The Legacy Of Bagram

It is and was Afghanistan's version of Abu Ghraib and Camp Nama - the same "no blood, no foul" "interrogations", the same brutality, the same seeming mindless sadism:

"It was a bad stain on American history," [former Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef] said. "If they are closing Guantanamo for justice, they have to bring the people who are torturing people, who abuse people, to justice." The military has classified those like Zaeef as "enemy combatants," although the Justice Department in March said it would dispose of that classification. The U.S. military in Afghanistan said it was not authorized to comment on Zaeef's or any other individual case. "I didn't see a worse situation in my life than Bagram," recalled Zaeef. "They were beating me, they put me in the snow, in the cold, until I was unconscious."

Notice the beatings and the use of cold. These were techniques authorized by Cheney and Rumsfeld, as were almost all those we saw at Abu Ghraib.

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