[Peace-discuss] letter to editor on Durbin

[Ricky Baldwin]

Hey folks-

I sent in this letter to the DI the other day, after
reading the DI /AP front page article on Durbin's
apology.  I probably missed out some points that would
have been better than the ones I made, but I felt the
article needed a quick response.  

I also tried to emphasize the big issue of the torture
over the uselessness of the Democrats, hypocrisy of
the Republicans, history of torture, etc.  Others may
want to take up some of these, but either way I think
it's important to get letters in ASAP.

I have no idea if they'll run it.  I haven't heard
from them.  They usually call.

Maybe someobody else can try.

Ricky

Dear Editor:

Senator Durbin never should have apologized for
telling the truth (DI 6-22-05).  If FBI agents can
stand up and describe torture in the US prison in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Durbin could go much further.

Over two years after the war in Afghanistan officially
ended, hundreds of prisoners of war captured there are
still being held without trial or charges, in
violation of international law.  In 2002 the Bush
Administration refused to follow the Geneva
Conventions but promised the International Red Cross
could interview all prisoners.  They broke that
promise.

Human rights groups including Amnesty International
have repeatedly found evidence that “numerous
detainees in Guantanamo – as well as in Afghanistan,
Iraq and elsewhere – have been subjected to direct
torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment” at the hands of US jailers and
interrogators.  Add to this recent allegations of
“torture techniques” made by FBI agents.

Reports detail chaining prisoners to the floor without
food or water or access to toilets, keeping prisoners
barefoot with other parts exposed in extremely cold
rooms, depriving them of sleep until blood ran out
their noses, keeping one prisoner chained up draped in
an Israeli flag while blaring rap music, and
transferring prisoners back and forth to Egypt and
other countries for more intense torture far from the
prying eyes of those bleeding hearts at the FBI.  Some
of these prisoners are children.

Last month Amnesty concluded that the Guantanamo
prison is “the gulag of our time” and “an icon of
lawlessness.”  Apparently pleased with this, the Bush
Administration is now expanding the gulag and giving
Halliburton the contract.  It is this murderous
administration and its bloodless apologists we should
be denouncing, not Durbin and Amnesty and the
courageous FBI agents who are exposing the crimes we
claim we abhor.

Ricky Baldwin
Urbana resident



		
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