The Challenge in Closing Guantanamo Bay

The financial crisis. Two wars. An oil spill. Health care reform. Student loan reform. And still people are disappointed in what President Obama has done.

The challenge of relocating the Guantanamo Bay prisoners is resistance to finding out the truth of what happened there. Of course, it's a matter of time. But what time would be good for a dose of reality like that? None. So inevitably it is pushed back and pushed back and excuses are made to postpone having to address such uncomfortable issues as America the Torturer.

You have to wonder what made George Bush and Dick Cheney think that no one would ever find out about what they were doing. The United States has a long history of power shifting between political parties. I can't imagine the hubris it takes to think that your group will never lose power. I guess that's what Hitler thought in relation to the Holocaust. Sending people to the death camps was a priority until the last moment of the Third Reich because they didn't want anyone to know what they did and were hoping to kill everyone first.

There will never be a good time for the United States to find out that innocent people were tortured at our hands. And all the excuses made in fear after the attacks on September 11, 2001 were not valid. "Things are different now." That phrase has been the excuse to do anything we wanted for revenge and false security. Those feelings were exploited to go to war to secure our supply of oil in Iraq, all based on the lie of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Congress needs to realize that to delay dealing with Guantanamo Bay and the crimes committed there will not lessen the impact on them or the American people.

Go Bermuda!

Four Chinese Uighurs now have a place to call home: Bermuda. One wonders what the deal was on that one, but never mind.

It is heartening to think that some of the falsely imprisoned Uighurs now have a nice place to stay, a country where they will not be persecuted, and a population that welcomes them.

And congrats to Bermuda for the guts to stand up to Chinese pressure and threats to take these former Guantanamo Bay prisoners to begin with. The cry and panic of American politicians, and people, are really put to shame by the decent actions of the Bermudian government.

What does it say that the small country of Bermuda is willing to take in these non-terrorists - and that's in the definition of the U.S. Government - and ours falls into hysterics at the idea of it? To me, it says Americans enjoy being terrified. If there is no one there, they will make them up.

Culturally, it started with the Cold War. We had to keep the pressure for that huge amount of spending going, and stoking the terror of the American public did the trick. Then that ended and the terror became crime. Crime, crime, crime. Americans were terrified about crime, although the level of crime had been going down. That didn't stop anybody. There was a fear-mongering machine in place and they needed to do something. Then 9-11 the tragedy. Easy to find a target there. And it has been going ever since.

After all, there's lots of contracting dollars to be made. And public willingness to spend it is essential.

Waterboarding is Torture, and Torture is Wrong - ACCOUNTABILITY !!

Peggy Noonan should have her ass kicked. She is an advocate for "just passing by" the horrors of the Bush Administration torture policies. I wonder which of her friends would be indicted?

Accountability is critical to never having the United States of America EVER involved in a torture program again. And I don't mean the lowest level person you can find. I mean the people who issued the orders and justified them legally when concerns were raised about possible prison time.

The SERE program put our troops through simulated harsh interrogation techniques. Then those techniques were employed by our own government as tactics in our own interrogations of terror suspects. It's like someone saw the abusive tactics being used to harden our own troops against interrogation tactics, and thought "Wow! What a great idea! We should do something like that."

President Obama is flailing around trying to prevent a full scale investigation into the torture program of the Bush Administration, sending the likes of Rahm Emanuel and other emissaries to the media trying to get everybody to get over the torture program that didn't work.

Bad news, President Obama. We're not going to allow you to pull a Clinton on us and sell out your support base for the sake of unity. We won't stop screaming until everybody knows you turned your back on the worst human rights violation for decades by the United States.

Let the party begin.
























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You Mean Torture Doesn't Work?

No it doesn't. But those who worship at the altar of power and revenge don't care.

Torture was never effective. And "no European lives were saved." Right, Secretary Rice? The bottom line is that the worst attack on American soil happened under the Bush Administration just one month after a memo "al Qaida Plans Attack On US Soil" was drafted specifically for President Bush. You know, just before he went on vacation for a month.

You can expect that members of the Bush Administration will be indicted in Europe this year sometime. I sincerely hope that the attorneys that laid the groundwork for allowing torture to take place are indicted as well. We were all there after September 11th. Your particular case of fear is no justification for turning your back on the Constitution and the rule of law, not to mention the oath you took as an officer of the Court.

Innocent People at Gitmo

He's right. Many people held in Guantanamo Bay as terrorists are not terrorists at all. But don't worry, they were tortured anyway.

The Bush Administration knew this. They didn't care. All that was important to them was stoking the terror unleashed by Osama bin Laden as a smokescreen for their conservative political agenda. That same kind of fear was also used to justify billions of dollars in government contracting in the Cold War. There's a lot of money in terror for government and military contractors. So you need to keep the old ladies scared.

People ask: how could the CIA miss the fall of the Soviet Union? There was considerable economic and political pressure to build it up. Don't underestimate Congress in this. If the CIA had announced that the Soviet Union was not a threat, Congressmen from all over the country would be calling them up in outrage. After all, spending in their districts might have gone down.

We are spending billions and billions of dollars because the military industrial complex is a fear machine.

Torture and the Pimps of Certainty

We all want to know the answer. We want to feel safe and prepared.

Unfortunately, certainty does not exist in all situations.

Those who offer a scenario (your child's life is in danger) whereby a certain solution is available (we have the guy who can save your baby, without question) are kidding themselves and the people they talk to. Of course people will do whatever it takes to save their child. But the above scenario is not the equivalent of going into a burning car to rescue your child. A child in a burning car has a readily-identifiable source of danger whose solution is apparent.

It is all too easy to convince ourselves that certainty lives in places where we need or want to see it.

I have another scenario. Your child is captured by people who will kill him. There is a person that police believe has the information to save your child. They are 50% certain of this. There is a 10% chance he has no relevant information at all. Would you support cutting off fingers then?

Yes, We Are Torturing People

Let me ask you a question. Suppose you picked up a gun and shot someone and then claimed that you did not shoot him. Instead you say you were poking his internal organs with a projectile piece of metal, but weren't shooting him at all. Would that be enough to absolve you from charges of shooting someone? No.

So, too, do the claims of this Administration fall short of convincing in the area of toture.

Let me ask further what would happen to the lawyers who advised you that the above legal theory was sound? They would be brought up on ethics charges and possibly disbarred. That's what WILL HAPPEN to the lawyers who advised our men and women in uniform that waterboarding prisoners is legal. Even if we call them detainees.

Now I can hear all sorts of lawyers shrieking about legal definitions and what tests apply, etc. But I would caution anyone about to commit a Federal crime that such distinctions, as between "prisoner" and "detainee," don't often last very long. And when detainees are recognized as prisoners, the interrogators will become torturers in law as well as life.

Guantanamo: "No Legal Basis" for Holding Detainees

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that the problem with hearings for the detainees at Guantanamo Bay is that there is NO LEGAL BASIS for holding them and that they SHOULD NEVER BE RELEASED.

First of all, if we are not a nation of laws, what are we?

Secondly, by deciding that all detainees should never be released, and denying them a fair hearing, you are making sure that no one will ever find out if you've imprisoned the wrong person.

Wrongful imprisonment is a very important issue here because of how the detainees were treated. Making sure the detainees never get out is a great way to see to it that no one ever knows what you did.

It was never a great strategy, and one that will fail in the near future.

CLOSE GUANTANAMO DOWN !!!

Have we had enough of reports that detainees at Guantanamo Bay are being mistreated? Have we had enough information on how this Administration has orchestrated a policy of torture?

I have.

Training a Torturer

You train a torturer by torturing them. So when the military bosses decided they wanted to toughen up soldiers against rough interrogation techniques, they implemented the SERE program, which put our soldiers through some rough interrogation. Then, most of the limits put in place to prevent torture and abuse were removed.

Add to that the Presidential rhetoric about "the gloves are coming off" and other handy phrases, and what do you have except implicit permission to abuse prisoners? With unaccountable CIA contractors telling soldiers to "soften up" their Iraqi prisoners, what do you think you are going to get? No structure is in place to stop that pressure.

For these and other reasons, this Administration needs to be held accountable for its deliberate lapses in management and policy.

Torture and the U.S. Image

The Iranian diplomat that the U.S. released claims he was tortured. That may or may not be true. What's important is that the claim of torture is so believable to the rest of the world. Our actions as a nation in this Global War on Terror have so besmirched our standing and credibility that any spurious claim will now be given a stage.

Thanks Rumsfeld. Thanks Bush. Thanks Guantanamo, and all the faceless bureaucrats that allowed it to happen.

David Hicks and the Gag Order

How can the military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay detention camp, which still operates under the authority of the U.S. Constitution, issue an unconstitutional parole agreement?

The gag order on David Hicks, which is part of his plea agreement for getting out of that hellhole, orders David Hicks not to speak to any media about what he was doing in Afghanistan or his time at Guantanamo Bay. Such a plea agreement would be illegal in the United States, except that it has been issued by the military tribunals set up just for the purpose of justifying illegal detentions.

And the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear the cases of the detainees. Their decision will be remembered in the same breath as the Japanese detention case in World War II.

In the linked article, the leading Australian law officer mocked the idea that David Hicks would ever be deported for breaking the gag order, openly sneering at the illegality of it. Too bad our own Supreme Court can't bring itself to do the same thing.

The End of Guantanamo, The End of Bush, The End of Blair

A British resident, Bisher al-Rawi, has been released from Guantanamo Bay prison camp. He describes the hopelessness there in the article linked to the title of this post.

The significance of his statements have less to do with the allegations than with the implication that Tony Blair allowed British citizens and residents to be treated this way. No representation. No chance to refute the charges. Abusive and demeaning treatment before any terror connection has been proved.

A country is supposed to watch out for its people elsewhere in the world, not offer them up as political sacrifices to the ideology of an unthinking cowboy.

Tony Blair did not protect his citizens. Yes, some of them are rotters, no doubt. But a stinker will out in a fair process. There is no need for such lopsided handling unless there is an equal amount of doubt that there is enough evidence to convince an impartial observer of a detainee's guilt.

When the new British government arrives, do you think they will stay quiet about this? They will not. Just in time for the U.S. election, too.

Unleashing David Hicks

When David Hicks settles into Australia again, he will have a story to tell. This Administration is not planning on shutting down Guantanamo Bay, ever. Not until they are forced to.

Of course, as part of the plea agreement, David Hicks is not supposed to talk to the media for a year. Hmmm. And if he does, what does the U.S. plan on doing about it? What could they do?

Aren't we going to have a Presidential election in a year? Someone was not thinking good that day.

Guantanamo: The Confession of David Hicks

You're kidding me, right? David Hicks confesses to the equivalent of hosting a fundraiser and gets a life sentence?

Remember all the talk from this Administration about how the worst people on Earth are being housed at Guantanamo Bay? What the confession of David Hicks shows is that assertion is false. If the U.S. had information that David Hicks was one of the worst people on Earth, then there would be more evidence to confront him with and he would have pled guilty to something more egregious. Prosecutors would certainly not have accepted such a paltry confession otherwise.

Another thing that David Hicks' confession shows is that it is most likely that some other inmates in Guantanamo won't have adequate derogatory information against them as well. Think about it. Of all the cases where prosecutors will be putting their best foot forward, it will be with the first "trial." And they get a confession for "providing material support for terrorism." No killing, no attempt at killing, no participation in a terror cell. Just "material support."

If this is the beginning, the United States is going to look awful by the end of it. Especially once David Hicks starts talking.

Habeas Corpus and Guantanamo Bay

Today we saw the absence of habeas corpus in action. By removing the right of habeas corpus from prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Congress has made sure there is no way for U.S. courts to review the legitimacy of their detention.

Wow! Destroying the right of habeas corpus! That's one for the history books all right. But no one will be applauding in five years about what you've done. It will be a source of eternal shame and cause of apologies.

Of course, the Congresspeople involved will just blame Bush et. al. like they do now about Iraq. Where's a good spine when you need one?

One Australian, One Detention Camp

Click on the title to this post to see the Chinese interpretation of the Australian in Gitmo. Australia wants its citizen to be tried by a certain date or to be released from Guantanamo. The U.S. is now saying it won't meet the deadline.

The Chinese news outlet Xinhua is calling it an American "disregard" of Australia's request. That terminology shows how our actions regarding Guantanamo Bay are hurting our image abroad and our ability to negotiate with other nations.

Al Jazeera Readers on Closing Guantanamo

Econo-Girl has increasing respect for Al Jazeera. Right now they are hosting an open forum on readers' opinions on closing Guantanamo Bay.

Many of the comments are from Americans. Still, in a futile bid to get Americans exposed to foreign perspectives, Econo-Girl links to it. Click on the title to this post to see the comments.

From the Czech Republic, Franta Vrna writes: "[A]nyone who believes that Islamic terrorists are a real threat to Europe or the USA is naive. The main objective for these islamist groups is to seize power in countries of their origin, from which they have been kicked off."

From Belgium, Van Zwam writes: "It should be closed now and those responsible for organising it should be sent to court on charges of crimes against humanity."

From Bangladesh, Jahwa Macs writes: "Guantanamo is a symbol. Closing guantanamo is not the real problem. The creator of guantanamo must stop. "

From the U.S., R. Keeter writes: "There are numerous accusations of torture and mistreatment of the detainees in Guantanamo. However, none of the complainants has any evidence to support their allegations. In fact, I have spoken with a variety of military police personnel that have worked in Guantanamo, and they state unequivocally the detainees receive excellent treatment."

From China, Will writes: "Whether you count the men at Guantanamo as ordinary prisoners or prisoners of war, their certain inalienable rights such as those the USA was founded upon - like the right to fair trial by members of the public, the presumption of innocence until found guilty by said court and the right not to be tortured. Or would the USA not consider stress positions, sleep deprivation, mock executions and being smothered with your own excrement to be torture?"

Teenagers at Guantanamo Bay

"The most dangerous people on Earth" is how Condi Rice refers to our prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Let's apply some logical deduction to that statement, shall we?

To be one of the most dangerous people on Earth, you need an education. Pure evil alone is not enough. Did we consider Jeffrey Dahmer one of the most dangerous people on Earth? No. He certainly was a dangerous person. One who caused a lot of damage. But he does not make the list of the most dangerous people on Earth.

Why?

Because he did not endanger a way of life, he did not impact thousands and thousands of people's lives, he did not motivate others to follow his path, he lacked the knowledge and skill to disrupt any nation's infrastructure.

All those skills require a mechanical engineer, a doctor, a chemical engineer, etc. People like that will know how to hit a system in its weakest points. They will have the intellectual and organizational skills to plan, organize, recruit and execute a complex operation. They will be able to pick and plan based on maximum damage. They will be able to blend into a population.

Jeffrey Dahmer could not do any of these things.

Now let's look at the idea of teenagers as some of the most dangerous people on Earth. No teen will have the education and the experience to be able to pull off a major terrorist attack. How then could they be among the most dangerous people on Earth? They can't.

Even if, supposing for a moment, the teens held in detention at Guantanamo Bay were evil and depraved, the extent of damage they could do alone is limited to individual actions, or little more than that. No teenager is motivating hundreds of people to strap bombs on their backs and blow themselves up.

Studies have shown that humans don't reach moral maturity until the late twenties. So it is easier to pull teenagers into violent activities than it is adults.

Conclusion: There is no reason on Earth for any teenager to be held as a terrorist at Guantanamo Bay. Oh, and for all of you jerks who say "if you knew what I knew, you would think differently" Econo-Girl can only say this: I know everything you know, and you're still fucking wrong.

Terror and Torture

In the prisons of Egypt, Islamic terrorism of today was born. The Egyptian government rounded up radical Islamists and tortured them in their prisons. The Egyptians felt threatened and that is how they reacted.

So a movement of religious zealots was further radicalized by torture. The result was a violent version of Islam that started spreading throughout the world.

Torture doesn't solve anything. It doesn't win a political or theological argument. It doesn't dissuade people from their beliefs. And it certainly doesn't prevent terrorism. Torture promotes terrorism.

It is Egypt and their use of torture that has brought us to the struggles we are having today. Thanks, Egypt.

And it is in the coming decades that we will see the effects of our abuse on our detainees.