The casual disregard of human rights and the legal system in Iraq complements our further injustices in Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. Incompetence? Maybe. Complete disregard for another country and its citizens? Of course.
The Guardian: 'It was punishment without trial':Am I being too cynical to wonder if this method of incarceration is being worked out in Iraq and Cuba before it's ultimate test in the United States? Will it take just one more crisis like 9-11 and until we are all rounded up?"It was a warm spring evening in a Baghdad suburb when American troops stopped the car in which 11-year-old Sufian Abd al-Ghani was riding close to his home with his uncle and a neighbour. They were ordered out and told to lie face down on the road. Sufian's father heard the commotion and rushed out to find the soldiers pointing their rifles at his son and the others. Claiming the uncle had fired at them, they started beating the three captives with their rifle butts, according to the father.
A neighbour confirms that a shot had been fired, but it was part of a row between the Ghanis and another family. 'In Iraq this is normal. Almost every household in Baghdad owns a weapon. One man was drunk. The Americans must have heard the shot as they were passing. It was not directed at them,' says the neighbour, who prefers not to be named.
The American soldiers searched the Ghanis' house, but found nothing. For three hours Sufian was kept on the ground with the two adults. Then the Americans put hoods over their heads, tied their hands with tight plastic bracelets, and drove them away. 'Why are you taking my son?' a desperate Abdullah Ghani pleaded. 'Don't worry. As he's a child, we'll send him back in a couple of days,' a Sergeant Stark assured him. "