Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Gopher]

[Big_Bird]

Even if I wasn't a terrorist before I went into that bloody place, I'd probably be by the time I got out. The stuff that's happened in that place is just horrific. I would no doubt be totally f***ed up in the head after a few years in there, and I would want my revenge.

[Manner of Speaking]

I'm not surprised.

If I'd been cooped up in Guantanamo and treated the way those "detainees" are treated, I'd be ready for some payback too. The message here is that Guantanamo is probably doing more to psychologically train and motivate terrorists than anything else. Cause and effect.

[yawarakaijin]

No suprises there really. If the hardcore ones every got out they would merely continue their work. If one had gone in innocent he surely would have come out with a chip on his shoulder.

I feel sad for any innocents caught in a revenge attack for what an innocent detainee might do but I say American troops would be a fair game.

Does anyone else find it peculiar the NO ONE is allowed to kill an American soldier anymore? Must be one of the safest militaries in the world to be a part of thesedays. (No one emoticon really fits that previous statment.)

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

The motivation for attacking US forces?


Applicable to this topic

Abu Ghraib vs. Iraqi Orphans

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE0qSuMIpqo&feature=related

[khyber]

[Gopher]

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

[Gopher]

[catman]

We've been told that everyone at Gitmos is not only guilty but also the "worst of the worst", yet they keep releasing prisoners.

[yawarakaijin]

[Big_Bird]

I was watching a relevant documentary the other night: Taxi to the Dark Side. I started watching it part way through, but still saw enough to find myself really disturbed. It was awful. Absolutley awful. It focussed mostly on the story of an innocent taxi driver who had the misfortune to be turned into the American military. He was turned in by Afghan fighters, who claimed he had fired rockets at US forces. Later it transpired that the cunning fighters who turned him in had probably been responsible for the attack themselves and wanted to throw US forces off their scent. Anyway, witnesses (including the US soldiers responsible for his horrific treatment and murder) described his last days. Absolutely horrible. I could barely watch it. I winced and looked away at some of it, and forced myself not to think too much about how intensely he must have suffered. Reports of his screams for his mother and father particularly upset me. The soldiers thought it was funny when he screamed and enjoyed the effect of their forceful kicks and blows. Young soldiers with no proper training and a deliberate lack of proper guidelines from their superiors. They admitted they didn't have the first clue about what they were doing.

But the documentary used the unfortunate taxi driver as an example to highlight the plight of others. A British man who was imprisoned in the same camp as the taxi driver and was later sent to Guantanamo on the flimsiest basis described the treatment there. He was obviously educated and articulate and described the abuses he had suffered and witnessed. What he and others described made you want to put your hands over your ears. I think I would have gone quite mad in similar circumstances.

It transpired that only 7% of the prisoners were picked up by US military or intelligence. The rest were rounded up by locals. Got a score to settle? Drag your hated neighbour to the Americans and pretend he is a Taliban fighter. Want to make 5000 dollars? Round up some poor tourist or beggar off the street and claim the bounty. Imagine how tempting a 5000 dollar reward is to a criminal in a third world country like Afghanistan or Pakistan. Heck, that's enough reward to turn even an honest guy into a criminal! It was so utterly farcical that I just didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

[Adventurer]

Big Bird, the Kuwaiti national committed a hateful act. He was not an Iraqi defending Iraq. He was a Kuwaiti national fighting on foreign soil fighting what he believed to be infidels in the country of Iraq. You are assuming that Guantanamo turned him into what he was before he died.
He was picked up in Afghanistan. Jordanians, Kuwaitis, and Saudis who went to Afghanistan were generally zealots who went to fight the infidel Soviets with the blessing of Uncle Sam. On another note, if they cannot prove that certain Arab fighters were purposely looking to fight the United States and weren't people who just stayed behind in Afghanistan, then it is hard to hold them, because someone being a religious zealot and in Afghanistan is not a crime in itself. So, there is a problem in simply detaining people indefinitely.

[Big_Bird]

No, I didn't assume he was innocent. I said that even if you were innocent, you would probably come out a terrorist after a few years in there. And if you were a terrorist in the first place, you would come out with your hatred and bitterness and need for revenge magnified a thousand fold.

[Gopher]

Big_Bird: you and "the documentary" you cite make it far worse than it is. You seize on this or that negative aspect, present the entire thing in that light, and then dramatically condemn it.

I know people on the ground. I know the selection and training they undergo before they arrive. I know they are frustrated with the press around them, who, they reaffirm, do exactly what I outline in the paragraph above.

It is neither the rosy picture you might accuse me of wishing to present here nor the unmitigated, twisted, and macabre death and destruction you describe above, where evil locals dupe misguided, rapacious Americans to settle their personal scores with impunity. It is the fog of war and all of its chaos. No more no less. And you have apparently and uncritically bought into propaganda that presents the Americans as the enemy. This is disappointing.

Finally, regards your last post, immediately above this: at what point does this theoretical terrorist bear any responsibility for his being a terrorist, in your view?