While the president and the punditocracy alike have no compunctions in talking about Guantanamo Bay, Obama's promise to close it, the missing of the deadline, the problem with the Yemeni prisoners, et al., the word that continues to be unspoken is Bagram, the name of our oh-so-secret prison in Afghanistan, and the only one of our prisons where two of our detainees seem to have met their demise at the hands of enhanced interrogators. This week, for a moment, two shafts of light fall on Bagram.
First, a U.S. appeals court on Thursday heard oral arguments on the question of whether the U.S. Supreme Court's decision granting habeas corpus rights to Gitmo inmates may also apply to certain Bagram residents, specifically detainees who were rounded up outside Afghanistan and then shipped to Bagram. Afghan detainees need not apply, because it's a war zone.
Then, there comes an announcement that the U.S. military is investigating allegations that two Afghan teens were beaten while in custody at Bagram. What the adolescents allege in terms of treatment sounds so similar to what happened at Abu Ghraib, and what British troops have reportedly done at their Basra detention center in Iraq, that one imagines there must be a military orchard someplace where all the bad apples are being bred.
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Afghans to allow legal challenges at Bagram jail: official
(AFP) – 1 day ago
KABUL — Hundreds of inmates held without trial at a controversial prison on a US base will be allowed to challenge their detention through the courts when Afghanistan takes over the jail, officials said Monday.
The prison at Bagram Air Field north of Kabul has been compared to the Cuba-based Guantanamo Bay detention centre and Abu Ghraib in Iraq due to harsh treatment of prisoners detained there without charge.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/11/bbc-airing-guantanamo-gua_n_418219.html
I thank you sir.
Friedrich Nietzsche
We are either a nation of laws and believe in justice and equal protection for all or we are little better than other countries we deplore for their lack of human rights.
1. They're not citizen's, so they don't get the same legal rights or humane treatment.
2. They aren't really equal...look at how successful we are.
3. There is no such thing as the name they call themselves.
4. We were here first...3 thousand years ago...when we took it from someone else...because God commanded it.
5. Our abuses aren't as bad as their abuses....so we are the good guys.
6. We're better in this area, so it means we are superior in all areas.
7. Anyone who criticizes us does so for unfair or irrational reasons.
8. They don't have a recognized military...so they are t#rr@rists.
It's all their fault they couldn't build a thriving society..under constant seige and second class status.
Just some of the usual "arguments" to justify the status quo.
We're frickin' America, we're better than that! And we should show the world what the American justice system can do.
J
Our government at the time was of the opinion that some technicalities in the wording of these rules would allow them to bypass the inconvenience of having to respect these rights. Those in charge at the time were of the opinion that by bypassing these rights they could gain advantage over the enemy by terrorizing them with maltreatment of those who got caught and by extracting more useful intelligence.
This strategy hasn't had the intended effect, has had a roughly opposite effect of gathering poor intelligence and motivating the enemy, and has been a scar on the morals of our nation.
The Brits considered us terrorists during the time we were fighting second class status...using some similar tactics.
Obama is continuing his march towards a one term Presidency, by continuing to bog the US down in this Afghanistan debacle that includes the shameful Bagram detainee facility, apparently buying into the kind of mindset typified by the likes of the Giuliani crowd. And for his trouble, Obama still gets labeled soft on terrorism, because he doesn't utter the words "war on terroism" 30 times in a one minute statement.
The "terrorist expert" Guiliani could say 9/11 100 times in a one minute statement. At least until he forgot there was a 9/11.
I wouldn't mind watching all of these folks continue to march towards their respective cliffs, along with their lemming-like followers, if they weren't dragging the rest of us kicking and screaming along with them.
Terrorist activity during Bush Admin
2001 Sep 18 Anthrax attacks on the offices the United States Congress and New York State Government offices, and on employees of television networks and tabloids.
2001 Dec 22 shoe bomb plot was a failed bombing attempt that occurred on American Airlines Flight 63 flying from Charles De Gaulle International Airport in Paris, France, to Miami
2002 July 4: An Egyptian gunman opens fire at an El Al ticket counter in Los Angeles International Airport, killing two Israelis before being killed himself.
2005 March 3 Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, an Iranian-born graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, drives an SUV onto a crowded part of campus, injuring nine.
2006 July 28 USA:A woman was dead and five others were hospitalized this afternoon after a shooting at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle building in downtown Seattle by a man who declared he was "angry with Israel."[10]
2006 Aug 30 An Afghani Muslim hit 19 pedestrians, killing one, with his SUV in the San Francisco Bay area.
2006 Dec 22 Federal Agents disrupt Derrick Shareef’s attack on an Illinois shopping mall. His intent was to commit “violent jihad” just before Christmas
I am sure I've left something out, but then I am not as qualified as Stephanopoulos.”
Mr. Worthington comments here at the HP, he has reported extensively and still does on the Guantanamo detainees and he is worried as well about Bagram.
The rule of the gun only works if one controls all the guns. Also, seeds of pain anguish and wanton death today, may lead to tomorrow’s fanatical movement who function as vermin that the elevated are once again called to deal with through armed conflict…and thus the cycle of pain continues, as do questions such as – “Why do they hate us so?”
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4977986
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/analysis-parsing-boumediene/
There's an interview with the author Kal Raustiala about his new book "Does the Constitution Follow the Flag?" that relates to the fundamental ideas underlying this case, that helps provide context to the issue:
http://harpers.org/archive/2009/12/hbc-90006287
[Kal is someone Congress SHOULD be learning from at oversight/legislative hearings.]
Basically, the POWER of the U.S. Executive Branch, as established within and by the original confines of the Constitution, seems to "follow (accompany-by-definition) the flag" (our military and diplomatic forces abroad) without quibble, but the attendant, supposedly-inseparable Constitutional LIMITS on that power, and thus the RIGHTS of those subject to the government's power, trail along, if they travel abroad at all, somwhere FAR behind.
It really seems to boil down to whether we want to be a nation of greedy Imperialists (like those who operate our modern national and multinational corporations and own our Congress), or a Republic of self-governed decent human beings who are willing to PAY for, or trade for - or else forego - the resources and assets of other (weaker) nations that we (or "our" corporations) may covet.
Silly: See below
Naive: Gunboat diplomacy, Bush Doctrine
Hypocritical: Family values, fiscal responsibility, C Street fundamentalists
Wrong: Mission Accomplished, Greeted as liberators, Death throes of the insurgency, Get them over there so they can't geet us over here, Trickle down ecomomics.
Lying: 9/11 didn't happen on Bush's watch, WMDs, I don't recall, We did not torture, FoxNews.
Of course it's impossible to tell when the Right Wing is lying or wrong, it's all the same propaganda, misinformation, distortion and fabrication. The only exception is "silly". The right Wing is far from being silly. They are very dangerous sociopaths who are intent on ruining this country at all costs. They came close with Bush but the majority of Americans have now caught on to the lies, so the Right Wing as a political force is finished.