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ralphwiggum

War against terror

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EiZei, its' interesting to try and find the number of American news outlets that have seriously looked at the support of dictatorships such as in Uzbekistan.  The irony is that the Middle East media puts this type of stuff as front page news and most Middle Easterners are EXTREMELY aware of our hypocricy in our crusade for "Freedom and Democracy".  It is utter and complete hypocricy.  However we then demand democracy in countries like Egypt even though 90% of their population has heavy anti-American sentiment.  True democracy in Egypt would lead to the election of a heavily anti-American, anti-Israeli government that would likely use Egypt's new and highly capable military to launch a new war against Israel.

So, who knows what will happen if the TBA insists that all governments in the Middle East become democracies.  It certainly will do nothing to decrease terrorism because it does very little to reduce the underlying reasons for terrorism.  Democracies are often just as corrupt if not more then dictatorships or authoritarian governments.  Like good politicians they will use America and Israel as scapegoats for their domestic problems (as the state controlled Egyptian press does now).  That is of coarse unless us Americans take responsibility for our foreign policy and realize that it has cause and effect relationships with terrorism.  That along with understanding terrorists and their motivations will I think go a long way to design foreign policies that will take these cause and effect relationships into account so that we can subvert or better yet, de-legitimise terrorist ideologies and movements using mass media propaganda and overt and covert manners.

If it works for marketing Nike shoes and American politicians it can work fighting terrorism if the propaganda is put into an Islamic context using highly charged religious based propaganda designed to have maximum emotional impact.

But the tough part is that it also must go along with a shift in US Judeo-Christian based foreign policy towards Israel.  This can be changed via the Supreme Courts I believe as our foreign policy concerning Israel is in direct violation of the constitutional seperation of church and state.

For that to happen it will require very bold political leaders along with powerful legal advocacy groups.  

Thats not to say that we should cut all support for Israel, but that we can not continue to be seen as allowing Israel to do whatever it wants to Palistinians without some type of accountability, especially when we have ENORMOUS leverage over Israel in terms of our military and economic support of Isarel.  The only leverage they have on America is through massive lobbying power and religious leverage as "God's chosen people".  

However theologically the religious leverage can be easily manipulated against them.  I do not think however that the Israeli government uses the religious card when dealing with American polticians.  It is more that Christian fundamentalist politicians here in America do that themselves.  But it is done very quietly and the press has yet to pick up on this relationship between religion and foreign policy between America and Israel.

At any rate, I believe that Israel should still be supported as a country of people who have the right to live in peace and that we should be assisting them in attaining that peace with the Palistinians who have the same right.   We need to be assisting also in the reconciliation between the two people in order to have a lasting peace built upon policies that are not only short term, but designed to address future problems that will arise such as when the non-Jewish popluation begins to become the majority in Israel if population demographic trends continue in Israel.  

The issue of Jerusalem also needs to be handled very delicately.  I am a firm believer that ultimately solutions can be found.  But it requires tremendous leadership, skillful planning, diplomacy, and courage.

Right now at the moment, the Palistinian militant groups I believe are a key problem.  If Abbas goes against them, there will be an ugly civil war in which Hamas will likely be victorious and thus give Israel the green flag to destroy the Palistinians completely at least in their current territories.  

What needs to be done is EXTREMELY HEAVY negotiations with the most radical elements of Hamas to show them that their militant goals are NOT productive to the cause of a Palistinian state.  What they fail to realize is that normalized relations with Israel will likely mean that in the future, it will likely mean the ability of Palistinians to move to Israel and create businesses and homes there (and vice versa, Jews moving into their territories).  So in a manner of speaking, good relationships with Israel could ultimately allow Palistinians to return to what they believe is also their land.  It just means that they must share it with Jews.  Arab Israelies are already doing this just fine.   Who rules Jerusalem however is a sticking point, but even their a 3rd party can administer Jerusalem where for example it is under Israeli protection but is administred by a tri-faith elected body but headed by an elected Buddhist, Asian born leader with no religious affiliation to Christianity, Islam, or Judaism.

That would of coarse be a hard sell, but it would provide a lasting peaceful solution I believe especially when combined with lasting peace treaties betwen Israel and the Palistinians and a gradual demilitarization of Hamas similar to the process we've seen in Northern Ireland.  

If peace is created between Israelies and Palistinians, and that the US is seen as a truly non-partial moderator in the peace process, then I believe it will take a TREMENDOUS amount of steam from the arguements terrorist leaders use against America and Israel.  Terrorism would be reduced greatly, and we could then have a much easier time eliminating those extremist groups that continue to try and wage terrorism.  

But right now America has lost the moral high ground.  We are seen as Qu'ran desecrating, Muslim torturing, immoral, hypocrits in the Middle East.  So our rhetoric about freedom and democracy falls on deaf ears as it does not address the realities of people living in the Middle East nor does it counter all of the negativity they see about America in their media (which is often state controlled and used to deflect the attention of their populace away from their domestic issues and their governments).

So these are issues that need to be tackled in new and creative ways.  Sadly right now, we don't see any of that and instead its just about "staying the coarse" and "not changing horses midstream".... which is rediculous if indications point that your foreign policy is heading towards disaster (or already is a disaster).

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

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Hmmm

'Star Wars' Raises Questions on U.S. Policy

Quote[/b] ]Sunday May 15 12:37 PM ET

Without Michael Moore and "Fahrenheit 9/11" at the Cannes Film Festival this time, it was left to George Lucas and "Star Wars" to pique European ire over the state of world relations and the United States' role in it.

Lucas' themes of democracy on the skids and a ruler preaching war to preserve the peace predate "Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith" by almost 30 years. Yet viewers Sunday and Lucas himself noted similarities between the final chapter of his sci-fi saga and our own troubled times.

Cannes audiences made blunt comparisons between "Revenge of the Sith" the story of Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side and the rise of an emperor through warmongering to President Bush's war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq.

Two lines from the movie especially resonated:

"This is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause," bemoans Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) as the galactic Senate cheers dictator-in-waiting Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) while he announces a crusade against the Jedi.

"If you're not with me, then you're my enemy," Hayden Christensen's Anakin soon to become villain Darth Vader tells former mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor). The line echoes Bush's international ultimatum after the Sept. 11 attacks, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

"That quote is almost a perfect citation of Bush," said Liam Engle, a 23-year-old French-American aspiring filmmaker. "Plus, you've got a politician trying to increase his power to wage a phony war."

Though the plot was written years ago, "the anti-Bush diatribe is clearly there," Engle said.

Lucas said he patterned his story after historical transformations from freedom to fascism, never figuring when he started his prequel trilogy in the late 1990s that current events might parallel his space fantasy.

"As you go through history, I didn't think it was going to get quite this close. So it's just one of those recurring things," Lucas said at a Cannes news conference. "I hope this doesn't come true in our country.

"Maybe the film will waken people to the situation," Lucas joked.

That comment echoes Moore's rhetoric at Cannes last year, when his anti-Bush documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" won the festival's top honor.

Unlike Moore, whose Cannes visit came off like an anybody-but-Bush campaign stop, Lucas never mentioned the president by name but was eager to speak his mind on U.S. policy in Iraq, careful again to note that he created the story long before the Bush-led occupation there.

"When I wrote it, Iraq didn't exist," Lucas said, laughing.

"We were just funding Saddam Hussein and giving him weapons of mass destruction. We didn't think of him as an enemy at that time. We were going after Iran and using him as our surrogate, just as we were doing in Vietnam. ... The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in Iraq now are unbelievable."

The prequel trilogy is based on a back-story outline Lucas created in the mid-1970s for the original three "Star Wars" movies, so the themes percolated out of the Vietnam War and the Nixon-Watergate era, he said.

Lucas began researching how democracies can turn into dictatorships with full consent of the electorate.

In ancient Rome, "why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and give the government to his nephew?" Lucas said. "Why did France after they got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to Napoleon? It's the same thing with Germany and Hitler.

"You sort of see these recurring themes where a democracy turns itself into a dictatorship, and it always seems to happen kind of in the same way, with the same kinds of issues, and threats from the outside, needing more control. A democratic body, a senate, not being able to function properly because everybody's squabbling, there's corruption."

blues.gif

Gee , never realized Palpatine = cheney and Bush = Vader ...

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Quote[/b] ] Oddly enough, I didn't find this funny... go figure ...

It was a joke mate, too much seriousness in the world these days. Can’t even have a laugh with fellow Europeans. But it shows who has the sense of humour.

Quote[/b] ] What ingenuity, the billionth joke about France in this forum, top marks for ingenuity and creativity mate

Honestly mate, it's getting boring. Cut it out please

I’m sorry, I will be a good lad from now on. smile_o.gif

Quote[/b] ] Flaming/Flamebaiting are not acceptable on these forums, sad, cheap, unoriginal jokes about one nation's military are considered flaming/flamebaiting here, continue such a train of thought and receive PR/WL+ accordingly.

I'd like to see anyone repeat such a "joke" to the face of Ran or any other current/former French soldier.

Sad, was that a joke? Sorry but I laughed so I wasn’t sad in anyway, pretty happy actually.

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Guess I was wrong about it not spreading!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4549873.stm

Quote[/b] ]Locals expel Uzbek town leaders

Local residents have seized control of Korasuv, a border town in eastern Uzbekistan, driving out representatives of the central government.

Angry crowds set government buildings alight and attacked the mayor.

The uprising follows the bloody suppression of a demonstration in the nearby city of Andijan on Friday.

The BBC's Ian MacWilliam says this is exactly the kind of local rebellion the Uzbek government hoped to prevent by a show of force in Andijan.

Hundreds of people are feared to have been killed in that city when troops fired on protesting crowds.

UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told the BBC there had been "a clear abuse of human rights" in Uzbekistan.

Mr Straw said the situation was "serious" and called for more transparency from the Uzbek government.

The Uzbek foreign ministry dismissed the comments, saying Mr Straw was too far away to know what had happened.

Decentralised power

Meanwhile, the residents of Korasuv are meeting to discuss how to run their own affairs, free of interference from the authoritarian government, says our correspondent in the town.

As news of the violence in Andijan filtered into Korasuv, local people went to the mayor, demanding that the border crossing to the Kyrgyz side of the town be reopened.

When he refused, he was beaten.

Angry crowds set fire to the militia headquarters, the road police and the tax inspector's office - the three most hated representatives of the central government, our correspondent says.

They then set to work to rebuild two bridges over the border river, reuniting the Uzbek and Kyrgyz sides of the town.

The bridges were ripped up more than two years ago in what the government said was a crackdown on cross-border trade.

But correspondents say locals saw the move as an attempt to grind them down by denying them access to the thriving market on the other side.

They say they now plan to control the frontier crossing themselves and to re-establish trade to provide jobs.

Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov has blamed Friday's unrest in Andijan on Islamic extremists operating in Kyrgyzstan.

It is unlikely he will tolerate for long a situation where people can cross freely between the two countries, our correspondent says.

City sealed

Meanwhile, the situation in Andijan is reported to be quiet, with soldiers and tanks patrolling the streets.

It is difficult to get information as Uzbek security forces have sealed off the city centre and expelled journalists.

It is still not known how many people died. Estimates vary from dozens to hundreds.

The BBC's Monica Whitlock says without any independent humanitarian agencies operating in the region, the true figure may never emerge.

Looks like Uzbekistan might become an Islamic state!

I certainly do not envy Washington right now.

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Quote[/b] ]Gee , never realized Palpatine = cheney and Bush = Vader ...

Feck Yeah! Bush is going to bring balance to the world in 20-40 years. Feck Yeah! I guess since Cheney knows where is Laden and co, Bush is going to kill them all. Feck Yeah! Where can I go to join the Empire?

No, I'm not drunk but these damn finals!!!

Did you know the purge has already begun? Only I, Billybob2002, have obtain a photo before he stuck down John F'in Kerry:

untitledm.JPG

Kerry is going to be missed... sad_o.gif *

*This is a sarcastic post because people (ie. that french-american) read in to too much stuff.

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Hmmm

'Star Wars' Raises Questions on U.S. Policy

Quote[/b] ]Sunday May 15 12:37 PM ET

Without Michael Moore and "Fahrenheit 9/11" at the Cannes Film Festival this time, it was left to George Lucas and "Star Wars" to pique European ire over the state of world relations and the United States' role in it.

Lucas' themes of democracy on the skids and a ruler preaching war to preserve the peace predate "Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith" by almost 30 years. Yet viewers Sunday and Lucas himself noted similarities between the final chapter of his sci-fi saga and our own troubled times.

Cannes audiences made blunt comparisons between "Revenge of the Sith" the story of Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side and the rise of an emperor through warmongering to President Bush's war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq.

Two lines from the movie especially resonated:

"This is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause," bemoans Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) as the galactic Senate cheers dictator-in-waiting Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) while he announces a crusade against the Jedi.

"If you're not with me, then you're my enemy," Hayden Christensen's Anakin soon to become villain Darth Vader tells former mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor). The line echoes Bush's international ultimatum after the Sept. 11 attacks, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

"That quote is almost a perfect citation of Bush," said Liam Engle, a 23-year-old French-American aspiring filmmaker. "Plus, you've got a politician trying to increase his power to wage a phony war."

Though the plot was written years ago, "the anti-Bush diatribe is clearly there," Engle said.

Lucas said he patterned his story after historical transformations from freedom to fascism, never figuring when he started his prequel trilogy in the late 1990s that current events might parallel his space fantasy.

"As you go through history, I didn't think it was going to get quite this close. So it's just one of those recurring things," Lucas said at a Cannes news conference. "I hope this doesn't come true in our country.

"Maybe the film will waken people to the situation," Lucas joked.

That comment echoes Moore's rhetoric at Cannes last year, when his anti-Bush documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" won the festival's top honor.

Unlike Moore, whose Cannes visit came off like an anybody-but-Bush campaign stop, Lucas never mentioned the president by name but was eager to speak his mind on U.S. policy in Iraq, careful again to note that he created the story long before the Bush-led occupation there.

"When I wrote it, Iraq didn't exist," Lucas said, laughing.

"We were just funding Saddam Hussein and giving him weapons of mass destruction. We didn't think of him as an enemy at that time. We were going after Iran and using him as our surrogate, just as we were doing in Vietnam. ... The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in Iraq now are unbelievable."

The prequel trilogy is based on a back-story outline Lucas created in the mid-1970s for the original three "Star Wars" movies, so the themes percolated out of the Vietnam War and the Nixon-Watergate era, he said.

Lucas began researching how democracies can turn into dictatorships with full consent of the electorate.

In ancient Rome, "why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and give the government to his nephew?" Lucas said. "Why did France after they got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to Napoleon? It's the same thing with Germany and Hitler.

"You sort of see these recurring themes where a democracy turns itself into a dictatorship, and it always seems to happen kind of in the same way, with the same kinds of issues, and threats from the outside, needing more control. A democratic body, a senate, not being able to function properly because everybody's squabbling, there's corruption."

blues.gif

Gee , never realized Palpatine = cheney and Bush = Vader ...

bushputin.JPG

some Darth Vader... can't even drive manual. wonder if Putin had to replace that clutch biggrin_o.gif

Ratzy on the otherhand:

ratzinger3kb.jpg

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Newsweek Apologizes for Quran Story Errors

Quote[/b] ]

By DINO HAZELL, Associated Press Writer 46 minutes ago

NEW YORK - In an apology to readers this week, Newsweek acknowledged errors in a story alleging U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Quran. The accusations, which the magazine vowed to re-examine, spawned protests in

Afghanistan that left 15 dead and scores injured.

ADVERTISEMENT

Responding to harsh criticism from Muslim leaders worldwide, the

Pentagon promised to investigate the charges and pinned the deadly clashes on Newsweek for what it described as "irresponsible" reporting.

"We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst," Editor Mark Whitaker wrote in the apology.

Newsweek reported that U.S. military investigators had found evidence that interrogators placed copies of Islam's holy book in washrooms and had flushed one down the toilet to get inmates to talk.

Whitaker wrote that the magazine's information came from "a knowledgeable U.S. government source," and writers Michael Isikoff and John Barry had sought comment from two Defense Department officials. One declined to respond, and the other challenged another part of the story but did not dispute the Quran charge, Whitaker said.

But on Friday, a top Pentagon spokesman told the magazine that a review of the military's investigation concluded "it was never meant to look into charges of Quran desecration. The spokesman also said the Pentagon had investigated other desecration charges by detainees and found them 'not credible.'"

Whitaker added that the magazine's original source later said he could not be sure he read about the alleged Quran incident in the report Newsweek cited, and that it might have been in another document.

"Top administration officials have promised to continue looking into the charges, and so will we," Whitaker wrote.

Newsweek Washington Bureau Chief Daniel Klaidman said the magazine believes it erred in reporting the allegation that a prison guard tried to flush the Quran down a toilet and that military investigators had confirmed the accusation.

No one knows what is happening as always .....

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"We're sorry we killed 17 people. We're sorry we set half the world on fire so that we could make false claims to sell our crappy magazine."

Any first level journalism student knows you check allegations like this before printing. It's fucking ridiculous the idiots.

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"We're sorry we killed 17 people. We're sorry we set half the world on fire so that we could make false claims to sell our crappy magazine."

Any first level journalism student knows you check allegations like this before printing. It's fucking ridiculous the idiots.

05.05.15.Flushed-X.gif

But as much as I think NewsWeak is trash, they are not the main problem. The problem is that people will kill over a book being desecrated. Actually, over an anonymous report buried within a third rate weekly shmattah (Yiddish - look it up).

There is something wrong when people value a book, of which there are millions, over human lives. This is the real problem, and Newsweak isn't the source of it. The problem is ignorance and violence within the Islamic world.

Some 40 freshly executed bodies have been uncovered in the last few day in Iraq, surely the vast majority of them innocent and defenceless Muslims. Did you hear of these same Afghanis or any of their co-religionists going on the rampage and declaring Jihad against the animals that committed these attrocities?

Sadly,

<s>Walker</s> Avon

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Quote[/b] ] Did you hear of these same Afghanis or any of their co-religionists going on the rampage and declaring Jihad against the animals that committed these attrocities?

No they were busy searching for another issue to launch on their soapbox and bash america blues.gif .

Quote[/b] ]There is something wrong when people value a book, of which there are millions, over human lives. This is the real problem, and Newsweak isn't the source of it. The problem is ignorance and violence within the Islamic world.

Agreed , but abusing a religious book deliberately to piss someone off is no good a deed aswell. That is if one were to follow that report the impression people get , this sort of behaviour was to be expected.

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Quote[/b] ] Did you hear of these same Afghanis or any of their co-religionists going on the rampage and declaring Jihad against the animals that committed these attrocities?

No they were busy searching for another issue to launch on their soapbox and bash america  blues.gif .

So, you think their response was reasonable. Thank you.

Quote[/b] ]
Quote[/b] ]There is something wrong when people value a book, of which there are millions, over human lives. This is the real problem, and Newsweak isn't the source of it. The problem is ignorance and violence within the Islamic world.

Agreed , but abusing a religious book deliberately to piss someone off is no good a deed aswell. That is if one were to follow that report the impression people get , this sort of behaviour was to be expected.

Really? I would think the whole Christian world would be justified in turning your country to ashes then:

Quote[/b] ]Regional Repression of Christians

The current Christian reality in many Middle Eastern countries is also difficult. In Egypt, "Muslim, but not Christian, schools receive state funding....It is nearly impossible to restore or build new churches....Christians are frequently ostracized or insulted in public, and laws prohibit Muslim conversions to Christianity....Islamic radicals have frequently launched physical attacks on [Christian] Copts."11

Saudi Arabia "is one of the most oppressive countries for Christians. There are no churches in the whole country. Foreign workers make up one-third of the population, many of whom are Christians. For their entire stay, which may be years, they are forbidden to display any Christian symbols or Bibles, or even meet together publicly to worship and pray. Some have watched their personal Bibles put through a shredder when they entered the country."12

An official Saudi cleric, Sheik Saad Al-Buraik, pronounced in a Riyadh government mosque, "People should know that...the battle that we are going through is...also with those who believe that Allah is a third in a Trinity, and those who said that Jesus is the son of Allah, and Allah is Jesus, the son of Mary."13

In Iran, "the printing of Christian literature is illegal, converts from Islam are liable to be killed, and most evangelical churches must function underground."14 Christians are not allowed to testify in an Islamic court when a Muslim is involved and they are discriminated against in employment. A 1992 UN report cites cases of imprisonment and torture of Muslims who converted to Christianity and of Armenian and Assyrian pastors, the dissolution of the Iranian Bible Society, the closure of Christian libraries, and the confiscation of all Christian books, including 20,000 copies of the New Testament in Farsi.15

In Israel, too, Muslim fundamentalists seek to assert dominance over Christian Arabs. "Attacks against and condemnation of Christians are also often heard in mosques, in sermons and in publications of the Muslim Movement."16 In Nazareth, a significant clash developed in recent years when Muslims sought to build a grand mosque next to the Basilica of the Annunciation, the dominant Christian landmark in the town.17

Quote[/b] ]The Palestinian gunmen holed up in the Church of the Nativity seized church stockpiles of food and "ate like greedy monsters" until the food ran out, while more than 150 civilians went hungry. They also guzzled beer, wine, and Johnnie Walker scotch that they found in priests' quarters, undeterred by the Islamic ban on drinking alcohol. The indulgence lasted for about two weeks into the 39-day siege, when the food and drink ran out, according to an account by four Greek Orthodox priests who were trapped inside for the entire ordeal....

   The Orthodox priests and a number of civilians have said the gunmen created a regime of fear.

   Even in the Roman Catholic areas of the complex there was evidence of disregard for religious norms. <span style='color:red'>Catholic priests said that some Bibles were torn up for toilet paper</span>, and many valuable sacramental objects were removed. "Palestinians took candelabra, icons and anything that looked like gold," said a Franciscan, the Rev. Nicholas Marquez from Mexico.42

Source: THE BELEAGUERED CHRISTIANS OF THE PALESTINIAN-CONTROLLED AREAS

Amazing. Never reported by Newsweak.

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When did i say it was a reasonable?

icon_rolleyes.gif

Quoting you verbatim:

Quote[/b] ]this sort of behaviour was to be expected.

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You quoted me saying this and then said that:

Quote[/b] ]No they were busy searching for another issue to launch on their soapbox and bash america blues.gif

I was being sarcastic there , even though its true.

And i dont appreciate anyone burning anyone else religious scriptures neither do i think killing and going on a frenzy just because someone else on the other half of the world did something you didnt like. But try telling that to masses of illeterate , isolated people lead by some stupid mullah.

Point being you can expect this from such people , and its better to avoid it. Considering its your own people who are gonna suffer from the backlash.

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Quote[/b] ]There is something wrong when people value a book, of which there are millions, over human lives. This is the real problem, and Newsweak isn't the source of it. The problem is ignorance and violence within the Islamic world.

Bullshit. There are just as many Christians and Jews that would react the same way. There are extremists in every religion and to just say Islam is the only violent one is just plain prejudice on your part.

Put I also agree that this was just a spark that was required to light a fire. Only a reason was needed for people to rise up and Newsweek was so kind as to supply it.

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I'm sorry, but if Newsweek published a story about Muslims flushing the Bible or Torah down the pot, I just can't see a large number (if any) of Christians or Jews rioting and rampaging. I think I can safely say that most Christians response would be that the meaning is important, not the book itself.

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I'm sorry, but if Newsweek published a story about Muslims flushing the Bible or Torah down the pot, I just can't see a large number (if any) of Christians or Jews rioting and rampaging. I think I can safely say that most Christians response would be that the meaning is important, not the book itself.

If bibles were being shat upon in some pro-choice/pro-LGBT-rally I think certain fundies would have a shit fit (pun intended) and that stuff would get shown again and again in certain media outlets.

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When did i say it was a reasonable?

icon_rolleyes.gif

Quoting you verbatim:

Quote[/b] ]this sort of behaviour was to be expected.

It's obvious that you attack AceCombat for the mere fact that he is a muslim. No where does he condone or say the reaction was "reasonable" yet you go off on an attack stating that's exactly what he did. And then you qoute paragraphs about Christian repression as if Acecombat is 1) responsible and 2) actively participating in it. I think you need to come to terms with your own subconscious racism.

Quote[/b] ]I'm sorry, but if Newsweek published a story about Muslims flushing the Bible or Torah down the pot, I just can't see a large number (if any) of Christians or Jews rioting and rampaging. I think I can safely say that most Christians response would be that the meaning is important, not the book itself.

I can see exactly that if say a Palestinian crapped on the Torah. I can imagine the reaction being almost as violent in Israel from a certain population. However, it is interesting to note that the most violent protests were in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the US presence has already caused a high amount of tension and resentment. This was merely a tiny spark needed to light a huge powder keg.

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Other sparks with a reality background are not hard to find these days. Anyway, I don´t think that the newsweek statement will change much in Afghanistan. If the mullahs say that the US government pressed the magazine to take back their claims it will only put more fuel on the fire.

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Quote[/b] ]In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths

By TIM GOLDEN

Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him.

The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.

Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar's face.

"Come on, drink!" the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. "Drink!"

At the interrogators' behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.

"Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.

Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.

The story of Mr. Dilawar's brutal death at the Bagram Collection Point - and that of another detainee, Habibullah, who died there six days earlier in December 2002 - emerge from a nearly 2,000-page confidential file of the Army's criminal investigation into the case, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.

Like a narrative counterpart to the digital images from Abu Ghraib, the Bagram file depicts young, poorly trained soldiers in repeated incidents of abuse. The harsh treatment, which has resulted in criminal charges against seven soldiers, went well beyond the two deaths.

In some instances, testimony shows, it was directed or carried out by interrogators to extract information. In others, it was punishment meted out by military police guards. Sometimes, the torment seems to have been driven by little more than boredom or cruelty, or both.

In sworn statements to Army investigators, soldiers describe one female interrogator with a taste for humiliation stepping on the neck of one prostrate detainee and kicking another in the genitals. They tell of a shackled prisoner being forced to roll back and forth on the floor of a cell, kissing the boots of his two interrogators as he went. Yet another prisoner is made to pick plastic bottle caps out of a drum mixed with excrement and water as part of a strategy to soften him up for questioning.

The Times obtained a copy of the file from a person involved in the investigation who was critical of the methods used at Bagram and the military's response to the deaths.

Although incidents of prisoner abuse at Bagram in 2002, including some details of the two men's deaths, have been previously reported, American officials have characterized them as isolated problems that were thoroughly investigated. And many of the officers and soldiers interviewed in the Dilawar investigation said the large majority of detainees at Bagram were compliant and reasonably well treated.

"What we have learned through the course of all these investigations is that there were people who clearly violated anyone's standard for humane treatment," said the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Larry Di Rita. "We're finding some cases that were not close calls."

Yet the Bagram file includes ample testimony that harsh treatment by some interrogators was routine and that guards could strike shackled detainees with virtual impunity. Prisoners considered important or troublesome were also handcuffed and chained to the ceilings and doors of their cells, sometimes for long periods, an action Army prosecutors recently classified as criminal assault.

Some of the mistreatment was quite obvious, the file suggests. Senior officers frequently toured the detention center, and several of them acknowledged seeing prisoners chained up for punishment or to deprive them of sleep. Shortly before the two deaths, observers from the International Committee of the Red Cross specifically complained to the military authorities at Bagram about the shackling of prisoners in "fixed positions," documents show.

Even though military investigators learned soon after Mr. Dilawar's death that he had been abused by at least two interrogators, the Army's criminal inquiry moved slowly. Meanwhile, many of the Bagram interrogators, led by the same operations officer, Capt. Carolyn A. Wood, were redeployed to Iraq and in July 2003 took charge of interrogations at the Abu Ghraib prison. According to a high-level Army inquiry last year, Captain Wood applied techniques there that were "remarkably similar" to those used at Bagram.

Last October, the Army's Criminal Investigation Command concluded that there was probable cause to charge 27 officers and enlisted personnel with criminal offenses in the Dilawar case ranging from dereliction of duty to maiming and involuntary manslaughter. Fifteen of the same soldiers were also cited for probable criminal responsibility in the Habibullah case.

So far, only the seven soldiers have been charged, including four last week. No one has been convicted in either death. Two Army interrogators were also reprimanded, a military spokesman said. Most of those who could still face legal action have denied wrongdoing, either in statements to investigators or in comments to a reporter.

"The whole situation is unfair," Sgt. Selena M. Salcedo, a former Bagram interrogator who was charged with assaulting Mr. Dilawar, dereliction of duty and lying to investigators, said in a telephone interview. "It's all going to come out when everything is said and done."

With most of the legal action pending, the story of abuses at Bagram remains incomplete. But documents and interviews reveal a striking disparity between the findings of Army investigators and what military officials said in the aftermath of the deaths.

Military spokesmen maintained that both men had died of natural causes, even after military coroners had ruled the deaths homicides. Two months after those autopsies, the American commander in Afghanistan, then-Lt. Gen. Daniel K. McNeill, said he had no indication that abuse by soldiers had contributed to the two deaths. The methods used at Bagram, he said, were "in accordance with what is generally accepted as interrogation techniques."

The Interrogators

In the summer of 2002, the military detention center at Bagram, about 40 miles north of Kabul, stood as a hulking reminder of the Americans' improvised hold over Afghanistan.

Built by the Soviets as an aircraft machine shop for the operations base they established after their intervention in the country in 1979, the building had survived the ensuing wars as a battered relic - a long, squat, concrete block with rusted metal sheets where the windows had once been.

Retrofitted with five large wire pens and a half dozen plywood isolation cells, the building became the Bagram Collection Point, a clearinghouse for prisoners captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The B.C.P., as soldiers called it, typically held between 40 and 80 detainees while they were interrogated and screened for possible shipment to the Pentagon's longer-term detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The new interrogation unit that arrived in July 2002 had been improvised as well. Captain Wood, then a 32-year-old lieutenant, came with 13 soldiers from the 525th Military Intelligence Brigade at Fort Bragg, N.C.; six Arabic-speaking reservists were added from the Utah National Guard.

Part of the new group, which was consolidated under Company A of the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion, was made up of counterintelligence specialists with no background in interrogation. Only two of the soldiers had ever questioned actual prisoners.

What specialized training the unit received came on the job, in sessions with two interrogators who had worked in the prison for a few months. "There was nothing that prepared us for running an interrogation operation" like the one at Bagram, the noncommissioned officer in charge of the interrogators, Staff Sgt. Steven W. Loring, later told investigators.

Nor were the rules of engagement very clear. The platoon had the standard interrogations guide, Army Field Manual 34-52, and an order from the secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, to treat prisoners "humanely," and when possible, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. But with President Bush's final determination in February 2002 that the Conventions did not apply to the conflict with Al Qaeda and that Taliban fighters would not be accorded the rights of prisoners of war, the interrogators believed they "could deviate slightly from the rules," said one of the Utah reservists, Sgt. James A. Leahy.

"There was the Geneva Conventions for enemy prisoners of war, but nothing for terrorists," Sergeant Leahy told Army investigators. And the detainees, senior intelligence officers said, were to be considered terrorists until proved otherwise.

The deviations included the use of "safety positions" or "stress positions" that would make the detainees uncomfortable but not necessarily hurt them - kneeling on the ground, for instance, or sitting in a "chair" position against the wall. The new platoon was also trained in sleep deprivation, which the previous unit had generally limited to 24 hours or less, insisting that the interrogator remain awake with the prisoner to avoid pushing the limits of humane treatment.

But as the 519th interrogators settled into their jobs, they set their own procedures for sleep deprivation. They decided on 32 to 36 hours as the optimal time to keep prisoners awake and eliminated the practice of staying up themselves, one former interrogator, Eric LaHammer, said in an interview.

The interrogators worked from a menu of basic tactics to gain a prisoner's cooperation, from the "friendly" approach, to good cop-bad cop routines, to the threat of long-term imprisonment. But some less-experienced interrogators came to rely on the method known in the military as "Fear Up Harsh," or what one soldier referred to as "the screaming technique."

Sergeant Loring, then 27, tried with limited success to wean those interrogators off that approach, which typically involved yelling and throwing chairs. Mr. Leahy said the sergeant "put the brakes on when certain approaches got out of hand." But he could also be dismissive of tactics he considered too soft, several soldiers told investigators, and gave some of the most aggressive interrogators wide latitude. (Efforts to locate Mr. Loring, who has left the military, were unsuccessful.)

"We sometimes developed a rapport with detainees, and Sergeant Loring would sit us down and remind us that these were evil people and talk about 9/11 and they weren't our friends and could not be trusted," Mr. Leahy said.

Specialist Damien M. Corsetti, a tall, bearded interrogator sometimes called "Monster" -he had the nickname tattooed in Italian across his stomach, other soldiers said - was often chosen to intimidate new detainees. Specialist Corsetti, they said, would glower and yell at the arrivals as they stood chained to an overhead pole or lay face down on the floor of a holding room. (A military police K-9 unit often brought growling dogs to walk among the new prisoners for similar effect, documents show.)

"The other interrogators would use his reputation," said one interrogator, Specialist Eric H. Barclais. "They would tell the detainee, 'If you don't cooperate, we'll have to get Monster, and he won't be as nice.' " Another soldier told investigators that Sergeant Loring lightheartedly referred to Specialist Corsetti, then 23, as "the King of Torture."

A Saudi detainee who was interviewed by Army investigators last June at Guantánamo said Specialist Corsetti had pulled out his penis during an interrogation at Bagram, held it against the prisoner's face and threatened to rape him, excerpts from the man's statement show.

Last fall, the investigators cited probable cause to charge Specialist Corsetti with assault, maltreatment of a prisoner and indecent acts in the incident; he has not been charged. At Abu Ghraib, he was also one of three members of the 519th who were fined and demoted for forcing an Iraqi woman to strip during questioning, another interrogator said. A spokesman at Fort Bragg said Specialist Corsetti would not comment.

In late August of 2002, the Bagram interrogators were joined by a new military police unit that was assigned to guard the detainees. The soldiers, mostly reservists from the 377th Military Police Company based in Cincinnati and Bloomington, Ind., were similarly unprepared for their mission, members of the unit said.

The company received basic lessons in handling prisoners at Fort Dix, N.J., and some police and corrections officers in its ranks provided further training. That instruction included an overview of "pressure-point control tactics" and notably the "common peroneal strike" - a potentially disabling blow to the side of the leg, just above the knee.

The M.P.'s said they were never told that peroneal strikes were not part of Army doctrine. Nor did most of them hear one of the former police officers tell a fellow soldier during the training that he would never use such strikes because they would "tear up" a prisoner's legs.

But once in Afghanistan, members of the 377th found that the usual rules did not seem to apply. The peroneal strike quickly became a basic weapon of the M.P. arsenal. "That was kind of like an accepted thing; you could knee somebody in the leg," former Sgt. Thomas V. Curtis told the investigators.

A few weeks into the company's tour, Specialist Jeremy M. Callaway overheard another guard boasting about having beaten a detainee who had spit on him. Specialist Callaway also told investigators that other soldiers had congratulated the guard "for not taking any" from a detainee.

One captain nicknamed members of the Third Platoon "the Testosterone Gang." Several were devout bodybuilders. Upon arriving in Afghanistan, a group of the soldiers decorated their tent with a Confederate flag, one soldier said.

Some of the same M.P.'s took a particular interest in an emotionally disturbed Afghan detainee who was known to eat his feces and mutilate himself with concertina wire. The soldiers kneed the man repeatedly in the legs and, at one point, chained him with his arms straight up in the air, Specialist Callaway told investigators. They also nicknamed him "Timmy," after a disabled child in the animated television series "South Park." One of the guards who beat the prisoner also taught him to screech like the cartoon character, Specialist Callaway said.

Eventually, the man was sent home.

The Defiant Detainee

The detainee known as Person Under Control No. 412 was a portly, well-groomed Afghan named Habibullah. Some American officials identified him as "Mullah" Habibullah, a brother of a former Taliban commander from the southern Afghan province of Oruzgan.

He stood out from the scraggly guerrillas and villagers whom the Bagram interrogators typically saw. "He had a piercing gaze and was very confident," the provost marshal in charge of the M.P.'s, Maj. Bobby R. Atwell, recalled.

Documents from the investigation suggest that Mr. Habibullah was captured by an Afghan warlord on Nov. 28, 2002, and delivered to Bagram by C.I.A. operatives two days later. His well-being at that point is a matter of dispute. The doctor who examined him on arrival at Bagram reported him in good health. But the intelligence operations chief, Lt. Col. John W. Loffert Jr., later told Army investigators, "He was already in bad condition when he arrived."

What is clear is that Mr. Habibullah was identified at Bagram as an important prisoner and an unusually sharp-tongued and insubordinate one.

One of the 377th's Third Platoon sergeants, Alan J. Driver Jr., told investigators that Mr. Habibullah rose up after a rectal examination and kneed him in the groin. The guard said he grabbed the prisoner by the head and yelled in his face. Mr. Habibullah then "became combative," Sergeant Driver said, and had to be subdued by three guards and led away in an armlock.

He was then confined in one of the 9-foot by 7-foot isolation cells, which the M.P. commander, Capt. Christopher M. Beiring, later described as a standard procedure. "There was a policy that detainees were hooded, shackled and isolated for at least the first 24 hours, sometimes 72 hours of captivity," he told investigators.

While the guards kept some prisoners awake by yelling or poking at them or banging on their cell doors, Mr. Habibullah was shackled by the wrists to the wire ceiling over his cell, soldiers said.

On his second day, Dec. 1, the prisoner was "uncooperative" again, this time with Specialist Willie V. Brand. The guard, who has since been charged with assault and other crimes, told investigators he had delivered three peroneal strikes in response. The next day, Specialist Brand said, he had to knee the prisoner again. Other blows followed.

A lawyer for Specialist Brand, John P. Galligan, said there was no criminal intent by his client to hurt any detainee. "At the time, my client was acting consistently with the standard operating procedure that was in place at the Bagram facility."

The communication between Mr. Habibullah and his jailers appears to have been almost exclusively physical. Despite repeated requests, the M.P.'s were assigned no interpreters of their own. Instead, they borrowed from the interrogators when they could and relied on prisoners who spoke even a little English to translate for them.

When the detainees were beaten or kicked for "noncompliance," one of the interpreters, Ali M. Baryalai said, it was often "because they have no idea what the M.P. is saying."

By the morning of Dec. 2, witnesses told the investigators, Mr. Habibullah was coughing and complaining of chest pains. He limped into the interrogation room in shackles, his right leg stiff and his right foot swollen. The lead interrogator, Sergeant Leahy, let him sit on the floor because he could not bend his knees and sit in a chair.

The interpreter who was on hand, Ebrahim Baerde, said the interrogators had kept their distance that day "because he was spitting up a lot of phlegm."

"They were laughing and making fun of him, saying it was 'gross' or 'nasty,' " Mr. Baerde said.

Though battered, Mr. Habibullah was unbowed.

"Once they asked him if he wanted to spend the rest of his life in handcuffs," Mr. Baerde said. "His response was, 'Yes, don't they look good on me?' "

By Dec. 3, Mr. Habibullah's reputation for defiance seemed to make him an open target. One M.P. said he had given him five peroneal strikes for being "noncompliant and combative." Another gave him three or four more for being "combative and noncompliant." Some guards later asserted that he had been hurt trying to escape.

When Sgt. James P. Boland saw Mr. Habibullah on Dec. 3, he was in one of the isolation cells, tethered to the ceiling by two sets of handcuffs and a chain around his waist. His body was slumped forward, held up by the chains.

Sergeant Boland told the investigators he had entered the cell with two other guards, Specialists Anthony M. Morden and Brian E. Cammack. (All three have been charged with assault and other crimes.) One of them pulled off the prisoner's black hood. His head was slumped to one side, his tongue sticking out. Specialist Cammack said he had put some bread on Mr. Habibullah's tongue. Another soldier put an apple in the prisoner's hand; it fell to the floor.

When Specialist Cammack turned back toward the prisoner, he said in one statement, Mr. Habibullah's spit hit his chest. Later, Specialist Cammack acknowledged, "I'm not sure if he spit at me." But at the time, he exploded, yelling, "Don't ever spit on me again!" and kneeing the prisoner sharply in the thigh, "maybe a couple" of times. Mr. Habibullah's limp body swayed back and forth in the chains.

When Sergeant Boland returned to the cell some 20 minutes later, he said, Mr. Habibullah was not moving and had no pulse. Finally, the prisoner was unchained and laid out on the floor of his cell.

The guard who Specialist Cammack said had counseled him back in New Jersey about the dangers of peroneal strikes found him in the room where Mr. Habibullah lay, his body already cold.

"Specialist Cammack appeared very distraught," Specialist William Bohl told an investigator. The soldier "was running about the room hysterically."

An M.P. was sent to wake one of the medics.

"What are you getting me for?" the medic, Specialist Robert S. Melone, responded, telling him to call an ambulance instead.

When another medic finally arrived, he found Mr. Habibullah on the floor, his arms outstretched, his eyes and mouth open.

"It looked like he had been dead for a while, and it looked like nobody cared," the medic, Staff Sgt. Rodney D. Glass, recalled.

Not all of the guards were indifferent, their statements show. But if Mr. Habibullah's death shocked some of them, it did not lead to major changes in the detention center's operation.

Military police guards were assigned to be present during interrogations to help prevent mistreatment. The provost marshal, Major Atwell, told investigators he had already instructed the commander of the M.P. company, Captain Beiring, to stop chaining prisoners to the ceiling. Others said they never received such an order.

Senior officers later told investigators that they had been unaware of any serious abuses at the B.C.P. But the first sergeant of the 377th, Betty J. Jones, told investigators that the use of standing restraints, sleep deprivation and peroneal strikes was readily apparent.

"Everyone that is anyone went through the facility at one time or another," she said.

Major Atwell said the death "did not cause an enormous amount of concern 'cause it appeared natural."

In fact, Mr. Habibullah's autopsy, completed on Dec. 8, showed bruises or abrasions on his chest, arms and head. There were deep contusions on his calves, knees and thighs. His left calf was marked by what appeared to have been the sole of a boot.

His death was attributed to a blood clot, probably caused by the severe injuries to his legs, which traveled to his heart and blocked the blood flow to his lungs.

The Shy Detainee

On Dec. 5, one day after Mr. Habibullah died, Mr. Dilawar arrived at Bagram.

Four days before, on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Id al-Fitr, Mr. Dilawar set out from his tiny village of Yakubi in a prized new possession, a used Toyota sedan that his family bought for him a few weeks earlier to drive as a taxi.

Mr. Dilawar was not an adventurous man. He rarely went far from the stone farmhouse he shared with his wife, young daughter and extended family. He never attended school, relatives said, and had only one friend, Bacha Khel, with whom he would sit in the wheat fields surrounding the village and talk.

"He was a shy man, a very simple man," his eldest brother, Shahpoor, said in an interview.

On the day he disappeared, Mr. Dilawar's mother had asked him to gather his three sisters from their nearby villages and bring them home for the holiday. But he needed gas money and decided instead to drive to the provincial capital, Khost, about 45 minutes away, to look for fares.

At a taxi stand there, he found three men headed back toward Yakubi. On the way, they passed a base used by American troops, Camp Salerno, which had been the target of a rocket attack that morning.

Militiamen loyal to the guerrilla commander guarding the base, Jan Baz Khan, stopped the Toyota at a checkpoint. They confiscated a broken walkie-talkie from one of Mr. Dilawar's passengers. In the trunk, they found an electric stabilizer used to regulate current from a generator. (Mr. Dilawar's family said the stabilizer was not theirs; at the time, they said, they had no electricity at all.)

The four men were detained and turned over to American soldiers at the base as suspects in the attack. Mr. Dilawar and his passengers spent their first night there handcuffed to a fence, so they would be unable to sleep. When a doctor examined them the next morning, he said later, he found Mr. Dilawar tired and suffering from headaches but otherwise fine.

Mr. Dilawar's three passengers were eventually flown to Guantánamo and held for more than a year before being sent home without charge. In interviews after their release, the men described their treatment at Bagram as far worse than at Guantánamo. While all of them said they had been beaten, they complained most bitterly of being stripped naked in front of female soldiers for showers and medical examinations, which they said included the first of several painful and humiliating rectal exams.

"They did lots and lots of bad things to me," said Abdur Rahim, a 26-year-old baker from Khost. "I was shouting and crying, and no one was listening. When I was shouting, the soldiers were slamming my head against the desk."

For Mr. Dilawar, his fellow prisoners said, the most difficult thing seemed to be the black cloth hood that was pulled over his head. "He could not breathe," said a man called Parkhudin, who had been one of Mr. Dilawar's passengers.

Mr. Dilawar was a frail man, standing only 5 feet 9 inches and weighing 122 pounds. But at Bagram, he was quickly labeled one of the "noncompliant" ones.

When one of the First Platoon M.P.'s, Specialist Corey E. Jones, was sent to Mr. Dilawar's cell to give him some water, he said the prisoner spit in his face and started kicking him. Specialist Jones responded, he said, with a couple of knee strikes to the leg of the shackled man.

"He screamed out, 'Allah! Allah! Allah!' and my first reaction was that he was crying out to his god," Specialist Jones said to investigators. "Everybody heard him cry out and thought it was funny."

Other Third Platoon M.P.'s later came by the detention center and stopped at the isolation cells to see for themselves, Specialist Jones said.

It became a kind of running joke, and people kept showing up to give this detainee a common peroneal strike just to hear him scream out 'Allah,' " he said. "It went on over a 24-hour period, and I would think that it was over 100 strikes."

In a subsequent statement, Specialist Jones was vague about which M.P.'s had delivered the blows. His estimate was never confirmed, but other guards eventually admitted striking Mr. Dilawar repeatedly.

Many M.P.'s would eventually deny that they had any idea of Mr. Dilawar's injuries, explaining that they never saw his legs beneath his jumpsuit. But Specialist Jones recalled that the drawstring pants of Mr. Dilawar's orange prison suit fell down again and again while he was shackled.

"I saw the bruise because his pants kept falling down while he was in standing restraints," the soldier told investigators. "Over a certain time period, I noticed it was the size of a fist."

As Mr. Dilawar grew desperate, he began crying out more loudly to be released. But even the interpreters had trouble understanding his Pashto dialect; the annoyed guards heard only noise.

"He had constantly been screaming, 'Release me; I don't want to be here,' and things like that," said the one linguist who could decipher his distress, Abdul Ahad Wardak.

The Interrogation

On Dec. 8, Mr. Dilawar was taken for his fourth interrogation. It quickly turned hostile.

The 21-year-old lead interrogator, Specialist Glendale C. Walls II, later contended that Mr. Dilawar was evasive. "Some holes came up, and we wanted him to answer us truthfully," he said. The other interrogator, Sergeant Salcedo, complained that the prisoner was smiling, not answering questions, and refusing to stay kneeling on the ground or sitting against the wall.

The interpreter who was present, Ahmad Ahmadzai, recalled the encounter differently to investigators.

The interrogators, Mr. Ahmadzai said, accused Mr. Dilawar of launching the rockets that had hit the American base. He denied that. While kneeling on the ground, he was unable to hold his cuffed hands above his head as instructed, prompting Sergeant Salcedo to slap them back up whenever they began to drop.

"Selena berated him for being weak and questioned him about being a man, which was very insulting because of his heritage," Mr. Ahmadzai said.

When Mr. Dilawar was unable to sit in the chair position against the wall because of his battered legs, the two interrogators grabbed him by the shirt and repeatedly shoved him back against the wall.

"This went on for 10 or 15 minutes," the interpreter said. "He was so tired he couldn't get up."

"They stood him up, and at one point Selena stepped on his bare foot with her boot and grabbed him by his beard and pulled him towards her," he went on. "Once Selena kicked Dilawar in the groin, private areas, with her right foot. She was standing some distance from him, and she stepped back and kicked him.

"About the first 10 minutes, I think, they were actually questioning him, after that it was pushing, shoving, kicking and shouting at him," Mr. Ahmadzai said. "There was no interrogation going on."

The session ended, he said, with Sergeant Salcedo instructing the M.P.'s to keep Mr. Dilawar chained to the ceiling until the next shift came on.

The next morning, Mr. Dilawar began yelling again. At around noon, the M.P.'s called over another of the interpreters, Mr. Baerde, to try to quiet Mr. Dilawar down.

"I told him, 'Look, please, if you want to be able to sit down and be released from shackles, you just need to be quiet for one more hour."

"He told me that if he was in shackles another hour, he would die," Mr. Baerde said.

Half an hour later, Mr. Baerde returned to the cell. Mr. Dilawar's hands hung limply from the cuffs, and his head, covered by the black hood, slumped forward.

"He wanted me to get a doctor, and said that he needed 'a shot,' " Mr. Baerde recalled. "He said that he didn't feel good. He said that his legs were hurting."

Mr. Baerde translated Mr. Dilawar's plea to one of the guards. The soldier took the prisoner's hand and pressed down on his fingernails to check his circulation.

"He's O.K.," Mr. Baerde quoted the M.P. as saying. "He's just trying to get out of his restraints."

By the time Mr. Dilawar was brought in for his final interrogation in the first hours of the next day, Dec. 10, he appeared exhausted and was babbling that his wife had died. He also told the interrogators that he had been beaten by the guards.

"But we didn't pursue that," said Mr. Baryalai, the interpreter.

Specialist Walls was again the lead interrogator. But his more aggressive partner, Specialist Claus, quickly took over, Mr. Baryalai said.

"Josh had a rule that the detainee had to look at him, not me," the interpreter told investigators. "He gave him three chances, and then he grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him towards him, across the table, slamming his chest into the table front."

When Mr. Dilawar was unable to kneel, the interpreter said, the interrogators pulled him to his feet and pushed him against the wall. Told to assume a stress position, the prisoner leaned his head against the wall and began to fall asleep.

"It looked to me like Dilawar was trying to cooperate, but he couldn't physically perform the tasks," Mr. Baryalai said.

Finally, Specialist Walls grabbed the prisoner and "shook him harshly," the interpreter said, telling him that if he failed to cooperate, he would be shipped to a prison in the United States, where he would be "treated like a woman, by the other men" and face the wrath of criminals who "would be very angry with anyone involved in the 9/11 attacks." (Specialist Walls was charged last week with assault, maltreatment and failure to obey a lawful order; Specialist Claus was charged with assault, maltreatment and lying to investigators. Each man declined to comment.)

A third military intelligence specialist who spoke some Pashto, Staff Sgt. W. Christopher Yonushonis, had questioned Mr. Dilawar earlier and had arranged with Specialist Claus to take over when he was done. Instead, the sergeant arrived at the interrogation room to find a large puddle of water on the floor, a wet spot on Mr. Dilawar's shirt and Specialist Claus standing behind the detainee, twisting up the back of the hood that covered the prisoner's head.

"I had the impression that Josh was actually holding the detainee upright by pulling on the hood," he said. "I was furious at this point because I had seen Josh tighten the hood of another detainee the week before. This behavior seemed completely gratuitous and unrelated to intelligence collection."

"What the hell happened with that water?" Sergeant Yonushonis said he had demanded.

"We had to make sure he stayed hydrated," he said Specialist Claus had responded.

The next morning, Sergeant Yonushonis went to the noncommissioned officer in charge of the interrogators, Sergeant Loring, to report the incident. Mr. Dilawar, however, was already dead.

The Post-Mortem

The findings of Mr. Dilawar's autopsy were succinct. He had had some coronary artery disease, the medical examiner reported, but what caused his heart to fail was "blunt force injuries to the lower extremities." Similar injuries contributed to Mr. Habibullah's death.

One of the coroners later translated the assessment at a pre-trial hearing for Specialist Brand, saying the tissue in the young man's legs "had basically been pulpified."

"I've seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus," added Lt. Col. Elizabeth Rouse, the coroner, and a major at that time.

After the second death, several of the 519th Battalion's interrogators were temporarily removed from their posts. A medic was assigned to the detention center to work night shifts. On orders from the Bagram intelligence chief, interrogators were prohibited from any physical contact with the detainees. Chaining prisoners to any fixed object was also banned, and the use of stress positions was curtailed.

In February, an American military official disclosed that the Afghan guerrilla commander whose men had arrested Mr. Dilawar and his passengers had himself been detained. The commander, Jan Baz Khan, was suspected of attacking Camp Salerno himself and then turning over innocent "suspects" to the Americans in a ploy to win their trust, the military official said.

The three passengers in Mr. Dilawar's taxi were sent home from Guantánamo in March 2004, 15 months after their capture, with letters saying they posed "no threat" to American forces.

They were later visited by Mr. Dilawar's parents, who begged them to explain what had happened to their son. But the men said they could not bring themselves to recount the details.

"I told them he had a bed," said Mr. Parkhudin. "I said the Americans were very nice because he had a heart problem."

In late August of last year, shortly before the Army completed its inquiry into the deaths, Sergeant Yonushonis, who was stationed in Germany, went at his own initiative to see an agent of the Criminal Investigation Command. Until then, he had never been interviewed.

"I expected to be contacted at some point by investigators in this case," he said. "I was living a few doors down from the interrogation room, and I had been one of the last to see this detainee alive."

Sergeant Yonushonis described what he had witnessed of the detainee's last interrogation. "I remember being so mad that I had trouble speaking," he said.

He also added a detail that had been overlooked in the investigative file. By the time Mr. Dilawar was taken into his final interrogations, he said, "most of us were convinced that the detainee was innocent."

Ruhallah Khapalwak, Carlotta Gall and David Rohde contributed reporting for this article, and Alain Delaqueriere assisted with research.

More actions from the "good guys."

I wonder what this story will cause? More riots? Will the TBA try to hush it up? This time the story gives names and ranks and witness accounts, not just "an unnamed source said the Koran was flushed." Will they be tried? Doubtful. Probably a slap on the wrist for fighting for freedom.

EDIT: Oh yeah. Source: New York Times

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Quote[/b] ]I wonder what this story will cause? More riots? Will the TBA try to hush it up? This time the story gives names and ranks and witness accounts, not just "an unnamed source said the Koran was flushed." Will they be tried? Doubtful. Probably a slap on the wrist for fighting for freedom.

It's simple,

TBA spokeperson: Army's Criminal Investigation Command reported that 27 officers and enlisted personnel with criminal offenses in the Dilawar case ranging from dereliction of duty to maiming and involuntary manslaughter. Fifteen of the same soldiers were also cited for probable criminal responsibility in the Habibullah case. More people are going to be charged in the following months in those cases. It's going to take some time for more charges to be brought up, but trust me, it will happen. In addition, some of tactics used by the Military in interrgation, a few years ago, are deemed criminal now. Any more questions? Let me add, if any soldier or marine or etc. believe something is illegal, report it. You have a right in the "book" to do so. Also, let me add, those action do not follow military traditional or American.

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Quote[/b] ]TBA spokeperson: Army's Criminal Investigation Command reported that 27 officers and enlisted personnel with criminal offenses in the Dilawar case ranging from dereliction of duty to maiming and involuntary manslaughter. Fifteen of the same soldiers were also cited for probable criminal responsibility in the Habibullah case. More people are going to be charged in the following months in those cases. It going to take some time for more charges to be bring up, but trust me, it we happen. In addition, some of tactics used by the Military in interrgation, a few years ago, are deemed criminal now. Any more questions? Let me add, if any soldier or marine or etc. believe something is illegal, report it. You have a right in the "book" to do so. Also, let me add, those action do not follow military traditional or American.

Yes. Trust the TBA spokesperson, the mouthpiece for the Administration that set these places up, and formed the enviroment that is in them.

So no, billybob, its not "simple." This happened in 2002 and is just now reaching the light of day. TBA only comments on it because it reaches the light of day.

I like how they keep claiming that these are all isolated cases when it is becoming increasingly clear that it is the norm.

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Quote[/b] ]

So no, billybob, its not "simple." This happened in 2002 and is just now reaching the light of day. TBA only comments on it because it reaches the light of day.

You wanted a TBA response and it's was simple to post what would a TBA spokeperson would say (that why I said simple).

Quote[/b] ]I like how they keep claiming that these are all isolated cases when it is becoming increasingly clear that it is the norm.
Quote[/b] ]Meanwhile, many of the Bagram interrogators, led by the same operations officer, Capt. Carolyn A. Wood, were redeployed to Iraq and in July 2003 took charge of interrogations at the Abu Ghraib prison. According to a high-level Army inquiry last year, Captain Wood applied techniques there that were "remarkably similar" to those used at Bagram.

The norm for a certain group of soldier, and not wide spread, who are sooner are later going to get punish. Also, tactics of interrgation, which were deemed dangerous that can lead to death, were changed. If it was the norm, all prisoners would had been treated the same like those others.

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Quote[/b] ]The norm for a certain group of soldier, and not wide spread, who are sooner are later going to get punish. Also, tactics of interrgation, which were deemed dangerous that can lead to death, were changed. If it was the norm, all prisoners would had been treated the same like those others.

A certain group of soldiers, who after word is spread about their conduct, get transfered to another prison. That's like a bishop reassigning a molesting priest to another perish with small children. Seems like the military had use of their skills elsewhere and so sent them there.

As I said, action was taken only after word of abuses started leaking outside. Interrogation methods were changed only after they started leaking outside. You think this is going to make muslims anymore trusting of American soldiers?

"Why give up quietly? If we are innocent or not we will still be killed."

Also I assume you are not saying Gitmo is a nice fuzzy place to be. rock.gif

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Quote[/b] ]Also I assume you are not saying Gitmo is a nice fuzzy place to be. rock.gif  

Gitmo isn't suppose to be Club Med. I'm saying that while a minority is being abused (very bad), the majority isn't. If it was the norm, majority of prisoners would be abused (all prisoners get interrogated) and not a minority..

sp:...

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