Gitmo Detainees Say They Were Sold

[cal04]

They fed them well. The Pakistani tribesmen slaughtered a sheep in honor of their guests, Arabs and Chinese Muslims famished from fleeing U.S. bombing in the Afghan mountains. But their hosts had ulterior motives: to sell them to the Americans, said the men who are now prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.Bounties ranged from $3,000 to $25,000, the detainees testified during military tribunals, according to transcripts the U.S. government gave The Associated Press to comply with a Freedom of Information lawsuit.

A former CIA intelligence officer who helped lead the search for Osama bin Laden told AP the accounts sounded legitimate because U.S. allies regularly got money to help catch Taliban and al-Qaida fighters. Gary Schroen said he took a suitcase of $3 million in cash into Afghanistan himself to help supply and win over warlords to fight for U.S. Special Forces."It wouldn't surprise me if we paid rewards," said Schroen, who retired after 32 years in the CIA soon after the fall of Kabul in late 2001. He recently published the book "First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan."

Schroen said Afghan warlords like Gen. Rashid Dostum were among those who received bundles of notes. "It may be that we were giving rewards to people like Dostum because his guys were capturing a lot of Taliban and al-Qaida," he said.

Pakistan has handed hundreds of suspects to the Americans, but Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told the AP, "No one has taken any money."The U.S. departments of Defense, Justice and State and the Central Intelligence Agency also said they were unaware of bounty payments being made for random prisoners.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/31/AR2005053100754_pf.html

[lostnfound]

1. DemocracyNow! covered this angle many months ago.

Glad to see the WP is catching up.

But it is nice to get the details.

[maddezmom]

2. guess we need to see a full accounting for the $57 million

like that will ever happen, this shit just gets more insane by the hour. :puke:
~snip~
The U.S. Rewards for Justice program pays only for information that leads to the capture of suspected terrorists identified by name, said Steve Pike, a State Department spokesman. Some $57 million has been paid under the program, according to its Web site.
~snip~

[xxqqqzme]

3. if this administration is denying it

then it was probably happening.

[hector459]

26. No wonder so many innocents are at Gitmo. And we are a party to the lie.

eom

[stellanoir]

4. but our fearless leader

assures us that it's not a Gulag and Amnesty International is just exagerating.

This detention center and the means, methods of arrest, and the heinous treatment of prisoners flies in the face of habeus corpus, the rule of law, the Geneva Convention, and qualifies as one incident of the multitudinous examples of crimes against humanty inflicted self righteously under the guise of the war on terror.

Where the heck is the ICC when you need 'em.

I feel so sorry for the innocents (and their families) who have been caught up in this sadistic ruse.

[Tempest]

5. So not only are the warlords making money from opium

But they're also making money from the U.S. taxpayers and using it to undermine the Afghan government.

Lovely.

[daleo]

6. Bounty hunters wouldn't be too fastidious

If they knew there would be no trial to determine whether the people they caught were actually guilty of anything. They would just take the money and laugh, which is what I suspect happened in this case much of the time.

[IndianaGreen]

7. This sort of story was first reported in 2002

Tribal conflict and personal vendettas also play a significant part in the selling to the US of hapless innocent victims. Let's not forget how many villages the US wiped out from the face of the Earth on the basis of a tip based on tribalism.

The shame is that many US officials are well aware of what went on, but did nothing to intervene.

[alfredo]

9. The Northern Alliance did a lot of this.

That's what I heard on the news.

[AlCzervik]

8. so they were sold and then i bet "rendered" back to their own governments

by our governement.

[gordianot]

10. That would be too logical and not as much fun.

Probably have cells in Cheney's bunker for his personal entertainment. :hide:

[baby_bear]

11. Yet Cheney is offended by the report that the U.S. abuses human rights

I thought I was reading a satirical Borowitz report, but it's the real thing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/31/AR2005053100430.html

<snip>

Cheney Offended by Amnesty International Report

The Associated Press
Tuesday, May 31, 2005; 3:27 PM

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney says he's offended by a human rights group's report criticizing conditions at the prison camp for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay.

The report Amnesty International released last week said prisoners at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba had been mistreated and called for the prison to be shut down. Cheney derided the London-based group in an interview set to be broadcast Monday night on CNN's "Larry King Live."

"Frankly, I was offended by it," Cheney said in the videotaped interview. "For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously."

</snip>

accckkkkkk!!!!!!

b_b

[Voltaire99]

12. "Gold coast slaveship bound for cotton fields..."

Sold in a market down in New Orleans
Scarred old slaver know he’s doin’ all right.
Hear him whip the women just around midnight.

Under the American right, everything old is new again.

[JDPriestly]

13. The strange thing is

that Bushco think they can buy anything.

Isn't it obvious that if you offer money to folks like the leaders of Pakistan or tribes in Afghanistan to deliver your enemies, they will deliver their enemies not necessarily your enemies. The Bushcos do everything for money. That is their primary motivation -- money -- and they project their own motivation on everyone else. Their greed makes them simple-minded and naive about how the world works -- and they think they are so smart.

The Pakistanis and Afghanis who know where Bin Laden, et al are probably taking money from us to find Bin Laden, et al, and from Bin Laden, et al to keep them safe. Both ways, they profit. Bushco are just shoving our money down a rabbit hole.

[struggle4progress]

14. kick

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

15. Just when you think things can't get any weirder

[Lori Price CLG]

16. AP: Gitmo Detainees Say They Were Sold

AP: Gitmo Detainees Say They Were Sold

They fed them well. The Pakistani tribesmen slaughtered a sheep in honor of their guests, Arabs and Chinese Muslims famished from fleeing U.S. bombing in the Afghan mountains. But their hosts had ulterior motives: to sell them to the Americans, said the men who are now prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Bounties ranged from $3,000 to $25,000, the detainees testified during military tribunals, according to transcripts the U.S. government gave The Associated Press to comply with a Freedom of Information lawsuit.

<snip>

Lori Price

[The Magistrate]

17. This Happened To A Lot Of People, Ma'am

Put a price on a commodity, and it will be supplied in quantity....

[napi21]

18. Damn! I knew we were paying for info and tips, but this?

I wonder what we could get for Shrub? Betcha there would be buyers!

[DulceDecorum]

19. Hostages for oil

According to an Oct. 16, 2002 Los Angeles Times article:
A dozen Kuwaiti captives have mounted the first organized legal and diplomatic effort by prisoners at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay to challenge U.S. policy that holds terrorism suspects indefinitely without court hearings or charges being filed against them.
<...> The 12 captives contend they are not members of Al Qaeda or the Taliban, but charity workers who were assisting refugees of Afghanistan's harsh regime when they were caught up in the chaos of the war last fall and winter. In attempting to flee across the Pakistani border, they say, they fell into the hands of Pakistanis who "sold" them to U.S. troops, collecting a bounty that American forces were offering for Arab terrorism suspects captured in the region.
<snip>
The families of most of the 12 have collected documents that suggest the men were indeed working for charitable organizations in the Afghan region. They have won the support of top Kuwaiti officials and retained a Washington firm that specializes in international law.
The lawsuit by the men from Kuwait, and the backing of their government, is awkward for U.S. policymakers who expect Kuwaiti support in a war against Iraq and against terrorism generally.
http://www.underreported.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=314&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Posted 4/18/2004 8:28 PM
"I think this is a big mistake," says Khalid al Odah, 52, who believes his son was captured by bounty hunters while doing relief work and then sold to the U.S. military, which was offering rewards for al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-04-18-odah-case_x.htm

Friday 18 March 2005, 2:56 Makka Time, 23:56 GMT
The days when a US Army truck could fill up for free at a petrol station in Kuwait are coming to an end.
Kuwait's energy minister on Thursday said US troops are going to have to start paying for fuel.
<snip>
"But now after the Iraqi elections ... we have to create a mechanism for payment," Energy Minister Ahmad Fahd al-Ahmad Al Sabah said.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/34A8BB07-0771-42EE-896F-C1B61163ADC2.htm

Wednesday 16 March 2005,
.... Al-Sana said that before and during the Iraq war, Kuwait supplied the US army with fuel worth $450 million free of charge, its contribution to the overthrow of the government of Saddam Hussein.
Supplies continued after the war and the emirate recently demanded payment of $500 million after calculating the amount at a preferential price of $21 a barrel, al-Sana was quoted as saying.
DEFENCE PACT
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld responded with a tough-worded letter saying that Washington had liberated the emirate from Iraqi occupation in 1991, and because it enjoys a fiscal surplus there is no need to demand the payment.
Annoyed by the harsh response, the Kuwaiti government summoned US Ambassador Richard LeBaron in protest.
Later, the US administration offered to pay $7 a barrel, al-Sana added.
Al-Sana's account was confirmed by the parliamentary source, who said Kuwait may soon dispatch its foreign and energy ministers to Washington to settle the dispute.
Some 25,000 US troops are stationed in Kuwait, which also served as a launchpad for the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
US-led forces in Iraq use the emirate as a transit point during rotations. They also use Kuwaiti ports, air and naval bases regularly almost free of charge.
Kuwait is tied in a 10-year defence pact with the United States which expires in 2012.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/350FB8C0-11C5-41A1-BC13-C493E891050B.htm?GUID={D3FD4127-696E-4BAE-983C-F334A6604624}

Kuwait Says It Will Start Charging The U.S. Military For Fuel
http://www.atsnn.com/story/127585.html

[Nothing Without Hope]

20. Truly despicable, but perfectly in keeping with the rest of this horror

Recommended - this is a separate horrifying twist that we need to remember

[burrowowl]

21. SOP for U$

All those people like recruiters have to look efficient or their budget is cut. I wonder how much bounty money or commission the Murrikans gave themselves?
We the taxed are paying for this.
:puke: :puke:

[rodeodance]

22. detainees have no credibility

But a wide variety of detainees at the U.S. lockup at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, alleged they were sold into capture. Their names and other identifying information were blacked out in the transcripts from the tribunals, which were held to determine whether prisoners were correctly classified as enemy combatants.

One detainee who said he was an Afghan refugee in Pakistan accused the country's intelligence service of trumping up evidence against him to get bounty money from the U.S.

"When I was in jail, they said I needed to pay them money and if I didn't pay them, they'd make up wrong accusations about me and sell me to the Americans and I'd definitely go to Cuba," he told the tribunal. "After that I was held for two months and 20 days in their detention, so they could make wrong accusations about me and my (censored), so they could sell us to you."

Another prisoner said he was on his way to Germany in 2001 when he was captured and sold for "a briefcase full of money" then flown to Afghanistan before being sent to Guantanamo.

[Judi Lynn]

23. So now they can locate the ones who sold them and throw them in there,too.

Let's put everyone away who isn't a conspicuous white fundie. Anyone who refuses to wave his arms in the air, looking heavenward while singing, should be locked up! Praise Jesus.

From the article:

In March 2002, the AP reported that Afghan intelligence offered rewards for the capture of al-Qaida fighters — the day after a five-hour meeting with U.S. Special Forces. Intelligence officers refused to say if the two events were linked and if the United States was paying the offered reward of 150 million Afghanis, then equivalent to $4,000 a head.

That day, leaflets and loudspeaker announcements promised "the big prize" to those who turned in al-Qaida fighters.

Said one leaflet: "You can receive millions of dollars. ... This is enough to take care of your family, your village, your tribe for the rest of your life — pay for livestock and doctors and school books and housing for all your people."

Helicopters broadcast similar announcements over the Afghan mountains, enticing people to "Hand over the Arabs and feed your families for a lifetime," said Najeeb al-Nauimi, a former Qatar justice minister and leader of a group of Arab lawyers representing nearly 100 detainees.
(snip)

That should make people so very, very SAD. How low can people get?



He loves mankind.

[Supersedeas]

24. These allegations are simply absurd...just some more of whatcha call

disassembling.

[burrowowl]

27. Bu$hian slip

plus collision of ideas in his a$$ (he has no higher brain) meaning disassembly of democracy.

[stickdog]

25. Sell us your poor, your weak, your down-trodden and huddled masses ...