Supreme Court: Khadr's Rights Violated

But the court, in a unanimous decision, did not order Khadr's repatriation from Gitmo.

...the court said that before stepping in to dictate a Canadian response on a sensitive question of foreign policy, the federal government must be given a chance to rectify Mr. Khadr's plight.

But should the government fail to act, the court warned that it has the power to move more overtly to aid Mr. Khadr.

[...]

if the government refuses to take adequate action to rectify the abuse of Mr. Khadr's rights, the Court warned, “courts are empowered to make orders ensuring that the government's foreign affairs prerogative is exercised in accordance with the constitution.”

Related:

The court's decision

Ignatieff's Big Lie

Stephen Harper hasn’t just failed to stand up for Canada—he’s also failed to stand up for Canadians.

Suaad Mohamud. Omar Khadr. Makhtal. Bahari. Mohamed. Abdelrazik.

Being a Canadian must mean the Canadian government will stand up for you—no matter where, no matter when. This is at the heart of what every Liberal believes: a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.

A Liberal government would stand by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

We would stand by our citizens.

And we would bring forward legislation to protect Canadians abroad—to make it illegal for the government to pick and choose which citizens it protects—to make sure these abuses never happen again.

- Ignatieff's speech

Apparently, Ignatieff isn't aware of the Liberal party's history of refusing to fight for Omar Khadr's return while it was in power. Former foreign affairs minister Bill Graham justified it thusly in 2008:

Graham concedes that the Liberal government's response was not unlike that given by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government today – that Canada will not interfere as it accepts U.S. assurances Khadr is being treated and will face justice.

"That was our response as well," Graham said. "I think a year or two years after 9/11 that was a perfectly legitimate response."

He only changed his tune after his Liberal government fell.

And the Liberal party track record on Maher Arar's case was equally as dismal as it enabled the Syrians and Americans to get away with confining and torturing him.

How dare he spout that "a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian" is "at the heart of what every Liberal believes" when actions prove otherwise?
 

Khadr - one step closer to coming home

IN yet another blow to the federal government, a federal court has ordered Ottawa to repatriate Omar Khadr from Gitmo hell.

In his 43-page decision, O'Reilly wrote that the federal government's ongoing refusal to request his repatriation to Canada "offends a principle of fundamental justice and violates Mr. Khadr's rights.

"To mitigate the effect of that violation, Canada must present a request to the United States for Mr. Khadr's repatriation as soon as practicable," the judge wrote.

Khadr's lawyers have argued the Canadian government was complicit in the detainee's alleged torture and mistreatment while in U.S. custody and is obliged under international law to demand his return.

Documents show Khadr's U.S. captors threatened him with rape, kept him isolated and deprived him of sleep. In 2003, Canadian Security Intelligence Service officers travelled to Guantanamo to question Khadr and shared the results of their interrogations with the Americans.

The watchdog over CSIS recently found the spy agency ignored concerns about human rights and Khadr's young age in deciding to interview him.

Khadr's situation parallels that of another child soldier allegedly tortured while being jailed at Gitmo as well. Recently (at least ordered to be) released Mohammed Jawad (who is said to have been 12 when he was detained) is just another example of the US ignoring the convention on the rights of child soldiers.

The fact that our governments have to be forced by the courts to release these detainees shows how much of a mockery any claims to protecting human rights of children made by successive Liberal, Conservative, Democrat and Republican parties have been.
 

Quote du Jour: Omar Khadr's Despair

"I always say that I've never seen anyone who's been so abused and so abandoned by so many who should know better."

CSIS ignored Khadr's human rights: report
 

Good News for Omar Khadr

As the Globe and Mail reports, a federal court has ruled that the Canadian government must seek the repatriation of Omar Khadr from the hell of Gitmo immediately.

No more stonewalling.

No more excuses.

No more fearmongering.

No more pushing the idea that he's guilty before he's even had a fair trial.

No more abandoning a child soldier who has allegedly been tortured while in US custody.

It ends now. Today.

Update:

According to the ruling (.pdf file) the judge decided that Khadr's Charter rights under Section 7 had been infringed.

[8] In his affidavit, Mr. Khadr describes various forms of mistreatment both at Bagram and Guantánamo Bay. For purposes of these proceedings, it is unnecessary for me to make any definitive factual findings about the conditions of Mr. Khadr’s imprisonment. However, there are three significant facts that are relevant to this application and on which there is agreement between the parties.

[9] First, on detention, Mr. Khadr was “given no special status as a minor” even though he was only 15 when he was arrested and 16 at the time he was transferred to Guantánamo Bay.

[10] Second, Mr. Khadr had virtually no communication with anyone outside of Guantánamo Bay until November 2004, when he met with legal counsel for the first time.

[11] Third, at Guantánamo Bay, Mr. Khadr was subjected to the so-called “frequent flyer program”, which involved depriving him of rest and sleep by moving him to a new location every three hours over a period of weeks. Canadian officials became aware of this treatment in the spring of 2004 when Mr. Khadr was 17, and proceeded to interrogate him.

The judge then details the history of Khadr's detention including so-called interviews (i.e. interrogations) by CSIS:

[17] By the spring of 2004, then, Canadian officials were knowingly implicated in the imposition of sleep deprivation techniques on Mr. Khadr as a means of making him more willing to provide intelligence. Mr. Khadr was then a 17-year-old minor, who was being detained without legal representation, with no access to his family, and with no Canadian consular assistance.

Let's not forget that these actions happened under both Liberal and Conservative governments.

Khadr and his lawyers have been looking for justice from our government for years on end, constantly coming up against the political concerns of the parties in power.

[23] Mr. Khadr has launched a number of other proceedings in Federal Court. In 2004, he commenced an action for damages and a declaration that his Charter rights had been infringed.

Justice Konrad von Finckenstein granted him an injunction against further interrogations by Canadian officials, but no further action was taken in the proceedings (Khadr v. The Attorney General of Canada and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, 2005 FC 1076, T-536-04).

[24] Also in 2004, Mr. Khadr applied for judicial review of a decision of the Minister of Foreign Affairs not to seek further consular access to him. Again, there has been no recent action taken on this file (Khadr v. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, 2004 FC 1145, T-686-04).

It's quite obvious upon reading the ruling that CSIS has a lot to answer for - again - in this case. The judge notes that the sleep deprivation technique used against Khadr was torture, as specified in the CAT (Convention Against Torture) and that CSIS, knowing it had garnered so-called evidence as a result of that torture had no right to hand it over to then be used against him in whatever quasi-judicial proceedings would be invented for Gitmo prisoners.

Additionally, the judge found that the government violated the CRC (Convention on the Rights of the Child) on several fronts - including the right not to be tortured.

[63] The CRC imposes on Canada some specific duties in respect of Mr. Khadr. Canada was required to take steps to protect Mr. Khadr from all forms of physical and mental violence, injury, abuse or maltreatment. We know that Canada raised concerns about Mr. Khadr’s treatment, but it also implicitly condoned the imposition of sleep deprivation techniques on him, having carried out interviews knowing that he had been subjected to them.

Our government failed Omar Khadr on a number of levels for far too long.

This ruling is a huge victory for him, his lawyers, his family and Canadian justice.

Update:

Asked about the ruling during Question Period, Harper stated that his government had been following the same policy as the previous government for years. He also said that he would review the ruling to decide if the government would appeal.
 

Obama: Failing To Deal With Torture

While I was watching Black Money on Frontline Tuesday nite, one particular part of the Saudi/British government relationship around the BAE scandal stuck out for me. To get the Blair government to drop the investigation into BAE, the Saudis threatened to withdraw their support in the GWOT. It worked.

That tactic sounded very familiar...

The US has threatened to withhold intelligence from the UK if evidence of the alleged torture of a British resident [Binyam Mohamed] held at Guantánamo Bay is made public.

Details of how the “terrorist” detainee was allegedly tortured — and what UK intelligence services knew about it — must remain secret because of the American threats, the High Court ruled yesterday.

Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones said lawyers for the Foreign Secretary had told them that the threat by the US still applied under President Obama. Oppostion [sic] MPs accused the Government of giving in to blackmail.

Plus ca change... These politicians play with peoples' lives every single day. What's a few dead Brits when there are major scandals to cover up?

The US government had previously [under Bush] tried to buy Mohamed's silence with a sham plea bargain that would have forced him to stay silent about his torture. He refused.

Whatever happened to Mr Mohamed is something no US administration - Republican or Democrat - wants revealed to the public. In fact, the latest attempt to quash justice in this matter is even more bold:

Guantanamo Attorneys Face Possible Prison Time for Letter to Obama Detailing Client’s Allegations of Torture

Attorneys Clive Stafford Smith and Ahmad Ghappour could face six months in a US prison because of a letter they sent to President Obama explaining their client’s allegations of torture by US agents. Smith and Ghappour represent Binyam Mohamed, the British resident recently released after seven years in US custody, where he claims he was repeatedly tortured, first in a secret CIA prison and later at Guantanamo

Tell me if this makes sense to any of you:

AMY GOODMAN: Officials from the Department of Defense who monitor and censor communication between Guantanamo prisoners and their lawyers filed a complaint against Mohamed’s lawyers for “unprofessional conduct” and for revealing classified evidence to the President.

Excuse me? As the president, is he not allowed to view classified evidence? Anyone?

AMY GOODMAN: The memo the lawyers sent to Obama was completely redacted except for the title. It had urged the President to release evidence of Mohamed’s alleged torture into the public domain. Clive Stafford Smith and Ahmad Ghappour have been summoned before a D.C. court on May 11th.

Did his virgin eyes burn when he read the memo title? Is a redacted memo some sort of national security threat? Am I missing something?

And while all of you Obama maniacs are slapping each other on the back since he announced he was going to close down Gitmo (while you weren't busy checking out the latest dress Michelle was wearing), perhaps you can explain to me what right Obama's Pentagon had to fire Canadian Gitmo prisoner Omar Khadr's lawyer last week? That decision was reversed by a military judge on Tuesday but:

Omar Khadr's U.S. military defence lawyer is stuck in limbo after his superiors attempted to remove him from the Canadian's case, an attempt a military judge subsequently shot down.

As a result, Lieutenant-Commander Bill Kuebler is still Mr. Khadr's assigned counsel, but has been shut out of his Washington office while his boss, chief defence counsel Air Force Colonel Peter Masciola, asks a judge to reconsider his decision.

LCdr. Kuebler was fired last Friday following a long-standing feud with Col. Masciola.

LCdr. Kuebler argued that his boss did not have the authority to dismiss him. On Tuesday, Colonel Patrick Parrish, the judge in the Khadr Guantanamo Bay case, agreed, overruling the dismissal.

Kuebler has been a tireless advocate for Khadr and has had to fight the Pentagon every step of the way - a Pentagon that is terrified that evidence of alleged torture in this case as well will come to light.

Can you see a pattern here? So early in the Obama administration? Is there any indication that anything beyond lip service will be paid to these torture allegations? Let's not forget that all through his 2 year campaign while Bush was still in office doing who knows what with suspects' human and civil rights around the world, Obama repeated the zombie-patriot mantra "The US does not torture".

If that was true then and if it's true now, then what is he trying to hide?

Related:

Glenn Greenwald - There are no excuses for ongoing concealment of torture memos

Red Cross says doctors helped CIA "torture"

Ray McGovern - After Torture, Resurrection

CCR - D.C. Circuit Court Decision Refuses to Allow Advance Notice Before a Guantanamo Detainee is Transferred; "The Court held that it could not test the Executive’s promise not to transfer someone to a country where he could be tortured."
 

Hail to Their Chief?

So, it seems I'm failing to be a stereotypically humble and starstruck Canadian by not - as the CBC's Don Newman put it on Wednesday - feeling as excited as an expectant child on what he described as being like Xmas Eve, this nite before Barack Obama's maiden visit to a foreign country - mine.

I suppose the fact that I'm not Christian and don't equate the US president with a jolly, old fat guy in a red suit (whom I gave up believing in as well long ago) might be factors in my lack of enthusiasm for this peculiar analogy. Or, more likely, the fact that Obama's doing what amounts to a fly-by (a 5 hour visit which would have saved copious amounts of money spent on excessive security if he'd just decided to stay on the plane and invited Canada's chosen ones to have their hasty audience with him therein) could be another reason for my inability to fawn excessively while, as the typical Canadian that I am supposed to be, saying I'm sorry for whatever perceived slight or embarrassment that may cause him and his entourage.

If I were to be totally honest about what I actually am feeling about this blessing, this honour being bestowed on my oh so inconsequential albeit natural-resource-rich and soldiers-willing-to-die in-Afghanistan-for-the-so-called-GWOT-filled country, I'd have to say that it's pesky things like this that have soured my changeyhopeyness:

WASHINGTON — Even as it pulls back from harsh interrogations and other sharply debated aspects of George W. Bush’s “war on terrorism,” the Obama administration is quietly signaling continued support for other major elements of its predecessor’s approach to fighting Al Qaeda.

In little-noticed confirmation testimony recently, Obama nominees endorsed continuing the C.I.A.’s program of transferring prisoners to other countries without legal rights, and indefinitely detaining terrorism suspects without trials even if they were arrested far from a war zone.

The administration has also embraced the Bush legal team’s arguments that a lawsuit by former C.I.A. detainees should be shut down based on the “state secrets” doctrine. It has also left the door open to resuming military commission trials.

And earlier this month, after a British court cited pressure by the United States in declining to release information about the alleged torture of a detainee in American custody, the Obama administration issued a statement thanking the British government “for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security information.”

These and other signs suggest that the administration’s changes may turn out to be less sweeping than many had hoped or feared — prompting growing worry among civil liberties groups and a sense of vindication among supporters of Bush-era policies.

So, unless Obama shows up here on Thursday and announces that he's immediately releasing Omar Khadr (WHO WAS A CHILD SOLDIER AND HAS BEEN ROTTING IN GITMO FOR YEARS, MR PRESIDENT) you'll just have to excuse me for not giving a crap about what will surely be a very politically correct and non-threatening to the status quo visit.

That this man - who constantly reminds people that he owes his current status as the first African-American president to people who were much braver than it appears he'll ever be willing to be about human and civil rights - should be greeted as the next great hope for the (rightly crumbling) American empire (and, thusly, Canada and the rest of the world) in a fashion equal to the joy felt by children at Xmas time is utterly inappropriate.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

There will be no cookies and milk left out in my house for him tonite. And, when the morning comes, I certainly won't be chanting that Christ is born! upon news of Obama's arrival.
 

Documentary: The U.S. vs Omar Khadr

This past week, CBC's Doc Zone presented the documentary, The U.S. vs Omar Khadr. It will rerun tonite at 10 pm ET but you can watch it in its entirety here as well.

It makes for painful and frustrating viewing because Khadr's case has been so badly handled - from the fact that he's a child soldier who shouldn't be prosecuted in the first place, to allegations of torture, evidence that just doesn't add up and a Canadian government that refuses to repatriate him.

You can check out the Doc Zone's site (linked above) for links to the relevant documents and history.

Although both US presidential candidates have promised to close Gitmo, the fact that some countries don't want to repatriate their citizens being held there creates a major stumbling block since too many Americans are unwilling to see these detainees housed on American soil where they may also acquire some actual legal rights denied to them now while they're imprisoned in a foreign land.

There's no doubt that the Bush/Cheney "military tribunal" experiment has failed and that their administration's disregard for human rights has been abominable. That, more than the failure of the economy which has put US militarism and torture on the back burner, should be enough to make sure that the Republicans and any complicit Democrats who supported such overt, inhumane fascism are thrown out of office.

(Total run time: approximately 44 minutes in 5 parts - no commercials.)











(h/t reader ghostcatbce)

Related:

Amnesty likens Canadian held in Ethiopia to Khadr case
CAMPUS: Students protest for Khadr's release
Lawyers call for Omar Khadr's repatriation to Canada
 

New Defence Witness Emerges for Omar Khadr

On the 7th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and a very long 6 years after a then 15 year old Omar Khadr was picked up on the battlefield in Afghanistan, a new witness who could help his case has emerged.

The good news:

There's "yet another witness who wrote another report saying there were multiple people alive" when Mr. Khadr, then only 15, is alleged to have thrown the grenade that killed a U.S. Special Forces soldier, Mr. Khadr's lawyer, Lieutenant-Commander William Kuebler, told the court.

Military prosecutors say that Mr. Khadr, although badly wounded from gunshots, was the only fighter alive at the end of the July 27, 2002, firefight and thus was the only one capable of tossing the grenade that killed Sergeant Christopher Speer, 28, a Special Forces soldier and medic.

But other accounts cast doubt, suggesting Mr. Khadr may have been too gravely wounded to throw anything, while still others suggest several fighters were still alive, meaning someone else could have thrown the deadly grenade.

The account of the agent - identified as Jim Taylor - could shed new light. Cdr. Kuebler accused the government of deliberately hiding evidence that could clear Mr. Khadr. "If it would be helpful, it does not get disclosed," he said.

The bad news:

Mr. Taylor's role remains shrouded in deliberate and apparently classified mystery. He may have been a civilian translator, a drug-enforcement officer, an armed Central Intelligence agent or working for the State Department or any one of myriad branches of the U.S. government and travelling with U.S. military forces in the spring and summer of 2002.

Cdr. Kuebler asked the military judge, Colonel Patrick Parrish, to order Mr. Taylor be made available for the defence to interview as a possible witness. "He was present at the firefight," Cdr. Kuebler told the court, explaining that prosecutors disclosed the existence of Mr. Taylor's after-action report of the fire fight but not its potentially case-changing contents. "His employer has denied" access, Cdr. Kuebler said. Outside the court, he said he wasn't allowed to disclose the name of the agency for which Mr. Taylor works.

"We are fighting the government's efforts to conceal and hide," he said at a news conference after the proceedings ended yesterday.

Khadr's lawyers have been fighting those efforts since day 1, our Conservative government doesn't give a damn, and the military tribunal system is a legal black hole. Both McCain and Obama favour closing Gitmo. Will they follow through or is that yet another empty promise? And what will they do with the Gitmo prisoners then? Justice demands an end to this insanity.
 

The Canadian Gov't Knew Khadr Was Tortured

While they were busy down south talking about Barack Obama's nuts, the big news in Canada on Thursday was the release of secret documents (.pdf file) related to interrogations of child soldier Omar Khadr who has been incarcerated in Gitmo for 5 years and who has, through his lawyers, previously alleged torture.

Now there's proof, not only of one of the US military's methods, but of the fact that this Conservative government knew about it and continued to maintain that Khadr has been well-treated.

From an April 20, 2004 memo:

6. In an effort to make him more amenable and willing to talk,[___] has placed Umar on the -frequent flyer program: for the three weeks before Mr [___~s] visit, Umar has not been permitted more than three hours in anyone location. At three hours intervals he is moved to another cell block, thus denying him uninterrupted'sleep and a continued change of neighbours. He will soon be placed in isolation for up to three weeks and then he will be interviewed again. [___] stated that they (the Army) has a "big file" on Umar and were not really looking for much now.

Our illustrious prime minister Bush lap dog, pulled out his number one response to anything his Conservatives are blamed for ie. "the Liberals knew it/did it too!" (this time, that's true) and then attempted to assure the public that government lawyers were "monitoring those legal processes" (what "legal" processes??) so they don't have to actually care about a pesky annoyance like a fellow Canadian citizen's human rights.

Government lawyers "monitoring" the process. No doubt from the same school of thought as Gonzales and Yoo who both turned out to be torture-loving assholes who couldn't wait to shred the Geneva Conventions.

I sense a lawsuit in Steve's future.

Anyway, we already knew that Steve and his band of blood-sucking misfits wouldn't lift a finger to help Omar Khadr and that they were complicit in whatever goes on with him in Gitmo. I've written about that several times. My level of outrage about this case has definitely not diminished and won't any time soon. What we need here is the rest of the damn public to DEMAND he be brought home. Enough is enough. There's more to being a Canadian that complaining about gas prices and the weather.

There was also another statement in those documents that caught my eye as I read through them. The fact that the US military is incredibly incompetent when it comes to understanding Muslims has been well-documented for years but who knew that our government was just as culturally and socially retarded?

Here's a statement from one of Khadr's interrogation summaries in the memo signed by "R. Scott Heatherington, Director, Foreign Intelligence Division" written on Department of Foreign Affairs letterhead about Jim Gould's 2004 visit with Khadr:

Aside: After Mr Gould terminated the interview· he and two of the monitors continued to watch Umar via the CATV system. After half an hour and despite the restraints imposed by the shackles, Umar stood up as best he could and began to strike 'body-building' poses in the mirror on the wall (the latter is a one-way mirror. but the interior curtain had never been pulled back, so he may have assumed he was not being watched). Vanity among the young is not restricted to the Christian world!

And, apparently, stupidity isn't restricted to the Pentagon.

Mr Heatherington then goes on to write:

Certainly Urnar did not appear to have been affected by three weeks on the "frequent flyer" program. He did not yawn or indicate in any way that he was tired throughout the two hour interview. It seems likely that the natural resilience of a well-fed and healthy seventeen-year old are keeping him going.

Nothing to see here, folks. Move along now.

Hey, I wonder if Mr Heatherington would like to demonstrate just exactly how non-threatening sleep deprivation is. Maybe he has a 17 year old son who'd be willing to volunteer for a demonstration? Just feed him a Big Mac™ and have at it. We'll wait. (Jerk.)

Obviously, Heatherington's ignorance knows no bounds as he then writes (without seeming to notice how this contradicts what he just assumed):

16. Finally, as an amateur observer of the human condition, Mr Gould would describe Umar as a thoroughly "screwed Up" young man. All those persons who have been in positions of authority over him have abused him and his trust, for their own purposes. In this group can be included his parents and grand-parents. his associates in Afghanistan and fellow detainees in Camp Delta and the US military, I think that [___] was probably correct when he said that Umar has probably established pseudo-parents in the Camp and they probably aren't doing him any good. Before he is returned to Canada (if this were to be a possibility) some thought should be given to 'managing this process' and the social service agencies should play' a major role. . .

17. He does, however, have some feelings.

Oh, but Steve says he's fine and Heatherington thinks that as long as he's flexing his muscles everything's dandy. Case closed. I suppose the added bonus that he has "feelings" is further proof of what a normal life it is that he's been leading in a prison camp for all of these years.

Are you kidding me?

Apparently, the fact that DVDs are set to be released showing these interrogations of Mr Khadr has prompted some ass-covering:

A federal government official who dispatched an envoy to Guantanamo Bay to visit al-Qaeda suspect Omar Khadr says his department lost an early bid to keep the teenager out of the controversial U.S. prison camp.

In an interview, Gar Pardy, the now retired head of consular programs for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, said that in 2002-03 “we were fighting for Omar [Khadr],” whom he regarded as too young for Guantanamo.

“I wanted to use his age as the largest club we had to beat up the Americans on,” Mr. Pardy said. But he added that Canadian initiatives to protect the prisoner's rights got lost among departments and officials with competing priorities.

I'm sorry - but how the fuck does that even happen?

"Hey. The yanks picked up a 15 year old Canadian kid in Afghanistan who was seriously wounded in a firefight and they're hauling him off to Gitmo."

"File that one somewhere for now. The president of [insert obscure country's name here] is coming for a visit next year and we need to be prepared."

"No problem."

He was a child.

“We were opposed to the transfer; we wanted him back here,” said Mr. Pardy, who added that in September of 2002 DFAIT sent a diplomatic note to Washington urging that the then-teenager be kept out of Guantanamo Bay. “Our approach was we were going to try to leave him in Afghanistan.”

The bid failed. Mr. Khadr was soon sent to Cuba and the fallback plan, according to Mr. Pardy, was to figure out a way to get a Canadian envoy to “see Omar, touch him, talk to him a bit.”

How human of you. As if.

“The practice described to the Canadian official in March, 2004, was, in my view, a breach of international human-rights law,” ruled Judge Mosley in a decision released earlier this spring. “…Canada became implicated in the violation when the DFAIT officials were provided with the redacted information and chose to proceed with the interview.”

Foreign Affairs officials bristle at the stark language of the series of rulings. Mr. Pardy, who retired in late 2003, contends the judges may be missing the point.

“What we were concerned with was what kind of medical treatment he was getting in Guantanamo,” he said. And ultimately, the blame for what goes on in Guantanamo Bay, he says, rests with the government that created it.

“For the longest time, neither Congress nor the judicial system played their appropriate role under the Constitution,” he said. “They were all saluting the executive.”

And you, sir, and everyone who went along with letting Khadr rot in Gitmo while you knew he was being tortured were busy licking that executives' nuts (if you really want to talk about nuts). You still are.

May you all be forever haunted.
 

US Supreme Court: Gitmo Prisoners Have Habeus Corpus Rights

This is a major victory for the prisoners and yet another slap in the face from the court to the Bush administration.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.
[...]
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."
[...]
It was not immediately clear whether this ruling, unlike the first two, would lead to prompt hearings for the detainees, some of whom have been held more than 6 years. Roughly 270 men remain at the island prison, classified as enemy combatants and held on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

The ruling could resurrect many detainee lawsuits that federal judges put on hold pending the outcome of the high court case. The decision sent judges, law clerks and court administrators scrambling to read Kennedy's 70-page opinion and figure out how to proceed. Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth said he would call a special meeting of federal judges to address how to handle the cases.

And here's Scalia's version of judicial "wisdom":

Scalia said the nation is "at war with radical Islamists" and that the court's decision "will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

Shorter Scalia: FEAR blah blah blah FEAR blah blah blah.

And the article also reminds us of how the Republicans have subverted the constitution every chance they got:

The court has ruled twice previously that people held at Guantanamo without charges can go into civilian courts to ask that the government justify their continued detention. Each time, the administration and Congress, then controlled by Republicans, changed the law to try to close the courthouse doors to the detainees.

They won't get away with that this time around.

The disposition of Omar Khadr's trial will likely be affected by this decision as well and the fact that we've now learned that notes about his detention were destroyed and that the judge handling his case was most likely dismissed because he ruled against US government lawyers should be more than enough for our Conservative government to stop stonewalling on bringing him home. It should be but since they don't even care that he was a child soldier when he was picked up - the first to be charged with war crimes - I'm sure we'll just keep getting the same "let the legal process play out" talking point in response to these developments. Like it was ever a legitimate legal process to begin with.
 

Torture Investigations and Gitmo Developments

Last week, the US house judiciary began hearings into the evolution of the Bush administration's decision-making related to the approval of torture ("enhanced interrogation methods"). David Rivkin, a former Reagan justice department official, testified that the idea of prosecuting anyone involved in crafting the policies was "madness" while fellow panelist, law professor and head of the National Lawyers Guild Marjorie Cohn, reminded the committee that if the US fails to appropriately investigate and prosecute these war crimes (which Bush has already admitted to), there are more than a few countries waiting in the wings to act on those prosecutions. She also laid out the legal case under current US laws and treaties.

Phillipe Sands, who also testified before the committee and who recently authored the book Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values said he's already been contacted by officials in other, unnamed countries who plan to use the contents of his book to further their investigations that could well lead to those criminal indictments Rivkin thinks are "madness".

Sands' book, which I have yet to read, follows the case of the so-called "20th hijacker", Mohammed al-Qahtani, whose case interestingly enough was dropped on Monday. Coincidence? Probably not.

The attorney said he could not comment on the reasons for the dismissal until discussing the case with lawyers for the other five defendants. Officials previously said al-Qahtani had been subjected to a harsh interrogation authorized by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
[...]
Critics of the tribunals have faulted a rule that allows judges to decide whether to allow evidence that may have been obtained with "coercion." U.S. authorities have acknowledged that Mohammed was subjected to waterboarding by CIA interrogators and that al-Qahtani was treated harshly at Guantanamo.

Al-Qahtani last fall recanted a confession he said he made after he was tortured and humiliated at Guantanamo.

The alleged torture, which he detailed in a written statement, included being beaten, restrained for long periods in uncomfortable positions, threatened with dogs, exposed to loud music and freezing temperatures and stripped nude in front of female personnel.

And that's just one blow of at least 3 that I know of that the farcical military tribunals process has suffered during the past week alone.

In the continuing saga of Canadian child soldier, Omar Khadr, Liberal senator Romeo Dallaire on Tuesday, in the harshest terms uttered to the Conservative minority government yet due to its unwillingness to bring Khadr home, had this to say:

“The minute you start playing with human rights, with conventions, with civil liberties, in order to say that you're doing it to protect yourself and you are going against those rights and conventions, you are no better than the guy who doesn't believe in them at all,” he said.

That prompted a heated exchange with Conservative MP Jason Kenney, who asked Mr. Dallaire if what he meant was that Canada's failure to act to protect Mr. Khadr was equivalent to recent al-Qaeda atrocities in Iraq.

“Is it your testimony that al-Qaeda strapping up a 14-year-old girl with Down's Syndrome and sending her into a pet market to be remotely detonated is the moral equivalent to Canada's not making extraordinary political efforts for a transfer of Omar Khadr to this country?” he asked. “Is that your position?”

Dallaire was adamant.

“If you want a black and white, and I'm only too prepared to give it to you, Absolutely,” he said. “You're either with the law or not with the law. You're either guilty or you're not.”

Khadr alleges he's been tortured by US officials and his lawyers find it suspicious that some of his records are now missing:

GUANTANAMO BAY–The Pentagon disputes claims that political pressure prematurely halted an investigation into the alleged abuse of Omar Khadr when he was detained in Afghanistan.

Pentagon spokesperson Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon said army investigators did not substantiate the allegations of harsh interrogations at the U.S. base in Bagram.

Following a court hearing Thursday at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Khadr's military lawyer accused the government of a cover-up since the investigation appeared to stop in October 2006 – the same month U.S. President George W. Bush signed the military law under which Khadr is charged.

During that hearing, the judge also threatened to suspend Khadr's trial because the US government was withholding documents related to his Gitmo imprisonment.

Attorneys for Omar Khadr say details of his interrogations and mental health could provide grounds to suppress self-incriminating statements at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba. Khadr is accused of killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan.

At a pretrial hearing, Judge Peter Brownback, an Army colonel, criticized the prosecution team led by Marine Maj. Jeffrey Groharing for demanding an expedited trial despite failing to obtain the documents from the detention center.

"I have been badgered, beaten and bruised by Maj. Groharing since the 7th of November to set a trial date," Brownback said. "To get a trial date, I need to get discovery done."

His frustration highlights the dueling interests of two military entities at Guantanamo — the tribunal system, which airs the backgrounds of terror suspects in detail, and the Joint Task Force, which tightly restricts information about inmates whom officials describe as some of America's most dangerous enemies.

Brownback said he understands the military's worry that the documents might identify prison officials who fear retribution. But he ordered the government to provide the records of Khadr's day-to-day confinement by May 22, in complete or edited form, or he will suspend proceedings.

It almost looks like the so-called military tribunals system is falling apart.

On top of that, in the Hamdan case:

(CNN) -- A military judge's ruling that a Pentagon lawyer improperly pressured prosecutors could hurt efforts to try top al Qaeda suspects held at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, a defense lawyer said Monday.

The ruling called allegations that Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, the legal adviser to the Office of Military Commissions, exerted improper influence on the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan "troubling" and ordered Hartmann to stay out of the prisoner's prosecution.

Defense attorney Charles Swift said the ruling is likely to stall the pending case against Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's driver and bodyguard, and complicate the prosecutions of other al Qaeda figures before the military courts set up by the Bush administration.

"It would seem that they need to go back to Square 1 wherever the HVD [high-value detainee] charges are concerned or risk the fact that they may be so tainted from the start that they will never survive," said Swift.

With Bushco in its last throes and so desperate to get a big conviction of someone - anyone - before they finally leave the White House they've so severely soiled and in order to boost McCain's bid for the presidency, the next few months will be crucial. But it seems their legal house of cards is finally crumbling to the point where the fates of the remaining Gitmo prisoners may be suspended indefinitely or at least until te next president is chosen.

Are the Gitmo judges finally fighting back against the political pressure or have they concluded that to be involved in a faux, extra-legal process might also mean complicity in war crimes? At this point, while they still operate under the thumb of the Bush administration, it's impossible to know.

One thing is certain though. It's absolutely unacceptable for the remaining presidential candidates to simply parrot the Bush line "the US does not torture" especially when the CIA continues to operate all over the world under the public radar. Torture is a subject they don't seem to want to touch except in terms of useless platitudes. That's not enough.

As was also stated during last week's committee hearings there is also a case that can be made against the lawyers involved in drafting the now infamous torture memos since they could end up being charged with complicity to violate the US and international laws against torture.

On June 26th, Cheney's chief of staff is supposed to appear before the committee after being subpoenaed to do so but Cheney is citing "executive privilege" to stop that from happening. You'd think that if what they did was all legal, they'd have nothing to hide.

Also scheduled to testify in the future are John Yoo, John Ashcroft and Douglas Feith. As far as I know, former Pentagon lawyer (and new corporate counsel to Chevron), William Haynes, whose political interference at Gitmo is now legend has not yet been called. Philippe Sands urged the committee to get his testimony as well since he is a vital piece in the torture policy puzzle.

When this all comes down - and it will, if not in the US but in some other country - the potential number of defendants and the ensuing spectacle may well rival that of the Nuremberg trials in scope but there will always be suspicion when anyone in power tries to ensure the American public and the world that "the US does not torture". And so there should be.


Related:

Bill Moyers' May 9th interview of Phillipe Sands

C-SPAN video of the house judiciary committee hearing

Center for Constitutional Rights Supports National Lawyers Guild Call for Dismissal and Prosecution of John Yoo

The Cult of the Presidency - a look at the evolution of the imperial presidency. The question for this year's presidential candidates is: just how much of that power are they willing to give up so they'll once again be accountable to the people? No one has answered that one sufficiently yet and in the face of the war crimes perpetrated by the Bush administration, it is perhaps the most critical question of all.

Update:

Accused September 11 planners set for court on June 5

Is Bushco hoping for executions just in time for the November elections? Or will the judge involved derail the cases, especially the one against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, on grounds that torture was used to coerce their confessions? Stay tuned.
 
 

The Continuing Imprisonment of Omar Khadr

This is an absolute disgrace:

OTTAWA – A Guantanamo judge has dismissed an argument that Omar Khadr was a child soldier when he was captured in Afghanistan and so in need of protection, not prosecution. The ruling clears the way for the Toronto detainee’s trial.

U.S. Army Col. Peter Brownback’s ruling today, which upholds the Pentagon’s position that there is no minimum age for prosecution for war crimes, comes on the heels of an appearance by Khadr’s U.S. military lawyer before Canadian legislators.

That flies in the face of international law and basic morality and despite domestic and international pressure, Canada's Conservative government absolutely refuses to act until all legal proceedings and appeals have been exhausted with their useless foreign affairs minister, Maxime Bernier, towing the party line by stating that they're not concerned because he's "being well-treated".

That's not the point and we have no way of knowing if that's actually true, especially since Khadr's lawyers claim that he has been tortured and mistreated to the point where his psychological and physical well-being is at serious risk:

Mr. Edney said that when he saw Mr. Khadr recently, his client was so mentally debilitated that he wanted nothing more than crayons and some paper to colour on. Contrary to federal government assurances that Mr. Khadr is doing just fine, Mr. Edney said, his client is actually "ill and going blind. He needs all sorts of help."

The secrecy involved in these so-called tribunals also ought to be enough cause for concern as the Bush administration keeps changing the rules:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration assured the Supreme Court last December that Guantanamo Bay prisoners who felt they were unfairly being detained could have their cases thoroughly reviewed by a federal appeals court. Now, it's not so clear.

When the first case arrived at the appeals court, the Justice Department told the judges they could look at the evidence but should act on the assumption that the military made the right decisions at Guantanamo Bay.

That assertion led to a testy exchange recently between Appellate Judge Merrick B. Garland and Justice Department attorney Gregory Katsas. Garland wanted an explanation for the contradiction. Katsas said there was no contradiction at all.

The exchange underscores the challenge facing the administration: It doesn't want judges overseeing terrorism cases, but it can't eliminate them from the process without first getting their approval.

Normally, a prisoner who believes he's being unfairly detained can ask the courts to free him. It's a right known as habeas corpus that dates back to the 1300s and was written into the Constitution.

But the administration says that right does not exist for Guantanamo detainees. For years, administration officials have tried to limit judges' role in hearing detainees' cases and twice the administration has been set back by the Supreme Court.
[...]
The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on the new detainee law. In doing so, it might spell out what role the appeals court is supposed to play.

It may sound like a mere argument about words — a semantics debate between "preponderance" and "deferential" — but the outcome will help determine how much oversight courts have over what happens at Guantanamo Bay.

The legal quagmire has gone on for years while the Gitmo prisoners are held in a hellish limbo while being presumed guilty.

Meanwhile:

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, April 28 -- The Defense Department's former chief prosecutor for terrorism cases appeared Monday at the controversial U.S. detention facility here to argue on behalf of a terrorism suspect [Salim Ahmed Hamdan], that the military justice system has been corrupted by politics and inappropriate influence from senior Pentagon officials.

Sitting just feet from the courtroom table where he had once planned to make cases against military detainees, Air Force Col. Morris Davis instead took the witness stand to declare under oath that he felt undue pressure to hurry cases along so that the Bush administration could claim before political elections that the system was working.

Davis told Navy Capt. Keith J. Allred, who presided over the hearing, that top Pentagon officials, including Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England, made it clear to him that charging some of the highest-profile detainees before elections this year could have "strategic political value."

Davis said he wants to wait until the cases -- and the military commissions system -- have a more solid legal footing. He also said that Defense Department general counsel William J. Haynes II, who announced his retirement in February, once bristled at the suggestion that some defendants could be acquitted, an outcome that Davis said would give the process added legitimacy.

"He said, 'We can't have acquittals,' " Davis said under questioning from Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, the military counsel who represents Hamdan. " 'We've been holding these guys for years. How can we explain acquittals? We have to have convictions.' "

Does anybody, including our foreign affairs minister, need any more evidence that the entire military tribunals process is just a political farce created by an imperialist administration bent on justifying to the public that its 'war on terror' is supposedly succeeding at the expense of defendants whose fates are predetermined?

Several other countries have long ago repatriated their citizens who were interred at the Gitmo gulag, yet Canada's government - holding on to its Bush poodle status even though he will soon be a distant memory (good riddance) - continues to try to boost the political image of the Republicans by using Omar Khadr as a political pawn. If only there was a way to hold this government criminally responsible for abandoning the one Canadian citizen left rotting in Gitmo.

The situation is simple: Canada's Conservatives are complicit in the prosecution and mistreatment of a child soldier and there is absolutely no defence for that.
 

Banned from Gitmo: Lord of the Rings

Is it Gollum's fault?:

[Omar] Khadr’s military lawyer, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Bill Kuebler, told reporters here yesterday that hundreds of pages of documents had been taken from Khadr, hindering his efforts to have the Toronto detainee help him prepare his case.

Khadr had not been allowed to keep the documents in his cell but was able to have the guards bring them to him in the past. When he asked for the documents earlier this week the guards brought him an empty box.

The public affairs office of the Joint Task Force – the military unit responsible for operations at the prison – issued a statement today saying the documents had been returned to Khadr.

“During his last visit with counsel, Khadr’s legal materials were combined/mixed with a variety of other items, to include a copy of the script to Lord of the Rings, various pictures and a variety of internet articles,” the statement read.

“The Lord of the Rings screenplay has been returned to Kuebler as a violation of the prohibition against providing detainees materials that are not directly related to his representation of his client.”

“The issue would not have arisen had counsel not provided materials to the detainee that were not related to the defense of his military case.”

One of Khadr’s defence lawyers had given him the movie script during a prior visit.

“He wants nothing more in life than to see Lord of the Rings,” Kuebler told reporters after coming to the base’s media centre for an impromptu news conference.

Can they possibly be more ridiculous? They've imprisoned child soldier Omar Khadr since 2002 without a proper trial in one of the most repressive environments known and yet they would deny him the slighest bit of entertainment in the form of a movie script and dominoes? What are they so afraid of?
 

The Khadr Case: Did the US military manufacture evidence?

Here's the latest in the long, dark saga of Omar Khadr:

A military commander "retroactively altered" a report of a gunbattle in Afghanistan in 2002 to redirect blame for a U.S. soldier's death to Omar Khadr, Khadr's defence lawyer alleged Thursday.

Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler made the allegation during a pretrial hearing Thursday for the 21-year-old Canadian citizen at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Kuebler alleged that in August 2002, one day after the gunbattle involving Khadr, a U.S. on-site commander identified only as "Colonel W" wrote a report on the attack.

In the report, the commander said a U.S. soldier killed a man identified as the suspect in the slaying of Speer, said Kuebler.

However, the report was revised months later, under the same date, to say a U.S. fighter had only "engaged" the assailant, according to Kuebler, who said the later version was presented to him by prosecutors as an "updated" document.

"What we have is, as I said at the outset, is this manufactured story about Omar's participation in the event, or this myth about Omar's participation in the event, which appears to have been manufactured at some point during his detention," Kuebler said.

"And then you have government records, official government records, being retroactively altered to be consistent with that manufactured story."

Prosecutors, who did not contest Kuebler's account in court, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Absolutely unconscionable.

And not only that:

U.S. NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO, Cuba -- The likelihood the United States subjected Omar Khadr to harsh interrogations some would call torture increased Thursday after it emerged one of his early interrogators had been court-martialled for abusing prisoners and had also been involved in an interrogation of a detainee who died.

Legal arguments before the U.S. war crimes commission in Guantanamo Bay indicated Sgt. Joshua Claus of military intelligence participated in many, maybe all, of the interrogations of the Canadian terror suspect after U.S. forces delivered him to the Bagram detention centre in Afghanistan in July 2002.

A U.S. army investigation into the deaths of two other Bagram detainees in late 2002 describes a litany of coercive techniques he allegedly used to interrogate one of the men.
[...]
Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler said Sgt. Claus "didn't just participate in numerous interrogations of Omar, according to (prosecutor Major Jeffrey Groharing), he did virtually all of them.

Just how much more does Khadr have to endure before this Bush-sockpuppet Canadian government finally demands his release?

Related:

Yemeni describes CIA secret jails
 

Bombshell: Did Cheney's Office Leak the Khadr Video?

That's what Omar Khadr's defence lawyers want to know.

According to the Globe & Mail:

Lieutenant Commander Bill Kuebler said he is trying to find out how a highly secret video showing Mr. Khadr in Afghanistan was leaked to the U.S. news program 60 Minutes. The video appears to show Mr. Khadr building a bomb.

The news program aired the footage last November.

Lt.-Cmdr Kuebler, Mr. Khadr's top U.S. military lawyer, said he met with Colonel Morris Davis, the previous top prosecutor of military commissions – the body that is expected to try Mr. Khadr in Guantanamo Bay later this year – last week.

At the meeting, Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler asked the Colonel where he thought the leak may have come from. In response, Lt. Cmdr. Kuebler said, Col. Davis offered the opinion that the Vice-President's office may have been involved.

Col. Davis resigned as chief prosecutor in October of last year, saying political pressure was interfering with his job.

Khadr's lawyers claim that if the leak did come from Cheney's office, it is evidence that Khadr is being held as a political prisoner.

Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler said the prosecution had wanted to play the tape in court – in view of the media – late last year, but the request was denied by a judge. A few weeks later, 60 Minutes had the report.

So, who gave it to 60 Minutes and why?

Colonel Morris Davis is certainly no friend of Omar Khadr's. And in 2006, he had this to say about Khadr's lawyers as the chief prosecutor:

In a rare appearance before the international media, Air Force Colonel Morris Davis called sympathetic portrayals of Khadr by defence lawyers "nauseating" and suggested the 19-year-old has fabricated claims of torture at the hands of his American interrogators.

"We'll see evidence when we get into the courtroom of the smiling face of Omar Khadr as he builds bombs to kill Americans," Col. Davis said on the eve of a planned pre-trial hearing here for Khadr before a special U.S. military commission.

"It isn't a great leap to figure out why we are holding him accountable."

In December, 2007 however, he wrote this op-ed in the LA Times in which he outlined his reasons for his resignation - a litany of all things wrong with the so-called military tribunals process including the use of evidence obtained by torture.

It's highly doubtful that someone of his rank would throw out a flagrant allegation of the possible involvement of someone in Cheney's office without some inkling that it might be true. We'll have to wait to see if he debunks Kuebler's account of what was said at their meeting first. If not, where there's smoke, there may be fire once again in the vice president's cocoon.

Related:

60 Minutes - "Omar Khadr: The Youngest Terrorist?"
 

Defending Omar Khadr

The US military may have unwittingly tripped itself up on Wednesday by offering these proclamations about a video they discovered allegedly containing boys recruited by al Qaeda in Iraq.

Here are some quotes from their news conference:

The insurgent group “wants to poison the next generation of Iraqis,” said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, an American spokesman, at a briefing about the group’s use of women and children.

Military officials say they believe that the tapes are used during sessions with children in “the process of indoctrination and training that starts early to ensure they grow up to become future terrorists when they become of age,” he said.

If I was one of Omar Khadr's lawyers, I'd definitely grab onto those words along with these spoken by Major General Geoffrey Miller (torture-loving asshole that he is) back in 2003, referring to other juveniles held in Gitmo at the time:

Miller recommended that the Defense Department send them home because he had determined that they had been "kidnapped into terrorism," posed a low risk, and had no further intelligence to provide.

Saying that children are being indoctrinated or that they've been "kidnapped into terrorism" runs contrary to what government lawyers have claimed in their case against Omar Khadr as he languishes in Gitmo. To the contrary, they are more than willing to refuse to see Khadr as one of those indoctrinated children and are attempting to hold him responsible for crimes allegedly committed when he was a child soldier - just as the boys al Qaeda has recruited in Iraq would be labeled.

The US military and the Bush administration can't have it both ways. They release videos like this to point out how ruthless al Qaeda supposedly is towards children while trying to prosecute the one child soldier (that we know of) that they have in custody.

On top of that, new evidence in Khadr's case shows just how dishonest the US military has been in its zeal to prosecute him as they try to pile on even more charges against him:

The document inadvertently handed out to the media in a military courtroom here on Monday shows that, according to the U.S. witness who was closest to the action, there was one other fighter alive inside an Afghan compound during a 2002 gun battle when a grenade was lobbed at U.S. troops entering the compound, killing Sergeant First Class Christopher Speer. It had long been assumed that Mr. Khadr was the only person alive inside the compound at the time, and thus must have thrown the grenade. Sgt. Speer's killing is the basis of the murder charge against the Canadian.
[...]
The revelation that one other person was alive inside the compound when the grenade was lobbed cast doubt on whether Mr. Khadr was the only person who could have thrown the grenade. No U.S. personnel actually saw him toss it. The witness quoted in the document also says he saw two men dead under the rubble and debris when he entered the compound. Since the two men may well have been killed by the air strikes, they could have fired on the two Afghan soldiers.

And, check out this this stunningly arrogant piece of US propaganda:

U.S. NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO, CUBA - The chief military prosecutor in the Omar Khadr case says the fact the Canadian terror suspect survived after a U.S. operative shot him twice is a testament to the "way America fights."

That's right: Khadr should be grateful that he's in Gitmo because some "U.S. operative" couldn't shoot straight. Anyone who believes he was actually spared as some sort of twisted show of compassion is a fool.

Frankly, this is just infuriating and shows just how completely convoluted the US military spin has been in this case:

"What does it show that he is alive today?" Morris told Canwest News Service Wednesday. "It shows how America fights; that we instantly go to the aid of somebody who is out of combat, as we did there.

"But for the instant vigilant response of our military and medical personnel he would not have lived."

He was shot - twice - in the back. The reason he was treated is because the "operative" didn't manage to kill him. Does anybody think he was somehow aiming at Khadr's toes to save him from death?

The Bush administration takes pride in the fact that it will be the first country to try a child soldier.

The longer this goes on, the worse it gets. I don't give a damn about "America's reputation" in all of this. That was soiled years ago, and rightly so. What I do care about however is justice - a concept totally foreign to this sham military tribunal system.
 

Random News & Views Roundup

- Did you know that Pakistan tested a medium range missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead just a few days ago? If, like me, you wonder why this happened now - in the midst of political chaos in that country - you'll find this Asia Times piece quite interesting.

- And, while you're at the Asia Times, check out this article by Tom Englehardt: Bombs away over Iraq: Who cares?. It's an eye-opening look at the increased use of air power in Iraq and the tens of thousands of pounds of bombs being dropped.

- Speaking of bombs: U.S. Says It Accidentally Killed 9 Iraqi Civilians (again) and Editor & Publisher takes on the claim that mentally disabled women (which the Times of London has labeled "Down's Syndrome Bombers") were used as suicide bombers in the latest Baghdad market attack.

- Omar Khadr's lawyers are back in the so-called "court" at Gitmo on Monday:

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - A U.S. military tribunal will hear arguments Monday on whether it has the right to try Omar Khadr, a Canadian captured as a 15-year-old while fighting against American forces in Afghanistan in 2002.

Lawyers for Khadr, now 21, argue in a challenge on the hearings' agenda that the judge would be the first in western history to preside over a trial for alleged war crimes committed by a child.
[...]
Khadr's trial is scheduled for May and is on track to be the first for a detainee at the U.S. naval base in southeast Cuba, where the Pentagon's efforts to hold the first war-crimes trials since the Second World War era have been stalled by legal setbacks.

A Pentagon spokesman, navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, said that Khadr's age may be considered during the sentencing phase if he is convicted - but it does not affect the trial.

While the deck is stacked against Khadr, pressure from international human rights group is mounting - urging Canada's heartless government to do the right thing. This weekend, UNICEF released a statement in support of Khadr's rights as well.

If in contact with a justice system, persons under 18 at the time of the alleged offense must be treated in accordance with international juvenile justice standards which provide them with special protection.

- The IAEA's Mohammed ElBaradei reports that Iran is cooperating with his agency's inquiry into Iran's nuclear facilities and that his report will be released later this month. The clock is ticking. Will Bush start one more war before he leaves office? Could the fact that Iran is without internet access right now be related? Here's more on that.

- Finally, this news in Afghanistan is reportedly causing strains between the Brits and Karzai: Revealed: British plan to build training camp for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan
 

Canada Places the US and Israel on Torture Watch List

Yes, I'm talking about Canada's Conservative government.

Via Reuters:

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's foreign ministry has put the United States and Israel on a watch list of countries where prisoners risk being tortured and also classifies some U.S. interrogation techniques as torture, according to a document obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

The revelation is likely to embarrass the minority Conservative government, which is a staunch ally of both the United States and Israel. Both nations denied they allowed torture in their jails.

The document -- part of a training course on torture awareness given to diplomats -- mentions the U.S. jail at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where a Canadian man [Omar Khadr] is being held.
[...]
"The training manual is not a policy document and does not reflect the views or policies of this government," he [Foreign Affairs minister Bernier] said.

The government mistakenly provided the document to Amnesty International Canada as part of a court case the rights organization has launched against Ottawa over the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan.

Well, this is bound to be interesting...
 

The Joints Chiefs Chairman Thinks Gitmo Should be Closed

And just what is his main concern?

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - The chief of the U.S. military [Admiral Mike Mullen] said Sunday he favors closing the prison here as soon as possible because he believes negative publicity worldwide about treatment of terrorist suspects has been "pretty damaging" to the image of the United States.

I just happened to watch the documentary The Road to Guantanamo on Sunday afternoon about the experiences of three young British men now known as 'The Tipton Three' who, due to circumstances beyond their control, ended up in Gitmo falsely accused of being al Qaeda 'terrorists'. They were eventually freed, having never been charged with anything but having endured the brutal interrogation regime the US military now infamously employs at Gitmo and elsewhere in its military gulags.

So, when I see a statement from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs stating that he wants to shut down Gitmo because it has damaged America's precious image, I can't help but ask why he didn't express any concern about the irreparable damage it's down to peoples' lives. There is no humanity to be found in the Bush administration. None.

On Friday:

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A US court Friday turned down a claim by four British former detainees that they were tortured at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, saying accused officials acted as part of their jobs.
[...]
Without addressing the details of the alleged treatment, the judge said the officials could not be made individually responsible for it under the terms of the suit brought against them, since they were doing their jobs.

"While the plaintiffs challenge the methods the defendants used to perform their duties, the plaintiffs do not allege that the defendants acted as rogue officials or employees who implemented a policy of torture for reasons unrelated to the gathering of intelligence," the ruling said.

They were just doing their jobs. Where have we heard that before?

...under the Nuremberg Principles, "defense of superior orders" is not a defense for war crimes, although it might influence a sentencing authority to lessen the penalty.

"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."

The United States military adjusted the Uniform Code of Military Justice after World War II. They included a rule nullifying this defense, essentially stating that American military personnel are allowed to refuse unlawful orders.

But now, they don't even have to refuse illegal orders because the US judicial system allows them to get away with that defence unless they're acting as 'rogue' agents and CIA agents were granted immunity for torture with the passage of the Military Commissions Act (which Mr Anti-torture, John McCain, voted for). In which moral universe does this even make sense?

If the Joint Chiefs chairman is so damn concerned about his country's image, maybe he'd better take a good look at the people surrounding him in Washington and start questioning how it managed to get so bad. He can start with someone like the current Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell:

"You can do waterboarding lots of ways ... I assume you can get to the point that a person is actually drowning," McConnell said in the New Yorker article, which paraphrased him as agreeing that this would certainly be torture.

You just know there's a qualification coming after that statement though ...and here it is:

McConnell said he could not be more specific because "if it ever is determined to be torture, there will be a huge penalty to be paid for anyone engaging in it."

No doubt. If McConnell acknowledged the US was actually torturing people, someone, like his buddy Michael Mukasey at the justice department who can't even bring himself to admit waterboarding really is torture, just might have to do something about it. And that's exactly why every single lawsuit filed against the Bush administration on torture issues has either been explained away like the one I noted above or has simply been dismissed on grounds of 'national security' which has just become a coded phrase the Bush administration uses to cover up its war crimes.

If the US is so proud of its 'legal' interrogation techniques, why did the CIA destroy videotapes of those practices in 2005?

The US government, no matter who is running it once the Bush cabal leaves office, will definitely have a huge uphill battle restoring its image, credibility, and respect in the world. The place to start, however, would seem to be a tacit admission of all of the lives it has ruined through its torture, illegal invasion of Iraq and simplistic and sadistic neocon foreign and domestic policy stances that have amplified what have been longstanding, but often forgiven practices by successive US administrations. And, among the current crop of front runners in the presidential primaries, there is not one - not one - who would willingly stand up on the world stage, pledge to start with that sorely needed honesty and who would then follow through by destroying the culture within the government, intelligence agencies, and the military that has so corrupted the lives of millions around the world. 'Change' ought to be more than an empty campaign promise. And frankly, I don't care much if the US ever regains its exalted reputation in the world - so undeserved for so long - but, for the sake of those Americans who have fought against the military industrial and corporatist/capitalist pariahs for years on end - for those individuals - I do care.

Related: The Center for Constitutional Rights response to Friday's court case.

Amnesty International's Six years of illegal US detentions includes videos of protests held on Friday to mark the 6th anniversary of Gitmo.

Voice of America has more protest coverage.

Andy Worthington: Six Years Of Guantánamo: Enough Is Enough

Those concerned about the continuing imprisonment of child soldier, Omar Khadr, should contact Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs to push for his release because our minority Conservative government (Bush's newest poodle brigade) refuses to act on his behalf.