Stories From the Inside -Bob Herbert

[Rose Siding]

snip>
Under extreme duress at Guantánamo, including hundreds of hours of interrogation and long periods of isolation, the three men confessed to having been in a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. They also said they were among a number of men who could be seen in a videotape of Osama bin Laden. The tape had been made in August 2000.

For the better part of two years, Mr. Rasul and his friends, Asif Iqbal and Rhuhel Ahmed, had denied involvement in any terror activity whatsoever. But Mr. Rasul said they eventually succumbed to long months of physical and psychological abuse. Mr. Rasul had been held in isolation for several weeks (his second sustained period of isolation) when an interrogator showed him the video of bin Laden. He said she told him: "I've put detainees here in isolation for 12 months and eventually they've broken. You might as well admit it now."

"I could not bear another day of isolation, let alone the prospect of another year," said Mr. Rasul. He confessed.
The three men, all British citizens, were saved by British intelligence officials, who proved that they had been in England when the video was shot, and during the time they were supposed to have been in Al Qaeda training camps. All three were returned to England, where they were released from custody.
...
The Bush administration has turned Guantánamo into a place that is devoid of due process and the rule of law. It's a place where human beings can be imprisoned for life without being charged or tried, without ever seeing a lawyer, and without having their cases reviewed by a court. Congress and the courts should be uprooting this evil practice, but freedom and justice in the United States are on a post-9/11 downhill slide.

http://nytimes.com/2005/02/07/opinion/7herbert.html?hp

[bluedeminredstate]

1. I read this just this morning

and also read another account in a British paper (The Guardian?) yesterday of another British citizen sprung from Gitmo. I knew it was bad down there, but still I was shocked by the lawlessness and brutality. And yet they are so brazen about their "business"...

He's right. The story is coming to light and will one day be widely seen as the disgrace and horror it is. It mocks the very foundations of our nation and pisses all over the Constitution, which is really all we have between us and savagery.

History will not be kind to the architects of this American-style concentration camp. Nor to the American people, many who probably still could ask without a trace of irony, "How could the Germans stand by and let the Jews be exterminated like that?"

I can't stand the fact that this is being done in my name, in my children's names.

:cry:

[Old and In the Way]

2. Think of it as a laboratory

when these criminals get to try all all their fantasies on powerless people. It's the grown up version of sticking firecrackers in frogs mouths to see what happens.