PAKISTAN SOLD SUSPECTS FOR GITMO LIKE SLAVES

[kpete]

June 10, 2009
PAKISTAN SOLD SUSPECTS FOR GITMO LIKE SLAVES

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One interesting nugget involves Pakistan's sale of hundreds of stray Arabs to the Americans, for shipment to Bagram air force base and on to Guantanamo Bay. Many of my clients in Cuba insist that, far from being captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan, they were grabbed in Pakistan and flogged to the Americans, like slaves at auction. Predictably enough, for five years the Bush administration has remained very quiet on this issue, but Musharraf's book sheds new light.

"Many members of al-Qaeda fled Afghanistan and crossed the border into Pakistan," he writes. "We have played cat and mouse with them . . . We have captured 689 and handed over 369 to the United States. We have earned bounties totaling millions of dollars. Those who habitually accuse us of 'not doing enough' in the war on terror should simply ask the CIA how much prize money it has paid to the government of Pakistan."

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The payments help us see why so many innocent prisoners ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Musharraf writes that "millions" were paid for 369 prisoners - the minimum rate was apparently $5,000, enough to tempt a poor Pakistani to shop an unwanted Arab to the Americans, gift-wrapped with a story that he was up to no good in Afghanistan. . .

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more:
http://prorev.com/2009/06/pakistan-sold-suspects-for-gitmo-like.html
How Guantanamo's prisoners were sold

Clive Stafford Smith

Published 09 October 2006

The president of Pakistan's attempts to publicise his memoirs throw light on the flawed and dishonest processes that the US uses in bringing "terrorists" to justice
http://www.newstatesman.com/print/200610090029

[Wednesdays]

1. K&R

:kick:

[Gregorian]

2. Utterly incredible.

If i had my way, I would preemptively put the entire Bush White House staff under arrest without bail pending determination of innocence.

I say we impose severe punishment for all involved. Not like the four years for the Watergate breaking in job. Not like Libby. I mean, look at John Walker Lind. And he did nothing in comparison to what the Bush people did. What an outrage!

[Solly Mack]

3. K&R

[Karenina]

5. We haven't been aware of this for YEARS?

:shrug:

[Solly Mack]

8. We have

Unfortunately.... sigh :(

[madmom]

4. Is this where the missing (what was it $9million,$9billion) money went?

[Fumesucker]

6. Eh, there's plenty of *Americans* who would sell someone into slavery..

For five thousand dollars minimum..

Five thousand in Pakistan is like a hundred thousand here in terms of average income..

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. And to the average pig-ignorant American, it wouldn't matter

because in their minds, all Arabs are potential terrorists, not that they could tell the difference (or even know that there was a difference) between an Arab and an Afghan.

[G_j]

9. no surprise at all... nt