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Another Travesty to Rival Guantanamo

"While an international debate rages over the future of the American detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the military has quietly expanded another, less-visible prison in Afghanistan, where it now holds some 500 terror suspects in more primitive conditions, indefinitely and without charges".

Accepting this opening paragraph in a NYT Times article today as correct, it seems the Americans just don't get it. You can't go around the world locking people up in appalling circumstances, without being charged, and expect that you can get away with it!

And there is that little matter of how the actions of the US are going to be perceived especially in Muslim countries. Do the Americans care? Then again, do they understand?

Comments

Anonymous said…
Never mind, Mahler junior - they're planning to do it at home as well, by the looks of things.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/32647/

Will be interesting to see what happens in Australia - those Indonesians digging ditches in South Australia aren't building something similar I hope?

As it turns out, apparently you *can* "go around the world locking people up in appalling circumstances, without being charged, and expect that you can get away with it" - who's going to stop them?

severely depressed...

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