<p>"NEW YORK, NY – May 24 – U.S. FBI agents operating in Pakistan repeatedly interrogated and threatened two U.S. citizens of Pakistani origin who were unlawfully detained and subjected to torture by the Pakistani security services, Human Rights Watch said today. </p>
<p>The brothers Zain Afzal and Kashan Afzal were abducted from their home in Karachi at about 2 a.m. on August 13, 2004. They were released on April 22, 2005 without having been charged. </p>
<p>During eight months of illegal detention, Zain Afzaland Kashan Afzal were routinely tortured by Pakistani authorities to extract confessions of involvement in terrorist activities. During this period, FBI agents questioned the brothers on at least six occasions. The FBI agents did not intervene to end the torture, insist that the Pakistani government comply with a court order to produce the men in court, or provide consular facilities normally offered to detained U.S. citizens. Instead, they threatened the men with being sent to the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay if they did not confess to involvement in terrorism."</p>
<p>"04/01/05 - - BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Friday it has held since last year an American citizen without charges in Iraq as a suspected top aide to militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, drawing condemnation from civil rights activists.</p>
<p>The man, who U.S. officials at the Pentagon and in Iraq refused to identify by name, possessed dual U.S.-Jordanian citizenship, themilitary said.</p>
<p>The man was not born in the United States, but became a naturalized U.S. citizen and lived in “a couple of different cities” duringabout 20 years in America, one official said.</p>
<p>Thought to be the first U.S. citizen caught as a suspected participant in Iraq’s two-year-old insurgency, he was seized in a raid “latelast year” on a Baghdad home where weapons and bomb-making material was found, the military said.</p>
<p>Air Force Lt. Col. John Skinner, a Pentagon spokesman, said the man, deemed an enemy combatant, had personal ties to Zarqawiand was believed to have served as his personal emissary in several Iraqi cities. The man has not been allowed to have a lawyer,Skinner said.</p>
<p>“I think it’s extremely high on the outrageous scale. This is a direct violation of a Supreme Court decision,” said lawyer RachelMeeropol of the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights.</p>
<p>The justices ruled last June that the government cannot hold an American citizen indefinitely in a U.S. military jail without providing a chance to contest the case against him."</p>
<p>Patuxent, no, others have done the compilation for me, it’s just a question of awareness. I’m more suited to a G3 role but if I find myself in a tactical situation I’m not a bad FAO. </p>
<p>If you want to talk about going over the deep end, Karl Rove, the perpetrator of the pernicious Americans vs. liberals shtick, is a poster boy for what’s wrong with this country right now. I regret that the elections came nine months too early.</p>
<p>You block out the administrations response to Dick Durbin–and the uproar which was orchestrated about something he did not say–and it boils down to “our torture is not as bad as their torture. Beside, our cause is just,” which is a really pathetic standard of ideals for my country.</p>
<p>SBmom - so far as I know Pakistan is a sovereign country and we can’t tell them how to handle their terrorists anymore than we can tell the Arubans how to investigate their murders. I am sure the brother Afzal are innocent victims. They probably should have stayed somewhere covered by US law if they wanted nthe full panoply of rights.</p>
<p>Pakistan is also a sovereign country with nukes, which makes an Islamist coup there far more dangerous than anything Saddam Hussein was ever capable of doing. North Korea is a sovereign country that’s maniacal and intransigent and it’s got nukes–but taking care of it militarily will be extremely difficult. Iran is a sovereign country but it’s trying to develop nukes but it’s ruled by bad guys that aren’t that popular among their own people. Whereas Iraq was a sovereign country that couldn’t do diddly when we decided to invade them.</p>
<p>Hmm. From this I infer that questions of sovereignty don’t mean much to the U.S. unless it’s not convenient to ignore it.</p>
<p>I’ll tell you what. You are all breaking my heart over this horrible treatment of folks busy waging war on the United States and killing women and children. I think you all should get together and run for public office with that as the key plank on your party platform. I am sure you will sweep a couple of precincts on the Upper West side, Takoma Park (boyhood home of John Taliban Lindh) Maryland and the faculty senate at Oberlin. The rest of us really couldn’t care less what happens to these dirty little demons. They are enemy combattants captured in a wae zone not some guy picked up for DWI on the LA Freeway.</p>
<p>Yeah. Had to be just a run of bad luck. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time, no doubt.</p>
<p>I think the bros. should take it up with the UN. I’m sure Kofi Anon is all about truth and justice – as long as there is some kind of kickback program to grease the skids.</p>
<p>C’mon pax. Don’t throw a wobbly and take your toys home.</p>
<p>Of those four choices, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran and Iraq, only the last two served US aims; ie take the fight to the fundamentalist financial backer’s backyard. </p>
<p>Question pax: In your opinion, what was it about this rather sensible military strategy that had to be hidden from the American public at the start of the war?</p>
<p>a) The WMD justification was not a ruse. I think that the policy makers were utterly shocked that we have not found WMD and that the intelligence community failed so comprehensively to figure out where the WMD went. (Hint: Syria).</p>
<p>b) Bush is a really tepid leader who does a miserable job of outlining a complex strategy and selling it to the American people. He’s just simply inept at that sort of thing. He gets the lyrics more or less right, but he can’t carry the tune.</p>
<p>ID, Syria has been examined and discarded as an destination for the WMD. Given that many really really really really wanted this to be true, it would have been widely trumpeted if it had been. I don’t believe that any signficant entity within the US intelligence apparatus believes in the Syrian scenario these days.</p>
<p>As for the original WMD, they just flat ignored any suppositions to the contrary. The believed what they wanted to hear. And then cherry-picked when presenting a case to the rest of the world. And as a result, yes, I think you’re right…they were genuinely shocked. But not genuninely innocent.</p>
<p>Regarding your point (a), idad, it makes sense IF you believe Iran doesn’t have WMD or nukes. Could it be that Iraq was simply the easier target? Would it have been possible to take over Iran with 150,000 troops?</p>
<p>(Repeating myself, I’ll confess that reading that damned Mao book has increased my sense that nothing is played the way it seems. Oh golly no).</p>
<p>Regarding point b, well, I’m no Bush fan, just ask my dad (we tortured him by plastering a Gore sign on the front of his Bush yard sign. When he looked out the window, he saw the unaltered back of the Bush sign and he was pleased as punch, hehe). Still, I have a thing about underestimating the enemy. </p>
<p>I think Bush is stupid like a fox. He did sell that strategy, whether or not you like his sales techniques. Even the likes of Hillary and Kerry gave it the big thumbs up–and still do so. </p>
<p>As for the tune, my dad and millions of others seem to love that song.</p>
<p>To me, a key strategic obective of the Iraq invasion was to put a permanent military force on Iran’s border (and to a lesser extent, on Syria’s border. Think of it as a deterrent.</p>
<p>As I read the Iraqi blogs, it seems the US is busy converting five Iraqi airbases to permanent US facilities. And, I’ve seen some sentiment from Iraqis that they would be OK with an arrangement (as existed in Germany) where US military maintains a permanent presence, but restricted to specfic bases. I think that’s where this thing is headed long term.</p>
<p>If you read the Amnesty International piece it becomes clear that things like the Pakistani incident seem to be happening around the globe at the behest of US officials. We are outsourcing our torture. We are casting a wide net and innocent people are getting caught in it.</p>
<p>Even with little to no evidence against someone (witness how after months or years of abuse so many are just are let go when nothing sticks) they can be grabbed and held and not charged. No problem, we can just say <em>a la Tommy Flanagan</em> “Hey yeah, we brought him in 'cause he’s a musli-- er, an enemy combatant! Yeah-- that’s it!”</p>
<p>AND if they are genuinely enemy combatants, how about some support for the Geneva conventions? </p>
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<p>I think it is sickening that the fearfulness has reached such a pitch in this country that we now dehumanize anyone who is even suspected of wrongdoing-- and shrug over the torture of innocent people. Anything is okay if we are netting some bad guys. </p>
<p>There is a really good short story by Ursula Le Guin called “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” Some of you should read it.</p>
<p>To be fair, it was reasonable to assume that Saddam had active weapons programs given his cat n’ mouse game with the UN inspectors. Why would he risk continued sanctions if he didn’t have active weapons programs?</p>
<p>Of course, now we know why. He and our “allies” had such a corruption racket going with the Oil For Food Program that Sadaam actually benefitted from the sanctions.</p>
<p>My 55 year old reservist, blackhawk pilot-cousin was posted to Iraq in December 2003. His first observation of his 15 month tour was that the bases under construction were permanent, made from permanent materials; thus the memos requesting the troops refrain from throwing used condoms on the wet concrete. (Not meant for grandpa reservists, surely).</p>
<p>By “converting”, I only meant that the new permanent US airbases are being built on the sites of five Iraqi military bases.</p>
<p>I saw the list of the five somewhere. One is just north of Baghdad, the other just south. I think there’s one each in the south, north, and western portions of Iraq.</p>
<p>My point is that these bases were meant to be permanent from the get-go. This does not represent a ‘shift’ in policy. The long haul was always the intention, in all likelihood. </p>
<p>Perhaps that is the reason they could not get into the discussion about the effectiveness of backyard squabbling? Americans, (who the Chinese say cannot ‘do’ bitter), may have backed away from the long haul intention–had they seen it coming.</p>
<p>I don’t believe for one minute the admin, Colin Powell included, bought the WMD excuse. They were executing policy they believed in and they must have thought it was the only way to get it done.</p>
<p>Love to know the ins and outs of that decision though.</p>
<p>Of course. The strategy in the war on terror includes taking the fight to the enemy’s turf. That requires an increased US military presence in the Middle East. Think of Iraq as a Pacific Island base in WWII, a necessary step in projecting US military assets into the theater.</p>
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<p>Read Bob Woodward’s book. He was given access to the Bush White House throughout the months leading up to the Iraq invasion. His story starts shortly after the Bush inauguration. Powell vetted the heck out of the intelligence he was given to present at the UN. He believed the stuff he actually used. It was a complete intelligence meltdown.</p>
<p>Read the Mao book and discover how US journalists are used as propagation dummies. Obviously, they vetted the information thoroughly. That is how they knew they could plan to build so many long term bases. (I am an architect, adfter all, I know how long it takes to produce drawings for a multitude of full fledged military bases).</p>