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democratus Donating Member (20 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 12:24 AM
Original message
Obama’s Secret Prisons

Night Raids, Hidden Detention Centers, the “Black Jail,” and the Dogs of War in Afghanistan
by Anand Gopal



One quiet, wintry night last year in the eastern Afghan town of Khost, a young government employee named Ismatullah simply vanished. He had last been seen in the town's bazaar with a group of friends. Family members scoured Khost's dust-doused streets for days. Village elders contacted Taliban commanders in the area who were wont to kidnap government workers, but they had never heard of the young man. Even the governor got involved, ordering his police to round up nettlesome criminal gangs that sometimes preyed on young bazaar-goers for ransom.

But the hunt turned up nothing. Spring and summer came and went with no sign of Ismatullah. Then one day, long after the police and village elders had abandoned their search, a courier delivered a neat, handwritten note on Red Cross stationary to the family. In it, Ismatullah informed them that he was in Bagram, an American prison more than 200 miles away. U.S. forces had picked him up while he was on his way home from the bazaar, the terse letter stated, and he didn't know when he would be freed.

Sometime in the last few years, Pashtun villagers in Afghanistan's rugged heartland began to lose faith in the American project. Many of them can point to the precise moment of this transformation, and it usually took place in the dead of the night, when most of the country was fast asleep. In the secretive U.S. detentions process, suspects are usually nabbed in the darkness and then sent to one of a number of detention areas on military bases, often on the slightest suspicion and without the knowledge of their families.

This process has become even more feared and hated in Afghanistan than coalition airstrikes. The night raids and detentions, little known or understood outside of these Pashtun villages, are slowly turning Afghans against the very forces they greeted as liberators just a few years ago.

>>>

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/28-11
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SlingBlade Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 12:28 AM
Response to Original message
1. Change you can believe in
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cliffordu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 12:29 AM
Response to Reply #1
4. How do you feel
about becoming less relevant by the day?
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SlingBlade Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 12:37 AM
Response to Reply #4
10. How Do I Feel ?
Like a Democrat, How about You ?
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cliffordu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 12:28 AM
Response to Original message
2. Welcome to Du Enjoy your stay!!
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NYC_SKP Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 12:30 AM
Response to Reply #2
5. I gave it a low score. And, the sent home Ping on Project Runway!!!!
Don't know if you follow that show, or follow anything!
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NYCGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 12:32 AM
Response to Reply #5
6. Damn it, SKP, I haven't watched the end of PR yet!
(But she should've been gone last week.)
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NYC_SKP Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 12:36 AM
Response to Reply #6
9. Oh shit! Did I say Ping? I meant that little guy, what's his name, you know the one...
OOPS!

:P
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NYCGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 01:08 AM
Response to Reply #9
16. LOL! That's OK. Went back and watched the rest. Loved the outfit
Mila made. She deserved the win.
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cliffordu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 12:42 AM
Response to Reply #5
12. thanks for fucking that up,. ya hoser.
My back is much better. Doc gave me a muscle relaxer that put my dick in the dirt for a day and a half. Had to let the wife drive. (Now THAT'S IMPARED...)...

I NEVER take pain meds but made an exception for this little injury. Thought I'd been shot.

Anyhow, how are you??


(Before this piece O' shit thread gets locked.)
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NYC_SKP Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 12:52 AM
Response to Reply #12
14. Glad to hear the back is better. I haven't taken any pain meds in years, except ibuprofen.
But if I need one, I'm not gonna avoid it.

I don't have to tell you to take it easy, those fukkin backs re-injure with the slightest turn.

Series.

Everything here is cool, starting to dry out a little.
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cliffordu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 01:07 AM
Response to Reply #14
15. That's right - you dudes and dudettes were floating away for awhile...
Glad you're drying out.
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democratus Donating Member (20 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 12:32 AM
Response to Reply #2
8. I guess thanks?
Did you even read the article or is it just knee-jerk censorship that motivates you?

Not clear on what your welcome mat means in reality

Criticisms not allowed?
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cliffordu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 12:43 AM
Response to Reply #8
13. You'll figure it out.
My utterances mean nothing. Ask grantcart.
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Soylent Brice Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 08:50 AM
Response to Reply #13
23. lol
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MyNameGoesHere Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 07:45 AM
Response to Reply #2
18. It appears the poster has enjoyed his stay longer than you.
Any more dumb ass comments?
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bluestateguy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 12:29 AM
Response to Original message
3. Well. We need a place to put all the Tea Partiers and other troublemakers
Keeping a few Islamic terrorists there provides ample cover, and helps maintain political support for the prisons.

:sarcasm:
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 12:32 AM
Response to Original message
7. There has been a lot of attention on Gitmo but not nearly enough
on the prisons in Afghanistan.

K&R
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Patchuli Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 12:40 AM
Response to Original message
11. "Obama's Prisons"
"Sometime in the last few years" would indicate to me that those prisons started in the last few years. President Obama has been in office one year.

Enjoy your stay and your ultimate pizza! How do you like your tombstone, 'democratus' ... Could you have come up with a dumber name?
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blindpig Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 07:40 AM
Response to Original message
17. k&r

Bring them home, convict all human rights abusers.
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DainBramaged Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 07:50 AM
Response to Original message
19. The title gives me pause, why not use the title as the author wrote it
Edited on Fri Jan-29-10 07:52 AM by DainBramaged
Night Raids, Hidden Detention Centers, the “Black Jail,” and the Dogs of War in Afghanistan or is the shock effect of "Obama's Secret prisons" accomplishing your goal?





Morning pizza, yum!
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Zywiec Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 07:56 AM
Response to Reply #19
20. Did you click on the link?
It clearly shows:

Published on Thursday, January 28, 2010 by TomDispatch.com
Obama’s Secret Prisons
Night Raids, Hidden Detention Centers, the “Black Jail,” and the Dogs of War in Afghanistan

by Anand Gopal

Even the browser titlebar shows "Obama's Secret Prisons"
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Freddie Stubbs Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 08:39 AM
Response to Reply #19
22. The OP did use the title as the author wrote it
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/28-11
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DainBramaged Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 11:04 AM
Response to Reply #22
24. And the op got tombstoned just like I thought it would
sometimes you have to look past the forest to see the trees.
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Mari333 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 07:57 AM
Response to Original message
21. knr I see the chickenhawks are up late or early
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montanto Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-29-10 11:15 AM
Response to Original message
25. Wow, dude got TSd for posting that?
So much for freedom of speech I guess. We do still operate detention centers don't we? I mean, those detainees at Gitmo didn't just dissappear did they? TS me for stupidity, I guess.
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