women by the Taliban?. I recall several meetings in Europe where Afghan women who had escaped the terror telling their stories. I even seen websites about the shootings and beatings at the time.

It is no surprise, then, to find no women captured by the US in the war! In fact most of the intenational prisioners at Guantanamo are daft young punks with macho tendencies - wannabe polygamists - probably.

Let them go, naw, shoot em in the goolies first then let em go!

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: Peace
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 02:36 PM

There are two problems.

1) We are making the assumption that because Americans are civilized people, therefore their government is also civilized with regard to war/clandestine activity. That is both a dangerous and less-than-thoughtful assumption.

2) We are ascribing a value system to the military leadership which we hope is how they think, but is not how they think. Indded expediency is the order of the day--it always is with time-sensitive material, sensitive intelligence and military action.

I am not arguing right/wrong; I am saying that it can be costly to think the other side has your (one's) motives. Civilian authority stops at the gates of military establishments.

Charles Ng was a killer who was arrested in Canada and held here for armed robbery. We refused to deport him to California because he faced the death penalty there. He was eventually deported to another state to face charges there, and that state then sent him to California. I don't feel the world lost much when Ng was killed by the State of California (if indeed he's dead), but the method by which he arrived in California certainly plays games with the spirit of the law. I guess what I'm getting at is that AUTHORITY and bureaucracy see things as quite black and white. People see lots of grey in the mixture. If you're (one's) going to view the potential release of Hicks as a possibility, the situation should be viewed through the eyes of the Australian and American governments and their militaries, not through the eyes of people who see his detention as being wrong and therefore he should be free. I agree he should not be being held without trial; but, the pressure on governments has to come from the Australian people and the American people. They are the players involved. It is unfortunate that Australia is in bed with the USA.

Sorry to sound so cold. I think he should be returned to Australia and dealt with there. Not dealt with by Americans and Australians at a military base in Cuba.

It may seem hopeless, what with Australia's terrible civil rights record. I think Amnesty International can help, and don't rule out the United Nations. I don't know whether Mr Hicks is innocent or guilty of crimes against Australia or the USA. But he does deserve a fair trial to determine whether or not that's so. He may have been at the wrong place at the wrong time for the wrong reasons, but he may also simply be an idealist who was caught at the wrong place at the wrong time for the right reasons.

Bruce M

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: Metchosin
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 01:15 PM

There was a documentary shown on Canadian TV during the run up to the invasion of Iraq that basically substantiated the massacre of detainees who were transported by container truck in Afghanistan, right down to the bullet holes in the containers to supposedly provide air for the prisoners. I'm surprised there were Britons on board that any survived to tell the tale. The documentary stated that the camp in Afghanistan was overseen by the US.

Excuse my cynicism, but after the Canadian, Arar's, deportation by the US to Syria for torture, it does appear to be US policy to have their dirty work done by others, whenever possible. I'm also at a loss as to how any civilised nation can justify Guantanamo.

Devising loopholes and resorting to expediency does seem to be the order of the day. Maybe that's what happens when you have an administration who believes that government should behave in the same manner as their corporate businesses and with the same moral imperative.

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 01:00 PM

These guys are hardly likely to come home and say it was like living at home with mum's home cooking are they? They have a story they want to make a very great deal of money from, so of course they will make it sound as bad as possible. Before everyone jumps down my throat, I'm not saying it's a tea-party in Guantanamo Bay, but we need to be aware that ex-prisoners are just as capable of distorting the truth as are Dubya's merry band.

As jOhn says, what were they doing in Afghanistan (and especially consorting with the Taliban) anyway? Surely, anyone who didn't want to be embroiled in the hostilities would have got the hell out of there - the Yanks gave plenty of notice of what they were about to embark upon (which is a bloody sight more than those bastards from Al Quaeda did on 9/11).

Go on then - my head is bowed, I await the sword's kiss.
Johnny :0)

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 12:06 PM

I was wondering if anything about this is getting in the media in the USA - I noticed when I pushed Google News to check something about it, none of the stories that came up seemed to be from US sources, not even the ones about Colin Powell claiming that the detainees have been treated in accordance with civilised strandards.

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: freda underhill
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 09:33 AM

if these people had been declared prisoners of war, they would have had to have been detained in accomodation with conditions at least equivalent to the conditions that army soldiers lived in in the US.

by declining to acknowledge that they were being held as POWs of the US, these people have been held totally outside all internationally accepted standards and laws, without supervisions by any neutral outside organisation.

the crime is that the liberators have become perpatrators, in focussing on the perceived evil of their captives, the captors have taken on those very qualities themselves.

they have become like the thing they claim to oppose.

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 09:19 AM

Reasons why they happened to be in Afghanistan are given in the various stories. They sound quite convincing to me, and eventually it appears they sounded convincing to their captors. And the British police apparently didn't need long to accept the stories.

Moreover, regardless of whether being on the wrong side of a border when countries on the other side of the world decide to invade a country is a valid reason to detain civilians for more than a few hours at most, there is the question of the conditions under which which they were detained.

Nazi prisoners weren't treated as badly as this, even at the end of the war, not by the US and the UK anyway, if what has been reported by a range of people is true; and indeed what little we have been allowed to see is consistent with these stories by these young men.

It is important that the truth about these allegations is properly investigated, and that can't be done by agents of the people responsible for the running or supervision of Guanatanamo Bay, because they are the ones in the dock.

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: freda underhill
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 08:57 AM

David has not been charged with any crime in Australia. He has not been charged with any crime in Afghanistan. He is detained without charge, without trial and without access to family or consular assistance.

enough said.

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 08:48 AM

The thing i wonder is=What were they doing there anyway?
one of them was captured in Afghanistan, he reckons he was innocently backpacking, backpacking my arse!

[who decides to go backpacking to Afghanistan when there is a war going on there?
very suspicious if you ask me.

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: freda underhill
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 08:45 AM

http://www.fairgofordavid.org/htmlfiles/documents/whyfairgo.htm
David Hicks, an Adelaide man, was captured by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in early December 2001 while travelling with Taliban soldiers who were defending their territory from the Northern Alliance. David's father, Terry, said his son seemed unaware of the September 11 attacks and extremely doubtful of their authenticity when they spoke on a mobile phone a few days after the American bombing campaign had begun.

Since David's capture he has been handed over to the Americans who have moved him to Cuba and the infamous Camp X-ray. He remains there uncharged after numerous interrogations by both American and Australian government military officers and/or officials. He was detained in a small cage for more than five months, and was transferred to a small "shed type" prison cell about the middle of 2002. There is a bed, no chair and no window. The lights are on twenty four hours a day. He has only two fifteen minute exercise periods a week where he is walked shackled between two guards. He is forced to wear an overall type uniform whether it is forty-three degrees Centigrade (over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit) or less.

In a recent letter (early 2003) he wrote about an operation - the nature of this was not disclosed - where he was in hospital and was treated like a human being for three days. After this he was given a chair to sit on for three days.

Presently, it seems that the Australian government officials have been trying to "persuade" David to confess to some crimes in order to be repatriated to his homeland. This is despite comments by Victoria Clarke, Pentagon spokesperson, in February of 2002 stating that all prisoners in Cuba were only the "rats and mice" of the Taliban and would possibly never be charged with any crime. (This includes the man said to be over one hundred years old who was sent home to Afghanistan in the last few months.) Furthermore American officers from the camp have visited Afghanistan and asked those in command to stop sending these unimportant prisoners to the camp and to concentrate on bigger fish - if and when they capture them.

David has not been charged with any crime in Australia. He has not been charged with any crime in Afghanistan. He is detained without charge, without trial and without access to family or consular assistance.

This intolerable situation has gone on long enough and we would welcome your support. Our group provides some press releases to depict the situation as it really is, and, not as some of the more tabloid type media has portrayed it. We are also raising funds to pay for David's return to Australia and his legal fees, estimated to be $5mill. Contributions can be sent to Fair Go For David, PO Box 634, PROSPECT EAST SA 5082.

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: freda underhill
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 08:35 AM

Hicks 'killed mice' for his sanity

March 14, 2004

AUSTRALIAN terror suspect David Hicks occupied himself in jail by killing mice, a report said today.

Britain's Observer newspaper reported Hicks - who is detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, awaiting a US military commission - went to desperate measures to maintain his sanity.

Fellow inmate Shafiq Rasul, who has been returned to England, told the newspaper Adelaide-born Hicks occupied his mind all day by catching and killing mice. (Former prisoners allege brutality)

He said more than a year ago, Hicks renounced Islam and shaved off his beard, no longer answering the regular call to prayer.

"He's just a little guy with a very deep voice," Rasul said. "If you met him you'd think he was the typical kind of Aussie you might see drinking Fosters in a bar."

Rasul said Hicks was housed in a white-walled, sound-absorbent cell in solitary confinement with a guard permanently stationed outside his door. He said interrogators had taken to using a formal system of rewards to get cooperation.

But the best-selling novels they offered as incentives usually had pages torn out, which the censor deemed too subversive or exciting. Hicks, 28, was captured by the US among Taliban forces in Afghanistan in December 2001.

His family has been meeting this week with his US military lawyer Major Michael Mori and tonight, his father, Terry Hicks, wife Bev and Maj Mori will all attend the screening of a new film about Hicks, which is to be released in Australia and the United States.

Terry Hicks says the film will show "David is not the demon he has been made out to be". The documentary, The President Versus David Hicks, attempts to trace David's path in the lead-up to him being captured by the US among Taliban forces in Afghanistan in December 2001.

"It's something to make the public aware that David is not what they're saying, the government have demonised him from the start," Terry Hicks said today. .....

Subject: RE: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 08:31 AM

A recent 'Vanity Fair' has an interesting article on the camp - including interviews with people working there & with visitors, including at least one psychiatrist who has spoken to prisoners. I think it might have been the Dec or Jan issue - maybe you local library has a copy.

The camp contains a lot of depressed people (surprise!) & the medical team have invented a new diagnosis that the visitor did not agree with.

The interrogaters, all young & inexperienced work with translators & offer bribes (including better accomodation & conditions!) for confessions. The journalist spoke with other interrogaters elsewhere who do not agree that useful information can be obtained that way.

The article is well worth reading, I wish I could remember more about it.

sandra

Subject: BS: Guantanamo survivors
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Mar 04 - 08:05 AM

Some graphic reports in the British papers from the young men who have been released after being held prisoner in Guantanamo Bay for so long. Pretty graphic and appalling stuff it is. I'm reminded of accounts by hostages like Brian Keenan who were held prisoner by terrorists in Lebanon - though the conditions in these current cases appear to have been even worse.

Here is a link to an account by three of the released men Revealed: the full story of the Guantanamo Britons (And this is in The Observer, a paper which actually came down in favour of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.)

And, not to be unfair, here's what Colin Powell had to say about it: "We don't abuse people who are in our care. I think we have discharged all of our obligations under the Geneva Convention to treat people in our custody, our detainees, in a very humanitarian way."

Well, obviously someone is lying. It would be good to assume that there will be an independent inquiry to identify what actually happened, and what the conditions under which these people are being held.

It would be very wrong if the fact that horrible things have been, and are still being done by terrorists were to be used as a justification for behaviour that, if it is true, is a disgrace to everyone responsible for carrying out, authorising it, or colluding in it. That would be as wrong as when terrorists use this kind of thing as a justification for their own actions.