Alllieblog

I worry about our enemies. I worry about the people Bush and Cheney have had tortured and even killed, from Khalid Sheik Mohammed on down. I believe no one should be tortured and that no one should be killed without a trial. If these people are dangerous to us, if they have murdered Americans, then they should be arrested, tried, and perhaps even imprisoned for life. Maybe they should even be sentenced to death. Some Nazis at Nuremberg were sentenced to death and I hope that someday Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush will similarly be tried, convicted and sentenced for war crimes. But no one should be tortured. That’s in our constitution. But the bastards in control of our beloved country have no more concern for the constitution than they do for the lives of those they have murdered.

Of all the people I worry about, all our victims, I worry most about the sons of Khalid Sheik Mohammed. KSM is the alleged mastermind of 9/11. There’s some confusion about his arrest, when and where it occurred and even if KSM was killed during a gun battle with the police. Those familiar with the machinations of the Bush White House will not be surprised that Mohammed’s arrest was announced at a time fortuitous for Bush and his drive for war, distracting the world for two days.

…the Observer leaked a document showing the US had been engaging in a “dirty tricks” campaign of spying on UN delegations to help win support for a war on Iraq. [Observer, 3/2/03] The story, posted on the web the same day the Mohammed story broke, led news reports in Europe, but remained unreported in the US. That wasn’t the case overseas. The author of the story said he had agreed to interviews with NBC, CNN, and Fox News Channel, but all three later canceled. [Salon, 3/3/03] The story finally began to get limited US coverage once CBS ran it two days later. [CBS, 3/3/03] Did the capture of Mohammed - headlines for two days - help obscure the “dirty tricks” story, as well as all the other bad news?

The timing was so fortuitous that New York Times ran a front page headline: “Major Catch, Critical Time.” [New York Times, 3/2/03 (B)] In fact, some hinted it was more than just luck. For instance, Tariq Ali: “The timing of this is quite interesting. Just as the US Government was coming under criticism for not doing anything about the actual terrorists and being too distracted by the war in Iraq, suddenly, hey presto, the intelligence in Pakistan supplies them with a prisoner they’ve been looking for.” [Australian Broadcasting Corp., 3/3/03]

Despite the confusion about when Mohammed was captured, there was no confusion, at least initially, about the fact that his two young sons, ages seven and nine, had been captured as well, captured and held hostage”.

Yousef al-Khalid, nine, and his brother, Abed al-Khalid, seven, were taken into custody in Pakistan in September when intelligence officers raided a flat in Karachi which their father had fled hours earlier. They were found cowering behind a wardrobe with a senior al-Qaeda member.

A CIA official discussed using the children to break their father as he was being interrogated at Bagram military base where so many others died under interrogation.

Their father, Mohammed, 37, is being interrogated at the Bagram US military base in Afghanistan. He is being held in solitary confinement and subjected to “stress and duress” interrogation.

He has been told that his sons are being held and is being encouraged to divulge future attacks against the West and the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.

“He has said very little so far,” one CIA official said Saturday. “He sits in a trance-like state and recites verses from the Koran. But while he may claim to be a devout Muslim, we know he is fond of the Western-style fast life. His sons are important to him. The promise of their release and their return to Pakistan may be the psychological lever we need to break him.”

Even the New York Times mentioned the children’s capture:

Besides eluding authorities in Quetta, Mr. Mohammed narrowly escaped capture last September, when Mr. bin al-Shibh was arrested after a shootout in Karachi. Mr. Mohammed had been in hiding with Mr. bin al-Shibh, and Mr. Mohammed’s two young sons were taken into captivity after the shootout. Some officials said the fate of his sons might be used as leverage to try to pry information from him…

The boys were flown to the US for “interrogation.”

The boys have been held by the Pakistani authorities but this weekend they were flown to America where they will be questioned about their father.

Last night CIA interrogators confirmed that the boys were staying at a secret address where they were being encouraged to talk about their father’s activities.

It’s clear that the CIA would do anything:

KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] will never come back to the United States or Guantanamo Bay,” he said. “He will be held in a basement somewhere in a third country where, shall we say, they do not worry too much about humanitarian laws and he will not be protected by the US constitution.”

Isn’t this kidnapping? How about a human rights violation? What kind of precedent does this set? Seven and nine years old — has this Administration lost its mind?

Then the CIA, after originally saying they had these children, suddenly denied it.

So at first the CIA said the children had been taken captive, flown to the US and would be used to break their father. Then a different official said they wouldn’t be used in this way. But if they were not hostages why hold them? Why fly them to the US? Then the CIA announced that the children had never been captured at all. Maybe it was only that they realized that holding children hostage, threatening them with torture, was too much even for the CIA. At least too much to admit openly.

Does the US take hostages? Yes.

Newly released government documents reveal that US military personnel arrested and detained Iraqi civilians in an attempt to pressure relatives suspected of involvement in the insurgency to turn themselves in…

In a November 2003 rebuttal to charges that he improperly supervised interrogators at a facility in Tikrit, an Army staff sergeant wrote, “Personnel at the ICE [Interrogation Control Element] regularly see detainees who are, in essence, hostages.”

The sergeant, whose name was redacted from the released documents by military censors, explained that the detainees “are normally arrested by Coalition Forces because they are family of individuals who have been targeted” by US forces. He added that many such detainees have been transferred to Abu Ghraib prison where they “become lost in the Coalition detention system” regardless of whether their targeted relative “surrenders himself.”

“Senior leaders,” according to the sergeant’s statement, reported to other soldiers that they had taken family members of suspected insurgents into custody, with the “tacit approval” of military commanders.

So the US to takes innocents hostage to pressure their relatives.

What kind of people would do this? Apparently people like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

I called my Representative and Senators about these children. The people on the phone sounded cold and outraged that I cared about the children of our enemy. But I do care. I want these children coughed up, alive and unharmed!! NOW!!!

Or how can we live with ourselves, how can we love our nation?

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© Alllie 2006

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