Guantanamo Bay = Jihad University?

[tony hipchest]

i rarely get too fired up about articles such as this, especially in this political enviornment. for instance, i usually look at what happened at abu gharib as evidence of us being a "dumbed down nation" (some recent presidents are proof of this) and nothing more.

but this "war on terrorism" is looking alot like the failed "war on drugs".

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20...latchy/2969823

(This is the third installment of McClatchy's Guantanamo: Beyond the Law series, which can be viewed in full at www.mcclatchydc.com)

GARDEZ, Afghanistan - Mohammed Naim Farouq was a thug in the lawless Zormat district of eastern Afghanistan . He ran a kidnapping and extortion racket, and he controlled his turf with a band of gunmen who rode around in trucks with AK-47 rifles.

U.S. troops detained him in 2002, although he had no clear ties to the Taliban or al Qaida. By the time Farouq was released from Guantanamo the next year, however - after more than 12 months of what he described as abuse and humiliation at the hands of American soldiers - he'd made connections to high-level militants.

In fact, he'd become a Taliban leader. When the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency released a stack of 20 "most wanted" playing cards in 2006 identifying militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan - with Osama bin Laden at the top - Farouq was 16 cards into the deck.

A McClatchy investigation found that instead of confining terrorists, Guantanamo often produced more of them by rounding up common criminals, conscripts, low-level foot soldiers and men with no allegiance to radical Islam - thus inspiring a deep hatred of the United States in them - and then housing them in cells next to radical Islamists.

The radicals were quick to exploit the flaws in the U.S. detention system.

Soldiers, guards or interrogators at the U.S. bases at Bagram or Kandahar in Afghanistan had abused many of the detainees, and they arrived at Guantanamo enraged at America.

The Taliban and al Qaida leaders in the cells around them were ready to preach their firebrand interpretation of Islam and the need to wage jihad, Islamic holy war, against the West. Guantanamo became a school for jihad, complete with a council of elders who issued fatwas, binding religious instructions, to the other detainees.

Rear Adm. Mark H. Buzby , until recently the commanding officer at Guantanamo, acknowledged that senior militant leaders gained influence and control in his prison.

"We have that full range of (Taliban and al Qaida) leadership here, why would they not continue to be functional as an organization?" he said in a telephone interview. "I must make the assumption that there's a fully functional al Qaida cell here at Guantanamo."

very long article. unless youve already dismissed it or dont give a flying french fry, click the link.

personally, i think anyone who really deserved (or needed) to be detained in guantanamo, deserved to be shot on site before the plane ride . remember 9-11?

and dont even get me started on the huge failure of the "war on drugs". just look at the correlation of that with the explosion of meth.

[MasterOfPuppets]

personally, i think anyone who really deserved (or needed) to be detained in guantanamo, deserved to be shot on site before the plane ride . remember 9-11?

sure woulda saved the taxpayers billions !!!

[Jeremy]

especially in this political environment.

What makes this one so special?

[tony hipchest]

Originally Posted by Jeremy

What makes this one so special?

because every year "united we stand" becomes more of just a catchphrase.

we are so divided with our current 2 party system we always have 50% of the people thinking theyre right all the time = 100% of a non objective nation, ( people please spare me, i am well aware that 3%-7% are probaqbly TOTALLY objective, as i feel i am) and the media is getting in on the act BIGTIME.

just tonight, o'reily was bragging about how much of the total percentage of advertising dollars foxnews gets opposed to msnbc. (something like 43% to 13%).

articles like this (even if 100% true) will automatically be discredited by "the other side" as rhetoric or spin.

Maybe McClatchey is an adulterer who belongs to a church and will be labeled a hypocrite because of it, to discredit him.

anyways, this is why i take these things (articles) worth a grain of salt. not this one though.

[revefsreleets]

I read this earlier this week. Makes sense to me. It's the same thing as taking petty drug dealers, tossing them in the slammer (due to ridiculously harsh penalties for drug possession) with hard core lifelong criminals and then releasing the newly educated (and previously relatively harmless) hard core criminals back into society.

I'm waiting with baited breath for the new kid with 26 posts to tell me just how incredibly wrong I am...

[tony hipchest]

Originally Posted by revefsreleets

I'm waiting with baited breath for the new kid with 26 posts to tell me just how incredibly wrong I am...

i'll be waiting too, ready to lmao.

another thing that kinda gets me is we appearantly are trying to imprison common afghan criminals (US prision system operates under the guise of REHAB and punishment). we are supposedly at war with terrorists and arent plugging these fools in the head.

in the meantime, pat tillman gets killed and we spend so much effort to keep it on the *hush*.

[MasterOfPuppets]

whatya think the operating cost of G-MO is ,compared to a case of .223 rounds?

[Preacher]

Originally Posted by tony hipchest

another thing that kinda gets me is we appearantly are trying to imprison common afghan criminals (US prision system operates under the guise of REHAB and punishment). we are supposedly at war with terrorists and arent plugging these fools in the head.
.

Yep...

Of course we can't do that....

Because if we did... it would be war crimes..


Oh wait... ahhhh nevermind.

[Jeremy]

Originally Posted by tony hipchest

just tonight, o'reily was bragging about how much of the total percentage of advertising dollars foxnews gets opposed to msnbc. (something like 43% to 13%).

Of course they do, people want to know what they can blame on Mexicans and what cute blond girls have gone missing in the past few days.

But I have to wonder if SlimeBill figured in the financial bath Fox is taking on their miserable failure, Fox Business Channel.

[millwalldavey]

Originally Posted by Jeremy

Of course they do, people want to know what they can blame on Mexicans and what cute blond girls have gone missing in the past few days.

Amen!