Kurnaz, an ethnic Turk born and raised in Germany, went to Pakistan in late 2001 at age 19 to study Islam and wound up in Pakistani police custody. It was three months after 9/11, and Kurnaz says the U.S. was offering bounties for suspicious foreigners. Kurnaz says he was "sold" to the Americans for $3,000 and brought to Kandahar as terrorist suspect.
So...the Pakistanis captured him, framed him for terrorism (more or less) as he was an outsider, and then sold him to the US military. Nice.
He claims American troops tortured him in Afghanistan by holding his head underwater, administering electric shocks to the soles of his feet, and hanging him suspended from the ceiling of an aircraft hangar and kept alive by doctors. "Every five or six hours they came and pulled me back down and the doctor came," he recalls. "He looked into my eyes. He checked my heart and when he said 'okay,' then they pulled me back up," he tells Pelley.
Sounds like torture to me.
Can anyone defend this kind of behavior on the part of our military? Will you defend torture and those who do it for the sake of "information" and "national security?"
I had no problem defending Bush's war immediately after 911, and even intended to sign up for the Marines. I was involved in ROTC before I decided it wasn't the smartest idea in the world (plus they said they'd pay for college...).
Even then, I figured that torture was the wrong thing to do. People will make false testimonies so the torture will end. Evidence gained from torture is never reliable.
The poor tortured souls only want to be let free, and will surely lie to do so.
Here comes the spin:
The U.S. Pentagon responding by e-mail says, "We treat all detainees humanely… and all credible claims are investigated thoroughly…. The abuses Mr. Kurnaz alleges are not only unsubstantiated and implausible, they are simply outlandish."
That's been proven false. The Abu Gharib travesty, and the CIA torture planes exist. The Pentagon knows it, but they're too scared to admit the truth for sake of "national security" (aka protecting their buddies).
Kurnaz, who has told his story to European investigators, says "[It] doesn’t matter whatever they will say. The truth will not change… this is the truth."
And the truth shall be known. Don't worry my friend, these people will be exposed for the wolves in sheeps clothing they are. Protecting the US in foreign wars? Please, stop lying. Americans aren't that stupid.
Kurnaz says he was questioned in Afghanistan about Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and the Taliban. He answered truthfully, he says, and told them repeatedly to call the German government and verify who he was. But they continued to torture him, he says. "They used to beat me when my head was underwater…they beat me into my stomach….I had to inhale the water," he tells Pelley.
God help us all...Is this what awaits us in the FEMA camps?
www.cbsnews.com
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