U.S. quietly expands Afghan prison

[Judi Lynn]

Sunday, February 26, 2006 - Page updated at 12:00 AM

U.S. quietly expands Afghan prison
By TIM GOLDEN and ERIC SCHMITT

The New York Times

While an international debate rages over the future of the U.S. detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the military has quietly expanded another, less-visible prison in Afghanistan, where it now holds some 500 terror suspects in more primitive conditions, indefinitely and without charges.
(snip)

But some of the detainees already have been at Bagram for as long as two or three years. And unlike those at Guantánamo, they have no access to lawyers, no right to hear the allegations against them and only rudimentary reviews of their status as "enemy combatants," military officials said.

Privately, some administration officials acknowledge that the situation at Bagram has increasingly come to resemble the legal void that led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling in June 2004 affirming the right of prisoners at Guantánamo to challenge their detention in U.S. courts.
(snip)

While Guantánamo offers carefully scripted tours for members of Congress and journalists, Bagram has operated in rigorous secrecy since it opened in 2002. It bars outside visitors except for the International Red Cross and refuses to make public the names of those held there. The prison may not be photographed, even from a distance.
(snip/...)

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002829560_bagram26.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Joplin Globe: Shame of Guantanamo

Shame of Guantanamo

Marie Cocco
Columnist
2/25/06


WASHINGTON — There is no use wasting words to urge the Bush administration to close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
No amount of international embarrassment, no pleas from the United Nations or from European governments — not even a ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court — change the way the United States conducts itself there. We must assume that the shame of Guantanamo is with us for as long as the shameless George W. Bush is president.

So who is being held at this camp, where detainees have no real hope of release, or of being formally charged, or even of seeing what evidence there may be against them? Who are these men in such despair that many resort to hunger strikes, but are force-fed by tube — strapped into restraining chairs, if necessary — lest the United States suffer the additional humiliation of creating Muslim martyrs?

Our government tells us the prisoners at Guantanamo are “the worst of the worst,” to use Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s phrase. “They’re terrorists. They’re bomb-makers, they’re facilitators of terror. They’re members of al-Qaida and the Taliban” is the description from the ever-reliable lips of Vice President Dick Cheney.

“They were there to kill,” the president has asserted.
That is what our political leaders say. But it is not what officials who are actually in charge of holding the prisoners say.
(snip/...)

http://www.joplinglobe.com/story.php?story_id=230595&c=96

[LynnTheDem]

3. "worst of the worst" .... well except for these INNOCENT people...

Five Chinese Muslims the U.S. military admits were captured by mistake want the U.S. Supreme Court`s help in getting out of the Guantanamo Bay military prison. Their capture and detention in the Cuban facility for more than four years has created a legal dilemma for the Bush administration, which fears releasing them back to China where they could face torture, yet refuses to grant them asylum for fear of opening floodgates to others.
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/northamerica/article_1097256.php/%60Mistake%60_captives_languish_at_Guantanamo


Compiled from declassified Defense Department evaluations of the more than 500 detainees at the Cuba facility, the report says just 8 percent are listed as fighters for a terrorist group, while 30 percent are considered members of a terrorist group and the remaining 60 percent were just "associated with" terrorists.

55 percent of the detainees are informally accused of committing a hostile act. But the descriptions of their actions ranged from a high-ranking Taliban member who tortured and killed Afghan natives to people who possessed rifles, used a guest house or wore olive drab clothing.
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060207232709990001&_ccc=2&cid=842

"arrested by mistake"? "used a guest house"? OMG lock em up forever & torture the bastards!

It's the AMERICAN WAY!

[saigon68]

19. ever-reliable lips of Vice President Dick Cheney

disgusting

[LynnTheDem]

2. Of course the US expands their prison; USA #1 in jailing own citizens

let alone everyone else's.

JAILING PEOPLE; that's what America is all about!

[cal04]

4. U.S. Defends Conditions at Bagram Prison

The U.S. military on Sunday defended its detention of about 500 inmates at its main base in Afghanistan, saying they are treated humanely and provided the ``best possible living conditions.'' The New York Times on Sunday reported that inmates are held by the dozen in wire cages at the Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul - some for as long as two or three years without access to lawyers or the chance to hear the allegations against them.

The report, citing unnamed military officials and former detainees, said that inmate numbers had grown sharply, partly because ``enemy combatants'' caught during the hunt for al-Qaida and Taliban militants in Afghanistan were no longer being transferred to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Col. James Yonts, the U.S. military spokesman in Kabul, would not confirm or deny whether inmates are held for up to three years, saying the secretary of defense sets the criteria for detention. But he added that all those held were at one time ``enemy combatants'' and their status is regularly reviewed.

``We hold them for two reasons: to question them and get intelligence from them, or because they've committed violence against the coalition or the people of Afghanistan,'' he said in an e-mailed response to questions. ``We regularly review the status of the detainees, and if a detainee has no intelligence value and if we believe he will no longer attack the coalition or forces of the central government, we will release him. We regularly release detainees,'' he said.

Yonts confirmed about 500 people are currently held at Bagram, and said they were treated humanely and ``provided the best possible living conditions and medical care in accordance with the principals of the Geneva Convention.'' The U.S. military maintains that ``enemy combatants'' are not covered by the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5648878,00.html

[AlamoDemoc]

5. get out off Afghanistan..get out off Iraq...get back to the US..n/t

[realFedUp]

6. rent the film "Chasing Freedom" about U.S. immigration detention prisons

will depress and enlighten.

[ConcernedCanuk]

7. As the Administration spreads their evil across the globe

.
.
.

The Admin is only convincing more countries and people in the world of it's unending evil.

Accelerating the "FALL" of the USA as a respected entity

Feared yes, but not respected

And that loss of respect will be their downfall.

Unofficial economic "sanctions" are already in play as the World seeks to trade with anybody BUT the USA

We know we can't compete with the murderous firepower of the US, but we can strangle them by selling our lumber, steel, petrol-products, etc. elsewhere, and buy other needs elsewhere also . .

Japan, by no accident - is laying waste to the USA's auto industry, - how?

By offering the motorizing public cheaper, safer and more efficient cars of all things!!!

Us Canuks offered cheaper safer medications

The list goes on and on

BushCo must GO if the USA is to survive as a global player, and the PNACers must must retire into the shadows

BUT

I'm afraid some sort of global confrontation will happen before the USA just minds it's own business and takes care of it's own people . . .

(sigh)

[OKthatsIT]

8. Not to mention the ever expanding Prison Industrial Complex

with Federal Tax Dollars

[maddezmom]

9. kick

[lovuian]

10. Report says Bagram bleaker than Gitmo

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=b9d3d7f81015533e

The U.S. detention center at Bagram, Afghanistan, holds more inmates than Guantanamo in bleak circumstances, the New York Times reported Sunday.

About 500 inmates are held in wire cages in a former machine shop on the Bagram Air Force Base. The detainees have almost no legal rights.

"Bagram was never meant to be a long-term facility, and now it's a long-term facility without the money or resources," a Defense Department official who has toured the detention center told the Times
more...

This makes me sick!!!

[mike_c]

11. this is the Amerikan gulag system....

And they said it couldn't happen here, or at least that Americans wouldn't do it. It didn't even take long.

[marmar]

12. If there's such a thing as a collective national karma...

We're in big trouble.

:scared: :scared: :scared:

[shanti]

18. karma, yup

we ARE in big trouble :(

[Judi Lynn]

13. It's farther away from the U.S., so probably easier for more people

to forget altogether.

From the article:

Asked to compare Bagram with its counterpart in Cuba, he said, "Anyone who has been to Bagram would tell you it's worse."

Bagram is about 40 miles north of Kabul. Representatives of the International Red Cross are the only outsiders allowed in the detention center, the Times said.

The military does not release the names of the inmates, who have no access to lawyers and no right to know the charges against them.
(snip/)

I could swear I've read that the people at one of _Bush's detainee prisons have actually been known to HIDE prisoners from the Red Cross when it was visiting. Apparently there are some they can't afford for them to see.

[Judi Lynn]

20. Here's one of the references to prisoners they hide from the outside.

This article refers to Iraq, but it seems obvious their practices would be duplicated everywhere they are keeping detainees:

CIA May Have Held 100 'Ghost' Prisoners
By John Hendren
Los Angeles Times

Friday 10 September 2004

Washington - Pentagon investigators believe the CIA has held as many as 100 "ghost" detainees in Iraq without revealing their identities or locations, a much greater number than previously disclosed, a senior Defense Department official told Congress on Thursday.

However, the precise number of undisclosed prisoners and the conditions in which they have been held remain a mystery, said Army Gen. Paul Kern, because CIA officials have refused to cooperate with Pentagon investigators, denying repeated requests for documents and information on the detainees.

The CIA apparently has held between a dozen and three dozen unregistered prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad since the war in Iraq began in March 2003, and others elsewhere in the country, said Kern, who is overseeing the investigations of prisoner abuse. Pentagon officials had previously cited only eight cases of failure to account for prisoners, which is an apparent violation of international law under the Geneva Convention.

"If they fall under the category of ghost detainees, there are no records," Kern told reporters after addressing members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
(snip/...)

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/printer_091104A.shtml

[htuttle]

14. Concentration Camps? Check.

Are we Hitler yet?

Sure, we don't *know* that they've actually fired up the ovens yet, but they've already killed hundreds of prisoners. Does it matter what is done with the bodies? And do we wait until we hit 6+ million this time?

The AUMF passed after 9/11 is looking more and more like an American version of the 'Enabling Act' of 1933.

[CrazyOrangeCat]

15. Kick.

[LuckyLib]

16. Bagram and Gitmo are the two big ones that we know about.

How many others are there? And to think a mere 20 years ago our neighborhood group was writing letters for Amnesty International to governments and despots all over the globe to protest detentions, clandestine prisons, holding people without charges, torture. Never imagined it would be us . . .

[ShockediSay]

17. and how many of these guys are mistakes

like the guy 'renditioned' in Germany, or the Egyptian swept up in New York ? how will we ever know the real story?