#guantanomo

[drmprop]

Take all your overgrown infants away somewhere and build them a home, a little place of their own - Pink Floyd

[think-progress]

On The 14th Anniversary Of Guantanamo, Obama Hints At New Plan To Shut It Down

On the 14th anniversary of the opening of controversial indefinite detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and on the eve of his final State of the Union address, President Obama announced a new plan to shut down the prison and transfer its remaining inmates to secure locations in the U.S. and abroad.

[quicklinks01]

"The law is meant to be my servant and not my master, still less my torturer and my murderer."

-- James Baldwin, "A Report from Occupied Territory" The Nation (1966)

[atribecalledki]

Please Share this video. 

Warning: Very hard to watch

[maplekoyo]

"I respect you Yasiin Bey/force-feeding at Guantanamo Bay/Kanye said the new slaves/"Get your peace today"

-Blu

[ushypocrisy]

‘Lest We Forget: the horrifying images from Abu-Ghraib Prison in Iraq [GRAPHIC IMAGERY]

     In light of the recent Boston Marathon Day bombings, many have once again been motivated by fear to single out and scapegoat a certain segment of the population, Arabs and Muslims, in an attempt to hold them responsible for the violence that took place April 15, 2013. Given all the negative aspersions being caste on Muslims as well as foreigners and perceived foreigners in general this past month, it is perhaps more important now than ever before to look back on a very different April back in 2004, exactly nine months ago today. It was on the evening of Wednesday, April 28 that CBS’s60 Minutes first broke the news that shocked the nation and the entire world. They had obtained 8 exclusive photographs of prisoners detained in Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq being physically and sexually abused by none other than United States military personnel, and the question on everyone’s mind was whether or not this was official U.S. policy, or was it just a couple of soldiers “gone rogue.”

   These photographs came to light only because a member of the 372nd Military Police Company, Spc. Sabrina Harmon, took pictures of the torture they inflicted and sent them to friends back home in an apparent attempt to boast about how “tough” she was being with these “terrorists.” Of course, in reality the U.S. military’s victims in this case weren’t “terrorists” at all. According to the military’s own intelligence, which was in turn relayed to the International Red Cross, up to 90% of all inmates interned in U.S. occupational prisons in Iraq, in addition to CIA “black sites”, were innocent and never charged with a crime. Instead they had been turned based on bogus information relayed to them by anonymous citizen “sources”, who in turn were simply responding to U.S. fliers notifying citizens that they could receive thousands of dollars in reward money, paid out under condition that they provide information on people who had “links to terrorism.” But what these painfully graphic photographs demonstrate is that terrorism is by no means exclusive to any cultural, regional, or religious population. The men and women held captive at Abu Ghraib prison and tortured throughout the year 2003 each had families, loved ones, hopes and aspirations much the same way as each and every one of us does. But unlike many of us, they were forced to suffer through unfathomable brutality and humiliation at the hands of their American captors, all in the name of U.S. Imperialism. What’s more, it’s easy to look at these images with disgust and anger directed at American soldiers who could commit such horrendous acts of torture, as indeed we should. But ask yourself: how different are they really from us? By “us”, I refer to the collective values that define us as an American people, who sat by helplessly, watched and even supported this war and countless others – from Vietnam to Afghanistan. It is absolutely essential to understand that neither these wars nor the horrific events unfolding in the pictures below ever could have happened without the public first being desensitized to certain segments of the human population. Throughout American history, groups who have been victimized by this sort of “us vs. them” mentality have included Native Americans, African Americans, Asians (especially the Vietnamese), and now Muslims. This IS in fact what War is in its most naked form. Once all the rhetoric of bringing “freedom” and “democracy” is stripped away, we are left with little, if anything, gained for the betterment of the vast majority of people. If this is indeed what “true democracy” looks like, do you really wish to partake in it?

!! VIEW THE TERRIFYING IMAGES HERE. BE WARNED THEY ARE OF GRAPHIC NATURE AND SHOULD NOT BE SEEN BY YOUNG CHILDREN:

[atelier-populaire]

matt rota. guantanamo bay hunger strike. nytimes

[yanguang]

Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay since 2002, told this story, through an Arabic interpreter, to his lawyers at the legal charity Reprieve in an unclassified telephone call.