Guantanamo; The New-world Icon

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K

Thu, 23 Jun 2005 23:30:22 -0400

Guantanamo; The New-world Icon

 

 

 

As Amnesty International's Curt Goering puts it, the administration

" plans to memorialize in bricks and mortar its decision to operate

outside of the law. " This is precisely the case. Guantanamo is

emblematic of a militarized world stripped of humanity or justice. It

looms as the salient icon of the new world order.

 

 

 

Guantanamo; The New-world Icon

 

Most of the inmates " have never eaten better.have never been treated

better.courtesy of the American taxpayer. " Duncan Hunter, chairman of

the US House Armed Services Committee defending allegations of

mistreatment at Guantanamo Bay.

 

by Mike Whitney

 

06/22/05 " ICH " - - We can add a new chapter to the Bush

Administration's war on free speech as it was revealed yesterday that

an Al Jazeera cameraman has been in custody for three years at

Guantanamo Bay. Al-Hajj a Sudanese national was arrested in

Afghanistan in 2001 and has remained in prison without being charged

for 4 years.

 

Is this what Rumsfeld breezily refers to as the " worst of the worst " ?

If so, independent journalists around the world should take note.

 

The report of Al-Haj's unlawful detention comes on the heels of a

growing furor over eye-witness accounts of torture at Gitmo and an

outcry from human rights groups (and members of Congress) to close

down the facility.

 

Amnesty International, who referred to the prison as " the gulag of our

times " , has again been vindicated in its claims by these new charges

that Al-Haj " has suffered extreme physical, sexual and religious

abuse " ; charges that are consistent with other reports that the US is

practicing " systematic " abuse of detainees.

 

Attorney Clive Stafford-Smith, who visited clients at Guantanamo two

weeks ago, said that " Sami Al-Hajj had been beaten by his

interrogators " . . " He has been beaten. He had a huge scar on his face

when I saw him. " (Al Jazeera)

 

" He is completely innocent, " said Stafford-Smith. " He is about as much

of a terrorist as my granddad. The only reason he has been treated

like he has is because he is an Aljazeera journalist. The Americans

have tried to make him an informant with the goal of getting him to

say that Aljazeera is linked to al-Qaida. "

 

Stafford-Smith's claims seem more credible given the open hostility of

the Bush Administration, and particularly Donald Rumsfeld, towards Al

Jazeera. Rumsfeld ordered the bombing of Al Jazeera's news facilities

in Kabul and Baghdad. (even though the US military had been given the

coordinates by Al Jazeera.) In the siege of Baghdad an F-16 launched a

direct hit on the Al Jazeera station, killing veteran journalist Tariq

Ayoub, even though there was no indication of fighting in the area.

Many consider the attack to be a " premeditated " act of murder.

 

Rumsfeld continued his attack on Al Jazeera last week with a rambling

harangue completely divorced from the facts. At a security conference

in Singapore he said, " if anyone lived in the Middle East and watched

a network like the Aljazeera day after day after day, even if he was

an American, he would start waking up and asking what's wrong " .

 

" But America is not wrong. It's the people who are going on television

chopping off people's heads, that is wrong, " he said.

 

In fact, Al Jazeera has never broadcast images of hostages being

beheaded. The video of Nick Berg's execution appeared on an

independent web site. But, by now, we know that the facts are of

little concern to Rumsfeld; what he wants is uniformity of opinion and

a narrative that reflects the positive aspects of America's aggression

in Iraq. To that end, he has enlisted the support of America's

" embedded " journalists and intentionally targeted anyone who veers

from the accepted storyline. (Presently, at least 8 journalists are

being detained by the US in Iraq; some of whom apparently have stories

and footage of Rumsfeld's Dresden-type destruction of Falluja)

Guantanamo's Apologists

 

In the last week Donald Rumsfeld and VP Dick Cheney have defended

Guantanamo publicly claiming it's an indispensable part of the war on

terror. General Richard Meyers went as far to say that it was a " model

facility " ; an appraisal that is strikingly at odds with the reports of

torture and the mistreatment of prisoners. Right-wing columnist

Charles Krauthammer, a dependable source for absurd commentary, noted

that treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo was " remarkably humane and

tolerant " . (This from a pundit whose anti-Arab sentiments have deep

roots and a long history) Neither Cheney, Rumsfeld, Meyers nor

Krauthammer addressed the numerous accounts of prisoners " chained hand

and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or

water. Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves and had

been left there for 18, 24 hours or more. "

(from an FBI report)

 

Never the less, the debate over Guantanamo is not about to disappear

anytime soon. Even supporters of the war in Iraq, like Tom Friedman

and Senator Joe Biden, understand that the prison has been a public

relations nightmare that has emboldened America's enemies and put

American soldiers at greater risk.

 

In a June 21 article in the New York Times, Anthony Lewis chronicles

some of the incidents of cruelty at Guantanamo and notes the

violations to the Geneva Conventions which prohibit " outrages upon

personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment. "

He also refers the less frequently mentioned United Nations Convention

against Torture which requires the US to " prevent in any territory

under its jurisdiction ..cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. " The

Bush Administration has painstakingly constructed legal arguments that

refute the applicability of both conventions, strongly suggesting that

they are willfully engaged in war crimes.

 

To fully appreciate the depravity of the Bush claque, we only need to

visit the Rush Limbaugh web site, where the drug-addicted spokesman

for the administration is currently hawking T-shirts (Orange; " I got

my free Koran and Prayer Rug at G'itmo " or, orange baseball cap

reading " Camp G'itmo " ) and baseball caps in an public relations scheme

to trivialize the horrors of systematic torture of detainees in US

custody. Limbaugh has always been at the forefront of apologists for

the abuse of prisoners. During the Abu Ghraib scandal he defended the

conduct of the military by saying that " they were just blowing off

steam " . Perhaps, Limbaugh finds something uplifting about being

" sodomized with a chemical light " or having " electrodes attached to

his penis to simulate electric torture " ; it's impossible to know. But,

for most sane people, these are conspicuous acts of barbarism for

which the perpetrators must be held accountable.

 

Plan Gitmo

 

Despite widespread condemnation, the Bush Administration will never

abandon the Guantanamo concentration camp. As Amnesty International's

Curt Goering puts it, the administration " plans to memorialize in

bricks and mortar its decision to operate outside of the law. " This is

precisely the case. Guantanamo is emblematic of a militarized world

stripped of humanity or justice. It looms as the salient icon of the

new world order.

 

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at:

fergiewhitney