   Freed Swede Says He Was Tortured in Guantanamo
clickyThe gist: A Swede has been imprisoned in Quantanamo Bay for 2 ½ years where he was tortured by the Americans.Quote: Ghezali said he went Pakistan to study Islam in August 2001, before the Sept. 11 attacks which triggered the U.S. war on terrorism and the invasion of Afghanistan.He said he was visiting a friend in the Afghan town of Jalalabad near the Pakistani border when the U.S. attack started and decided to return to Pakistan when he heard that villagers were selling foreigners to the U.S. forces. But he was captured by Pakistani villagers while crossing the border from Afghanistan and sold to Pakistani police, who turned him over to the U.S. military. He was flown from Pakistan to Afghanistan and arrived in Guantanamo in January 2002. Un-fucking-believable.  One would think that they would want a little evidence before they start locking people up and torturing them for over two years.   
  Well, to be totally and utterly fair, perhaps comrade Ghezali is not telling the absolute and unvarnished truth, either. On the other hand, he does have a right to a speedy and fair trial.   ;  Are you protesting the War on Terror? Are you against Freedom ? You're trying to hijack Democracy.   ;  There are official documents that expressedly authorize the use of sleep deprivation, lights, noice, etc. against the Guantanamo prisoners, so it comes as no surprise that they are using those tactics.EDIT: Provided that Ghezali speaks the truth, that is. I would be more surprised if he's not than if he is, though.   ;  Well, he's probably not lying about the tortures (although if they're really used against terrorists I think they're farely humane). He probably is lying about his innocence. I just refuse to believe our military is dumb enough to waste resources on obviously innocent suspects.   ;  So where do we draw the line for information extraction? What makes it torture?The things you mention are pretty well accepted by many governments. I'm not sure I agree with them, necessarily. Murder is out of the question. So is severe beating. (In my opinion).And I would feel slightly less bad if the person being tortured (with sleep deprivation/lights/etc was clearly someone bad, and was an accomplice to an act such as 9-11, with almost solid evidence already. I mean, to temporarily deprive a non-US citizen of the right to privacy (not really a right, anyways - US Supreme Court) and happiness/comfort, basically, for the lives of thousands? It's a hard choice. And I'm sure it's rarely black and white. So I don't really know what's "right" or "wrong" here, unfortunately.But torture en masse is just stupid with no real evidence at all!   ;Quote:Original post by CoffeeMugWell, he's probably not lying about the tortures (although if they're really used against terrorists I think they're farely humane). He probably is lying about his innocence. I just refuse to believe our military is dumb enough to waste resources on obviously innocent suspects.And I should like to add that I find it hard to believe that the military didn't at least *think* that he was not innocent. I really really hope they wouldn't knowingly detain and torture an innocent man or woman.   ;Quote:Original post by CoffeeMugWell, he's probably not lying about the tortures (although if they're really used against terrorists I think they're farely humane). He probably is lying about his innocence. I just refuse to believe our military is dumb enough to waste resources on obviously innocent suspects.Well, they are stupid enough to hit both Kuwait and Iran with missiles aimed for Iraq... ;)   ;Quote:Original post by CoffeeMugWell, he's probably not lying about the tortures (although if they're really used against terrorists I think they're farely humane). He probably is lying about his innocence. I just refuse to believe our military is dumb enough to waste resources on obviously innocent suspects.You'd be very surprised. As an intelligence agent working at Guantanamo and later in Iraq pointed out, all it takes the signature of a private to get someone shipped off to Guantanamo (they don't have to even give any concrete reason as to why), but it takes an entire countries government to get someones case reviewed. Simply put:The guy in field picks up someone or the person is transfered to them from a corrupt local. That guy in the field has no way to judge whether the person is a terrorist or not, he's a soldier, not an investigator. So he just signs thinking that now the higher ups will figure out if the guy should be held.The guy is recieved at Guantanamo, where they assume he must be a terrorist to have gotten there, and try and extract information. If they get none, they assume its because the guy is holding out and so they simply push harder. Basically everyone assumes that someone, somewhere, has actually checked to see if this guy should be held. The problem is that no one has.   ;Quote:Original post by Avatar GodSo where do we draw the line for information extraction? What makes it torture?The things you mention are pretty well accepted by many governments. I'm not sure I agree with them, necessarily. Murder is out of the question. So is severe beating. (In my opinion).Well, I think making popsicles out of detainees counts as torture.   