Notes from a Guantanamo Survivor

POSTED BY: canttakesky
UPDATED: Monday, December 23, 2024 17:11
VIEWED: 2143
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HERO

Monday, January 9, 2012 3:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by piratenews:
I wish a violent painful disgusting death upon everyone who voted for Bushobama, preferably by arrest, torture, courts martial then execution for treason in their favorite hellhole at Gitmo. No lawyers allowed.

No lawyers? All right! I'm off the hook!

I note for the record that you are wanting to do the same things to those you disagree with that you believe that they themselves are doing. So it must be ok...after all, you are just as willing to torture and kill...so it must not be the torture and killing you find fault with. You also want to keep Gitmo open...so you must be ok with putting people there too.

Hey everybody! PN supports torture and murder! PN wants to keep Gitmo open! PN also wants to deny people their right to lawyers! Not even Bush and Obama do that!

I myself oppose those things being the Constitution-loving good Christian man I am.

PN's a facist! PN's a facist!

I note for the record that if you wish death on everyone who voted for Bush and everyone who voted for Obama...that's pretty much everyone.

PN advocates mass murder of Americans!

If only we had a place we could send people like PN...someplace warm...

H

"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
"I agree with Hero." Niki2, 2011.

HERO

Monday, January 9, 2012 3:39 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:

Murat Kurnaz, the author of “Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantánamo,” was detained from 2001 to 2006.

This man either made it all up or is a terrorist. I note for the record that both could be and likely are true.

H

"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
"I agree with Hero." Niki2, 2011.

SIGNYM

Monday, January 9, 2012 5:25 PM

The silence from rappy is deafening, seeing as he believes that anyone imprisoned for ... whatever... deserves to be tortured.

But this article is too long. It will strain his brain to read it, and cause such cognitive dissonance as to drive him away from all thought whatsoever.

And I'm afraid the stain is still there, and getting worse. The President can now authorize assassination of anyone, anywhere, any time; and to order indefinite detention of anyone. Even American citizens who are supposed to be protected by habeas corpus and trial by jury of peers.

Yeeesh.

And I thought BUSH was bad.

NIKI2

Monday, January 9, 2012 5:59 PM

Quote:
Own up, America. Own up and accept the consequences.

Dream on, Leon. Just don't confuse it with the possibility it'll ever HAPPEN! Actually, many, many AMERICANS own up and are disgusted, as most of us here, but the government...never in a million years.

I voted for Obama because I thought McCain would keep on the way Bush had, and Obama MIGHT not be as bad. And he hasn't. Only slightly. McCain might well have us in Iran by now...and Syria and and and... I give Obama points for that, if nothing else. Looks to me like any of the candidates on the right would be right in there, too (except Ron Paul, bless his crazy little heart), so I'll vote Obama again. As usual, the lesser of two evils, and if ANY rightie gets in, it'll be "cut taxes, eliminate regulation" out the ying-yang. I think that's death to America, considering where it's gotten us by ow. Other than that, a pox on ALL their houses.

I didn't read the article; like stories about animal and child abuse, I already know everything I need to, and don't need to be made any sicker. One of the protest signs I made for OccupyMarin: "We've lost our way as a nation" about says it all, in my opinion.

SIGNYM

Monday, January 9, 2012 6:02 PM

I'm going to vote my conscience. I stopped voting for the lesser of two weevils when Clinton came up for re-election. Occupy and the Tea Party tell me there is a new groundswell, and its time to move it as far as it will go.

RIONAEIRE

Tuesday, January 10, 2012 12:47 AM

A Byte a stor, I don't think there's any need to feel guilty about voting for Obama, you did the best you knew at the time, and its not like your vote clinched him the election. Older and wiser, don't feel so bad.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

CANTTAKESKY

Tuesday, January 10, 2012 5:42 PM

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/my-guantanamo-nightm
are.html

Quote:
ON Wednesday, America’s detention camp at Guantánamo Bay will have been open for 10 years. For seven of them, I was held there without explanation or charge. During that time my daughters grew up without me. They were toddlers when I was imprisoned, and were never allowed to visit or speak to me by phone. Most of their letters were returned as “undeliverable,” and the few that I received were so thoroughly and thoughtlessly censored that their messages of love and support were lost.

Some American politicians say that people at Guantánamo are terrorists, but I have never been a terrorist. Had I been brought before a court when I was seized, my children’s lives would not have been torn apart, and my family would not have been thrown into poverty. It was only after the United States Supreme Court ordered the government to defend its actions before a federal judge that I was finally able to clear my name and be with them again.

I left Algeria in 1990 to work abroad. In 1997 my family and I moved to Bosnia and Herzegovina at the request of my employer, the Red Crescent Society of the United Arab Emirates. I served in the Sarajevo office as director of humanitarian aid for children who had lost relatives to violence during the Balkan conflicts. In 1998, I became a Bosnian citizen. We had a good life, but all of that changed after 9/11.

When I arrived at work on the morning of Oct. 19, 2001, an intelligence officer was waiting for me. He asked me to accompany him to answer questions. I did so, voluntarily — but afterward I was told that I could not go home. The United States had demanded that local authorities arrest me and five other men. News reports at the time said the United States believed that I was plotting to blow up its embassy in Sarajevo. I had never — for a second — considered this.

The fact that the United States had made a mistake was clear from the beginning. Bosnia’s highest court investigated the American claim, found that there was no evidence against me and ordered my release. But instead, the moment I was released American agents seized me and the five others. We were tied up like animals and flown to Guantánamo, the American naval base in Cuba. I arrived on Jan. 20, 2002.

I still had faith in American justice. I believed my captors would quickly realize their mistake and let me go. But when I would not give the interrogators the answers they wanted — how could I, when I had done nothing wrong? — they became more and more brutal. I was kept awake for many days straight. I was forced to remain in painful positions for hours at a time. These are things I do not want to write about; I want only to forget.

I went on a hunger strike for two years because no one would tell me why I was being imprisoned. Twice each day my captors would shove a tube up my nose, down my throat and into my stomach so they could pour food into me. It was excruciating, but I was innocent and so I kept up my protest.

In 2008, my demand for a fair legal process went all the way to America’s highest court. In a decision that bears my name, the Supreme Court declared that “the laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.” It ruled that prisoners like me, no matter how serious the accusations, have a right to a day in court. The Supreme Court recognized a basic truth: the government makes mistakes. And the court said that because “the consequence of error may be detention of persons for the duration of hostilities that may last a generation or more, this is a risk too significant to ignore.”

Five months later, Judge Richard J. Leon, of the Federal District Court in Washington, reviewed all of the reasons offered to justify my imprisonment, including secret information I never saw or heard. The government abandoned its claim of an embassy bomb plot just before the judge could hear it. After the hearing, he ordered the government to free me and four other men who had bee

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BYTEMITE

Tuesday, January 10, 2012 6:21 PM

People died, and I had a hand in it. Such things can't be forgiven.

SIGNYM

Wednesday, January 11, 2012 3:50 AM

[sarcasm] Oh, but you see he is a terrorist. A very clever one, disguising himself as a sympathetic figure. We should torture him and make him admit his complicity [/sarcasm]