Political Quotes

“``One interrogator kept banging my head against the wall. ``After 2 days, he tied my hands behind my back and started beating me with an electric wire. The interrogation and beating lasted for 3 to 4 hours into the night. ``For the next 2 days, I was tied up from both wrists to the bars of an iron door. From morning until lunchtime they put a hood on my head and hung me by my wrists.'' Mr. Speaker, these are the direct quotes from detainees apprehended in Afghanistan and subjected to torture at the hands of Afghan intelligence officials and police forces. It's all documented in a report issued by the United Nations this week. What they found was systematic abuse that followed a pattern--not random or isolated incidents--a pattern at several different facilities, involving at least 300 prisoners. There's more. Kicks to the head; beatings with electric cables, rubber hoses, and wooden sticks; electric shocks to the thumbs; threats of sexual abuse, some of them against children. And there are some even more graphic, gruesome details that I know we've read about that I'll spare my colleagues for now. No Americans have been directly implicated in this. But as long as we're continuing a military occupation of Afghanistan and as long as we've taken on the task of training Afghan security forces, I don't see how we avoid the responsibility for these shameful acts of abuse and ritual humiliation. At the very, very least, Mr.…”