PHOTO: Freed Iraqi prisoners kiss the ground after being released by the authorities at a bus station in Baghdad, Aug. 31, 2006. The cases of U.S.-detained Iraqis are reviewed by a committee of U.S. military and Iraqi government officials. The panel recommends criminal charges against some, release for others. As of Sept. 9, the Central Criminal Court of Iraq had put 1,445 on trial, convicting 1,252. Almost 18,700 have been released since June 2004, the U.S. command says, not including many more who were held and then freed by local military units and never shipped to major prisons. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
US War Prisons Legal Vacuum for 14,000
Just over a week ago, Bush admitted there are secret prisons run by the CIA around the world. He has not admitted to torture being a common event in those prisons, but it is. Plus, the statements of people under torture are admitted as evidence in “military tribunals”. I have heard that 83,000 people have been imprisoned in America’s “war on terror” with 40 of them actually found guilty in a real trial (that was run by the US officials, not Iraqi) and over 100 dead – some from natural causes, some from murder at US hands – almost half of them “unknown”. In all the cases of torture or murder, no US official has been SEVERELY punished. They have been punished, in a few odd cases, but it was nothing of note. The stiffest punishment was five months in prison.
This is so stunningly shameful.
It is so shameful that I find it hard to believe that my country and my government are the ones doing it. But they are. And we have got to stop them. We have got to demand justice, fair trials, habeas corpus, rule of law, for anyone detained by US officials or US military. We have got to demand they be treated humanely the entire time they are in custody. We have got to re-establish the Geneva Conventions. There is a photographer from Reuters who had been imprisoned in Iraq, without charges, for five months now with no charges. Story HERE.
From the article cited above about the War Prisons Legal Vacuum:
As she watched one recent day for a bus from distant Camp Bucca, one mother wept and told her story. "The Americans arrested my son, my brother and his friend," said Zahraa Alyat, 42. "The Americans arrested them October 16, 2005. They left together and I don't know anything about them."
This is evil. This is the ‘new’ US policy under the Cheney administration.
I am now convinced (after my last visit to the US Senate and US House of Representatives) that they are psychopaths who do not care at all for the welfare of other people – and they also don’t care who gets tortured or killed. They have the ability to justify anything. (“Do it in the name of heaven, you can justify it in the end.”) They can excuse anything. They can deny anything, even with the evidence right in front of them. They can lie and lie and lie and lie. As the story cited above states “Defenders of the system…..say it's an unfortunate necessity in the battles to pacify Iraq and Afghanistan, and to keep suspected terrorists out of action.” The fact that these actions make them terrorists does not cross their minds. The fact that these actions cause more people to become terrorists also does not cross their minds. The fact that there was no reason for us to “pacify Iraq” does not cross their minds. The fact that there was better ways than war to dismantle the Taliban also does not cross their minds. And it is not because they are stupid. They are psychopaths, and the only way I know to stop them is to arrest them, have a trial, and hopefully, lock them up for the rest of their lives. And even they don’t deserve torture. And even they don’t deserve imprisonment with out trial – which I call “kidnapping”. It is up to God to forgive them.
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