Thursday, June 12, 2014


The Grim Farce that is Guantanamo
Guantanamo
Guantanamo attorney Ramzi Kassem, in his op-ed in Saturday's New York Times, A View from Gitmo, said, “Guantánamo remains at its core a lawless place.”

The torture camp was set in Cuba in 2002 to avoid U.S. and international law, but mostly to provide a place where the Bush regime could make it known, “here, we can do anything we choose to you.”  

Obama's administration now has no legitimate basis on which to continue holding most of the remaining prisoners for more than 10 years with no charges.  Debating whether the President or Congress is responsible for this outrage misses the point that, regardless of what laws are produced, the whole enterprise is fundamentally illegitimate.

The release of 5 prisoners the government says are “Taliban commanders” has brought Gitmo back in the news, mostly so McCain and Cruz can rant on and lie that the men remaining there are “the worst of the worst.”  We should do all we can to get out two important stories that make clear the crimes carried out against the prisoners:

The government hid information on the 2006 “suicides” of three Guantanamo prisoners.

New Report: NCIS Hid Medical Evidence About Guantanamo Suicides  Jeff Kaye pulls together new information on the immediate aftermath of when and how three prisoners died, building on Scott Horton's Harper's story from last month, and a new investigatory report published last month by The Center for Policy and Research (CPR) at Seton Hall University School of Law.

Government authorities contend the three prisoners died in an act of simultaneous suicide by hanging, an act JTF Guantanamo Commander Harry Harris described only one day after the deaths as “asymmetrical warfare.” It is this version of what happened that has been accepted by a wide section of the press. Horton’s article surmises that the prisoners may have died at Guantanamo’s “Camp No,” also known as “Penny Lane,” thought to be a special CIA black site at Guantanamo used to coerce prisoners, including through torture, to turn informants for the U.S. government.

Kaye says that the Senior Medical Officer (SMO) at Guantanamo, who was never interviewed later by investigators, “attended at least two of three high-profile 'suicides' at Guantanamo nearly eight years ago concluded at the time that, contrary to the conclusions of a later government investigation, the detainees did not die by hanging but by 'likely asphyxiation' from 'obstruction' of the airway."

In Effect, Appeals Court Rules Torture & Abuse Is All ‘Foreseeable’ Part of Job at Guantanamo Bay


Four former prisoners tried to sue Donald Rumsfeld and others at the Defense Department for abuse at Guantanamo.  The DC Circuit Court of Appeals, which almost never finds in favor of a prisoner for any reason, ruled against the suit, saying, “The treatment of the detainees in this case appears to be standard for all those similarly situated.” 

True, and outrageous.  Kevin Gosztola writes:
Yuksel Celikgogus, Ibrahim Sen, Nuri Mert, Zakirjan Hasam and Abu Muhammad were subjected to “prolonged solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, exposure to temperature extremes, light and sound manipulation, beatings, threats of transfer to a foreign country for torture, sexual harassment, forced nudity, exploitation of individual phobias, forced stress positions, the removal of ‘comfort items,’ including religious items, deprivation of medical treatment or the provision of medical treatment on the condition of cooperation with interrogators and prolonged ‘short-shackling’ with wrists and ankles bound together and to the floor.”
It's our responsibility to do all we can to force the Obama administration, and whoever follows it, not only to close down the prison, but end indefinite detention.

Protest at NYC's Hunter High School Friday Over Honor for Deputy CIA Director

Thursday, June 12th, is a special call-in day to demand the withdrawal of the Distinguished Graduate award to Avril Haines, Deputy CIA Director. Call or email Jennifer J. Raab, President of Hunter College, who advocated for her selection: (212) 772-4242, president@hunter.cuny.edu. You can also call Hunter College HS. Tell the administration to cancel giving Avril Haines an award. Dr. Tony Fisher, Principal, 212.860.1406.  If you are a Hunter High alumnus, please email us a public statement of why you are opposed to the granting of this award.

Avril Haines, currently at the CIA, and late of the White House Office of Legal Counsel, will not be present to receive the award Friday, but protesters will be (see an incredible puff piece of “journalism” from Newsweek).

Protest
June 13, 12:45
Hunter North Assembly Hall
Outside the 69th Street entrance between Lexington and Park Avenues


The fact that the school administration kept the award quiet is an indication of how unacceptable their choice for this year's award is.

Just since the members of the Hunter High Class of 2014 were born, the CIA has moved dramatically from its stated mission of collecting intelligence to openly advocating its "operations" role of killing and torturing people and spying on US citizens.  For example:

After 9/11/01, the CIA set up a network of secret "black" sites spread around the world, using torture, and in up to 100 known cases, causing death.  Ms. Haines' boss, CIA Director John Brennan, spoke favorably of this practice which for a time kept him from his current job.

Since 2009, the CIA has run the secret "targeted assassination" program of drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.  These horrific weapons, used in countries with which the US is not at war, have killed thousands, including women and children.

Before Ms. Haines went to the CIA last year, she was in the Office of Legal Counsel of the White House, providing legal cover to President Obama for his personal role in approving "kill lists" targeting people for death who have not been charged, tried or sentenced in any court, but are nonetheless killed by flying robots controlled from thousands of miles away.  The Washington Post says the Obama administration is working to bring the CIA together with the secretive Joint Special Operations Command (the subject of the book and film “Dirty Wars” by Jeremy Scahill) to perfect the “find, fix and finish process” as they refer to the targeted kills by drone assassination.

If Hunter College High School wants to distinguish itself as a leader in the rights of people, its administration should withdraw from Ms. Haines the Distinguished Graduate Award.  Further, it should ask her to renounce her role in the Orwellian war and killing machine.
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Cheers to Students Against Surveillance
Students Against Surveillance
Students from 17 campuses have sent open letters on the danger of government surveillance to free inquiry. 

From
Students vs. NSA Internet Spying:Students launching these initiatives are fighting for university and college campuses to be places where critical thought is encouraged, not chilled and monitored; where dissenting ideas and inquiries are valued and studied for their merit, not dismissed and attacked because they are outside government-established norms; where people can lead their lives and conduct their personal, political, social, and academic activities without being under a constant government watch. They must be supported and their efforts learned from and spread.

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A poem by Rich Greve, inspired by Barack Obama's defense of American exceptionalism at West Point last month:

We are the Exceptional Ones. 

We are The Irreplaceables.

The Magnificent War Machiners.

The Indespensibles.   We like the Rule of Our Money too.

The Dollar is still Exceptional, isn't it?

We bring "Democracy" with our wars — now that's quite Exceptional to pull off.

Killing is okay when you're Exceptional.

How can Exceptionals be wrong?

We are just too grand when the 1% have 40%

How can one get grander than that?

Of course, these are the Exceptional of the Exceptionals

And they must Rule — and they do

We scorn health care for all and education too.

Why would the Exceptionals need to be educated at all?

We have everything figured out already.

The Exceptionals can spy on Everyone because

We are Exceptional.   Case Closed.   Diagnosis:   Exceptional Hubris
— Richard F. Greve,
Citizen of Exceptionalland.
Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait

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