Skip to main content

Why wouldn't they try and discredit the US?

Not only bizarre, but an insight into the "thinking" of those incarcerating the detainees at Gitmo indefinitely, many without any charges having been levelled against them.   It is claimed the detainees protesting, and trying to get their message out there, are attempting to discredit the USA.    Er, why wouldn't they want to?   Al Jazeera reports - following obtaining documents in a FOI application.

"Guantánamo Bay military personnel have been instructed to inform visitors to the prison facility that the vast majority of detainees held there more than a decade without facing charges use their lawyers and the media to “discredit the U.S. government,” according to PowerPoint slides obtained by Al Jazeera.

The slides also advise military personnel to cast the ongoing hunger strikes waged by the prisoners not as a form of protest against their indefinite detention and treatment, but as one of six “offensive tactics” used by detainees to attack the U.S. government.

The presentation accuses the detainees of engaging in “Information Operations” that include using “media, lawyers and int’l organizations to spread a false message of: mental anguish, inhumane detention conditions, medical mistreatment, abuse,” according to a briefing slide titled “Adversary within the camps.”

More than half of the 149 prisoners at Guantánamo have been cleared for release or transfer by the Bush and Obama administrations, and in the years since 9/11, news reports have shown that some of the men sent to Guantánamo had been sold to the U.S. for bounties, and had never set foot on a battlefield. Last year, scores of detainees launched a hunger strike to protest against their continued detention without trial or charge in a move that attracted worldwide headlines."


 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Reading the Chilcot Inquiry Report more closely

Most commentary on the Chilcot Inquiry Report of and associated with the Iraq War, has been "lifted" from the Executive Summary.   The Intercept has actually gone and dug into the Report, with these revelations : "THE CHILCOT REPORT, the U.K.’s official inquiry into its participation in the Iraq War, has finally been released after seven years of investigation. Its executive summary certainly makes former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who led the British push for war, look terrible. According to the report, Blair made statements about Iraq’s nonexistent chemical, biological, and nuclear programs based on “what Mr. Blair believed” rather than the intelligence he had been given. The U.K. went to war despite the fact that “diplomatic options had not been exhausted.” Blair was warned by British intelligence that terrorism would “increase in the event of war, reflecting intensified anti-US/anti-Western sentiment in the Muslim world, including among Muslim communities in the

An unpalatable truth!

Quinoa has for the last years been the "new" food on the block for foodies. Known for its health properties, foodies the world over have taken to it. Many restaurants have added it to their menu. But, as this piece " Can vegans stomach the unpalatable truth about quinoa? " from The Guardian so clearly details, the cost to Bolivians and Peruvians - from where quinoa hails - has been substantial. "Not long ago, quinoa was just an obscure Peruvian grain you could only buy in wholefood shops. We struggled to pronounce it (it's keen-wa, not qui-no-a), yet it was feted by food lovers as a novel addition to the familiar ranks of couscous and rice. Dieticians clucked over quinoa approvingly because it ticked the low-fat box and fitted in with government healthy eating advice to "base your meals on starchy foods". Adventurous eaters liked its slightly bitter taste and the little white curls that formed around the grains. Vegans embraced quinoa as

Climate change: Well-organised hoax?

There are still some - all too sadly people with a voice who are listened to - who assert that climate change is a hoax. Try telling that to the people of Colorado who recently experienced horrendous bushfires, or the people of Croatia suffering with endless days of temps of 40 degrees (and not much less than 30 at night time) some 8-10 degrees above the norm. Bill McKibben, take up the issue of whether climate change is a hoax, on The Daily Beast : Please don’t sweat the 2,132 new high temperature marks in June—remember, climate change is a hoax. The first to figure this out was Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, who in fact called it “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” apparently topping even the staged moon landing. But others have been catching on. Speaker of the House John Boehner pointed out that the idea that carbon dioxide is “harmful to the environment is almost comical.” The always cautious Mitt Romney scoffed at any damage too: “Scientists will fig