Mistaken Identity gets you tortured in War on Terror

I see a lot of posts on this forum from people who say that all terrorists should be tortured, or receive a "bullet in the gut" (that particular poster said it should happen after the presumed terrorist being flown home, which shows the level of logic brought to bear on the subject).

They're all guilty and should therefore suffer, is the argument.

Well, of course, life is a little more complex than such people would have us believe, and we're finding out, in the teeth of some serious commitment to secrecy on the part of the US government, what happens to innocent people caught up in the War on Terror. In this article we see that Khaled al-Masri was detained in a case of mistaken identity, shipped off to Afghanistan, tortured in a secret prison there, and held for an extra two months after it was discovered he wasn't the man the US was looking for in the first place.

He said he was then flown to Afghanistan where he was "dragged off the plane and thrown into the trunk of a car" and beaten by his captors. He was held at a CIA-run facility known as the "Salt Pit," an abandoned brick factory north of the Kabul business district used for detention of high-level terror suspects, al-Masri says.

Al-Masri said that when he became ill, "they didn't pay any attention." He said he went on a hunger strike that ended after 37 days when his captors force-fed him. He said he had lost more than 60 pounds.

Now al-Masri is trying to sue the CIA for what they did to him. Lawyers for the CIA are trying, obviously, to stop the case. Their reasons? Good old national security. What a wonderful catch-all that phrase is. Never needs qualifying. We can't tell you what we can't tell you (and why we can't tell you what we can't tell you, for "reasons of national security".

U.S. Attorney R. Joseph Sher said government secrets could be exposed if Khaled al-Masri were allowed to proceed with his lawsuit.

"Disclosure of information in the case would jeopardize national security," Sher said during a hearing in which he asked the judge to dismiss the case.

Citing the harm he said public disclosure of any information regarding the case could do, Sher said, "We cannot and will not confirm or deny the allegations or diplomatic contact with foreign governments."

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis said he will issue a ruling as soon as possible on whether the case will proceed.

But the details of the case have already been made public, a point made by the ACLU.

I'd like to see how Judge Ellis negotiates this thorny problem. I suspect he'll have to ignore some very obvious and salient points rather pointedly in order to produce a verdict suitable to the power structure.

Al-Masri is, of course, just one innocent among many illegally detained on the flimsiest of evidence and then tortured by the US. We have the fact that 141 people were recently released from Guantanamo, for a start, but the truth is, we don't know how many people are "off the books". The internationa Red Cross has been refused access to those held in secret detention centres, no doubt for "reasons of national security" (which obviously depends on the ability of the US to "disappear" people at will).

It seems that for every genuine "terrorist" detained and tortured by the US, several innocents are being given similarly inhumane treatment.

I wish someone would declare a War on Incompetence.

No, wait! BAD IDEA. War on Drugs = "let's cut out the competition so we can deal drugs ourselves": War on Terror = "let's unleash state terror around the world"; War on Incompetence... I'm sure you can fill in the blank yourselves.

And its exactly stuff like this what causes hate towards the US , im sure that most of these men didnt have any hate towards america before hand but they certainly do now.
It wouldnt suprise me if some of those released would actually now take up the fight againts the US.

The guy is lucky to be alive, they could have "disappeared" him if it was in their better interest. So why didn't they, maybe because it isn't in their better interest. Perhaps stories like this make a good example of bad press is better than no press.
Not sure why that is, but it has been said there is no such a thing as "bad press", hmm I don't know...

Now if I could just get your attention, right here, yes thats it. *Slips shades on*

!FLASH!

There is no salt pit, christians in action would never torture any one, it isn't US policy. Water boarding is not seen as torture, and that was glint tape which reflected off of a commercial air liner.

Your good posters, deny ignorance.

[edit on 14-5-2006 by ADVISOR]

Thanks for that, advisor. I feel much better now. Even better now I know that they're going to run JEB FOR PRESIDENT! Yaaaay!

That was a good and disturbing read. And im sure it isn't the first time it's happened.

I also believe things like this took place during world war 2 with japanese "detainment camps" right after pearl harbor...

Originally posted by Toodat
That was a good and disturbing read. And im sure it isn't the first time it's happened.

I also believe things like this took place during world war 2 with japanese "detainment camps" right after pearl harbor...

Yeah we hold the Japanese Americans in those camps during WW2. I wonder what happened? No revenge I wonder why?

I dont know about the rest of you but I for one am just getting alittle sick and tired of the "national security" BS excuse for covering all their mistakes and outright illegalities!!! Its not for national security its for their own security to get away with murder and torture and surveillance and any other form of power they wish to abuse. What good is national security when all the laws and values that this nation hold most dear are gone....all in the name of national security!!!.

But im straying... This story is exactly what civil rights people were afraid of...innocent people getting caught up in this WOT. And when someone DOES get caught up they cant even get retribution and adress grievences with the govt... unreal... good find rich

I thought some of you may find this interesting.

On 6 November 2005, Pakistani national, Mr. Khalid Mahmood Rashid, was supposedly deported from South Africa to Pakistan for being in the country illegally. However, Mr. Rashid’s family in Pakistan claims that he has not been seen or heard from. Mr. Rashid’s advocate, Mr. Zehir Omar, now claims that he was never sent to Pakistan, but was instead handed over to British secret service agents. He was supposedly flown out of South Africa from AFB Waterkloof in Tshwane.

So far, the SAPS (South African Police Service), NIA (National Intelligence Agency), the Scorpions (SA’s version of the FBI) and the Department of Home Affairs have refused to give any details on this matter.

Here are the links to the stories:

Khalid linked to mystery flight

Flurry over ‘al-Qaeda’ deportee’s fate

New twist in Pakistanis' trial

more links

Personally, I believe that he was taken from SA by either British or US agents as part of “extraordinary rendition”. The plane which took him out of SA was allowed to land on a AFB in the middle of the night, no flight plan was logged, the flight number isn’t known, the name of the official who supposedly received him in Pakistan is not known, etc. All this for a supposedly insignificant illegal immigrant?

This case is still ongoing and is big news here in SA at the moment.

Some more info about these mysterious flights:
The CIA's torture taxi

Any comments?

[edit on 31-5-2006 by kulcha]

Thanks for the links, Kulcha. It's all very scary. The US has arrogated to itself the right to disappear people from all over the world. And an alarming number of its citizens think this is fine and dandy.

The war on terrorism is a conspiracy.