Time to Get Pissed About the USG Again: Scahill Reveals Secret Prisons in Somalia

In case you missed it, back on July 13, 2011 DemocracyNow reported:

Jeremy Scahill Reveals CIA Facility, Prison in Somalia as U.S. Expands Covert Ops in Stricken Nation

In a new investigative report published by The Nation magazine, independent journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill reveals the CIA is using a secret facility in Somalia for counterterrorism as well as an underground prison in the Somali capital of Mogadishu. Scahill says the CIA is training a new Somali force to conduct operations in the areas controlled by the militant group, Al Shabab, and in Mogadishu. While a U.S. official told The Nation that the CIA does not run the prison, he acknowledged the CIA pays the salaries of Somali agents.

Seems like the only change Obama has brought to the United States Government is skin color.  Read the rest at DemocracyNow.org.

Stateside Secretive Prisons for Mostly Muslims (Questionably Guilty, too)

Stateside Secretive Prisons for Mostly Muslims (Questionably Guilty, too), originally uploaded by thepetecom.

Damn, I wish this didn't make me feel so gross. Let me quote from the post on DemocracyNow.org that the included screencap comes from:

While President Obama has pledged to close Guantanamo and the secret overseas CIA prisons, calls are increasing for him to reexamine the treatment of prisoners detained as part of the so-called war on terror being held inside the United States.

With little public scrutiny, the Bush administration opened two secretive prisons in Indiana and Illinois, known as Communication Management Units, or CMUs, that are designed to severely restrict prisoner communication with family members, the media and the outside world. Dozens of Muslim men are still being held at the CMUs, as well as other prisoners, including environmental and animal rights activists.

Man, do we really think America is so weak that it can be threatened by folks fighting Global Warming and trying to free monkeys from labs? No wonder we think Al Qaeda are so bad-ass and killing a bunch of Somali pirates is something to be proud of (come on, they're pirates... from Somalia).

Here's a bit more from the DN transcript:

Prisoners held inside the special unit include Dr. Rafil Dhafir, the Iraqi-born doctor from upstate New York who is serving a twenty-two-year sentence for violating the Iraqi sanctions by sending aid to Iraq through his charity Help the Needy; Yassin Aref, the Kurdish-born imam from Albany, New York, who was convicted in a controversial FBI sting operation; and also the environmental activist Daniel McGowan. He’s serving a seven-year sentence for his role in two acts of arson.

Some critics have suggested McGowan and other non-Muslim prisoners are being held in the CMU, because the federal government wants to avoid accusations that the CMUs are designed to only hold Muslim men.

And from a bit further on lawyer for one of the prisoners of a CMU prison, Kathy Manley says:

Well, yeah, it’s unconstitutional to treat people more restrictively in a prison context because of their race or religion. And they’re clearly doing that. I mean, the CMU in Terre Haute is almost 90 percent Muslim.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: New boss (almost the) same as the old boss.