More than 60 minors, some as young as 14, have been held as prisoners at the US detention facility for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a London-based human rights group says in a report.
Those detainees were under 18 when they were captured by US forces, and at least 10 of them still being held at Guantanamo were 14 or 15 when they were seized, held in solitary confinement, subject to repeated interrogation and allegedly tortured, the charity Reprieve was reported as saying.
I really can't begin to imagine how much worse this insanity can get.
What kind of societies have we allowed ourselves to become? Are we so paranoid that children now must be our targets?
5 comments:
cartledge, I just don't understand how the same morons who say we have to win the hearts and minds of Muslims in the war on terror also think it's a good idea to hold children hostage in Gitmo indefintely and torture them.
What the fuck is wrong with people? Don't they realize this kind of policy undermines everything we are trying to do in this so-called "war on terror."
As discouraging as this is, you can't let yourself become discouraged. Blog on...
I know most people are avoiding Gitmo etc. It’s ugly of course and confronting. But for the love of God, ignoring atrocities is tantamount to approving of them. I don’t especially like seeding anger but we should be red-hot fucking furious.
Australian’s has allowed one of their own, a moron with a personality deficit, to be sure, but no dangerous terrorist, to languish at Gitmo.
Our authorities must also be complicit in this disgusting episode.
It really strikes me that there is a growing case for civil and war crimes by our respective leaders arising from this war.
Cartledge - you're right. You're absolutely right. But I have this theory about Americans. We like to think we're the good guys - always. Doesn't matter if we're the guys engaging in the genocide (a la Native Americans), we're still the good guys. Because most Americans are kinda stupid and they're not good at thinking in shades of gray; instead everything is perceived in either black or white terms. And if you can only think in black and white terms, it becomes awful hard to see how policies you're country has engaged in for "noble reasons" can have very ignoble and/or downright negative consequences. Surely we were wronged on 9/11. But just as surely, 9/11 does not give us the right to torture, kidnap, rendition, pre-emptively attack, etc.
I can honestly share this grief when leaders of my own countries follow so blindly, and the people let them. This shame is not one for the US alone.
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