The Grim Farce that is
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. |
|
Share this message:
|
 |
 |
Cheers to 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.
Support World Can't Wait's mission to stop the crimes of your
government by making a donation, or becoming a monthly sustainer.
Donate via PayPal:
Other ways to donate:
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.
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment