Thursday, May 29, 2008

News for Patriots. Get ready for Flag Days!

In honor of the Market Anarchist Carnivale, and the patriotic days past and future foisted on those of us in Middle-North-America, I give you Something to Be Patriotic About:

The Stranger gives us

TUESDAY, MAY 20 In bigger news: Today the U.S. Justice Department released its 370-page report detailing abuses witnessed by FBI agents at U.S.-run detention facilities overseas. To celebrate, members of Congress were treated to the testimony of Murat Kurnaz, a 26-year-old Turkish man arrested while traveling with a religious tourism group in Pakistan in late 2001 and held by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay for nearly five years. Details come from ABC News: Speaking via video link from Germany, Kurnaz told the House Foreign Affairs Committee of his astoundingly awful treatment at the hands of the U.S., allegedly including electric shocks, being chained by his arms to the ceiling with his feet dangling, and, uh, "water treatment." "They stuck my head into a bucket of water and punched me in the stomach," said Kurnaz of his captors at the U.S. base in Kandahar. "I inhaled the water... It was a strong punch." Kurnaz also alleged that U.S. interrogators tried to force him to sign papers admitting his guilt, and testified that although he had no links to al Qaeda—and German intelligence services told U.S. officials that he was not a terrorist in 2002—he remained at Guantánamo (where the abuses allegedly continued) until August 2006. "I didn't think this could happen in the 21st century," said Kurnaz. "I could never have imagined that this place was created by the United States."
Shocker. Not in the United States, surely. I guess that's why that murderous Yahweh blesses it.

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