Saturday, November 14, 2009

KSM gets a real trial, Khadr gets a kangaroo

Fafblog explains : Breaking Terror Update!
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four of his friends are going to stand trial! It's taken about six and a half years for this to happen, during which they were all presumably kept waiting in the parlor of a sumptuous mansion along with the Colonel, the Countess, the jewel thief, the butler and the maid while a brilliant but eccentric sleuth attempted to discern the identity of the true culprit through the use of the deductive method, the thorough examination of evidence, and simulated drowning.

Everybody else has to stay in Special Torture Jail forever on accounta they have all come down with Schrodinger's Guilt. If they stay in the box they might be guilty, but if we open the box they might not be.

This hardly seems fair. Sure, the Americans may have had KSM's young children tortured with insects, but Omar Khadr was a child.

U.S. Special Forces shot Khadr twice in the back during his capture, and he was brought to the American-operated prison in Bagram, Afghanistan, in critical condition. During the three months before his transfer to Guantanamo, he was interrogated more than 40 times for up to eight hours a day. His chief interrogator, Joshua Claus, was later court-martialled in connection with the death of an Afghan taxi driver at Bagram.

Khadr claims that during his questioning he was threatened with dogs, hung by his wrists or put in stress positions, despite his injuries. He also alleges he had a hood placed over his head and then soaked with water until he began to suffocate, and had LED lights shone into his eyes, injured by shrapnel.

Naturally this doesn't cut any ice with the online newspaper commenters who suggest that rather than being repatriated to Canada, Khadr should be sent back to wherever it is he came from.
Presumably none of them actually live in Toronto.
.

2 comments:

opit said...

Picking nits : waterboarding is not 'simulated' drowning. Blue Girl Red State over at They Gave Us a Republic is a retired medical researcher/instructor who gave the up/down/back/forth of it on one post. The damage is internal and caused by convulsions from a body fighting death - with real permanent lung damage.
Presumably that was why it was a hit in Witch Trials and the Spanish inquisition.
Resistance is measured in seconds.

Alison said...

Opit, given the context I think it's safe to assume Fafblog was using the phrase satirically.
Stll waiting for Hannity to cough up a demo.

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