Freed detainees cite rewards, beatings[GITMO}

ttp://www.boston.com ^ | 3/26/2003 | By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan, Globe Staff

[luv2ndamend]

ABUL -- At the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay, prisoners who argue with guards are persecuted and sometimes beaten, while those who obey are rewarded with good food, clothes, hygiene, and even video games, according to interviews with the largest group of detainees set free so far from the main facility for Taliban and Al Qaeda suspects.

[Pushi]

I don't know why they are letting them go.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Good, I hadn't heard that!

[ambrose]

his problems at Guantanamo began, he said, when he protested the confiscation of his Koran. US guards piled everyone's copies on the floor and then sat on them, he said.

Should have used them for toilet paper instead.

[ambrose]

Murtaza complained about being put in rooms with frigid air-conditioning

Oh wow, torture by air conditioning!

[OldFriend]

Better a cage in Cuba than a cave in Afghanistan. Too bad they lived thru it all frankly.

[witnesstothefall]

Seated cross-legged on a floor of the Kabul Police Department jail yesterday, nearly all of the former detainees enthusiastically praised the conditions at Guantanamo and expressed little bitterness about losing a year of their lives in captivity......

Talk about burying the lead!

[Teetop]

Can we get the freepers out of Boston, then nuke it? LOL

[Kadric]

Sounds like some of them are starting to revert. Maybe they need some more time out.

[gg188]

I advocate feeding the muslimes in Gitmo well: all the pork sausage and bar-b-que they can eat.

[gg188]

They will be back in the jihad very soon.

[Mygirlsmom]

"Fetch the COMFY CHAIR!!!!"

[Byron_the_Aussie]

..I don't give a damn if every single accusation is true...

What a moronic comment, even from you.

These interminable Gitmo incarcerations have completely undercut our side, in terms of the moral high ground. It's given the Left a hypocrisy stick to beat us with, right around the world. And after fifteen months or whatever of debriefings, the POWs *still* haven't produced enough information to enable us to capture or kill Mullah Omar or Bin Laden. Camp X-Ray was set up in the post 911 hysteria. It was a bad idea then, and it's a bad idea now. I say, shut it down, let all the low-level types (like the blokes in this story) go home, and transfer anyone of value to a place where they can be formally charged. I really think Americans have no idea of just how badly this Gitmo thing has played around the world, and how it has narrowed the crucial 'they're bad, we're good' delineation we need in the War on Terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

[AmericanVictory]

Is this author suggesting that we reward those who do not cooperate and punish those who do?

Only in Boston.

[JSteff]

"there was even entertainment with video games"

Duke Nukem?

[Caesar Soze]

The men said they did not know of anyone having been beaten during interrogation.

Kinda belies the headline of the article, doanit.

Not at all. The detainees who were allegedly beaten were beaten for "protesting" abuses against the Koran or harrassment during prayers. Not during interrogation.

[piasa]

What, you don't get bathed by an MP at your place?

[Burkeman1]

Don't mess with Boston buddy. We may have liberal national polls but Boston is one of the most conservative cities in this country. In this town we have DINO's (Democrats in name only.)

[AmericanVictory]

In fact I am familiar with the phenomenon, as I was the lawyer for the extremely conservative Democrat Al Hopfmann, back in the early 1980's, who qualified to be on the ballot against Teddy, but was barred from embarassing his bloatedness by the notorious 15% rule. During that battle I came to know many conservative Dems. But the battle was fought more in the media than the courts (we even won cert in the Supreme Court early on, only to be tricked by clever damage control which effectively rigged the courts). At that time the Kennedy damage control apparatus (which Clinton copied) ruled absolutely. It no longer can, which is why a more conservative note is emerging in the Peoples Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

[Burkeman1]

I am not familiar with that battle but it sounds very interesting. Can you direct me to some articles on this? I love local politics. I was only about 10 and replaying WWII in my sand box with my army guys in the early 80's.

[luvbach1]

So what? It's mild compared to what US POWs (and the terrorists among them are criminals not POWs) have endured in several wars.