Out of the Bag: Guantanamo Wikileaks Dump

[Sallow]

Well, that's a good thing a guess. The world could always use a little bit more truth. Maybe the exposure of our atrocities will make us more reluctant to continue.

That was hard to read, though. It's hard to see how low we've sunk.

We? No.

Conservative super star George W. Bush..and the puppet Master, Conservative Messiah Dick Cheney..yes.

This is how they run things folks.

 

[Sallow]

GITMO is an affront to the concept of a civil society.

So is the Taliban and Al Queda.

Thank you Captain Obvious.

That's what happens when you allow religions to run anything.

 

[bripat9643]

GITMO is an affront to the concept of a civil society.

So is the Taliban and Al Queda.

Agreed.

But they do not claim to love freedom.

In fact they make it very clear that they are are seeking to create a theocratic (read completely UNFREE) society.

They kill Americans and they don't give a fig about any rules in the Geneva convention or U.N. horse manure about human rights.

They are the enemy. You don't give habeas corpus to the enemy. You don't give the protection of the Geneva Convention to savages that don't observe the Geneva Convention.

 

[bripat9643]

GITMO is an affront to the concept of a civil society.

So is the Taliban and Al Queda.

Thank you Captain Obvious.

That's what happens when you allow religions to run anything.

Thanks for demonstrating to the entire forum that you don't get it.

 

[Sallow]

So is the Taliban and Al Queda.

Thank you Captain Obvious.

That's what happens when you allow religions to run anything.

Thanks for demonstrating to the entire forum that you don't get it.

The irony is strong with this one..

 

[Sallow]

So is the Taliban and Al Queda.

Agreed.

But they do not claim to love freedom.

In fact they make it very clear that they are are seeking to create a theocratic (read completely UNFREE) society.

They kill Americans and they don't give a fig about any rules in the Geneva convention or U.N. horse manure about human rights.

They are the enemy. You don't give habeas corpus to the enemy. You don't give the protection of the Geneva Convention to savages that don't observe the Geneva Convention.

Well maybe you should have told ol' Ronnie and Bush sr about that when they were shoveling cash their way to cut off the heads of Soviets in Afghanistan.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

GITMO is an affront to the concept of a civil society.

So is the Taliban and Al Queda.

Thank you Captain Obvious.

That's what happens when you allow religions to run anything.

ok so what's your point? Are we to dictate to other countries and tell them how to run their country?

 

[uscitizen]

Wasn't Gitmo supposed to be closed by 01-20-2010???? WTF happened?

what happened? Bush is serving a 3rd term.

 

[Sallow]

So is the Taliban and Al Queda.

Thank you Captain Obvious.

That's what happens when you allow religions to run anything.

ok so what's your point? Are we to dictate to other countries and tell them how to run their country?

Um..

I am in favor of stopping war crimes such as genocide. But aside from that..no..it's none of our business.

I'm taking it you were against the multitudes of wars we've had, like Vietnam and Iraq..that did just that..right?

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Thank you Captain Obvious.

That's what happens when you allow religions to run anything.

ok so what's your point? Are we to dictate to other countries and tell them how to run their country?

Um..

I am in favor of stopping war crimes such as genocide. But aside from that..no..it's none of our business.

I'm taking it you were against the multitudes of wars we've had, like Vietnam and Iraq..that did just that..right?

I'm against any war with exception of selfdefense, now you define what is self defense and what it covers and we can go from there.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

We "mistreated" filthy Muslim terrorists in GTMO?

So what's the problem?

Because most are innocent .

Where did you obtain this information?

Uh, did you bother reading a single article posted above?

We "mistreated" filthy Muslim terrorists in GTMO?

So what's the problem?

Because most are innocent .

Thats what they say in prison and jail to.

Yeah, people in most prisons and jails went through a trial, where evidence was presented and who, theoretically, were convicted by a jury of their 'peers' after a critical look at the evidence in accord with the laws of the land.

In the case of Guantanamo, there are no trials and there is no evidence, detention can be indefinite, and it is explicit policy to torture the prisoners (which has the paradoxical effect of making any sort of trial other than a mock trial entirely impossible).

What is presented in these documents is that at the very least 100 people, if not many more, were robbed of months or most likely years of their life - FOR ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING REASON. This documents are evidence of American officials explicitly stating the cases of several prisoners who literally did nothing but happened to be in the area - who were handed over by brutal foreign governments like that of Pakistan in exchange for bounties, and whose reasons to give away some of these prisoners was not even duly noted.

The problem is that total retrogrades like slukasiewski, Momanohedhunter, and other of their ilk, despite all their bed-wetting over "muslim terrorists" are entirely safe in their Bumblefucktown, America, suburb. They won't be like the Tajik student in pakistan, the Afghan sheephereder or taxi driver, who get picked up just like that, and after 3 years of brutal torture in a foreign prison get released because "whoops... they didn't actually do anything and we don't know why they're here." They will never get picked up by their government or a foreign government and transfered to a torture camp indefinitely while presenting 0 evidence. Just like it wasn't Heinrich's, Johan's or Olaf's problem if a couple of Jews were being rounded up somewhere and taken to some shady prison camp, for the good of the fatherland, because of course they must be guilty of something if the Government says so. They would allow anyone, innocent or guilty, to pay the price required for the bed-wetting to stop, just a little.

 

[Cal]

So this is it, the newest Wikileaks dump - hundreds of documents given to the NYT and the Guardian exposing what we already knew: that the United States continues to set the bar for high moral standards of conduct on this planet. Torture, abuses, mistreatment, unaccountability, uncorroborated confessions extracted through duress, and wrongful imprisonment of innocent people all are factors that add to the colorful portrait of shame laid down by previous releases, though obviously most of the communications fail to go into any detail on interrogation techniques and torture methods, which are mostly conveniently ignored.

From the NYT, via MSNBC due to the former's obnoxious paywall:

NYT: Files shed light on Gitmo detainees - World news - The New York Times - msnbc.com

A trove of more than 700 classified military documents provides new and detailed accounts of the men who have done time at the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba, and offers new insight into the evidence against the 172 men still locked up there.

Military intelligence officials, in assessments of detainees written between February 2002 and January 2009, evaluated their histories and provided glimpses of the tensions between captors and captives. What began as a jury-rigged experiment after the 2001 terrorist attacks now seems like an enduring American institution, and the leaked files show why, by laying bare the patchwork and contradictory evidence that in many cases would never have stood up in criminal court or a military tribunal [...]

The dossiers also show the seat-of-the-pants intelligence gathering in war zones that led to the incarcerations of innocent men for years in cases of mistaken identity or simple misfortune. In May 2003, for example, Afghan forces captured Prisoner 1051, an Afghan named Sharbat, near the scene of a roadside bomb explosion, the documents show. He denied any involvement, saying he was a shepherd. Guantánamo debriefers and analysts agreed, citing his consistent story, his knowledge of herding animals and his ignorance of “simple military and political concepts,” according to his assessment. Yet a military tribunal declared him an “enemy combatant” anyway, and he was not sent home until 2006. [...]

The 20th hijacker: The best-documented case of an abusive interrogation at Guantánamo was the coercive questioning, in late 2002 and early 2003, of Mohammed Qahtani. A Saudi believed to have been an intended participant in the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Qahtani was leashed like a dog, sexually humiliated and forced to urinate on himself. His file says, “Although publicly released records allege detainee was subject to harsh interrogation techniques in the early stages of detention,” his confessions “appear to be true and are corroborated in reporting from other sources.” But claims that he is said to have made about at least 16 other prisoners — mostly in April and May 2003 — are cited in their files without any caveat. [...]

The Yemenis’ hard luck: The files for dozens of the remaining prisoners portray them as low-level foot-soldiers who traveled from Yemen to Afghanistan before the Sept. 11 attacks to receive basic military training and fight in the civil war there, not as global terrorists. Otherwise identical detainees from other countries were sent home many years ago, the files show, but the Yemenis remain at Guantánamo because of concerns over the stability of their country and its ability to monitor them. [...]

Much of the information in the documents is impossible to verify. The documents were prepared by intelligence and military officials operating at first in the haze of war, then, as the years passed, in a prison under international criticism. In some cases, judges have rejected the government’s allegations, because confessions were made during coercive interrogation or other sources were not credible.

the Guardian's page on the files: The Guantánamo files | World news | guardian.co.uk

Other fun tidbits: Guantánamo Bay files: Children and senile old men among detainees | World news | guardian.co.uk

The Guantánamo files reveal the often fragile physical and mental condition of Guantánamo's oldest and youngest residents, who have included an 89-year-old man and boys as young as 14.

In 2002 Guantánamo prisoners were described as "the worst of a very bad lot" by Dick Cheney, US vice-president. "They are very dangerous. They are devoted to killing millions of Americans, innocent Americans, if they can, and they are perfectly prepared to die in the effort."

But the internal files on some prisoners paint a very different picture. A 2002 assessment of Guantánamo's oldest prisoner, Mohammed Sadiq, who was then 89, revealed dementia, depression and sickness. "His current medical issues include major depressive disorder, senile dementia and osteoarthritis, for which he receives prescribed treatment." The Afghan national was also being assessed for prostate cancer.

Guantánamo Bay files: Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time | World news | guardian.co.uk

The camp files disclose that the three were "arrested at a small library in Karachi". Almost two years after their eventual release, a journalist for the US magazine Mother Jones, while trekking in the Pamir mountains, stumbled across Umarov back at his remote home village and tape-recorded an interview.

Umarov's story, now confirmed by the classified prison camp files, is that the three were living in a room in the University of Karachi library, and looking for work, when they were rounded up by Pakistani police and given to the Americans. A suicide bomb had exploded and at the time, the US were reported to be paying bounties of between $5,000 and $25,000 per al-Qaida prisoner.

Umarov said he had received no compensation since. He reportedly asked his interviewer: "Why did they keep a man for two years with no reason? Why? They caught me and kept me as a prisoner of war. What war, may I ask? When was I involved? I was sleeping when they came and dragged me out of my bed." [...]

The three Tajiks were among more than 100 detainees taken to Guantánamo for little more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Of the 212 Afghans at the base, almost half were, in the assessments of the US forces, either entirely innocent, mere Taliban conscripts, or had been transferred to Guantánamo with no reason for doing so on file.

One such individual was a rural Afghan, Mohmed Allah. His docket says he was robbed of his cash and his vehicle after visiting the Chinese hospital in Kandahar in 2002. "Irregular Afghanistan troops found the detainee on the street in Kandahar City and held him. The detainee was turned over to US forces."

The only reason given for Prisoner 347's internment was "because he was a Mullah, who led prayers at Manu Mosque in Kandahar province, Afghanistan ... which placed him in a position to have special knowledge of the Taliban". The US soldiers eventually released him, after more than a year's captivity, deciding he had no intelligence value and "does not pose a future threat to the US or US interests".

Other Afghans taken to Guantánamo included a taxi driver, shipped to the base "because of his general knowledge of activities in the areas of Khowst and Kabul based as a result of his frequent travels through the region as a taxi driver"; two detainees brought for their knowledge of conditions of prisons run by the Northern Alliance; and, perversely, several Taliban conscripts for their knowledge of conscription techniques. Others ended up at the base through a result of corruption in the Afghan or Pakistan authorities. Mukhtar Anaje was sent to Guantánamo in 2003 after allegedly masterminding an ambush thats killed two US soldiers in Helmand. The intelligence behind his transfer came from Dad Mohammad Khan, chief of intelligence in the province.

But by September 2004, US forces concluded Anaje had been set up. "It appears his capture by Afghan militia forces (AMF) and subsequent handover to US forces was based on fraudulent claims given by AMF personnel themselves," states a file note recommending him for release.

Guess most of the other headlines speak for themselves:

Guantánamo Bay files: Binyam Mohamed held on torture 'confessions' | World news | The Guardian - Guantánamo Bay files: Binyam Mohamed held on torture 'confessions'; Fellow captive Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded until he named British resident as 'dirty bomb' plotter

Guantánamo Bay files: Star informer freed after implicating 123 prisoners | World news | The Guardian - Guantánamo Bay files: Star informer freed after implicating 123 prisoners; Mohammed Basardah rewarded despite unsupported claims and interrogators' doubts about sheer number of names he gave up


Guantánamo Bay files: China among regimes invited to interrogate captives | World news | The Guardian - Guantánamo Bay files: China among regimes invited to interrogate captives; Foreign intelligence services from a host of repressive governments were brought in to identify and question suspects


And an excellent "background" op-ed on the subject, before the release: What the Guantanamo leaks won't reveal - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

America, the Beautiful!

What a blemish on our country. This shit isn't American! We're betraying our very values abroad! Gitmo should've been closed years ago, but Bush wouldn't, and now Obama won't. Whattaya do?.. Obama is no better than Bush on this.