They hate us for our freedom


A wonderfully written article in the New York Times, skillfully comparing (there's no contrast) the freedom hating Taliban with the freedom loving United States:

Abdul Rahim insists he's an apolitical student who fled a strict father. But he's fallen into a black hole in the war on terror in which first the Taliban and then the United States imprisoned him as an enemy of the state.

Arrested by the Taliban in Afghanistan in January 2000, Rahim says al-Qaida leaders burned him with cigarettes, smashed his right hand, deprived him of sleep, nearly drowned him and hanged him from the ceiling until he ''confessed'' to spying for the United States.

U.S. forces took the young Kurd from Syria into custody in January 2002 after the Taliban fled his prison. Accusing him of being an al-Qaida terrorist, U.S. interrogators deprived him of sleep, threatened him with police dogs and kept him in stress positions for hours, he says. He's been held ever since as an enemy combatant.

The fact that he clearly appears to be innocent does not seem to impress the United States government. Under the new torture authorization law he has no right to challenge his confinement, which could last the rest of his life.
Posted: Saturday - October 21, 2006 at 10:49 AM          

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