Tenet & Rumsfeld hid Iraqi terror prisoner from Red Cross

No, we are supposed to be winning a war against international terrorism, not being moral elitists. The protection of America is goal #1.

Thanks for this honest answer.

I knew, "bringing democracy" was a big lie.

And those wars were conducted PRIOR to the signing of the Geneva Conventions.

It is exactly because of situations like the terrorists/insurgents in Iraq that the Conventions were signed.

The problem comes when individuals like these terrorists do things like attacking civilians indiscriminately, cutting the throats of prisoners (both military and civilian), hide in civilian buildings (including churches and hospitals) and blow up bombs to kill the people they 'claim' to be there to free from the evil Americans.

Being incensed because a few individuals who absolutely refuse to abide by ANY of the Geneva Conventions or even abide by the rules and laws of their own Faith were kept in secret for a time for the protection of our troops is both ludicrous and disingenuous.

These people are NOT soldiers, do not act as soldiers and are not under the discipline of soldiers, but when they are captured, we have to treat them like soldiers?

I DON'T THINK SO.

How about we just treat them like people?

I would think that the same rules that hold us to treating soldiers well under the Geneva convention are the same as what many would call basic moral decency.

Cycloptichorn

Tell you what Cyc,

When they start ACTING like people and not vicious animals attacking everything around them perhaps we can start treating them like people.

When they cease acting like hyenas, puking their bile on the infrastructure of Iraq so no one can use it, then we can treat them like human beings.

When they cease killing innocent unarmed civilians and executing military prisoners...
When they cease hiding in mosques and firing from them and then crying when they get fired upon in response...
When they cease hiding in civilians areas and firing from amongst them...
When they start acting with the least measure of compassion and mercy that they claim their religion stands for...

THEN perhaps we can treat them like people.

When one ACTS like a human, then one is fit to be TREATED like a human.

Yes, that's exactly what is thought to be highest value of in a democratic country of Judeo-Christian heiritage.

Instead of pissing at each other over the never-ending argument of whether or not the US acted morally, why don't all of you start looking at the details of what happened? That's the only way the clearly illegal action and the cover-up by those responsible will be exposed. The grunts at the bottom of the chain of command are being blamed for everything when the real criminals are at the top. This must not stand!

What I find most contrary to what the Pentagon claims is that the prisoner was subject to only one cursory arrival interrogation at the beginning of his seven month incarceration. If his status was so high and it was so necessary to hide his capture, then why wasn't he more actively interrogated? Nothing about this makes any sense. ---BBB

QUOTE: "But once he (the prisoner) was placed into custody at Camp Cropper, where about 100 detainees deemed to have the highest intelligence value are held, he received only one cursory arrival interrogation from military officers and was never again questioned by any other military or intelligence officers, according to Pentagon and intelligence officials."

Report Says U.S. Has 'Secret' Detention Centers
Report Says U.S. Has 'Secret' Detention Centers
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
6/17/04

The United States is holding terrorism suspects in more than two dozen detention centers worldwide and about half of these operate in total secrecy, said a human rights report released on Thursday.

Human Rights First, formerly known as the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, said in a report that secrecy surrounding these facilities made "inappropriate detention and abuse not only likely but inevitable."

"The abuses at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib cannot be addressed in isolation," said Deborah Pearlstein, director of the group's U.S. Law and Security program, referring to the U.S. Naval base prison in Cuba and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq where abuses are being investigated.

"This is all about secrecy, accountability and the law," Pearlstein told a news conference.

The report coincided with news that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered military officials to hold a suspect in a prison near Baghdad without telling the Red Cross. Pearlstein said this would be a violation of the Geneva Conventions and Defense Department directives.

She said thousands of security detainees were being held by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as locations elsewhere which the military refused to disclose.

"The U.S. government is holding prisoners in a secret system of off-shore prisons beyond the reach of adequate supervision, accountability of law," said the report.

LIST OF DETENTION CENTERS

Pearlstein said multiple sources reported U.S. detention centers in, among other places, Kohat in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan, on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia and at Al Jafr prison in Jordan, where the group said the CIA had an interrogation facility.

Prisoners are also being held at the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina, and others were suspected of being held on U.S. warships.

A defense department spokesman told Reuters he would comment when he had more information about the report.

Pearlstein called for the U.S. authorities to end "secret detentions," provide a list of prisoners, investigate abuses and allow the International Committee of the Red Cross unfettered access to detainees.

U.S. treatment of detainees came under the spotlight after disturbing photos were leaked to the media showing U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners.

The United States is conducting several investigations into these abuses but Pearlstein said these were not enough and a full court of inquiry should be ordered.

Families of suspects detained by U.S. authorities have complained strongly about the lack of information about detainees held by U.S. authorities since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks against the United States.

Pakistani Farhat Paracha said via a telephone link-up at the news conference that she tried for weeks to find her husband, Saifullah Paracha, who disappeared last June when he took a business trip from Pakistan to Thailand.

Paracha said she asked the U.S. and Pakistani governments to track him down and only learned about his whereabouts when the Red Cross contacted her six weeks later to say her husband was being held at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.

"I feel disgusted. It makes my heart sink. I feel so powerless and so helpless," said Paracha.

Fedral, apparently, you need to be a war-mongering republican conservative to understand this.

Rumsfeld Hid Prisoner from Red Cross
The Center for American Progress picked up on the same strange facts that I noticed. ---BBB

Rumsfeld Hid Prisoner from Red Cross
Center for American Progress
6/17/04

Yesterday it was disclosed that Department of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "ordered military officials in Iraq last November to hold a man suspected of being a senior Iraqi terrorist at a high-level detention center there but not list him on the prison's rolls. He was one of several "ghost" detainees hidden from view "largely to prevent the International Committee of the Red Cross from monitoring their treatment." Rumsfeld - who in May told Congress that he was "blindsided" by the prison abuse scandal in Iraq - wrote an order to Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the ground commander in Iraq ordering him not to assign the prisoner a serial number and not to "acknowledge that we are detaining him to any international organization." A Pentagon official acknowledged that Rumsfeld's order - and Sanchez's decision to comply - was in violation of international law. Read the American Progress plan to repair the damage from the prison abuse scandal.

AN 'EXTRAORDINARY LAPSE': The captive has been detained for more than seven months and "is still languishing at the prison." According to Pentagon officials despite being a reputed senior officer of Ansar al-Islam "he received only one cursory arrival interrogation from military officers and was never again questioned by any other military or intelligence officers." Government officials acknowledge that detaining him in secret for this length of time without reviewing his status was "an extraordinary lapse." The problem was that, since he was not recorded or identified, "people lost track of him."

torture and "enemy combatants"
See March 2003 Dershowitz interview at CNN:

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/LAW/03/03/cnna.Dershowitz/

Torture of detainees has been going on for years and years. Our country transports detainees to foreign countries. There is no accountability because it is done in secret. If these detainees are not technically "prisoners of war," our treaties do not necessarily protect them; if these detainees are tortured outside of the United States, our constitution cannot protect them. (The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the constitution has no application to official conduct occurring outside our borders.) Detainees have no protection against cruel and inhumane treatment.

Finally--instead of rumors and suspicions--we now have pictures--there is proof that our officials have engaged in misconduct. Hopefully, the people of this country will finally take notice and demand governmental accountability.

Should we demand Bush's impeachment? You betcha. He's a dishonorable hypocrite and shouldn't be leading our nation.

In his state of the union address following the 9/11 tragedy, Bush described the various forms of torture by Saddam Hussein and said, "If this isn't evil, then evil has no meaning."

What about Bush's various forms of torture--isn't that evil too? The people of the United States ought to stand up and declare that we will not tolerate it when our leaders turn all of our American ideals into hypocrisies. No wonder third world countries hate us. How can we pompously demand that other countries adhere to standards of decency when we won't adhere to those same standards ourselves?

Evil Hussein was ousted--now it's time for Evil Bush to be ousted.