Guantanamo Bay

[hypnodoc]

Thers a big hoo ha in Pomgolia about the Military covering up their helping the yanks do all manner of nasty things at Guantanamo Bay, and so there is a very interesting, if not sometimes sickening, 2 page article in the UKs Daily Mail today with a mention of David Hicks; from Brandon Neeley; one of the guards who gave a leccture to the Centre For The Study of Human Rights at the University of California. Now that Bush and Cheney have gone the truth is coming out. heres a couple of paragraphs.

"Religous abuse was common - especially in the form of the loud rock music that was played throughout the camp, and the American national anthem was played each day at 6.30am. The detaineess were allowed to pray throughout the day, but many times soldiers would mock them.

I found this disrespectful. The detainees really had nothing else to do but read the Koran and for this I actually admired them.

Some of my time as a guard was spent talking to the detainees. Two in particular stood out. David Hicks was a young Australian and looked like any guy that I might go out with for a beer at home.

David was accused of fighting against the Americans in Afghanistan. The truth is that one night he was captured in Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance, an Afghan faction allied to the US, and sold to the Americans for 1,250 pounds. There were many detainees who claimed they were sold to the Americans.

Rhuhel Ahmed was one. He told me that he had aslo been sold by the Northern Alliance. Ahmed was a year younger than me, making him only 20. I could not imagine at that age what suffering he went through.

He had been captured on his way back from a wedding in Pakistan. the Northern Alliance had placed him in a big container with so many other people they they could not move. They then opened fire on the container, killing most of those inside.

Hicks and Ahmed (both of whom have now been released) did not come across even as soldiers let alone as cold blooded killers. we would sit there, crack jokes and make small talk, and soon I started to look aat the detainees as real people, rather than monsters. Thses man had families that loved them - and we all missed our families.

I wasn't supposed to interact with any of the detainees, but its hard. especially when you realise that some of these guys like David Hicks are just like you. The military trains you not to think or to feel any compassion. And to do what you are told - no questions asked.

The sad part is that the people who are really responsible will never be held accountable.

Former President George Bush and Former Vice President Dick Cheney will never be made accountable for the decisions they made. Instead, its the often innocent detainees and the guards like me who will have to live every day with the inhumanity of what they experienced there."

Theres lots of other quite inhumane and terrible stuff in the interview, worse than the torture issues that came out a couple of years ago.

No wonder Hicks wasn't allowed to talk to the media as part of his being released. Now I have an understanding of why Dick Smith has stood by his side since he came home. What a joke the way our previous Govt handled that one.

Edited 21/02/09 06:14 PM by hypnodoc

[aiboart]

Doc, there is a scene in a 1960's movie called '321' starring James Cagney, where the KGB tortures a suspect by playing him American pop music.

'She wore an itsy bitsy tinie winie yellow polka dot bikini....'

The KGB's suspect is a young bolshie communist firebrand who despises the West; he has however been set up by Cagney to appear to be an American sympathizers.

On hearing the pop music he writhes and screams in agony. 'No, no, no...'

The movie was comedy, a farce.

The scene was a joke.

Now according to the article we are to believe that torture consists of being played rock music, and, the American national anthem at 0630?

Don't all military bases play the national anthem at 0630? I do not think that the personnel consider this torture. I could be wrong.

Furthmore in Muslim states the call to prayer is broadcast over the city five times a day from the minarets. I do not think that the citizens of those states consider that torture.

Isn't American service people playing American rock music a feature of most American overseas bases? Actually I recall it is a feature of operations in remote areas in general.

AFAIK torture consists of pulling people apart while they are alive, burning out their eyes, or acts of that ilk. It does not mean being played the national anthem, or zz top. YMMV

Regards,

aa

[Dagabond]

If thats the premise behind the story its just the usual media beat up.

[hypnodoc]

Hey Aiboart

Yeah I agree with you on the music bit, but fundamental Muslims do have an incredible alleigence to whatever is in the Koran. There was a lot more viscous stuff than that. The Hicks part began there and I was really only trying to point out the Hicks thing, not get into a torture debate and/or pass an opinion on the situation in Iraq or Afghanistan. I did 4 years in the army myself and have too much respect for all our troops and our forces who have had to go or will soon go there. No war can ever be a good war but there have always been wars.

However if the Yanks were paying their Radical Alliance groups money to grab anyone including people who were innocent, which obviously they all weren't, then that's just wrong to drag the innocent ones away and lock them up in that place whether they were tortured or not.

The stuff about music was just a lead in to the David Hicks bit, as our media made out he was a radical who had been caught in battle on the front lines. There was plenty more far worse stuff than playing western music to detainees, such as braeking bones and leaving detainees lying in the sun for hours on end, living in wire cages with no wall and a gravel floor. Hog tying them and belting them with batons, 4 onto 1 until they needed hospitalisation, cracking skulls etc. Too much to write as it was a full 2 page article and some of it was really gory. War is fair or unfair enough. Setting up torture camps under the name of detention centres isn't much better than what Hiltler and his lot did. Personally I was pleased when I heard Obama was shutting the place down. Dubya was the greatest dickhead that ever ran any country.

[Venom XR6]

Heard this on good news week.

David Hicks will soon be getting married. His mates don't know what to do to him for the Bucks night, as he's already been stripped naked and tied to a pole in Guantanamo.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Did they say what american "rock" music was played......

Any Billy Ray Cyrus or 80's hair/glam rock is the most cruel and inhuman form of punishment i could imagine.......

[harvyk]

Yeah, I have my doubts at David Hicks "guilt". If you locked me away for 5 years without charge and then told me that I could be out of there and back in my home country within a few months if I signed something I would say "where's the pen"

Had he been sent to a real court, with actual due process, and he was found guilty, I would have been the first to say lock him up and throw away the key, but as far as I'm concerned his guilt has never been established.

As for the other stuff that Brandon Neeley has been saying I'd believe it. Gitmo was so placed so it could act outside the US consititution and in a country which I don't think has signed geneva conventions or anything like that. So technically there was nothing "illegal" so to speak about the way the inmates where been treated.

I'd love to see Bush and his cronies be hauled infront of the courts on war crimes charges, but I doubt we'll ever see that.

[Iconic Bionic]

Yeah the poor bloke was just a sight seeing tourist in Pakistan. All one big mixup.

Bit of a bleeding hearts thread. Dont recall any of the detainees heads being cut off and plastered all over the internet.

I.B.

[spine]

[Ghosti]

Locked in a room with nothing to do and having death metal pumping out of the speakers non-stop for 12 hours?

THAT'S torture???

Sounds like a Sunday to me.