The Conscience of Abu Ghraib

[lilithu]

This came from another thread:

Joe, do you know who Maher Arar is? He's a completely innocent man, a Canadian software engineer who was mistakenly put on a terrorist watch list. He made the mistake of stopping over at JFK on his way home. He was jailed, put on a secret flight, and handed over to Syrian torturers for over a year. He was repeatedly beaten and lived in a tiny grave-like cell underground. Due to his wife's tireless activism, he was eventually released and cleared by both the Syrians and an independent Canadian tribunal. Are you following me: an innocent man, kidnapped by your government, and given to a horrific regime to torture on our behalf. How many other innocent people did this happen to? We don't know, because few of them are Canadian, or English speaking, or have a wife in a position to galvanize worldwide attention to their plight. It's because of Maher Arar and people like him that President Bush needs to be impeached.

And lest you think that somehow it's O.K. to have the Syrians, Jordanians and Egyptians do our torturing for us, the CIA maintains its own network of secret prisons where psychological torture, featuring sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, sensory deprivation and triggering fears and taboos, has been raised to an art never seen before. That's what your government is doing in your name, Joe, and a substantial number (nobody knows how many, due to the extreme secrecy) of the people they are doing it to never had anything to do with Al Qaeda--until we let them go, that is.

In response to this post 9/10ths Penguin asked why folks in Washington haven't done anything to address this injustice. And I responded cynically that it was the folks in Washington who were responsible for this outrage in the first place.

But then it occurred to me: Hey, I'm in Washington. Why don't I do something about this? And not just me. Why don't all good Americans do something about this? Human beings are being held and tortured in our name. Surely we should do something about it.

The problem that I have faced in past is that certain people don't believe that this is happening. They think that the only people who are being held and tortured are the "guilty terrorists who want to kill us." They don't believe that numerous innocent bystanders are being detained and tortured with U.S. knowledge and approval, and sometimes done directly by our soldiers. And when I give examples, they say it's just a couple of isolated incidents.

What I would like to do is to collect stories of innocent people, released by the govt without so much as an apology, after being held and tortured. I want to keep track of them instead of letting them disappear into the ether of past news. I want to post them on the internet. I want there to be an accumulated body of evidence. And if people still want to be complacent in the face of it, well, at least we know where they stand. And at least there will be a record of what this administration has done.

Will you help me?

 

[lilithu]

Here's another story that I found:

Innocent German beaten by US jailers

April 25, 2005

A German citizen detained for five months in an Afghan prison was released in May last year on direct orders from Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, after she learned the man had been mistakenly identified as a terrorist suspect, government officials said.

The officials said that when Khaled el-Masri was taken from a bus on the Macedonian-Serbian border in December 2003, US authorities believed he was a member of al-Qaeda who had trained at one of Osama bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan.

It took several months before they concluded he was the victim of mistaken identity, the officials said. His name was similar to an al-Qaeda suspect on an international watch list of possible terrorist operatives, they said.

By then, Mr Masri, 41, a car salesman from Ulm in Germany, had been flown on a CIA-chartered aircraft to the prison under a secret US program of transferring terrorist suspects from country to country.

In prison, Mr Masri said, he was shackled, beaten, photographed nude and injected with drugs by interrogators who pressed him to reveal ties to al-Qaeda.

Details of the case reached Dr Rice in May last year, officials said, and twice, over several weeks, she ordered him immediately freed.

In an interview, Mr Masri said he was gratified "the truth has finally come out" and that he expected an apology. "I hope that America will in the future respect the rights of people," he said.

Innocent German beaten by US jailers - Global Terrorism - www.smh.com.au

 

[Reverend Rick]

Will you help me?

No, I support the President 100%.

I understand that the world is a dangerous place. We are at war. Innocent folks are just another casualty of this war. We can choose between having a few innocents suffer for the common good of the country, or perhaps have a whole city destroyed by a thermonuclear devise.

All I can say about this is, "fly with the crows, get shot with the crows".

Those "Innocent people" did something wrong to get where they were. I think what upsets you about all this is, you resent the power of the Presidency. I believe you are focusing on the few while ignoring the greater good for all of us.

 

[lilithu]

No, I support the President 100%.

I understand that the world is a dangerous place. We are at war. Innocent folks are just another casualty of this war. We can choose between having a few innocents suffer for the common good of the country, or perhaps have a whole city destroyed by a thermonuclear devise.

All I can say about this is, "fly with the crows, get shot with the crows".

Those "Innocent people" did something wrong to get where they were. I think what upsets you about all this is, you resent the power of the Presidency. I believe you are focusing on the few while ignoring the greater good for all of us.

What I resent is that this particular presidency is torturing innocent people in the name of the U.S., which goes against this nations founding principles.

There's a reason why I put this thread in a discussion forum and not a debate forum.

In case I wasn't clear before, let me make it explicit, this thread exists to collect stories of the detainment and torture of innocent civilians by or on behalf the U.S. govt. If someone feels some irresistible need to comment about its intent it should be posted elsewhere.

 

[ayani]

i will help you. give me time this evening, i will search for stories, God willing.

 

[Aqualung]

How does a lowly citizen like myself help stop the policies enacted by a government?

Nevermind. I skipped that part of your post, but I see it now.

 

[ayani]

i have found some things, Lil.

British detainees tell their stories of Guantánamo Bay | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

People the law forgot | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

Torture, Cover-Up At Gitmo? , Former Translator Says Prisoner Interrogations Were Staged For VIPs - CBS News

 

[ayani]

i have also found this...

Guantanamo detainees tell of abuses - Yahoo! News

may this place be closed soon, and these guys freed and given due justice and reparations.