Robert Scheer (Los Angeles Times): A Devil's Island for Our Times

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Los Angeles Times
Dated Tuesday December 28

A Devil`s Island for Our Times
How can we let this evil persist?
By Robert Scheer

It is time to invade Cuba and put an end to what has become another Devil's Island in the annals of government-sanctioned torture. The barbaric treatment of political prisoners on the island is made no more palatable by being conducted in the name of an ideology that claims to be liberating the world from its shackles.

Once again, we are witnesses to the ugly truth bound up in that philosophical contradiction that the ends can justify the means: Desecrations of the human body and spirit can never be righteously justified by high-minded appeals to the needs of the masses. Fortunately, a few brave U.S. intelligence agents have managed to penetrate the security of a morally repugnant Cuban gulag and documented both the barbaric acts occurring on the island and their state-sanctioned rationalizations.

"On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food, or water," wrote an FBI agent who gained access to the prison compound. "Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more."

Also reported by U.S. agents: freezing or very hot cells; feverish prisoners left untreated; loud music and strobe lights directed for long periods at prisoners in solitary confinement; growling dogs used to frighten prisoners.

Read more.

Don't wait for the inauguration. Impeach all the war criminals!!

[Florida_Geek]

1. Myself... I will be on the real Devil's Island on Feb 16

:) been wanting to go there for many years.

[tanyev]

2. Sounds kind of like Guantanamo

and Abu Ghraib.

"On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food, or water," wrote an FBI agent who gained access to the prison compound. "Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more."

Also reported by U.S. agents: freezing or very hot cells; feverish prisoners left untreated; loud music and strobe lights directed for long periods at prisoners in solitary confinement; growling dogs used to frighten prisoners.

[TexasLawyer]

3. It IS Guantanamo

That is the article's punchline.

[tanyev]

4. Oh. Duh. I get it now.

Thank you. :think:

[Jack Rabbit]

5. The international community must take action

On a duplicate thread, a poster points out that now that Bush has been "re-"elected, nothing will be done. That is perhaps true.

Under international law, it is the primary responsibility of the alleged offender's country to bring him to justice. Only when that proves futile should international institutions take action. We are right to hold little hope that Bush and his aides will be brought to justice in the US for their crimes.

Perhaps the time has come to convene an international tribunal for the purpose of bringing charges against Bush and his aides. The time has definitely come for the governments of other nations to shun these pariahs. Until those governments begin behaving responsibly, their people should greet the pariahs with large and disruptive demonstrations wherever they go.

The term international community also embraces American dissidents. We, too, must not give these war criminals impunity or immunity. Our mood must not be one of mere opposition, but active resistance.

There must be no business as usual. The Bush colonial war machine will not be shut down by simply saying, "please".