And they said the same thing about Padilla, kept in a brig here in the US.

Someone needs to ask them a few questions:

“Do you have a formal process or department for complaints? If not, how do you know he had no complaints?”

“If you are tracking complaints, how do you ensure a prisoner isn’t punished for complaining? Do you have a system for tracking complaints, then?”

“Yes, you do track complaints? Can you give us statistics on how many prisoners complained, and what was the resolution of those complaints? You can’t?”

“Then how do you know he didn’t have complaints?”

Knowledge has become the least valuable thing in this country.

Had to de-lurk for this one. This is the most astute (and succinct) statement I have seen in a long while that summarizes all that is happening in this country. Hence the No Child Left Behind crap that does nothing but leave kids way, way, way behind. The dismantling of federal assistance for post-secondary education. The campaign strategies of responding to well-thought-out statements (sidebar: I had to listen to the 2004 presidential debates because we still had no electricity after several hurricanes, and how anyone could vote for W after that floor-wiping by Kerry astonishes and befuddles me) by mocking them as elitists or their “wooden” personalities. Intelligence and logic will soon be a relic of the past, since we are producing an entire generation that can handily choose from a,b,c, or d, but has no idea how to reason on their own, just parrot whatever they’re told. Those are the makings of a successful future dictatorship.

What this administration, this military and this Department of Justice have done is declare the whole world to be Iraq. It is a global war on terror and they claim the same rights to do the same things, without regard to whether someone is taken in the streets of Baghdad, off a train in Macedonia, at an airport in Chicago or New York. Whether someone is a citizen or not. Whether there is evidence, or not. Whether they will be tortured, or not. Whether they will be tortured for days, or for months, or through the years, the hundreds of days going to thousands of days, through the crumblings of their brain and their soul.

Happened in Iraq? Wake up – it’s already happened here, too and around the world and we have a long list of memos from our Dept of Justice soliciting that very behaviour and an unbroken string of lies and coverups in the court of public opinion and in the US courts. The recent release of the 2004 Military report about Padilla and the other S. Car. detaines – from May, 2004. Guess what happened in June, 2004? Our Dept of Justice held a press conf to tell us all about Zubaydah (leaving out the known, crazy guy and torture parts) and Padilla and was specifically asked about Padilla’s handling in detention and certifed to the American public that he was being treated humanely, no problems, ask DOD about Geneva Conventions, but hey – it’s all FBI guys, he’s not be being mistreated at all.

GollygeewillikersgdidIearnmenacushyjobwhenIleaveDOJ?

One month after the military report that said what was going on at S. Car went beyond what RUMSFELD had said would be breach of Geneva Conventions. For years.

Look back at the Iraq story. Why wasn’t he originally released – because there was a FINDING he was an enemy combatant – otherwise he would have had to be released. That is how ez it is to be found an enemy combatant. Besides, he “associated” with someone who they think MAY have been an enemy combatant. By, you know, turning in evidence on them, he “associated” with them.

Would that inspire anyone to ever be a whistleblower? To contact the authorities with suspected bad behaviour? If you convince them that it might be bad behaviour – you are de facto an “associate” of the bad guys and you can get a trip to GITMO too. Never work that way? Take another look at the guy who was an FBI informant and had Congressmen making inquiries – and was still labelled an enemy combatant and held.

Take a look here, with the cases like the one right after 9/11, where a hotel sec. guard took a piece of equipment left by an airline pilot in his room and put it into the room of a Egyptian (? I think that’s right – but I’d need to check) student and that student was detained. Held in isolation. Questioned. And even without sensory deprivation, or years, or rough interrogations, or being stripped and staked in pyramids or being waterboarded — within days that student CONFESSED.

Of course, by then, our DOJ had not finished perfecting its approach to justice, and when the airline pilot went back, looking for his equipment and pushing for answers, the detainee had not yet been shipped to GITMO.

Today – what would happen?

You know, I know.
Congress knows.
The military knows.
The Courts know.
The Department of Justice not only knows – they structured it.

Knowledge has become the least valuable thing in this country.

Mary 106

Hoo Boy! BRAVO!

sing it, Mary!

Hoo Boy! BRAVO!

Yep! That’s why I asked. Kinda runs in my family also, & I second the advice you’ve been given/giving. Added wrinkle in my case: getting Lyme summer of ‘62 (yes, acutely aware they hadn’t even named it by then, so no trt. available, & 40 yrs of ‘interesting sidelights’ ensued). Suspect it didn’t help the basic tendencies any, heh.

Another “help” I’ve found. If someone’s been particularly ornery to me, I absolutely REFUSE to indulge in [”kick-the-dawg-’cause-the-boss-yelled-at-ya’] – syndrome (ethologists call it “redirection”). Instead, I try to perpetrate a “random act of kindness” on someone else ASAP. Feels like getting revenge, in an odd way, & is quite refreshing. I keep hoping it’ll be contagious.

I think there’s a lot of that kind of help here at the lake. Thanks for being here, guys.

Now. Go stand in the sun! Them’s orders! Oh. And hug that family & those friends, & let ‘em hug ya’ back.

see ya later… gotta go ruin some perfectly good cookie dough ;->

So, your point is that whatever you do, don’t be a whistleblower, right? BC that is what the revised US approach to justice has set in stone for most people.

Nonetheless –

a) you do all realize this happened in Iraq right?

Yes. The place where supposedly we operate under the Geneva Conventions You do remember the Geneva Conventions, right?

b) you do all realize this man says he was working for a company that he says was supplying insurgents with weapons right?

Oh please. He was the whistleblower and his call the embassy that they were in fear was likely the trigger to the raid and he was in constant FBI contact. He was taken to the embassy initially, where he could have easily remained and been questioned.

c) You do understand people do not get treated the same way in a war zone as they do in a peace time situation right?

War? I thought that was all “Mission Accomplished” a long time ago and the US was actively encouraging US citizens and investors to become actively involved in enterprises in IRaq – you know, so they can be rounded up at gunpoint and handled in violation of the Geneva Conventions – our own citizens, doing what they are being encouraged to do by the govt AND also being brave enough, in the heart of the killings, to be a whistleblower too.

Still, yes, in a war zone things are different. However, once you have someone in detention, with no weapons and no way of posing a threat, then there were, once upon a time, rules that were followed. Especially rules followed to prevent troops from assaulting their own civilians, but even to prevent them from brutalizing and mistreating innocent civilians of other countries. That has been completely abandoned by this military and this administration – a conscious decision to become lesser, less honorable, less competent, less effective, less humane. Less than the standards of the Geneva Conventions. Less than the moral thing, less than the humane thing, less than the right thing.

The only reason to mistreat people in detention is an unadulterated, unchecked, love of power over another human being.

D) What happened to this man was terrible, an obvious bureaucratic military tragedy, however in the end he was released and was not tortured. treated with extreme caution as a possible threat yes. Inhumanely? no way.

What planet are you living on that this treatment is not “inhumane?” His family not told whether he was alive or dead? Sleep deprivation, no access to counsel, constant terror, sensory deprivation, no advocate, MONTHS passing after the FBI info passed on and no indications of release at all?

I guess you think the Hamas kidnappings aren’t all the inhumane either, eh?

Keep dropping those expectations lower and lower – apparently this administration, this Department of Justice, and this military — they are all willing to sink as low as your expectations will go.

Even further.