The Iraq / war on terror thread

[SLCPUNK]

SLC, if you don't know your history then you will be bound to repeat it.

That's a great saying, thanks. Never heard that one before.....

I said I don't watch the history channel, I didn't say I don't know history.

Pick at somebody else.....

[gilld1]

I'm not looking to agitate, calm down, nobody's pickin'.  Don't be such a sensitive little bitch.

[SLCPUNK]

  Don't be such a sensitive little bitch.

LOL...yea...that's not pickin'.

I'll think of you, next time my dog poops....

Please, somebody intelligent....back on topic....thanks.

[gilld1]

You just think that your shit doesn't stink, don't you?  Oh insightful one, please tell us the secrets of the world. 

[SLCPUNK]

You just think that your shit doesn't stink, don't you?  Oh insightful one, please tell us the secrets of the world. 

This may be how you operate and it is acceptable to you. But it really brings the board down a few notches (ie, your childish posts).....please find a jr high message board to troll.

Good night.

[axl_rose_700]

It was a joke, albeit in bad taste, referencing how the Nazis did horrible things to the Jews and how we are doing horrible things to innocent Iraqis.? The Nazis called the mass extermination of the Jews "The Final Solution".? C'mon, this is basic History Channel stuff.

You're joking right? You're comparing the extermination of 7 million people to a bnit of beating of some prisoners of war?? (As out of line as that is)

[Jessica]

Its unbelieveable that this current administration condones this sort of activity.

It is unbelievable ALL WORLD ARMIES protect these people and their " activities".

Wanna rape a kid ? go into the army.
Wanna rape a woman ? go int othe army.
Wanna torture men ? join the forces " brother"

Well, i'm a " sista" and about to give birth, and should a man touch my kid, army or not, his own mother will never have a body to bury, and this is a promise !

[C0ma]

"A Sunday Herald investigation has discovered that coalition forces are holding more than 100 children in jails such as Abu Ghraib. Witnesses claim that the detainees ? some as young as 10 ? are also being subjected to rape and torture"

Witnesses? Do you mean other prisoners??

This is laughable.

First off I highly doubt that their are Children being raped in there.
Secondly the cries of abuse from this prison are a joke. I do not care what your culture deems as 'disrespectful'. If the worst thing that happend to these people are that they had pictures taken naked together, got barked at by dogs, and Sadam had photos of him in his tighty whities  published than they get off lightly.

I'm sick of the fact that if they arent treated like they are staying at a Westin Hotel in Mid Town New York then they are being tourtured.

They are pandered to in everyway.... Look at Gitmo, they eat better than the people that guard them, they are given all of their religeous freedoms (but someone disrespected the Koran... boo fucking hoo). Our troops arent allowed to take Bibles into any of these countries but they get pointed to Mecca how ever many times they need to bark at the moon or whatever it is they do.

Laughable....... lets listen to the complaints of a terriorist about how other terrorists are being treated.......

[jameslofton29]

Great post, Coma. We need some people here to put these pacifists in their place. I'm sick of hearing propoganda about american soldiers beating and raping women and children. Its pathetic. The United States has saved the world so many times its not even funny. And this is how we're regarded by these creeps. I wish Roosevelt had just given western Europe to Hitler. Then these morons wouldn't have any rights whatsoever, and would be hung for posting messages on a message board. Then they would be begging the United States to come save them (again). I can't hardly believe how there is actually people who side with these terrorists. We do not mistreat them. They get to worship Allah as much as they want, and they get to eat food that is eaten in their culture. When a terrorist kidnaps a normal person, that person is starved, forced to renounce Jesus Christ, and then gets their head cut off. You pacifists have sided with evil, and you will be dealt with in due time.

[gilld1]

James, an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.  I'm not saying we pussyfoot around with these guys but everytime we kill or torture a Muslim then their brithers, uncles, cousins, etc, go and join the unsurgancy.  There needs to be a better way....

[C0ma]

James, an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.? I'm not saying we pussyfoot around with these guys but everytime we kill or torture a Muslim then their brithers, uncles, cousins, etc, go and join the unsurgancy.? There needs to be a better way....

Whose tourturing them??
Undies, barking dogs, naked chearleader pyramids, and buckets of water being thrown at you arent forms of tourture. Neither is stepping on, spitting on, or pissing on the Koran.

It's funny that Iraqi's consider these things forms of tourture, yet the reason they are in prison is they fought for a regime that employed the use of a "Human Paper Shredder".......... lets ask the "former" Iraqi Olympic Soccer (Futbol) team if having water thrown at you is real torture.

[SLCPUNK]

Secondly the cries of abuse from this prison are a joke. I do not care what your culture deems as 'disrespectful'. If the worst thing that happend to these people are that they had pictures taken naked together, got barked at by dogs, and Sadam had photos of him in his tighty whities  published than they get off lightly.

Murder, rape, brutality....Gaurds have been tried and found guilty, more are being taken through court as we speak.

We are a nation who claims to have the highest standards. We stand in front of the world and call ourselves humanitarians. We claim innocent until proven guilty. Yet we disregard all these laws as we see fit.

They are pandered to in everyway.... Look at Gitmo, they eat better than the people that guard them, they are given all of their religeous freedoms (but someone disrespected the Koran... boo fucking hoo). Our troops arent allowed to take Bibles into any of these countries but they get pointed to Mecca how ever many times they need to bark at the moon or whatever it is they do.

Wow....nice.

Laughable....... lets listen to the complaints of a terriorist about how other terrorists are being treated.......

How many people get out to report what is going on in there. Get it? That means that not everybody held is a terrorist. They are just rounded up, not given a lawyer, or charged with a crime, then physically, and sexually abused, all under the hand of the USA. Going directly against everything it claims to stand for.

You think because eveybody is a Muslim and has brown skin that is in there, is a terrorist?

[SLCPUNK]

A Sunday Herald investigation has discovered that coalition forces are holding more than 100 children in jails such as Abu Ghraib. Witnesses claim that the detainees ? some as young as 10 ? are also being subjected to rape and torture
By Neil Mackay

 
It was early last October that Kasim Mehaddi Hilas says he witnessed the rape of a boy prisoner aged about 15 in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. ?The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets,? he said in a statement given to investigators probing prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib. ?Then, when I heard the screaming I climbed the door ? and I saw [the soldier?s name is deleted] who was wearing a military uniform.? Hilas, who was himself threatened with being sexually assaulted in Abu Graib, then describes in horrific detail how the soldier raped ?the little kid?.

In another witness statement, passed to the Sunday Herald, former prisoner Thaar Salman Dawod said: ?[I saw] two boys naked and they were cuffed together face to face and [a US soldier] was beating them and a group of guards were watching and taking pictures and there was three female soldiers laughing at the prisoners. The prisoners, two of them, were young.?

It?s not certain exactly how many children are being held by coalition forces in Iraq, but a Sunday Herald investigation suggests there are up to 107. Their names are not known, nor is where they are being kept, how long they will be held or what has happened to them during their detention.

Proof of the widespread arrest and detention of children in Iraq by US and UK forces is contained in an internal Unicef report written in June. The report has ? surprisingly ? not been made public. A key section on child protection, headed ?Children in Conflict with the Law or with Coalition Forces?, reads: ?In July and August 2003, several meetings were conducted with CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) ? and Ministry of Justice to address issues related to juvenile justice and the situation of children detained by the coalition forces ? Unicef is working through a variety of channels to try and learn more about conditions for children who are imprisoned or detained, and to ensure that their rights are respected.?

Another section reads: ?Information on the number, age, gender and conditions of incarceration is limited. In Basra and Karbala children arrested for alleged activities targeting the occupying forces are reported to be routinely transferred to an internee facility in Um Qasr. The categorisation of these children as ?internees? is worrying since it implies indefinite holding without contact with family, expectation of trial or due process.?

The report also states: ?A detention centre for children was established in Baghdad, where according to ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) a significant number of children were detained. Unicef was informed that the coalition forces were planning to transfer all children in adult facilities to this ?specialised? child detention centre. In July 2003, Unicef requested a visit to the centre but access was denied. Poor security in the area of the detention centre has prevented visits by independent observers like the ICRC since last December.

?The perceived unjust detention of Iraqi males, including youths, for suspected activities against the occupying forces has become one of the leading causes for the mounting frustration among Iraqi youths and the potential for radicalisation of this population group.?

Journalists in Germany have also been investigating the detention and abuse of children in Iraq. One reporter, Thomas Reutter of the TV programme Report Mainz, interviewed a US army sergeant called Samuel Provance, who is banned from speaking about his six months stationed in Abu Ghraib but told Reutter of how one 16-year-old Iraqi boy was arrested.

?He was terribly afraid,? Provance said. ?He had the skinniest arms I?ve ever seen. He was trembling all over. His wrists were so thin we couldn?t even put handcuffs on him. Right when I saw him for the first time, and took him for interrogation, I felt sorry for him.

?The interrogation specialists poured water over him and put him into a car. Then they drove with him through the night, and at that time it was very, very cold. Then they smeared him with mud and showed him to his father, who was also in custody. They had tried out other interrogation methods on him, but he wasn?t to be brought to talk. The interrogation specialists told me, after the father had seen his son in this state, his heart broke. He wept and promised to tell them everything they wanted to know.?

An Iraqi TV reporter Suhaib Badr-Addin al-Baz saw the Abu Ghraib children?s wing when he was arrested by Americans while making a documentary. He spent 74 days in Abu Ghraib.

?I saw a camp for children there,? he said. ?Boys, under the age of puberty. There were certainly hundreds of children in this camp.? Al-Baz said he heard a 12-year-old girl crying. Her brother was also held in the jail. One night guards came into her cell. ?She was beaten,? said al-Baz. ?I heard her call out, ?They have undressed me. They have poured water over me.??

[SLCPUNK]

He says he heard her cries and whimpering daily ? this, in turn, caused other prisoners to cry as they listened to her. Al-Baz also told of an ill 15-year-old boy who was soaked repeatedly with hoses until he collapsed. Guards then brought in the child?s father with a hood over his head. The boy collapsed again.

Although most of the children are held in US custody, the Sunday Herald has established that some are held by the British Army. British soldiers tend to arrest children in towns like Basra, which are under UK control, then hand the youngsters over to the Americans who interrogate them and detain them.

Between January and May this year the Red Cross registered a total of 107 juveniles in detention during 19 visits to six coalition prisons. The aid organisation?s Rana Sidani said they had no complete information about the ages of those detained, or how they had been treated. The deteriorating security situation has prevented the Red Cross visiting all detention centres.

Amnesty International is outraged by the detention of children. It is aware of ?numerous human rights violations against Iraqi juveniles, including detentions, torture and ill-treatment, and killings?. Amnesty has interviewed former detainees who say they?ve seen boys as young as 10 in Abu Ghraib.

The organisation?s leaders have called on the coalition governments to give concrete information on how old the children are, how many are detained, why and where they are being held, and in what circumstances they are being detained. They also want to know if the children have been tortured.

Alistair Hodgett, media director of Amnesty International USA, said the coalition forces needed to be ?transparent? about their policy of child detentions, adding: ?Secrecy is one thing that rings alarm bells.? Amnesty was given brief access to one jail in Mosul, he said, but has been repeatedly turned away from all others. He pointed out that even countries ?which don?t have good records?, such as Libya, gave Amnesty access to prisons. ?Denying access just fuels the rumour mill,? he said.

Hodgett added that British and US troops should not be detaining any Iraqis ? let alone children ? following the recent handover of power. ?They should all be held by Iraqi authorities,? he said. ?When the coalition handed over Saddam they should have handed over the other 3000 detainees.?

The British Ministry of Defence confirmed UK forces had handed over prisoners to US troops, but a spokes man said he did not know the ages of any detainees given to the Americans.

The MoD also admitted it was currently holding one prisoner aged under 18 at Shaibah prison near Um Qasr. Since the invasion Britain has detained, and later released, 65 under-18s. The MoD claimed the ICRC had access to British jails and detainee lists.

High-placed officials in the Pentagon and Centcom told the Sunday Herald that children as young as 14 were being held by US forces. ?We do have juveniles detained,? a source said. ?They have been detained as they are deemed to be a threat or because they have acted against the coalition or Iraqis.?

Officially, the Pentagon says it is holding ?around 60 juvenile detainees primarily aged 16 and 17?, although when it was pointed out that the Red Cross estimate is substantially higher, a source admitted ?numbers may have gone up, we might have detained more kids?.

Officials would not comment about children under the age of 16 being held prisoner. Sources said: ??It?s a real challenge ascertaining their ages. Unlike the UK or the US, they don?t have IDs or birth certificates.? The Sunday Herald has been told, however, that at least five children aged under 16 are being kept at Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca.

A highly placed source in the Pentagon said: ?We have done investigations into accusations of juveniles being abused and raped and can?t find anything that resembles that.?

The Pentagon?s official policy is to segregate juvenile prisoners from the rest of the prison population, and allow young inmates to join family members also being detained. ?Our main concern is that they are not abused or harassed by older detainees. We know they need special treatment,? an official said.

Pentagon sources said they were unaware how long child prisoners were kept in jail but said their cases were reviewed every 90 days. The last review was early last month. The sources confirmed the children had been questioned and interrogated when initially detained, but could not say whether this was ?an adult-style interrogation?.

The Norwegian government, which is part of the ?coalition of the willing?, has already said it will tell the US that the alleged torture of children is intolerable. Odd Jostein S?ter, parliamentary secretary at the Norwegian prime minister?s office, said: ?Such assaults are unacceptable. It is against international laws and it is also unacceptable from a moral point of view. This is why we react strongly ? We are addressing this in a very severe and direct way and present concrete demands. This is damaging the struggle for democracy and human rights in Iraq.?

In Denmark, which is also in the coalition, Save the Children called on its government to tell the occupying forces to order the immediate release of child detainees. Neals Hurdal, head of the Danish Save the Children, said the y had heard rumours of children in Basra being maltreated in custody since May.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said it was ?extremely disturbed? that the coalition was holding children for long periods in jails notorious for torture. HRW also criticised the policy of categorising children as ?security detainees?, saying this did not give carte blanche for them to be held indefinitely. HRW said if there was evidence the children had committed crimes then they should be tried in Iraqi courts, otherwise they should be returned to their families.

Unicef is ?profoundly disturbed? by reports of children being abused in coalition jails. Alexandra Yuster, Unicef?s senior adviser on child detention, said that under international law children should be detained only as a last resort and only then for the shortest possible time.

They should have access to lawyers and their families, be kept safe, healthy, educated, well-fed and not be subjected to any form of mental or physical punishment, she added. Unicef is now ?desperately? trying to get more information on the fate of the children currently detained in coalition jails.

[SLCPUNK]

Two Yemeni men claim they were held in secret, underground US jails for more than 18 months without being charged, Amnesty International has said.

The human rights group has called on the US to reveal details of the alleged secret detention of suspects abroad.

Amnesty fears the case is part of a "much broader picture" in which the US holds prisoners at secret locations.

The US has not responded to the claims, but the head of the CIA recently said the agency does not use torture.

Porter Goss said in testimony to the US Senate torture was neither professional nor productive.

Beaten on feet

In the new report, Amnesty has urged the US to reveal where its alleged secret detention facilities are, stop using them and name the detainees held there.

The two Yemeni men, Muhammad Faraj Ahmed Bashmilah and Salah Nasser Salim Ali, were arrested separately but reported almost identical experiences to Amnesty.

Mr Muhammad says he was arrested in 2003 in Jordan, while Mr Salah says he was detained in Indonesia the same year and later flown to Jordan.

Both say they were tortured for four days by Jordanian intelligence services.

Alleged methods include being beaten on the feet while bound and suspended upside-down. One of the men claims he was threatened with sexual abuse and electric shocks.

Each says he was then flown to an unnamed underground jail, where he was held in solitary confinement for six to eight months with no access to lawyers.

Both claim they were interrogated every day by US guards about their activities in Indonesia and Afghanistan.

They say a period in a second underground prison followed, where loud Western music was piped into the cell 24 hours a day and questioning by US officials continued.

'Netherworld'

The men were transferred in May this year to Yemen, where they are still being held without charge.

Amnesty says the Yemeni authorities say they are only holding the men because the US has "made it a condition of their release from secret detention".

Muhammad Faraj Ahmed Bashmilah
Bashmilah says he was arrested in Jordan while visiting his sick mother

Amnesty's Sharon Critoph, who interviewed the men in Yemen, said: "To be 'disappeared' from the face of the earth without knowing why or for how long is a crime under international law and an experience no-one should have to go through.

"We fear that what we have heard from these two men is just one small part of the much broader picture of US secret detentions around the world."

Michael Ratner, of the US campaign group Center for Constitutional Rights, said the report was the first to touch on the "netherworld of secret detention facilities that the CIA is running".

Amnesty has previously reported on what it calls the long-term detention without trial or charge of prisoners in Yemen at the request of US authorities.

The US has also faced questions over its use of "rendition", a process by which terror suspects are sent for interrogation by security officials in other countries, some of which are accused of using torture.

[C0ma]

No one said all brown people are terrorists. What I'm saying is that 90% of what is being complained about isn't torture.
Sure there is the random criminal act, but that happens in every prison in the US. And there isn't 1 Iraqi  that deserves more respect or dignity than the average citizen of D block.

[SLCPUNK]

No one said all brown people are terrorists. What I'm saying is that 90% of what is being complained about isn't torture.
Sure there is the random criminal act, but that happens in every prison in the US. And there isn't 1 Iraqi  that deserves more respect or dignity than the average citizen of D block.

I'm not talking about what you claim to be the "90 percent" obviously. It is more than random, as the gaurds are being sentenced one by one.

You are missing the point. I didn't claim they deserve more respect. I said they deserve to be treated as innocent until proven guilty. The American standard is not only being ignored, it is being squashed for all to see.

[C0ma]

No one said all brown people are terrorists. What I'm saying is that 90% of what is being complained about isn't torture.
Sure there is the random criminal act, but that happens in every prison in the US. And there isn't 1 Iraqi? that deserves more respect or dignity than the average citizen of D block.

I'm not talking about what you claim to be the "90 percent" obviously. It is more than random, as the gaurds are being sentenced one by one.

You are missing the point. I didn't claim they deserve more respect. I said they deserve to be treated as innocent until proven guilty. The American standard is not only being ignored, it is being squashed for all to see.

Innocent until proven guilty as stated in the Constitution applies to citizens of the United States. These are ununifored fighters, they don't get innocent until proven guilty.

sure 90% is "off", but I'd like to know just how many is "one by one"?

[SLCPUNK]

No one said all brown people are terrorists. What I'm saying is that 90% of what is being complained about isn't torture.
Sure there is the random criminal act, but that happens in every prison in the US. And there isn't 1 Iraqi  that deserves more respect or dignity than the average citizen of D block.

I'm not talking about what you claim to be the "90 percent" obviously. It is more than random, as the gaurds are being sentenced one by one.

You are missing the point. I didn't claim they deserve more respect. I said they deserve to be treated as innocent until proven guilty. The American standard is not only being ignored, it is being squashed for all to see.

Innocent until proven guilty as stated in the Constitution applies to citizens of the United States. These are ununifored fighters, they don't get innocent until proven guilty.

sure 90% is "off", but I'd like to know just how many is "one by one"?

The geneva convention is being ignored, danced around and lip service is given instead.

One by one:

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/1-08232004-353302.html

http://www.wggb.com/archive/trial/graner_defense.htm

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,119400,00.html

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/1-08252004-354953.html

[SLCPUNK]