I think one of the worst things you can do to a person is to use their own family members - especially their children - against them.

In June of 2007, six human rights groups released a report (pdf) in which they described secret prisons and listed people who were highly suspected to have been "disappeared." Among them were several children, two of which belonged to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, ages 7 and 9.

It got very little press, but one article in the Philadelphia Enquirer said the children were apprehended in September of 2002 in Pakistan.

Snippet from article Are We Disappearing Children?:

In an April 16, 2007 statement, Ali Khan (father of Majid Khan, a detainee who the U.S. government has acknowledged was in the U.S. Secret Detention Program and is presently held at Guantánamo Bay) indicated that Yusef and Abed al-Khalid had been held in the same location in which Majid Khan and Majid’s brother Mohammed were detained in March/April 2003. Mohammed was detained by Pakistani officials for approximately one month after his apprehension on March 5, 2003 (see below). Ali Khan’s statement indicates that:

Also according to Mohammed, he and Majid were detained in the same place where two of Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s young children, ages about 6 and 8, were held. The Pakistani guards told my son that the boys were kept in a separate area upstairs, and were denied food and water by other guards. They were also mentally tortured by having ants or other creatures put on their legs to scare them and get them to say where their father was hiding.

After Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s arrest in March 2003, Yusuf and Abed Al Khalid were reportedly transferred out of Pakistan in U.S. custody. The children were allegedly being sent for questioning about their father’s activities and to be used by the United States as leverage to force their father to co-operate with the United States. A press report on March 10, 2003 confirmed that CIA interrogators had detained the children and that one official explained that:

“We are handling them with kid gloves. After all, they are only little children...but we need to know as much about their father's recent activities as possible. We have child psychologists on hand at all times and they are given the best of care.”

In the transcript of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s Combatant Status Review Tribunal, he indicates knowledge that his children were apprehended and abused:

“They arrested my kids intentionally. They are kids. They been arrested for four months they had been abused.”"

He states:

"Some of the worst things that happened you don't know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib ... The women were passing messages out saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened' and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It's going to come out."

The story and the follow-up.

If any of the links are out of date, just google "seymour hersh torture children".

There's a lot more, but I'm out of time for now.

by JC Garrett (40 articles, 65 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 604 comments [10 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Aug 28, 2008 at 7:08:17 AM

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Comment from Ratings:   Given the history of Israel's establishment, next to the U.S., morality has been its strongest strategic ally. But with Apartheid against the Palestinian Arabs and now torture, Israel's moral currency has eroded down to nothing. What a pity for that nation and for the world. I know the Middle East is a "rough neighborhood," but it is times like these when we should stop treating Israel as a "sacred cow," and join the progressive forces within Israel and expose its moral inhumanity to those it arrests and the non-Jews who live within its borders. This article is a well-crafted eye-opener. Five Stars

by Herbert Calhoun (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 54 comments [4 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Aug 28, 2008 at 5:48:46 PM

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Frat boys torture people for kicks.

by John Hanks (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1760 comments [39 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Aug 28, 2008 at 7:26:41 PM

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Are you freaking high or what?

What about the "official policies" of the Muslim-run countries, you know, where homosexuals have their heads cut off in the public square, and where husbands and fathers can kill their wives and daughters for such sins as being rape victims or meeting a man in public, for God's sakes?!

You think that the US and Israel, who lets their prisoners pray all they want, and might make them wear pink underwear or maybe pour water on them is TORTURE? 

You need to rethink who tortures who, my friend.   When was the last time a homosexual was beheaded in public in America or Israel? 

by shielah jones (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 94 comments [8 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Aug 29, 2008 at 10:02:14 AM

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I just don't understand how you can bash America and Israel, accusing them of "torture," when real torture goes on in other countries who care nothing for human rights and would like to see us all killed.  Remember 09-11-01, anyone?  America and Israel are two countries who actually treat their prisoners kindly.  Again, we don't cut off body parts -- we provide prayer mats and Korans.  We don't cut off penises, shove 'em down throats, and drag naked bodies through the streets.  Let's see an article about real torture and real human right violations, and not just an excuse to bash America and Israel.

by shielah jones (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 94 comments [8 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Aug 29, 2008 at 10:58:48 AM

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