Juveniles held in Gitmo

[Ender]

link

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The U.S. has revised its count of juveniles ever held at Guantanamo Bay to 12, up from the eight it reported in May to the United Nations, a Pentagon spokesman said Sunday.

The government has provided a corrected report to the U.N. committee on child rights, according to Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon. He said the U.S. did not intentionally misrepresent the number of detainees taken to the isolated Navy base in southeast Cuba before turning 18.

"As we noted to the committee, it remains uncertain the exact age of many of the juveniles held at Guantanamo, as most of them did not know their own date of birth or even the year in which they were born," he said.

A study released last week by the Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas concluded the U.S. has held at least a dozen juveniles at Guantanamo, including a Saudi who committed suicide in 2006.

"The information I got was from their own sources, so they didn't have to look beyond their own sources to figure this out," said Almerindo Ojeda, director of the center at the University of California, Davis.

Juveniles entitled to special protection
Rights groups say it is important for the U.S. military to know the real age of those it detains because juveniles are entitled to special protection under international laws recognized by the United States.

Eight of the 12 juvenile detainees identified by the human rights center have been released, according to the study.

Two of the remaining detainees are scheduled to face war-crimes trials in January. Canadian Omar Khadr, now 21, was captured in July 2002 and is charged with murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. special forces soldier. Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who is about 24, faces attempted murder charges for a 2002 grenade attack that wounded two U.S. soldiers.

The study identified the only other remaining juvenile as Muhammed Hamid al Qarani of Chad.

The Saudi who hanged himself with two other detainees in 2006, Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, was 17 when he arrived at Guantanamo within days of the military prison opening in January 2002, according to the study.

About 250 prisoners remain at Guantanamo on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.

And I thought we had already hit rock bottom with that place.

[TheLegion]

This comes as a real shock to me since I had no idea that they were incarcerating juveniles in Gitmo of all places. You would think they would send them down to a prison up here in the states*. I guess the top people have no idea how pointless the island of Cuba has become from the prison just being there. With some time, this will all just be a footnote in the history books.

*This begs the question "Why not?" and does so loudly. We have good prison facilities in the United States and good enough to keep "enemy combatants" who we pick up in our little skirmishes across the Middle East. Why haven't we done somthing besides use a prison on another country's soil to get away with illegal stuff?

[Qwerty 42]

January can't come quickly enough.

[Elfdart]

This is old news.

Here's a statement from a CIA official regarding the abduction and abuse of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's sons, ages 6 and 8:

“We are handling them with kid gloves. After all, they are only little
children...but we need to know as much about their father's recent
activities as possible. We have child psychologists on hand at all
times and they are given the best of care.”

Psychologists like the ones who helped devise and carry out torture in Guantanamo?

The APA is the only remaining medical association not to have shunned the contentious interrogations in the years since Guantánamo was opened in 2001. Two civilian psychologists helped introduce techniques like waterboarding into interrogations, drawn from the military's SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) schools where troops are taught to withstand torture.

I wonder just how many times they waterboarded a six-year-old, don't you?

[Johonebesus]

I may be a flaming liberal, and I know our government has sunk pretty low, but even I doubt that six year olds were actually tortured. Not that holding and questioning them was appropriate at all, but I somehow doubt that many soldiers would be willing to torture a little child.

[K. A. Pital]

I somehow doubt that many soldiers would be willing to torture a little child.

Of course it doesn't mean children were actually tortured - there's no information. Elfdart's post was showing the very grim irony of the CIA official statements. However that objection doesn't sound too valid, man - you only need a few depraved enough beings to torture him. Finding a few sadists in a million-strong military isn't hard.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I somehow doubt that many soldiers would be willing to torture a little child.

Of course it doesn't mean children were actually tortured - there's no information. Elfdart's post was showing the very grim irony of the CIA official statements. However that objection doesn't sound too valid, man - you only need a few depraved enough beings to torture him. Finding a few sadists in a million-strong military isn't hard.

Are you kidding? It is probably deceptively easy. I mean... what exactly is the rate of sociopathy in the population?

[The Romulan Republic]

Just two more months till Bush is gone. Just two more months till Bush is gone. Just two more months...

Pity no Democratic Administration, even Obama's, is likely to have the balls to try him and his subordinates for their shit.

[Elfdart]

I may be a flaming liberal, and I know our government has sunk pretty low, but even I doubt that six year olds were actually tortured. Not that holding and questioning them was appropriate at all, but I somehow doubt that many soldiers would be willing to torture a little child.

Gen. Taguba's report on Abu Ghraib says otherwise:

In the files, prisoner after prisoner at Abu Ghraib describes acts of torture that Taguba found "credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses." The abuses took place at the Hard Site, a two-story cinder-block unit at the sprawling prison that housed Iraqi criminals and insurgents, not members of Al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations. In one sworn statement, Kasim Mehaddi Hilas, detainee number 151108, said he witnessed a translator referred to only as Abu Hamid raping a teenage boy. "I saw Abu Hamid, who was wearing the military uniform, putting his dick in the little kid's ass," Hilas testified. "The kid was hurting very bad." A female soldier took pictures of the rape, Hilas said.

The sadists in charge at Abu Ghraib were also in charge at Bagram and Guantanamo.

[Elfdart]

I'd also point out that according to the Bush Junta, water torture, sleep deprivation, etc are not really torture since the victim isn't killed, nor have any of their organs failed.

[TheLegion]

I may be a flaming liberal, and I know our government has sunk pretty low, but even I doubt that six year olds were actually tortured. Not that holding and questioning them was appropriate at all, but I somehow doubt that many soldiers would be willing to torture a little child.

Gen. Taguba's report on Abu Ghraib says otherwise:

In the files, prisoner after prisoner at Abu Ghraib describes acts of torture that Taguba found "credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses." The abuses took place at the Hard Site, a two-story cinder-block unit at the sprawling prison that housed Iraqi criminals and insurgents, not members of Al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations. In one sworn statement, Kasim Mehaddi Hilas, detainee number 151108, said he witnessed a translator referred to only as Abu Hamid raping a teenage boy. "I saw Abu Hamid, who was wearing the military uniform, putting his dick in the little kid's ass," Hilas testified. "The kid was hurting very bad." A female soldier took pictures of the rape, Hilas said.

The sadists in charge at Abu Ghraib were also in charge at Bagram and Guantanamo.

That bit about rape really boils my blood and makes me feel so powerless to do anything. I hate feeling like somthing is going on and it's gotten this bad and worse, I can't do anything about it. I don't feel like a patriotic American when I read stuff like this nor do I fall for the whole line that our enemies are eviler than we are or that we are good guys. I don't like anything having to do with the old administration or the war on terror. I mean the only reason I thought Obama was going to be a better president is that I hoped his rhetoric of "Change, change change" wasn't just bullshit campaign promises. I want to believe that he will do somthing about this and more of the issues yet to be brought to light.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

*This begs the question "Why not?" and does so loudly. We have good prison facilities in the United States and good enough to keep "enemy combatants" who we pick up in our little skirmishes across the Middle East. Why haven't we done somthing besides use a prison on another country's soil to get away with illegal stuff?

I was told they're not on U.S. soil specifically for the purpose of not having the Constitution apply. Yes, they wanted to torture and rape brown people's little kids all along from the get-go.

[Big Phil]

Yes, they wanted to torture and rape brown people's little kids all along from the get-go.

Seriously, this shit is bad enough without you coming and being an idiot. The Iraq War was started because the Bush administration had a jones to rape arabs. What the fuck is wrong with you?

[Darth Wong]

Yes, they wanted to torture and rape brown people's little kids all along from the get-go.

Seriously, this shit is bad enough without you coming and being an idiot. The Iraq War was started because the Bush administration had a jones to rape arabs. What the fuck is wrong with you?

So you criticize him for "being an idiot" and then promptly go on to completely misread his post? He was claiming that the US set up prisons outside the US for the purpose of committing vile acts of abuse which would be illegal in the US, and then he threw in some prejudicial language with that claim. However, he never said that this was the motivation for starting the Iraq War. I don't even see how anyone could possibly read his post that way, unless he's either mentally retarded or going out of his way to misrepresent it.

[Big Phil]

You're right - that sounds much better. The war was started for a variety of bullshit reasons, but then once we were there, Bush & Cheney took their opportunity to set up prisons to torture and rape little boys. Torturing adult prisoners to obtain information was just a byproduct of the rape-factories they set up. Very ghoulish...

[Darth Wong]

You're right - that sounds much better. The war was started for a variety of bullshit reasons, but then once we were there, Bush & Cheney took their opportunity to set up prisons to torture and rape little boys. Torturing adult prisoners to obtain information was just a byproduct of the rape-factories they set up. Very ghoulish...

Methinks you are making far too much moral distinction between setting up torture prisons in the first place, and sending people there even if they're underage. They're both vile to me.

More to the point, none of this exonerates you from the charge of massively misrepresenting the argument.

[Big Phil]

You're right - that sounds much better. The war was started for a variety of bullshit reasons, but then once we were there, Bush & Cheney took their opportunity to set up prisons to torture and rape little boys. Torturing adult prisoners to obtain information was just a byproduct of the rape-factories they set up. Very ghoulish...

Methinks you are making far too much moral distinction between setting up torture prisons in the first place, and sending people there even if they're underage. They're both vile to me.

More to the point, none of this exonerates you from the charge of massively misrepresenting the argument.

Dude, the prisons themselves are horrible. That they were built specifically to allow torture is even worse. Whether they're adults or children matters not at all to me - it's still unacceptable and wrong. I concede that I misrepresented his original post, but that hardly makes Einhander's tin-foil hat theories on the motivations of the Bush administration (they want to rape brown little boys) any less ridiculous, and that sort of bullshit adds nothing to the discussion.

[Lord of the Abyss]

I may be a flaming liberal, and I know our government has sunk pretty low, but even I doubt that six year olds were actually tortured. Not that holding and questioning them was appropriate at all, but I somehow doubt that many soldiers would be willing to torture a little child.

Why not ? They've killed plenty. And we've made our disdain for the humanity of anyone outside our borders crystal clear.

[Elfdart]

For the record, I think the Crawford Caligula's sadism was a factor in the war, as well as the kidnapping, rape, torture and murder that came with it. This is the guy who yukked it up over the execution of retards, juveniles and mental patients when he was governor in Texas. The way he acted in the days leading up to the killing of Karla Tucker told me that something like Abu Ghraib was inevitable. The man is the most depraved individual to ever serve as President.

[Eulogy]

So how much more terrorist activity can we expect to see from this? That is, if they ever escape.