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January
23, 2002
Robert
Jensen
Speak
Out, Get Slimed
January
22, 2002
Brendan
Cooney
Moby-Dick
and the Hunt
for Osama bin Laden
Rick Giombetti
Progressive
Pols for Enron?
Judith
Resnik
Invading
the Courts?
Kevin
Alexander Gray
The
Crisis in Black Leadership
January
21, 2002
Marjorie
Cohn
Will
Walker's Words
Be Used Against Him?
Ahmad
Faruqui
MLK
Jr. and the Palestinians
January
19. 2002
Jordan
Green
Enron
Stole Our Future
January
18, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
The
Enron Model
Walt Brasch
Enron
at the White House
CounterPunch
Wire
Human
Rights Groups Says Guantanamo Prisoners Must
Be Treated as POWs
January
17, 2002
Gideon
Levy
Bulldozing
Rafah
Uri Avnery
That
Weapons Shipment
January
16, 2002
John Chuckman
The
Angel and the Pretzel
Lawrence
McGuire
Subverting
the
Geneva Convention
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:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
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Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
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Photos by Allan Sekula
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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:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
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
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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Reviews of Gore:
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January
23, 2002
Former Beirut Hostage
Speaks Out on the Guantanamo Prisoners
Justice or Revenge?
By Terry Waite
I can recognise the conditions that prisoners
are being kept in at the US camp at Guantanamo Bay because I
have been there. Not to Cuba's Camp X-Ray, but to the darkened
cell in Beirut that I occupied for five years. I was chained
to a wall by my hands and feet; beaten on the soles of my feet
with cable; denied all my human rights, and contact with my family
for five years, and given no access to the outside world. Because
I was kept in very similar conditions, I am appalled at the way
we - countries that call ourselves civilised - are treating these
captives. Is this justice or revenge?
I was determined that my five years in
captivity would not break me, and they didn't. But I cannot say
that it was easy. The hardest thing for a prisoner in those conditions
is the uncertainty. You don't know what will happen to you next:
you have no rights, no one to speak to, no one to advise you,
no one to fall back on. You only have your own resources. These
men, who may or may not be guilty, will be experiencing that
sense of isolation and dislocation.
For four years I was kept in solitary
confinement and had no companionship at all. I was always blindfolded,
or had to wear a blindfold when someone came into the room. I
never saw another human being. The initial effect is eerie, but
eventually you become accustomed to it. You learn to live from
within. But that's tough, and no one should be forced to attempt
it.
I had a diet very similar to that being
given to these men - bread, cream cheese, rice, beans. I was
adequately fed, but not luxuriously, and I lost a lot of weight.
The greatest difficulty was never having any exercise in the
whole period. I had to get what exercise I could while chained
to the wall. I had five minutes a day to go to the bathroom;
for the rest of the time I had to use a bottle. The conditions
were inhuman, but all the time I had to assert my humanity. What
I experienced makes me all the more determined when I say that
prisoners of whatever description must be treated humanely and
justly. I would stand up for the rights of the alleged terrorist
and of any other individual facing serious charges. I am not
soft on terrorism - I have had too many dealings with it to be
so - but I am passionate that we must observe standards of justice.
I fear that unless firm action is taken to institute just and
fair procedures, the long-term results for the US will be catastrophic.
Terrorism is not ultimately defeated by the force of arms; you
have to deal with the root causes and ask what makes people act
in such extreme ways.
It alarms me greatly that the prisoners'
status seems to have been determined almost exclusively by the
US president and his advisers. Their status should be determined
by an independent tribunal. The US seems to be making up the
rules as it goes along. First, it said that the appalling acts
of terrorism in New York and Washington were acts of war; now
it is saying that these captives are not in fact prisoners of
war, that they are unlawful combatants. An independent tribunal
should establish precisely what they are.
If the US is making up the rules, it
will have no moral authority should other countries try, convict
and perhaps execute American and European suspects. There will
be no moral grounds on which we can stand if we allow this to
continue. Americans tell me that they have little patience with
international tribunals - they take a long time, and often come
up with a different result from that which was hoped. But that
is no argument. It doesn't matter how long it takes - justice
must be seen to be done, and be done impartially.
I was appalled when I heard a prominent
American suggest that in certain circumstances the limited use
of torture might be justified. That is a dreadful statement to
come from a civilised nation. Torture can never be justified,
and must be clearly condemned. When it comes to trial, these
men are entitled to basic defence rights and ought to be tried
under the auspices of the UN. It is vital that we uphold standards
of international law for the protection of the innocent, and
for the protection of American or European subjects who may find
themselves in difficult circumstances in the future. For once,
morality and pragmatism go hand in hand.
Terry Waite
is the former special envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
He was held captive by terrorists in Beirut from 1987 to 1991.
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