Privatized Torture, But news story is later scrubbed of details

[G_j]

-American mercenary's were running their own private jail. The story's been re-written and the torture aspect is being censored.

The original version has the full details with accounts of the torture. The sanitized versions have the 'classified' material cut out....

Phillybuburbs version - http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/90-07082004-328278.html

Beantown version - http://news.bostonherald.com/international/view.bg?articleid=34835

MyWay Version(same as Beantown) - http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040708/D83MH3G80.html
-----
example,
-original:

"They arrested eight people from across Kabul and put them in their jail," Jalali said at a news conference.

Another Afghan security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said intelligence and police officials found the prisoners hung by their feet.

"They were hanging upside down," the official said on condition of anonymity. The official said reports on the case showed that the men were beaten, though he had no details.

Jalali said the eight were released. They weren't identified.

Jalali described the group as "rebels" with no "legal link" to any Afghan or other authorities.



-new version:

``They arrested eight people from across Kabul and put them in their jail,'' Jalali said at a news conference. He said the eight were released. They weren't identified.

Jalali described the group as ``rebels'' with no ``legal link'' to any Afghan or other authorities.


my comment: outrageous, but par for the course...

[G_j]

1. kick

[WEagle]

2. good find

who are they protecting?

[G_j]

5. sent it on to FAIR

www.fair.org

[merh]

3. betcha they had links to some corporation that loves

the wars and will do whatever it can to keep the flames a burning. not to mention the love for a July or October suprise to help the clown in chief.

[G_j]

4. no doubt, they have friends n/t

[G_j]

6. I'll throw this story in as a kick

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0427/hentoff.php

Disappearing Prisoners
Are they dead? Are they alive? Where is the media? Does alive? Where is the media? Does anybody out there care? (**besides us that is)

July 2nd, 2004 5:40 PM



In a front-page article December 26, 2002, The Washington Post revealed that prisoners at a CIA interrogation center at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan were being subjected to abuses that veered on torture:

"The picture that emerges is of a brass-knuckled quest for information . . . in which the traditional lines between right and wrong, legal and inhumane, are evolving and blurred."

The media largely ignored the story, with the notable exceptions of The Economist and the indispensable Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker.

----------
What was happening at Bagram Air Base soon disappeared from the news, but the revelations of our repellent abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib interrogation cells, where Saddam Hussein's torturers had previously operated, raised widespread questions about American adherence to the Geneva Conventions and other international human rights standards. The first whistle-blower was a soldier, specialist Joseph Darby: "I didn't want to see any more prisoners being abused, because I knew it was wrong."

However, in the rush of reports, the CIA and its then leader, George Tenet, were hardly mentioned. But a startling probe on ABC's Nightline on May 13, 2004, "The Disappeared," focused on super-secret CIA interrogation operations overseas, about which ABC News' Chris Bury said:

"We don't know where they are being held. We don't know how many of them there are. We don't know what the rules are."

..more..

[liveoaktx]

7. Story reeks-why would some roving Americans go burst into

people's homes and put them in secret prisons. For some kind of fun? Notice that the remarks say that the guy doesn't work for the government. Case of being oblique, because maybe the guy is a CONTRACTOR???

[G_j]

8. its all about contracting these days n/t

[G_j]

9. for the night crowd..

[kiahzero]

10. Josh Marshall has stuff on this

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_04.php#003136
Weird, weird, weird ... Late reports out of Afghanistan say that an American named Jonathan Idema was arrested with others for conducting a "self-appointed counterterrorism mission that included abusing eight inmates in a private jail by hanging them by their feet."

Jonathan Idema is apparently the same guy as 'Keith Idema' who was a short-term commando celeb in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002 appearing on various TV networks. He also turns up in various jails or suing Steven Spielberg et al. for stealing ideas for a movie script he and others allegedly wrote.

The US military has gone to great lengths to disassociate itself from Idema since he was apparently putting himself forward as some sort of US special forces operator or contractor. A statement from the US military said "the public should be aware that Idema does not represent the American government and we do not employ him."

Indeed, "security sources" tell the BBC that the "US military circulated warning notices about Mr Idema some time ago, describing him as armed and dangerous and accusing him of interfering with military operations in Afghanistan."

...

It just seems like someone must have been paying this guy to do something, unless it's like a blog where you just set up shop and figure that someday a revenue stream might turn up.