WaPo:
KABUL— Afghan officials used torture while investigating suspected militants kept in some detention centers, the United Nations said in a report Monday, weeks after NATO troops halted the transfer of prisoners to Afghan authorities because of alleged mistreatment of the inmates.
The report found that detainees endured treatment that amounted to torture in 47 detention facilities, run by Afghan police and intelligence service, in 24 of the country’s 34 provinces.
The 74-page report raised particular concerns about detention centers run by the Afghan intelligence agency, known as the National Directorate of Security, or NDS, which held an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 detainees during the period when the investigation took place.
It found “compelling evidence” that 46 percent of the detainees interviewed who had been in NDS detention centers had been tortured and that “torture is practiced systematically in a number of NDS detention facilities throughout Afghanistan.” Most of the torture, the report said, was intended to extract confessions or information. The United Nations “also found that children under the age of 18 years experienced torture by NDS officials.”
Suddenly, being held captive under U.S. authority isn’t looking quite so bad is it? But I’m sure the detainees themselves have always known this, whether it’s Club Gitmo or Bagram, the preference of those held captive is to be held in U.S.-run detention facilities. It’s the liberal “do-gooders” who need to get the memo.
Courting Disaster, pg 283-4:
There have been more than a dozen major reviews of U.S. detention operations in the war on terror- led by twelve active duty generals and admirals, a former Air Force General, former Democratic and Republican Secretaries of Defense, and a former Member of Congress. None of these reviews found a pattern of abuse at Guantanamo or anywhere else. And all rejected claims of a government policy directing, encouraging, or condoning torture in any theater of the war on terror.
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.
I have to ask; was the allegation enough or was there accompanying proof?
Gitmo detainees and some terrorists in US prisons have falsely made the same charges and banged themselves against walls and prison bars to produce ”proof.”
Mohammad wrote that ”War is deceit.”
Lying and deceiving (taqiyya and kitman) to further the cause of Islam is 100% a-ok.
Any al Qaeda trained terrorist who has read the al Qaeda handbook has many examples of ways to make his enemy look bad even after his own capture red-handed.
That being said, the old Iraq the Model blog wrote extensively about the cruel treatment of Iraqis by the members of the old guard in the new government.
So why not the same in Afghanistan.
After all, even Muqtada al Sadr was willing to join the government.
And he can’t be easy on his opponents.
So, I could believe it but I can also see it as a successful PR campaign.
Sad, really.
I guess I know one-too-many vets who swore nothing bad was done on their watch, even as accusations flew.
I don’t think it was ever about the torture of the terrorists at Gitmo at all. It was for pure political reasons. The liberals were furious with Bush for winning the election that they say he should not have won in the first place, then the war and they dared not speak no evil against Bush for the first year for fear of public scorn and rejection. But after a few like Hilary tested the waters with her remarks “I don’t think its unpatriotic to question the war.” the liberals emerged from their self-imposed exile and began in earnest their campaign against the war, and later Gitmo. Look at how the liberals are all suffering from sever cognitive dissonance now over all the war policies that they blasted and condemned Bush for, yet remain silent and or cheer Obi for now that he is using those same procedures. Just good old plain double standard thats all.
Yeah if you don’t put someone through a woodchipper, you look good compared to Saddam.
I think having to listen to the UN is torture. Can we ban them too?
But do we want our actions just to seem more humane when compared to treatment by a group of people whose beliefs about humanity is taken from the 15th century; or do we want to be a model for 21st century humane treatment of people?
@Liberal1 (objectivity): I choose neither. I say we do what we need to in order to find, fix and destroy the enemy!
Attorney General Eric Holder and other officials are due to brief reporters in the next few minutes.
“FBI and DEA agents have disrupted a plot to commit a ‘significant terrorist act in the United States’ tied to Iran, federal officials told ABC News today.”
The network adds that:
“The officials said the plot included the assassination of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, Adel Al-Jubeir, with a bomb and subsequent bomb attacks on the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington, D.C.”
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/10/11/141240766/reports-terrorist-plot-tied-to-iran-disrupted
The Iranian was arrested a month ago.
And Obie was briefed about the plot in June.
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