Truth - Goggled and Gagged

I was hopeful when I heard Steve Inskeep say, "Human Rights Watch has put out a new report. It focuses on the treatment of terror detainees." Was I ever wrong! NPR's story was a one minute, eleven second blurb, of which a full thirty seconds was allotted to the voice of George Bush describing - as Inskeep put it - "what he called an alternative set of procedures for detainees." We get to hear the liar-in-chief say, "These procedures were designed to be safe...lawful...I cannot describe the specific methods used...."

Then instead of noting the details of the Human Rights Watch report - its thoroughness, its corroborated testimony, and the physical evidence supporting it - Inskeep relegates it to the realm of hearsay trivia: "The report attempts to document at least one account of what those procedures mean. It details the story of an accused Jihadist...he claims to have been tortured...”

No wonder NPR news doesn't want to give the details of the report, because they reveal the vision that motivates US leaders and agents in the "War on Terror." Here are just a few of the "safe" and "lawful" procedures used on kidnapped people (not formally accused of anything):

said that the Americans appeared to be in charge of the facility. They would question him during the day...and after midnight the Pakistanis would take over....the Pakistanis beat me almost every night.

After they put him in a cell, by himself, they cut off all his clothes, leaving him naked. They released one of his hands from the handcuffs, and cuffed the other hand to a ring in the cell wall. It wasn’t possible for him to stand because the ring was near the floor, and he was attached to it via a short chain.

[H]e was paraded around naked in front of a group of men and women....received his clothes back piece by piece over time. First, after a month and a half at the prison, he was given a pair of pants. Then, after about three-and-a-half months, he was given a tee-shirt.

Well you get the picture. Oh and in light of yesterday's moralistic tone regarding children and teens in the Iraqi insurgency (see previous post), the report mentions "that one cell held a 16-year-old boy named Khalid," that "[a]nother 16-year-old who was held in the facility was an Iraqi named Tha’er" and finally evidence of "a boy named Talha, who appeared to be nine or ten years old."

Funny how NPR seems to be just like Bush and just can't "describe the specific methods used."

(The Washington Post gives the story the attention that it is due.)