39 U.S. detainees "disappear"

Human rights groups allege that 39 prisoners detained by the CIA have all of a sudden disappeared:

Six human rights groups urged the U.S. government on Thursday to name and explain the whereabouts of 39 people they said were believed to have been held in U.S. custody and "disappeared."

The groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, said they filed a U.S. federal lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act seeking information about the 39 people it terms "ghost prisoners" in the U.S. "war on terror."

The groups have also called on the Bush Administration to stop using secret prisons to hold detainees.  This comes just more than one year after CIA Director John Negroponte revealed that his agency had the right to hold its prisoners indefinitely.

So much for setting an example as a world leader.  Thanks for screwing this all up for my generation.

Comments

[granny]

Oh, Todd ~ I do feel such empathy and saddness for that, for what you inherit. I look at my grandson and feel real sorrow for what we are leaving him to deal with.

I spent some time, time and time ago, with a group of the "Grandmothers of the Disappeared". We, here, in our so very insulated world, have no idea. No real, heart felt idea, of the magnitude of human cost this all is amounting to.
These beautiful, strong,relentless elders,in many cases all who were left of their families, determined to find their daughters, sons, and grandchildren, who had just simply disappeared ... We cannot imagine.

If only we could see how essential to all we work for, the nurturing of compassion and awareness of the oneness of humanity is. It's not a desk job.

[Chief Editor: Todd]

Yeah, your grandchildren will be met with a number of difficult challenges throughout their lifetime because of the unlawful precedents that are being set today. And I hate to just make it sound like a cliche....but it's going to take an entire new outlook on things to change the current situation.

And you said it best: "It's not a desk job." Instead, it is in essence a lifetime job that can only be done habitually.

[granny]

Yes, and I think we must look long and hard, at each and every candidate, in search for, not the programs we agree with, the one-ups-manship, weighing the least of the unacceptable ~ but to find the sense of that "entire new outlook on things", that could begin "to change the current situation" in the person we choose to vote for.

We need, I think, to weigh these people (the announced candidates, and others who are possibilities as well) not against each other, but against our own demands and expectations for the office. We should not be letting them set the bar. We know already we wouldn't dream of voting for some of the people who are running, on both sides. We should not waste our energy, and detour our thinking, comparing them to each other.

It really shouldn't be about what they want, but what we want.

We have a great deal more power than that of just talking about what we're given; picking from the pre-fix menu. We can go to the Conventions, at the very least the cities they're given in.
We can turn off TVs, stay away from rallies, close our pocket books - not only to candidates but to sponsors.

I think we must begin to demand an appropriate candidate.

And one of the things that means is, that in order to be effective, we must drop our smaller differences, and come together and agree on the larger picture of what we want to achieve.

The Democrats' fatal flaw over the years has been the refusal to be cohesive; to abandon petty fifedoms, and small details in order to come to a working agreement designed to achieve a common good.