US Senator Dick Durbin has accused the guards at Guantanamo Bay military prison as Nazis.
After reading out a FBI report that described Guantanamo prisoners as being chained to the floor without food or water in extreme temperatures, Durbin asked of his audience:
"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings.”
The sad truth is that, under George Bush and his neo-cons, the USA has slipped down the slopes towards brutality and criminality from its traditional moral high ground. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and the early part of the Iraq Invasion, many troubled Americans were silenced by fear of appearing unpatriotic or disloyal to the US soldiers.
The Administration and top GOP leaders of course attempted to drag Senator Durbin’s qualified comments (hurled only at the Guantanamo military) into a wider context as if Durbin had accused and besmirched the entire US Armed Service. The aim is obviously an attempt to embarrass Durbin but the Senator has had enough of the Bush Administration's unAmerican atrocities and is standing firm with his comments.
He did not read a FBI report. He read an unconfirmed statement by an FBI employee. There is a BIG Difference!
ReplyDeleteRod Stanton
Not what the American mainsteam media reported. Even though I linked the news to aljazeera, as it was among the earliest to report the item, I checked the others, Reuters (http://politics.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050617/pl_nm/security_guantanamo_pentagon_dc), Fox-Chicago (http://www.foxchicago.com/_ezpost/data/19807.shtml), WaPo (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/16/AR2005061601500.html), Boston.com with most carrying a byline by Will Dunham - the item specially stated "FBI report" and not what you suggested.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, the White House did not deny the FBI report, but rather Durbin's comparison of the guards to Nazis. That in itself has been telling, that the FBI report was kosher (no pun intended).
If you can provide some mainstream news links (but not the AEI the Heritage Foundation, those sort of biased news) to support your claims, I would appreciate those, and publish them. Cheers.