Charge: US disappeared a 7-year-old and 9-year-old into its top secret WOT gulag

[BurtWorm]

From Obsidian Wings (I was tipped by Gleen Greewald):

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2007/06/are_we_disappea.html

Are We Disappearing Children?

by hilzoy

Today, six human rights groups released a report (pdf) on 39 people who they think the US government might be holding in undisclosed locations, and whose location is presently unknown. (Thus, they are not counting anyone known to be at Guantanamo or Bagram; just people who are missing.) That we have disappeared anyone is shocking, and a violation of treaties we have signed and ratified.

This report has gotten a fair amount of play, but in all the coverage I've read, only the Philadelphia Inquirer has mentioned what is, to me, the most awful allegation: that we disappeared young children. The report (pp. 24-26) lists five groups of family members; those who are discussed at greatest length are the sons of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

"In September 2002, Yusuf al-Khalid (then nine years old) and Abed al-Khalid (then seven years old) were reportedly apprehended by Pakistani security forces during an attempted capture of their father, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was successfully apprehended several months later, and the U.S. government has acknowledged that he was in the U.S. Secret Detention Program. He is presently held at Guantánamo Bay.

In an April 16, 2007 statement, Ali Khan (father of Majid Khan, a detainee who the U.S. government has acknowledged was in the U.S. Secret Detention Program and is presently held at Guantánamo Bay) indicated that Yusef and Abed al-Khalid had been held in the same location in which Majid Khan and Majid’s brother Mohammed were detained in March/April 2003. Mohammed was detained by Pakistani officials for approximately one month after his apprehension on March 5, 2003 (see below). Ali Khan’s statement indicates that:

Also according to Mohammed, he and Majid were detained in the same place where two of Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s young children, ages about 6 and 8, were held. The Pakistani guards told my son that the boys were kept in a separate area upstairs, and were denied food and water by other guards. They were also mentally tortured by having ants or other creatures put on their legs to scare them and get them to say where their father was hiding.

After Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s arrest in March 2003, Yusuf and Abed Al Khalid were reportedly transferred out of Pakistan in U.S. custody. The children were allegedly being sent for questioning about their father’s activities and to be used by the United States as leverage to force their father to co-operate with the United States. A press report on March 10, 2003 confirmed that CIA interrogators had detained the children and that one official explained that:

“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.”

In the transcript of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s Combatant Status Review Tribunal, he indicates knowledge that his children were apprehended and abused:

“They arrested my kids intentionally. They are kids. They been arrested for four months they had been abused.”"

[maddezmom]

1. this is not our country anymore

:(

K&R

[Waya]

2. Yea, alright..........

.....how much lower can we sink, now?

[zonmoy]

9. depends on what is beneath hell.

[malaise]

3. This is fugging criminal

six and nine? WTF!!

[gratuitous]

4. We are being ruled by scared little men

And the sooner their blood-stained, greedy hands are off the levers of power in our country, the better off we'll all be, both in the U.S. and the rest of the world.

[seemslikeadream]

and someone questioned why I used large fonts yesterday

I've just really had enough of this

[ellie]

5. Exactly what

do children know about their father's activities? I knew nothing. I had no idea what he did for a living until I was older. This country just sucks. It sucks really bad.

[Beaverhausen]

6. No words

this is despicable.

[yardwork]

7. These are not the first reports

The New Yorker reported that there are videos of children being raped and tortured in Abu Ghraib, supposedly to make their parents talk. Other publications have reported first-person accounts from witnesses of torture of children in Gitmo. Congress has seen this evidence. They know about it.

[Common Sense Party]

10. Do you have a link for the New Yorker report?

Or for any of these other publications?

[yardwork]

16. Yes. Thank you for asking!

ABU GHRAIB
Seymour Hersh investigated Abu Ghraib in 2004, and his reports were published in the New Yorker. In subsequent speeches, including one to the ACLU, he detailed videos and tapes he saw and heard of children being tortured at Abu Ghraib when it was under control of U.S. forces. Congress was given access to all these materials. Very little was reported in the mainstream media (for obvious reasons), but you can find links to these reports and a transcript of Hersh's speech here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/7/14/193750/666

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact?currentPage=1

Rolling Stone and numerous other outlets have published first-person accounts from people who either suffered torture in Gitmo or witnessed torture. Link here:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/11128331/follow_omar_khadr_from_an_al_qaeda_childhood_to_a_gitmo_cell/4

If you google "children torture" and "abu ghraib" or "Guantanamo" you will find dozens and dozens of additional links.

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. Omigosh. Bush is responsible for another Ann Frank.

[Jackpine Radical]

11. PROUD tubby Namurkin

[fasttense]

12. I am so disgusted by my countrymen.

They have no right to do this in our name.

[Nikki Stone1]

13. This is evil

no question

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

14. This isn't what a compassionate person or country does

What happened to the ideals of our Founding Fathers?

[Recursion]

15. We already knew this

In the dumped interrogation docs from KSM there was a part where they threatened his children with death to get him to talk and he replied "They will find a better home with God".

I've got to say, it takes some doing to make KSM look like a hero and the US look like terrorists, but they managed. Good job guys.

[gaspee]

17. Now imagine

if the "terrorists" were holding two American children hostage to find out what their father was up to? What would the outcry in the US be? Just imagine it for a second. How the hell has this country stooped so low?

[ordinaryaveragegirl]

18. This is an outrage

Talk about terror. Tough to fight a "war" that you're helping to perpertrate. And bringing two innocent children into something like this is completely inexcusable. How are they any threat???

[Kurovski]

19. K&R (nt)

[TahitiNut]

20. It's part of the Cheney/Bush "preemptive" strategy.

After all, why wait until they grow up and attack America? It's clear they're an imminent threat. Just like Iraq ... and just as "imminent."


:puke: :puke:

[Usrename]

21. There will be no penalty for these crimes.

Someone might end up going to prison if only impeachment weren't off the table.

But a lot of folks here think this is just good politics. They have no conscience.

I'm bookmarking this thread, and will try to link to it whenever I see another apologist opposing impeachment here.

[jazzjunkysue]

22. Applause for the kinder, gentler , pro-life B* administration.

I hope we're invaded by a civilized country, like Canada, real soon.

[lovuian]

23. Little children were in Abu Ghahib

so it continues

[otherlander]

24. kick

[me b zola]

25. .

:grr:

[AspenRose]

26. Oh my God.

:cry: :mad: :nuke:

[proud patriot]

27. My god , what have we done ?

:cry: