Electroshock torture, lethal beatings and humiliation at Guantánamo

first-person testimony on guantánamo torture...

from russia today...

German Guantanamo detainee Murat Kurnaz has publicly spoken about being subjected to electroshock torture, lethal beatings and humiliation during his years of unlawful detention.

In an exclusive interview with Russia Today news network on Monday, the former detainee said he was held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp for five years before being released without charges.

Kurnaz went on to say that Americans have not apologized for his years of torment at the notorious detainment facility, and he doesn't think they would ever do so.

He further explained that he was arrested in Pakistan in 2001, and turned to the Americans after he had visited a school run by Tablighi Jamaat -- a religious movement hated by the al-Qaeda and the Taliban for its non-political stature -- in the Asian country.

Kurnaz had earlier become familiar with Pakistan-based Tablighi Jamaat movement through its assistance to homeless people and youth, who had problems with drugs.

He added that when he got booked, Pakistani forces didn't tell him anything about what was going on.

"They didn't tell me that they were looking for terrorists or whatever. They said we're just going to check your passport. I didn't know at that time they get a bounty of $3,000 for each person. Not under my name, but for anyone turned over to the Americans as terrorist they get $3,000, and $3,000 in Pakistan is a lot of money," Kurnaz said.

He noted that after being transferred to Kandahar in Afghanistan, he witnessed all kinds of things that one can imagine as torture.

"I saw many killed under torture. I was one of those who survived those kinds of torture. They used electroshocks on me because I would not sign papers."

"I was forced to agree I was a member of the Taliban and the al-Qaeda and I said I'm not. Really I didn't know at that time what al-Qaeda was, I didn't know [anything] about al-Qaeda. So when they asked me about al-Qaeda and Taliban, I said I'm not a member of them. And they brought me papers, forced me to sign. I refused," the former Gitmo prisoner said.

"That's why they tried to make me sign by electroshocks. And another time they forced me by water boarding. Another time they hanged me on chains. I was hanging on the ceiling. They were pulling me on the ceiling with the chain, and until my feet were over the floor. After a few days I started to pass out, because in that situation I couldn't eat or drink and it was freezing cold. It was wintertime and I had no clothes on," he added.

Kurnaz said Guantanamo detainees were chained hand to foot in a fatal position on the floor with no chair, food, or water for 24 hours or more.

He also said that the youngest Gitmo prisoner was nine years old, and the second underage detainee in Guantanamo was 12.

Upon taking office, US President Barack Obama signed an executive order to stop military commissions in order to close down the facility by 2010. However, this has not happened yet.

accountability...? fughedaboudit...

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Sickening

Robert Gates and Stanley McChrystal
(AFP/Jim Watson)

the spectacle of one of the super-rich elites' puppet masters heaping praise on the poor bastards who are giving their lives so that the super-rich can become even richer while those whose lives are on the line will very likely remain trapped forever in the poor underclass makes me want to run to the toilet and regurgitate my bran cereal and fruit breakfast...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE FRONTENAC, Afghanistan – U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a hard-hit battle unit Tuesday that its heavy losses have helped the U.S. begin to push back against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

Gates visited a small, remote outpost 30 miles north of Kandahar, where the Fort Lewis, Washington-based Stryker unit has lost 22 men and suffered an additional 62 wounded since arriving here last summer.

The latest injuries came Monday night, and the latest death three days ago.

Gates praised the 800-soldier unit and told the troops that as the fight shifts toward securing Kandahar itself later this year, they will again be "at the top of the spear."

so there gates sits, telling these guys that their nation is ever so grateful that they're dying, all the while knowing that, among those he's talking to, several more will undoubtedly die, some within days... how can a deceitful bastard like that look himself in the mirror in the morning...?

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Ok, Hamid, let's have that little talk about Wali...

you can make of this what you will... for me, it just adds to my deep, dark suspicions that the our esteemed cia has long been heavy into the drug trade and that our dark overlords have managed to maintain their power over us in large part financed by proceeds from that dark business... it would only be to their interest to keep a drug lord on the payroll...

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.

The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home.

gee, what a great morning...! just FULL of all kinds of breaking news...!

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Afghanistan - "a free-for-all of corruption"... A follow-on to the previous "Talking to the Taliban" post

another perspective that supports what i witness first-hand every day here in kabul, this time from a woman with in-depth experience in afghanistan who runs a co-op in kandahar...

from the la times...

What ensued has been a free-for-all of corruption and abuse of power, with ordinary citizens paying the price. Our cooperative, for example, recently imported some solar energy equipment, which we needed because of the ongoing lack of electricity in Kandahar. We had to pay about $1,200 in bribes at seven different checkpoints on the road from the Pakistani border and at the Kandahar customs house. Judicial decisions are bought and sold, as is public office. Driver's licenses, death certificates and electricity meters come with a heavy surcharge. Lucrative contracts are monopolized by power brokers. The corruption infuriates ordinary Afghans, who do not see such abuses as part of their culture.

The result has been that a country that in 2002 enthusiastically welcomed the young government of Karzai and the international presence is now turning back to the Taliban. This is not out of affinity or ideological bent but because -- as was the case in 1994, when the Taliban first arrived on the scene -- it represents a practical alternative to the reigning chaos.

with the impending release of the obama administration's afghanistan policy (see below), a policy i fear will be sadly deficient and seriously misaligned, it's good to see some of what i consider to be reasonably accurate and informed perspectives creeping into the mainstream media...

Shifting U.S. objectives in Afghanistan away from the Bush administration's promise to build a Western-style democracy, President Barack Obama will announce on Friday that he's deploying thousands of additional American troops and civilians to achieve more modest goals, such as enhancing security and promoting economic development, U.S. officials said.

for the la times writer, quoted above, if indeed this shift comes to pass, it does not bode well... she does, however, have some constructive ideas to propose...

The answer is not to lower the bar but to raise it. What is needed is some of that patented Obama "Yes, we can!" energy.

We can, for example, work to ensure not just the security of the upcoming Afghan elections but a modicum of integrity, by observing, reporting and sanctioning instances of abuse and by distancing ourselves from those Afghan officials illegally exploiting their offices to ensure a Karzai reelection. We can insist on accountability on the part of Afghan officials, especially regarding the expenditure of international funds. We can help Afghans give teeth to what is perhaps the most important feature of American democracy -- one that was signally ignored by the Bush administration's Afghan design: checks-and-balances mechanisms.

Additional troops are desperately needed, and they should be deployed to protect the population rather than focused on hunting high-value targets or trying to seal off Afghanistan's borders. Development assistance, well targeted and monitored, is also crucial. But only with a concurrent full-court press on governance can the most limited U.S. goals in the region be accomplished.

i am very cool on the idea of additional troops, not because they shouldn't be utilized in the way the writer suggests, but because the u.s. is far from re-making its military might into a force of protection and peacekeeping rather than an instrument of death and destruction... if obama is to pull off THAT transition, he's going to need to do some major housecleaning at the pentagon in order to disembowel the "kick ass and take names" mindset that's been the history of the u.s. military, a history that was seriously reinforced through the bush/rumsfeld/gates era and continues to this day...

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You tell me - does picturing Obama surrounded by ribs, fried chicken, and watermelon have a racist feel to it?

one of the very worst aspects of the nearly eight years we have endured of the bush administration is the implicit sanctioning of intolerance, racism and hate... it started the day bush took office and has continued unabated, but never has it been more intense than in the current presidential campaign environment...

i'm still gagging on the jaw-dropping talking-point meme that colin powell's endorsement of obama was made solely on the basis of race... the stuffed monkeys representing obama that have been a feature of mccain rallies are equally despicable, but implying that eating ribs, fried chicken and watermelon, staples of every american's diet, is somehow the unique province of blacks and therefore a subject for ridicule, is simply nauseating...

"Good American" Holds Racist Obama/
Monkey Doll At Palin Rally



cultural, ethnic and geographic stereotypes are a feature of every society in the world... believe it or not, they tell "kandahar jokes" in afghanistan, and there isn't an american who hasn't been exposed to polish jokes, irish jokes, italian jokes, mexican jokes, redneck jokes, and, yes, black jokes... and certainly every canadian can tell a "newfie" joke at the drop of a maple leaf... but, for god's sake, nobody in their right mind, certainly not anyone with two brain cells to rub together and the sensitivity of a toilet seat uses ethnic, cultural or racial stereotypes in

FRIGGIN' OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE, PARTICULARLY PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN CORRESPONDENCE SENT OUT BY A MAJOR POLITICAL PARTY...

check out this woman's sad, utterly pathetic rationalization...

The president of a San Bernardino County Republican women's club that published an illustration of Barack Obama surrounded by ribs, fried chicken and watermelon resigned Wednesday, saying she demonstrated "poor judgment" and a lack of sensitivity.

Diane Fedele faced intense pressure from state GOP leaders who called the drawing racist and Democrats who demanded she quit as head of the Upland-based Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated.

In a sometimes combative apology sent to club members, Fedele said she received the illustration through a chain e-mail and used it for a "satiric" attack on what she sees as Obama's "socialist" agenda of government giveaways. When confronted by an African American club member, she said she apologized for the cartoon but the woman took the story to the media.

"For many it may be hard to believe, but some people do not associate certain foods with particular groups," Fedele said. "I do not think like a bigot, and because of that fact I did not view this as racial, because I do not have a racially discriminating point of view."

She accused the media of branding Republicans racist whenever they criticize the Democratic presidential nominee.

give me strength...

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Here We Go Again

We should be hiring......and listening to.......some Russian advisors.

From the International Herald Tribune......

Taliban fighters take over several
Afghan villages

Hundreds of Taliban fighters invaded villages just outside Afghanistan's second-largest city Monday, forcing NATO and Afghan troops to rush in while frightened residents fled.

The Taliban assault on the outskirts of Kandahar is the latest display of prowess by the militants despite a record number of U.S. and NATO troops in the country.

The push into the Arghandab district — a lush region filled with grape and pomegranate groves that the Soviet army could never conquer — comes three days after a Taliban attack on Kandahar's prison that freed 400 insurgent fighters.

Those fighters, NATO conceded Monday, appear to be massing on the doorstep of the Taliban's former power base. The city of Kandahar lies only 10 miles to the southeast.

The sophisticated and successful jailbreak, followed by the movement into Arghandab, is the latest evidence of the Taliban's growing strength. The U.S. and NATO have pleaded for more troops in the last year and now have 65,000 in the country. But the militants are still finding successes the international alliance can't counter.

[...]

A large river bisects Arghandab's fertile lands. The east side, closest to Kandahar, is controlled by NATO and Afghan troops, Farooq said. The area to the river's west is now controlled by the Taliban.

"The Taliban told us to leave. They are planting mines everywhere," said Shafiq Khan, who was moving his wife, seven children and brother out of Arghandab in a small truck late Monday. Khan reported that helicopters were patrolling the skies. "The people are scared," he said bycell phone.

Arghandab lies just northwest of Kandahar, and a tribal leader from the region warned that the militants could use the cover from Arghandab's orchards to mount an attack on the city.

"All of Arghandab is made of orchards. The militants can easily hide and easily fight," said Haji Ikramullah Khan. "It's quite close to Kandahar. During the Russian war, the Russians didn't even occupy Arghandab, because when they fought here they suffered big casualties."

[...]

Sarah Chayes, who runs a non-governmental organization in Kandahar that makes and sells soap and body oils, said on her Web site that Arghandab "is currently acting as the dike protecting Kandahar from a surge of Taliban presence."

"And Arghandab, as Mullah Naqib proved during the anti-Soviet jihad, is a formidable place for a resistance movement to be based. Once well ensconced there, the Taliban would be nearly impossible to dislodge."

Some learn from others' mistakes.....................
And then, some don't.

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Children suffer the consequences of depleted uranium in Afghanistan

this is the second time in one day that i've used the spanish term, "patético"...

"We don't use depleted uranium in Afghanistan; we don't have a requirement to use that." - Major Chris Belcher, Coalition spokesman.

Doctors in Afghanistan say rates of some health problems affecting children have doubled in the last two years.

Some scientists say the rise is linked to use of weapons containing depleted uranium (DU) by the US-led coalition that invaded the country in 2001.

A Canadian research group found very high levels of uranium in Afghans during tests just after the invasion.

A US forces spokesman denied its weapons were affecting the health of Afghans or the country's environment.

But claims made in the BBC World Service One Planet programme suggest the invasion may have left an unwelcome legacy for the country's environment and the health of its people.

Doctors in Kabul and Kandahar showed data indicating that the incidence of a number of health conditions, including birth defects, has doubled in under two years.

and here i sit, in kabul, afghanistan...

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