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January
16, 2002
Kathy
Kelly
An
Open Letter to
Richard Perle on Iraq
January
15, 2002
George
Monbiot
Greenpeace,
Lord Melchett
and the Business of Betrayal
Jack McCarthy
Follow
the Pretzel
William
Blum
Atta
and the Times:
Follow the Changing Story
Edward
Said
Emerging
Alternatives
in Palestine
January
14, 2002
David
Vest
Open
Bag. Eat Pretzels.
Patrick
Cockburn
Collapse
of Georgia
Ignored by the World
Mokhiber/Weissman
Enron's
Accountants:
When In Doubt, Shred It
January
13, 2002
C.G. Estabrook
Why
We Kill People
January
12, 2002
Cockburn/St.
Clair
Forbidden
Truths
January
11, 2002
Lee Balllinger/Dave
Marsh
Neil
Young's Duet with Ashcroft
January
10, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Bush,
Enron, UNOCAL
and the Taliban
St. Clair/Cockburn
Greenpeace
to Greenwash?
Hans von
Sponek
Iraq:
Is There an Alternative
to Military Action?
Jim Lobe
Israeli
Human Rights Group Assails Army
Marina Mayakova
Russia's
Top Military Astrologer Predicts More Attacks from OBL
January
9, 2002
David
Vest
The
Super-Burqa
and the Big Tent
ND Jayaprakash
Winnable
Nuclear War?
Rafiq
Kathwari
Kashmir
Will Make Ground Zero Look Like a Bonfire
January
8, 2002
Prudence
Crowther
Sting
Like a B-52
Nelson
Valdés
Al-Qaeda
at Guantanamo Bay
John Chuckman
Dark
Tales from the
Ministry of Truth
Richard
Corn-Revere
Do
We Fear Freedom?
Joan Hoff
The
Nixon You Haven't Heard
January
7, 2002
Lawrence
McGuire
Confusing
Economic Tales About Argentina
Wael Masri
They
Are Taking
Our Rights Away
Philip
Farruggio
Better
Medicine
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
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War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
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CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
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The
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January
16, 2002
Subverting the
Geneva Convention
All They Will Call You Is...Detainee
By Lawrence McGuire
Some of the terms used by America
to describe the prisoners, such as "battlefield detainees",
have no legal meaning, the Red Cross says. (Kim Sengupta The
Independent, U.K., Jan. 14, 2002)
How does the song go? 'You won't have a name
when you ride the big airplane, all they will call you will be.'
Ah, the importance of words and names
in the scheme of things.
We need a word for this odor. It's not
exactly fascism (though Hitler certainly knew how to dehumanize
his enemies), and of course it's not State Communism (though
Stalin certainly knew the value of 'legal' show trials), but
it's starting to smell similar to both. Because, judging from
the aromas wafting over the news wires, it sure seems like cold
blooded judicial murder is coming to Guantanamo Bay.
First I read that there were Afghan prisoners
in chains with bags over their heads:
The photograph [in the New York Times]
clearly showed that the prisoners suspected of belonging to al-Qaeda
had their arms pinioned behind them and had bags over their heads,
secured with metallic tape. (Terry Jones, The Observer, U.K.,
Jan. 6, 2002)
Then I learned these prisoners were being
flown from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba, by the U.S.
military. This treatment of prisoners is considered torture
by the Geneva Convention. Apparently the Pentagon got worried
about the photos because a few days later:
Pentagon officials ordered several
news organizations not to transmit pictures of the hooded detainees
boarding planes. (Jim Lobe,
OneWorld.net Jan.11, 2002)
Next I learn that the prisoners were
also forcibly shaved, head and beard, (a deliberate desecration
of their religious beliefs). Perhaps this is the reason for
both the bag over the head and the Pentagon's fear of photographs?
What does a malnourished human being with a shaved head shackled
in chains remind you of?
However, not to worry. The International
Red Cross would apparently be in charge of the prisoners in Guantanamo
Bay:
There the prisoners will be isolated
in individual open-air fenced cells with metal roofs. They will
sleep on mats under halogen floodlights. They could get wet from
rain, but officials say they will be treated humanely. The Red
Cross and other organizations will monitor conditions (Suzanne
Goldenberg, The Guardian, U.K., Jan. 11, 2002)
But then I read that this same organization
had not even seen the prisoners in Afghanistan, and that they
were unable to get any straight information from the U.S. Government:
However, attempts by the ICRC [Red
Cross] to get Washington to spell out the exact status of its
Afghan prisoners has resulted in a variety of often contradictory
responses from different departments in the administration, according
to diplomatic sources.The Independent has learnt, though, that
the ICRC has not been able to get access to the prisoners in
Bagram and Mazar-i-Sharif, and has discovered that about 360
being held in Kandahar are being kept in unsheltered stockades
in the bitterly cold winter, without any privacy. These conditions
would breach the Geneva Convention. (Kim Sengupta, the Independent,
UK, Jan. 14, 2002)
So, if the Red Cross knows little about
what is happening to the prisoners in Afghanistan, how much will
they know in Guantanamo Bay? And why Guantanamo Bay in the first
place? It sure seems like a long distance from Afghanistan.
Then clarity clicked like a lock snapping
shut. I read that Guantanamo Bay is a very special place. It's
a place where international and national law does not apply:
The prisoners are sent to the Guantanamo
base in part because it is not on U.S. territory which would
automatically provide detainees with certain basic constitutional
rights. At the same time, base operations at Guantanamo Bay are
not affected by an agreement with the host government that also
might provide detainees with more rights. (Jim Lobe, OneWorld.net,
Jan. 11, 2002)
Because they are being held outside
US sovereign territory, they are also denied the rights to a
jury trial in independent courts afforded to "ordinary"
criminals by the constitution. Washington has indicated that
they will be tried by military tribunals. (Paul Kelso, Jan.
14, 2002, The Guardian, UK)
No international law, because you are
called a detainee, not a prisoner of war. No law from a 'host
government' because Cuba is not voluntarily hosting a U.S. military
base. No domestic constitutional law because you are not on
U.S. territory. No law.what does that mean?
Now we can meditate on the implications
of the Patriot Act passed last fall, which allows for military
tribunals and subsequent execution for 'terrorism'.
Let's imagine these prisoners (and we'll
have to imagine them because we will probably never see them
or hear much about them). Let's give one of them a name, Ali
the Dishwasher, for example.
Ali perhaps comes from Saudi Arabia.
He was recruited by his government as a soldier to go to Afghanistan
and fight the Soviet Union. The C.I.A. paid for his flight and
training and expenses. After the Soviets withdrew Ali started
getting his paycheck from the Pakistan secret police, to encourage
him to stay in Afghanistan and support the Taleban. Because
Ali was a soldier, recruited as a soldier and trained as a soldier,
he, like all soldiers, just followed orders. They ordered him
to wash dishes (I'm sure even terrorist training camps need dishwashers).
He sent money home every month to his
family in Saudi Arabia. He was a hero back in his hometown,
just like American soldiers are heroes back in their hometowns.
The folks back home didn't realize that he was just a dishwasher
in a training camp.
The Americans start bombing Afghanistan
and Ali goes with his fellow soldiers, dodging bombs, fighting
here and there, finally getting captured.
Now, maybe Ali the Dishwasher also killed
men in battle. A lot of soldiers do that. Maybe he even killed
civilians, a lot of soldiers do that also (American pilots, for
example, killed around 5,000 civilians recently in Afghanistan).
But he is still a soldier. Why, even Ronald Reagan called Ali
a freedom fighter. And Sylvester Stallone dedicated 'Rambo 3'
to him and his fellow mujadeen.
But the U.S. authorities don't call him
a captured soldier, a prisoner of war, because that would give
him some theoretical rights. They humiliate him by shaving his
head and beard, put a bag over his head, put him in chains, 'sedate'
him with some kind of drug, and fly him to Guantanamo Bay.
Then what? He'll be tried by a U.S.
military tribunal, without any of the legal rules for due process.
What kind of evidence will prove his innocence? Will he even
have a lawyer? Will he be able to call witnesses from Afghanistan,
or Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia, or the C.I.A. offices in Langley,
Virginia?
I doubt it.
He's found guilty, with no possibility
of appeal. His name changes from detainee to convicted terrorist.
Then, as an example to the world, and perhaps to the cheers
of a deluded American populace, he's executed.
How does the song go? 'You won't have
a name when you ride the big airplane, all they will call you
will be detainee'.
Ali the Dishwasher: Freedom Fighter,
Mujahdeen, Soldier, Unlawful Combattant, Detainee, Terrorist.
Guilty. Executed.
Lawrence McGuire
is a novelist who lives in France. His latest most recent book
is The
Great American Wagon Road. He can be reached at: blmcguire@hotmail.com
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