Is Gitmo "the gulag of our time"???

[krsna]

US general rejects Amnesty report

 

Gen Myers says the camp is a "model facility"

Top US general Richard Myers has described an Amnesty International report on Guantanamo Bay as "absolutely irresponsible".

The human rights group last week described the US detention camp in Cuba as "the gulag of our time".

 

But Gen Myers said the US military treated detainees there humanely.

 

The Guantanamo Bay camp has been the focus of protests in the Muslim world, after allegations that guards had been disrespectful towards the Koran.

 

'Regulations followed'

 

Speaking on the US television network Fox News, Gen Myers said the camp was "essentially a model facility".

 

He said 1,300 Korans had been handed out to detainees in 13 different languages and that prison staff had served up "the proper Muslim-approved food".

 

"I think I'd ask them to go look up the definition of gulag as commonly understood," he said of Amnesty's report.

 

The president said we'll treat people humanely and in accordance with the Geneva Convention. We're doing that

 

Gen Myers

Guantanamo Bay has received much attention recently as the result of a Newsweek report this month which said US guards had flushed a Koran down a toilet.

 

Newsweek has retracted its story, which sparked violent anti-US protests in Afghanistan, as well as demonstrations in Pakistan and Indonesia.

 

However, the US military has admitted to five incidents in which the Koran was mishandled by staff at the camp.

 

Gen Myers said the prisoners at Guantanamo were dangerous and the US was doing its best.

 

"How do you handle people who... who aren't part of a nation-state effort, that are picked up on the battlefield... that if you release them, or if you let them go back to their home countries, that would turn right around and try to slit our throats, our children's throats?" he said.

 

"The president said we'll treat people humanely and in accordance with the Geneva Convention. We're doing that."

 

He said the International Committee of the Red Cross had had access to Guantanamo "from the day we opened the gates".

 

"I mean essentially, they've (ICRC) been there the whole time. And we get good marks for the way we take care of people," he added.

 

 

[Kulapavana]

friggin idiots have no concept of how bad the gulags were... it's like calling a mosquito a "messershmitt" /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Guest guest]

To compare the systemic enslavement of millions who disappeared into the Gulags with the capture of a few hundreds of UNLAWFUL COMBATANTS in a war is ridiculous. These jihadists who were caught could have been lawfully executed (per the Geneva Convention) as they were not in uniform. Instead, they are given three meals a day and allowed to pray to their god five times a day.

[Kulapavana]

"These jihadists who were caught could have been lawfully executed (per the Geneva Convention) as they were not in uniform."

 

I'm not sure that is true (actually, I'm almost sure it is not). fighting in the uniform of the opposing force can be grounds for execution in some cases, not fighting without a uniform). Geneva convention actually covers some of the partisant type combat situations (arguably applicable in this case). partisans simply do not get the POW status under GC.

[Kulapavana]

btw. there has not been ANY attempt by the US to make accountable the criminals who participated in the real Gulag atrocities and who currently reside in US (yes, there are cases like that!)

[Guest guest]

are debateable along with applicable Geneva Convention code. However, the USA saved these prisoners. The Northern Alliance would have executed them.

[Guest guest]

The mainstream media and international human rights organizations have relentlessly portrayed the Guantanamo Bay detention facility as a depraved torture chamber operated by sadistic American military officials defiling Islam at every turn. It's the "gulag of our time," wails Amnesty International. It's the "anti-Statue of Liberty," bemoans New York Times columnist Tom Friedman.

 

 

Have there been abuses? Yes. But here is the rest of the story the story that the Islamists and their sympathizers don't want you to hear.

 

 

According to recently released FBI documents, which are inaccurately heralded by civil liberties activists and military-bashers as irrefutable evidence of widespread "atrocities" at Gitmo:

 

 

 

A significant number of detainees' complaints were either exaggerated or fabricated (no surprise given al Qaeda's explicit instructions to trainees to lie). One detainee who claimed to have been "beaten, spit upon and treated worse than a dog" could not provide a single detail pertaining to mistreatment by U.S. military personnel. Another detainee claimed that guards were physically abusive, but admitted he hadn't seen it.

 

 

Another detainee disputed one of the now-globally infamous claims that American guards had mistreated the Koran. The detainee said that riots resulted from claims that a guard dropped the Koran. In actuality, the detainee said, a detainee dropped the Koran then blamed a guard. Other detainees who complained about abuse of the Koran admitted they had never personally witnessed any such abuse, but one said he had heard that non-Muslim soldiers touched the Koran when searching it for contraband.

 

 

In one case, Gitmo interrogators apologized to a detainee for interviewing him prior to the end of Ramadan.

 

 

Several detainees indicated they had not experienced any mistreatment. Others complained about lack of privacy, lack of bed sheets, being unwillingly photographed, the guards' use of profanity, and bad food. If this is unacceptable, "gulag"-style "torture," then every inmate in America is a victim of human rights violations. (Oh, never mind, there are civil liberties chicken littles who actually believe that.)

 

 

Erik Saar, who served as an army sergeant at Gitmo for six months and co-authored a negative, tell-all book about his experience titled "Inside the Wire," inadvertently provides us more firsthand details showing just how restrained, and sensitive to Islam to a fault, I believe the officials at the detention facility have been.

 

 

 

Each detainee's cell has a sink installed low to the ground, "to make it easier for the detainees to wash their feet" before Muslim prayer, Saar reports. Detainees get "two hot halal, or religiously correct, meals" a day in addition to an MRE (meal ready to eat). Loudspeakers broadcast the Muslims' call to prayer five times a day.

 

 

Every detainee gets a prayer mat, cap, and Koran. Every cell has a stenciled arrow pointing toward Mecca. Moreover, Gitmo's library yes, library is stocked with Jihadi books. "I was surprised that we'd be making that concession to the religious zealotry of the terrorists," Saar admits. "t seemed to me that the camp command was helping to facilitate the terrorists' religious devotion." Saar notes that one FBI special agent involved in interrogations even grew a beard like the detainees "as a sort of show of respect for their faith."

 

 

Unreality-based liberals would have us believe that America is systematically torturing innocent Muslims out of spite at Guantanamo Bay. Meanwhile, our own MPs have endured little-publicized abuse at the hands of manipulative, hate-mongering enemy combatants. Detainees have spit on and hurled water, urine, and feces on the MPs. Causing disturbances is a source of entertainment for detainees who, as Gen. Richard Myers points out, "would turn right around and try to slit our throats, slit our children's throats" if released.

 

 

The same unreality-based liberals whine about the Bush administration's failure to gather intelligence and prevent terrorism. Yet, these hysterical critics have no viable alternative to detention and interrogation and there is no doubt they would be the first to lambaste the White House and Pentagon if a released detainee went on to commit an act of mass terrorism on American soil.

 

 

Guantanamo Bay will not be the death of this country. The unseriousness and hypocrisy of the terrorist-abetting Left is a far greater threat.

 

 

[by Michelle Malkin]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

They advise the world of the greatness of democracy, freedom and all that, but do the exact opposite back home. If this sort of hypocritical behavior continues, Americans are going to lose the little sympathy they had after 9/11. In fact, some of them even believe that Americans got what they deserved on 9/11, considering the atrocities they've committed against the Muslims the world over.

[Guest guest]

But the next time tsunamis, earthquakes and other demigods create havoc, you can bet they will coming begging!

[Guest guest]

Please stop talking like a terrorist. You're giving a negative image to Americans. IF americans commit terrorism and dont care what the world thinks, muslims could also say the same thing-that they will kill americans and dont care what america thinks. Give up your ego. USA is being punished by God for the atrocities it committed against humanity. Take it as krishna's mercy instead of complaining.

 

Reg. America's so-called power and wealth, even Rome fell. And you think a lousy country like USA is gonna last forever? The external debts are around 8 trillion dollars, it has enemies in Muslims, communists, europe and perhaps the whole world. USA is fighitng a losing battle. It is only a matter of time before it crashes to the ground and becomes a poor nation. it's happened throughout history (to rich nations) and it will happen again.

[Guest guest]

Propaganda:

 

After the Dan Rather debacle you would think that the media would be extremely careful about what they reported, vetting every detail down to the inth degree, making absolutely sure that they were relating bonafied facts before they released anything.

 

Newsweek magazine’s latest attempt to discredit our Armed Forces has blown up in their faces, which in my opinion is only justice, but it has unfortunately blown up in the collective face of the world.

 

In a piece authored by Michael Isikoff and John Berry, Newsweek reported that one of our troops had flushed a Koran down a toilet, setting off a storm of protests in the Muslim world, resulting in fifteen people losing their lives.

 

The ironic thing is that the Muslim world could flush every Holy Bible in the Middle East down the toilet and drown every Christian in a cesspool and Newsweek would probably report it as being a reaction to something America had done to them.

 

In fact in a rash of recent editorals, many of the major newspapers tried to turn the story around to being just that, the fault of the Bush Administration.

 

Well guys, this time it ain’t gonna work. You’ve gone too far and taken another big chunk out of your dwindling credibility. Every time you do something like this, a few more of your true believers have to start questioning your integrity, and finding it faulty.

 

Now I never would have known about the piece in Newsweek if it had not been picked up and reported by some sources I respect and listen to.

 

I would never have gotten it from the magazine, because I rarely come in contact with it except maybe in a dentist’s office. And by the way I never watch Bill Moyers and I think the New York Times is boring.

 

If Mr. Isikoff wanted to really report on what’s going on at Guantanamo Bay he should go there and talk to the people who guard these murderers and to the people who give them medical treatment.

 

Let them tell you about Muslims throwing feces and urine at our guards, about the lewd and insulting things they say to the females who guard them, about how when they go to the hospital, every pen, needle, pencil or anything else with a sharp point has to be kept away from them to protect the medical staff.

 

In fact Isikoff and company make me sick. They act as if these detainees at Gitmo are people who have been arrested for parking violations, when in fact they are people who will go to any lengths to destroy the very country that gives Isikeff and his ilk the opportunity to write that poison pen, anti-American ..

 

Try it sometime in a country where the Muslims you are so concerned about rule and see how much tolerance you get from them.

 

To rephrase a sentence I’ve heard from some protesters over the last few years.

 

“Isikoff lied, people died”!!!

 

Pray for our troops.

 

What do you think?

 

God Bless America

 

Charlie Daniels

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Time for a dose of humble pie, the rest of the world has lost its taste for American Ego Pie. Just try admitting you're like everyone else 'warts an all.'

See with the equal vision that Krsna asks us to.

Remember this is a vaisnava forum.

[Guest guest]

But for you I will make exception.

 

Who cares what you think? Or the World? America is America. /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[theist]

From one guest to another:

 

 

Please stop talking like a terrorist. You're giving a negative image to Americans. IF americans commit terrorism and dont care what the world thinks, muslims could also say the same thing-that they will kill americans and dont care what america thinks.

 

 

Maybe you haven't noticed but the Islamofacists have already declared war on the USA.

 

A major problem in the US leadership is this 'people pleasing' mentality where the US tries to appease everybody instead of just acting. Wanting to be liked and appreciated or they won't act.

 

The fact is that even with all its flaws if the US of A withdraw all it's influence from the world stage 25% the population would immediately start devouring another 25%.

 

 

Give up your ego. USA is being punished by God for the atrocities it committed against humanity. Take it as krishna's mercy instead of complaining.

 

 

Perhaps you should give up your ego as well and accept that Krishna is also using the US to punish other countries for their atrocitites.

 

[Guest guest]

are not qualified to be vaishnavas. You guys are fit to be flag-waving patriot freaks. Hardly vaishnava material. lol.

[theist]

have I claimed to be a vaisnava. Do you?

[Guest guest]

Theist. Responding to them only gives them the attention they seek.

[krsna]

 

 

 

June 6, 2005

 

 

 

Amnesty International, which set off a storm by calling the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay "the gulag of our times," backed away from the label Sunday.

 

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had ripped as "reprehensible" the description, made last month when the human rights group's secretary general, Irene Khan, issued its annual report.

 

Amnesty International was comparing American jails for prisoners in the war on terror with the "gulag" operated by the former Soviet Union. The Soviets maintained an extensive system of prison camps, many in remote Siberia.

 

On "Fox News Sunday," host Chris Wallace asked William Schulz, director of Amnesty International USA, if he stood by the description of the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison.

 

Schulz responded by saying, "Clearly, this is not an exact or a literal analogy, and the secretary general has acknowledged that."

 

"In size and in duration, there are not similarities between U.S. detention facilities and the gulag," Schulz said. "People are not being starved in those facilities. They're not being subjected to forced labor."

 

Schulz maintained that some similarities did exist, saying the United States keeps a network of prisons worldwide, "many of them secret prisons into which people are being literally disappeared." In some cases, he said, prisoners are being tortured and killed.

 

The remarks came as a leading Senate Democrat said the United States needs to move toward shutting down the Guantanamo Bay prison.

 

''This has become the greatest propaganda tool that exists for recruiting of terrorists around the world. And it is unnecessary to be in that position,'' said Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.).

 

Biden: Shut it down

 

 

 

A Pentagon report released Friday detailed incidents in which U.S. guards at Guantanamo desecrated the Quran. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, GOP Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, plans hearings this month on the treatment of foreign terrorism suspects at the prison.

 

Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, proposed that an independent commission look at Guantanamo and make recommendations.

 

''But the end result is, I think we should end up shutting it down, moving those prisoners,'' he said.

 

''Those that we have reason to keep, keep. And those we don't, let go.''

 

He added, ''I think more Americans are in jeopardy as a consequence of the perception that exists worldwide with its existence than if there were no Gitmo.''

 

About 540 detainees are at Guantanamo Bay. Some have been there more than three years without being charged with a crime. Most were captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002 and were sent to Guantanamo in hope of extracting intelligence about al-Qaida.

 

[Guest guest]

Guantanamo guards tell of prisoner attack

 

By Guy Taylor

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

June 6, 2005

 

U.S. NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- Army "block guards" were making their daily walk through the stifling heat of the cellblocks inside the barbed wired camp here in late May.

 

But after a guard discovered a dangerously sharp object hidden in the empty cell of a detainee, a violent confrontation ensued, illustrating military officials' contention that criticisms from human rights groups only tell part of the story.

 

According to two Army prison guards, one 22 years old and the other 28, the prisoner was temporarily in another part of the prison for a bath when the jagged, rectangular piece of metal, three to four inches long was found and removed.

 

But the two guards, who spoke in a rare interview with The Washington Times on the condition of anonymity, said an altercation then followed in which the detainee tried to gouge out one of the guards' eyes.

 

After first allowing the detainee to return from his shower to the cell, a five-man team of guards then began a carefully choreographed "cell extraction" to move him to another cell, where he would not be able to do further damage.

 

"He was extremely aggressive from the moment we went in," said the 28-year-old guard, whose job it was to "push the detainee back" as another guard quickly handcuffed the prisoner.

 

Before the cuffs could go on though, things went wrong and the detainee forced his hands up under the first guard's plexiglass face mask and began digging for the eyeball.

 

"He tried to insert one finger into my eye socket, then he transitioned into a fishhook maneuver," the guard said. "He got his finger into my mouth and was trying to rip my cheek off." After another moment, the detainee's hands were forced down and into the cuffs.

 

The entire incident was videotaped, as are all cell-extraction procedures under the tight protocol with which military officials have been running the Guantanamo prison amid scrutiny and harsh criticism from human rights advocates.

 

Senior officials here, several of whom take ongoing criticism of their performance at the prison personally, eagerly described the incident as an example of "the other side of the story" about Guantanamo, which they say deserves a closer look.

 

"It's an extreme slap in the face to me frankly that the American public is being led to believe that we're abusing, or mistreating detainees," said Col. Michael Bumgarner, the senior officer working inside the prison camp, which holds 585 enemy combatants held on suspicion of working for the Taliban and al Qaeda.

 

Human rights groups aggressively criticize the camp, where most of the detainees have been held more than three years without ever being told the "classified" charges against them. Most recently, Amnesty International described Guantanamo as "the gulag of our time."

 

A classified report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, a neutral organization with access to military prisons worldwide, has described abusive interrogation techniques used on the detainees. In March, the Massachusetts-based group Physicians for Human Rights, cited "systematic psychological torture" of detainees.

 

Last week, the Pentagon also acknowledged several incidents of Koran mishandling, although most were inadvertent and all were punished.

 

The military is spending about $2.8 million to construct a psychiatric ward for mentally ill detainees.

 

Buildings being constructed according to state-of-the-art standards for federal prisons will replace the existing outdoor camp. One with 100 beds opened last year, and construction on another with 220 beds is expected to start soon.

 

The psychiatric facility is needed because about 4 percent of the detainees are on psychotropic medications for illnesses ranging from schizophrenia to manic depression, said Navy Capt. Steve Edmonson, the head doctor for detainees.

 

"We have an ethical responsibility to provide treatment they need regardless of what they've done or what they're accused of," he said, denying the new psychiatric ward was a response to criticism by human rights groups.

 

Military officials said about the late-May incident that, aside from deep scratches and bruises, neither the detainee nor any of the prison guards were seriously injured. The sharp object turned out to be a chunk of steel broken from the wire-mesh wall dividing cells in the camp.

 

Officials refused to give more details about the detainee, such as where he is from or why he is being held. Col. Bumgarner claimed that the detainee was "a guy who's trained in terrorism combat."

 

Command Sgt. Maj. Anthony Mendez, the senior enlisted man inside the camp, said the majority of the time guards and detainees get along, and that it is "a small amount" of detainees who are consistently aggressive.

 

One of the two guards who spoke anonymously with The Times said it was "a daily event" for he and others to have insults and threats hurled at them by a small group of angry detainees.

 

Col. Bumgarner said some detainees taunt guards by referring to the leader of the al Qaeda terrorist attacks in Iraq.

 

" 'Zarqawi kill you' -- that's their favorite line," he said.

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

you're not a vaishnva, leave the forum. This forum is for krishna devotees, not bigots.

[theist]

I would use this approach.Provide a simple but clean facility fo them to live in. Feed them well. Allow them their religious expression and study and leave them alone with the exception of trained interegators.

 

But if they got out of line and starting causing trouble I would have them severly beaten every time, without fail and without hesitation.

 

For the incorigibles who never learn the lesson I would put a cage and a cot right in the middle of a yard containing five hundred pigs and encircle the prisoners cage with feeding troughs.

[theist]

 

If you're not a vaishnva, leave the forum. This forum is for krishna devotees, not bigots.

 

 

But then without association how could I ever hope to change?

[Guest guest]

Once a fanatic, always a fanatic.

[Guest guest]

arriving via Con Air Flight 666:

 

<h4>Pakistan hands top Al-Qaeda suspect to US</h4>

 

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Key US ally Pakistan has handed over alleged top Al-Qaeda operative Abu Faraj al-Libbi to Washington after he gave information on terror cells in other countries, officials and security sources said.

 

 

Foreign Ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani confirmed a reported statement by Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf in a United Arab Emirates newspaper on Monday that the terror network's alleged number three had been deported.

 

 

 

<center></center>

 

<center>Al-Qaeda terrorist network's alleged top operative Abu Faraj al-Libbi. Key US ally

Pakistan has handed over al-Libbi to Washington</center>

 

"The president made a statement to this effect. The president's statement was self-explanatory," Jilani told a weekly news conference in Islamabad. He gave no further details.

 

Al-Libbi, who was arrested last month, is the alleged mastermind of two attempts on Musharraf's life in December 2003, and a bid to assassinate Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz before he assumed office last year.

 

"Yes, we turned al-Libbi over to the United States recently. We don't want people like him in our country," military ruler Musharraf was quoted as saying in the Abu Dhabi daily Al-Ittihad.

 

Security officials told AFP on condition of anonymity that al-Libbi was flown out of Pakistan and given to US custody last Wednesday, the day after an interview with Musharraf was broadcast in which he said Pakistan would do so.

 

They said al-Libbi was Al-Qaeda's external operations chief, based in Pakistan, and had provided details on other suspects in the Middle East which led to a number of arrests.

 

"He provided several leads to the interrogators here that led to the disclosure of some sleeper cells in some Arab countries," one of the security officials said.

 

"He was of more interest because of the external links so they handed him over."

 

Around two dozen people had also been arrested in Pakistan after al-Libbi's capture in the northwestern city of Mardan on May 2, the officials added.

 

Musharraf said in a CNN interview on Tuesday that Pakistan was "obviously" going to deport al-Libbi and had "extracted all the information and intelligence from him".

 

He contradicted earlier statements by Pakistani officials that al-Libbi would be tried in Pakistan.

 

Asked why Pakistan was deporting al-Libbi to the United States even though the Al-Qaeda operative was involved on two assassination attempts on him, Musharraf said there were "bigger issues" involved.

 

In December 2003 militants blew up a road bridge moments after Musharraf passed and two weeks later suicide car bombers ploughed into his motorcade, killing 15 people.

 

However, security officials added that there was still a possibility al-Libbi could be returned to Pakistani custody at a later date.

 

Pakistan says it has so far rounded up about 700 Al-Qaeda suspects, including alleged top operatives, both in army searches of lawless tribal border areas and other operations in major cities.

 

Most of the detained terror suspects have been handed over to US custody, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Libbi's alleged predecessor as Al-Qaeda number three and the self-proclaimed architect of the September 11 attacks.

 

 

[theist]

I hope they squeeze every last drop of info out of him. Send in Lyndie England. /images/graemlins/wink.gif