'Bounty hunters...mass arrests...sold(at $5k per) to the US as terrorists simply

[ProgressiveEconomist]

simply on the word of their captors..."

This is HUGE! Millions of Americans seem to tolerate abuse of "terrorists". But have they asked themselves exactly how people get BRANDED with that label, and what proportion of the brandees may have been mislabeled?

From http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20496534-1702,00.html :

"RIGHTS group Amnesty International has condemned the abuse of terrorist suspects caught in Pakistan, saying hundreds had "disappeared", while others were tortured or sold on to US authorities. In a report the London-based group said bounty hunters routinely help arrest suspects, who are then sold on abroad including to the United States' infamous prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"The road to Guantanamo very literally starts in Pakistan," said Amnesty's Claudio Cordone, commenting on the report. "Hundreds of people have been picked up in mass arrests, many have been sold to the USA as 'terrorists' simply on the word of their captor, and hundreds have been transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Airbase (a US base in Afghanistan) or secret detention centres run by the USA," he said....

"A large number of war on terror detainees have been literally sold into US hands by bounty hunters who have received cash payments in return, typically $US5000 ($6700)," it said.... The report said that 300 people - previously labelled as "terrorists" and "killers" by the US government -have since been released from Guantanamo Bay without charge, the majority to Pakistan or Afghanistan. "Many detainees remain unaccounted for, their fate and whereabouts unknown," it said, saying they include a baby and a 13-year-old Saudi boy called Talha, according to reports. "More than two years later, nothing is known about the fate and whereabouts of Talha and the other children and women," said Amnesty."

This is an edited repost for GD of cal04's LBN post at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2535141

[Solly Mack]

1. Auction block terrorists

America traffics in human flesh labeled as terrorists

Got a neighbor you don't like? Call him a terrorist and sell him to America!

Some wanna be leader crowding in on your power? Call him a terrorist and sell him to America!

I posted about this the other day.

Sickening init?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

2. Do you have another link? This is a message that MUST get out

to more DUers and to the MSM. Does Keith Olbermann know about this? Joe Conason?

[Solly Mack]

3. Here you go

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060924/wl_afp/pakistanusattacks

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2215155&mesg_id=2215155

[ProgressiveEconomist]

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[slaveplanet]

6. yup. I've heard about this since

the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

The police or the invaders give the order they will pay for "suspects"
Then there is a whole new group of "Dog the bounty hunters" who now operate without warrants. Then in no time there are secret prisons full of "shepherds and farmers" (basically anyone who is unarmed, and that does include children) ready for torture and rape or some prison guard's bitch.
After today , in no time, there will be the same thing happening here. It will start off slowly, but it will pick up speed exponentially as things get worse. My opinion is, they will use a combination of these "Dogs" and conscription to turn North America into a living hell.
These are criminals we're dealing with after all.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

7. Do you have any links? IMO this is VITAL INFO today, before the WH

signing ceremony for the Torture/Habeas Corpus Abolition Bill, and it's all new to me.

Why didn't this information get spread BEFORE votes in the House and Senate? It's still not too late for a few in the MSM to get it into their reporting on the WH signing ceremony today. After that, it will become 'old news' to most of the mainstream media.

[femmedem]

8. Sigh. I forget how much most people don't know.

Yes, this is a message which we must plaster across every newspaper editorial page, every e-mail inbox, every public bulletin board and every TV; a message which we must spread to every family member, every friend, every coffee shop philosopher.

The very same people who say, "But they attacked us first...but they behead Americans..." will also be horrified when they understand that many hundreds of innocent people are at risk of being detained FOREVER because someone captured them and sold them for bounty.

And when you frame it that way, I don't think anyone, anyone is going to shrug off habeus corpus.

K&R

[ProgressiveEconomist]

9. How's this for framing (see post #10):

[femmedem]

11. Thanks for the edit.

I had originally thought you were being metaphorical in some way I was too dense to understand.

But yes, that's the info we need.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

10. 'Terrorist'='Trafficked to the US for a $78k Pakistani-equivalent bounty'?

Would knowing about huge money incentives for mislabeling people as 'terrorists', and about hundreds of 'terrorists' already released from Guantanamo because it was decided they had been wrongly charged, change any minds about torturing 'terrorists'?

Amnesty International says (see http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20496534-1702,00.html , an Amnesty International press release at http://news.amnesty.org/index/ENGASA330382006 , and a GD thread at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2253704 ):

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

'"The road to Guantanamo very literally starts in Pakistan," said Amnesty's Claudio Cordone, commenting on the report. "Hundreds of people have been picked up in mass arrests, many have been sold to the USA as 'terrorists' simply on the word of their captor, and hundreds have been transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Airbase (a US base in Afghanistan) or secret detention centres run by the USA," he said....

"A large number of war on terror detainees have been literally sold into US hands by bounty hunters who have received cash payments in return, typically $US5000 ... ," it said....

The report said that 300 people - previously labelled as "terrorists" and "killers" by the US government - have since been released from Guantanamo Bay without charge, the majority to Pakistan or Afghanistan. "Many detainees remain unaccounted for, their fate and whereabouts unknown," it said, saying they include a baby and a 13-year-old Saudi boy called Talha, according to reports. "More than two years later, nothing is known about the fate and whereabouts of Talha and the other children and women," said Amnesty."'

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GDP per capita at purchasing power parity in the US ($41,399) is 15.6 times what it is in Pakistan ($2,653), according to IMF estamates for 2005 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita.

Multiplying the typical $5,000 bounty for a so-called terrorist makes the Pakistani equivalent amount $78,023.

[Dystopian]

12. k & r n/t

[ProgressiveEconomist]

14. 92 PERCENT at Guantanamo NOT terrorists, according to US military

'combatant status review tirbunal' records, says a Seton Hall University law professor who analyzed those records.

From http://www.jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2006/03/adels-anniversary-guantanamo-tale.php

March 9, 2006 FORUM: Op-eds on legal news by law professors and JURIST special guests...

"Adel's Anniversary: A Guantanamo Tale

JURIST Special Guest Columnist P. Sabin Willett, a partner at Bingham McCutchen, LLP, working pro bono with a team of Bingham lawyers in the Guantanamo habeas litigation:

Vice President Dick Cheney says, "The people that are there (at Guantanamo) are people we picked up on the battlefield, primarily in Afghanistan. They're terrorists. They're bomb makers. They're facilitators of terror. They're members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban."... Last month, Seton Hall Law Professor Mark Denbeaux published a study analyzing the Military's own 'combatant status review tribunal' records. He ignored what we lawyers say, and relied exclusively on military allegations. Here's what he found. The Vice President says they men are Al Qaeda fighters. What does the military say? EIGHT PERCENT ARE AL QAEDA FIGHTERS. NINETY TWO PERCENT ARE NOT. The Vice President says these men were picked up on the battlefield. The military data show that five percent were picked up on the battlefield. How did we get the others? US forces distributed leaflets. One says, in Pashto:

'Get wealth and power beyond your dreams! You can receive millions of dollars helping the anti-Taliban forces catch al-Qaida and Taliban murderers. This is enough money to take care of your family, your village, your tribe for the rest of your life. Pay for livestock and doctors and school books and housing for all your people.'

Eighty-six percent were sold to us by people who got the leaflets. Vice President Cheney says they committed hostile acts against Americans or their allies. What do the data show? Fifty-five percent of the detainees committed no hostile act against the US or its allies or any one else. By the way, wearing a Casio watch is a "hostile act." So is fleeing from US bombing.

Who's at Guantanamo? Privates, orphans, the poor, conscripts, cooks, drivers, persons who "associated with the Taliban" by inhabiting its prisons as enemies of its regime. The Taliban generals aren't there. Some are busy in the Afghan parliament we helped construct. A former Taliban spokesman isn't there either. He's a freshman at Yale. The central lie of Guantanamo is the whopper: that as a general proposition it holds terrorists. The President, the Vice President, their amen chorus in Congress tell us so relentlessly. But if one searches the military's findings for an act of violence against persons or property, for bombing or bombmaking or the teaching of bombmaking or planning or conspiring for it, fundraising, cheerleading -- anything -- when one searches hundreds and hundreds of military records, one finds that this is, most of all, who isn't at Guantanamo."

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Divernan provided this link, at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=237776&mesg_id=237786

[ProgressiveEconomist]

17. LINK to a download page for the complete Guantanamo detainee analysis

cited in post #14:

http://law.shu.edu/guantanamoteachin/page2.htm

[femmedem]

20. Thank you so much for the work you've done on this thread.

I had to leave for a while, but it was heartening to see all this info when I got back.
Glad to see it rated up, too. :kick:

[Orsino]

27. Call it what it is: slavery. n/t