[NYTr] Tear It Down! End the Disgrace of Guantánamo

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Counterpunch - Oct 8, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org/safi1082007.html


Tear It Down!

End the Disgrace of Guantánamo

By LOUAY SAFI

    "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
    - Martin Luther King Jr.

Amnesty International has embarked on a campaign to close Guantanamo
detention facilities, adding an important voice to the rising demands
to end Guantanamo disgrace. For years, Amercians have been reluctant to
criticize the Bush administration's efforts to keep the detention of
terrorism suspects outside the preview of both American and
International law. However, with the disturbing revelations of abuse
and violation of detainees' human rights, and with recent reports of
the ways several unsuspecting bystanders ended up in the ranks of
Guantanamo detainees, anyone who cares about justice and rules of law
must join the call to close the infamous facilities, and end the moral
and legal excesses committed under the veil of secrecy, and in the name
of promoting freedom and the rule of law.

Gunatanamo Detention Facilities represent a sad and painful moment in
US international conduct, as it runs contrary to the American founding
principles and the self-pride of many Americans who see their country
as the guardian of democracy and human rights. This moment of infamy
was born out of arrogance, exaggerated fears, self-delusion, zealotry,
and disregard to American and International law. In prosecuting the
"Global War on Terrorism," the Bush administration has committed
several serious mistakes that undermined the world standing of the
United States as a leading advocate for human rights. None of these,
however, rivals the negative impact caused by Guantanamo detention
facilities.

The anger over the treatment of Guantanamo detainees reached a new
height in November 2006, when German attorney Wolfgang Kaleck filed war
crime complaint with the German Federal Attorney General against 14
high ranking officials and advisors in the Bush administration. The
list included Robert Gonzales, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Stephen
Cambone, Ricardo Sanchez, and Geoffrey Miller. The complaint cited
complicity in torture and other crimes against humanity at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib>Abu Ghraib in Iraq and
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mr. Kaleck acted on behalf of 11 victims of
torture and other human rights abuses, as well as about 30 human rights
activists and organizations who are co-plaintiffs. The co-plaintiffs to
the war crimes prosecution include 1980 Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo
Pérez Esquivel (Argentine), 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner Martín Almada
(Paraguay) and Theo van Boven, the former United Nations Special
Rapporteur on Torture.

Robert Gonzales, former US Attorney General, and Donald Rumsfeld,
former US Secretary of Defense, were particularly implicated in the
making of the Guantanamo's disgrace, as the former led the efforts to
authorize torture, while the latter introduced the "extended
interrogation techniques," to US military manuals. So was Geoffrey
Miller, Guantanamo detention facilities commander, who was evidently
responsible for setting up procedures in both Guantanamo and Abu Graib
that led to the revelation of the appalling practices of degradation
and torture.

Up until 2002, Guantanamo Bay Naval Base was used to house Cuban and
Haitian refugees intercepted on the high seas on their way to the
United States. On June 8, 1993, United States District Court Judge
Sterling Johnson Jr. declared the holding of the refugees who fled
Haiti unconstitutional, and the last Haitian migrants departed in late
1995. In 2002, US military designated the camp a military prisons for
terrorism suspects.

The legal status of the detainees and their treatment came under
criticism from the outset. The criticism was initially sporadic and
focused on the designation of prisoners as "illegal enemy combatant"
and the open cage-like cells were the prisoners were kept. The
international criticism prompted the US military to build better
facilities. The Bush administration, however, rejected calls to treat
prisoners under the Geneva Convention rules.

A series of abuses that was made public in the last five years
mobilized international public opinion, and led to increased demand by
American political leaders to close it. Human rights organizations,
including Human Rights Watch, and Amenity International, have
repeatedly called for opening up the Guantanamo detention facilities
for outside inspection. Other humanitarian organizations, including the
Red Cross and the United Nations, have raised serious concerns about
the conditions in the facilities. Members of Congress have also voiced
their concerns about both interrogation procedures and the negative
impact the camp has had on the US moral standing in the world. Charges
of mistreatment of prisoners included degradation, physical and metal
abuse, torture, violation of religious rights, and desecration of the
Qur'an that led to worldwide Muslim outrage.

Calls for closing Guantanamo can now be heard even from once strong
supporters of the Bush administration's War on Terror. Thomas Friedman
declared, in a recent New York Times' opinion piece, that he "will not
vote for any candidate who is not committed to dismantling Guantánamo
Bay and replacing it with a free field hospital for poor Cubans."
Friedman, like many other Americans troubled by the way the "War on
Terror" has often used to further narrow political and ideological
agendas, has come slowly to realize that the policies adopted to fight
terrorism are strengthening the hands of the terrorists and extremists
and weakening civil rights at home and undermining US standing in the
world.

The outrage over Guantanamo is by no means an opposition to the
international efforts to confront terrorism and hold terrorists
responsible for their horrific actions. It is rather a clear rejection
of the attempts to sidestep established legal and constitutional
requirements, and to violate basic human rights. Guantanamo detainees
have been deprived of the due process of the law, required by the Fifth
Amendment of the US Constitution, and by International Law, which
states that anyone who is deprived of liberty by arrest or detention
shall be entitled to review by a court of law to decide without delay
on the lawfulness of his detention.

Donald Rumsfeld approved in 2002 a list of 16 harsh interrogation
techniques for use at Guantanamo, most of which were general and
allowed for interpretation by interrogators. Many of the techniques
involving humiliation were part of a standard "futility" or "ego down"
approach, but some have permitted acts that generally considered
blatant acts of torture, including "water-boarding," a technique of
simulated drowning. Sadly, US Vice President Dick Cheney endorsed
openly the use of water-boarding for interrogation of terrorist
suspects, even though the technique makes a person feel that his death
is imminent. In responding to a radio interviewer from North Dakota
station WDAY who asked whether water boarding, was a "no-brainer" if
the information it yielded would save American lives, Cheney replied:
"It's a no-brainer for me." The promotion of "extended techniques of
interrogation" by high ranking members of the Bush administration
prompted Congress to pass a bill outlawing torture. Senator John McCain
referred to water-boarding as "an extreme measure" and led the
congressional endeavor to outlaw it.

Many of the conditions in Guantanamo are in violation of Geneva
Convention, which govern treatment of enemy combatant. Article 17 of
the Convention states that "no physical or mental torture, nor any
other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure
from them information of any kind whatever." The Bush administration
denied that Geneva Convention applies to Guantanamo detainees, but the
US Supreme Court disagreed, insisting that the humane treatment
requirements apply to all detainees in the War on Terror.

Although known al Qaida members are imprisoned in Guantanamo, many
detainees were picked from locations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia,
and other countries in very mysterious circumstances, and without any
clear connection to terrorist groups. The New York Times reported, in
June 2004, that not much more than two dozens of the around 750
detainees were closely linked to al Qaida and that only very limited
information could have been gotten from questioning them. An Associated
Press report claims that some detainees were turned over to the US in
return for cash bounties. Amnesty International documented the case of
Omar Deghayes, a Libyan living in the U.K. as a refugee, who decided in
2001 to travel to Malaysia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to look for work.
In Afghanistan, he was married and had a son. After September 11th, he
moved his family to Pakistan. They planned to return to the U.K. but he
was arrested in Lahore, Pakistan in April 2002, for a bounty of $5000.

The New York Times reported in November 2004 that the International
Committee accused, in a confidential report issued in July 2004, the
U.S. military of using "humiliating acts, solitary confinement,
temperature extremes, use of forced positions" against prisoners. The
Red Cross inspectors concluded that "the 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." The United States
Government has reportedly rejected the Red Cross findings.

The US Government denial was, however, unconvincing given the
contradictory statements by key members of the Bush team in charge of
implementing the "War of Terror" policies. One of the key figures in
the Guantanamo's controversy is Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who
commanded the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and later helped set
up U.S. operations at Abu Ghraib. The Washington Post reported its July
14, 2005 edition that Gen. Miller was accused by investigators into the
interrogation of Guantanamo detainees of failing his duties and was
recommended for reprimand by investigators. Miller would have been the
highest-ranking officer to face discipline for detainee abuses, but
Gen. Bantz Craddock, head of the U.S. Southern Command, declined to
follow the recommendation.

Miller traveled to Iraq in September 2003 to assist in the setting of
Abu Ghraib's prison, and he later sent in "Tiger Teams" of Guantanamo
interrogators and analysts as advisers and trainers. Within weeks of
his departure from Abu Ghraib, military working dogs were being used in
interrogations, and naked detainees were humiliated and abused by
military police soldiers working the night shift.

Colonel Thomas Pappas, head of the military intelligence brigade at Abu
Ghraib, claimed that it was Miller's idea to use attack dogs to
intimidate prisoners. He insisted that the same tactics were used at
Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo. Several of the photos taken at Abu Ghraib
showed terrified and naked detainees surrounded by dogs. Photos also
showed that one of the detainees was even bitten by a dog.

Miller initially denied charges against him, and testified in May 2006
at the courts martial of the Abu Ghraib dog handlers that his
instructions on the use of dogs had been misunderstood. Miller
testified that he instructed that dogs should be used "only for custody
and control of detainees." Miller's testimony was directly contradicted
by the commander of Abu Ghraib's Military Police detachment, Col. Jerry
Phillabaum.

This was not the only incident Miller's statements were contradicted by
his colleagues, as he reversed himself in several other occasions. In
July 2005 "discrepancies emerged between Miller's May 2004 testimony to
the Senate Armed Services Committee, and sworn statements he made three
months later." Miller told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he
had only filed a report on a recent visit to Abu Ghraib, and did not
talk to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or his top aides about the
fact-finding trip. But in a recorded statement to attorneys three
months later, Miller said he gave two of Rumsfeld's most senior
aides--then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary
for Intelligence Steve Cambone--a briefing on his visit and his
subsequent recommendations.

Similarly, Major James Yee, the Muslim chaplain who spent one year in
Guantanamo, and was responsible for developing the manual for
safeguarding the religious rights of the Muslim detainees, charged in
his memoir, God and Country: Religion and Patriotism Under Fire, that
Miller routinely incited the guards to hate the detainees. He was
arrested on Miller's orders and accused of treason. However, after
spending several months in solitary confinement and suffering sensory
deprivation, all court-martial charges against him were dropped on
March 19, 2004. Miller appealed to secrecy as the ground for not
providing any evidence against Maj. Yee, "citing national security
concerns that would arise from the release of the evidence."

Guantanamo has been a knee-jerk reaction to a horrific tragedy
committed by misguided terrorists full of anger and vengeance. We
already know that a large number of the detainees where arrested
because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and were kept
in custody because of zealotry and disregard of the rules of national
and international law. The detainees were kept for years under extreme
conditions of deprivation of basic human rights and dignity, even
though the majority of them have not been charged with crimes, and were
eventually let go because of the lack of evidence after spending many
years of abuse, degradation, and mistreatment. It is about time that
these detainees are given their day in a court of law, like any person
accused of crime. Doing that is not only important for the sake of
justice, but also for the sake of ending acts of gross excess, human
pain, and international disgrace.

[Dr. Louay M. Safi serves as the executive director of ISNA Leadership
Development Center, an Indiana based organization dedicated to
enhancing leadership qualities and skills. He writes and lectures on
issues relating to Islam and the West,, democracy, human rights,
leadership, and world peace. His commentaries are available at:
http://blog.lsinsight.org ]