Ever wanted to know what culinary delicacies are served to inmates at Guantanamo Bay? Worry no more, The Gitmo Cookbook will answer all your questions. American conservative activists reckon this is a way to convince the world that "Gitmo" is a holiday camp under a different name. US Vice President can't understand the outcry: "There isn't any other nation in the world that would treat people who were determined to kill Americans the way we're treating these people". Prisoners are "living in the tropics", he says.
How many more reports need to be released to prove the American facility is a travesty of human rights?
An Amnesty spokesperson perfectly expressed the sentiment: "It is not a matter of climate or what food prisoners get, but a question of justice."
Perhaps we need to remember the words of senior Pentagon official, Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Christino, who claimed in 2004 that intelligence gathered from Guantanamo Bay inmates had failed to stop even one terrorist act and the system of interrogation there was almost guaranteed to produce false confessions.
How many more reports need to be released to prove the American facility is a travesty of human rights?
An Amnesty spokesperson perfectly expressed the sentiment: "It is not a matter of climate or what food prisoners get, but a question of justice."
Perhaps we need to remember the words of senior Pentagon official, Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Christino, who claimed in 2004 that intelligence gathered from Guantanamo Bay inmates had failed to stop even one terrorist act and the system of interrogation there was almost guaranteed to produce false confessions.
10 Comments:
No justice, no peace, apparently:
At least 10 detainees released from the Guantanamo Bay prison after U.S. officials concluded they posed little threat have been recaptured or killed fighting U.S. or coalition forces in Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to Pentagon officials.
One of the repatriated prisoners is still at large after taking leadership of a militant faction in Pakistan and aligning himself with al Qaeda, Pakistani officials said. In telephone calls to Pakistani reporters, he has bragged that he tricked his U.S. interrogators into believing he was someone else.
Another returned captive is an Afghan teenager who had spent two years at a special compound for young detainees at the military prison in Cuba, where he learned English, played sports and watched videos, informed sources said. U.S. officials believed they had persuaded him to abandon his life with the Taliban, but recently the young man, now 18, was recaptured with other Taliban fighters near Kandahar, Afghanistan, according to the sources, who asked for anonymity because they were discussing sensitive military information.
The cases demonstrate the difficulty Washington faces in deciding when alleged al Qaeda and Taliban detainees should be freed, amid pressure from foreign governments and human rights groups that have denounced U.S. officials for detaining the Guantanamo Bay captives for years without due-process rights, military officials said.
Best keep the 'suspects' locked up forever then, until the current 'war' is over....
Just read the report, and a couple of things jump out at me:
-The detainees are probably eating better than 99% of the population of Cuba, yet Amnesty makes so much less noise about that island gulag;
-The continuing overweening sensitivity to the religious beliefs of extremists who would impose their 'faith' on us by the sword. Halal? They should eat what they're given. No one ever starved to death with a ham sandwich in front of them. Think any of us'd get the same treatment in a Saudi jail? Heh...heh...heh.
I wonder if Japan will bring out a Changi cookbook.
Actually the standard of living is pretty good in Cuba, but maybe we should throw you in Gitmo to compare eh Anon? Or is it Mr Hyphenated?
The report Mr H sites may well be true. But consider this. The treatment of detainees may have radicalised hitherto innocent individuals (although it should be noted that holding extreme views should not in and of itself be a crime. It technically is thanks to legislation passed in many nations following 11 September 2001, including Australia). It seems quite inevitable that some detainees who were innocent before they were detained will now be more supportive of terrorist organisations.
Again, I think the Guantanamo situation reminds us how undemocratic our world is. To think that a government's response to its criminality being exposed is to manage it as a public relations exercise.
I've been to Cuba...standards of living are a joke, and your blithe statement is a real insult to the people there who fight for survival under the Castro regime.
Nice Mao t-shirt there in your bloggy profile, by the way. How many people does a guy have to kill before he becomes a kitsch left icon? Hitler not knock off enough for you?
Shab, stop wasting your and my time and piss off.
Gee, Doylie, hit a nerve did I?
Seriously, though, why does the hard left make icons of so many dictators, tyrants, and mass killers?
Cuba isn't a paradise, but relative to other Latin and Central American nations, standards of living are remarkably good. For example, the situation is nowhere near as bad as in lead-US aide recipient Nicaragua. No serious analysis of the human rights situation in Cuba should ignore the United States’ interference in that nation. The United States' blanket blockade and decades long terrorist war against Cuba doesn't help. It has severe consequences for Cuba. That statement isn’t an attempt to polish away the repression that does occur in Cuba. That is a serious thing. But, very sadly, Cuba ‘repressiveness’ isn’t inordinate. I would’ve thought one very simple way to try and help improve the situation in Cuba is to demand that the US lift its inhumane blockade.
In case you didn't notice, my icon is somewhat satirical. It’s a shame you didn’t make any insinuations in relation to the balaclava. Now you’ve really hurt my feelings. Mao and his policies led directly or indirectly to the death of millions. Much the same way as the present international economic system condemns equally large sums of people to die of preventable diseases or poverty. Somehow I doubt you'd be complaining if I was wearing a Coca Cola t-shirt.
That you condemn Cuba yet remain supportive of the concentration camp right on its doorstep at Guantanamo Bay is most telling. Moral relativism isn't so much a condition as an all too common symptom of indoctrination. By that I do not mean to imply only 'rightwingers' (a dreadful term really) suffer from it. But seriously brother, be honest with yourself. Your sole purpose on this blog is to try and shoot down a 'self hating' left commentator.
PS: it’s strange that whenever people criticize ‘Communist’ China under Mao or Cuba under Fidel they never mention one simple fact. The situation wasn’t any better before these strong men entered the scene. China was a completely dysfunctional nation state run by a feudal military leader (Chiang Kai Shek – the man who founded Taiwan) through a complex mafia network whose remnants still exist in Burma. Of Course, Chiang was a key US ally until the very end. Cuba was a haven for the American mafia and US agribusiness before Castro. If these people care so much about Cuba and China, why the lack of historical context in their criticisms? (NB: in case you didn’t notice Mr H, that was a rhetorical question.)
Sorry I meant Colombia not Nicaragua in the post above.
Post a Comment
<< Home