By William Fisher
NEW YORK, Dec 13 (IPS) - A coalition of U.S. religious and progressive groups has stepped up a formal campaign to protest a controversial new Christian fundamentalist video game in which players battle the "forces of the Anti-Christ" and kill or convert non-believers.
"This is the first time any Christian religious instructional video has recommended killing all non-Christians who refuse to convert to Christianity. It is unprecedented and dangerous," Rev. Timothy Simpson, president of the Jacksonville, Florida-based progressive advocacy group the Christian Alliance for Progress, told IPS.
The game, titled "Left Behind: Eternal Forces", is packaged with a book explaining its philosophy, and is currently being sold by WalMart, the United States' largest retailer. The chain has thus far has refused demands that it remove it from its shelves, indicating it would continue selling the game online and in selected stores where it felt there was demand.
"The product has been selling in those stores," according to spokeswoman Tara Raddohl. "The decision on what merchandise we offer in our stores is based on what we think our customers want the opportunity to buy."
Nearly 25,000 members of the Campaign to Defend the Constitution, one of the groups critical of the video game, have submitted letters to Wal-Mart, asking the store to stop selling religious violence for Christmas.
Aimed at conservative Christians, the game's story line begins in a time after the "rapture", when fundamentalist dogma contends that Christians will go to heaven. The remaining population on earth must then choose between surrendering to or resisting "the Antichrist", which the game describes as the "Global Community Peacekeepers" whose objective is the imposition of "one-world government".
"Part of the object is to kill or convert the opposing forces," Simpson said. This is "antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ," he said, adding that he was dismayed by the concept in "Eternal Forces" of using prayer to restore a player's "spirit points" after killing the enemy.
In the game, combatants on one side pause for prayer, intoning, "Praise the Lord". A player can lose points for "unnecessary killing" but regain them through prayer.
But Simpson counters, "The idea that you could pray, and the deleterious effects of one's foul deeds would simply be wiped away, is a horrible thing to be teaching Christian young people here at Christmas time."
Troy Lyndon, CEO of Left Behind Games Inc., which is promoting the new video, has defended the game as "inspirational entertainment" and said its critics were exaggerating. The game is based on the popular "Left Behind" novels, a Bible-based end-of-the-world-saga that has sold more than 63 million copies.
Lyndon told the New York Times the game has received a T (for teen) rating, meaning it offers more violence than an E-rated children's game, but less graphically than games rated M (for mature). M games have often been criticised by conservative Christian groups.
The "Left Behind" game is based on the popular series of novels series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins and is based on their interpretation of the Bible's Book of Revelation.
Left Behind Games says the game actually is pacifist because players lose "spirit points" every time they gun down nonbelievers rather than convert them. They can earn spirit points again by having their character pray.
"You are fighting a defensive battle in the game. You are a sort of a freedom fighter," the company says on its web site. "Our game includes violence, but excludes blood, decapitation, killing of police officers."
Simpson, whose group was formed last year to counter the influence of the religious right, told IPS that he and a number of his colleagues would be initiating a conference call to the game's promoter Thursday, to try to persuade the company to withdraw the game from the market.
Another participant in the critics' news conference, author Frederick Clarkson, argued that "Eternal Forces" was less violent than many other video games, but was more troubling in some ways.
"It becomes a tool of religious instruction," he said. "The message is... there will be religious warfare, and you will target your fellow Americans, people from other faiths, people who you consider to be sinners."
Clarkson criticised the Rev. James Dobson's powerful Colorado-based Christian ministry, Focus on the Family (FOF), for publishing a positive review of "Eternal Forces" on one of its web sites. Dobson's group is close to the White House and is considered highly influential in shaping the George W. Bush administration's conservative agenda.
"Eternal Forces is the kind of game that Mom and Dad can actually play with Junior and use to raise some interesting questions along the way," wrote the FOF reviewer, Bob Hoose.
Simpson's group has joined with other progressive Christian organisations to protest the video game. These include the CrossWalk America, the Beatitudes Society, the Centre for Progressive Christianity, and the Campaign to Defend the Constitution (DefCon)
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
IN DEFENSE OF (SOME) CONTRACTORS
By William Fisher
The past few years have seen the excoriation of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush Administration has been accused of “outsourcing” vital missions for reconstruction and delivery of vital services. Contractors have been accused of finagling no-bid contracts, failing to deliver on these contracts, over-charging our taxpayers, and generally engaging in a free-for-all binge of waste, fraud and mismanagement.
Much of this criticism is painfully true. Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root, and Custer Battles, a private security firm, for example, have – justifiably, in my view – become poster children for everything that has gone wrong with our $20 billion-plus reconstruction programs.
Yet all contractors are not Halliburton or Custer Battles. And in indicting contractors generically, critics do a profound disservice to other kinds of contractors who have struggled to be effective under the most perilous conditions.
I refer here to the many international development contractors – both private,
for- profit companies, and non-governmental organizations – working in these war zones for the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID. Their work is about improving health systems, education, agriculture, industrial production, good governance, and much more.
My viewpoint is not academic nor is it the result of a Google search. It is informed by my own twenty years of serving as such a contractor in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Asia.
Rewind to Egypt, circa 1999-2002, when I lived in Egypt as a USAID contractor. My job was to lead an all-Egyptian team charged with monitoring, evaluating and improving the performance of more than dozen programs dedicated to improving the country’s capacity to take advantage of globalization.
Almost all these programs were managed by U.S.-based international development contractors. There were no no-bid contracts; all had been won on the basis of competitive bidding. Contracting officers were infuriatingly meticulous about dotting every ‘i’ and crossing every ‘t’.
The programs were both diverse and related. For example, one worked with the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture to reduce policy and practice constraints to increased agricultural production and exports. Another, run by Egyptians, was dedicated to matchmaking between Egyptian businesses and their international counterparts and improving potential small exporters’ access to credit by a banking system that traditionally made loans only to the super-wealthy elites of the country. Another was conceived to foster access to new technologies and encourage technological innovation among smaller entrepreneurs. All were dedicated to pursuing anti-corruption measures because official and private corruption at the time was adding something like 30 percent to every item lucky enough to enter or leave the country – making Egyptian products and services uncompetitive with many other countries around the world.
Much has been written about the pitiful lack of oversight of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the truth of this has been well documented. In my experience in Egypt, the very existence of the unit I led constituted a rigorous form of oversight.
But that might have been seen as the fox guarding the henhouse. So there was more. Each of these programs had an experienced USAID officer assigned to monitor its progress on a daily basis, produce strategic objectives, detailed workplans with benchmarks and dates, and make frequent reports and presentations detailing their progress and problems. Most of these officers were Egyptians familiar with their country’s customs, constraints and opportunities.
This is not unusual; in fact, it is pretty universally standard operating procedure for USAID projects everywhere in the world. If there were roadblocks, they were more often than not erected by the Egyptian government itself – mostly related to pushing Egyptians to do too much too quickly, or protecting sacred cows from anti-corruption efforts.
There are many such development contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, unlike my experience in Egypt, they obviously have huge security concerns, and the larger contractors have had to assemble small private armies to protect them – at considerable expense. These concerns have increased with the ever-heightening levels of violence and criminality.
But many of them have told me that, in Iraq, the principal problems they faced initially stemmed largely from the arrogance and lack of development experience of the ideologically-driven political appointees assembled by Viceroy L. Paul Bremer’s original Coalition Provisional Authority – the CPA – widely known among contractors as the “Can’t Provide Anything” authority. Today, many are hamstrung by the lack of experienced officials in the various ministries with which these contractors must interact.
Decisions are delayed for months. When decisions are made, they are often still grandiose and impractical, as in the earlier days of the occupation. Funding does not flow. And development teams, which must travel outside the Green Zone to do their work, cannot get military assistance to protect them.
One project manager in Iraq wrote me: “In my three years in Iraq, I witnessed a U.S. Government unprepared for the challenges present in post-Saddam Iraq and, at times, appeared to deliberately conduct business on the basis of ideology rather than the practical realities of Iraq. Iraqis, who were genuinely happy that Saddam was toppled, deserved better. As the Green Zoners met with each other and made momentous decisions -- or as more often happened, they met with each other and made no decisions -- we were on the outside working with Iraqis figuring out how in the midst of a terrible war we could give hope to the rural population. My greatest hope is that our project will not be judged as an arm of the American government in Iraq. Rather, I hope that we will be looked upon as a group, most of who were against the war, that put ideology and politics aside to work humbly for a better Iraq.”
The U.S. Government has neither the skills nor the experience to take on massive reconstruction and development projects with government employees only. It needs contractors. It needs a competitive bidding process. And the Government has a responsibility to provide personnel equipped to provide informed oversight.
But if these development contractors don’t sound like Halliburton or Custer Battles, it’s because they’re not. They are an entirely different breed. Compared to the now well-known companies who took on big-ticket construction or infrastructure rehabilitation or military services contracts, their cost is infinitesimal. The challenges they face are daunting. Their work is dangerous. But their dedication to development is very real.
To bracket them with those companies that viewed Iraq and Afghanistan as no more than an unpoliced pot of gold does them a huge injustice.
The past few years have seen the excoriation of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush Administration has been accused of “outsourcing” vital missions for reconstruction and delivery of vital services. Contractors have been accused of finagling no-bid contracts, failing to deliver on these contracts, over-charging our taxpayers, and generally engaging in a free-for-all binge of waste, fraud and mismanagement.
Much of this criticism is painfully true. Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root, and Custer Battles, a private security firm, for example, have – justifiably, in my view – become poster children for everything that has gone wrong with our $20 billion-plus reconstruction programs.
Yet all contractors are not Halliburton or Custer Battles. And in indicting contractors generically, critics do a profound disservice to other kinds of contractors who have struggled to be effective under the most perilous conditions.
I refer here to the many international development contractors – both private,
for- profit companies, and non-governmental organizations – working in these war zones for the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID. Their work is about improving health systems, education, agriculture, industrial production, good governance, and much more.
My viewpoint is not academic nor is it the result of a Google search. It is informed by my own twenty years of serving as such a contractor in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Asia.
Rewind to Egypt, circa 1999-2002, when I lived in Egypt as a USAID contractor. My job was to lead an all-Egyptian team charged with monitoring, evaluating and improving the performance of more than dozen programs dedicated to improving the country’s capacity to take advantage of globalization.
Almost all these programs were managed by U.S.-based international development contractors. There were no no-bid contracts; all had been won on the basis of competitive bidding. Contracting officers were infuriatingly meticulous about dotting every ‘i’ and crossing every ‘t’.
The programs were both diverse and related. For example, one worked with the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture to reduce policy and practice constraints to increased agricultural production and exports. Another, run by Egyptians, was dedicated to matchmaking between Egyptian businesses and their international counterparts and improving potential small exporters’ access to credit by a banking system that traditionally made loans only to the super-wealthy elites of the country. Another was conceived to foster access to new technologies and encourage technological innovation among smaller entrepreneurs. All were dedicated to pursuing anti-corruption measures because official and private corruption at the time was adding something like 30 percent to every item lucky enough to enter or leave the country – making Egyptian products and services uncompetitive with many other countries around the world.
Much has been written about the pitiful lack of oversight of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the truth of this has been well documented. In my experience in Egypt, the very existence of the unit I led constituted a rigorous form of oversight.
But that might have been seen as the fox guarding the henhouse. So there was more. Each of these programs had an experienced USAID officer assigned to monitor its progress on a daily basis, produce strategic objectives, detailed workplans with benchmarks and dates, and make frequent reports and presentations detailing their progress and problems. Most of these officers were Egyptians familiar with their country’s customs, constraints and opportunities.
This is not unusual; in fact, it is pretty universally standard operating procedure for USAID projects everywhere in the world. If there were roadblocks, they were more often than not erected by the Egyptian government itself – mostly related to pushing Egyptians to do too much too quickly, or protecting sacred cows from anti-corruption efforts.
There are many such development contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, unlike my experience in Egypt, they obviously have huge security concerns, and the larger contractors have had to assemble small private armies to protect them – at considerable expense. These concerns have increased with the ever-heightening levels of violence and criminality.
But many of them have told me that, in Iraq, the principal problems they faced initially stemmed largely from the arrogance and lack of development experience of the ideologically-driven political appointees assembled by Viceroy L. Paul Bremer’s original Coalition Provisional Authority – the CPA – widely known among contractors as the “Can’t Provide Anything” authority. Today, many are hamstrung by the lack of experienced officials in the various ministries with which these contractors must interact.
Decisions are delayed for months. When decisions are made, they are often still grandiose and impractical, as in the earlier days of the occupation. Funding does not flow. And development teams, which must travel outside the Green Zone to do their work, cannot get military assistance to protect them.
One project manager in Iraq wrote me: “In my three years in Iraq, I witnessed a U.S. Government unprepared for the challenges present in post-Saddam Iraq and, at times, appeared to deliberately conduct business on the basis of ideology rather than the practical realities of Iraq. Iraqis, who were genuinely happy that Saddam was toppled, deserved better. As the Green Zoners met with each other and made momentous decisions -- or as more often happened, they met with each other and made no decisions -- we were on the outside working with Iraqis figuring out how in the midst of a terrible war we could give hope to the rural population. My greatest hope is that our project will not be judged as an arm of the American government in Iraq. Rather, I hope that we will be looked upon as a group, most of who were against the war, that put ideology and politics aside to work humbly for a better Iraq.”
The U.S. Government has neither the skills nor the experience to take on massive reconstruction and development projects with government employees only. It needs contractors. It needs a competitive bidding process. And the Government has a responsibility to provide personnel equipped to provide informed oversight.
But if these development contractors don’t sound like Halliburton or Custer Battles, it’s because they’re not. They are an entirely different breed. Compared to the now well-known companies who took on big-ticket construction or infrastructure rehabilitation or military services contracts, their cost is infinitesimal. The challenges they face are daunting. Their work is dangerous. But their dedication to development is very real.
To bracket them with those companies that viewed Iraq and Afghanistan as no more than an unpoliced pot of gold does them a huge injustice.
Monday, December 11, 2006
THREE YEARS TOO LATE
By William Fisher
While the Washington press corps chased the nine wise men (and one wise woman) of the Iraq Study Group as they scampered from the White House to Capital Hill to press conferences to a multitude of talk show appearances in their efforts to pull Dubya’s chestnuts from the Iraq fire, some journalists seem to have missed some of its most important findings.
One of the more alarming was that of the 1,000 employees of the massive new U.S. Embassy inside the Green Zone bubble in Baghdad, there are – wait for it – SIX who are fluent in Arabic.
In a very real sense, that pitiful number could be a metaphor for one of the most serious flaws in the entire Iraq adventure. We invaded a country about which the invaders knew virtually nothing. Not only didn’t we know the Arabic language; we knew nothing about Iraq’s religious sects, tribes, culture, sensitivities, customs, traditions, mores, or the Byzantine inter-relationships among all these attributes.
And that predicament is not limited to the State Department, which runs the new embassy. It is also true of the armed services, the CIA, and all the many other parts of our national security apparatus.
This critical deficiency raises serious questions about the practicality of the Iraq Study Group’s recommendation that a greatly increased number of U.S. military trainers be embedded into the Iraqi Security Forces, down to the company level. Is anybody wondering how you go about training a soldier you can’t speak to? Or how you understand quickly enough when one of your Iraqi comrades decides he cares more about his tribe than about his country and makes you ‘the enemy’?
The shortage of Arabic speakers was one of the red flags the State Department sent to Donald Rumsfeld before the invasion. But the outgoing SecDef wasn’t about to listen to any advice from State – or most anyone else. And even if incoming DOD chief Bob Gates is prepared to heed that kind of counsel, it may be too late for it to make any difference. Producing Arabic speakers takes years, and the U.S. doesn’t have years. Like most of the challenges the U.S. now faces is Iraq, there is no quick fix for this one either.
There is only so much translation we can expect from Arabic-speaker Gen. John Abizaid!
Given the importance of the Middle East to U.S. national security interests long before the Iraq invasion, how is it that one of the world’s most multicultural countries is unable to deliver men and women fluent in Arabic?
Some of the reasons are easily explained, others are much more complicated.
Among the simple ones: American education has long neglected foreign language study and American students have for years shown little appetite for learning them; Arabic is a particularly difficult language to learn; some applicants simply don’t want to serve in Iraq; and there are strong indications of the unwillingness of many Arab and Muslim-Americans to apply to agencies they see as having contributed to the ‘Islamophobic’ environment that pervades our country today.
Moreover, while the number of college-level Arabic language students has increased substantially since the attacks of 9/11, many drop out and even those who complete their courses will not come anywhere near qualifying as fluent.
President Bush appears to have understood the importance of the issue; in 2005 he ordered then-CIA Director Porter Goss to increase the number of Arabic-speakers by 50 per cent. The CIA – and the FBI, the DOD, and the Department of Homeland Security – all failed to meet that goal. What they did achieve was an exponential increase in job applications from Arabic speakers.
That was largely the result of a recruiting binge by the national security agencies. For example, they offered generous sign-on bonuses of up to $25,000 for new hires fluent in Arabic and other crucial languages. They participated in college job fairs. The CIA placed ads in local newspapers in communities where there is a heavy concentration of Arab-Americans. One featured a photo of the Statue of Liberty with the words: "For over 100 years, Arab Americans have served the nation. Today we need you more than ever."
Last year’s intelligence reorganization law also authorized the Agency to study so-called ‘heritage communities’ such as metropolitan Detroit’s Arab populations with foreign language abilities. It also earmarked money for a pilot program to recruit foreign-language speakers into a civilian linguist reserve corps.
All these activities resulted in U.S. national security agencies reporting substantial increases in employment applications. But the ratio of applications to job offers remains low.
One result, according to the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, is that analysts at the CIA, the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency, are “awash in untranslated gleanings of intelligence” in Arabic. The Foundation also said there are not enough interpreters to handle detainees in Iraq.
The FBI says that since Sept. 11, the agency has processed 30,000 applicants for jobs as linguists in Arabic, Farsi, and other tongues. But it points out that "out of 20 applicants, we'd be lucky to get one or two."
So what has happened to these applicants? Many have been rejected after – or before – their first interview. Many more have been waiting years for their security clearances. Among these job-seekers, it should be no surprise that by the time those clearances arrive, the applicants have already found other jobs.
But the key constraint appears to be that Arab and Muslim-Americans are frequently rejected for security clearances on the preposterous basis that they have contacts in the Middle East – like friends and families. Recruiters are particularly hesitant to approve people in this group of applicants; none wants to be the guy who approves the next “sleeping Osama.”
The shortage is no less acute at the State Department. A bipartisan State Department advisory panel on public diplomacy, headed by Edward Djerejian, a former ambassador to Israel and Syria, found that only 54 of 279 Arabic speakers employed by State were fluent. Of those, only six were fluent enough to appear on Arabic television programs.
The Baker-Hamilton group made some 79 recommendations to the president about how to craft a new strategy for our involvement in Iraq. These have been treated with both praise and scorn. But the issue may in fact be moot.
Like the group’s exhortation to increase the number of Arabic speakers in our Baghdad embassy, its recommendations are unlikely to produce a “victory” in Iraq. We needed the ISG three years ago – when there still might have been a few good options. Now there are none.
While the Washington press corps chased the nine wise men (and one wise woman) of the Iraq Study Group as they scampered from the White House to Capital Hill to press conferences to a multitude of talk show appearances in their efforts to pull Dubya’s chestnuts from the Iraq fire, some journalists seem to have missed some of its most important findings.
One of the more alarming was that of the 1,000 employees of the massive new U.S. Embassy inside the Green Zone bubble in Baghdad, there are – wait for it – SIX who are fluent in Arabic.
In a very real sense, that pitiful number could be a metaphor for one of the most serious flaws in the entire Iraq adventure. We invaded a country about which the invaders knew virtually nothing. Not only didn’t we know the Arabic language; we knew nothing about Iraq’s religious sects, tribes, culture, sensitivities, customs, traditions, mores, or the Byzantine inter-relationships among all these attributes.
And that predicament is not limited to the State Department, which runs the new embassy. It is also true of the armed services, the CIA, and all the many other parts of our national security apparatus.
This critical deficiency raises serious questions about the practicality of the Iraq Study Group’s recommendation that a greatly increased number of U.S. military trainers be embedded into the Iraqi Security Forces, down to the company level. Is anybody wondering how you go about training a soldier you can’t speak to? Or how you understand quickly enough when one of your Iraqi comrades decides he cares more about his tribe than about his country and makes you ‘the enemy’?
The shortage of Arabic speakers was one of the red flags the State Department sent to Donald Rumsfeld before the invasion. But the outgoing SecDef wasn’t about to listen to any advice from State – or most anyone else. And even if incoming DOD chief Bob Gates is prepared to heed that kind of counsel, it may be too late for it to make any difference. Producing Arabic speakers takes years, and the U.S. doesn’t have years. Like most of the challenges the U.S. now faces is Iraq, there is no quick fix for this one either.
There is only so much translation we can expect from Arabic-speaker Gen. John Abizaid!
Given the importance of the Middle East to U.S. national security interests long before the Iraq invasion, how is it that one of the world’s most multicultural countries is unable to deliver men and women fluent in Arabic?
Some of the reasons are easily explained, others are much more complicated.
Among the simple ones: American education has long neglected foreign language study and American students have for years shown little appetite for learning them; Arabic is a particularly difficult language to learn; some applicants simply don’t want to serve in Iraq; and there are strong indications of the unwillingness of many Arab and Muslim-Americans to apply to agencies they see as having contributed to the ‘Islamophobic’ environment that pervades our country today.
Moreover, while the number of college-level Arabic language students has increased substantially since the attacks of 9/11, many drop out and even those who complete their courses will not come anywhere near qualifying as fluent.
President Bush appears to have understood the importance of the issue; in 2005 he ordered then-CIA Director Porter Goss to increase the number of Arabic-speakers by 50 per cent. The CIA – and the FBI, the DOD, and the Department of Homeland Security – all failed to meet that goal. What they did achieve was an exponential increase in job applications from Arabic speakers.
That was largely the result of a recruiting binge by the national security agencies. For example, they offered generous sign-on bonuses of up to $25,000 for new hires fluent in Arabic and other crucial languages. They participated in college job fairs. The CIA placed ads in local newspapers in communities where there is a heavy concentration of Arab-Americans. One featured a photo of the Statue of Liberty with the words: "For over 100 years, Arab Americans have served the nation. Today we need you more than ever."
Last year’s intelligence reorganization law also authorized the Agency to study so-called ‘heritage communities’ such as metropolitan Detroit’s Arab populations with foreign language abilities. It also earmarked money for a pilot program to recruit foreign-language speakers into a civilian linguist reserve corps.
All these activities resulted in U.S. national security agencies reporting substantial increases in employment applications. But the ratio of applications to job offers remains low.
One result, according to the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, is that analysts at the CIA, the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency, are “awash in untranslated gleanings of intelligence” in Arabic. The Foundation also said there are not enough interpreters to handle detainees in Iraq.
The FBI says that since Sept. 11, the agency has processed 30,000 applicants for jobs as linguists in Arabic, Farsi, and other tongues. But it points out that "out of 20 applicants, we'd be lucky to get one or two."
So what has happened to these applicants? Many have been rejected after – or before – their first interview. Many more have been waiting years for their security clearances. Among these job-seekers, it should be no surprise that by the time those clearances arrive, the applicants have already found other jobs.
But the key constraint appears to be that Arab and Muslim-Americans are frequently rejected for security clearances on the preposterous basis that they have contacts in the Middle East – like friends and families. Recruiters are particularly hesitant to approve people in this group of applicants; none wants to be the guy who approves the next “sleeping Osama.”
The shortage is no less acute at the State Department. A bipartisan State Department advisory panel on public diplomacy, headed by Edward Djerejian, a former ambassador to Israel and Syria, found that only 54 of 279 Arabic speakers employed by State were fluent. Of those, only six were fluent enough to appear on Arabic television programs.
The Baker-Hamilton group made some 79 recommendations to the president about how to craft a new strategy for our involvement in Iraq. These have been treated with both praise and scorn. But the issue may in fact be moot.
Like the group’s exhortation to increase the number of Arabic speakers in our Baghdad embassy, its recommendations are unlikely to produce a “victory” in Iraq. We needed the ISG three years ago – when there still might have been a few good options. Now there are none.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
BUSH’S SECOND BIGGEST MISTAKE
By William Fisher
The New York Times Sunday ran a series of articles by prominent historians who endeavored to answer the question, “Is Bush Our Worst President?” In the interest of balance, there was a “yes” piece, a “no” piece, and a “we don’t know yet” piece.
Fair enough.
But what struck me about these articles is how little attention they devoted to Bush’s second biggest mistake.
His first big mistake, as we all now know, was turning his attention and our resources away from Afghanistan, the country that harbored those who attacked us on 9/11. We’ll be paying a high price for that mistake for decades to come.
His second biggest mistake was the place to which he then turned his attention and our resources -- Iraq, a country that posed no imminent threat to our national security or that of its neighbors. And he did so on the basis of false, exaggerated, and hyped “intelligence.”
That was his second biggest mistake not simply because the Iraq adventure has turned out to be, as Tom Ricks would say, a fiasco.
Another significant reason is that it totally ignored what is indisputably the most serious and intractable problem in the Middle East: The Israeli-Palestinian issue – the 900-pound gorilla in the room.
For the past six years, this administration has been A.W.O.L on this hair-trigger issue. It is one whose solution cannot be advanced by occasional visits to the White House by Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, or Abu Mazen. It cannot be advanced by sporadic visits to the area by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. It cannot be advanced by pronouncements from the White House about the wisdom of a two-state solution. It cannot be advanced by hailing Mr. Sharon’ s Gaza initiative, which has effectively turned that strip of land into a prison. It cannot be advanced by the President’s endorsement of yet more West Bank settlements and redrawing the UN boundaries because of “changing reality on the ground.”
Nor can it be advanced by refusing to talk to Hamas because that bunch won the support of many Palestinian voters in the kind of fair election the President keeps pressing nations to hold. The President needs to ask why the Palestinian people voted for Hamas.
Whatever their reasons, the sorry result of U.S. post-election policy is to legitimize yet more suffering for the people who live in the Palestinian territories, thus turning up the volume of the anti-Americanism that already permeates the region.
So dire is this 50-year-old problem that it cried out for a long-term, sustained, on-the-ground diplomatic effort on the part of the Bush Administration. It required the presence, and the skills and patience, of a Dennis Ross or a Richard Holbrooke.
Now, alas, it may be too late. Our virtually total neglect of the problem, our lopsided support of Israel’s protracted incursion into Lebanon, and our unconscionable delay in pushing the UN for a cease-fire, may have robbed us of whatever credibility we once had as an “honest broker.”
Still, President Bush keeps referring to “the road map,” as if he and his people had expended any energy whatever in trying to lay the predicate for its implementation. There is no roadmap. It’s dead.
No one ever thought it would be easy – maybe not even possible – to persuade Hamas to abandon its refusal to recognize Israel’s existence or to give up on driving its people into the sea. And no one ever thought it would be easy to persuade the Israelis to make real concessions.
But lots of people said similar things when Jimmy Carter set out to establish a peace treaty between Israel and its archenemy, Egypt. That treaty is still in force, as is the one between Israel and Jordan.
Every president over the past thirty years has tried to find ways to resolve the myriad of issues that make up the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Every president, that is, except George W. Bush. His predecessors weren’t famously successful, but at least they tried.
They tried because they understood that the road to Baghdad ran through Jerusalem, not vice-versa.
There is no single issue that energizes the nations and people of the Middle East in the way that the Israel-Palestine cancer does. It is true that many Arab nations in the neighborhood don’t really care if this issue is ever settled, because the longer it festers the easier it is for them to do nothing save using it as a pretext for their anti-American propaganda. Israel always makes a handy agenda item for meetings of the Arab League. But we should by now be used to The Arab League shooting itself in the foot.
Just as the President, now out of all good options, will likely find himself reluctantly having to negotiate with Iran and Syria over Iraq, he will similarly find himself forced to talk with Hamas. That will require tough, sustained, carrot-and-stick diplomacy of a kind that has been sadly absent during the past six years. We can enlist a few credible allies, including the EU and the UN, but the principal responsibility can’t be outsourced. The U.S. still has more leverage over Israel than any other country.
Talking to Hamas won’t be easy or pleasant. But Mr. Bush wasn’t elected to take on the easy or pleasant.
And there is nothing that would offer more promise for a peaceful Middle East than for President Bush to at least be seen to be trying in a really serious way to do something meaningful in his last two years in office.
He may be a lame duck, but that doesn’t mean he has to be a paraplegic.
The New York Times Sunday ran a series of articles by prominent historians who endeavored to answer the question, “Is Bush Our Worst President?” In the interest of balance, there was a “yes” piece, a “no” piece, and a “we don’t know yet” piece.
Fair enough.
But what struck me about these articles is how little attention they devoted to Bush’s second biggest mistake.
His first big mistake, as we all now know, was turning his attention and our resources away from Afghanistan, the country that harbored those who attacked us on 9/11. We’ll be paying a high price for that mistake for decades to come.
His second biggest mistake was the place to which he then turned his attention and our resources -- Iraq, a country that posed no imminent threat to our national security or that of its neighbors. And he did so on the basis of false, exaggerated, and hyped “intelligence.”
That was his second biggest mistake not simply because the Iraq adventure has turned out to be, as Tom Ricks would say, a fiasco.
Another significant reason is that it totally ignored what is indisputably the most serious and intractable problem in the Middle East: The Israeli-Palestinian issue – the 900-pound gorilla in the room.
For the past six years, this administration has been A.W.O.L on this hair-trigger issue. It is one whose solution cannot be advanced by occasional visits to the White House by Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, or Abu Mazen. It cannot be advanced by sporadic visits to the area by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. It cannot be advanced by pronouncements from the White House about the wisdom of a two-state solution. It cannot be advanced by hailing Mr. Sharon’ s Gaza initiative, which has effectively turned that strip of land into a prison. It cannot be advanced by the President’s endorsement of yet more West Bank settlements and redrawing the UN boundaries because of “changing reality on the ground.”
Nor can it be advanced by refusing to talk to Hamas because that bunch won the support of many Palestinian voters in the kind of fair election the President keeps pressing nations to hold. The President needs to ask why the Palestinian people voted for Hamas.
Whatever their reasons, the sorry result of U.S. post-election policy is to legitimize yet more suffering for the people who live in the Palestinian territories, thus turning up the volume of the anti-Americanism that already permeates the region.
So dire is this 50-year-old problem that it cried out for a long-term, sustained, on-the-ground diplomatic effort on the part of the Bush Administration. It required the presence, and the skills and patience, of a Dennis Ross or a Richard Holbrooke.
Now, alas, it may be too late. Our virtually total neglect of the problem, our lopsided support of Israel’s protracted incursion into Lebanon, and our unconscionable delay in pushing the UN for a cease-fire, may have robbed us of whatever credibility we once had as an “honest broker.”
Still, President Bush keeps referring to “the road map,” as if he and his people had expended any energy whatever in trying to lay the predicate for its implementation. There is no roadmap. It’s dead.
No one ever thought it would be easy – maybe not even possible – to persuade Hamas to abandon its refusal to recognize Israel’s existence or to give up on driving its people into the sea. And no one ever thought it would be easy to persuade the Israelis to make real concessions.
But lots of people said similar things when Jimmy Carter set out to establish a peace treaty between Israel and its archenemy, Egypt. That treaty is still in force, as is the one between Israel and Jordan.
Every president over the past thirty years has tried to find ways to resolve the myriad of issues that make up the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Every president, that is, except George W. Bush. His predecessors weren’t famously successful, but at least they tried.
They tried because they understood that the road to Baghdad ran through Jerusalem, not vice-versa.
There is no single issue that energizes the nations and people of the Middle East in the way that the Israel-Palestine cancer does. It is true that many Arab nations in the neighborhood don’t really care if this issue is ever settled, because the longer it festers the easier it is for them to do nothing save using it as a pretext for their anti-American propaganda. Israel always makes a handy agenda item for meetings of the Arab League. But we should by now be used to The Arab League shooting itself in the foot.
Just as the President, now out of all good options, will likely find himself reluctantly having to negotiate with Iran and Syria over Iraq, he will similarly find himself forced to talk with Hamas. That will require tough, sustained, carrot-and-stick diplomacy of a kind that has been sadly absent during the past six years. We can enlist a few credible allies, including the EU and the UN, but the principal responsibility can’t be outsourced. The U.S. still has more leverage over Israel than any other country.
Talking to Hamas won’t be easy or pleasant. But Mr. Bush wasn’t elected to take on the easy or pleasant.
And there is nothing that would offer more promise for a peaceful Middle East than for President Bush to at least be seen to be trying in a really serious way to do something meaningful in his last two years in office.
He may be a lame duck, but that doesn’t mean he has to be a paraplegic.
FOUR HOPEFUL SIGNS
By William Fisher
Amidst the anger, dismay and depression felt by millions of Americans who see their country’s civil liberties being unnecessarily surrendered in the name of “The Global War on Terror”, there are occasional signs that our justice system is still alive and well.
Recent weeks have brought four such signs.
Sign One: Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen, stood up in a U.S. Federal courtroom to challenge the Bush administration's use of "extraordinary rendition," abduction, detention and interrogation in secret overseas prisons. He told the court, "I have come to America seeking three things. An acknowledgement that the United States government is responsible for kidnapping, abusing and detaining me; an explanation as to why I was singled out for this treatment; and an apology because I am an innocent man who has never been charged with any crime."
In a legal maneuver now familiar, the government tried to use the “state secrets privilege” to keep the case from being heard and thus avoid accountability for its actions. But last week, El-Masri’s lawyers argued that the government's official
recognition of the program and information already available about this case show that the lawsuit does not jeopardize national security and must be allowed to continue.
The last time El-Masri tried to come to the U.S. -- to hear his own court
case -- he was denied entry because he did not have a visa, even though German citizens don't actually need visas to enter the U.S.
Sign Two: A group of human rights advocacy organizations filed a ‘Friend of the Court” brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals demanding justice for Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a Qatari student, who was arrested in Peoria, Illinois, in 2001, detained in New York City for 18 months as an alleged material witness in the 9/11 attacks, and then, in 2003, just weeks before al-Marri's planned trial in federal court, President Bush declared him an "enemy combatant" in the "war on terror" and ordered him transferred to military custody where he was held incommunicado at a Naval Brig for 17 months while being interrogated under allegedly coercive and abusive conditions.
Al-Marri’s lawyers are arguing in court filings that it is unconstitutional for the government to detain as an "enemy combatant" a person who is not captured on the battlefield and who is not a member of the armed forces of an enemy State. The brief was filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
His lawyers argue that the general constitutional rule governing detention, per the Supreme Court decision of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, limits the definition of "enemy combatant" to persons who are captured on a battlefield or are members of the armed forces of an enemy state. This definition is consistent with the traditions laws of war and constitutional precedent prohibiting military trial and the detention without trial or charge of civilians. Without such protections, United States citizens and immigrants can be arrested, deemed "enemy combatants," and detained indefinitely without due process.
The government’s reply briefs are due in January 2007. Oral arguments are expected to take place at the end of January or beginning of February 2007. In the meantime, al-Marri continues to be held in military custody, without charge or trial.
Sign Three: Five years after Muslim immigrants were abused in a federal jail, the guards who beat them and the Washington policymakers who decided to hold them for months without charges are being called to account. In what could turn out to be a landmark case, a panel of three Federal judges turned down a request by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and former Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft to dismiss the lawsuit brought against two Brooklyn detainees, and signaled they believed the case should go forward.
In the months immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some 1,200 Middle Eastern men were arrested on suspicion of terrorism. Many were held in Brooklyn's notorious nine-story Metropolitan Detention Center. In a special unit on the top floor, detainees were smashed into walls, repeatedly stripped and searched, and often denied basic legal rights and religious privileges, according to federal investigations.
Now the federal Bureau of Prisons, which runs the jail, has revealed for the first time that 13 staff members have been disciplined, two of them fired. The warden has retired and moved to the Midwest.
Two of these detainees sued former Attorney General Ashcroft, FBI Director Mueller, and top federal prison officials and individual guards as defendants, seeking an unspecified amount of money from the government.
The suit hopes to hold federal law enforcement authorities responsible for their open-ended, "hold-until-cleared" policy for detainees. If the lawsuit prevails, it will create precedents that will probably bar authorities from carrying out such sweeping roundups in the future.
The government has already settled with one of the plaintiffs – a rare and surprising move -- former Manhattan deli operator Ehab Elmaghraby, who accepted a federal government payout of $300,000.
Elmaghraby, who has returned to Egypt, said he could not forgive the guards who jammed a flashlight up his rectum. "They destroyed me. They destroyed my family," he said in a recent telephone interview. "So I want the officers to stay one week inside those cells. They would kill themselves before the week was finished."
So the case is proceeding with just one of the detainees who sued.
Sign Four: In a significant development on the right of charitable giving, a federal judge ruled that the Bush administration violated the U.S. Constitution when it froze the assets of more than two dozen alleged terrorist groups after the 9/11 attacks. The ruling held that an executive order President Bush issued on Sept. 24, 2001, designating 27 groups and individuals as "specially designated global terrorists", was "unconstitutionally vague" and flawed because it failed to explain the criteria used to make the designations and included no process to challenge the decision.
The challenge brought to the federal courts was based on the premise that domestic political groups in the U.S. can support humanitarian causes in troubled regions without supporting terrorism. Specifically, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins ruled against freezing the assets of two political organizations with purported ties to terrorist groups based in Sri Lanka and Kurdistan.
Over the past five years, the Bush Administration has named a number of U.S. charities as "specially designated terrorist groups" under Executive Order 13224. As a result, several have had their operations suspended and their assets frozen by the government without any checks or balances from Congress or the Judiciary. To date, such efforts have not yielded a single conviction of anyone involved with the designated charities for terrorist financing or support.
These are all stories the government doesn’t want us to know about. But thanks to our judicial system – no doubt the neocons will accuse the lawyers of supporting terrorists and the jurists of being “activist judges” – we may find out anyway.
David Cole, the Georgetown law professor and renowned civil libertarian, believes there has always a pendulum effect in American civil liberties. We pass Alien and Sedition Acts, suspend habeas corpus, conduct “Red Raids” to root out anarchists and Bolsheviks, intern Japanese-Americans, and create blacklists and use Congress as a circus stage to find Communists in our midst.
For each of these actions, eventually there has been a reaction. Civil liberties get restored. The pendulum swings back.
But that was history before 9/11. And before George W. Bush. We can’t know yet whether the pendulum is still working. But we should be encouraged by small signs such as these.
Amidst the anger, dismay and depression felt by millions of Americans who see their country’s civil liberties being unnecessarily surrendered in the name of “The Global War on Terror”, there are occasional signs that our justice system is still alive and well.
Recent weeks have brought four such signs.
Sign One: Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen, stood up in a U.S. Federal courtroom to challenge the Bush administration's use of "extraordinary rendition," abduction, detention and interrogation in secret overseas prisons. He told the court, "I have come to America seeking three things. An acknowledgement that the United States government is responsible for kidnapping, abusing and detaining me; an explanation as to why I was singled out for this treatment; and an apology because I am an innocent man who has never been charged with any crime."
In a legal maneuver now familiar, the government tried to use the “state secrets privilege” to keep the case from being heard and thus avoid accountability for its actions. But last week, El-Masri’s lawyers argued that the government's official
recognition of the program and information already available about this case show that the lawsuit does not jeopardize national security and must be allowed to continue.
The last time El-Masri tried to come to the U.S. -- to hear his own court
case -- he was denied entry because he did not have a visa, even though German citizens don't actually need visas to enter the U.S.
Sign Two: A group of human rights advocacy organizations filed a ‘Friend of the Court” brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals demanding justice for Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a Qatari student, who was arrested in Peoria, Illinois, in 2001, detained in New York City for 18 months as an alleged material witness in the 9/11 attacks, and then, in 2003, just weeks before al-Marri's planned trial in federal court, President Bush declared him an "enemy combatant" in the "war on terror" and ordered him transferred to military custody where he was held incommunicado at a Naval Brig for 17 months while being interrogated under allegedly coercive and abusive conditions.
Al-Marri’s lawyers are arguing in court filings that it is unconstitutional for the government to detain as an "enemy combatant" a person who is not captured on the battlefield and who is not a member of the armed forces of an enemy State. The brief was filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
His lawyers argue that the general constitutional rule governing detention, per the Supreme Court decision of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, limits the definition of "enemy combatant" to persons who are captured on a battlefield or are members of the armed forces of an enemy state. This definition is consistent with the traditions laws of war and constitutional precedent prohibiting military trial and the detention without trial or charge of civilians. Without such protections, United States citizens and immigrants can be arrested, deemed "enemy combatants," and detained indefinitely without due process.
The government’s reply briefs are due in January 2007. Oral arguments are expected to take place at the end of January or beginning of February 2007. In the meantime, al-Marri continues to be held in military custody, without charge or trial.
Sign Three: Five years after Muslim immigrants were abused in a federal jail, the guards who beat them and the Washington policymakers who decided to hold them for months without charges are being called to account. In what could turn out to be a landmark case, a panel of three Federal judges turned down a request by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and former Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft to dismiss the lawsuit brought against two Brooklyn detainees, and signaled they believed the case should go forward.
In the months immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some 1,200 Middle Eastern men were arrested on suspicion of terrorism. Many were held in Brooklyn's notorious nine-story Metropolitan Detention Center. In a special unit on the top floor, detainees were smashed into walls, repeatedly stripped and searched, and often denied basic legal rights and religious privileges, according to federal investigations.
Now the federal Bureau of Prisons, which runs the jail, has revealed for the first time that 13 staff members have been disciplined, two of them fired. The warden has retired and moved to the Midwest.
Two of these detainees sued former Attorney General Ashcroft, FBI Director Mueller, and top federal prison officials and individual guards as defendants, seeking an unspecified amount of money from the government.
The suit hopes to hold federal law enforcement authorities responsible for their open-ended, "hold-until-cleared" policy for detainees. If the lawsuit prevails, it will create precedents that will probably bar authorities from carrying out such sweeping roundups in the future.
The government has already settled with one of the plaintiffs – a rare and surprising move -- former Manhattan deli operator Ehab Elmaghraby, who accepted a federal government payout of $300,000.
Elmaghraby, who has returned to Egypt, said he could not forgive the guards who jammed a flashlight up his rectum. "They destroyed me. They destroyed my family," he said in a recent telephone interview. "So I want the officers to stay one week inside those cells. They would kill themselves before the week was finished."
So the case is proceeding with just one of the detainees who sued.
Sign Four: In a significant development on the right of charitable giving, a federal judge ruled that the Bush administration violated the U.S. Constitution when it froze the assets of more than two dozen alleged terrorist groups after the 9/11 attacks. The ruling held that an executive order President Bush issued on Sept. 24, 2001, designating 27 groups and individuals as "specially designated global terrorists", was "unconstitutionally vague" and flawed because it failed to explain the criteria used to make the designations and included no process to challenge the decision.
The challenge brought to the federal courts was based on the premise that domestic political groups in the U.S. can support humanitarian causes in troubled regions without supporting terrorism. Specifically, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins ruled against freezing the assets of two political organizations with purported ties to terrorist groups based in Sri Lanka and Kurdistan.
Over the past five years, the Bush Administration has named a number of U.S. charities as "specially designated terrorist groups" under Executive Order 13224. As a result, several have had their operations suspended and their assets frozen by the government without any checks or balances from Congress or the Judiciary. To date, such efforts have not yielded a single conviction of anyone involved with the designated charities for terrorist financing or support.
These are all stories the government doesn’t want us to know about. But thanks to our judicial system – no doubt the neocons will accuse the lawyers of supporting terrorists and the jurists of being “activist judges” – we may find out anyway.
David Cole, the Georgetown law professor and renowned civil libertarian, believes there has always a pendulum effect in American civil liberties. We pass Alien and Sedition Acts, suspend habeas corpus, conduct “Red Raids” to root out anarchists and Bolsheviks, intern Japanese-Americans, and create blacklists and use Congress as a circus stage to find Communists in our midst.
For each of these actions, eventually there has been a reaction. Civil liberties get restored. The pendulum swings back.
But that was history before 9/11. And before George W. Bush. We can’t know yet whether the pendulum is still working. But we should be encouraged by small signs such as these.
UNBENDING BUSH
By William Fisher
As the new Democratic Party majority in Congress considers whether to re-visit the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), the administration of President George W. Bush is proposing still more restrictions on detainees in American custody.
The government has proposed limiting contact between defense lawyers and detainees at Guantanamo Bay because detainees' communications, such as news of world events, could incite the prisoners to violence.
The U.S. proposal to limit lawyers’ contacts with their Guantanamo was contained in a filing to a federal appeals court in Washington. The case deals with an Afghani detainee but the government wants them to apply to other prisoners at Guantanamo. The prison camp currently holds some 430 detainees.
Among the more controversial provisions of the MCA, which President Bush signed into law in October, is one that strips U.S. courts of jurisdiction to consider writs of habeas corpus filed by detainees classified as enemy combatants. The Administration contends that the president may classify any person, even a U.S. citizen, as an enemy combatant.
But Senator Chris Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, has already introduced legislation that would restore habeas corpus rights to military detainees and make other amendments to the MCA. Dodd's bill, the Effective Terrorists Prosecution Act, would restore those protections. The amendments would also narrow the class of detainees identified as unlawful enemy combatants who are affected by the MCA's habeas restriction.
The Democratic Party won control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate when they defeated Republicans in mid-term elections last month.
Since its passage, the MCA has come under fire not only from Democrats but also from the judiciary, human rights groups, some Republicans, and foreign countries.
Last month, lawyers representing detainees at Guantanamo Bay petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to declare the suspension of habeas rights unconstitutional. In an amicus – friend of the court -- brief in the case, seven retired federal judges urged the appeals court to rule that parts of the MCA violate the Constitution.
The principle of habeas corpus, originally contained in the Magna Carta, has been one of the cornerstones of U.S. law since the nation’s founding. It gives a detainee the right to go to court to challenge the authority of the prison or jail warden to continue to hold him or her.
Dodd's bill would also provide for expedited review of the MCA to ensure its constitutionality.
An alternative strategy is being proposed by Prof. Peter Shane of Ohio State Law School and Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Law and Policy Studies. He told us, “The Constitution limits the suspension of habeas to occasions ‘when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.’ Because our public safety is not now at risk from either rebellion or invasion, the MCA is unconstitutional in suspending habeas. I'd be happy for Congress to amend the MCA, but they may fear a veto. An alternative strategy would be a concurrent resolution proclaiming ‘the sense of Congress that public safety is not now at risk from either rebellion or invasion.’ This could be a powerful aid to anyone bringing litigation to challenge the MCA.”
The proposed new rules for detainee-lawyer contacts would apply to detainees pursuing court challenges to their designations as "enemy combatants," and would tighten censorship of mail from attorneys and give the military more control over what lawyers can discuss with their clients, according to the filing.
The number of face-to-face meetings between defense attorneys and detainees would be limited to four total. There are now no restrictions on the number of times they can meet, although lawyers' access to the base is already hampered because it is so remote.
The government says current rules have allowed detainees to receive books or articles about terrorist attacks in Iraq, London and Israel, as well as details of the prisoner abuse investigation at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
In the court filing, a military lawyer said security at Guantanamo Bay has been threatened by the introduction of a book on Abu Ghraib, a speech given at an Amnesty International conference about the war on terror, and other materials.
"Such materials could incite detainees to violence, leading to a destabilization of the camp," wrote Navy Cmdr. Patrick M. McCarthy.
The government petition was filed this summer but only recently discovered by The Boston Globe newspaper, relates to the case of Haji Bismullah, an Afghan who is among several Guantanamo detainees represented by the New York-based advocacy group, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR).
Currently, mail from lawyers is examined only for physical contraband. The proposed rules call for all of a detainee's mail to be examined for forbidden information.
A CCR attorney said he suspects the proposal is aimed at controlling the information coming out of Guantanamo. Accounts from defense lawyers who have visited Guantanamo have cast doubt on government assertions that most detainees are hardened terrorists.
"What's happening is the government wants to hide this indisputable fact," he said "They're not happy we've been able to bring a lot of these developments to light."
Many other human rights organizations have weighed in on this issue. For example, Mary Shaw of Amnesty International USA told us, “With passage of the Military Commissions Act, human rights violations perpetrated by the Bush administration in the ‘war on terror’ have in effect been given the congressional stamp of approval. This raises serious questions about the U.S. government's commitment to due process and the rule of law.”
She added, “The ‘war on terror’ must not be used as an excuse to deny the basic human rights of any person. Amnesty International will continue to campaign for U.S. ‘war on terror’ detention policies and practices to be brought into full compliance with international law, and for repeal of any law that fails to meet this test.”
In 2004, the Supreme Court said detainees can contest the legality of their detentions. But, while the MCA bars detainees from protesting their detentions in court, they still have a right to challenge their designations as "enemy combatants." The new rules would restrict legal representation for those challenges.
Meanwhile, lawyers for dozens of Guantanamo Bay detainees have asked a federal appeals court to declare a key part of President Bush's new military trials law unconstitutional.
The detainees' lawyers challenged the military's authority to arrest people overseas and detain them indefinitely without allowing them to use the U.S. courts to contest their detention.
In written arguments, attorneys for more than 100 detainees who would be locked out of the regular judicial system asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to let the detainees keep their legal challenges going in civilian courts.
President Bush says he would like to close Guantanamo, but shows no signs of so doing. In fact, a new facility for holding trials there is now nearing completion.
In five years, not a single detainee has been charged or tried. And it is extremely unlikely that the fourteen high-value suspects recently transferred to Guantanamo from secret prisons elsewhere will ever come to trial because the evidence against them was probably obtained through coercion.
One can only wonder if President Bush is really being informed by those who advise him of what Guantanamo represents to most of the rest of the world. In simply symbolic terms, it destroys his rhetoric about democracy and the rule of law, and turns against America the very people whose hearts and minds the President says he’s trying to win.
As the new Democratic Party majority in Congress considers whether to re-visit the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), the administration of President George W. Bush is proposing still more restrictions on detainees in American custody.
The government has proposed limiting contact between defense lawyers and detainees at Guantanamo Bay because detainees' communications, such as news of world events, could incite the prisoners to violence.
The U.S. proposal to limit lawyers’ contacts with their Guantanamo was contained in a filing to a federal appeals court in Washington. The case deals with an Afghani detainee but the government wants them to apply to other prisoners at Guantanamo. The prison camp currently holds some 430 detainees.
Among the more controversial provisions of the MCA, which President Bush signed into law in October, is one that strips U.S. courts of jurisdiction to consider writs of habeas corpus filed by detainees classified as enemy combatants. The Administration contends that the president may classify any person, even a U.S. citizen, as an enemy combatant.
But Senator Chris Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, has already introduced legislation that would restore habeas corpus rights to military detainees and make other amendments to the MCA. Dodd's bill, the Effective Terrorists Prosecution Act, would restore those protections. The amendments would also narrow the class of detainees identified as unlawful enemy combatants who are affected by the MCA's habeas restriction.
The Democratic Party won control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate when they defeated Republicans in mid-term elections last month.
Since its passage, the MCA has come under fire not only from Democrats but also from the judiciary, human rights groups, some Republicans, and foreign countries.
Last month, lawyers representing detainees at Guantanamo Bay petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to declare the suspension of habeas rights unconstitutional. In an amicus – friend of the court -- brief in the case, seven retired federal judges urged the appeals court to rule that parts of the MCA violate the Constitution.
The principle of habeas corpus, originally contained in the Magna Carta, has been one of the cornerstones of U.S. law since the nation’s founding. It gives a detainee the right to go to court to challenge the authority of the prison or jail warden to continue to hold him or her.
Dodd's bill would also provide for expedited review of the MCA to ensure its constitutionality.
An alternative strategy is being proposed by Prof. Peter Shane of Ohio State Law School and Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Law and Policy Studies. He told us, “The Constitution limits the suspension of habeas to occasions ‘when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.’ Because our public safety is not now at risk from either rebellion or invasion, the MCA is unconstitutional in suspending habeas. I'd be happy for Congress to amend the MCA, but they may fear a veto. An alternative strategy would be a concurrent resolution proclaiming ‘the sense of Congress that public safety is not now at risk from either rebellion or invasion.’ This could be a powerful aid to anyone bringing litigation to challenge the MCA.”
The proposed new rules for detainee-lawyer contacts would apply to detainees pursuing court challenges to their designations as "enemy combatants," and would tighten censorship of mail from attorneys and give the military more control over what lawyers can discuss with their clients, according to the filing.
The number of face-to-face meetings between defense attorneys and detainees would be limited to four total. There are now no restrictions on the number of times they can meet, although lawyers' access to the base is already hampered because it is so remote.
The government says current rules have allowed detainees to receive books or articles about terrorist attacks in Iraq, London and Israel, as well as details of the prisoner abuse investigation at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
In the court filing, a military lawyer said security at Guantanamo Bay has been threatened by the introduction of a book on Abu Ghraib, a speech given at an Amnesty International conference about the war on terror, and other materials.
"Such materials could incite detainees to violence, leading to a destabilization of the camp," wrote Navy Cmdr. Patrick M. McCarthy.
The government petition was filed this summer but only recently discovered by The Boston Globe newspaper, relates to the case of Haji Bismullah, an Afghan who is among several Guantanamo detainees represented by the New York-based advocacy group, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR).
Currently, mail from lawyers is examined only for physical contraband. The proposed rules call for all of a detainee's mail to be examined for forbidden information.
A CCR attorney said he suspects the proposal is aimed at controlling the information coming out of Guantanamo. Accounts from defense lawyers who have visited Guantanamo have cast doubt on government assertions that most detainees are hardened terrorists.
"What's happening is the government wants to hide this indisputable fact," he said "They're not happy we've been able to bring a lot of these developments to light."
Many other human rights organizations have weighed in on this issue. For example, Mary Shaw of Amnesty International USA told us, “With passage of the Military Commissions Act, human rights violations perpetrated by the Bush administration in the ‘war on terror’ have in effect been given the congressional stamp of approval. This raises serious questions about the U.S. government's commitment to due process and the rule of law.”
She added, “The ‘war on terror’ must not be used as an excuse to deny the basic human rights of any person. Amnesty International will continue to campaign for U.S. ‘war on terror’ detention policies and practices to be brought into full compliance with international law, and for repeal of any law that fails to meet this test.”
In 2004, the Supreme Court said detainees can contest the legality of their detentions. But, while the MCA bars detainees from protesting their detentions in court, they still have a right to challenge their designations as "enemy combatants." The new rules would restrict legal representation for those challenges.
Meanwhile, lawyers for dozens of Guantanamo Bay detainees have asked a federal appeals court to declare a key part of President Bush's new military trials law unconstitutional.
The detainees' lawyers challenged the military's authority to arrest people overseas and detain them indefinitely without allowing them to use the U.S. courts to contest their detention.
In written arguments, attorneys for more than 100 detainees who would be locked out of the regular judicial system asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to let the detainees keep their legal challenges going in civilian courts.
President Bush says he would like to close Guantanamo, but shows no signs of so doing. In fact, a new facility for holding trials there is now nearing completion.
In five years, not a single detainee has been charged or tried. And it is extremely unlikely that the fourteen high-value suspects recently transferred to Guantanamo from secret prisons elsewhere will ever come to trial because the evidence against them was probably obtained through coercion.
One can only wonder if President Bush is really being informed by those who advise him of what Guantanamo represents to most of the rest of the world. In simply symbolic terms, it destroys his rhetoric about democracy and the rule of law, and turns against America the very people whose hearts and minds the President says he’s trying to win.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
NOT FLYING WHILE MUSLIM
By William Fisher
The paranoid wing of the blogosphere continues to go ballistic with joy about the six Muslim imams who were removed in handcuffs from a US Airways flight because one passenger thought it was “suspicious” that they knelt on their prayer rugs and prayed in the airport waiting room before boarding their flight.
The six had been attending a conference of imams in Minneapolis and were headed for Phoenix. Like all the other passengers, they had cleared the usual security screenings. But a passenger told CNN she saw the imams praying and thought they had made anti-U.S. statements before boarding and "made similar statements while boarding," according to Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security.
The bloggers went wild.
“I think it's fairly obvious that these people cannot be trusted in any way
shape or form.... Whomever the passenger(s) was/were who raised a stink about
these jokers, he/she needs to be commended! Great work by US Airways for
being vigilant, too...Let the ‘scholars’ sue...They don't have a case with
this kind of evidence... ” blogged one reader on Jihad Watch.
Another encouraged readers to “phone, email or call and express your support for US Airways.”
Yet another inveighed, “Starting to think the imams were testing security-- otherwise why draw attention to yourself by praying like that? Also one was hamas (sic) linked…”
One conspiracy-theorist blogged, “Their refusal to accept the seats they were assigned makes it appear that they were acting as agents provocateurs, attempting to create a ‘cause celebre’ to arouse radicalism in quiescent Muslims in the USA. That wouldn't surprise me at all.”
Yet another used a “Happy Thanksgiving” blog post to give thanks that “Islam is on the radar screens of some pretty sharp minds...” and for “the small arsenal in my basement.”
So let’s hear it for US Airways. Its vigilance saved the nation from God only knows what catastrophe! And maybe the president should confer the Medal of Freedom on the sharp-eyed passenger who passed a note to a flight attendant about these “suspicious” people. She will then be in the august company of other heroes like George Tenet and L. Paul Bremer.
US Airways said it is investigating the imams’ removal. "We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind and will continue to exhaust our internal investigation until we know the facts of this case and can provide answer for the employees and customers involved in this incident," the airline said in a written statement.
Meanwhile, the airline denied the clerics access to another flight and refused to assist them in obtaining tickets on another carrier. One of the imams told the AP that when he went back to the airport the following morning, he was told by a ticketing agent his payment for the flight had been refunded. He said the agent told him that neither he nor the other imams could purchase tickets from US Airways.
Knocke of the DHS defended the airline's action. "We do not criticize anyone who errs on the side of security," he told CNN, but "we have absolutely no issue with any of these individuals."
"This was a difficult spot for the airport police and for the pilot," he said. "This is an unfortunate circumstance, and we recognize that these six individuals were inconvenienced and delayed about three hours." After the six imams were removed, they and their luggage were re-screened and the plane was checked out with dogs, Knocke said. "Everything checked out. The FBI and Secret Service conducted interviews and everything checked out fine," he said.
Still, authorities told the press they thought US Airways “made the right call.”
Right for everyone but the six imams. And the millions of other American Muslims to whom the FBI, DHS, and other national security agencies say they’re trying to reach out.
But US Airways’ knee-jerk reaction to the six imams simply adds another layer of mistrust to the deep suspicion that still lingers after the treatment of Muslims following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
That’s when the FBI began to round up and detain “suspected terrorists.” Arabs and other Muslims – as well as anyone who looked “Middle Eastern,” including South Asian Sikhs -- became the bureau's top targets. John Ashcroft’s Justice Department scooped up hundreds of people for questioning, an effort led by now-DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff. They were denied lawyers, held in prison-like conditions and, according to a DHS Inspector General’s report, frequently physically abused. The FBI also shut down Muslim charities and froze their assets, monitored mosques for radiation and held refugees for months because of security checks.
That’s the history the US Government is now trying to overcome. But the mistrust persists.
''You never hear the FBI say that part of the reason there has not been another
terrorist attack in this country is because radical extremists have not found a
home in American mosques,'' says Rebecca Abou-Chedid, director of government relations for the Arab American Institute in Washington. “It's as if they believe that we know about terrorist cells and we're not telling them.''
The blogger’s reference to Hamas refers to one of the ejected imams’ alleged ties to a charity known as Kind Hearts, which was founded in Toledo, Ohio, in 2002, after the government shut down and froze the assets of the largest Muslim charities in the U.S. for “providing material support” to terrorists and their organizations.
The Senate Finance Committee conducted a two-year investigation of Kind Hearts, along with two-dozen other U.S. Muslim charities. The Chairman of the Committee, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa announced that his panel found no evidence of criminal activity.
Thus far, even though the charity shuts-downs began in 2002, only one charity has been charged with any wrongdoing, and none has been convicted of any crime. Nevertheless, their assets remain frozen – sometimes resulting in lack of funds to hire defense lawyers.
Nevertheless, the U.S. Department of the Treasury website proclaims that "Kind Hearts is the progeny of Holy Land Foundation and Global Relief Foundation, which attempted to mask their support for terrorism behind the façade of charitable giving…By utilizing this specialized designation tool, we're able to prevent asset flight in support of terrorist activities while we further investigate the activities of Kind Hearts."
I have no idea whether any of these charities were actually providing “material support” to terrorist organizations. But the place to find out is in court, not on a Treasury Department website.
I do have an idea about what the treatment of the six imams does for the absolutely vital relationships between Muslim-Americans, the U.S. Government, and the “bad guys” that both are eager to bring to justice.
If major corporations such as US Airways and its employees continue to cave on an accusation by a single paranoid passenger, and government officials hand out praise by describing it as “the right call,” then both will have been complicit in crippling real efforts to find terrorists in our midst.
The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) today called on officials from the Departments of Homeland Security and Transportation to launch of formal review of the incident and the possible violation of passengers' civil rights by US Airways. "We hope that by opening this type of investigation, U.S. corporations can be held accountable by our government and the federal agencies can adequately address the racial profiling that is occurring in our nation’s airports," said Salam Al-Marayati, MPAC Executive Director.
An excellent idea. I hope the government agencies will remember that US Airways had a choice: It could have invited the complaining passenger to leave the flight, thus assuring that she, at least, would not be slammed into the White House.
The paranoid wing of the blogosphere continues to go ballistic with joy about the six Muslim imams who were removed in handcuffs from a US Airways flight because one passenger thought it was “suspicious” that they knelt on their prayer rugs and prayed in the airport waiting room before boarding their flight.
The six had been attending a conference of imams in Minneapolis and were headed for Phoenix. Like all the other passengers, they had cleared the usual security screenings. But a passenger told CNN she saw the imams praying and thought they had made anti-U.S. statements before boarding and "made similar statements while boarding," according to Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security.
The bloggers went wild.
“I think it's fairly obvious that these people cannot be trusted in any way
shape or form.... Whomever the passenger(s) was/were who raised a stink about
these jokers, he/she needs to be commended! Great work by US Airways for
being vigilant, too...Let the ‘scholars’ sue...They don't have a case with
this kind of evidence... ” blogged one reader on Jihad Watch.
Another encouraged readers to “phone, email or call and express your support for US Airways.”
Yet another inveighed, “Starting to think the imams were testing security-- otherwise why draw attention to yourself by praying like that? Also one was hamas (sic) linked…”
One conspiracy-theorist blogged, “Their refusal to accept the seats they were assigned makes it appear that they were acting as agents provocateurs, attempting to create a ‘cause celebre’ to arouse radicalism in quiescent Muslims in the USA. That wouldn't surprise me at all.”
Yet another used a “Happy Thanksgiving” blog post to give thanks that “Islam is on the radar screens of some pretty sharp minds...” and for “the small arsenal in my basement.”
So let’s hear it for US Airways. Its vigilance saved the nation from God only knows what catastrophe! And maybe the president should confer the Medal of Freedom on the sharp-eyed passenger who passed a note to a flight attendant about these “suspicious” people. She will then be in the august company of other heroes like George Tenet and L. Paul Bremer.
US Airways said it is investigating the imams’ removal. "We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind and will continue to exhaust our internal investigation until we know the facts of this case and can provide answer for the employees and customers involved in this incident," the airline said in a written statement.
Meanwhile, the airline denied the clerics access to another flight and refused to assist them in obtaining tickets on another carrier. One of the imams told the AP that when he went back to the airport the following morning, he was told by a ticketing agent his payment for the flight had been refunded. He said the agent told him that neither he nor the other imams could purchase tickets from US Airways.
Knocke of the DHS defended the airline's action. "We do not criticize anyone who errs on the side of security," he told CNN, but "we have absolutely no issue with any of these individuals."
"This was a difficult spot for the airport police and for the pilot," he said. "This is an unfortunate circumstance, and we recognize that these six individuals were inconvenienced and delayed about three hours." After the six imams were removed, they and their luggage were re-screened and the plane was checked out with dogs, Knocke said. "Everything checked out. The FBI and Secret Service conducted interviews and everything checked out fine," he said.
Still, authorities told the press they thought US Airways “made the right call.”
Right for everyone but the six imams. And the millions of other American Muslims to whom the FBI, DHS, and other national security agencies say they’re trying to reach out.
But US Airways’ knee-jerk reaction to the six imams simply adds another layer of mistrust to the deep suspicion that still lingers after the treatment of Muslims following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
That’s when the FBI began to round up and detain “suspected terrorists.” Arabs and other Muslims – as well as anyone who looked “Middle Eastern,” including South Asian Sikhs -- became the bureau's top targets. John Ashcroft’s Justice Department scooped up hundreds of people for questioning, an effort led by now-DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff. They were denied lawyers, held in prison-like conditions and, according to a DHS Inspector General’s report, frequently physically abused. The FBI also shut down Muslim charities and froze their assets, monitored mosques for radiation and held refugees for months because of security checks.
That’s the history the US Government is now trying to overcome. But the mistrust persists.
''You never hear the FBI say that part of the reason there has not been another
terrorist attack in this country is because radical extremists have not found a
home in American mosques,'' says Rebecca Abou-Chedid, director of government relations for the Arab American Institute in Washington. “It's as if they believe that we know about terrorist cells and we're not telling them.''
The blogger’s reference to Hamas refers to one of the ejected imams’ alleged ties to a charity known as Kind Hearts, which was founded in Toledo, Ohio, in 2002, after the government shut down and froze the assets of the largest Muslim charities in the U.S. for “providing material support” to terrorists and their organizations.
The Senate Finance Committee conducted a two-year investigation of Kind Hearts, along with two-dozen other U.S. Muslim charities. The Chairman of the Committee, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa announced that his panel found no evidence of criminal activity.
Thus far, even though the charity shuts-downs began in 2002, only one charity has been charged with any wrongdoing, and none has been convicted of any crime. Nevertheless, their assets remain frozen – sometimes resulting in lack of funds to hire defense lawyers.
Nevertheless, the U.S. Department of the Treasury website proclaims that "Kind Hearts is the progeny of Holy Land Foundation and Global Relief Foundation, which attempted to mask their support for terrorism behind the façade of charitable giving…By utilizing this specialized designation tool, we're able to prevent asset flight in support of terrorist activities while we further investigate the activities of Kind Hearts."
I have no idea whether any of these charities were actually providing “material support” to terrorist organizations. But the place to find out is in court, not on a Treasury Department website.
I do have an idea about what the treatment of the six imams does for the absolutely vital relationships between Muslim-Americans, the U.S. Government, and the “bad guys” that both are eager to bring to justice.
If major corporations such as US Airways and its employees continue to cave on an accusation by a single paranoid passenger, and government officials hand out praise by describing it as “the right call,” then both will have been complicit in crippling real efforts to find terrorists in our midst.
The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) today called on officials from the Departments of Homeland Security and Transportation to launch of formal review of the incident and the possible violation of passengers' civil rights by US Airways. "We hope that by opening this type of investigation, U.S. corporations can be held accountable by our government and the federal agencies can adequately address the racial profiling that is occurring in our nation’s airports," said Salam Al-Marayati, MPAC Executive Director.
An excellent idea. I hope the government agencies will remember that US Airways had a choice: It could have invited the complaining passenger to leave the flight, thus assuring that she, at least, would not be slammed into the White House.
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