Archive for the 'Torture' Category

Last fall Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) cast an unbelievably unnecessary and damaging vote in favor of the Military Commissions Act which eliminated habeas corpus and legalized torture.

Now comes news from Blue Jersey that Menendez will co-sponsor legislation to repair some of the damage done with that vote.

WASHINGTON - TOMORROW, Tuesday, February 12, 2007, U.S. Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) will hold a press conference to discuss the Effective Terrorists Prosecution Act which will restore habeus corpus rights, ban torture and uphold the Geneva Conventions. The senators, both members of the Foreign Relations Committee, will discuss the need for these protections in the fight against terrorism.

The legislation will be called the "Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007." More can be found about the legislation at Senator Dodd's site, Restore-Habeus.org.

Everybody loves a celebrity death, the national shared tragedy of a life, however messed up it might have been, cut short. What else could explain the  Anna-fest playing out all over the tv? The cable news networks will tell you that there's a demand for this kind of public mourning, that our society craves it and that the ratings will prove it. But what if there were a concerted effort by our national media to turn that zeitgeist to another, daily tragedy, playing out in the lives of thousands of Americans every day?

They might consider talking to Eric Fair, a linguist recently returned to the U.S. from his job as a contract interrogator. I think he could tell a compelling story:

Despite my best efforts, I cannot ignore the mistakes I made at the interrogation facility in Fallujah. I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself.

Or perhaps the story of journalist Michael Hastings, a young man who also just came home from Iraq, accompanied by the coffin of his fiancee, Andrea Parhamovich:

In Iraq since autumn, Parhamovich was hired by the nonprofit National Democratic Institute in Washington, D.C., to help Iraqi politicians communicate with their constituents. "Andi thought the invasion of Iraq was a mistake," Hastings pointed out, "and she was trying to fix the mistake...."

On Jan. 17, Parhamovich left a meeting in a dangerous neighborhood outside the relative safety of Baghdad's Green Zone. As many as 50 insurgents armed with machine guns and grenades attacked her convoy of three armored BMW sedans, Hastings said. Three security contractors accompanying her also were killed.

And finally, there's number 3,115. Jennifer Parcell was 20 years old. She joined her brother in Iraq, and was in a unit supporting operations in Al Anbar province when she was killed in action yesterday.

According to one report, she "always enjoyed the water, including boating and scuba diving. She also liked yoga and music and spending time with family and friends."

This is what her aunt says about this unique woman that America mourns tonight:

"If you knew her, you loved her. She was a go-getter. She knew what she wanted in life and she was doing what she had to do to achieve that."

There's plenty of grief to go around today.

Filed under: Documentary, Independent, Sundance, Theatrical Reviews, Politics, HBO Films, Cinematical Indie

There’s an infamous essay about David Cronenberg’s first film, Shivers, which was financed in part by Canadian tax dollars: “You Should Know How Bad This Film Is; After All, You Helped Pay For It.” A paraphrase of that title rang in my mind as I watched the Sundance documentary Ghosts of Abu Ghraib: We should know how bad this situation is; after all, we’ve all helped pay for it. Director Rory Kennedy combines interviews, photos and on-site footage from Iraq’s infamous prison — which went from being Saddam Hussein’s execution factory to being the site of an American scandal — to make a potent piece of documentary filmmaking that demonstrates a clear chain of lawless, inhuman cruelty and corruption that went from the gleaming conference tables of the Oval Office and Pentagon to the blood-spattered, shit-smeared halls of a prison in Iraq.

Kennedy’s methodology is meticulous and human — many of the ex-service people who served time for the documented prisoner abuses captured in the infamous photographs speak on-camera about what they did, and why; several Iraqis are interviewed as well. Soldiers talk about how superior officers gave them minimal or conflicting guidance on how much pressure was too much pressure to induce captives to talk; ex-captives of Abu Ghraib talk about how, for example, they watched as their father was beaten so severely it lead to respiratory illness, which led to death — with medical attention denied every time it was begged for by a weeping son.

Continue reading Sundance Review: Ghosts of Abu Ghraib

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Today is a very special day for Mister Bush.  He has declared January 21, 2007 "National Sanctity of Human Life Day".  Check it out, right there on the White House website, a nice, pretty little message.

I filled in the blanks.

America was founded on the principle that we are all endowed by our Creator with the right to life and that every individual has dignity and worth.

(AP photo)

National Sanctity of Human Life Day helps foster a culture of life and reinforces our commitment to building a compassionate society that respects the value of every human being.

(AP photo)

Among the most basic duties of Government is to defend the unalienable right to life, and my Administration is committed to protecting our society's most vulnerable members.

(AP photo)

National Sanctity of Human Life Day serves as a reminder that we must value human life in all forms, not just those considered healthy, wanted, or convenient.

(AP/Nabil) Click here for more photos.  (WARNING:  graphic content).

I call upon all Americans to recognize this day with appropriate ceremonies and to underscore our commitment to respecting and protecting the life and dignity of every human being.

(AP photo) Caring for the Wounded in Iraq - A Photo Essay - warning, extremely graphic content. Coalition casualties in Iraq

In addition to Gonzales's stunning statement today on habeas corpus, he had some interesting things to say (or obfuscate, stonewall, avoid, dissemble) about a variety of issues, including us anti-American bloggers (note: this is Greenwald's transcript, not the official one):

Feingold's first question - "do you know of any one in the country who opposed eavesdropping on terrorists?"

Gonzales: Sure - if you look at blogs today, there is a lot of concern about all types of eavesdropping, who don't want us eavesdropping at all.

Feingold: Do you know anyone in government who ever took that position?

Gonzales: No, but that is not what I said.

Feingold: It is a disgrace and disservice to your office and the President to have accused people on this Committee of opposing eavesdropping on terrorists.

Gonzales: I didn't have you in mind or anyone on the Committee when I referred to people who oppose eavesdropping on terrorists. Perish the thought.

Feingold: Oh, well it's nice that you didn't have us "in your mind" when making those accusations, but given that you and the President were running around the country accusing people of opposing eavesdropping on terrorists in the middle of an election, the fact that you didn't have Congressional Democrats in "mind" isn't significant. Your intent was to make people think that anyone who opposed the "TSP" did not want to eavesdrop on terrorists, even though that was false. No Democrats oppose eavesdropping on terrorists.

Gonzales: I wasn't referring to Democrats.

Feingold didn't have all the fun. Here's Chairman Leahy, on the case of of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was detained and sent to Syria, where he was regularly tortured for almost a year before being released without charge:

Leahy: "We knew damn well if he went to Canada he wouldn't be tortured. He'd be held and he'd be investigated. We also knew damn well if he went to Syria, he'd be tortured. And it's beneath the dignity of this country, a country that has always been a beacon of human rights, to send somebody to another country to be tortured."

The bulk of the oversight hearing centered on the announcement yesterday that the adminstration will now comply with FISA and the FISA court will now oversee the program. But, and this is a big "but," Congress can't see the order:

"Are you saying that you might object to the court giving us a decision that you publicly announced?" committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., asked. "Are we Alice in Wonderland here?"

Responding, Gonzales said "there is going to be information about operational details about how we're doing this that we want to keep confidential," he said.

As Greenwald says, what has probably occurred here is that one of the FISA court judges has agreed to issue an order that basically covers all of the surveillance activity the administration has thus far done illegally. Despite the assertions by Gonzales that the Intelligence committees received appropriate briefings about this order, at least one GOP legislator disputes that, saying that committee staffers were briefed without Congress members present.

The upshot of today's oversight hearing is that no more questions have been answered that existed before the hearings, and indeed, we have a few more. I suggest that the Committee schedule hearings with Gonzales on at least a weekly basis, and that they warm up their subpoena powers. They're gonna need them.

On a dark, dark day five years ago Thursday the Bush Regime locked up the first 20 hooded, shackled prisoners at Camp X Ray near Guantánamo Bay. Soon, there would be several hundred more. It was a cheeky move set on the shakiest of legalistic pillars. The men incarcerated there – several of them teenagers, one of them 10 years old – were said by U.S. officials not to be prisoners of war, but rather "unlawful enemy combatants," stateless unpersons unprotected by the strictures of the Geneva Conventions.

As if this didn’t twist common sense and logic and human decency far enough, Bush officials argued that because the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo is leased in perpetuity from Cuba (as a byproduct of American imperialism of another era), it isn’t really U.S. territory, and falls outside the reach of U.S. law. Never mind that the 1903 Cuban-American Treaty by which this spoil of war was obtained states that the Republic of Cuba consents that during the period of the occupation by the United States of said areas under the terms of this agreement the United States shall exercise complete jurisdiction and control over and within said areas ...

As has been learned little by little over the years as news trickled out from Guantánamo, prisoners were beaten, sexually humiliated, deprived of sleep, shackled for long periods in cramped positions, subjected to exceedingly loud music, forced to live under bright lights 24 hours a day, interrogated repeatedly under harsh conditions, waterboarded and otherwise cruelly mistreated.

The Red Cross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the U.N. Committee Against Torture, the Center for Constitutional Rights and scores of ex-captives released from Guantánamo without charge after years of incarceration have a word for what happened there: torture.

And for what? According to The New York Times two-and-a-half years ago, U.S. Said to Overstate Value Of Guantánamo Detainees:

In interviews, dozens of high-level military, intelligence and law-enforcement officials in the United States, Europe and the Middle East said that contrary to the repeated assertions of senior administration officials, none of the detainees at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay ranked as leaders or senior operatives of Al Qaeda. They said only a relative handful -- some put the number at about a dozen, others more than two dozen -- were sworn Qaeda members or other militants able to elucidate the organization's inner workings.

While some Guantánamo intelligence has aided terrorism investigations, none of it has enabled intelligence or law-enforcement services to foil imminent attacks, the officials said.

As we have learned over the years, many of the captives at Guantánamo arrived there as a result of being kidnapped or turned over for bounty money or moved there from the secret prisons where they were previously held in Thailand or North Africa or Eastern Europe. Only a handful were actually captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan. None has ever been convicted of a crime. None has even been charged.

There was a brief moment last summer when it appeared that the Supreme Court’s decision in the Hamdan case would wedge a little justice into the lives of the Guantánamo captives. After first saying in the wake of the Court’s decision that those captives were not covered by the Geneva Conventions, the White House abruptly changed gears and said they would be.

But, despite years of deceit and manipulation and machinations by Dubyanocchio and his team, the Republican-controlled House and Senate, with the help of 44 Democrats, passed the Military Commissions Act last October. This farcical bit of legislation doesn’t allow captives the right of  habeas corpus or a speedy trial or cross-examining witnesses. Evidence obtained by torture or less degrading but still inhuman means is allowed. Moreover, most of the captives at Guantánamo won’t even be subject to trial by these kangaroo commissions. They could remain in limbo for as long as the "war on terror" continues.

For some, those who committed suicide, including a teen-ager, the wait has already been too long. Others, as widely reported in foreign media, but all too rarely here at home, are on the edge.

As attorney G Brent Mickum writes in today’s Guardian:

After five years of torture, Bisher is slowly slipping into madness

False allegations from MI5 put my clients in Guantánamo Bay and the British government has failed them abysmally

Thursday is also the start of my clients' fifth year of captivity around the world. Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna, both British residents, are prisoners because British intelligence tipped off the CIA that they were travelling from the UK to Gambia and falsely described them as Islamist terrorists. We know this because in a court proceeding last year the British government produced copies of telegrams sent by MI5 to the CIA. Although the names are redacted from the documents, we know that the CIA was the recipient because the judge in the case inadvertently noted that they had been sent to the CIA. In the telegrams, MI5 provided knowingly false information to induce my clients' arrest and subsequent rendition.

Bisher and Jamil remain prisoners because, until March of last year, Britain refused to demand their release. Then the foreign secretary made what appears to be a half-hearted request for the release of Bisher in the face of public exposure of the connections with MI5. Britain, however, still refuses to demand the release of Jamil and seven other British residents. None will ever be charged; there is no evidence in the record I have reviewed that would withstand the slightest scrutiny in any court. Moreover, the treatment of Bisher and Jamil has been so appalling, the Bush administration would never allow their story to be exposed to the world in open court. And, of course, some of that story directly implicates British officials.

And Ben Russell of The Independent writes:

Ten-year-old Anas el-Banna will walk to the door of Number 10 Downing Street this week to ask for an answer to the question he has been trying to have answered for four years: Why can't my Dad come home?

His father, Jamil, is one of eight British residents languishing among the almost 400 inmates at the American base at Guantanamo Bay, which opened five years ago to the day this Thursday - the day of Anas's protest.

Mr Banna, was taken to Guantanamo Bay four years ago after being seized in Gambia along with fellow detainee Bisher al-Rawi. He was accused of having a suspicious device in his luggage. It turned out to be a battery charger. No charges have been made.

Helped by its allies in North Africa and Asia and Europe, America still runs its very own gulag. We, the citizens of America, don’t know for certain where most captives in this secret archipelago of prisons are being held. Or their numbers. Or how many have "disappeared" permanently.

We cannot, however, plead ignorance about Guantánamo. Neither can our newly elected Democratic majorities. The House and Senate need to devote a few of their first hundred hours resolving to investigate and shut down this shameful violation of human rights and international law, and all similar prisons, known and unknown.

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January 11 marks an international day of protest against the incarcerations at Guantánamo. You can find out more at this site. [Hat tip to Mae.]