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Post by ptcaffey on Dec 5, 2006 2:58:29 GMT -5
How can an American citizen be arrested within the United States and be held in isolation without being charged for over three years? There isn't any way under our Constitution that he can be. That's why the Bush Administration caved and will now give Padilla his trial. Of course, in the meantime, Padilla--either through sensory deprivation, threats of execution or the application of drugs--has gone bonkers. He thinks his lawyers may be government agents, so he doesn't trust them. Perhaps he isn't so crazy. Perhaps, in the past, "lawyers" came forth in order to debrief him, only to disappear into the mists. In his shoes, would you trust anybody?
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Post by carolion on Dec 5, 2006 8:59:17 GMT -5
My heart is with your son, c'lion. A tragedy that's been getting little to no attention in this argument about prisoners' rights and torture is the toll such slippery morality takes on the people asked to enforce it. I'm not just appalled that junior personnel take the rap but that they are dehumanized in the course of training for and fulfilling their orders. Thank you, GailKate - on behalf of all those undergoing these tests of heart-mind-will. Personally, your words moved me to tears. Thank you.
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Post by carolion on Dec 5, 2006 9:18:39 GMT -5
Good words, PTC.
Noting here - There are some things which no amount of politicking can shift. We have to go closer to the source. Politics are a symptom, and useful for that. If, as a society, we get so far out of balance that we see our politics "temperature" rising, then instead of throwing the whole medicine cabinet at the symptoms we need to dialogue with the "disease" / imbalance.
So saying, I'm going to ask my guidance for a hint or two, like the name of our society's illness; and the name of our human race's illness.
I'm hearing: "Mental illness, sixth level of the auric field - can be located within all individuals residing in human bodies at present. Due to be removed at a specific time, not for your knowing at this moment, since the removal is dependent upon certain planetary events. Suffice it to say the dialogue between humanity and this planet has become severely blocked in certain areas. When such blockage occurs, humans are currently programmed to respond with some form of aggression [aggression dramas include perpetrator-victims as well as victim-perpetrators]. "
All right. So then I'm asking, What is my next step in opening to the understanding that will help me right this imbalance inside myself, and then assist others as they desire it?
I'm seeing a shake of the head, "No." I realize I'm not asking the right question. What is the question I should ask, then?
"The question you should be asking is this: 'How am I to survive the coming episodes of lack and privation? How do I need to prepare myself for personal survival and sharing? How can I open my heart more to those undergoing suffering at this time? What is my task?'"
Oh wow. More than I bargained for. Is there to be lack and privation on a large scale? "Yes." Then my first response would be to organize my prayer group, get them back together, to start working on these questions. "Correct." This is the only future potential? Usually there are more to choose from. "This is the strongest one available at this time, and will continue so unless there is more use of good will on behalf of others." Do you mean giving away money and planting trees and so forth? "NO." What, then? "Meditation. The doors to human METAMORPHOSIS open through meditation. Realize yourself, Humanity, as a caterpillar approaching its coccooning time. I have spoken."
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Post by carolion on Dec 5, 2006 21:28:05 GMT -5
Here's something that was posted in an article written by one of my group members over at Gather.com:
//Former Prisoner Tells of Torture at Guantanamo
ANKARA - A German-born Turk, who was held for four years in the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, has alleged systematic torture in the hands of the US military, from beatings to being chained to a ceiling for days.
Murat Kurnaz, 24, who was released in August because of lack of evidence he was involved in terrorist activities, said he endured "many types of torture -- from electric shocks to having one's head submerged in water, (subjection to) hunger and thirst, or being shackled and suspended."
A burly man with long reddish hair and a thick beard stretching down to his belly, Kurnaz spoke, betraying no emotion, to Turkey's CNN Turk television from his home in Bremen, northern Germany, in an interview aired here late Monday.
"They tell you "you are from Al Qaed"' and when you say "no" they give the (electric) current to your feet.... As you keep saying 'no' this goes on for two or three hours," he said, adding he had several times lost consciousness.
He claimed he was once shackled to a ceiling for "four or five days".
"They take you down in the mornings when a doctor comes to see whether you can endure more," he said. "They let you sit when the interrogator comes.... They take you down about three times a day so you do not die."
Kurnaz also alleged prisoners were locked up in cells into which frigid or hot air was pumped.
"I saw several people die," he said. "Sometimes I thought I could no longer stand it and would also die."
He claimed he was once left without food for 20 days and spoke of psychological abuse, including "religious insults" such as the Quran being kicked on the ground.
A Turkish citizen with permanent residency in Germany, Kurnaz was arrested in Pakistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks and turned over to US forces, who took him to a prison in the Afghan city of Kandahar before transferring to Guantanamo.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse//
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Post by joew on Dec 6, 2006 11:13:13 GMT -5
This is very disturbing, c'lion.
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Post by carolion on Dec 6, 2006 18:17:52 GMT -5
Yup. Especially since these things are being published in major media all over the world and Americans can't get this info from their own media.
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Post by hartlikeawheel on Dec 7, 2006 10:59:58 GMT -5
I'm just indignant to not have my statements about an unhealthy culture recognized.
Do you know how many children in the US are beaten, tied to beds, burned, starved, lent to "friends" to be used, locked in the basement, terrified of their caretakers?
I've met them in this seemingly small town county. Ministers' daughters, politicians' and mayors' children. Like that.
Maybe some think it is just "poor white trash" who abuse their kids. And so don't those tiny souls count?
Generally abusers don't become a recognized problem because no one would ever believe their victims and they often deliberately or accidently murder themselves through their habits to ease their pain.
It's only occasionally that we read about them in the news. But there are multitudes. The losses which become obvious are when somebody makes a mistake and accidently kills the object of their self-hatred.
You want to talk about torture? I know more about that than I'd care to. Sometimes I will tell people some of the things I've heard and learned from damaged former children and people will deny that something like that could happen here.
It would be good to have someone acknowledge this fact. Some of us abused and/or neglected children are here, I'm sure. Suppose that's why we prefer to look the other way.
Why don't we devote more attention to this fact? We could maybe make a difference in the world more in that way than we can with violent force.
A present under the mall Chistmas tree will help for a few minutes.
I've just been on this rant all morning thinking about how much time, money and energy we focus somewhere else when we can do more good for the whole world by bringing a pan of brownies next door.
And check on the children!
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Post by hartlikeawheel on Dec 7, 2006 11:14:57 GMT -5
Excuse, C. and thanks. I know that we share the same vision with different perspectives.
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Post by carolion on Dec 7, 2006 21:09:20 GMT -5
It's OK. Important to have the near and far in alignment, so we know, once again, that the "enemy is us." Inside us. Our shadow. That's the point of what I posted above. Our USA shadow, seen clearly because we're preying on helpless adults and it's being mirrored back to us. That means that other nations' reporters are busy analyzing the "American character" and will indeed be looking in the very nooks and crannies you're pointing out, Anj - by way of enlightening the world about the USA dark side.
It has to happen humanity-wide, planet-wide. This is the time for the hidden things to be revealed.
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Post by hartlikeawheel on Dec 8, 2006 2:03:12 GMT -5
Yes. I do agree and again I think it needs to start at our front doors.
I don't think we will ever make a difference in the world until we make a difference in our own homes.
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Post by gailkate on Dec 8, 2006 10:25:38 GMT -5
You have been "on this rant," anja, and it started earlier.
//It's not a popular position, I realize, but it would make me grateful for us to be more pro-active and concerned about the damage being done in our own homes and institutions and to spend even a small percentage of the money we are spending overseas on our own personal and legal inequities/iniquities.
Maybe it could improve our world policies.
You don't want to hear my stories but if you did you may stop being so focussed on what is happening by intent a half a world away. Easier to look there. . . //
It isn't that we don't care about cruelty and neglect on our own soil. It doesn't have to be either/or. We also care about institutionally sanctioned abusiveness on the part of our military against people we've deemed enemies. In the name of our country, the greatest democracy in the world, we violate bedrock principles. Even that is too abstract a way of putting it, because we teach real individual human beings to inure themselves to abuse other real individual human beings. And people have chosen to codify that, to make it somehow defensible. This is our country and no, we do not torture. Please don't say please with that give-me-a-break dismissiveness. This matters a lot to us.
The closer to home issues matter a lot to you. Good. Maybe you could start a separate thread - I know you think the two issues are related and they are to some extent. But criminal, sick behavior on the part of too many sick individuals isn't the same as saying our country accepts and justifies torture. You might start your thread with suggestions for what people can do. I don't know any family that needs a pan of brownies. That's not sarcasm, I really don't.
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rmn
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Post by rmn on Dec 8, 2006 11:32:40 GMT -5
Gailkate's comments are appropriate here, Anja. You've the the makings for a new thread.
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