Yesterday, the world watched Omar Khadr cry. Human rights advocates publicized a video of the interrogation of the young Canadian national, imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, charged with terrorism-related crimes. The blurred footage, which a Canadian federal court ordered released last month, depicts the 16 year-old distraught and sobbing as he is questioned. Rights activists say Khadr is one of many examples of systemic abuse of detainees.
The video provides a rare window into conditions at Gitmo, which functions variously as a prison camp and a quasi-judicial court, and, to activists, a symbol of rights abuses in the name of fighting terror.
Along with Khadr's image, the legal ordeal of Salim Ahmed Hamdan has also shed light on Gitmo’s special Military Commissions, which the Bush administration has set up to judge "unlawful enemy combatants."
The Commissions have run into various moral and legal stumbling blocks: allegations of cruel treatment, a vacuum of federal oversight, and growing evidence that many of those detained may have had effectively nothing to do with terrorism and hold little strategic value in America’s war against it.
As Hamdan, a Yemeni national accused of facilitating terrorism while serving as Osama Bin Laden’s driver, inched forward this week in Gitmo’s serpentine legal system, advocates with Human Rights First (HRF) broadcast an inside view of the court proceedings.
According to HRF's web dispatches, at an initial hearing, government prosecutors sought to block other detainees from testifying in Hamdan’s defense, supposedly due to concerns that the detainees would reveal too much about CIA interrogation tactics. One prosecutor warned: “The sky may not fall, but buildings may.”
But HRF observer Frank Kendall turned the suspicion back on the accusers:
“The defense lawyers have no intention of questioning the witnesses about their treatment; they want to ask them whether Mr. Hamdan was involved in al Qaeda or any plots against the United States. Some of these same witnesses recently attended their own pre-trial hearings. The government’s security concerns seem excessive, and apparently Judge Allred agrees. He did not rule on the motion, but he instructed the parties to work out a solution. He also emphasized that if no agreement is reached, he will dictate a solution. One is left to speculate why the government is insisting on preventing even a remote chance that information about the CIA’s interrogations will be revealed.”
Kendall also noted the curious timing with which some key documents suddenly materialized:
“the defense announced that, despite multiple court orders beginning in 2007, last week the prosecution suddenly produced hundreds of pages of scrambled records about Mr. Hamdan’s treatment at Guantánamo. Mr. Hamdan’s attorneys assert that the government willfully failed to produce these documents, even denying their existence until the very last moment before trial. The government, however, says that, despite diligent searches, it only recently discovered the documents.”
Yesterday, the AP reports, Hamdan said he had been sexually abused by a female interrogator and that investigators had withheld medical help to force him to cooperate.
This testimony was made possible by the Military Commissions Act of 2006, a law that human rights groups believe has gutted basic due process rights, eroded international protections against torture, and granted the executive branch sweeping powers to abitrarily detain people. The Supreme Court recently bucked that legislation by ruling that detainees had the right to challenge the legality of their imprisonment in the U.S. judicial system, and lawyers are currently working to bring Hamdan's case before a federal court.
Last month, another Kafkaesque scene played out in the arraignment of five defendants charged with involvement with the September 11, 2001 attacks. HRF says the detainees have endured waterboarding and other cruel treatment, and even before court observers, the restraint was palpable:
“Under the government’s rules, everything that the defendants say is presumptively classified. Anything regarding their treatment while in CIA custody or in Guantánamo is also classified. Thus Judge Kohlmann ordered a 20 second delay in the audio feed transmission to persons outside the courtroom today, including the viewing gallery where the NGO observers sat, and special viewing sites.“In one instance, Ammar al Baluchi, said ‘If I was given a lawyer the first day when they they arrested me…’ but the audio was cut off for 90 seconds. It sounded like he was about to describe the circumstances of his capture but that was determined to be classified.”
Far from the Cuban shoreline, one of the architects of the government’s detention policies gave his own testmony yesterday before a House panel. Former Pentagon official Douglas Feith tried to justify interrogation techniques like exhausting and stripping detainees to wear them down. The Washington Independent reports:
“Feith conceded that detainees in U.S. custody had been tortured and, in some cases, murdered, but denied that there was any connection between that behavior and official policy. ‘Some people do bad things,’ he said.”
That "some people do bad things" could be the one point critics and supporters of post-9/11 detention policies agree on. Who pays the consequences, of course, is still being litigated.
Comments (13)
The Imperial Lawyers of Torture
(and The Rule of Moral Cowardice)
Douglas Feith, John Yoo and David Addington
are thee three biggest twisted sickos
this world has ever produced.
These men are sick in the head.
Where did they go to law school?
(I hope it wasn't Harvard or Oxford)
I'm hearing first hand reports from Iraq
(from what happen back then)
You are sadistic !
Why would you allow this policy to go forward?
You fellas are a bunch of sickos!
The first hand stories I heard from the US Army
that you guys pushed down the pike was sick!
Sick and Twisted!
These torturers should be prosecuted
for moral corruption of the American youth
and politikal body of the United States of America.
Is this what you want to teach your kids?
You are a f-ing weirdo man!
ditto
You really think these animals should be given all the protections deserved under OUR constitution?
After a firefight, those not killed should be read their rights, given an attorney? Whats next, letting them sue for excessive force while U.S. military is attacking them?
Everything is in the context of what happend 9/11. We were faced with an invisible enemy determined to kill as many American civilians as they can. Our justice system was not set up for that and will never be set up for that. Do you believe a high level detainee with information on a pending attack has a right to remain silent? U.S. citizens have a right to go to work without being burned to death in a building!
GITMO was set up for this particular war (and it is a war, a fight to the death). We executed prisoners in WW2 but somehow we ignore thise facts and speak about the "glory days" of U.S. honor.
Torture should not be an everyday tactic for U.S. national security, however, if in means the difference between torture and my family's safety, I'll side with torture.
Just as those within our country have given up our streets to criminals and gangs, and those in political power have given up our borders too illegal invaders, we appear ready to relinquish our power and authority in the world by turning softer and more foregiving of those whose mission in life it to end our way of life. To think that we would allow these animals to use our own system to end our system is insane. But the world has turned upside down. Common sense, apparently, isn't so common.
And the media is responsible. Instead of pointing out that many of the insurgents who kill our troops are 16 years old or younger, the media plays this up to elicit sympathy for this rat. ENOUGH! Are these rats our enemies? Are they the people sworn to kill us.... or are they harmless children? Is CNN going to 'flavor' tomorrow's news with more sob stories about what bad people we have on the front line fighting to preserve our way of life, or will they show the Hezbollah scum celebrating the release of child killers and recommitting to kill us. The vast majority of the American public can be led like sheep by these so-called news sources. It’s about time the so-called news stopped editorializing by the selection and exclusion of the news that they present. Show it all and let the chips fall where they may, but stop editorializing!
Things have gone much worse since Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed out in the early 60's that the #1 purveyor of violence on the planet was the US. With the illegal invasion of Iraq and the death of over 600,000 civilians and the torture of women and children, the US is the #1 terrorist nation on the planet. We're #1.
Massimo here is the cancer within the body of the United States, killing us from the inside. We won't even need any enemies with 'citizens' like massimo and groups like the ACLU. Our incursion into Iraq was the most humane in the history of war. We made every effort to limit casualties to the portion of the Iraqi army that chose to fight, and the leadership and infrastructure. The fact that insurgents kill their own and hide among women and children is a shortcoming of the mentality of the people in that part of the world. Their need to martyr themselves and their countrymen (and women and children) is a failing of their society, not ours. It also makes them a difficult enemy to fight. That 'cheapness of life' is something massimo's heirs (and mine unfortunately) will inherit as the spineless new 'Americans' abandon everything our forefathers fought and died for.
I guess this kind of thing doesn't happen anywhere else on earth? The good old USA is shown doing what happens ALL over this planet and is looking bad again. Much worse as far as human right crimes is going on daly in other countries. In those places human right crimes are the law, and it happens in the family/public view (to teach the rest a lesson). Beheading, chopping off hands, killing prostitutes...... and the USA is horrible right??? Only thing is if the people of those other counties complain they know what's in store for them.They don't even have freedom of the press forget about the first amendment. Amendments, their rulers are the ones that say, we don't need no stinkin amendments. Of course it doesn't make it right. Still each and every person that has the will to attack America or plan to attack America needs to be sought out and destroyed, anhilated. I personally would take care of any person I found out even had contact with someone that planed attacking America I would destroy and anhilate any thought memory of such person(s). Like those people and I use the word people very very lightly, wouldn't kill you and your car and roads and house with running hot and cold water and a toilet. They would kill me and/or you and not even think about killing my father in the next room or the baby downstairs. They'd burn down my house and house of whorship and destroy us they say. LETS DO IT TO THEM FIRST!!!! NOW!!!!!! Yes, to me even with the people that are currently in charge America is still the BEST place on this planet to be a far as I'm concerned. Ask all the people who complain about America where they'd like to live? even and still with all that bet they'd say the "I'd rather live in USA."
Oh by the way as you stated at the very end of your words, "Who pays the consequences, of course, is still being litigated." All the people that were there and all the people that saw it and all the familes that lost on 9/11 were the consequnces America and Americans paid. Now it's time for us to coolect our side of the ledger. Kill them all the fumdimentalist pisg and al queda and their ancestors destroy any memory of the from history, may they burn in hell and get aids from their virgins.
What's wrong with obtaining information from these enemys
soilders at get mo ! It ok when they be-head our people and others ? But let not be mean to these people ?
What go around comes back around again !
Gitmo is the best way to deal with these criminals. There is NO guarantee of civil rights in a foreign country, and Gitmo is NOT a US Embassy. Have speedy military trials, and do what's right. The Genenva Convention was not constructed to deal with terrorists, but with uniformed soldiers from enemy nations during declared wars.
I 've read all the comments. What have Americans become? Are we abandoning everything that makes America great and free? Are we forgetting our own constitution and amendments thereto? Are we turning into the enemy? I agree that the 'enemy' are faceless and can and will do some atrocious things to all of us and our soldiers. But, does that mean that we have to become them to protect ourselves? Do we have to abandon everything we say we fought for in WWI and WWII? Do we have to abandon the world and say 'my way or no way'? The 'ugly American' is beoming a reality!
I for one am deeply disappointed by the reactions that I've read, and by what seems to be happening to our society. Between my son and myself, we have over 50 years of military service. We would hang our heads in shame if even a portion of the 'atrocities' purported to have taken place at Gitmo are true. Let's return to a civilized nation.
You claim to be in the military yet believe what is reported in the media about abuses at GITMO, a military facility?
No one at that camp has been tortured. High level detainee's were interrogated in other countries and very few were subjected to harsh means.
Another poster mentioned "our values" that we fought for in WW2. What did we do to enemy combatants in WW2? We executed them! Germans who continued to resist after the official surrender of Germany were ruthlessly hunted and executed. All for the greater good of mankind, this is no different. We are at war, these people should not get the same treatment an American gets who is arrested for a robbery. Our justice system was not set up for this kind of terrorism.
I ask you, what is the answer? What do we do with these savages? Give them lawyers, brought before judges withing 24 hours, appeals, parole, probation? Their crime is killing as many Americans as they can and readily admiting they would do so if released and we want to risk that release by marching them through our current justice system?
Is any killer worth more than his crime?
Hypocrisy of the "Repatriate Omar Khadr to Canada" Movement
As soon as the Gitmo interrogation tape of Omar Khadr hit the Internet, the blogosphere was flooded with demands to repatriate him to Canada. This wave is reminiscent of a Soviet campaign to free Luis Corvalán from the "fascist regime" of Augusto Pinochet thirty five years ago. The scenario is strikingly similar. A "victim" held by "fascist regimes" this time run by Bush and Harper, and a public outcry for justice. Except for the fact that Luis Corvalán didn't kill anyone and didn't fight for a terrorist group that wants to impose Sharia.
The "repatriate Khadr" crowd describes him as "a child", "a kid", "a boy", and even "a torture victim", with no facts to substantiate the torture claims notwithstanding. They complain about Khadr being mistreated, again, without anything to back up their claims. Some of them are outraged about "child abuse." And they all scream for justice.
They want justice? OK, let's talk about JUSTICE. What about justice for Sgt. First Class Christopher J. Speer, who was (according to an eyewitness) murdered by this "child"? What about justice for Tabitha Speer, who is a widow because of this "kid"? What about justice for Taryn and Tanner Speer, who are left without a father by this "a boy"? And what about all those Afghani civilians and NATO troops who are a little bit safer because this "torture victim" is behind bars? How many of these "repatriate Khadr" hypocrites concern themselves with justice for real victims? In literally hundreds of posts, we couldn't find a single one.
One would ask, what is the reason for this idiocy? The answer is simple. Ignorance. Complete and utter ignorance. Let's forget for a second that Omar Khadr killed Christopher Speer. Let's forget that Khadr's father was an al Qaeda financier. Let's forget that Khadr's family is known for it being al Qaeda sympathizers. Let's just remember what this "child" was fighting for in Afghanistan.
This is what Taliban-imposed Sharia looks like in real life: http://muslimsagainstsharia.blogspot.com/2000/07/hypocrisy-of-repatriate-omar-khadr-to.html
Why don't all of you, bleeding heart demagogues go to Afghanistan and spend a day in a Taliban-controlled territory? And let's talk about Khadr when you get back. If you get back.