Monday, August 8, 2011

Fwd: [bangla-vision] A sobering and challenging communication in the month of Ramadan

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <peacethrujustice@aol.com>
Date: Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 6:29 PM
Subject: [bangla-vision] A sobering and challenging communication in the month of Ramadan

THE PEACE THRU JUSTICE FOUNDATION

11006 Veirs Mill Rd, STE L-15, PMB 298

Silver Spring, MD. 20902

8 RAMADAN 1432 A.H

(August 8, 2011)

Assalaamu Alaikum (Greetings of Peace):

The information that follows in this e-mail will be both shocking to the senses, and it will tug at the heart. (Unvarnished Truth can have that effect sometimes.)

We begin with a re-published special report on Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, by our British sister-in-Islam, Yvonne Ridley. This will be followed by a report on the U.S. soldiers who lost their lives a few days ago in Afghanistan. This will be followed by a report on a not so veiled threat reportedly made by Iraq's Moqtada al-Sadr. And finally, this will be followed (with a WARNING) by some graphic and disturbing photos of torture from the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq.

As regards the graphic photo display, it would be very naive to think that such shocking examples of man's inhumanity to man - committed by agents of a government that projects itself around the world as "civilized," and as the world's leading "democracy" - were restricted to Iraq! It stands to reason that such atrocities have taken place in many theaters of war in the Muslim (and non-Muslim) world. There have also been many occasions, no doubt, when such atrocities have been committed by so-called Muslims against Muslims, at the behest of non-Muslim occupiers. (One of the reasons why I feel little sympathy for the now besieged Syrian regime, among others.)

Regarding Abu Ghraib, one of the things that irks me to this day is that a small number of low level, sadistic functionaries ended up being prosecuted for these crimes against humanity, while the higher ups who approved and ordered these disgusting practices remained unscathed. (Oh, but there is a God who is The All-Knowing and The Most Just! Divine justice will not be denied!)

As I gazed at these disturbing photos, I recalled how the men who escaped from the Baghram Detention Center in Afghanistan, a few years ago, shared stories (in the media) about their own observations and experiences. Among the stories was how they would often hear the screams of the only woman (to their knowledge) who was being held at the detention center, a young Pakistani woman whose name they didn't know; a woman who wore the identification number PRISONER 650.

The Muslim woman of whom I speak is Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. She is our sister-in-Islam who now, totally cut off from the outside world, occupies space in one of the most notorious prison hospitals in the USA. (See Yvonne Ridley's piece on FMC Carswell below.)

And thus, as you read the touching tribute to America's "fallen" below (from the downing of the Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan), understand why it will only be the "house slaves" from the Muslim world who will share in much of America's collective grief.

Understand also why we (Muslims and non-Muslims of conscience) feel compelled to hold A PEACE & JUSTICE RALLY in Washington, DC, on Saturday, September 10, 2011. The rally will not only be in defense of Islam and Muslims, but in defense of the better of the "Two Americas" as well!

In the struggle for peace thru justice,

El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan

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Hospital of horror is Dr Aafia's new home

Written by Yvonne Ridley Thursday, 04 November 2010

FMC Carswell

When Dr Aafia Siddiqui was sentenced to 86 years by New York judge Richard Berman it sent shock waves around the world.

Many of her supporters felt that it was just one step down from the death penalty … sadly, this could be closer to the truth than they imagine.

For not only did the New York judge expose his vindictive pursuit of the defendant by imposing the unprecedented sentence he also personally intervened to make sure she would serve it in one of America's most brutal institutions.

In short he probably HAS sentenced Dr Aafia Siddiqui to death because if she remains in the innocuous sounding Federal Medical Facility in Carswell, Texas, like many others who have gone before her, she may not survive the experience.

Carswell is the only mental institution of its kind in the USA, and despite the fact that Judge Berman refused to accept Dr Siddiqui was not mentally fit to stand trial he subjected her to a judicial farce in which she was found guilty of attempted murder of US soldiers.

So if he refused to accept Dr Siddiqui was unstable why would he then insist on sending her to Carswell which is known across the USA as the Hospital of Horrors?

Let me tell you how Carswell – or CarsHELL which houses 1500 female prisoners, earned its reputation.

In the last 10 years...

· COUNTLESS young women – more than 100 - have died in the last 10 years under "questionable circumstances" with families unable to obtain autopsy reports

· NUMEROUS cases of sex abuse, including sodomy and rape, were carried out by prison chaplain Vincent Bassie Inametti whose reign of terror lasted eight years until he was finally convicted in 2008

· RAMPANT sex abuse of prisoners was reported by prison doctor Roger Guthrie who was fired for whistle-blowing

· PRISON doctor was convicted of sexually abusing inmates while another doctor was allowed to leave without charge after being caught sexually abusing a woman patient

· GROSS medical negligence has been reported including several cancer patients - one went untreated for a year and died

· SERIAL sexual predator and prison guard Michael Miller was convicted of raping a detainee

· FORCED psychotropic medication on reluctant detainees

· INFESTATION of ants went unchecked even when one patient in a coma was covered by the biting creatures as was the corpse of another.

To quote one local newspaper, The Fort Worth Weekly, time served in Carswell "can be a death sentence for women prisoners".

In a different report about Carswell earlier this year the same newspaper said: "It has a troubling history of medical misconduct and sexual abuse of prisoners. Inametti is the eighth man to be convicted of or fired for sexual abuse, including rape, of female prisoners at the facility since 1997. But women there say that sexual abuse is much more rampant than that; the eight cases only became known when women overcame their fears of retribution and reported their attackers."

And renowned lawyer Elizabeth Fink said in a statement: "One of my clients was transferred to Carswell to receive chemotherapy. She did not receive it for one full year after the therapy was prescribed. She died of classic Kaposi's Sarcoma, a cancer with a low mortality rate – when treated."

There are a string of court cases outstanding against the institution from those who have survived the Carswell experience and there are families of those who died in custody who are still fighting for justice, demanding to know the truth.

The catalogue of crimes against the female detainees reads like something from a third world country and such an institution would have certainly been closed down by now or overhauled if it existed in Europe.

In fact Dr Siddiqui should be removed from the US prison system altogether pending her repatriation.

All of this will, of course, make uncomfortable reading for Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi who promised Dr Siddiqui's family that wherever she was sent she would be treated with respect.

"I will make sure Aafia's living conditions are humane and respecting Islamic ideology and she be provided full access to family and lawyers without strip searches," he assured Dr Siddiqui's sister Dr Fazia Siddiqui recently.

Well if he really wants to make good his promise he should now move heaven and earth to get the Daughter of the Nation out of this vile hell-hole before she becomes another of Carswell's grim statistics.

Once again the US has shown its contempt towards the wishes of the Pakistan Government and its vindictive persecution of a woman who has been renditioned, raped, tortured and abused since March 2003 when she and her family were kidnapped in Karachi during a joint US-Pakistani-led operation.

The move to repatriate Dr Siddiqui must now take on a new sense of urgency … before it is too late.

* Journalist Yvonne Ridley is also a patron of Cageprisoners, a London-based NGO concerned with human rights of those caught up in the War on Terror.

A final note:

If you would like to send a card or write to Dr. Aafia Siddiqui you may do so at the following:

AAFIA SIDDIQUI # 90279-054
FMC CARSWELL
FEDERAL MEDICAL CENTER
P.O. BOX 27137
FORT WORTH, TX 76127
U.S.A

Please do not discuss her legal case or similar issues; simply convey a warm message of moral support. Thank you.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/07/afghanistan-helicopter-crash-victims-remembered_n_920628.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%7C84394

Afghanistan Helicopter Crash: Family, Friends Remember Fallen Soldiers As Heroes

By The Associated Press 08/ 7/11 05:45 PM ET

Afghanistan War , War On Terror , Afghanistan Helicopter Crash , Fallen Soldiers , Helicopter Attack , Afghanistan Soldier Deaths , Helicopter Crash , Remembering Soldiers , Us Soldier Deaths , World News

-- Some had young children, wives and girlfriends. Others were just starting to make their way in the world.

But the brothers, fathers, sons and uncles who died when a U.S. military helicopter was shot down in eastern Afghanistan all had something in common: a love of family and country, according to friends and family members. Those who knew them said the soldiers were aware of the dangers they faced but were dedicated to their mission – even if it meant giving their lives.

Here are the stories of some of the fallen:

____

Patrick Hamburger planned to propose to his girlfriend, but had a job to do first: a mission in Afghanistan.

The 30-year-old sergeant from Grand Island, Neb., had joined the Nebraska National Guard when he was a senior at Lincoln High School but had never been deployed, his brother Chris Hamburger told The Associated Press on Sunday.

"He didn't have to go, and he wanted to go because his group was getting deployed. He wanted to be there for them. That's him for you," Chris Hamburger said, adding that Patrick always looked out for his two younger brothers and friends.

He was also the kind of guy who helped his girlfriend raise her 13-year-old daughter from another relationship as well as the couple's own 2-year-old daughter, and planned to propose marriage when he got home, Chris Hamburger said.

Patrick Hamburger had been in Afghanistan less than two weeks and had arrived at Forward Operating Base Shank a few days before climbing aboard the helicopter with U.S. Navy SEALs and other troops to rush to the aid of a U.S. Army Ranger unit under fire from insurgents.

"It doesn't come as a total surprise that he was trying to help people and that's how it all ended up happening," Chris Hamburger said.

___

If someone was sad, Michael Strange tried to make them smile. He loved snowboarding, surfing, scuba diving, running, and shooting guns on the range.

"He loved his friends, his family, his country; he loved making people laugh. He was one of a kind," Strange's brother, Charles Strange III, 22, said Sunday outside the family's Philadelphia home, where American flags were planted throughout the neighborhood.

Strange, 25, decided to join the military when he was still in high school, and had been in the Navy for about six years, first stationed in Hawaii and for the last two in Virginia Beach, where he became a SEAL about two years ago, his mother, Elizabeth Strange, told The Associated Press.

But he always told his family not to worry.

"He wasn't supposed to die this young. He was supposed to be safe," Elizabeth Strange said. "And he told me that and I believed him. I shouldn't have believed him because I know better. He would say `Mom, don't be ridiculous and worry so much. I'm safe.'"

Charles Strange said his brother loved the SEALS, especially "the competitiveness, getting in shape and running and swimming and all of that."

He also had two sisters, 21-year-old Katelyn and 7-year-old Carly, and recently became an uncle. The family last saw him in June, when he came for a weeklong visit for his birthday, his mother said. He was supposed to be back for Thanksgiving.

"It was going to be such a good time," his mother said.

____

If Elizabeth Newlun wanted to have a serious conversation with her son, John Brown, she had to shoot baskets with him.

"There's nothing athletic about me, but I realized that you have to get into other people's comfort zone to get information," said Newlun, of Rogers, Ark., explaining that her son, an Air Force technical sergeant, was a "gentle giant" who "just loved anything physical, anything athletic."

Newlun said her son played football and basketball in high school and went to John Brown University on a swimming scholarship. He had wanted to go into the medical field and become a nurse anesthetist, but decided to join the military after seeing a video of a special tactical unit, she said.

The airman was a paramedic and ready to attend to the medical needs of anyone who was rescued, his mother said.

Arkansas state Rep. Jon Woods went to high school with Brown in Siloam Springs and remembered playing basketball and watching "Saturday Night Live" on the weekends.

"When you think of what the ideal model of a soldier would be, he would be it," said Woods. "He could run all day."

___

Aaron Carson Vaughn was a man of deep faith, insisting to his family that he didn't fear his job as a Navy SEAL "because he knew where he was going" when he died.

"Aaron was a Christian and he's with Jesus today," Geneva Vaughn of Union City, Tenn., told The Associated Press on Saturday. "He told us when we saw him last November that he wasn't afraid ... he said, `Granny, don't worry about me.'"

"He was a tough warrior, but he was a gentle man."

Geneva Vaughn said her grandson, 30, joined the SEALS straight out of boot camp and was already a decorated fighter when he was asked by the Navy to return stateside to become an instructor. But he applied to SEAL Team 6 after two years, earning his way onto the squad in 2010.

He asked the military to return him to combat and shipped out just six weeks before he was killed, Vaughn said.

"He was doing what he loved to do and he was a true warrior," Geneva Vaughn said.

Aaron Vaughn leaves behind his wife, Kimberly, and two children, 2-year-old son Reagan and 2-month-old daughter Chamberlyn.

Associated Press Writers Timberly Ross in Omaha, Neb., Chris Talbott in Nashville, Rochelle Hines in Oklahoma City and Ron Todt in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

-------------------------------------

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/07/us-iraq-sadr-idUSTRE7760ZD20110807

U.S. military trainers could be targets: Iraq's Sadr

By Aseel Kami
Reuters
Sun Aug 7, 2011

Iraq's fiercely anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has warned that U.S. military trainers will be targets if they stay in the country beyond a year-end deadline for American troops to leave.

The statement from Sadr, whose Mehdi Army militia fought U.S. troops until 2008, follows a deal by Iraqi leaders to allow Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to negotiate with the United States on whether to keep
trainers in Iraq after the deadline.

Sadr followers have sent mixed messages on that, but any deal to keep U.S. troops in Iraq, even as trainers, remains a sensitive issue in Baghdad and Washington eight years after the U.S. invasion that toppled
Saddam Hussein.

"Whoever stays in Iraq will be treated as an unjust invader and should be opposed with military resistance," Sadr said in a statement published on a pro-Sadr website on Saturday. "A government which agrees for them to stay, even for training, is a weak government."

Sadr's Mehdi Army militia has for the most part demobilized, but U.S. officials say Sadrist splinter groups have continued to attack U.S. troops still stationed in Iraq.

Violence in Iraq has eased sharply since sectarian bloodshed peaked four years ago, but bombings and assassinations are still carried out almost daily by Sunni Islamists, some tied to al Qaeda, and by Shi'ite militas the U.S. government says are backed by Iran.

Sadr himself is now part of mainstream politics and a key ally to Maliki in his fragile power-sharing coalition among Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs. Sadr's representatives walked out of last week's discussions on U.S. troops, signaling possible dissension within the coalition.

U.S. and Iraqi officials agree that Iraq's security forces are capable of taking on internal threats, but say they need training in heavy conventional weaponry like tanks, and in air and naval defenses.

Details of any deal are far from clear, and an agreement would need to pass through parliament, say U.S. officials, who want legal immunity for any residual U.S. military presence.

Sadr has in the past threatened to revive his Shi'ite Mehdi Army if U.S. troops stay, but Sadrist sources have said the militia is riven with splinter groups and internal divisions.

(Reporting by Aseel Kami; writing by Patrick Markey; editing by Alistair Lyon)

-----------------------------------------

WARNING!

WHAT FOLLOWS ARE UN-EDITED PHOTOS OF TORTURE FROM THE ABU-GHRAIB DETENTION CENTER IN IRAQ. THESE PHOTOS REFLECT SOME OF THE WORST ATROCITIES THAT ONE HUMAN BEING CAN COMMIT AGAINST ANOTHER - AND MOST OF THESE PHOTOS INVOLVE NUDITY!

PLEASE BE MINDFUL OF THIS BEFORE PROCEEDING ANY FURTHER!

http://freedetainees.org/12859#more-12859

Unedited Torture photos from Abu Ghraib

Posted here because sanitizing war perpetuates war and the insane, sadistic, fascists that perpetrated this foreign policy, must be jailed for life to protect humanity, and the apathetic, indoctrinated sheep of America must know what they have done, what they have agreed to, and what they have allowed to happen in their names.

The neocons (who now include the democrats) and their PR stooges in the corporate media want us to debate whether or not waterboarding is torture (a debate only a desensitized sadist would even consider) and these photos show the effects and application of torture on POWs, in violation of every law of civilization.

*WARNING* GRAPHIC PHOTOS, including nudity, below the fold! Do NOT view if easily offended! There is one female detainee who is forced to raise her shirt!

Results of dog bites