CURRENT MOON

Saturday, January 20, 2007

American Gulag


Via Miniver Cheevey, Here's a letter from a detainee in Guantanamo:


At Guantanamo, soldiers have assaulted me, placed me in solitary confinement, threatened to kill me, threatened to kill my daughter and told me I will stay in Cuba for the rest of my life. They have deprived me of sleep, forced me to listen to extremely loud music and shined intense lights in my face. They have placed me in cold rooms for hours without food, drink or the ability to go to the bathroom or wash for prayers. They have wrapped me in the Israeli flag and told me there is a holy war between the Cross and the Star of David on one hand and the Crescent on the other. They have beaten me unconscious.

. . .

I would rather die than stay here forever, and I have tried to commit suicide many times. The purpose of Guantanamo is to destroy people, and I have been destroyed. I am hopeless because our voices are not heard from the depths of the detention center.

If I die, please remember that there was a human being named Jumah at Guantanamo whose beliefs, dignity and humanity were abused. Please remember that there are hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo suffering the same misfortune. They have not been charged with any crimes. They have not been accused of taking any action against the United States.
***************************************************************************

As Miniver Cheevey notes, this-- the creation of a place that has as its purpose the destruction of hman beings, the deliberate attempt to start a war between xians and Moslems, and beating people until they are unconscious -- is done in our name, with our tax dollars, in my name, with my tax dollars. As Miniver Cheevey also notes, the fact that it is still going on shows that I am culpable, that I haven't done enough to stop it.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

In a book written by some one who took a job as interpreter at Guantanamo, thinking these detainees were a threat to his country, are some descriptions of the horror we're enabling there. I've gotten into several arguments at a winger site with people who just think anyone who disagrees with our policy of torture is just opening the gates to terrorists. Au contraire. We're creating whole families of terrorists by the atrocities we're committing there. The book "Inside the Wire" by Viveca Novak by Erik Saar is very informative.

Anonymous said...

But let's not forget that some of these people actually are terrorists and have been trained to act exactly this way, in order to make America look like the bad guys.

shrimplate said...

Which ones, Brent?

Anonymous said...

I certainly would not suggest sending ole brent to gitmo to see if the guards could tell that he was a real american.

Hecate said...

Brent,

You don't know that. You don't know that because "these people" haven't had a trial. And even if they had, that doesn't make torturing them moral. Turn off your tv; life is not an episode of 24.

Anonymous said...

I believed it up until the part about the Isreali flag. I can believe the U.S. military would torture people it suspects of being terrorists, with no hesitation. That is entirely believable. But wrapping him in an Isreali flag? Like real U.S. soldiers give a flying fuck about Isreal. Anyone who knows anything about the U.S. military would know how absolutly absurd that shit is. That kind of "Global Zionist Conspiracy" stuff really ruins the credibility... he should have just stuck with the facts.

Anonymous said...

i can't read that without crying. um, and I'm not Brent, whoever the heck he is