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Today's
Stories
March 22 /
23, 2008
Ralph Nader
Bush
Blisteres the Truth on Iraq
March 21, 2008
Marleen Martin
Land
Behind Bars: the Hidden Casualties of America's "War on
Crime"
Peter Montague
Run
Your Car on Coal? Maybe Not
Saul Landau
Monroe's
Deadly Doctrine
Anis Hamadeh
Merkel in the Knesset
Jacob Hornberger
McCain's Al Qaeda Scare: Slip or Tactic?
Khalil Nakhleh
Al Nakba of 1948: How Long Will It Persist?
Adam Isacson
Colombia, Paramilitary Threats and Assassinations
Kenneth Couesbouc
Money for Nothing
Madis Senner
Will the Feds Underwrite the Stock Market?
Monica Benderman
The Costs of Freedom: What Are You Willing to Pay?
Website of the Day
Stop Foreclosures and Evictions
March 20, 2008
Damien Millet
/
Eric Toussaint
The
Triple Failing of the Big Private Banks
Mike Whitney
Winding
Up Bear
John Ross
What Do We Owe Iraq?
Dave Lindorff
Paying the Piper: the Bodies and Bills are Piling Up
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan on Fire
Jill Nagle
Memo to Sex Workers: Stop Financing Shock Journalism
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Obama and the Psychic Auto-Shrink-Wrapping Called Race in America
Dan La Botz
Obama's Race Speech
Robert Weissman
Alternative Power: Shutting Down the API
Stella Dallas
/
Jennifer Matsui
Apostasy Now! Mamet, Enter Stage Right
Website of the Day
The Angry Monk
March 19, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
A
War of Lies
Robert Fisk
The Little Men and the Inferno
Jeff Taylor
Five Years of War in Iraq
Ed Ruggero
From Pinkville to Iraq: the Dark Anniversary of My Lai
Ron Jacobs
Who'll Stop the Rain?
Christopher
Fons
Obama Takes the Race Bait
Sherwood Ross
In Defense of Rev. Wright
Cynthia McKinney
An Urgent Crisis: Confronting America's Racial Disparities
Joshua Frank
The Kool-Aid That Kills
Robert Weissman
Monsanto's Genetic Food Gamble
Walter Brasch
It's a Welfare State--If You're Rich
Yifat Susskind
Iraqi Women Resist the Occupation
Andrew Wimmer
War Demands Its Due
Website of
the Day
Glimpses of Nature
March 18, 2008
David Price
The
Military "Leveraging" of Cultural Knowledge
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Collapse of American Power
Tim Wise
Of National Lies and Racial America: Jeremiah Wright, Barack
Obama and the Unacceptability of Truth
Patrick Cockburn
One of the Most Disastrous Wars Ever Fought
Conn Hallinan
Afghanistan, a River Running Backward
James T. Phillips
Monsters: Past, Present and Wannabe
Uri Avnery
The Killing in Bethlehem
David Macaray
Could Wal-Mart Revive the Labor Movement?
Marjorie Cohn
Beware an Attack on Iran
Peter Zinn
Obama in New Orleans
Dan La Botz
The Economic Crisis, Labor and the Left
Monica Benderman
Where are We Going?
March 17, 2008
Pam Martens
The
Fed's Wall Street Dilemma
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The US, Iran and the Policy of Dual Containment
Nelson P. Valdés
The Imperial Branding of Simon Bolivar and the Cuban Revolution
Peter Morici
The Corrosive Consequences of the Trade Deficit
Wajahat Ali
Disrobing the Nine: a Conversation with Jeffrey Toobin on the
Supreme Court Since 9/11
Ronnie Cummins
Beyond Progressive Malpractice: Taking Down Big Pharma
Shaun Harkin
Saint Patrick's Day in Fortress America
Ali Khan
No Pardon for Musharraf
Robert Jensen
Beyond Peace
P. Sainath
Oh, What a Lovely Waiver!
Greg Moses
Jeremiah was a Bullhorn
Dr. Susan Block
Advice for Eliot Spitzer
Website of the Day
No Cowboys
March 15 /
16, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
How
to Destroy a Country in Five Years
Mike Whitney
Bearly
Alive: Investment Giant Rushed to ICU by Panicky Fed Chief
Ralph Nader
Of
Laws and Men
Robert Pollin
It's Still the Economy, Stupid
Diane Christian
The Poetics of Perversity: From Boccaccio to Spitzer
Wajahat Ali
Faking the Hood: a Conversation with Ishmael Reed
Tom Wright
/
Therese Saliba
Rachel Corrie's Case for Justice
Alan Farago
Back to Florida: Where Bushtime Began
Greg Moses
Raiding the Family Room in Texas
Michael Hudson
A Grand Global Bargain?
Martha Rosenberg
Why Hillary's Favorite Chicken Company is Eying China
John Goekler
Fourth Generation Warfare in a Fifth Generation Conflict
Uzma Aslam
Khan
A Letter to Barack Obama: Where's the Change, Barack?
Oren Ben-Dor
The Silencing of Gilad Atzmon
David Underhill
Mammon, Morals and the Mobile Tanker Deal
Fred Gardner
The Education of Eliot Spitzer
David Michael
Green
Why Spitzer Should Have Resigned (and Why He Shouldn't Have)
Rev. William E. Alberts
Jesus, Entombed in Heaven
Gail Dines
It's All About the John: Prostitution and Male Power
David Yearsley
Conducting, Anarchy and the Problem of When to Begin
Chris Clarke
Walking with Zeke: the Luckiest of Dogs
Poets' Basement
Anderson, Lodge & Subiet
Website of
the Day
Deviant Art
March 14, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Watching
the Dollar Die
Don Santina
Vichy
Democrats: Pelosi and the Politics of Collaboration
Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi
Mother Vows Revenge on US: How She Lost Her Husband and Her Sons
Tim Rinne
StratCom
Rules! The Next War Will Start in Nebraska
Robert Fantina
In
Torture We Trust
Saul Landau
Letter
to the Presidents-in-Waitings
David Macaray
Common
Myths About Labor Unions
Franklin Lamb
Is
the Bush Administration Switching Horses in Lebanon
Michael Neumann
The
One State Illusion: Reply to My Critics
March 13, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Republicans
and "Free Market" Zealots Bring Disaster to America
Mike Whitney
Meltdown
Looms Larger As Credit Markets Freeze
Assaf Kfoury
"One-State
or Two State?"- Sterile Debate on False Alternatives
Andy Worthington
Afghan
Hero Who Died in Guantánamo: The Background to the Story
Adam Federman
From
Autopia to Autogeddon: Cars Reach the End of the Road
March 12, 2008
Dave Lindorff
Bringing
Down Spitzer: It's the Big Brother Who Should Bother US
R.F. Blader
The
Spitzer Backlash
Yonatan Mendel
How
to be an Israeli Journalist. Never Write "Murder" or
"Palestine"
Jonathan Cook
One
State or Two? Neither. The Issue is Zionism
Bill and Kathy
Christison
Fallon
and Gates -- At Least One Cheer
James J. Brittain
Was
the U.S. Involved in Killing the FARC-EP Leaders
Ron Jacobs
"All
the Money You Make Will Never Buy Back Your Soul"
March 11, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
to End the Subprime Crisis
Ed O'Loughlin
How
Israeli Troops Invade Homes in Gaza, Brutalize, Smash and Steal
Ramzy Baroud
'Unwavering
Commitment' to Inequality
Kathy Christison
One
State or Two? The Debate Over Israel and Palestine
China Hand
PRC
Plays it Cool, as U.S. Tries to Amp Up Pressure on Iran
John Joslin
Thank
You, Nafta! Welcome to Weirton, Home of the Discount Cigarette
Mike Averko
Serb
Politics, Kosovo and the Moscow-Washington Divide
Ben Rosenfeld
Gavin
Newsom's Kneejerk Plan
Thierry Paquot
High
Rise, Low Spirits:The Curse of the Tower Block
March 10, 2008
Uri Avnery
"Kill
A Hundred Turks and Rest": The Five-Day War in Gaza
Col. Dan Smith
Scoring
the "Surge" and What Lies Beyond
R.F. Blader
Why
"Lock Them Up and Throw Away the Key" is Losing its
Sheen
Michael Neumann
The
One-State Illusion: More is Less
Bob Fitrakis
and Harvey Wasserman
Did
the Republicans Give Hillary Her Victory in Ohio?
James J. Brittain
Anti-Uribe
Protests in Colombia and the World
Missy Comley
Beattie
The
Passion of John McCain
March 8-9,
2008 Weekend Edition
JoAnn Wypijewski
The
Only Way to Fight the Clintons
Mike Whitney
Sorting
Through the Rubble in Post Bubble America
Peter Morici
Fed
and Treasury Fiddle as Economy Plummets
Ralph Nader
The
Silent Violence of Gaza's Suffering that Candidates Ignore
Jonathan Cook
The
Meaning of Gaza's Shoah
Steve Niva
Behind
the Israeli Escalation in Gaza
Bill and Kathy
Christison
Crisis
over Teheran's Alleged Nuclear Plans Nearing Climax
Hervé
Do Alto and Franck Poupeau
Bolivia:
Morales is Checked
Eric Walberg
To
Leave and Stay at the Same Time: Putin to Medvedev to…?
Scott Johnson
City
of A Thousand Foreclosures
Mark Scaramella
James
Brown's Gate
Bill Clinton
President
Clinton's Remarks on Naming William M. Daley as NAFTA Task Force
Chairman
Poet's Basement
St.
Thomasino, Engel, Davies and Willson
Website of
the Weekend
Hillary
Blackens Barack
March 7, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
Why
Iraq Could Blow-Up in John McCain's Face
Robin Blackburn
Question
for Barrack Obama: Why Afghanistan is the 'Right War'?
Saul Landau
The
Stupid Economy
Binoy Kampmark
When
Competition is Good: McCain and the Muddled Democrats
Chris Floyd
Crushing
the Ants: Admiral Fallon and His Empire
Andy Worthington
Spanish
Drop "Inhuman" Extradition Request for Guantánamo
Britons
Will Potter
Before
the Smoke Even Clears in Seattle: Bringing Out the T Word
March 6, 2008
March 6, 2008
Vincent Navarro
The
Next Failure of Health Reform
Forrest Hylton
High Stakes in the Andes: Colombia's Cornered President
Peter Morici
Why the Dollar is So Cheap
George Ciccariello-Maher
Counter-Attack of the Bureaucrats
John Ross
Taxi! Taxi! The Dark Side of the Oscars
Jacob Hornberger
No Standing to Lecture on Justice
Paul Watson
Illegal Japanese Whaling by the Numbers
Dan Bacher
Off the Deep End
Website of the Day
A Katrina Reader Online
March 5, 2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
A
Great Day for John McCain (and Maybe Nader)
Joanne Mariner
After Guantanamo
Fidel Castro
The Raid on Ecuador: Underestimating Rafael Correa
Christopher
Brauchli
The Turkish Invasions
Steven Sherman
Obama and the Prospects for a Renewal of the Left
Dave Lindorff
Busting Bush & Co. in New England
James Murren
Bombing Somalia
Adam Engel
Necropolis Now
Website of Day
Remember Song
March 4, 2008
Wajahat Ali
Mumbo
Jumbo: Naming Names with Ishmael Reed
William Blum
How Could Hillary Have Known?
Bill Quigley
The Cleansing of New Orleans
Ralph Nader
The Prince Harry Solution
Patrick Irelan
Oil and Health in Venezuela
James J. Brittain
/
R. James Sacouman
Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America
Norman Solomon
The War Election
Jacob Hornberger
Hillary in Waco: the Missing Apology
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the European Parliament
Mike Averko
Kosovo and the Press
Website of the Day
Tex-Mex Primary
March 3, 2008
Jennifer Loewenstein
Gazan Holocaust
Alan Farago
American Politics and the Faltering Economy
Richard Gott
Colombian Deaths in Ecuador
Wajahat Ali
Who Speaks for a Billion Muslims? Analyzing the World Gallup
Poll with John Esposito
Paul Craig Roberts
The Mukasey Conspiracy: a Bi-Partisan Attack on the Constitution
Robert Weissman
When Multinationals Say Adieu
Uri Avnery
Good Morning, Hamas
Martha Rosenberg
When Your Meat is a Downer
Eva Liddell
Leave the Next Dance for Bill
Michael Donnelly
Will Ferrell Does Flint
Website of the Day
Muddy Waters: Train Fare Home Blues
March 1 / 2,
2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Race Card
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Political Trial of Don Siegelman
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Nader the Best Antidote to American Imperialism
Nelson P. Valdés
Cuba After Fidel
Christopher Brauchli
Meet Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev: Friend of Bill, George and Dick
Ron Jacobs
Inside the Secret City: Bomb Making at Oak Ridge
John Ross
The New Conquistadores: Spain's Reconquest of Mexico
Robert Fantina
Posturing Over Patriotism: Obama and Those Lapel Pins
Robert Weissman
Hidden in Plain Sight: Human Rights Hypocrisy
Mohammed Omer
Fear in Gaza
Remi Kanazi
Barack Obama and the Politics of Xenophobia
Bob Jackson
Why is Yellowstone Destroying Its Bison Herd?
Richard Rhames
Casual Threats: Loaded with Mercury
Franklin Lamb
Lebanon Awaits the Arrival of the USS Cole
Rannie Amiri
Showboat Diplomacy: US Warships Steam Toward Lebanon
David Michael
Green
The Three Faces of Hillary: the Politics of Flim-Flam
Conn Hallinan
Notes from the Southern Cone
Faheem Hussain
Prince Harry of Afghanistan and the Meaning of Normalcy
Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Orloski, Gardner and Ford
Website of
the Weekend
The Palestine Chronicle Needs (and Deserves) Your Help!
February 29,
2008
Matt Gonzalez
The
Obama Craze
Jonathan Cook
Academic Freedom? Not for Arabs in Israel
Joshua Frank
Obama and Israel
Anthony DiMaggio
The Unilateral Presidency: Signing Statements and the Rollback
of American Law
Linn Washington, Jr.
Cop Abuse in America
Binoy Kampmark
Hubris and Nemesis
Robert Bryce
Energy Efficiency May be a Good Thing, But It Won't Cut Energy
Use
Sonja Karkar
Australia's Government Continues Its Love Affair with Israel
Dave Lindorff
A Manchurian Candidate in the White House? Obama or Bush?
Website of
the Day
Olduvai George
February 28,
2008
Patrick Cockburn
"Iraq"
Falls Apart
Fred Gardner
The Birth of NAFTA
Michael Levitin
The Crisis in Kosovo is Just Beginning
William S.
Lind
The Fake State of Kosovo
David Macaray
A Ray of Hope for Organized Labor
Stephen Fleischman
Nader's Latest Run: Monkey Wrench or Cattle Prod?
George Wuerthner
The Myths of Forest Health: Why Ecological Logging is an Oxymoron
Laura Carlsen
The North American Union Farce
Carl Finamore
Why the Delta-Northwest Deal Hasn't Taken Off
Michael Dickinson
The Day I Bombed the House of Commons
Website of the Day
Plane Stupid
February 27,
2008
David Rosen
Playing
the Race Card: Obama, Love Across the Color Line and Political
Dirty Tricks
Vijay Prashad
Bomber John: McCain and the 100 Year War
Harvey Wasserman
Incident at Turkey Point: Did Florida Go to the Radioactive Brink?
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo's Shambolic Trials: Pentagon Boss Resigns,
Ex-Prosecutor Joins Defense
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan for Sale: an Interview with Ayesha Siddiqa on Pakistan's
Military Economy
Peter Morici
The Auction-Rate Securities Fiasco: a Drama of Greed and Betrayal
Stephen Philion
Conspiracy Theory, Fears of Betrayal and Today's Anti-War Movement
Michael Donnelly
Obama by Unanimous Decision
Erica Rosenberg /
Janine Blaeloch
After the Land Deals: Will There
be Any Wilderness Left to Protect?
Website of
the Day
Dress Blues
February 26,
2008
Debbie Nathan
Confessions
of a Gitmo Guard
Alan Dershowitz
v. Frank Menetrez
On Finkelstein
Harvey Wasserman
How Ohio Got Nuked
Michael Colby
Ralph Nader vs. the Fundamentalist Liberals
Gary Leupp
Condi vs. Putin on Bullying Belgrade
David Orchard
The New Conquistadors: Canada in Afghanistan
Martha Rosenberg
The Big HRT
Fran Shor
The Electoral Circus and Nader's Sideshow
Serge Halimi
The Dom Perignon Socialist Manifesto: Bernard Henri-Levy's Plan
for the French Left
Global Balkans
Neo-Liberalism and Protectorate States in the Post-Yugoslav Balkans:
an Interview with Tariq Ali
Website of
the Day
Texistentialism
February 25,
2008
Roger Morris
A
Death in Damascus
Anthony DiMaggio
Military
Bases, the Media and the Democrats
Ralph Nader
Why I'm Running
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Broils
Paul Craig Roberts
Kosovo and the Empire Crazies
Peter Morici
Bernanke's Failing Policies: a Long Recession Looms
Dave Lindorff
General Welch's Whitewash: What We Still Don't Know About That
Minot Nuke Incident
Saul Landau
/
Farrah Hassen
Fanatics, Mountebanks and Drillers: a Bloody Oil Film
Heather Gray
James Orange, Civil Rights Legend
Robert Weitzel
Accomodating Torture
John Halle
Kucinich Goes Down
Website of the Day
Do the Trunk Monkey!
February 23 / 4, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Mushrooming Clouds That Hang Over McCain
Paul Craig
Roberts
Obama
and Global Trade
Wajahat Ali
Omissions of the Commission: an Interview with Phillip Shenon
on the 9/11 Commission
Ralph Nader
Neutering the FDA
Jürgen
Vsych
"What Was Ralph Nader Thinking?"
Fidel Castro
Watching the US Presidential Campaign from Havana
Andy Worthington
Britain's Guantánamo
David Macaray
Unions Under Assault
Jeremy Scahill
The Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence
David Krieger
Stanley Sheinbaum
Caging the Cold War Monster
Ron Jacobs
Building for the Future
Michael Garrity
The Last, Best Hope for the Northern Rockies
Brian McKenna
Higher Ed's "Civic Engagements" Get Dumbed Down
Missy Beattie
Over the Hill with John McCain
Fred Gardner
American College of Physicians Takes Pro-Cannabis Stand (Mostly)
Boris Kagarlitsky
The Growth of the Russian Labor Movement
Mike Ferner
Kick That Barrel
Dan Bacher
On the Trail with the Border Angels
Christopher
Ketcham
Hillary Goes Where Obama Fears to Tread
Poets' Basement
Davies and Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
Obama
Mariachi
February 22,
2008
Mike Whitney
The
Bonfire of Capital
Jason Hribal
Elephants and the Circus: The Story of Janet
Liaquat Ali Khan
Arresting Musharraf
Joshua Frank
That Obama Glow: the Nuclear Industry's Golden Child
Dave Lindorff
Vicki's John: Ask Not What She Did for Him, Ask What He Did for
Her!
Liliana Segura
When Torture is Old News: McCain's Blonde Diversion
Robert Fantina
Castro, Bush and Cuba: a Fiasco Waiting to Happen?
Yifat Susskind
The ABCs of Death: Bush vs. Africa's Women
Norm Kent
Pushing 60 with Pot
Website of
the Day
Bush Gets Down in Liberia
February 21,
2008
Saul Landau
Fidel
Steps Aside
Elizabeth Schulte
Left Behind, With No End in Sight: America's Long-Term Unemployed
Helen Redmond
Health Care as a Human Right
Benjamin Dangl
Undermining Bolivia
Michael Levitin
Kosovo's Dilemma
Liam Leonard
Fear and Loathing on the Emerald Isle
Patrick Irelan
Land and Food in Venezuela
Linn Cohen-Cole
Poor Ohio: a Second Letter to Hillary on Her Ties to Monsanto
Michael Simmons
Daydream Believer: John Stewart, the Miles Davis of Folk Music
CounterPunch
News Service
A Message from the Women of Okinawa to US GIs
Website of the Day
Cop Abuse in Shreveport
|
Weekend
Edition
March 22 / 23, 2008
"Guards Would
Grab Me by Pressure Points Behind My Ears, Under the Jaw and
on My Neck."
Torture
Stories Dog Guantánamo Trials
By ANDY WORTHINGTON
From the moment that the Toronto
Star unleashed a gruesome, and previously unpublished photo
of the chest wounds sustained by 15-year old Omar Khadr, after
a firefight in Afghanistan in July 2002, it was clear that the
resumption of Khadr's pre-trial hearing at Guantánamo
last week would once more raise murky issues of torture and untrustworthy
intelligence that the administration -- desperate to secure a
"clean" conviction in its much-reviled Military Commission
process -- hoped would remain buried.
The photo preceded excerpts
from Star reporter Michelle Shephard's long-awaited biography
of Omar Khadr, Guantánamo's Child: The Untold
Story of Omar Khadr, which
does the most thorough job to date of humanizing the second youngest
son of the generally unsympathetic Khadr family, whose late patriarch,
Ahmed Khadr, was close to Osama bin Laden.
While serving as a terrifying
trailer for the book, however, the photo's publication also heightened
tensions that had surfaced in pre-trial hearings in November,
when, after five years of claims, on the administration's part,
that Khadr had been the last enemy soldier alive after the firefight,
and had therefore thrown the grenade that killed a US soldier,
it was revealed that the grenade could, in fact, have been thrown
by one of his companions, who was alive at the time, but whose
survival at that point had not previously been disclosed.
Omar Khadr
and the fog of war
The day before Khadr's pre-trial
hearings resumed last Friday, his tenacious military defense
lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, duly raised these issues,
telling journalists that the report of the circumstances that
led to Khadr's capture, written by an officer identified only
as "Lt. Col. W.," had been altered after the event
to implicate the Canadian teenager. As Lt. Cmdr. Kuebler described
it, the  report initially said that
the assailant who threw the grenade had been killed, but was
then revised, about two months later, to say that the grenade
thrower had been "engaged" (a change that clearly implicated
Khadr). "We now know that story was false," Lt. Cmdr.
Kuebler told the reporters, adding, "It's consistent with
the proposition that the government manufactured evidence to
make it look like Omar was guilty."
On Friday, Lt. Cmdr. Kuebler
asked the judge, Col. Peter Brownback, to allow the defense team
to question "Lt. Col. W." Col. Brownback not only agreed
to this request; he also ordered prosecutors to give Khadr's
lawyers a list of all US personnel who had interrogated Khadr
in Afghanistan and Guantánamo, and to provide them with
access to their notes, postponed the trial's start date (scheduled
for May 5) to allow more time for discussions of acceptable evidence,
and rebuffed the government-appointed prosecutors, who claimed,
as the Miami Herald described it, "that they had
already searched available records and interviewed potential
witnesses, and had found nothing more to provide in the discovery
phase to defense lawyers." As the Herald report continued,
"Brownback was not persuaded," and "sent prosecutors
back to search US State Department communications with Canada,
battlefield dispatches and messages around the time of the 2002
firefight and other records." "We can't try the case
until we get the discovery done," Col. Brownback insisted.
"So if I have to come down here every week, I'll do it,
what the heck."
Khadr alleges
torture
Capping another difficult week
in the administration's attempts to prosecute Khadr, his lawyers
released an eight-page affidavit, in which Khadr himself described
his treatment at the hands of both the Americans -- in Afghanistan
and at Guantánamo -- and the Canadian agents who also
visited him at Guantánamo. Partly redacted by US censors,
the document nevertheless reveals extensive allegations of abuse
that, in some cases, seem to amount to torture.
In addition to Khadr's previously
documented claims that he was threatened with rape and was used
as a human mop at Guantánamo to wipe up his own urine
after he had been held for hours in a stress position and had
soiled himself, he reported that he "told a Canadian delegation
in 2003 that the Americans 'would torture' him -- so he told
them whatever they wanted' to hear, but that "The Canadians
called me a liar, and I began to sob. They screamed at me and
told me they could not do anything for me." In other sections,
he described how, after he embarked on a hunger strike at Guantánamo,
"Guards would grab me by pressure points behind my ears,
under the jaw and on my neck. On a scale of one to 10, I would
say the pain was an 11."
Khadr also described abuse
that took place in the days after his capture, in particular
at the hands of a Hispanic MP, who "would often [redacted].
He would tell nurses not to [redacted] since he said that I had
killed an American soldier. He would also [redacted] me quite
often." He also reported that something was done to his
eyes -- "Sometimes they would [redacted] particularly since
both my eyes were badly injured" -- and described being
kneed "repeatedly in the thighs," a brutal technique,
known as the common peroneal strike, whose overuse in Bagram
led to the murder of two prisoners, Mullah Habibullah, and a
taxi driver named Dilawar, in December 2002.
This comment adds to the suspicion
that Khadr was the victim of torture in Bagram, as it was also
revealed last week that one of his interrogators was Sgt. Joshua
Claus, who was later charged, along with 14 others, of various
crimes, including assault and "maltreatment of a detainee"
in connection with the murder of the two men, and was sentenced
to five months in jail in 2006.
Mohamed
Jawad
Omar Khadr was not the only
defendant last week to raise the spectre of torture to haunt
the Military Commissions. On Wednesday, Mohamed Jawad, an Afghan
who, according to his own account, was only 16 when he was seized
after allegedly throwing a grenade that wounded two US soldiers
and an Afghan interpreter, said, as Carol Williams described
it in the Los Angeles Times, "that he had been tortured
while in US custody at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan after his
arrest, and that he had been mistreated in Guantánamo
as well." "The American government said the Taliban
has been very cruel in Afghanistan, that they killed people without
any trial and imprisoned people without trial," Jawad told
the judge, Col. Ralph Kohlmann. "When I was in detention
at Bagram, Americans killed three people. They beat people and
arrested us without trial. We're not given any rights."
This was a departure in some
ways. As I reported in a detailed article when he was first charged
last October, Jawad had not alleged that he had been tortured
by US forces during his tribunal and his military reviews at
Guantánamo, which were convened, in the first instance,
to assess whether he had been correctly designated as an "enemy
combatant" when he was captured, and subsequently to assess
whether he still constituted a threat to the US or its interests.
He had, however, claimed that a false confession had been forced
out of him by the Afghan police who first captured him. "[T]hey
tortured me," he said in 2005. "They beat me. They
beat me a lot. One person told me, 'If you don't confess, they
are going to kill you'. So, I told them anything they wanted
to hear."
Although he explicitly stated
in his review, "I have never seen or endured any torture
in Bagram or here in Cuba by the Americans," it's possible
that he had previously failed to mention being tortured by US
forces because he had concluded that it was wiser not to raise
the topic in front of the US military officers who appeared to
offer him a chance -- however slim -- of escaping from Guantánamo
for good. It certainly seems unlikely that Jawad was not subjected
to abuse while at Bagram, as the period that he was there --
from mid-December 2002, two months after Omar Khadr left for
Guantánamo -- is during that same period, from summer
2002 until sometime in 2003, at the earliest, that the prison
was the venue for particularly savage and routine violence that
led to the murders mentioned above, and, it should be noted,
to an apparent third homicide mentioned not only by Mohamed Jawad,
but also by the released British prisoners Moazzam Begg, Richard
Belmar and Jamal Kiyemba, as I discuss in my book The Guantánamo
Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal
Prison.
This alone would make his trial
problematical, but Jawad himself raised further hurdles to what
the Pentagon clearly hoped would be a straightforward process
by declaring the proceedings illegal and refusing to accept representation
by his military lawyer, Col. Mike Sawyers. Apparently dragged
from his cell to attend the hearing, and wearing the infamous
orange garb that, for many years, has been reserved for those
ruled "non-compliant," he told Col. Kohlmann, "My
right has not been given to me. I have not violated any international
law. There are many accusations against me they don't make any
sense I am a human being." He added, as Steven Edwards
described it for the Canwest News Service, that he "continued
to be treated unjustly and interrogated, and that he wanted the
'whole world' to know it."
Despite being spurned by his
client, Col. Sawyers was vigorous in his defense outside the
courtroom, explaining to reporters that western concepts of justice
were "completely foreign" to Jawad, and making a statement
on his behalf that also resonates with the case of Omar Khadr.
"I believe this is the direct result of taking a 16- or
17-year-old boy and putting him in confinement with no contact
with the outside world," Col. Sawyers said. "He has
been in a three-by-seven-(foot) cell I do not believe he understands
the proceedings I don't know if I were given ten years I could
explain it to him."
With Jawad's refusal to engage
with the Commissions (asked to enter a plea, he had, by that
point, "slumped onto the defense table and refused to respond
to Kohlmann's questions") and with Col. Sawyers' active
duty about to run out, the case is unlikely to resume in the
near future. As Col. Steve David, the Commissions' chief defense
lawyer, explained, he will not be able to assign Jawad a new
lawyer for some time, because, unlike the prosecution, which
has a full roster of 30 lawyers, he has only nine lawyers on
duty, who are already struggling to cope with their caseload.
Ahmed al-Darbi
The last of the cases considered
last week -- that of Ahmed Mohammed al-Darbi, a 33-year old Saudi
-- also failed to advance the process. The brother-in-law of
one of the 9/11 hijackers, al-Darbi, described as "polite
and responsive" during his arraignment, also refused to
enter a plea, and was undecided about whether or not to accept
the services of his military lawyer. The administration can,
perhaps, count itself lucky that al-Darbi did not wish to speak
out, although this is probably only a matter of putting off the
inevitable.
Seized in Azerbaijan, al-Darbi
was rendered to Afghanistan, and also ended up in Bagram, where,
he later alleged, an interrogator named Damien Corsetti, known
as "Monster" or "The King of Torture," abused
prisoners by poking them in the face with his naked penis and
threatening them with sexual assault. Corsetti was later charged
with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, assault and performing
an indecent act with another person, but although he was cleared
of all the charges in June 2006, al-Darbi's presence at Bagram
during the period that both Omar Khadr and Mohamed Jawad were
there suggests that the well-chronicled torture at the prison
during that period -- which Corsetti discussed, with refreshing
frankness, in a recent interview -- will also surface in his
trial.
If, as Carol Williams suggested,
Mohamed Jawad's case had been pushed forward before those of
the six men (including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) who were charged
last month in connection with the 9/11 attacks, because the process
of finding lawyers for those men has only just begun, and because
Jawad's case -- and, by extension, that of Ahmed al-Darbi --
were presumed to be easier to win, last weeks' events have served
only to rock the Commissions' legitimacy once more, highlighting
allegations of torture in Bagram as a counter-point to the well-chronicled
torture of those charged in connection with 9/11 in secret prisons
run by the CIA (in five of the cases) and in Guantánamo
in the case of the sixth, Mohammed al-Qahtani.
Ibrahim
al-Qosi and Ali Hamza al-Bahlul
Nor, it seems, is it likely
that torture will be sidestepped in the cases of the other prisoners
awaiting arraignment. The Sudanese prisoner Ibrahim al-Qosi and
the Yemeni Ali Hamza al-Bahlul (both charged last month for their
alleged connections with al-Qaeda) are well-known to those who
have been following the Commissions since they first spluttered
into life in the summer of 2003. Both were previously charged
in the first round of the trials, which were struck down as illegal
by the Supreme Court in June 2006, without either man having
had the opportunity to discuss the details of their treatment,
but in a hearing in 2004 al-Bahlul's military defense lawyer,
Maj. Tom Fleener, told the judge, Col. Peter Brownback, "I
believe Mr. al-Bahlul was tortured," adding that it was
"going to be an issue" in any trial faced by his client.
Similar territory was covered by Lt. Col. Sharon Shaffer, who
was assigned to represent al-Qosi. According to a report in the
Nation in December 2005, she "characterized his treatment
as possibly torture but certainly inhumane treatment; he was
held in stress positions for protracted periods, subjected to
military dogs and sexually humiliated."
If there is a "clean"
case that can be presented to the Commissions without ensnaring
the administration in ever more lengthy and damaging allegations
relating to the use of torture by US forces, it has yet to be
found. Just possibly, however, the Pentagon's announcement, during
the fallout from Mohamed Jawad's boycott of his arraignment,
that another Afghan --Mohammed Kamin -- would also face a trial
by Military Commission was intended to fulfil the administration's
elusive dream: the successful prosecution of a prisoner who will
not claim that he was tortured.
Mohammed
Kamin
On the surface, Mohammed Kamin
fulfils this criterion, although he also seems, like many before
him, to be an unworthy candidate for any kind of war crimes trial
at all. In his charge sheet, he is accused of "providing
material support for terrorism"; specifically by receiving
training at "an al-Qaeda training camp," conducting
surveillance on US and coalition military bases and activities,
planting two mines under a bridge, and launching missiles at
the city of Khost while it was occupied by US and coalition forces.
He is not charged with harming, let along killing US forces,
and were it not for his supposed al-Qaeda connection -- he apparently
stated in interrogation that he was "recruited by an al-Qaeda
cell leader" -- it would, I think, be impossible to make
the case that he was involved in "terrorism" at all.
As it is, I'm prepared to state that his case seems to me to
demonstrate how hopelessly blurred the distinctions between military
resistance (aka insurgency) and terrorism have become, so that
anyone caught fighting US occupation is not engaged in a war
(with its own well-established laws) but is automatically part
of a global terrorist movement.
In a courtroom, of course,
it may well emerge that, like all the others mentioned above,
Mohammed Kamin will reveal -- or at least allege -- that he too
was tortured, adding to the increasing suspicion that there is
no corner of the post-9/11 prison system that is beyond the cold
hand of the torturer, whose actions were sanctioned at the highest
levels of the government. In the full glare of the world's media,
the Military Commissions continue to expose the very torture
and abuse that the administration has strived so hard to conceal,
and I cannot see how they can ever result in a prosecution that
will be recognized as valid. As the Bush administration counts
down its last months in office, the only solution, it seems to
me, is to maintain the pressure on the next administration to
move the trials to federal courts on the US mainland.
Andy Worthington (www.andyworthington.co.uk)
is a British historian, and the author of 'The
Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in
America's Illegal Prison'. He can be reached at: andy@andyworthington.co.uk
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