Ten Facts about Guantanamo Bay

[Human]

http://www.defenselink.mil/home/dodupdate/

 

UPDATED Sept. 14, 2006

 

1. The detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility include bin Laden’s bodyguards, bomb makers, terrorist trainers and facilitators, and other suspected terrorists.

 

2. More money is spent on meals for detainees than on the U.S. troops stationed there. Detainees are offered up to 4,200 calories a day. The average weight gain per detainee is 20 pounds.

 

3. The Muslim call to prayer sounds five times a day. Arrows point detainees toward the holy city of Mecca.

 

4. Detainees receive medical, dental, psychiatric, and optometric care at U.S. taxpayers’ expense. In 2005, there were 35 teeth cleanings, 91 cavities filled, and 174 pairs of glasses issued.

 

5. The International Committee of the Red Cross visits detainees at the facility every few months. More than 20,000 messages between detainees and their families have been exchanged.

 

6. Recreation activities include basketball, volleyball, soccer, pingpong, and board games. High-top sneakers are provided.

 

7. Departing detainees receive a Koran, a jean jacket, a white T-shirt, a pair of blue jeans, high-top sneakers, a gym bag of toiletries, and a pillow and blanket for the flight home.

 

8. Entertainment includes Arabic language TV shows, including World Cup soccer games. The library has 3,500 volumes available in 13 languages — the most requested book is “Harry Potter.”

 

9. Guantanamo is the most transparent detention facility in the history of warfare. The Joint Task Force has hosted more than 1,000 journalists from more than 40 countries.

 

10. In 2005, Amnesty International stated that “the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has become the gulag of our times.”

 

From the Department of Defense

Office of Public Affairs – OSD Writers’ Group

[BlingBling]

Here is another fact. The Senate Armed Services Committee defied your neocon ideals on Thursday, with four Republicans joining Democrats in approving a plan for the trial and interrogation of terrorism suspects that the White House has rejected as unacceptable.

[Guest human_*]

I actually agree with Sen. John Warner. BlingBling, at least you are not calling me other names that I have been called by your side.

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Here is another fact. The Senate Armed Services Committee defied your neocon ideals on Thursday, with four Republicans joining Democrats in approving a plan for the trial and interrogation of terrorism suspects that the White House has rejected as unacceptable.

[Guest Henk Ruyssenaars]

The year may be 2006, but the Inquisition with it's torture is back again: "I'm pleased to say that this agreement preserves the single most potent tool we have in protecting America and foiling terrorist attacks," - 'front man' of the United States George Bush said yesterday, after the torture bill was announced. In the 190 countries around the US it is understood that they will be tortured by the Americans when their henchmen want 'to extract confessions'.

 

By doing this, Bush and the criminal constructors of the 'Project for a New American Century' now legalized also to torture Americans - and it's so called 'allies' in the 'Coalition of the Killing' - because the US will go on using torture as "the single most potent tool". It's 2006 and the madmen running the US openly defend and justify torture...? Before only Israel had the right to torture as a law, which they said was abandoned, only to proceed under the pretext of the 'War on Terror', the US/Israeli-made hoax.

[Guest human_*]

What Hoax?

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The year may be 2006, but the Inquisition with it's torture is back again: "I'm pleased to say that this agreement preserves the single most potent tool we have in protecting America and foiling terrorist attacks," - 'front man' of the United States George Bush said yesterday, after the torture bill was announced. In the 190 countries around the US it is understood that they will be tortured by the Americans when their henchmen want 'to extract confessions'.

 

By doing this, Bush and the criminal constructors of the 'Project for a New American Century' now legalized also to torture Americans - and it's so called 'allies' in the 'Coalition of the Killing' - because the US will go on using torture as "the single most potent tool". It's 2006 and the madmen running the US openly defend and justify torture...? Before only Israel had the right to torture as a law, which they said was abandoned, only to proceed under the pretext of the 'War on Terror', the US/Israeli-made hoax.

[Guest Congressman Jim Moran]

Yesterday, the House passed legislation that would establish military tribunals for the detainees at Guantanamo Bay and other combatants in the global war on terror.

 

This bill (H.R. 6166) was brought to the floor after little discussion. It is certain to bring about legal challenges and may not pass Constitutional muster.

 

Unfortunately, election year politics are dictating the legislative agenda being pursued by the White House and Congress. This Military Tribunal bill should have been crafted in bipartisan fashion after serious debate. Instead, it was rushed to the floor, serving as a smokescreen for the administration's failed policy in Iraq.

 

The Constitutional and civil liberties concerns surrounding this legislation are serious. As former secretary of state Colin Powell has stated, "Part of the war on terror is an ideological and political struggle. Our moral posture is one of our best weapons." Even former military interrogators, who were on the front lines of this issue, do not agree with the direction of this legislation.

 

Attached is my floor speech during yesterday's debate. I believe the way we treat detainees in the war on terror defines us as a people. It is one of the big differences between us and the terrorists. We must uphold the highest standards on human rights in order to truly succeed against these radical ideologies.

 

Sincerely,

 

James P. Moran

 

Transcript of Remarks by Congressman Jim Moran about September 27, 2006 (House of Representatives)

 

Mr. Moran VA:

 

I thank my good friend and inspiration on the Armed Services Committee.

 

I oppose this bill. It would send a message to the world that the United States can disregard international treaties and law and instead do as it pleases.

 

For generations we have been the beacon to guide the actions of other nations. If we descend from the high moral ground, we are in effect losing ground to the terrorists. Secretary of State Colin Powell was so accurate when he said, part of this war on terrorism, ideological and political struggle. Our moral posture is our best weapon to prevail in that struggle.

 

Mr. Speaker, this is not a good bill.

 

Since its inception, the Geneva Conventions, 60 years ago, no other country in the world has taken such a drastic measure as this bill would. For enemy combatants the bill eliminates the right of habeas corpus. It's a right enshrined in our Constitution that may be abandoned only, and I quote, when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. The elimination of habeas is not just illegal, it's flat out wrong. The purpose of habeas corpus is simple. It's to avoid injustice. To avoid the detention by government of any individual that is erroneous, unwarranted, or in violation of law. This purpose and the values from which it stems do not distinguish among individual circumstances. They seek to avoid any injustice to any detained individuals.

 

All Americans want to hold terrorists accountable. But if we try to redefine the nature of torture, whisk people into secret detention facilities, and use secret evidence to conflict them in special courts, our actions do in fact embolden our enemies. More than any extremist rhetoric could ever do.

 

This bill needs to be defeated.

 

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

[Guest human_*]

Congressman Moran, the policy being pursued by this administration is correct, if you studied your history

You would know that NATION BUILDING after a War takes time.

 

 

The Discussion of which my group should have better explained to the American People was what I stated Above.

 

Maybe in the future we can work closer together.

 

CONGRESSMAN MORAN it would be appreciated if instead of posting once a year in here that you would post on a more regular basis.

 

You, or your Staff should read the posts that I have posted in here on disability politics.

 

Thank You again for posting in here; Human

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday, the House passed legislation that would establish military tribunals for the detainees at Guantanamo Bay and other combatants in the global war on terror.

 

This bill (H.R. 6166) was brought to the floor after little discussion. It is certain to bring about legal challenges and may not pass Constitutional muster.

 

Unfortunately, election year politics are dictating the legislative agenda being pursued by the White House and Congress. This Military Tribunal bill should have been crafted in bipartisan fashion after serious debate. Instead, it was rushed to the floor, serving as a smokescreen for the administration's failed policy in Iraq.

 

The Constitutional and civil liberties concerns surrounding this legislation are serious. As former secretary of state Colin Powell has stated, "Part of the war on terror is an ideological and political struggle. Our moral posture is one of our best weapons." Even former military interrogators, who were on the front lines of this issue, do not agree with the direction of this legislation.

 

Attached is my floor speech during yesterday's debate. I believe the way we treat detainees in the war on terror defines us as a people. It is one of the big differences between us and the terrorists. We must uphold the highest standards on human rights in order to truly succeed against these radical ideologies.

 

Sincerely,

 

James P. Moran

[Guest Zach Goldberg]

Rep. Rush Holt (NJ-12), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Chairman of the Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, today released the following statement about Attorney General Mukasey’s announcement of an investigation, led by John Durham, a federal prosecutor from Connecticut, into the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes. In December, Holt urged Mukasey to appoint a special counsel to investigate the circumstances surrounding the destruction by the CIA of video or audio recordings of detainee interrogations and the CIA’s representations to the court regarding such recordings.

 

Text of the December 11 letter is accessible through Rep. Holt’s website at

 

http://holt.house.gov/pdf/RH_ltr_to_AG_on_...vestigation.pdf

 

“I am pleased Attorney General Mukasey has taken this step. I called for an independent investigation of the destruction of interrogation tapes to ensure that it is fair and nonpartisan. Important questions remain to be answered about the circumstances surrounding the CIA’s creation, handling, destruction, and representations regarding its recording of detainee interrogations to the federal courts, the 9/11 Commission, and Congress. While we continue our Congressional oversight, I hope that Mr. Durham’s investigation will be conducted in a thorough, nonpartisan, and expeditious fashion.

 

“One should be concerned not that there were tapes—indeed making the tapes was a good thing. One should be concerned that there may have been a cover-up after they were destroyed,” Holt said.

[Guest Always Red]

Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Friday sharply denounced a Supreme Court decision that gave suspected terrorist detainees a right to seek their release in federal courts.

[Guest Eric]

Absolutely astounding. The fact that a conservative Supreme Court felt obligated to stand up and reclaim 800 years of civil law, since the Magna Charter, in England when feudal, aristocratic kings would throw innocent people into prison, without charges, without legal due process, shows how fascist, the Republican brown shirted Nazis, and McCain have become. The conservative Supreme court, like the United Nations, is obligated to follow the principles against fascist class totalitariansism, class dictatorship through police state laws, which too were appeased by democratic criminal class elites, complicit war mongers, if only for appearances, since class laws, class Republics and the establishment of class regimes in Western history already meant mangled, corrupted double standards, class laws, that justified property rights over human, social, "inalienable rights" inherent in all, supposed protected by the Judicial Branch. NOT!!!

 

All three branches iof government, civil society have been corrupted by the class process, already defined by the ancient Greeks thousands of years ago, and class dictatorship and Orwellian double speak have morphed into the same corporate fascist Capitalism, throughout the world. American companies, trananationals and their class policies have violated Basic rights, Human rights so seriously that even the conservative Supreme Court was forced to rescue its appearances, class laws by slapping both the Executive Branch and Congress for their exclusive standards, class standards, class nationalist standards that amount to being Nazis.

 

McCain is a yahoo, know nothing redneck militarist, who followed blindly the Nazi imperial principles of War against Vietnam, another fabricated incident of aggression, that began a 10 year war and 3 million dead Vietnamese. McCain is no war hero. He is one of these Nazis who followed the Fuehrere\, Commmander in Chief, and like Bush, he is a clone of this disaster, even more dangerous than Bush/Cheney himself. This guy would pick up a gun to murder people without reading history, ideology, like most know nothing redneck soldiers, who thought that Iraq attacked us on 9/11 , a full 70 percent, clueless yet fascist and dangerous, not to mention racist, where McAin would routinely call them "gooks", just like today's know nothing soldiers call Iraqis, racist names, including "sand n......" as they used to do against African Americans.

 

We are victims of idiots runninig for office, and the idiots who voted for Bush, will vote for McCain because they cannot see past the skin color of Obama, no matter how servile he is for corporate fascism. McCain is a terrorist, state terrorist, willing to attack Iran, carry out illegal aggressions, and would have Hitler on his side, based on these same imperial, racist, class patholgies. I have no confidence that the American people will break from this fascist, racist imperial rot, because they voted for 8 years of retarded criminal policies. If they vote for this clown, this loose cannon, the American Empire deserves to end the same way the Nazi Empire met its demise.

 

We are stupid people, mindless people, clueless about history, and ideology. An ignorant nation cannot defend democracy, only defend fascism, as it did in Nazi Germany.