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Afghan prisoners
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grufty jim
grufty jim
1978 posts

Re: Afghan prisoners
Jan 22, 2002, 15:19
Charlie,

Do you know for a fact that the individuals currently being held in Cuba by the Americans were personally involved in the events of September 11th? Does anyone? (other than themselves). They have not stood trial. No evidence has been presented to a court of law. So unless i'm very much mistaken, that means they are innocent of any crime (til proven otherwise).

From what i can gather - doubtlessly distorted beyond all reckoning by the media - these men were captured by "Northern Alliance" and/or "allied" troops during fighting in Afghanistan. i've yet to hear evidence of any of them being anything other than pro-Islamic / anti-American young men who felt a duty to defend Afghanistan from foreign attack (something that's been going on for the entire living memory of many of the people held in Cuba).

If any of these people had direct involvement with terrorism and the murder of thousands in New York, then the evidence should be presented in a fair court; the accused should have the ability to defend themself; and if found guilty they should face the consequences. Until that day, you have no sodding idea what any of those men - currently suffering alleged mistreatment - have done. What is it that makes you so quick to condemn individuals about whom you have no knowledge?

"Fuck um" you say?

Well, seems like you're in the majority. Nobody knows who the men in Cuba are. Nobody knows why they are there and what they may have done. Yet so many people want to exercise a little bit of retribution-by-proxy. "Fuck um!" Fuck who? "why those bearded rag-heads in Cuba wot bombed New York of course". Oh, i thought the men who bombed New York all died on the planes. "Well, yeah - but not the people who planned it". So those several hundred men in Cuba all sat round a big table and planned the hijacks in America? "Well, no, but some of them might have!"

Suddenly it becomes very clear - *some* of those people *may* have been involved in the terrorist acts so let's punish anyone who looks like them? There's an ugly word for that.

Maybe every one of the men in Cuba is an evil fanatic who would kill us all at the drop of a hat. Or maybe some of them are like that, and maybe some of them are just scared kids who got caught up in what they saw as a genuine struggle against the injust imperialism of the West and the denigration of their culture by Western exploitation. Scared kids who watched Afghanistan being ripped to pieces by the Soviets, then by civil war, and who then see US bombers in the sky, levelling Afghan villages because some rich Saudi terrorist attacked America and may be hiding in their country.

But "Fuck um" right? It's certainly a lot easier to do that, than to actually find out whether they are guilty of anything worth being flown to the opposite side of the world and kept in cages. Maybe they deserve what they are getting. Me? i'd prefer to actually *know* that before doing it. You seem willing to do that just because of their religion? Is that it? Personally i feel Islam is a dangerous belief-system that should be consigned to history. But hey, i feel the same about christianity too - do you want to lock all the christians in cages too Charlie?

By the way Charlie; you state that they "gave their human rights away on the 11th of Sept". Even despite the fact that we've no idea of whether any of them was actually involved in that; you can't "give away" human rights just by committing a crime - however heinous that crime. Or at least, that's not how it's supposed to work. However, that does seem to be the way the world is going... with plenty of support from yourself no doubt. "Terrorists don't have rights!" is how it starts (and there's all manner of ways in which you can define a terrorist... nice to know you're waiving the rights of any hunt-sabbers here Charlie; recent UK legislation has made it possible to define them as terrorists).
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