Myers hits back at gulag charge

http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1274&storyid=3205011 ^

[velocityguy]

AMERICA'S top military officer, General Richard Myers, has slammed as "absolutely irresponsible" a report by Amnesty International describing the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a "gulag".

In a report released last week, the international rights group called the Guantanamo prison camp, where hundreds of foreign terror suspects are held indefinitely, the "gulag of our times", referring to the notorious prison camps of the Soviet Union.

Asked to respond to that charge on American TV's Fox News Sunday, Gen Myers replied: "I think it's absolutely irresponsible. It is ... essentially a model facility."

The outgoing chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said military guards had tried to treat the Guantanamo detainees as humanely as possible.

He said 1300 Korans had been handed out to inmates in 13 different languages and that the prison has strived to make "the proper Muslim-approved food" available to detainees.

"I think I'd ask them to go look up the definition of gulag as commonly understood," the US general said of Amnesty's report.

Gulag is a acronym for the government department that ran the then Soviet Union's labour camps, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. It can also be used in reference to an "oppressive environment", according to the OED.

Gen Myers said the US had dealt with 68,000 detainees "since this conflict against extremism started", that there had been 325 probes into alleged abuse and 100 individuals "have had some sort of action taken, either court-martial or administrative action".

Amnesty's claim was earlier slammed by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in an interview with Knight Ridder Newspapers, as "absurd".

The Guantanamo camp has been in the eye of a political storm since Newsweek magazine published a report this month saying interrogators had flushed a Koran in a toilet to rattle Muslim prisoners. Newsweek later retracted its story.

Its report, however, sparked violent anti-US protests in Afghanistan, as well as demonstrations in Pakistan and Indonesia.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, a close ally of US President George W. Bush, has called for a probe into claims US interrogators at the camp abused the Koran holy book, but Ms Rice brushed off such calls.

Brigadier-General Jay Hood said the US military had unearthed five incidents involving guards and one by an interrogator where "there was what could be broadly defined as mishandling of a Koran" following a probe.

Human rights groups have condemned US policy in Guantanamo, where some detainees have been held for years without charge and released inmates have claimed they were abused and mistreated by their interrogators.

A series of British nationals freed from Guantanamo have alleged they were tortured and abused by guards.

US media reports have detailed instances were female interrogators at the camp, some of them scantily clad, touched Muslim prisoners suggestively and smeared them with red dye intended to simulate menstrual blood.

US officials have consistently denied mistreating prisoners at the base, and Gen Myers said extremely dangerous individuals were being held there.

"How do you handle people who ... who aren't part of a nation-state effort, that are picked up on the battlefield ... that if you release them, or if you let them go back to their home countries, that would turn right around and try to slit our throats, our children's throats?" he said.

"The president said we'll treat people humanely and in accordance with the Geneva Convention; we're doing that."

In an interview with Time magazine just released, former Israeli cabinet minister Nathan Sharansky said: "The violation of human rights at Abu Ghraib (in Iraq) was very serious, but it was only a few people.

"In Guantanamo, the human-rights violations were much more serious because they were part of the system."

However, Mr Sharansky, one of President Bush's intellectual guiding lights and a former Soviet dissident, said he had "serious criticisms" of Amnesty's report.

"There is no moral clarity. It doesn't differentiate between what I call fear societies and free societies," he said.

The US Supreme Court has ruled that Guantanamo inmates can contest their detention in a civil court, but no prisoner has yet done so, and no inmate has yet been brought to trial by the US Government.

Some former inmates have been freed without charge and returned to Afghanistan, Britain, France, Kuwait and Pakistan among other states.

AFP

[velocityguy]

"How do you handle people who ... who aren't part of a nation-state effort, that are picked up on the battlefield ... that if you release them, or if you let them go back to their home countries, that would turn right around and try to slit our throats, our children's throats?" he said.

Gen.Myers, thank you for your accurate observation.

This is exactly the reason we need to have a pre-emptive war strategy to defeat Islamo-fascists that are ready to kill us.

islamo-fascists cannot be graded into socio-economic groups. They are all the same. From the prisoners at Guantanomo to the Jihadists in Middle East, from the Islamic terrorists in Indonesia to the Executive Vice President of Intel Corporation....they are all the same who are willing to kill us.

[Random Nonsense]

Here is the bio of the Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan. Why am I not surprised that she is a muslim. The first Asian and the first Muslim to head AI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_Khan

[satchmodog9]

Esplains so mucho.

[I still care]

I saw this today. The general said we have spent over 2 million dollars extra in order to provide special food for Muslims.

[velocityguy]

I wonder if she ever thinks the Saudis and the other Middle Eastern Muslum countries' presidents/primeministers/dictators be prosecuted or arrested. I did not see any mention of that by her. What about Kofi Annan? What about prosecuting the Sudanese regime? No mention of arresting or prosecuting them either. But when it comes to GW, every fool like this one want to consider GW as a war criminal. So far I have failed to understand if Anti-American Criminals Lovers Union aka ACLU, AI or any of these other pro-ACLU non-sense organizations.

[Just A Nobody]

"I think I'd ask them to go look up the definition of gulag as commonly understood," the US general said of Amnesty's report.

You gotta love this guy!

[ViLaLuz]

Is she Muslim??

[velocityguy]

Irene Khan is a Muslim. Any Muslim that supports a Jihadist or follows the violent book of Jihad is a threat.

[Texas Eagle]

Hell. I say release the prisoners on Martha's Vineyard.

[Chgogal]

I take it she NEVER visited Saddam's gulags.

[Random Nonsense]

Yes, she is.

[Patriot from Philly]

The US AI head is a real moonbat too. He drooled on about having a "list" of US leaders that need to be investigated overseas. The leftist media refused to quote his outlandish comments, because the media wants AI to have some credibility so they can use it against Bush.

WSJ quoted him however, called him Orwell. I like these guys quoted over and over. It's nice how the media protects moonbats when they jump the shark, but quote and quote any conservative who makes inappropriate comments.

[Random Nonsense]

Yep, anti-americanism and anti-Bush are rampant among muslims. They hate us not because what we did, but because of what we are. These muslims are hypocrite lots, they read the koran or/and the hadith without grasping the meaning of them. Most of them could not read arabic anyway. I also still think that the US during Clinton administration sided on the wrong side in Kosovo, Clinton sided with the muslims, it's a big mistake.