By William Fisher
Those who remember recent history will not be surprised to learn that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been amassing files on the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Greenpeace, and other anti-war and anti-Bush organizations.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Department of Defense (DOD) and other intelligence agencies had all conspired to engage in widespread spying on ordinary Americans – and illegal covert operations.
The targets back then were left-wing groups and individuals, civil rights and anti-Vietnam activists and, of course, President Nixon’s “enemies list”.
The leader of the pack was the FBI’s powerful first director, J. Edgar Hoover – who had started his witch-hunting career in the 1920s under Attorney General Mitchell Palmer. Palmer’s infamous ‘Red Raids’ were enabled by a national environment of fear and suspicion and led to the jailing or deportation of hundreds of communists, Bolsheviks, and other dissidents, including Emma Goldman, the well-known Russian émigré poet.
The FBI under Hoover collected information on all America's leading politicians. Known as Hoover's “secret files”, this incriminating material was used to make sure that the eight presidents under whom he served would be too frightened to sack him. The strategy worked and Hoover was still in office when he died, aged 77, in 1972.
But it was the FBI’s spying on Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. that ended that era of government snooping. The FBI had used wiretaps and a covert operation, personally directed by Hoover, to unearth derogatory information intended to destroy King as a national civil rights leader.
The Committee’s work led to important reforms, including the adoption of Attorney General guidelines for the FBI’s national security and criminal investigations, enforcement of the limits on the CIA’s involvement in domestic spying, and internal controls on the National Security Agency’s monitoring of the electronic communications of United States persons.
Today, in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., the FBI is again armed with expanded powers to collect information on ordinary citizens. And it has been doing so.
That is what the FBI itself disclosed in Federal court yesterday. It acknowledged that it has collected 1,173 pages of files on the American Civil Liberties Union, 2,383 on Greenpeace, the environmental advocacy group, and an undetermined number of files on an organization called United for Peace and Justice (UPJ), a coalition of more than 1,000 antiwar groups. The coalition allegedly was planning peaceful protests at the time of the Republican Party National Convention in New York.
Six pages of internal documents from the FBI’s Los Angeles Bureau reportedly related to the UPJ group, and referred to possible anarchist connections of some protesters and the prospect for disruptions. But it also quoted at greater length from uncontroversial statements the protesters posted on their website and elsewhere to prepare for the Republican convention.
The government’s court filing came in response to a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) brought by the ACLU. and other groups that maintain that the FBI has engaged in a pattern of political surveillance against critics of the Bush administration.
The ACLU is seeking FBI records since 2001 or earlier on some 150 groups that have been critical of the Bush administration's policies on the Iraq war and other policies.
The FOIA law was passed in 1968 to give the public greater access to government documents.
The DOJ is opposing the ACLU request to expedite the review of material it is seeking under FOIA, saying it does not involve a matter of urgent public interest, and department lawyers say the sheer volume of material, in the thousands of pages, will take them 8 to 11 months to process for Greenpeace and the ACLU alone.
Earlier, the ACLU went to court in a separate case to obtain some 60,000 pages of records on the government's detention and interrogation practices. The organization said the FBI records on the dozens of protest groups could total tens of thousands of pages.
DOJ officials did not reveal what was in the ACLU and Greenpeace files, citing the pending lawsuit. But they denied that they have sought to monitor the political activities of any activist groups and that any intelligence-gathering activities related to political protests were intended to prevent disruptive and criminal activity at demonstrations, not to silence free speech.
"Why would the FBI collect almost 1,200 pages on a civil rights organization engaged in lawful activity? What justification could there be, other than political surveillance of lawful First Amendment activities?" asked ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero.
A smaller batch of documents already turned over by the government sheds light on the interest of FBI counterterrorism officials in protests surrounding the Iraq war and last year's Republican National Convention.
These documents are reportedly similar in tone to a bulletin distributed among FBI counterterrorism officials in October 2003 analyzing the activities of antiwar demonstrators who were then planning protests in Washington and San Francisco.
When an FBI employee charged that the memo blurred the line between lawfully protected speech and illegal activity, the DOJ conducted an internal investigation but found that the bulletin did not raise legal problems and that any First Amendment impact posed by the FBI’s monitoring of the political protests was negligible and constitutional.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, press, religion and peaceful assembly.
Greenpeace was indicted as an organization by the DOJ in 2003 after two of its protesters went aboard a cargo ship to try to unfurl a protest banner. A federal judge in Miami dismissed the case last year.
Monday, July 18, 2005
Blair Must Be Wiser Than Bush
By Rami G. Khouri
The author is Editor-at-Large for The Daily Star newspaper in Beirut.
The terror attack in London last week is especially troubling because of three political dimensions, above and beyond the moral depravity of the criminal act. The first is the anticipated political response of the United Kingdom, the United States and other governments and societies that now define and lead the “global war on terror”. The second is the frustrating, helpless, feeling among entire populations who sense that such attacks have moved from the realm of the occasional to that of the routine, with little seemingly that can be done to prevent them. The third is a widespread sense of moral and political detachment in much of the Arab-Asian-Islamic world, where perfunctory condemnations of such deeds are overwhelmed by the anticipation of where and when the next attack will come, even though it is likely to come in the Arab-Islamic world more than in the Western world.
These three dimensions are related to one another, so any policy that hopes to reduce or stop such terror attacks must address all three simultaneously, i.e., why are targets in specific countries being hit and what do the terrorists hope to achieve? What can be done to stop this, militarily, politically and in other fields? What is the balance in an effective counterterrorism strategy between foreign policies by Western governments and domestic policies by Arab-Asian governments and societies?
Tony Blair and the British people have an opportunity now to do that which George Bush failed to do after Sept. 11: diagnose the phenomenon of international criminal terrorism factually and correctly; identify its underlying motives and goals accurately; devise appropriate policies that can hope to reduce or even stop it; and implement an integrated, global strategic response to this menace. Blair and his European partners should learn from the American mistakes, and respond to terror with a comprehensive, rational, realistic and multi-sectoral strategy that would make us all — Americans, Arabs, Europeans, Asians — active participants in a true worldwide war against terror and its causes. The alternative is for us all to remain the helpless, befuddled, angry spectators and victims that we have become.
The initial response from American and British leaders has been understandable emotional, but dangerously political, because it risks playing right into the hands of the terrorists and their goal of provoking a long-term war between civilisations. The three predominant responses we have seen from the UK and US leaderships and others in their societies in recent days have been the stiff upper lip syndrome of getting on with life despite the terror, a determination to take the fight to the enemy in Iraq and elsewhere, and a refusal to allow the terrorists to threaten or destroy Western civilisation and its freedom-based life values.
These three responses, though understandable psychologically, are a misguided catastrophe in global strategic terms because they will expand rather than reduce the terror problem, if we are to judge by the results of the policies since Sept. 11. Simply repeating views on the criminality and immorality of the terrorists, the grit of the British, and the determination of Americans and Britons to maintain their values and way of life is the basis for a failed policy.
It is safe to assume that some of the new generation of global terrorists have been inspired to their ghastly deeds by the recent Iraqi policies of the American and British governments, among others. Washington's heavy focus on largely unilateral military moves in Afghanistan and Iraq has generated an entire new cohort of terrorists, some of whom have now joined forces with Iraqis who are inspired by their own nationalism to fight foreign troops in their country.
The American- and British-led, Iraq-based counterterrorism strategy of recent years has achieved our collective worst nightmare: it has prompted an alliance, or at least a loose, “ad hoc” coalition of Islamist jihadist terrorists, common criminals, genuine Iraqi and other Arab nationalists, and ordinary Arab and Asian citizens whose sense of indignity at their treatment by their own and foreign governments has pushed them over the edge of understandable anger into using terror as a desperate response.
The question I ask myself over and over again, as I travel throughout the Middle East and the West, is simple but critical: what happened in the course of the last several decades to give birth to waves of terrorists from the Arab-Asian region, targeting both their own societies and the West? Why has Arab-Asian society not done very much to delegitimise these killers and run them out of town? If we still do not — and, amazingly, we do not — have a consensus analysis of how and why ordinary citizens slowly become terrorists, we will not be able to implement a successful counterterrorism strategy. Instead, we have terror in London, and widespread expectations of other attacks to follow.
The key issue, it seems to me, is whether the West and this region focus on the relatively small group of terrorists, or try instead to respond to the legitimate needs, grievances and aspirations of the hundreds of millions of Arabs and Asians who are the enabling environment from which the terrorists emerge. Yes, a very small number of crazed Islamist fanatics really do want to kill Crusaders, apostates and infidels simply because these Arab and Asian criminals feel threatened by Western values. Yet the overwhelming majority of Arabs, Asians, Muslims and Middle Easterners reject such terrorist tactics, motivations and goals.
The criminality of the terrorists since Sept. 11 has generated, in return, a peculiar combination of militarism and emotionalism from the United States, without a supporting foundation of rationalism or realism that positively engages the hundreds of millions of decent, ordinary citizens in the Arab-Asian world.
Terrorists can only be contained and put out of business when their own society delegitimises and rejects them, which requires a more balanced combination of police and political actions, and punitive and preventive measures. Bush ignored this basic fact after Sept. 11 and chose the road of a counterproductive military strategy, based on faulty analysis, in turn built on incomplete diagnosis. Blair now must make a similar decision on how to respond to the London attacks. Let us hope that he acts more intelligently and rationally than Bush. The Arab-Asian-Islamic world, in particular, is anxious to join a genuine war against terror and the many demeaning forces that make it happen.
The author is Editor-at-Large for The Daily Star newspaper in Beirut.
The terror attack in London last week is especially troubling because of three political dimensions, above and beyond the moral depravity of the criminal act. The first is the anticipated political response of the United Kingdom, the United States and other governments and societies that now define and lead the “global war on terror”. The second is the frustrating, helpless, feeling among entire populations who sense that such attacks have moved from the realm of the occasional to that of the routine, with little seemingly that can be done to prevent them. The third is a widespread sense of moral and political detachment in much of the Arab-Asian-Islamic world, where perfunctory condemnations of such deeds are overwhelmed by the anticipation of where and when the next attack will come, even though it is likely to come in the Arab-Islamic world more than in the Western world.
These three dimensions are related to one another, so any policy that hopes to reduce or stop such terror attacks must address all three simultaneously, i.e., why are targets in specific countries being hit and what do the terrorists hope to achieve? What can be done to stop this, militarily, politically and in other fields? What is the balance in an effective counterterrorism strategy between foreign policies by Western governments and domestic policies by Arab-Asian governments and societies?
Tony Blair and the British people have an opportunity now to do that which George Bush failed to do after Sept. 11: diagnose the phenomenon of international criminal terrorism factually and correctly; identify its underlying motives and goals accurately; devise appropriate policies that can hope to reduce or even stop it; and implement an integrated, global strategic response to this menace. Blair and his European partners should learn from the American mistakes, and respond to terror with a comprehensive, rational, realistic and multi-sectoral strategy that would make us all — Americans, Arabs, Europeans, Asians — active participants in a true worldwide war against terror and its causes. The alternative is for us all to remain the helpless, befuddled, angry spectators and victims that we have become.
The initial response from American and British leaders has been understandable emotional, but dangerously political, because it risks playing right into the hands of the terrorists and their goal of provoking a long-term war between civilisations. The three predominant responses we have seen from the UK and US leaderships and others in their societies in recent days have been the stiff upper lip syndrome of getting on with life despite the terror, a determination to take the fight to the enemy in Iraq and elsewhere, and a refusal to allow the terrorists to threaten or destroy Western civilisation and its freedom-based life values.
These three responses, though understandable psychologically, are a misguided catastrophe in global strategic terms because they will expand rather than reduce the terror problem, if we are to judge by the results of the policies since Sept. 11. Simply repeating views on the criminality and immorality of the terrorists, the grit of the British, and the determination of Americans and Britons to maintain their values and way of life is the basis for a failed policy.
It is safe to assume that some of the new generation of global terrorists have been inspired to their ghastly deeds by the recent Iraqi policies of the American and British governments, among others. Washington's heavy focus on largely unilateral military moves in Afghanistan and Iraq has generated an entire new cohort of terrorists, some of whom have now joined forces with Iraqis who are inspired by their own nationalism to fight foreign troops in their country.
The American- and British-led, Iraq-based counterterrorism strategy of recent years has achieved our collective worst nightmare: it has prompted an alliance, or at least a loose, “ad hoc” coalition of Islamist jihadist terrorists, common criminals, genuine Iraqi and other Arab nationalists, and ordinary Arab and Asian citizens whose sense of indignity at their treatment by their own and foreign governments has pushed them over the edge of understandable anger into using terror as a desperate response.
The question I ask myself over and over again, as I travel throughout the Middle East and the West, is simple but critical: what happened in the course of the last several decades to give birth to waves of terrorists from the Arab-Asian region, targeting both their own societies and the West? Why has Arab-Asian society not done very much to delegitimise these killers and run them out of town? If we still do not — and, amazingly, we do not — have a consensus analysis of how and why ordinary citizens slowly become terrorists, we will not be able to implement a successful counterterrorism strategy. Instead, we have terror in London, and widespread expectations of other attacks to follow.
The key issue, it seems to me, is whether the West and this region focus on the relatively small group of terrorists, or try instead to respond to the legitimate needs, grievances and aspirations of the hundreds of millions of Arabs and Asians who are the enabling environment from which the terrorists emerge. Yes, a very small number of crazed Islamist fanatics really do want to kill Crusaders, apostates and infidels simply because these Arab and Asian criminals feel threatened by Western values. Yet the overwhelming majority of Arabs, Asians, Muslims and Middle Easterners reject such terrorist tactics, motivations and goals.
The criminality of the terrorists since Sept. 11 has generated, in return, a peculiar combination of militarism and emotionalism from the United States, without a supporting foundation of rationalism or realism that positively engages the hundreds of millions of decent, ordinary citizens in the Arab-Asian world.
Terrorists can only be contained and put out of business when their own society delegitimises and rejects them, which requires a more balanced combination of police and political actions, and punitive and preventive measures. Bush ignored this basic fact after Sept. 11 and chose the road of a counterproductive military strategy, based on faulty analysis, in turn built on incomplete diagnosis. Blair now must make a similar decision on how to respond to the London attacks. Let us hope that he acts more intelligently and rationally than Bush. The Arab-Asian-Islamic world, in particular, is anxious to join a genuine war against terror and the many demeaning forces that make it happen.
Friday, July 15, 2005
ABUSE, WHAT ABUSE?
By William Fisher
The U.S. Army general widely considered the ‘architect’ of abusive prisoner interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and in Afghanistan used “creative” and “aggressive” tactics, but did not practice torture or violate law or Pentagon policy. Despite the recommendations of military investigators, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey C. Miller will not be reprimanded – thus bringing to a close what could be the last of 15 separate investigations into detainee abuse.
Members of the team that conducted the three-month investigation told the Senate Armed Services Committee Wednesday that Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, commander of U.S. Southern Command, had overruled their recommendation of a reprimand, and will instead refer the matter to the Army's inspector general (IG).
They said Gen. Craddock had concluded that Miller’s techniques did not rise to the level of torture and did not violate any U.S. laws or policies. Their probe was looking into allegations by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who said they witnessed abusive interrogation techniques at Guantanamo. The FBI allegations were contained in documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Barring future allegations of prisoner abuse, the Miller probe ends all outstanding inquiries into an issue that has inflamed Bush Administration critics for several years. In the dozen previous investigations – all carried out by military or Pentagon-appointed panels – only one high-level officer has faced disciplinary action. Army Reserve General Janice Karpinsky received an administrative reprimand for failing to properly supervise detainee treatment at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. A number of lower-level officers and enlisted personnel have been reprimanded or court martialled, and other low level cases are still pending.
There have been only two congressional hearings into prisoner abuse, one in the Senate, the other in the House of Representatives. Increasingly frustrating calls for an investigation by an independent 9/11-type commission have been resisted by most Republicans, who control both bodies.
The conclusions of the Miller inquiry appear to strongly support the contention that Gen. Miller was the constant in the prisoner treatment equation, first at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and later at military prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, where similar interrogation techniques were employed.
General Miller was deeply involved in the handling of detainees, first at
Guantánamo in 2002 and 2003, where he earned credit for improving interrogation techniques and for the treatment of prisoners, and later in Iraq, where he was sent in August 2003 to suggest ways to improve interrogations immediately before the worst abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. In 2004, he was appointed to oversee all detainee operations in Iraq. Multiple investigations have cleared him of wrongdoing.
Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director, said, "It is irrefutable that the government violated the Geneva Conventions and the Army Field Manual. As before, low-ranking men and women will take the full blame while the higher ups get off scot-free. Once again, we have abuse without high-level accountability.”
The chief investigator into Guantanamo practices, Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt, told the Senate panel of the interrogation techniques used on Mohamed al-Qahtani, a Saudi who was captured in December 2001 along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Al-Qahtani was thought to be involved in the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Schmidt said interrogators told him his mother and sisters were whores, forced him to wear a bra and wear a thong on his head, told him he was a homosexual and said that other prisoners knew it. They also forced him to dance with a male interrogator and subjected him to strip searches with no security value, threatened him with dogs, forced him to stand naked in front of women, and to wear a leash and act like a dog.
These techniques were approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for use on al-Qahtani -- the alleged "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- were used at Guantanamo in late 2002 as part of a special interrogation plan aimed at breaking him down.
Investigators also described other interrogation practices used at Guantanamo, including:
A female interrogator smeared what she described as menstrual blood — it was fake — on a prisoner. The woman was disciplined, investigators said, but they recommended no further action on the allegation because it happened some time ago.
A Navy officer threatened one high-value prisoner by saying he would go after his family. This was in violation of U.S. military law, the investigation found.
A prisoner was bound on the head with duct tape, his mouth covered, because he was chanting verses from the Quran.
Interrogators used cold, heat, loud music and sleep deprivation on prisoners to break their will to resist interrogation. These techniques were approved at certain times at Guantanamo.
Detainees were chained to the floor in fetal positions. The investigation said this was not authorized, but could not confirm an FBI agent's allegation that detainees were left in this position for long periods.
Female interrogators sought to persuade male prisoners to talk, using forms of "gender coercion." These techniques were approved at the time as non-injurious, but the Schmidt investigation found that they were inappropriate. In one case, a detainee was doused with perfume.
In addition, detainees were subjected to excessive cold and heat, as well as
loud music and sleep deprivation, techniques that were approved at certain times at Guantánamo.
There have also been repeated accusations that American personnel at Guantanamo have mishandled the Quran, the Muslim holy book. A separate Pentagon investigation found five such instances
The Guantanamo investigators described the techniques they found as degrading and abusive, Gen. Schmidt said, but did not constitute torture.
"It is clear from the report that detainee mistreatment was not simply the product of a few rogue military police in a night shift," said Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the committee.
And Sen. Edward Kennedy, the powerful Democrat committee member from Massachusetts, said, "I am deeply concerned about the failure — indeed, outright refusal — of our military and civilian leaders to hold higher ups accountable for the repeated and reports of abuse and torture of the prisoners at Guantanamo."
Bush administration officials have said the excesses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were the work of “a few bad apples”. The Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Sen. John Warner of Virginia, said investigators had found only three instances, out of thousands of interrogations, where military personnel violated Army policy.
Investigators also determined that interrogators violated the Geneva Conventions and Army regulations three times.
Edward S. Herman, professor emeritus of the University of Pennsylvania, told IPS, “Internal investigations by an institution whose lies would fill an encyclopedia are hardly credible and would be laughed out of court by an honest media. They are even more laughable when we consider that the top leadership has indicated that international law is not applicable to us, that the concept of torture is infinitely flexible, and that the folks we are holding in Guantanamo are being treated like Caribbean vacationers.”
The report said the military should review how it determines the legal status of prisoners at Guantanamo, and decide what forms of treatment and interrogation techniques will be allowed.
Guantanamo holds 520 prisoners, while more than 230 others have been released or transferred to the custody of their home governments. Most were captured during the U.S. war in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks; only a few have been charged with any crime.
The report also recommended discipline for several low-level interrogators.
It is unclear whether General Miller could face disciplinary proceedings as a result of the Inspector General inquiry recommended by General Craddock.
The U.S. Army general widely considered the ‘architect’ of abusive prisoner interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and in Afghanistan used “creative” and “aggressive” tactics, but did not practice torture or violate law or Pentagon policy. Despite the recommendations of military investigators, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey C. Miller will not be reprimanded – thus bringing to a close what could be the last of 15 separate investigations into detainee abuse.
Members of the team that conducted the three-month investigation told the Senate Armed Services Committee Wednesday that Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, commander of U.S. Southern Command, had overruled their recommendation of a reprimand, and will instead refer the matter to the Army's inspector general (IG).
They said Gen. Craddock had concluded that Miller’s techniques did not rise to the level of torture and did not violate any U.S. laws or policies. Their probe was looking into allegations by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who said they witnessed abusive interrogation techniques at Guantanamo. The FBI allegations were contained in documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Barring future allegations of prisoner abuse, the Miller probe ends all outstanding inquiries into an issue that has inflamed Bush Administration critics for several years. In the dozen previous investigations – all carried out by military or Pentagon-appointed panels – only one high-level officer has faced disciplinary action. Army Reserve General Janice Karpinsky received an administrative reprimand for failing to properly supervise detainee treatment at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. A number of lower-level officers and enlisted personnel have been reprimanded or court martialled, and other low level cases are still pending.
There have been only two congressional hearings into prisoner abuse, one in the Senate, the other in the House of Representatives. Increasingly frustrating calls for an investigation by an independent 9/11-type commission have been resisted by most Republicans, who control both bodies.
The conclusions of the Miller inquiry appear to strongly support the contention that Gen. Miller was the constant in the prisoner treatment equation, first at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and later at military prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, where similar interrogation techniques were employed.
General Miller was deeply involved in the handling of detainees, first at
Guantánamo in 2002 and 2003, where he earned credit for improving interrogation techniques and for the treatment of prisoners, and later in Iraq, where he was sent in August 2003 to suggest ways to improve interrogations immediately before the worst abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. In 2004, he was appointed to oversee all detainee operations in Iraq. Multiple investigations have cleared him of wrongdoing.
Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director, said, "It is irrefutable that the government violated the Geneva Conventions and the Army Field Manual. As before, low-ranking men and women will take the full blame while the higher ups get off scot-free. Once again, we have abuse without high-level accountability.”
The chief investigator into Guantanamo practices, Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt, told the Senate panel of the interrogation techniques used on Mohamed al-Qahtani, a Saudi who was captured in December 2001 along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Al-Qahtani was thought to be involved in the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Schmidt said interrogators told him his mother and sisters were whores, forced him to wear a bra and wear a thong on his head, told him he was a homosexual and said that other prisoners knew it. They also forced him to dance with a male interrogator and subjected him to strip searches with no security value, threatened him with dogs, forced him to stand naked in front of women, and to wear a leash and act like a dog.
These techniques were approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for use on al-Qahtani -- the alleged "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- were used at Guantanamo in late 2002 as part of a special interrogation plan aimed at breaking him down.
Investigators also described other interrogation practices used at Guantanamo, including:
A female interrogator smeared what she described as menstrual blood — it was fake — on a prisoner. The woman was disciplined, investigators said, but they recommended no further action on the allegation because it happened some time ago.
A Navy officer threatened one high-value prisoner by saying he would go after his family. This was in violation of U.S. military law, the investigation found.
A prisoner was bound on the head with duct tape, his mouth covered, because he was chanting verses from the Quran.
Interrogators used cold, heat, loud music and sleep deprivation on prisoners to break their will to resist interrogation. These techniques were approved at certain times at Guantanamo.
Detainees were chained to the floor in fetal positions. The investigation said this was not authorized, but could not confirm an FBI agent's allegation that detainees were left in this position for long periods.
Female interrogators sought to persuade male prisoners to talk, using forms of "gender coercion." These techniques were approved at the time as non-injurious, but the Schmidt investigation found that they were inappropriate. In one case, a detainee was doused with perfume.
In addition, detainees were subjected to excessive cold and heat, as well as
loud music and sleep deprivation, techniques that were approved at certain times at Guantánamo.
There have also been repeated accusations that American personnel at Guantanamo have mishandled the Quran, the Muslim holy book. A separate Pentagon investigation found five such instances
The Guantanamo investigators described the techniques they found as degrading and abusive, Gen. Schmidt said, but did not constitute torture.
"It is clear from the report that detainee mistreatment was not simply the product of a few rogue military police in a night shift," said Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the committee.
And Sen. Edward Kennedy, the powerful Democrat committee member from Massachusetts, said, "I am deeply concerned about the failure — indeed, outright refusal — of our military and civilian leaders to hold higher ups accountable for the repeated and reports of abuse and torture of the prisoners at Guantanamo."
Bush administration officials have said the excesses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were the work of “a few bad apples”. The Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Sen. John Warner of Virginia, said investigators had found only three instances, out of thousands of interrogations, where military personnel violated Army policy.
Investigators also determined that interrogators violated the Geneva Conventions and Army regulations three times.
Edward S. Herman, professor emeritus of the University of Pennsylvania, told IPS, “Internal investigations by an institution whose lies would fill an encyclopedia are hardly credible and would be laughed out of court by an honest media. They are even more laughable when we consider that the top leadership has indicated that international law is not applicable to us, that the concept of torture is infinitely flexible, and that the folks we are holding in Guantanamo are being treated like Caribbean vacationers.”
The report said the military should review how it determines the legal status of prisoners at Guantanamo, and decide what forms of treatment and interrogation techniques will be allowed.
Guantanamo holds 520 prisoners, while more than 230 others have been released or transferred to the custody of their home governments. Most were captured during the U.S. war in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks; only a few have been charged with any crime.
The report also recommended discipline for several low-level interrogators.
It is unclear whether General Miller could face disciplinary proceedings as a result of the Inspector General inquiry recommended by General Craddock.
SKATING ON THIN ICE
By William Fisher
As a nervous Congress was voting billions to make America safer in the wake of the London bombings, a nationally recognized authority on immigration detention charged that the rights of refugees, asylum-seekers and other immigrants are being ignored.
Mark Dow, author of “American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons”, told IPS, “Aside from some haggling over how many thousands more detention beds will be funded, the immigration detention system -- run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) -- is simply not being discussed.”
He called for appointment of an independent ombudsman to monitor DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) compliance with the law, independent monitoring of the detention system, and legislation creating a right to counsel for immigration detainees.
Earlier this week, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff announced a major reorganization of his huge two-year-old department. In remarks delivered to an auditorium crowded with department officials, terrorism experts and others with a stake in department policy, Chertoff identified his top priorities as preparation for catastrophic attacks, information sharing with state and local partners and transportation security, along with overhauling immigration and restructuring the department's intelligence unit.
Chertoff has been a strong advocate of comprehensive immigration reform, specifically enhancing border security through a guest worker program. But Dow does not see immigration reform as essential to improving the treatment of immigrants.
“Unnecessarily jailing immigrants who are not ‘doing time’, mistreating them, and denying them legal help has nothing to do with immigration policy -- or with ‘securing the homeland’, he told IPS.
Chertoff’s strategy of coupling controversial immigration policy with ‘helping win the war on terror’, could help President Bush's stalled proposal for a guest worker program and enhanced border security. Similarly, linking the guest worker plan to calls for tougher border controls could neutralize conservative Republicans in Congress who believe that enforcement must come first.
But none of these strategies, Dow said, will do anything to eliminate what he sees as the excessive and unnecessary secrecy that shrouds the immigration detention system. “Unfortunately the prediction I made in my book that this system would move even further from scrutiny as the old Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was folded into Homeland Security seems to be proving accurate.”
Quoting Sec. Chertoff’s statement that that illegal border crossing "undermines respect for the rule of law," Dow said, “If he's concerned about the rule of law, he should announce his support for an independent ombudsman to monitor DHS and ICE compliance with the law. Chertoff is responsible, for example, for the fact that ICE continues to violate Supreme Court decisions ordering the release of certain long-term detainees.”
He said Chertoff should also ask Congress to “establish independent monitoring of the detention system. And I'm not talking about an audit from within the agency, or an audit by a contracted company paid by the agency it's reporting to.”
Dow recalled that in February 2005, Chertoff said, "Mistreatment of detainees . . . is wholly unacceptable." Dow called on Congress -- and community activists -- to “hold him to that. He is responsible for rampant mistreatment. He should recommend legislation creating a right to counsel for immigration detainees.”
Dow sought to debunk the notion that mistreatment of immigrants was a product of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. “In the early 1990s, INS officials at the Miami airport issued a statement conflating poor people, drug dealers, and terrorists in one breath. There was been an immigration agency culture of discrimination and violence long before Chertoff headed up the post-9/11 mistreatment of Arab, Muslim, and South Asian detainees. I see DHS moving further and further in that direction, regardless of bureaucratic reorganization.”
In the weeks and months following the 9/11 attacks, Chertoff, then a senior official at the Department of Justice (DOJ), played a major role in orchestrating the wholesale roundups and detentions of hundreds of mostly Arab and other Muslim immigrants. A report by the DOJ’s Inspector General confirmed that many were held incommunicado in jail-like settings, abused and denied access to lawyers and families.
Meanwhile, a major human rights advocacy group, Human Rights First (HRF), said it welcomed one of the few immigration proposals in the proposed DHS reorganization plan – creation of a new senior refugee policy position.
“Secretary Chertoff should be commended for recognizing the need to improve the coordination of asylum policy across the Department’s various bureaus,” said Eleanor Acer, director of HRF’s asylum program. “
The United States has a long and proud tradition of providing refuge for people who flee from persecution and oppression, and it is essential for the Department to make clear that it will protect the lives of these people as it fulfills its other important responsibilities.”
Ms. Acer added, “Ultimately however, whether or not this position will be effective will depend on how much authority this position is given.”
In announcing the DHS reorganization plan, Chertoff acknowledged that “Immigration policy is about more than keeping illegal migrants out. Our heritage and our national character inspire us to create a more welcoming society for those who lawfully come to our shores to work, learn and visit.”
He said he is working with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice “to ease the path for those who wish to visit, study, and conduct business in the United States.”
The current system, he said, “leaves a negative first impression of our nation with our new fellow countrymen. Worse yet, it causes unnecessary security risks because people enjoy temporary residence while we are completing the screening process. Restructuring this process to enhance security and improve customer service will be an important part of our upcoming agenda.”
Earlier in the week, the Senate passed a $31.8-billion Homeland Security spending bill, and Chertoff testified before a committee in the House of Representatives, where Democrats engaged him in heated exchanges regarding allocation of funds.
"The Bush administration should put forward real policy proposals to plug our homeland security vulnerabilities, instead of just moving people's offices around and changing the department's stationery," said Rep. Edward J. Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts and a member of the House Homeland Security Committee.
As a nervous Congress was voting billions to make America safer in the wake of the London bombings, a nationally recognized authority on immigration detention charged that the rights of refugees, asylum-seekers and other immigrants are being ignored.
Mark Dow, author of “American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons”, told IPS, “Aside from some haggling over how many thousands more detention beds will be funded, the immigration detention system -- run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) -- is simply not being discussed.”
He called for appointment of an independent ombudsman to monitor DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) compliance with the law, independent monitoring of the detention system, and legislation creating a right to counsel for immigration detainees.
Earlier this week, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff announced a major reorganization of his huge two-year-old department. In remarks delivered to an auditorium crowded with department officials, terrorism experts and others with a stake in department policy, Chertoff identified his top priorities as preparation for catastrophic attacks, information sharing with state and local partners and transportation security, along with overhauling immigration and restructuring the department's intelligence unit.
Chertoff has been a strong advocate of comprehensive immigration reform, specifically enhancing border security through a guest worker program. But Dow does not see immigration reform as essential to improving the treatment of immigrants.
“Unnecessarily jailing immigrants who are not ‘doing time’, mistreating them, and denying them legal help has nothing to do with immigration policy -- or with ‘securing the homeland’, he told IPS.
Chertoff’s strategy of coupling controversial immigration policy with ‘helping win the war on terror’, could help President Bush's stalled proposal for a guest worker program and enhanced border security. Similarly, linking the guest worker plan to calls for tougher border controls could neutralize conservative Republicans in Congress who believe that enforcement must come first.
But none of these strategies, Dow said, will do anything to eliminate what he sees as the excessive and unnecessary secrecy that shrouds the immigration detention system. “Unfortunately the prediction I made in my book that this system would move even further from scrutiny as the old Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was folded into Homeland Security seems to be proving accurate.”
Quoting Sec. Chertoff’s statement that that illegal border crossing "undermines respect for the rule of law," Dow said, “If he's concerned about the rule of law, he should announce his support for an independent ombudsman to monitor DHS and ICE compliance with the law. Chertoff is responsible, for example, for the fact that ICE continues to violate Supreme Court decisions ordering the release of certain long-term detainees.”
He said Chertoff should also ask Congress to “establish independent monitoring of the detention system. And I'm not talking about an audit from within the agency, or an audit by a contracted company paid by the agency it's reporting to.”
Dow recalled that in February 2005, Chertoff said, "Mistreatment of detainees . . . is wholly unacceptable." Dow called on Congress -- and community activists -- to “hold him to that. He is responsible for rampant mistreatment. He should recommend legislation creating a right to counsel for immigration detainees.”
Dow sought to debunk the notion that mistreatment of immigrants was a product of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. “In the early 1990s, INS officials at the Miami airport issued a statement conflating poor people, drug dealers, and terrorists in one breath. There was been an immigration agency culture of discrimination and violence long before Chertoff headed up the post-9/11 mistreatment of Arab, Muslim, and South Asian detainees. I see DHS moving further and further in that direction, regardless of bureaucratic reorganization.”
In the weeks and months following the 9/11 attacks, Chertoff, then a senior official at the Department of Justice (DOJ), played a major role in orchestrating the wholesale roundups and detentions of hundreds of mostly Arab and other Muslim immigrants. A report by the DOJ’s Inspector General confirmed that many were held incommunicado in jail-like settings, abused and denied access to lawyers and families.
Meanwhile, a major human rights advocacy group, Human Rights First (HRF), said it welcomed one of the few immigration proposals in the proposed DHS reorganization plan – creation of a new senior refugee policy position.
“Secretary Chertoff should be commended for recognizing the need to improve the coordination of asylum policy across the Department’s various bureaus,” said Eleanor Acer, director of HRF’s asylum program. “
The United States has a long and proud tradition of providing refuge for people who flee from persecution and oppression, and it is essential for the Department to make clear that it will protect the lives of these people as it fulfills its other important responsibilities.”
Ms. Acer added, “Ultimately however, whether or not this position will be effective will depend on how much authority this position is given.”
In announcing the DHS reorganization plan, Chertoff acknowledged that “Immigration policy is about more than keeping illegal migrants out. Our heritage and our national character inspire us to create a more welcoming society for those who lawfully come to our shores to work, learn and visit.”
He said he is working with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice “to ease the path for those who wish to visit, study, and conduct business in the United States.”
The current system, he said, “leaves a negative first impression of our nation with our new fellow countrymen. Worse yet, it causes unnecessary security risks because people enjoy temporary residence while we are completing the screening process. Restructuring this process to enhance security and improve customer service will be an important part of our upcoming agenda.”
Earlier in the week, the Senate passed a $31.8-billion Homeland Security spending bill, and Chertoff testified before a committee in the House of Representatives, where Democrats engaged him in heated exchanges regarding allocation of funds.
"The Bush administration should put forward real policy proposals to plug our homeland security vulnerabilities, instead of just moving people's offices around and changing the department's stationery," said Rep. Edward J. Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts and a member of the House Homeland Security Committee.
Monday, July 11, 2005
DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL
By William Fisher
Twelve gays and lesbians discharged from the military because of their sexual orientation are suing the U.S. Government in an effort to overturn the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that bars homosexuals from openly serving in the military.
The six men and six women are also asking to be reinstated in the military. All were discharged after their sexual orientations became known to their to superiors. The plaintiffs represent all branches of the armed services except the Marines.
Lawyers for the Bush administration asked U.S. District Judge George A. O'Toole Jr. to dismiss the case, known as Cook vs. Rumsfeld, arguing that "courts should not second-guess congressional judgment."
The Boston judge did not rule immediately, and did not indicate when he would decide whether to accept or reject the government's request.
The "don't ask, don't tell" policy, the first executive order signed by then President Bill Clinton in 1992 and adopted by Congress a year later, says that military personnel may not inquire about the sexual orientation of service members. But those who acknowledge they are gay or lesbian must be discharged.
Nearly 10,000 members of the military have been dismissed since the policy was introduced.
"You cannot re-litigate questions that were reasonably reviewed by the legislative branch," said Assistant U.S. Atty. Mark Quinlivan. The military's ban on open homosexuality, he argued, helps to maintain cohesion in military units by "reducing sexual tensions and promoting personal privacy."
But plaintiffs' attorney Stuart Delery argued that "don't ask, don't tell" violated the veterans' rights to free speech, privacy and equal protection under the law. The policy is biased, Delery said, and has not been shown to produce cohesion in military units.
Six previous lawsuits challenging the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy have been
unsuccessful. Two others are pending, including a case called Log Cabin Republicans vs. Bush, filed last fall in Los Angeles.
But the Boston case is the first to base its arguments on Lawrence vs. Texas, a 2003 Supreme Court decision that struck down state laws against sodomy.
"Lawrence changed the landscape," said C. Dixon Osburn, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which filed the case on behalf of the 12 gay and lesbian veterans.
Osburn said that 65,000 gays and lesbians were serving in the U.S. military. He said there were a million gay and lesbian veterans.
Dismissing gay and lesbian service members, he said, reduces military ranks "at a time when the military is not meeting its recruiting goals."
Osburn said his organization was prepared to take its fight to the Supreme Court. The high court has never heard a challenge to the military's policy on gays and lesbians.
Megan Dresch, 22, was the only one of the plaintiffs to attend the Boston hearing. She joined the Army in 2001 and was discharged a year later after she told a superior officer she was a lesbian.
According to the Associated Press, Dresch said she was feeling "stressed" while serving with the Army's 230th Military Police Company in Germany. When she told her sergeant that she wanted to see a chaplain, he asked what the problem was, Dresch said. She said another member of the company interjected, and said the problem was that she was gay.
"He asked if that was true, and I said yes," Dresch said. "I have never been big on lying, so I told the truth. I figured the discharge was coming. But I was disappointed. I really loved being in the military."
Dresch, who is currently studying automotive mechanics in Phoenix, said she saw the Army as more than a career. "It was my life at that point," she said, adding that her unit is in Iraq, and she wished she could be there too.
"Without a doubt I would go back into the Army," Dresch said. "This is my country, and I want to serve. I want to go back and fight for the freedoms that I believe in."
Meanwhile, interest in a new book about lesbians in the military is rising. “Secret Service: Untold Stories of Lesbians in the Military” is a compilation of true stories, as told by lesbians serving in the four branches of the armed service. Its author is Zsa Zsa Gershick, a lesbian who conducted and published the interviews, served in the U.S. Army Reserve from 1978 to 1983.
In an appearance on C-Span, the public service television network funded by America’s cable companies, Ms. Gershick charged that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is unworkable and “based on prejudice”.
She recounted the experiences of some of the military members whose stories are presented in her book, contending that “in a field hospital in Iraq, a wounded soldier doesn’t give a damn about the sexual orientation of the person saving his or her life.”
There is zero evidence, she said, that the presence of gay men and women in the military has any negative effect whatever on unit cohesion or morale. The result of the Clinton policy, she added, is to “force people to live a lie.”
Among the 10,000 gays discharged from the military, she said, are translators, linguists, and people with highly specialized -- and expensive training – who the military now desperately needs. “Where are their replacements going to come from?” she asked.
Twelve gays and lesbians discharged from the military because of their sexual orientation are suing the U.S. Government in an effort to overturn the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that bars homosexuals from openly serving in the military.
The six men and six women are also asking to be reinstated in the military. All were discharged after their sexual orientations became known to their to superiors. The plaintiffs represent all branches of the armed services except the Marines.
Lawyers for the Bush administration asked U.S. District Judge George A. O'Toole Jr. to dismiss the case, known as Cook vs. Rumsfeld, arguing that "courts should not second-guess congressional judgment."
The Boston judge did not rule immediately, and did not indicate when he would decide whether to accept or reject the government's request.
The "don't ask, don't tell" policy, the first executive order signed by then President Bill Clinton in 1992 and adopted by Congress a year later, says that military personnel may not inquire about the sexual orientation of service members. But those who acknowledge they are gay or lesbian must be discharged.
Nearly 10,000 members of the military have been dismissed since the policy was introduced.
"You cannot re-litigate questions that were reasonably reviewed by the legislative branch," said Assistant U.S. Atty. Mark Quinlivan. The military's ban on open homosexuality, he argued, helps to maintain cohesion in military units by "reducing sexual tensions and promoting personal privacy."
But plaintiffs' attorney Stuart Delery argued that "don't ask, don't tell" violated the veterans' rights to free speech, privacy and equal protection under the law. The policy is biased, Delery said, and has not been shown to produce cohesion in military units.
Six previous lawsuits challenging the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy have been
unsuccessful. Two others are pending, including a case called Log Cabin Republicans vs. Bush, filed last fall in Los Angeles.
But the Boston case is the first to base its arguments on Lawrence vs. Texas, a 2003 Supreme Court decision that struck down state laws against sodomy.
"Lawrence changed the landscape," said C. Dixon Osburn, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which filed the case on behalf of the 12 gay and lesbian veterans.
Osburn said that 65,000 gays and lesbians were serving in the U.S. military. He said there were a million gay and lesbian veterans.
Dismissing gay and lesbian service members, he said, reduces military ranks "at a time when the military is not meeting its recruiting goals."
Osburn said his organization was prepared to take its fight to the Supreme Court. The high court has never heard a challenge to the military's policy on gays and lesbians.
Megan Dresch, 22, was the only one of the plaintiffs to attend the Boston hearing. She joined the Army in 2001 and was discharged a year later after she told a superior officer she was a lesbian.
According to the Associated Press, Dresch said she was feeling "stressed" while serving with the Army's 230th Military Police Company in Germany. When she told her sergeant that she wanted to see a chaplain, he asked what the problem was, Dresch said. She said another member of the company interjected, and said the problem was that she was gay.
"He asked if that was true, and I said yes," Dresch said. "I have never been big on lying, so I told the truth. I figured the discharge was coming. But I was disappointed. I really loved being in the military."
Dresch, who is currently studying automotive mechanics in Phoenix, said she saw the Army as more than a career. "It was my life at that point," she said, adding that her unit is in Iraq, and she wished she could be there too.
"Without a doubt I would go back into the Army," Dresch said. "This is my country, and I want to serve. I want to go back and fight for the freedoms that I believe in."
Meanwhile, interest in a new book about lesbians in the military is rising. “Secret Service: Untold Stories of Lesbians in the Military” is a compilation of true stories, as told by lesbians serving in the four branches of the armed service. Its author is Zsa Zsa Gershick, a lesbian who conducted and published the interviews, served in the U.S. Army Reserve from 1978 to 1983.
In an appearance on C-Span, the public service television network funded by America’s cable companies, Ms. Gershick charged that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is unworkable and “based on prejudice”.
She recounted the experiences of some of the military members whose stories are presented in her book, contending that “in a field hospital in Iraq, a wounded soldier doesn’t give a damn about the sexual orientation of the person saving his or her life.”
There is zero evidence, she said, that the presence of gay men and women in the military has any negative effect whatever on unit cohesion or morale. The result of the Clinton policy, she added, is to “force people to live a lie.”
Among the 10,000 gays discharged from the military, she said, are translators, linguists, and people with highly specialized -- and expensive training – who the military now desperately needs. “Where are their replacements going to come from?” she asked.
GITMO’S FORGOTTEN SOLDIER
By William Fisher
Many people will remember Janice Karpinsky, the Army Reserve Brigadier General who was reprimanded and demoted for failing to stop the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
But few will remember Brigadier General Rick Baccus, who was sacked as commander of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GITMO), for coddling detainees.
Under Gen. Baccus’s watch, detainees were granted such privileges as distributing copies of the Koran, providing prisoners with "rights cards," special meals, adjusting meal times for Ramadan and other Muslim holidays, and disciplining prison guards for screaming at inmates. Inmates were told they need only give their name, rank and number.
Many of these are the same practices the Pentagon now proudly hails as examples of its humane treatment of detainees.
Shortly after he was sacked, after only seven months in command, Gen. Baccus told the Guardian newspaper: "I was mislabeled as someone who coddled detainees. In fact, what we were doing was our mission professionally."
After his dismissal, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put all of GITMO, including military police, under the control of military intelligence. Pentagon officials insist that, in contrast to the CIA, military intelligence officers continued to operate under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the Geneva Conventions.
Gen. Baccus, who wears the Army Ranger and Special Forces tabs and the master parachutist and pathfinder badges, said he faced constant tension from military interrogators trying to extract information from inmates.
"There is a dynamic tension that exists in that kind of situation," Gen. Baccus said. "Often times, those kind of approaches led to questions as to why am I doing that. Am I trying to coddle the detainees? Am I trying to bend to their desires?" he said.
The Pentagon's frustration with Gen. Baccus is officially denied. It claims he was relieved of his duties as part of a general reorganization of the camp, which called for a commander of higher rank.
Gen. Baccus insists he did his job honorably. "In no way did I ever interfere in interrogations, but also at that time the interrogations never forced anyone to be treated inhumanely, certainly not when I was there."
In retrospect, says Reed Brody, Director of International Programs for Human Rights Watch, “The firing of Gen. Baccus looks like an important step in the downward spiral that led to the widespread abuse of detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere.” He told IPS, “Under Gen. Miller, detention and interrogation functions were brought together for the first time, creating a model in which guards could ‘soften up’ prisoners for interrogation.”
Baccus, 53, was also relieved of his duties with the Rhode Island National Guard. Its commander, Maj. Gen. Reginald Centracchio, told The Associated Press he relieved Baccus for various reasons that "culminated in my losing trust and confidence in him."
But Lt. Col. Bill Costello, spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, Fla., which oversees Guantanamo, said Baccus' departure was related to the merging of operations at the Naval base. He said Baccus did a good job overseeing the safety and security of detainees.
Although the detainees at Guantanamo were not given the protections of the Geneva Convention, Gen. Baccus says he took steps to ensure they were not subjected to abuse. He said there were fewer than 10 instances of abuse during his seven months in command.
The Pentagon was reportedly particularly upset by the speech Gen. Baccus made to incoming prisoners via GITMO’S public address system.
“Peace Be With You”, he began. “I will continue to address you when I have information that you need to know. I know you are aware that not all of those who came to this camp are still in this camp. Some are being cared for at our hospital. Others are in jails elsewhere. Each of your cases is different. As we learn the truth about each of you, we are better able to address our concerns with each of you, and the United States government can resolve your status. Whether you are here at this camp, or elsewhere, as long as I am responsible for you, be assured that you will be treated humanely, and in accordance with the reputation of the United States as a nation of laws. I also expect you to respect the camp rules. Your cooperation encourages me to consider improvements in the camp. My priority continues to be the safety of the guards and your safety. The new detention facility will be ready in about two weeks, God willing. We will inform you about your move to the new and better facility as we near the completion. I continue to urge you to be patient. I will inform you of any developments as we learn. May God be with you.”
"All the service members here recognize the fact that they need to treat the detainees humanely," Gen. Baccus said. "Any time anyone lays down their arms, our culture has been to treat them as noncombatant and humanely.”
Early on in the war in Afghanistan, the Pentagon was apparently reluctant to use the harsher interrogation techniques authorized for the CIA. But Gen. Baccus's successor at the camp was Major General Geoffrey Miller. Miller instituted a "72-point matrix for stress and duress", which the Washington Post said set out a guide for the levels of force that could be applied to detainees. These included hooding or keeping prisoners naked for more than 30 days, threatening by dogs, shackling detainees in positions designed to cause pain, and extreme temperatures.
General Miller was later put in charge of the US military's prisons in Iraq. His recommendations for Abu Ghraib -- merging the functions of prison guard and interrogator as he did at Guantanamo -- were cited in the Pentagon's internal report on the Iraqi prison.
Those reports confirmed that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was systematic, part of a policy instituted at U.S. military detention centers from Guantanamo and Afghanistan to Iraq, and not restricted to low-ranking soldiers.
Many people will remember Janice Karpinsky, the Army Reserve Brigadier General who was reprimanded and demoted for failing to stop the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
But few will remember Brigadier General Rick Baccus, who was sacked as commander of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GITMO), for coddling detainees.
Under Gen. Baccus’s watch, detainees were granted such privileges as distributing copies of the Koran, providing prisoners with "rights cards," special meals, adjusting meal times for Ramadan and other Muslim holidays, and disciplining prison guards for screaming at inmates. Inmates were told they need only give their name, rank and number.
Many of these are the same practices the Pentagon now proudly hails as examples of its humane treatment of detainees.
Shortly after he was sacked, after only seven months in command, Gen. Baccus told the Guardian newspaper: "I was mislabeled as someone who coddled detainees. In fact, what we were doing was our mission professionally."
After his dismissal, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put all of GITMO, including military police, under the control of military intelligence. Pentagon officials insist that, in contrast to the CIA, military intelligence officers continued to operate under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the Geneva Conventions.
Gen. Baccus, who wears the Army Ranger and Special Forces tabs and the master parachutist and pathfinder badges, said he faced constant tension from military interrogators trying to extract information from inmates.
"There is a dynamic tension that exists in that kind of situation," Gen. Baccus said. "Often times, those kind of approaches led to questions as to why am I doing that. Am I trying to coddle the detainees? Am I trying to bend to their desires?" he said.
The Pentagon's frustration with Gen. Baccus is officially denied. It claims he was relieved of his duties as part of a general reorganization of the camp, which called for a commander of higher rank.
Gen. Baccus insists he did his job honorably. "In no way did I ever interfere in interrogations, but also at that time the interrogations never forced anyone to be treated inhumanely, certainly not when I was there."
In retrospect, says Reed Brody, Director of International Programs for Human Rights Watch, “The firing of Gen. Baccus looks like an important step in the downward spiral that led to the widespread abuse of detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere.” He told IPS, “Under Gen. Miller, detention and interrogation functions were brought together for the first time, creating a model in which guards could ‘soften up’ prisoners for interrogation.”
Baccus, 53, was also relieved of his duties with the Rhode Island National Guard. Its commander, Maj. Gen. Reginald Centracchio, told The Associated Press he relieved Baccus for various reasons that "culminated in my losing trust and confidence in him."
But Lt. Col. Bill Costello, spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, Fla., which oversees Guantanamo, said Baccus' departure was related to the merging of operations at the Naval base. He said Baccus did a good job overseeing the safety and security of detainees.
Although the detainees at Guantanamo were not given the protections of the Geneva Convention, Gen. Baccus says he took steps to ensure they were not subjected to abuse. He said there were fewer than 10 instances of abuse during his seven months in command.
The Pentagon was reportedly particularly upset by the speech Gen. Baccus made to incoming prisoners via GITMO’S public address system.
“Peace Be With You”, he began. “I will continue to address you when I have information that you need to know. I know you are aware that not all of those who came to this camp are still in this camp. Some are being cared for at our hospital. Others are in jails elsewhere. Each of your cases is different. As we learn the truth about each of you, we are better able to address our concerns with each of you, and the United States government can resolve your status. Whether you are here at this camp, or elsewhere, as long as I am responsible for you, be assured that you will be treated humanely, and in accordance with the reputation of the United States as a nation of laws. I also expect you to respect the camp rules. Your cooperation encourages me to consider improvements in the camp. My priority continues to be the safety of the guards and your safety. The new detention facility will be ready in about two weeks, God willing. We will inform you about your move to the new and better facility as we near the completion. I continue to urge you to be patient. I will inform you of any developments as we learn. May God be with you.”
"All the service members here recognize the fact that they need to treat the detainees humanely," Gen. Baccus said. "Any time anyone lays down their arms, our culture has been to treat them as noncombatant and humanely.”
Early on in the war in Afghanistan, the Pentagon was apparently reluctant to use the harsher interrogation techniques authorized for the CIA. But Gen. Baccus's successor at the camp was Major General Geoffrey Miller. Miller instituted a "72-point matrix for stress and duress", which the Washington Post said set out a guide for the levels of force that could be applied to detainees. These included hooding or keeping prisoners naked for more than 30 days, threatening by dogs, shackling detainees in positions designed to cause pain, and extreme temperatures.
General Miller was later put in charge of the US military's prisons in Iraq. His recommendations for Abu Ghraib -- merging the functions of prison guard and interrogator as he did at Guantanamo -- were cited in the Pentagon's internal report on the Iraqi prison.
Those reports confirmed that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was systematic, part of a policy instituted at U.S. military detention centers from Guantanamo and Afghanistan to Iraq, and not restricted to low-ranking soldiers.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
THOUGHTS ON AMERICA
"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." -- Mark Twain
To illustrate Twain’s point, the following statements were collected by a friend from emails from other friends and colleagues.
-- When you start a war on false pretenses, and then act as if your deceptions are justified because you are doing God's will, and that your critics are either unpatriotic or lacking in faith, there are some of us who have given our lives to teaching and preaching the faith who believe that this is not only not moral, but immoral.
-- When you live in a country that has established international rules for waging a just war, build the United Nations on your own soil to enforce them, and then arrogantly break the very rules you set down for the rest of the world, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you claim that Jesus is the Lord of your life, and yet fail to acknowledge that your policies ignore his essential teaching, or turn them on their head (you know, Sermon on the Mount stuff like that we must never return violence for violence and that those who live by the sword will die by the sword), you are doing something immoral.
-- When you act as if the lives of Iraqi civilians are not as important as the lives of American soldiers, and refuse to even count them, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you find a way to avoid combat in Vietnam, and then question the patriotism of someone who volunteered to fight, and came home a hero, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you ignore the fundamental teachings of the gospel, which says that the way the strong treat the weak is the ultimate ethical test, by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among us so the strong will get stronger and the weak will get weaker, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you wink at the torture of prisoners, and deprive so-called "enemy combatants" of the rules of the Geneva convention, which your own country helped to establish and insists that other countries follow, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you claim that the world can be divided up into the good guys and the evil doers, slice up your own nation into those who are with you, or with the terrorists -- and then launch a war which enriches your own friends and seizes control of the oil to which we are addicted, instead of helping us to kick the habit, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you fail to veto a single spending bill, but ask us to pay for a war with no exit strategy and no end in sight, creating an enormous deficit that hangs like a great millstone around the necks of our children, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you cause most of the rest of the world to hate a country that was once the most loved country in the world, and act like it doesn't matter what others think of us, only what God thinks of you, you have done something immoral.
-- When you use hatred of homosexuals as a wedge issue to turn out record numbers of evangelical voters, and use the Constitution as a tool of discrimination, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you favor the death penalty, and yet claim to be a follower of Jesus, who said an eye for an eye was the old way, not the way of the kingdom, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you dismantle countless environmental laws designed to protect the earth which is God's gift to us all, so that the corporations that bought you and paid for your favors will make higher profits while our children breathe dirty air and live in a toxic world, you have done something immoral. The earth belongs to the Lord, not Halliburton.
-- When you claim that our God is bigger than their God, and that our killing is righteous, while theirs is evil, we have begun to resemble the enemy we claim to be fighting, and that is immoral. We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.
-- When you tell people that you intend to run and govern as a "compassionate conservative," using the word which is the essence of all religious faith-compassion, and then show no compassion for anyone who disagrees with you, and no patience with those who cry to you for help, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you talk about Jesus constantly, who was a healer of the sick, but do nothing to make sure that anyone who is sick can go to see a doctor, even if she doesn't have a penny in her pocket, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you put judges on the bench who are racist, and will set women back a hundred years, and when you surround yourself with preachers who say gays ought to be killed, you are doing something immoral.
-- I'm tired of people thinking that because I'm a Christian, I must be a supporter of President Bush, or that because I favor civil rights and gay rights I must not be a person of faith. I'm tired of people saying that I can't support the troops but oppose the war. I heard that when I was your age, when the Vietnam war was raging. We knew that that war was wrong, and you know that this war is wrong--the only question is how many people are going to die before these make-believe Christians are removed from power?
To illustrate Twain’s point, the following statements were collected by a friend from emails from other friends and colleagues.
-- When you start a war on false pretenses, and then act as if your deceptions are justified because you are doing God's will, and that your critics are either unpatriotic or lacking in faith, there are some of us who have given our lives to teaching and preaching the faith who believe that this is not only not moral, but immoral.
-- When you live in a country that has established international rules for waging a just war, build the United Nations on your own soil to enforce them, and then arrogantly break the very rules you set down for the rest of the world, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you claim that Jesus is the Lord of your life, and yet fail to acknowledge that your policies ignore his essential teaching, or turn them on their head (you know, Sermon on the Mount stuff like that we must never return violence for violence and that those who live by the sword will die by the sword), you are doing something immoral.
-- When you act as if the lives of Iraqi civilians are not as important as the lives of American soldiers, and refuse to even count them, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you find a way to avoid combat in Vietnam, and then question the patriotism of someone who volunteered to fight, and came home a hero, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you ignore the fundamental teachings of the gospel, which says that the way the strong treat the weak is the ultimate ethical test, by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among us so the strong will get stronger and the weak will get weaker, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you wink at the torture of prisoners, and deprive so-called "enemy combatants" of the rules of the Geneva convention, which your own country helped to establish and insists that other countries follow, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you claim that the world can be divided up into the good guys and the evil doers, slice up your own nation into those who are with you, or with the terrorists -- and then launch a war which enriches your own friends and seizes control of the oil to which we are addicted, instead of helping us to kick the habit, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you fail to veto a single spending bill, but ask us to pay for a war with no exit strategy and no end in sight, creating an enormous deficit that hangs like a great millstone around the necks of our children, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you cause most of the rest of the world to hate a country that was once the most loved country in the world, and act like it doesn't matter what others think of us, only what God thinks of you, you have done something immoral.
-- When you use hatred of homosexuals as a wedge issue to turn out record numbers of evangelical voters, and use the Constitution as a tool of discrimination, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you favor the death penalty, and yet claim to be a follower of Jesus, who said an eye for an eye was the old way, not the way of the kingdom, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you dismantle countless environmental laws designed to protect the earth which is God's gift to us all, so that the corporations that bought you and paid for your favors will make higher profits while our children breathe dirty air and live in a toxic world, you have done something immoral. The earth belongs to the Lord, not Halliburton.
-- When you claim that our God is bigger than their God, and that our killing is righteous, while theirs is evil, we have begun to resemble the enemy we claim to be fighting, and that is immoral. We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.
-- When you tell people that you intend to run and govern as a "compassionate conservative," using the word which is the essence of all religious faith-compassion, and then show no compassion for anyone who disagrees with you, and no patience with those who cry to you for help, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you talk about Jesus constantly, who was a healer of the sick, but do nothing to make sure that anyone who is sick can go to see a doctor, even if she doesn't have a penny in her pocket, you are doing something immoral.
-- When you put judges on the bench who are racist, and will set women back a hundred years, and when you surround yourself with preachers who say gays ought to be killed, you are doing something immoral.
-- I'm tired of people thinking that because I'm a Christian, I must be a supporter of President Bush, or that because I favor civil rights and gay rights I must not be a person of faith. I'm tired of people saying that I can't support the troops but oppose the war. I heard that when I was your age, when the Vietnam war was raging. We knew that that war was wrong, and you know that this war is wrong--the only question is how many people are going to die before these make-believe Christians are removed from power?
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