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bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
9/11 Blood Meridian: Bush's High Crimes of Torture and War
Chris Floyd, Atlantic Free Press
guantanamo5.jpg
January 10, 2006
If you want to see the depravity and filth that festers in the core of
the Bush Administration made plain , read the story below. The regimen
of torture and suffering being inflicted on captives in Bush's War of
Terror is not some sort of aberrant overreaction to concerns about
national security and public safety: these specifically designed,
deliberately induced tortures are the expression of the President's
deepest desires and clearly stated wishes. Just as the war of aggression
in Iraq is his war, these crimes against humanity are his crimes. They
are happening because he wants them too.
The only possible response of a sane society to the depredations of this
man is his impeachment and removal from power. There is no other course
of action for any responsible, patriotic member of Congress to take.
Unfortunately, the American Establishment has clearly gone insane — so
deranged from decades of bloated power and privilege that it can no
longer act even to save itself from the general ruin that Bush is
bringing upon the country. Unfortunately, there are very, very few
responsible, patriotic members of Congress.
Witness the empty bluster behind the latest Democratic "opposition": in
the face of Bush's imminent escalation of the war — with a "surge" that
cannot possibly succeed in doing anything but increasing the bloodshed
and hatred in the other nation he has ruined — they are offering a
"series of symbolic votes" that "would do nothing in practical terms" to
stop or even hinder this insane course, as the NY Times reports. The
ever-hapless hairpiece hero, Joe Biden, believes this witless flapping
of arms will "demonstrate to the president that he's on his own" — a
realization that will somehow "spark real change."
But Bush already believes he is on his own — and he likes that way. He
has already asserted that he will continue his course in Iraq even if he
is deserted by everyone but his wife and dog. And his little mouthpiece,
Tony Snow, has just announced that the President is an autocrat who
cannot be restrained by any action of Congress whatsoever: "The
President has the ability to exercise his own authority if he thinks
Congress has voted the wrong way." (Via Cenk Uygur by way of Steve
Gilliard.)
"Symbolic votes" won't stop Bush. Even substantive actions — such as
cutting off funding — will not stop him. He will clearly provoke a
constitutional crisis and continue the war (and the tortures in his
gulag) by any means necessary. He is probably willing to attempt to
overthrow the government altogether with a military coup if he feels he
is being thwarted in his "sacred duty as Commander-in-Chief to protect
the nation," which, in his mind, means waging aggressive war, torturing
people, spying on us all and looting the treasury on behalf of his
cronies. The only possible way to derail his destructive and criminal
course is impeachment.
But how will that happen with the weak reeds and blathering hairpieces
now in charge of Congress? What will it take to light a fire under them
and force them to do what they are legally and morally bound to do —
uphold the Constitution? Will they really let Bush go on and on, in
slaughter and torture, escalating the war crime in Iraq and very likely
launching a new war against Iran?
If the past five years is any indication, the answer is yes, they will.
Consider that most leading Democrats are even more hawkish in their
saber-rattling at Iran than the Bush Administration, which is even now
methodically preparing for war with Tehran, either via a direct U.S.
strike or else in reaction to the inevitable Iranian response to an
attack by Israel. How can the bellicose Democrats object when Bush puts
blood and iron to their rhetoric? A strike on Iran would be the perfect
way to "restore bipartisan unity on the Hill."
Yet we live in hope and die in despair, as Brother Edsel always says. So
keep pounding the drum: impeach, impeach, impeach. Make it so loud that
one day it might even pierce the hairpiece of Joe Biden, and convince
the cowardly lions of Congress to do their duty. The alternative is too
ghastly to contemplate — although that grim reality may well be thrust
upon us. But for God's sake, let's not go down without a fight.
Guantánamo's Lost Souls (Guardian). By American lawyer George Brent
Mickum.
Excerpts: The day after tomorrow marks the confluence of two ignominious
anniversaries. The first is the five-year anniversary of the opening of
the notorious prison camps run by the US at the Guantánamo naval air
station in Cuba. In the five years since the US started shipping
prisoners from around the world to Guantánamo, approximately 99% have
never been charged with any transgression, much less a crime.
Approximately 400 prisoners, characterised by the Bush administration as
"the worst of the worst", have been released without charge, many
directly to their families. That any prisoners have been released is due
almost entirely to the outrage of the civilised world.
Thursday is also the start of my clients' fifth year of captivity around
the world: Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna...Bisher and Jamil have
withstood various forms of physical torture during their five years as
prisoners. Both have suffered numerous beatings (Bisher suffered broken
ribs and perhaps a broken foot because of beatings by guards, though
both injuries went untreated - despite Bisher's requests for medical
assistance), stress positions, temperature extremes, extreme sleep
deprivation, death threats, threats to family and, at various times,
starvation and being denied water that was fit to drink.
It pains me to report that, at the start of his fifth year in prison,
the once healthy and extremely articulate Bisher is failing. He is no
longer able to withstand the most insidious form of torture being used
by the US military: prolonged isolation combined with environmental
manipulation that includes constant exposure to temperature extremes and
sleep deprivation...
What the British government knows and the British public needs to know
is that Bisher's treatment is designed to achieve a single objective:
causing an individual to lose his psychological balance and, ultimately,
his mind. Every aspect of Bisher's prison environment is controlled and
manipulated to create constant mental instability. The damage to
Bisher's psyche is not unexpected. The ravages of extended isolation and
sensory deprivation leave no marks, but they destroy the mind...
Bisher al-Rawi is, slowly but surely, slipping into madness. British
officials have long been aware of Bisher's treatment. To my knowledge,
they have done nothing to intercede on his behalf. They have done
nothing to end his torture and constant mistreatment. They have done
nothing to address the constantly changing list of spurious, new
allegations that the military is uses to justify continued
imprisonment.
Among the latest new allegations: the military alleges that Bisher
received terrorist training in Bosnia and Afghanistan. British officials
know these charges are false beyond conjecture. Bisher has never been in
Bosnia and has signed an affidavit to that effect. The only time Bisher
has been in Afghanistan was when the CIA rendered Bisher and Jamil there
aboard CIA Gulfstream V-N379P out of the Republic of the Gambia to
Cairo, Egypt, where the aircraft refuelled, then went on to the
notorious Dark Prison. The reports Bisher and Jamil have given us have
matched exactly the flight logs of CIA flights we have obtained. In the
Dark Prison, Bisher and Jamil spent weeks underground, encased in total
darkness, chained to a wall and shackled in leg irons, starved, and
assaulted 24 hours a day with cacophonously loud noise before being
transferred to Bagram....
Until last March the British government adamantly refused to intercede
on behalf of any of the British residents still interred at
Guantánamo....That changed suddenly when the government asked for
Bisher's return on non-humanitarian grounds, belatedly conceding that
Bisher had worked for MI5. Unfortunately for Bisher, this long-overdue
admission, and the British government's request for his immediate
repatriation, coincided with Bisher being thrown into isolation. He
remains there more than nine months later, with no end in sight.
Bisher's world is a cell 6ft by 8ft in Camp V, where alleged "non-
compliant" prisoners are incarcerated. After all these years and
hundreds of interrogations, Bisher finally refused to be interrogated
further. Despite the fact that Guantánamo officials have publicly
proclaimed that prisoners are no longer required to participate in
interrogations, Bisher is deemed to be non-compliant and hence is
tortured daily....
Solitary confinement is but a single aspect of the torture that Bisher
endures on a daily basis. While in isolation, Bisher has been constantly
subjected to severe temperature extremes and other sensory torments,
many of which are part of a sleep deprivation program that never abates.
Frequently, Bisher's cell is unbearably cold because the air
conditioning is turned up to the maximum. Sometimes, his captors take
his orange jumpsuit and sheet, leaving him only in his shorts. For a
week at a time, Bisher constantly shivers and is unable to sleep because
of the extreme cold. Once, when Bisher attempted to warm himself by
covering himself with his prayer rug, one of the few "comfort items"
permitted to him, his guards removed it for "misuse". On other
occasions, the heat is allowed to become so unbearable that breathing is
difficult and labored. For a week at a time, all Bisher can do is lie
completely still, sweat pouring off his body during the day when the
Cuban heat can reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and the temperature inside
Camp V is even higher.
Bisher is allowed no contact with fellow prisoners. Bright lights are
kept on 24 hours a day. Bisher is given 15 sheets of toilet paper per
day, but because he used his sheets to cover his eyes to help him to
sleep, his toilet paper - considered another comfort item by his
beneficent constabulary - has been removed for "misuse". Accordingly, he
is no longer receives his daily ration of 15 sheets of toilet paper.
Imagine being in the position of having to make a choice between using
your tiny allotment of toilet paper for the purpose for which it was
intended or using it to sleep, and then having it removed altogether...
Changes of clothing take place at midnight when prisoners are given a
single, thin cotton sheet. Prisoners are unable to sleep until close to
1am. They are awakened at 5am, when each is required to return his
sheet. All of Bisher's legal documents and family photographs were
seized from him last June and have never been returned.
If Bisher spends four more months in the conditions I have described,
the man I met in September 2004, who was healthy, articulate, thoughtful
and humorous, will in all likelihood no longer exist. He will probably
slip into a madness that is permanent. If that comes to pass, Britain
must recognise and accept the grave culpability it bears...
The Bush Administration, of course, continues to deny that the United
States uses torture, prating endlessly about the Administration's humane
treatment of the prisoners and its robust compliance with the Geneva
Conventions. It long ago defined away torture in the now infamous
"Torture Memo" commissioned by now Attorney General Alberto Gonsales.
But thousands of pages of memoranda generated by FBI field agents at the
prison camps in Guantánamo and released pursuant to Freedom of
Information Act litigation belie the Administration's hollow assertions
and paint a grim and accurate picture...
These memoranda expose in detail only some of the "torture techniques"
employed by the military. They document abuses that include
"strangulation, beatings, [and] placement of lit cigarettes into the
detainees ear openings" (document 4911 entitled Urgent Report). Mamdouh
Habib, a former prisoner at Guantánamo who was rendered first to Egypt
for unmentionable torture before being transferred to Guantánamo,
arrived there without fingernails and bleeding from the ears and nose
where cigarettes had repeatedly burned him. Habib, one of the few
prisoners actually charged by the military, was summarily released to
his home in Australia once the extent of his abuse was exposed. But
before placing Habib on the aircraft that would eventually take him
home, military officials could not resist one last gratuitous torture:
they told him he was being transferred back to Egypt! Among the horrors
I have been exposed to in this case, this particular story haunts
still.
These FBI memoranda also document efforts by the military to cover-up
the abuses. Document number 3977 is a memorandum entitled "Impersonating
FBI at GTMO". It informs FBI superiors in Washington, DC that military
interrogators at Guantánamo are impersonating the FBI when torturing
prisoners. It goes on to state: "These tactics have produced no
intelligence of a threat neutralisation nature to date and [the
Department of Defense, Criminal Investigation Task Force] believes that
[the torture] techniques have destroyed any chance of prosecuting this
detainee. If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in
any way, DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these
torture techniques were done [by] the 'FBI' interrogators. The FBI will
be left holding the bag before the public."
If I alone were making these claims, I would expect at least some
readers to doubt the reliability of my account. But FBI field agents
wrote these documents. The FBI withheld them until a US court ordered
their production. Notably, no one in the Bush Administration or the
military has questioned the veracity of these FBI accounts. Thus, there
is no debate regarding the authenticity or accuracy of the information
contained in these documents.
But if corroboration is needed, the FBI accounts are confirmed by the
International Committee of the Red Cross, which reports that the methods
used at Guantánamo have, over time, become "more refined and repressive"
than those witnessed by the Red Cross on previous visits. Red Cross
officials are on record stating that military interrogators seek to make
detainees dependent upon them through "humiliating acts, solitary
confinement, temperature extremes, use of forced positions". They
confirm that prisoners are exposed to loud and incessant noise and music
and were subjected to "some beatings".
The Red Cross also reports that interrogators not only used
psychological and physical coercion, but also enlisted the participation
of medical personnel in what the report called "a flagrant violation of
medical ethics". Doctors and other medical personnel work directly with
military officials at Guantánamo, conveying data about prisoners'
"mental health and vulnerabilities". The Red Cross reports these medical
professionals become part of the torture and interrogation machine.
Their chief function is not the medical care of prisoners, but assisting
interrogators in extracting information. As a result, prisoners no
longer trust doctors and others to whom their treatment is entrusted.
It should come as a surprise to no one that the Red Cross concluded that
"[t]he construction of such a system, whose stated purpose is the
production of intelligence, cannot be considered other than an
intentional system of cruel, unusual and degrading treatment and a form
of torture."
...Almost a hundred prisoners that we know of have died in US custody;
33 of these deaths are formally classified as homicides by the military.
Not since the second world war, when the US imprisoned American citizens
of Japanese descent, has this country experienced such a constitutional
nadir. If the world is to fight this war on terror, morality must not be
allowed to become collateral damage. The time is long past for the
British government to demand Bisher's and Jamil's immediate return.
Paradigms of innocent suffering, they will remain wraiths that hover
above the political and moral landscape, constantly reminding us that
the destinies of those who would wage just war and those against whom
that war is waged are mingled.
source:
http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/645/81/
===
-muslim voice-
______________________________________
BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW
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