By William Fisher
It was 55 years ago. I was a cub reporter for the Daytona Beach (Florida) News Journal, an AM-PM family-owned daily with a circulation of something under 100,000.
Daytona Beach was a kind of sleepy beach town in those days. But that was before NASCAR. Before changing demographics started sending retirees. And before there was a Disneyworld, which later attracted millions more tourists to nearly Orlando.
Daytona Beach is located in Volusia County. Fifty-five years ago, it was cited in sociology textbooks – including the one I used in college -- as the most corrupt county in the United States. The county and most of its officials were in the pockets of the Coca Cola Company and the Florida East Coast Railway. Law enforcement officers were paid on the “fee system”, meaning they got so much per head for people they arrested.
And, since 55 years ago Jim Crow was the law of the south, most of those who were arrested were African-American or, as the locals called them, “nigras”.
The county seat, a redneck cow-town named Deland, was about 25 miles from Daytona Beach. That’s where I happened to attend college – Stetson University, then a Bible-thumping Southern Baptist institution that was convinced that dancing led to pregnancy – and banned the word dancing from the college newspaper, which I edited.
Deland was the place the newspaper eventually sent me to cover cops and courts. It was a heady experience; my title was Bureau Chief. There was one other fulltime person in our bureau.
Being a young and idealistic wanabee journalist, I wrote a lot of pieces about the so-called justice system in Deland, especially the treatment of blacks, which included routine weekend evening raids by the cops into “nigratown”, and the arrest of just about anything that moved.
If you were among the unlucky folks who found themselves in the county jail, it would cost you a $25 bond to get sprung. Back then, $25 was a lot of money, especially for these poor black folks.
I also wrote about the fee system, the rubber-stamp court, and the inherent injustice and dysfunctionality of both.
That wasn’t so unusual because, as I said, I was young and idealistic. What was unusual was that the Daytona Beach News-Journal ran many of these stories, some on page one above the fold.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Muckraking journalism was something of a tradition in the Davidson family, which owned and ran my newspaper. The publisher was Herbert Davidson, and when I was in Daytona Beach, I could watch him sucking on his pipe, always animated, pacing, his bald head threatening to cause snow-blindness among the troops in the newsroom.
My boss was his son, Tippen Davidson, who cut his journalistic teeth working for the old Chicago News Bureau, where it was S.O.P. for a reporter to phone a family to say, “Do you know your son was just killed in a car crash?” Though young, Tip was one of those old-fashioned news people who were desperately unhappy unless they were racing around the newsroom ripping paragraphs of copy out of reports’ typewriters (yes, typewriters).
The chief editorial writer was a kindly old gent who taught me to use the teletype machine, but whose principal talent was syntactically poking his thumb in the eyes of on-the-take local officials, sweetheart contracts, and similar corruption. He had no shortage of subject matter.
I was proud of my newspaper. And I was even prouder last week when, surfing the web, I stumbled across a citation for a web page from the News Journal. It was a blistering editorial excoriating the FBI. The headline read, “Protesting is Not Terrorism -- So why is the FBI policing democracy as if it is?”
The editorial was about the FBI snooping on peaceful demonstrations. It said the Patriot Act “has given the agency the rationale to spy on and infiltrate protest and advocacy groups in their meeting rooms, in their online discussion groups, in their organizational sessions as well as during demonstrations. The breadth of the spying and surveillance operations is such that the FBI has monitored even such harmless organizations as Food Not Bombs, which feeds the homeless.”
It concluded that the FBI “has redefined domestic terrorism so broadly as to include acts that ‘intimidate or coerce a civilian population’ or ‘influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion.’ From there to defining a mass anti-war demonstration as ‘intimidation’ or ‘coercion’ is a small step, which the FBI has been all too glad to take. We're back to the ways of the 1960s, when FBI and CIA tentacles extended, illegally, into student protest groups, with this difference: This time, the tentacles are backed by law, according to the FBI's interpretations. If that's the case, it isn't just the FBI that's misguided. It's what passes for law.”
The paper’s current editor is Marc Davidson, Tip’s son. The Davidson family still owns the much-expanded paper, and it’s heartening to know that it hasn’t sold out to some multimedia conglomerate, and that it’s still prepared to speak out against injustice.
Friday, April 07, 2006
AMNESTY TAKES ON RENDITION
By William Fisher
As U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and her team continue to face increasingly harsh criticism from Muslim communities, Amnesty International has issued a new report on one of the practices they criticize most: rendition.
The new report – “Below the radar: Secret flights to torture and disappearance” – describes a U.S. covert operation in which people are arrested or abducted, transferred and held in secret or handed over to countries where they have faced torture and other ill-treatment.
Amnesty lists dozens of destinations around the world where planes associated with "rendition" flights have landed and taken off -- and lists private airlines with permission to land at U.S. military bases worldwide.
The organization says it has records of nearly 1,000 flights directly linked to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), most of which have used European airspace. It claims these flights have been carried out by planes that “appear to have been permanently operated by the CIA through front companies.”
While the U.S. has acknowledged that it uses rendition -- a fact widely reported in the international press and on television – the new Amnesty report is likely to further complicate Dr. Rice’s current efforts to “win the hearts and minds” of Arabs and other Muslims.
In recent weeks, the Secretary has met with a variety of Muslim groups in the U.S. and abroad. Their view of U.S. policies in the “Global War on Terror” has sometimes been respectful, sometimes raucous, but largely accusatory, skeptical and passionate.
For example, in a recent meeting with British Muslims, Rice heard complaints about U.S. policies in Iraq, Israeli treatment of Palestinians, and the American-run detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Representatives of such groups were present almost everywhere the secretary went during what was billed as a goodwill visit. Many are also telling Rice that the Bush administration should engage, not isolate, the new Hamas government in the Palestinian areas, because it was elected in a process Washington backed.
Local editorial commentary on Rice’s two-day outreach visit to northwest England has been correspondingly harsh. Britain’s Guardian newspaper carried a half-page cartoon showing Rice and her host, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, holding a banner saying: “The Case for War.” The banner was riddled with holes and the caption read, “Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire,” a reference to a line in the Beatles song “A Day in the Life.”
Dissatisfaction with U.S. policies has also complicated the work of Rice’s public diplomacy chief, Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes, a Bush Administration insider tasked by the president to improve the U.S. image in the Muslim world.
During their visit to the United Kingdom, Rice and Hughes defended the continued use of the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where some terrorist suspects have been held for years without trial. Rice said the U.S. doesn’t want to keep the prison open longer than necessary, but added: “If the alternative is to release people back on the street so they can do harm again, that we’re not going to do.”
Rice said, “The United States recognizes … that there are questions about American foreign policy.” But, she asked Muslims to give the Bush administration credit for ending a six-decade policy of backing dictators in the Middle East and promoting democracy instead.
Virtually every public opinion poll taken in Europe, Asia and the Middle East shows increasing hostility toward the U.S. and plummeting approval for its foreign policies.
Amnesty’s report is unlikely to improve the situation. It details the destinations and ownership of specific aircraft linked to people interviewed by the organization who have been transferred illegally. For example one particular aircraft is known to have made over 100 stops in Guantanamo Bay. Another took a detainee to Egypt from Germany after he was kidnapped in Italy. Amnesty says there were 488 recorded landings or take-offs between February 2001 and July 2005.
The new report says the U.S. “is manipulating commercial arrangements in order to be able to transfer people in violation of international law.” Amnesty’s Secretary General, Irene Khan, said, “It demonstrates the length to which the U.S. government will go to conceal these abductions."
She added, "The callous and calculated multiplicity of abuses is shocking. People captured have been subjected to a range of abuses of human rights by a number of governments acting in collusion, and all of this has been shrouded by secrecy and deceit."
The organization urged the aviation sector to ensure that aviation companies do not lease their aircraft in circumstances in which they may be used in renditions. Specifically, it called on governments to insist that any plane or helicopter used to carry out the missions of the intelligence services be declared a 'state' flight, regardless of whether they are carried out using civilian aircraft, prohibit the use of airspace and airports for renditions and actively investigate suspected rendition cases, and disclose the full extent of these practices and the fate of those whose whereabouts are still unknown.
Egypt has been a prime destination for victims of renditions. The Egyptian prime minister noted in 2005 that the U.S. has transferred some 60-70 detainees to that country, and a former CIA agent with experience in the region believes that "hundreds" of detainees may have been sent by the U.S. to prisons in other Middle Eastern countries.
The U.S. has acknowledged the capture of about 30 "high value" detainees whose whereabouts remain unknown, and its Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is reportedly investigating some three dozen additional cases of "erroneous rendition", in which people were detained based on flawed evidence or confusion over names.
Criticism of the rendition practice has not been limited to U.S. officials. In Britain, the House of Commons foreign affairs committee has accused ministers of failing in their duty to find out whether Britain has been complicit in US policy. The U.K. government has admitted that 200 suspect CIA flights had used British airspace.
In a report highly critical of the government's attitude toward human rights abuses, members of the committee say they have not been told the full story despite months of trying. They summoned the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, to give evidence again on the issue.
The Council of Europe earlier named five countries that failed to explain what steps they were taking to protect people from being detained and mistreated through rendition.
Meanwhile, criticism continues from human rights and religious leaders in the U.S.
Prof. George Hunsinger, who teaches at Princeton University Theological Seminary and is organizing a National Religious Campaign Against Torture, told IPS, “Outsourcing torture to other regimes is the moral equivalent of practicing it ourselves. How did we enter into league with the world's most despicable torturers? Where is the outcry? What is happening to our country?”
Brian J. Foley, a professor at Florida Coastal School of Law, told IPS that rendition “is a symptom of the great illness afflicting our nation, secrecy.” He added, “We need more than just Amnesty International to shine light on these practices -- the American people must stand up and demand knowledge and accountability.”
Jo Guldi, a historian at the University of California at Berkeley, told IPS, “No threat is so great that we can afford to cannibalize the very democratic principles upon which our own freedoms turn.”
And Angelina Fisher, Arthur Helton Fellow at advocacy group Human Rights First, told IPS, “Failure by the United States to address the allegations of extraordinary rendition undermines the United States’ stated commitment to the Convention Against Torture and raises serious questions about the government’s respect for the principles of international cooperation.”
Fisher was one of the primary researchers and authors of a report on rendition issued by the Bar Association of the City of New York and Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at the New York University School of Law.
It’s unclear – and intelligence experts say improbable – whether in the face of worldwide and persistent criticism, the U.S. has discontinued its rendition program. It has received far harsher criticism of its prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and that facility remains very much open for business – and very much in the news.
Yet, given these kinds of policies, one has to wonder whether the Public Diplomacy job that President Bush gave his old Texas buddy, Karen Hughes, is do-able at all. Mr. Bush should know from his training as an MBA that professional marketing can do only so much to sell a flawed product.
As U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and her team continue to face increasingly harsh criticism from Muslim communities, Amnesty International has issued a new report on one of the practices they criticize most: rendition.
The new report – “Below the radar: Secret flights to torture and disappearance” – describes a U.S. covert operation in which people are arrested or abducted, transferred and held in secret or handed over to countries where they have faced torture and other ill-treatment.
Amnesty lists dozens of destinations around the world where planes associated with "rendition" flights have landed and taken off -- and lists private airlines with permission to land at U.S. military bases worldwide.
The organization says it has records of nearly 1,000 flights directly linked to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), most of which have used European airspace. It claims these flights have been carried out by planes that “appear to have been permanently operated by the CIA through front companies.”
While the U.S. has acknowledged that it uses rendition -- a fact widely reported in the international press and on television – the new Amnesty report is likely to further complicate Dr. Rice’s current efforts to “win the hearts and minds” of Arabs and other Muslims.
In recent weeks, the Secretary has met with a variety of Muslim groups in the U.S. and abroad. Their view of U.S. policies in the “Global War on Terror” has sometimes been respectful, sometimes raucous, but largely accusatory, skeptical and passionate.
For example, in a recent meeting with British Muslims, Rice heard complaints about U.S. policies in Iraq, Israeli treatment of Palestinians, and the American-run detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Representatives of such groups were present almost everywhere the secretary went during what was billed as a goodwill visit. Many are also telling Rice that the Bush administration should engage, not isolate, the new Hamas government in the Palestinian areas, because it was elected in a process Washington backed.
Local editorial commentary on Rice’s two-day outreach visit to northwest England has been correspondingly harsh. Britain’s Guardian newspaper carried a half-page cartoon showing Rice and her host, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, holding a banner saying: “The Case for War.” The banner was riddled with holes and the caption read, “Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire,” a reference to a line in the Beatles song “A Day in the Life.”
Dissatisfaction with U.S. policies has also complicated the work of Rice’s public diplomacy chief, Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes, a Bush Administration insider tasked by the president to improve the U.S. image in the Muslim world.
During their visit to the United Kingdom, Rice and Hughes defended the continued use of the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where some terrorist suspects have been held for years without trial. Rice said the U.S. doesn’t want to keep the prison open longer than necessary, but added: “If the alternative is to release people back on the street so they can do harm again, that we’re not going to do.”
Rice said, “The United States recognizes … that there are questions about American foreign policy.” But, she asked Muslims to give the Bush administration credit for ending a six-decade policy of backing dictators in the Middle East and promoting democracy instead.
Virtually every public opinion poll taken in Europe, Asia and the Middle East shows increasing hostility toward the U.S. and plummeting approval for its foreign policies.
Amnesty’s report is unlikely to improve the situation. It details the destinations and ownership of specific aircraft linked to people interviewed by the organization who have been transferred illegally. For example one particular aircraft is known to have made over 100 stops in Guantanamo Bay. Another took a detainee to Egypt from Germany after he was kidnapped in Italy. Amnesty says there were 488 recorded landings or take-offs between February 2001 and July 2005.
The new report says the U.S. “is manipulating commercial arrangements in order to be able to transfer people in violation of international law.” Amnesty’s Secretary General, Irene Khan, said, “It demonstrates the length to which the U.S. government will go to conceal these abductions."
She added, "The callous and calculated multiplicity of abuses is shocking. People captured have been subjected to a range of abuses of human rights by a number of governments acting in collusion, and all of this has been shrouded by secrecy and deceit."
The organization urged the aviation sector to ensure that aviation companies do not lease their aircraft in circumstances in which they may be used in renditions. Specifically, it called on governments to insist that any plane or helicopter used to carry out the missions of the intelligence services be declared a 'state' flight, regardless of whether they are carried out using civilian aircraft, prohibit the use of airspace and airports for renditions and actively investigate suspected rendition cases, and disclose the full extent of these practices and the fate of those whose whereabouts are still unknown.
Egypt has been a prime destination for victims of renditions. The Egyptian prime minister noted in 2005 that the U.S. has transferred some 60-70 detainees to that country, and a former CIA agent with experience in the region believes that "hundreds" of detainees may have been sent by the U.S. to prisons in other Middle Eastern countries.
The U.S. has acknowledged the capture of about 30 "high value" detainees whose whereabouts remain unknown, and its Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is reportedly investigating some three dozen additional cases of "erroneous rendition", in which people were detained based on flawed evidence or confusion over names.
Criticism of the rendition practice has not been limited to U.S. officials. In Britain, the House of Commons foreign affairs committee has accused ministers of failing in their duty to find out whether Britain has been complicit in US policy. The U.K. government has admitted that 200 suspect CIA flights had used British airspace.
In a report highly critical of the government's attitude toward human rights abuses, members of the committee say they have not been told the full story despite months of trying. They summoned the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, to give evidence again on the issue.
The Council of Europe earlier named five countries that failed to explain what steps they were taking to protect people from being detained and mistreated through rendition.
Meanwhile, criticism continues from human rights and religious leaders in the U.S.
Prof. George Hunsinger, who teaches at Princeton University Theological Seminary and is organizing a National Religious Campaign Against Torture, told IPS, “Outsourcing torture to other regimes is the moral equivalent of practicing it ourselves. How did we enter into league with the world's most despicable torturers? Where is the outcry? What is happening to our country?”
Brian J. Foley, a professor at Florida Coastal School of Law, told IPS that rendition “is a symptom of the great illness afflicting our nation, secrecy.” He added, “We need more than just Amnesty International to shine light on these practices -- the American people must stand up and demand knowledge and accountability.”
Jo Guldi, a historian at the University of California at Berkeley, told IPS, “No threat is so great that we can afford to cannibalize the very democratic principles upon which our own freedoms turn.”
And Angelina Fisher, Arthur Helton Fellow at advocacy group Human Rights First, told IPS, “Failure by the United States to address the allegations of extraordinary rendition undermines the United States’ stated commitment to the Convention Against Torture and raises serious questions about the government’s respect for the principles of international cooperation.”
Fisher was one of the primary researchers and authors of a report on rendition issued by the Bar Association of the City of New York and Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at the New York University School of Law.
It’s unclear – and intelligence experts say improbable – whether in the face of worldwide and persistent criticism, the U.S. has discontinued its rendition program. It has received far harsher criticism of its prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and that facility remains very much open for business – and very much in the news.
Yet, given these kinds of policies, one has to wonder whether the Public Diplomacy job that President Bush gave his old Texas buddy, Karen Hughes, is do-able at all. Mr. Bush should know from his training as an MBA that professional marketing can do only so much to sell a flawed product.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
BUSH'S MIXED SIGNALS
By William Fisher
Last month, the U.S. Muslim World Advisory Committee of the United States Institute of Peace sat down for a talk with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Under-Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes. These are the kinds of meetings Arab-American and other Muslim-American groups have been having throughout the country with U.S. officials at various levels of government since soon after 9/11.
These meetings usually end with oh-so-diplomatic remarks about the "full and frank exchanges of views" and praiseworthy statements from each about each.
Yet, though Arab-American and other Muslim organizations are reluctant to discuss the issue for the record, they tell me privately that they are worried that the Bush Administration is sending dangerously mixed signals precisely to those whose "hearts and minds" it claims to be trying to win.
Consider the following:
President Bush continues to assert that Arabs and other Muslims are valued and contributing members of American society. He denies that his Global War on Terrorism is a war against Islam. Secretary Rice and Ambassador Karen Hughes spend substantial time with Arab-American and other Muslim advocacy groups, reasserting their "mission" to reach out to these communities. The FBI, CIA, the Departments of Homeland Security, Defense, State, and other U.S. government agencies spend millions to recruit members of these communities to apply for jobs, then deny them security clearances because they have relatives in the Middle East. Then Ms Hughes takes off on another of her "listening tours" of the Middle East, promising to reach out to "Muslim Moms".
At the same time, the FBI and the DHS continue to practice racial profiling and to harass and prosecute Arabs and other Muslims here at home. The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Forces work with local law enforcement to snoop on Arab and Muslim communities and wiretap mosques. We tell the Arabs we don't want them running our ports. And legitimate Muslim charities can't raise a nickel without fear of being put on the government's "support for terrorists" list.
Which of these contradictory messages do you think resonates most loudly in the U.S.? Just take a look at the myriad of polls that measure the degree of pervasive insecurity among these constituencies at home, and attitudes of other Americans toward these minorities! The common denominator is fear, one of the other. And fear breeds intolerance and even violence.
Why should we care what Arab- and Muslim-Americans think and what we, their neighbors, think of them? For one thing, they're Americans. They live here, among us. They are business and labor leaders, clergymen, sports figures, engineers and mathematicians and physicists, teachers, doctors and nurses, ordinary working citizens, even members of Congress.
Secondly, their ties to family and friends in other countries can provide us with important bridges to understanding. They might just be capable of helping Karen Hughes to explain U.S. policies to parts of the world we desperately need on "our side". Or to better understand how the "other side" sees us.
Thirdly, Arab- and Muslim-Americans vote. And that, if nothing else, ought to capture the attention of our elected officials.
Finally, how our government acts toward these sizable minorities helps shape how the rest of us act.
Jingoism has no good consequences, for anyone.
No one ever said that balancing these competing interests would be easy. Terrorists in our midst must be identified and prosecuted. So must so-called charities that illegally use their organizations as fronts for laundering material support for those who would harm us and our allies.
At the same time, there is zero evidence that Arab- and Muslim-Americans are anything but loyal to our country, and just as horrified as the rest of us by the attacks of 9/11. Thousands of these hyphenated Americans are now serving in the U.S. armed forces, many of them in Iraq and Afghanistan. And how many terror-related convictions resulted from the mass roundups of Arab and Muslim men in the weeks following 9/11? None.
Yet there appears to be no consistent effort anywhere in the upper reaches of the Bush Administration to engage these communities or to explain or coordinate what much seem to them as grossly contradictory and conflicting efforts.
Which should make us wonder whether this is about ideology: the "clash of civilizations? Or about creating smokescreens: blaming the media for not reporting all the "good news" from Iraq? Or about more of the unbelievably uncoordinated incompetence that gave us the Katrina disaster? Or about the political tone-deafness that resulted in Harriet Myers?
The short answer is "I don't know". Maybe a bit of all.
What I do know is that this is an issue on which George W. Bush has shown a somnambulistic failure of leadership. It is not enough for the president from time to time to tell Arab-Americans and other Muslim minorities - and the rest us - that he values our citizenship. It is not enough for him intermittently to reassure Muslims - and attempt to assure the rest of us -- that we are not at war with Islam.
At the very least, there needs to be high-level, visible, and transparent interest in worrying about the mixed signals we're sending. It can't be left to Karen Hughes alone. There is only one person who can get this done: the president.
So, Mr. Bush, here are two modest but doable suggestions:
First, you should appoint a permanent high-level advisory body to keep the administration informed about what Arab- and other Muslim-Americans are thinking, feeling, and doing about what they see as problems between their communities and government, and how other Americans see the same picture. This body should advise you about perceptions and misperceptions and how to address both with honesty and clarity. It should include thoughtful representatives of these communities, clergy of all faiths, private sector representatives, members of both political parties, and senior members of the Departments of State, Homeland Security, Defense, Justice, and the FBI and CIA.
But without the machinery to act on its findings and recommendations, this will be just another of thousands of government advisory bodies. It needs teeth. Talented people who know how to do implementation.
So, Mr. President -- notwithstanding that government is historically a notoriously flunked communicator - you are surrounded by some very smart people and could have some of the world's most adept professional communicators at your service instantly. These experts should convince you to take Arab-American alienation very seriously and to mobilize whatever public and private sector resources you need to craft honest messages and make sure they get heard.
Without your leadership, these steps will be - and be seen to be -- little more than cosmetics. Only you can make them important. You need to reach out in a powerful and consistent way to explain to Arab-Americans and other Muslims - and their neighbors, all the rest of us -- the contributions made by these populations over many years. Instead, your silence will only metastasize the uninformed and unreasoning Islamophobia that is rapidly become implanted in our national genetics. And, at the same time, you need to tell the Arab- and Muslim-Americans, and our population at large why it's important for law enforcement to do what it does to protect us (hopefully, while reigning in their over-zealousness to prosecute).
This dialogue is partly about policy, but it is equally about better coordination within government, about better public-private partnerships, to actually carry out a sustained program of thoughtful, grown-up, no-spin communication.
There's a lot you can do about that. As long as you think it's important. And as long as you're prepared to listen.
Last month, the U.S. Muslim World Advisory Committee of the United States Institute of Peace sat down for a talk with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Under-Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes. These are the kinds of meetings Arab-American and other Muslim-American groups have been having throughout the country with U.S. officials at various levels of government since soon after 9/11.
These meetings usually end with oh-so-diplomatic remarks about the "full and frank exchanges of views" and praiseworthy statements from each about each.
Yet, though Arab-American and other Muslim organizations are reluctant to discuss the issue for the record, they tell me privately that they are worried that the Bush Administration is sending dangerously mixed signals precisely to those whose "hearts and minds" it claims to be trying to win.
Consider the following:
President Bush continues to assert that Arabs and other Muslims are valued and contributing members of American society. He denies that his Global War on Terrorism is a war against Islam. Secretary Rice and Ambassador Karen Hughes spend substantial time with Arab-American and other Muslim advocacy groups, reasserting their "mission" to reach out to these communities. The FBI, CIA, the Departments of Homeland Security, Defense, State, and other U.S. government agencies spend millions to recruit members of these communities to apply for jobs, then deny them security clearances because they have relatives in the Middle East. Then Ms Hughes takes off on another of her "listening tours" of the Middle East, promising to reach out to "Muslim Moms".
At the same time, the FBI and the DHS continue to practice racial profiling and to harass and prosecute Arabs and other Muslims here at home. The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Forces work with local law enforcement to snoop on Arab and Muslim communities and wiretap mosques. We tell the Arabs we don't want them running our ports. And legitimate Muslim charities can't raise a nickel without fear of being put on the government's "support for terrorists" list.
Which of these contradictory messages do you think resonates most loudly in the U.S.? Just take a look at the myriad of polls that measure the degree of pervasive insecurity among these constituencies at home, and attitudes of other Americans toward these minorities! The common denominator is fear, one of the other. And fear breeds intolerance and even violence.
Why should we care what Arab- and Muslim-Americans think and what we, their neighbors, think of them? For one thing, they're Americans. They live here, among us. They are business and labor leaders, clergymen, sports figures, engineers and mathematicians and physicists, teachers, doctors and nurses, ordinary working citizens, even members of Congress.
Secondly, their ties to family and friends in other countries can provide us with important bridges to understanding. They might just be capable of helping Karen Hughes to explain U.S. policies to parts of the world we desperately need on "our side". Or to better understand how the "other side" sees us.
Thirdly, Arab- and Muslim-Americans vote. And that, if nothing else, ought to capture the attention of our elected officials.
Finally, how our government acts toward these sizable minorities helps shape how the rest of us act.
Jingoism has no good consequences, for anyone.
No one ever said that balancing these competing interests would be easy. Terrorists in our midst must be identified and prosecuted. So must so-called charities that illegally use their organizations as fronts for laundering material support for those who would harm us and our allies.
At the same time, there is zero evidence that Arab- and Muslim-Americans are anything but loyal to our country, and just as horrified as the rest of us by the attacks of 9/11. Thousands of these hyphenated Americans are now serving in the U.S. armed forces, many of them in Iraq and Afghanistan. And how many terror-related convictions resulted from the mass roundups of Arab and Muslim men in the weeks following 9/11? None.
Yet there appears to be no consistent effort anywhere in the upper reaches of the Bush Administration to engage these communities or to explain or coordinate what much seem to them as grossly contradictory and conflicting efforts.
Which should make us wonder whether this is about ideology: the "clash of civilizations? Or about creating smokescreens: blaming the media for not reporting all the "good news" from Iraq? Or about more of the unbelievably uncoordinated incompetence that gave us the Katrina disaster? Or about the political tone-deafness that resulted in Harriet Myers?
The short answer is "I don't know". Maybe a bit of all.
What I do know is that this is an issue on which George W. Bush has shown a somnambulistic failure of leadership. It is not enough for the president from time to time to tell Arab-Americans and other Muslim minorities - and the rest us - that he values our citizenship. It is not enough for him intermittently to reassure Muslims - and attempt to assure the rest of us -- that we are not at war with Islam.
At the very least, there needs to be high-level, visible, and transparent interest in worrying about the mixed signals we're sending. It can't be left to Karen Hughes alone. There is only one person who can get this done: the president.
So, Mr. Bush, here are two modest but doable suggestions:
First, you should appoint a permanent high-level advisory body to keep the administration informed about what Arab- and other Muslim-Americans are thinking, feeling, and doing about what they see as problems between their communities and government, and how other Americans see the same picture. This body should advise you about perceptions and misperceptions and how to address both with honesty and clarity. It should include thoughtful representatives of these communities, clergy of all faiths, private sector representatives, members of both political parties, and senior members of the Departments of State, Homeland Security, Defense, Justice, and the FBI and CIA.
But without the machinery to act on its findings and recommendations, this will be just another of thousands of government advisory bodies. It needs teeth. Talented people who know how to do implementation.
So, Mr. President -- notwithstanding that government is historically a notoriously flunked communicator - you are surrounded by some very smart people and could have some of the world's most adept professional communicators at your service instantly. These experts should convince you to take Arab-American alienation very seriously and to mobilize whatever public and private sector resources you need to craft honest messages and make sure they get heard.
Without your leadership, these steps will be - and be seen to be -- little more than cosmetics. Only you can make them important. You need to reach out in a powerful and consistent way to explain to Arab-Americans and other Muslims - and their neighbors, all the rest of us -- the contributions made by these populations over many years. Instead, your silence will only metastasize the uninformed and unreasoning Islamophobia that is rapidly become implanted in our national genetics. And, at the same time, you need to tell the Arab- and Muslim-Americans, and our population at large why it's important for law enforcement to do what it does to protect us (hopefully, while reigning in their over-zealousness to prosecute).
This dialogue is partly about policy, but it is equally about better coordination within government, about better public-private partnerships, to actually carry out a sustained program of thoughtful, grown-up, no-spin communication.
There's a lot you can do about that. As long as you think it's important. And as long as you're prepared to listen.
AND THIS GUY WANTS TO BE PRESIDENT?
By William Fisher
This week, we got yet another pitiful lesson in just how craven wanabee presidential hopefuls will be in pandering to their “base” – and how little some of them understand about how to wage and win the “Global War on Terror”.
The lesson came from Senator George Allen, the former Republican governor of Virginia, who is widely reported to be seeking his party’s nomination for president in 2008.
Senator Allen wrote to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to recommend 3-star general Jerry Boykin to be the new head of the Army’s Special Operations command.
For those of you with political amnesia, this is the same Jerry Boykin who appeared in dozens of Christian evangelical churches – often in uniform – to deliver himself of such utterances as:
About his battle with a Somali (Muslim) warlord: “I knew that my God was bigger than his God. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.”
About the Global War on Terror: “America’s enemy is “a spiritual enemy ... called Satan.” The enemy will only be defeated, he added, “if we come against them in the name of Jesus…We in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom of God have been raised for such a time as this… The enemy will only be defeated, he added, “if we come against them in the name of Jesus…We in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom of God have been raised for such a time as this."
About radical Muslims: “Why do they hate us so much? …The answer to that is because we're a Christian nation."
About President Bush: "He's in the White House because God put him there."
Boykin’s incendiary remarks drew predictable praise from Christianity’s loony fringe -- the likes of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and James Dobson.
And his introduction of Crusader 101 language into the GWOT in 2002 and 2003 brought equally predictable outcries from the Muslim-American and Arab-American communities, as well as from a ton of more moderate Christian leaders and human rights advocacy groups.
So, when the Pentagon finally caved and opened an investigation, it gave Gen. Boykin a sharp slap on the wrist. It found that he violated regulations by failing to make clear he was not speaking in an official capacity when he made the speeches, sometimes wearing his Army uniform, and that Boykin violated Pentagon rules by failing to obtain advance clearance for his remarks.
The reprimand had dire consequences. Boykin is still the Pentagon's deputy undersecretary for intelligence.
Not to worry. After all, George Allen wants to be president.
So he wrote to Rumsfeld, “I am told, and I believe it to be true, that no special operations officer currently on active duty is more highly respected or admired by his superiors, peers or subordinates alike, than Jerry Boykin."
Allen’s letter said his confidence in Boykin's abilities overrides any
concerns about what may surface during confirmation hearings should the
administration nominate Boykin. Specifically, Allen mentioned the religious
statements as well as U.S. interrogation policies at the Guantanamo Bay prison, Abu Ghraib in Iraq and elsewhere.
"Granted, these are issues which (sic) cause discomfort. But I firmly believe the nomination of General Boykin to be important enough to take a stand," Allen wrote. The current commander of Special Operations, Army Gen. Bryan "Doug" Brown, is retiring.
The first term senator said his request to nominate Boykin had the support of "many of my colleagues here in the Senate" and those who have served with Boykin, given the general's extensive special operations resume, which includes the Army's Delta Force and service in the Somalia conflict.”
No doubt, though he didn’t name any of Boykin’s other supporters.
But, to his credit, one far more powerful Senate voice demurred. Virginia Sen. John Warner, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee (of which Sen. Allen is not a member) said in a statement to the AP, "Senator Allen is entitled to his views. He did not consult with me on this matter, but this officer would not be among those whom I would recommend for this position."
Good for him!
But there is a much larger point here. Even if we forget what Gen. Boykin believes, the Muslim world will not. They remember Abu Ghraib. And they remember, as reported by the New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh, that the prison abuse scandal grew out of a decision to give greater influence to the Defense Intelligence unit, led by Stephen Cambone, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence -- and his deputy, guess who? Lt. General William G. “Jerry” Boykin.
They know all about the CIA’s private airline carrying out U.S. kidnappings of suspected terrorists and their “extreme renditions” to black hole prisons in Eastern Europe, and to such pillars of democracy as Egypt, Syria and a host of other hospitable venues.
They know all about the “diplomatic assurances” the U.S. gets from these countries, which routinely vow not to torture or abuse those we deliver into their gentle hands.
They know about Guantanamo Bay. They know about Bagram. They know about our then attorney general, John Ashcroft, rounding up anyone who looked like “a Middle Easterner” after the 9/11 attacks, convicting no one of any terror-related crime, but deporting many.
How do we know they know? We know because they tell us. In no uncertain terms.
Every time our hear-and-see-no-evil Secretary of State stilettos her way abroad, she gets an earful about precisely these issues. And when her sidekick, our newest public diplomacy maven, Karen Hughes, sets off on another of her tone-deaf “listening tours” of the Middle East to bond with “Muslim Moms”, what she hears is America is at war with Islam.
Even if she were qualified in public diplomacy, she has taken on an impossible job. The president has tasked her to persuade Arabs and other Muslims that he really means it when he describes them as people of peace and understands that Al-Qaida isn’t Islam.
But be not dis-encouraged. Stay the course. Mmes. Rice and Hughes will eventually be victorious in their long war because they’ll have the enthusiastic support of folks like George Allen – and Jerry Boykin.
This week, we got yet another pitiful lesson in just how craven wanabee presidential hopefuls will be in pandering to their “base” – and how little some of them understand about how to wage and win the “Global War on Terror”.
The lesson came from Senator George Allen, the former Republican governor of Virginia, who is widely reported to be seeking his party’s nomination for president in 2008.
Senator Allen wrote to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to recommend 3-star general Jerry Boykin to be the new head of the Army’s Special Operations command.
For those of you with political amnesia, this is the same Jerry Boykin who appeared in dozens of Christian evangelical churches – often in uniform – to deliver himself of such utterances as:
About his battle with a Somali (Muslim) warlord: “I knew that my God was bigger than his God. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.”
About the Global War on Terror: “America’s enemy is “a spiritual enemy ... called Satan.” The enemy will only be defeated, he added, “if we come against them in the name of Jesus…We in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom of God have been raised for such a time as this… The enemy will only be defeated, he added, “if we come against them in the name of Jesus…We in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom of God have been raised for such a time as this."
About radical Muslims: “Why do they hate us so much? …The answer to that is because we're a Christian nation."
About President Bush: "He's in the White House because God put him there."
Boykin’s incendiary remarks drew predictable praise from Christianity’s loony fringe -- the likes of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and James Dobson.
And his introduction of Crusader 101 language into the GWOT in 2002 and 2003 brought equally predictable outcries from the Muslim-American and Arab-American communities, as well as from a ton of more moderate Christian leaders and human rights advocacy groups.
So, when the Pentagon finally caved and opened an investigation, it gave Gen. Boykin a sharp slap on the wrist. It found that he violated regulations by failing to make clear he was not speaking in an official capacity when he made the speeches, sometimes wearing his Army uniform, and that Boykin violated Pentagon rules by failing to obtain advance clearance for his remarks.
The reprimand had dire consequences. Boykin is still the Pentagon's deputy undersecretary for intelligence.
Not to worry. After all, George Allen wants to be president.
So he wrote to Rumsfeld, “I am told, and I believe it to be true, that no special operations officer currently on active duty is more highly respected or admired by his superiors, peers or subordinates alike, than Jerry Boykin."
Allen’s letter said his confidence in Boykin's abilities overrides any
concerns about what may surface during confirmation hearings should the
administration nominate Boykin. Specifically, Allen mentioned the religious
statements as well as U.S. interrogation policies at the Guantanamo Bay prison, Abu Ghraib in Iraq and elsewhere.
"Granted, these are issues which (sic) cause discomfort. But I firmly believe the nomination of General Boykin to be important enough to take a stand," Allen wrote. The current commander of Special Operations, Army Gen. Bryan "Doug" Brown, is retiring.
The first term senator said his request to nominate Boykin had the support of "many of my colleagues here in the Senate" and those who have served with Boykin, given the general's extensive special operations resume, which includes the Army's Delta Force and service in the Somalia conflict.”
No doubt, though he didn’t name any of Boykin’s other supporters.
But, to his credit, one far more powerful Senate voice demurred. Virginia Sen. John Warner, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee (of which Sen. Allen is not a member) said in a statement to the AP, "Senator Allen is entitled to his views. He did not consult with me on this matter, but this officer would not be among those whom I would recommend for this position."
Good for him!
But there is a much larger point here. Even if we forget what Gen. Boykin believes, the Muslim world will not. They remember Abu Ghraib. And they remember, as reported by the New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh, that the prison abuse scandal grew out of a decision to give greater influence to the Defense Intelligence unit, led by Stephen Cambone, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence -- and his deputy, guess who? Lt. General William G. “Jerry” Boykin.
They know all about the CIA’s private airline carrying out U.S. kidnappings of suspected terrorists and their “extreme renditions” to black hole prisons in Eastern Europe, and to such pillars of democracy as Egypt, Syria and a host of other hospitable venues.
They know all about the “diplomatic assurances” the U.S. gets from these countries, which routinely vow not to torture or abuse those we deliver into their gentle hands.
They know about Guantanamo Bay. They know about Bagram. They know about our then attorney general, John Ashcroft, rounding up anyone who looked like “a Middle Easterner” after the 9/11 attacks, convicting no one of any terror-related crime, but deporting many.
How do we know they know? We know because they tell us. In no uncertain terms.
Every time our hear-and-see-no-evil Secretary of State stilettos her way abroad, she gets an earful about precisely these issues. And when her sidekick, our newest public diplomacy maven, Karen Hughes, sets off on another of her tone-deaf “listening tours” of the Middle East to bond with “Muslim Moms”, what she hears is America is at war with Islam.
Even if she were qualified in public diplomacy, she has taken on an impossible job. The president has tasked her to persuade Arabs and other Muslims that he really means it when he describes them as people of peace and understands that Al-Qaida isn’t Islam.
But be not dis-encouraged. Stay the course. Mmes. Rice and Hughes will eventually be victorious in their long war because they’ll have the enthusiastic support of folks like George Allen – and Jerry Boykin.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
NOT A COUNTRY ANYMORE
By William Fisher
Think about contractors in Iraq, and what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Halliburton, raking in billions and overcharging taxpayers by billing the government for stuff it forgot to deliver, and then getting bonuses for almost all its questionable charges? The Lincoln Group, paying Iraqi journalists to plant “good news” stories in the press? The Pentagon’s private army of outsourced “security specialists”, like Blackwater and Custer Battles, the mercenaries whose greed and shameful tactics make the CIA look like choirboys?
You’d be right. And wrong.
Wrong because what you probably don’t know is that these miscreants are not the only contractors there. There is also a not-nearly-large-enough cadre of contractors who don’t make millions.
Most of them work for USAID – the much-maligned U.S. Agency for International Development. They are both Americans and Iraqis – Shia, Sunni, Kurd. And they work side by side every day, in an environment of chaos, fear and violence, risking their lives trying to improve the lives of ordinary Iraqis.
That they make any progress at all in that kind of environment is truly remarkable. But they do make progress. And that may be the only piece of legitimate “good news” coming out of what can now only be described as “not a country anymore”.
I get a near-free pass today, because the rest of this column has been written by one of those unsung heroes -- a dear friend who heads a sizable economic development team. But I cop out with sadness. Here’s the email he sent me this morning (slightly edited to protect identities):
“I just now talked to my security manager in Baghdad, and am left speechless. He describes a complete breakdown of law and order. We reviewed our staff list to determine each individual's circumstances. One guy, Ahmed, has his brothers stay with him at night. They take turns sleeping in case someone attempts to break into his home. Abdullah is the same. He and his father alternate sleeping at night, three hours on and three hours off. Walid and his family live in Sadr City where violence has once again brought tragedy to large numbers of families.
“On and on, one by one, we discussed all of our people. All are scared. None of these friends is specifically targeted, so there is nothing for us to do except hope that they do not become victims of random and senseless violence. The most common words are death, kidnapping, injury and danger. Iraq, especially Baghdad, is not a country any more. It is hell.
“I am beyond angry, and only feel a deep sadness. The optimism we felt in 2003 and early 2004 has been replaced by despair and wretchedness -- there is no longer even a thread of hope to hang onto.
“In early 2005, after the first election, we thought maybe there was a future. I made several trips to Baghdad, to meet with USAID and one of the government ministers. While my movements were proscribed, I managed to go out to lunch a few times, though mostly I stayed in the minister’s house. Now, even that bit of travel would be out of the question.
“A good portion of my job is to be strong in the face of these risks, to be the rock for others to vent their fears and sadness. There are days when the emotional side of this job overwhelms me, when I feel like I cannot take yet another tragedy. I am not overwhelmed often, but today happens to be one of those days. After writing this I will feel better, and I will go on to the next meeting or conference, or fix the next problem.
“The outrage of the Bush Team blaming the media for imbalanced reporting is unconscionable. They are nothing but a gang of liars, try to spin a civil war and a huge snafu of their creating into progress. And while some in the media are starting to acquire a hit of courage, thank God we have Helen Thomas, who will continue to pound away.
“Exactly why did we go to war? And why did we not fight to win it? I can only shake my head.”
And I can only join him in the head-shaking. Because I don’t know the answers to his questions. Nor does anyone else except perhaps George W. Bush. And he’s not telling.
Think about contractors in Iraq, and what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Halliburton, raking in billions and overcharging taxpayers by billing the government for stuff it forgot to deliver, and then getting bonuses for almost all its questionable charges? The Lincoln Group, paying Iraqi journalists to plant “good news” stories in the press? The Pentagon’s private army of outsourced “security specialists”, like Blackwater and Custer Battles, the mercenaries whose greed and shameful tactics make the CIA look like choirboys?
You’d be right. And wrong.
Wrong because what you probably don’t know is that these miscreants are not the only contractors there. There is also a not-nearly-large-enough cadre of contractors who don’t make millions.
Most of them work for USAID – the much-maligned U.S. Agency for International Development. They are both Americans and Iraqis – Shia, Sunni, Kurd. And they work side by side every day, in an environment of chaos, fear and violence, risking their lives trying to improve the lives of ordinary Iraqis.
That they make any progress at all in that kind of environment is truly remarkable. But they do make progress. And that may be the only piece of legitimate “good news” coming out of what can now only be described as “not a country anymore”.
I get a near-free pass today, because the rest of this column has been written by one of those unsung heroes -- a dear friend who heads a sizable economic development team. But I cop out with sadness. Here’s the email he sent me this morning (slightly edited to protect identities):
“I just now talked to my security manager in Baghdad, and am left speechless. He describes a complete breakdown of law and order. We reviewed our staff list to determine each individual's circumstances. One guy, Ahmed, has his brothers stay with him at night. They take turns sleeping in case someone attempts to break into his home. Abdullah is the same. He and his father alternate sleeping at night, three hours on and three hours off. Walid and his family live in Sadr City where violence has once again brought tragedy to large numbers of families.
“On and on, one by one, we discussed all of our people. All are scared. None of these friends is specifically targeted, so there is nothing for us to do except hope that they do not become victims of random and senseless violence. The most common words are death, kidnapping, injury and danger. Iraq, especially Baghdad, is not a country any more. It is hell.
“I am beyond angry, and only feel a deep sadness. The optimism we felt in 2003 and early 2004 has been replaced by despair and wretchedness -- there is no longer even a thread of hope to hang onto.
“In early 2005, after the first election, we thought maybe there was a future. I made several trips to Baghdad, to meet with USAID and one of the government ministers. While my movements were proscribed, I managed to go out to lunch a few times, though mostly I stayed in the minister’s house. Now, even that bit of travel would be out of the question.
“A good portion of my job is to be strong in the face of these risks, to be the rock for others to vent their fears and sadness. There are days when the emotional side of this job overwhelms me, when I feel like I cannot take yet another tragedy. I am not overwhelmed often, but today happens to be one of those days. After writing this I will feel better, and I will go on to the next meeting or conference, or fix the next problem.
“The outrage of the Bush Team blaming the media for imbalanced reporting is unconscionable. They are nothing but a gang of liars, try to spin a civil war and a huge snafu of their creating into progress. And while some in the media are starting to acquire a hit of courage, thank God we have Helen Thomas, who will continue to pound away.
“Exactly why did we go to war? And why did we not fight to win it? I can only shake my head.”
And I can only join him in the head-shaking. Because I don’t know the answers to his questions. Nor does anyone else except perhaps George W. Bush. And he’s not telling.
Monday, March 27, 2006
Biscuits, anyone?
By William Fisher
"Press Office", chirped the Defense Department voice on the phone.
"Yes, good morning. My name is Bill Fisher. I write for Truthout. I have a couple of questions about the Biscuit program. Would you be able to help me?"
"What are Biscuits?" said a confused voice.
"They are military shorthand for Behavioral Science Consultation Teams", said I.
"Let me connect you with the person who knows about that program," said the helpful voice.
Pause.
Then came an answering machine. "This is Jane Doe (I am not using her real name because I might get her in trouble). Please leave your name and phone number and the nature of your question, and I'll call you back", said the disembodied voicemail message.
I did, adding that I wanted to file a story today. Then I waited. And waited. And waited some more.
Altogether I called three times, each time being referred either to a different person (who was away from his/her desk), or to another automated voice mailbox, where I left the same message.
The questions I never got to ask anyone at DOD were:
"I'd like to know whether BISCUIT units are working at Abu Ghraib and Bagram and other U.S.-controlled detention centers as well as at Guantanamo", and "Some folks who are in the medical and other health-provider fields have been critical of the BISCUITS at Guantanamo Bay, saying they have been using doctors and nurses and psychologists to help the interrogators get information out of the detainees, and advising about how best to keep people alive who are on hunger strike there."
Now, if my name happened to be Bob Woodward or Jane Mayer or Sy Hirsch or Walter Pincus or Jim Risen, I suppose I could have called a "high level official close to the Bush Administration", who might speak "on condition of anonymity".
But I wanted to discover whether a plain vanilla working stiff journalist - and taxpayer -- could actually get some information on a sensitive subject from a famously secretive government.
I guess I got my answer. The silence was deafening.
Now, just in case you've been living on Pluto for the past year or so, BISCUITS -- Behavioral Science Consultation Teams - consist of military psychiatrists, psychologists, behavioral scientists, and other healthcare professionals. Their role, it has been charged by former Guantanamo interrogators, is to advise them on ways of increasing psychological duress on detainees, sometimes using their medical records to find ways of exploiting their fears and phobias, to make them more cooperative and willing to provide information.
In one example, published in the New York Times, "interrogators were told that a detainee's medical files showed he had a severe phobia of the dark and suggested ways in which that could be manipulated to induce him to cooperate."
The DOD has said that there is very limited access to prisoners' medical records. But many members of the healthcare community remain skeptical.
An article in the New England Journal of Medicine said interviews with doctors who helped devise and supervise the interrogation regimen at Guantánamo showed that the BISCUIT program was explicitly designed to increase fear and distress among detainees as a means to obtaining intelligence.
And between July 2003 and March 2004, a doctor was allegedly "pressured by OGA personnel into filling out death certificates on Iraqi detainees" though the doctor was not given the opportunity to examine the bodies. The causes of death given for two detainees were later found to be inaccurate. The term "OGA" (Other Government Agencies) is generally used to refer to the CIA.
After April 2003, when Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld tightened
rules on detainee treatment, one interrogator said detainees' medical records had to be obtained through BISCUIT team doctors, but that the doctors always obliged. The former interrogator said the BISCUIT team doctors usually observed interrogations from behind a one-way mirror, but sometimes were also in the room with the detainee and interrogator.
The biscuit teams were also central, the former interrogators told the New York Times, in devising strategies like "Operation Sandman," in which a detainee's sleep patterns were systematically interrupted several times a night.
Then there is the issue of the "autonomy" of a doctor's patients. That refers to a patient's fundamental right to decide which medical interventions he will permit. That well-established canon of medical ethics requires that a detainee who is on a hunger strike has the "autonomy" to remain on a hunger strike if that's what he wants. If one is a healthcare provider, the patient is a patient whether or not he's a prisoner. Which means that medical personnel are barred from forcing a prisoner to stay alive, or advising others about how to reach that objective.
So, to return to my unanswered questions to the DOD: Have the BISCUITs changed at all as a result of criticism from civilian medical and other healthcare authorities? And are they being used elsewhere?
As to the "elsewhere" question, what we know is that Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander at Guantanamo, recommended the use of BSCT teams at Abu Ghraib when he was sent there to "GITMO-ize" it in August and September of 2003. According to the testimony of those who were at Abu Ghraib, psychologists were indeed involved in the interrogations and abuses of detainees.
Gen. Miller recently invoked his right against self-incrimination in a case of two soldiers accused of using dogs to intimidate detainees at Abu Ghraib. This invocation was the first sign by Miller that he might have information that would implicate him in the abuses in Iraq. Numerous reports indicate that Miller instituted the use of dogs to intimidate prisoners at Abu Ghraib after first using the technique at Guantanamo Bay. A military investigation recommended that Gen. Miller, who is soon to retire, be reprimanded, but a higher-ranking officer denied the request.
And a senior human rights attorney told me on condition of anonymity, "I would suspect since the BSCTs continue to be used as part of the intelligence apparatus at Gitmo" and because have been judged favorably by the military establishment "they are likely in place at the very least at strategic interrogation facilities in Iraq and in Afghanistan."
As to changes in the way the BISCUITs operate, the DOD finally issued revised guidelines last June, after various healthcare professional organizations and prominent medical authorities ignited a firestorm of criticism. Both the American
Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association have
made clear that it is unethical for members of their profession -- whether in the military or not -- to participate interrogations or to provide information to interrogators about ways to "break" a detainee.
Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, acknowledged that the new guidelines came about as the result of a review of procedures begun after allegations of medical personnel assisting in abusing prisoners surfaced. "What got the ball rolling was an awareness from all the information coming out of Abu Ghraib and the various allegations," he said.
Some of the most passionate of these allegations have come from Brigadier General Stephen N. Xenakis, M.D., who retired from the U.S. Army in 1998, after serving in many high-level positions, including Commanding General of the Southeast Regional Army Medical Command. He has reportedly played a major role in driving the DOD to re-examine its medical practices.
Last month he said: "Medical officers enjoy special privileges and status and are expected to abide by and stand up for their professional principles at all times and in all situations. This operation - the War on Terror - is no different... It is important to remember that the burden of leadership is to ensure that high moral and ethical practices are maintained in even the most demanding situations."
But, speaking about prisoner deaths while in U.S. custody, Gen. Xenakis charged, "To date, we have no indication that either the Army Medical Department or the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs has conducted a thorough investigation of the medical care provided to detainees and the circumstances surrounding the known deaths."
The new guidelines, said Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, consolidates "principles and procedures for U.S. military medical personnel when working with detainees under control of U.S. armed forces."
The guidelines specify that military medical personnel must observe medical ethics, make medically appropriate decisions, and report inhumane treatment. Military healthcare professionals must "be guided by professional judgment and standards similar to those that would be applied to members of the U.S. armed forces, including duty to protect the physical and mental health of the detainee" and "will not participate in any activity that is not consistent with applicable law."
But in a briefing for reporters, Winkenwerder declined to say whether the guidelines would prohibit some of the activities described by former interrogators and others. He said the medical personnel "were not driving the interrogations" but were there as "consultants".
Winkenwerder added that "only a very, very small number of reports of observation of possible abuse" have been recorded. Pentagon officials have previously said that the practices at Guantánamo did not violate ethics guidelines.
The Pentagon invited representatives of a number of health-related professional associations, including the American Medical Association, to pay a one-day visit to Guantanamo Bay. But they were not allowed to interview any detainees.
One of those attending, Prof. Nancy Sherman, who teaches philosophy at Georgetown University and has written extensively about ethics in the military, said that the DOD had worked hard to present a positive, upbeat image of what occurred at Guantánamo. "I think what was being sought was some sort of confirmation that their practices were ethically sound" and that some of the news accounts were wrong, she said.
Professor Sherman added that the distinction between using psychiatrists and psychologists as consultants rather than as providers of medical care was a tenuous one that invited ethical problems.
Winkenwerder said the new procedures separate individuals who are providing care from health professionals who work in other capacities in detention operations. Medical personnel who are in a provider-patient relationship with detainees -- those who actually provide treatment -- "shall not and will not undertake detainee-related activities for purposes other than to provide health care," he said.
"Such healthcare personnel shall not actively solicit information from detainees for purposes other than healthcare purposes," he explained.
But medical professionals in other roles in detention operations should not provide actual care for detainees, the new guidelines say. Such individuals might include behavioral-science specialists, such as FBI profilers; forensic psychiatrists, who are often appointed by a court to evaluate the mental competency or sanity of an individual; prison psychologists, who evaluate the potential danger of somebody to society; or public-health experts, who evaluate potential for disease outbreaks.
Which still leaves us with nagging questions: Aren't forensic psychiatrists physicians? Aren't they, as well as behavioral science specialists and prison psychologists, governed by the ethical rules of their professions?
Medical doctors take an oath to "do no harm". While psychologists and behavioral science specialists may not have to take such an oath, they are nonetheless committed to doing good, not harm.
And what part of "do no harm" don't they understand? It doesn't require an oath to act ethically. And there is nothing ethical about advising interrogators about how to "break" detainees.
.
"Press Office", chirped the Defense Department voice on the phone.
"Yes, good morning. My name is Bill Fisher. I write for Truthout. I have a couple of questions about the Biscuit program. Would you be able to help me?"
"What are Biscuits?" said a confused voice.
"They are military shorthand for Behavioral Science Consultation Teams", said I.
"Let me connect you with the person who knows about that program," said the helpful voice.
Pause.
Then came an answering machine. "This is Jane Doe (I am not using her real name because I might get her in trouble). Please leave your name and phone number and the nature of your question, and I'll call you back", said the disembodied voicemail message.
I did, adding that I wanted to file a story today. Then I waited. And waited. And waited some more.
Altogether I called three times, each time being referred either to a different person (who was away from his/her desk), or to another automated voice mailbox, where I left the same message.
The questions I never got to ask anyone at DOD were:
"I'd like to know whether BISCUIT units are working at Abu Ghraib and Bagram and other U.S.-controlled detention centers as well as at Guantanamo", and "Some folks who are in the medical and other health-provider fields have been critical of the BISCUITS at Guantanamo Bay, saying they have been using doctors and nurses and psychologists to help the interrogators get information out of the detainees, and advising about how best to keep people alive who are on hunger strike there."
Now, if my name happened to be Bob Woodward or Jane Mayer or Sy Hirsch or Walter Pincus or Jim Risen, I suppose I could have called a "high level official close to the Bush Administration", who might speak "on condition of anonymity".
But I wanted to discover whether a plain vanilla working stiff journalist - and taxpayer -- could actually get some information on a sensitive subject from a famously secretive government.
I guess I got my answer. The silence was deafening.
Now, just in case you've been living on Pluto for the past year or so, BISCUITS -- Behavioral Science Consultation Teams - consist of military psychiatrists, psychologists, behavioral scientists, and other healthcare professionals. Their role, it has been charged by former Guantanamo interrogators, is to advise them on ways of increasing psychological duress on detainees, sometimes using their medical records to find ways of exploiting their fears and phobias, to make them more cooperative and willing to provide information.
In one example, published in the New York Times, "interrogators were told that a detainee's medical files showed he had a severe phobia of the dark and suggested ways in which that could be manipulated to induce him to cooperate."
The DOD has said that there is very limited access to prisoners' medical records. But many members of the healthcare community remain skeptical.
An article in the New England Journal of Medicine said interviews with doctors who helped devise and supervise the interrogation regimen at Guantánamo showed that the BISCUIT program was explicitly designed to increase fear and distress among detainees as a means to obtaining intelligence.
And between July 2003 and March 2004, a doctor was allegedly "pressured by OGA personnel into filling out death certificates on Iraqi detainees" though the doctor was not given the opportunity to examine the bodies. The causes of death given for two detainees were later found to be inaccurate. The term "OGA" (Other Government Agencies) is generally used to refer to the CIA.
After April 2003, when Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld tightened
rules on detainee treatment, one interrogator said detainees' medical records had to be obtained through BISCUIT team doctors, but that the doctors always obliged. The former interrogator said the BISCUIT team doctors usually observed interrogations from behind a one-way mirror, but sometimes were also in the room with the detainee and interrogator.
The biscuit teams were also central, the former interrogators told the New York Times, in devising strategies like "Operation Sandman," in which a detainee's sleep patterns were systematically interrupted several times a night.
Then there is the issue of the "autonomy" of a doctor's patients. That refers to a patient's fundamental right to decide which medical interventions he will permit. That well-established canon of medical ethics requires that a detainee who is on a hunger strike has the "autonomy" to remain on a hunger strike if that's what he wants. If one is a healthcare provider, the patient is a patient whether or not he's a prisoner. Which means that medical personnel are barred from forcing a prisoner to stay alive, or advising others about how to reach that objective.
So, to return to my unanswered questions to the DOD: Have the BISCUITs changed at all as a result of criticism from civilian medical and other healthcare authorities? And are they being used elsewhere?
As to the "elsewhere" question, what we know is that Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander at Guantanamo, recommended the use of BSCT teams at Abu Ghraib when he was sent there to "GITMO-ize" it in August and September of 2003. According to the testimony of those who were at Abu Ghraib, psychologists were indeed involved in the interrogations and abuses of detainees.
Gen. Miller recently invoked his right against self-incrimination in a case of two soldiers accused of using dogs to intimidate detainees at Abu Ghraib. This invocation was the first sign by Miller that he might have information that would implicate him in the abuses in Iraq. Numerous reports indicate that Miller instituted the use of dogs to intimidate prisoners at Abu Ghraib after first using the technique at Guantanamo Bay. A military investigation recommended that Gen. Miller, who is soon to retire, be reprimanded, but a higher-ranking officer denied the request.
And a senior human rights attorney told me on condition of anonymity, "I would suspect since the BSCTs continue to be used as part of the intelligence apparatus at Gitmo" and because have been judged favorably by the military establishment "they are likely in place at the very least at strategic interrogation facilities in Iraq and in Afghanistan."
As to changes in the way the BISCUITs operate, the DOD finally issued revised guidelines last June, after various healthcare professional organizations and prominent medical authorities ignited a firestorm of criticism. Both the American
Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association have
made clear that it is unethical for members of their profession -- whether in the military or not -- to participate interrogations or to provide information to interrogators about ways to "break" a detainee.
Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, acknowledged that the new guidelines came about as the result of a review of procedures begun after allegations of medical personnel assisting in abusing prisoners surfaced. "What got the ball rolling was an awareness from all the information coming out of Abu Ghraib and the various allegations," he said.
Some of the most passionate of these allegations have come from Brigadier General Stephen N. Xenakis, M.D., who retired from the U.S. Army in 1998, after serving in many high-level positions, including Commanding General of the Southeast Regional Army Medical Command. He has reportedly played a major role in driving the DOD to re-examine its medical practices.
Last month he said: "Medical officers enjoy special privileges and status and are expected to abide by and stand up for their professional principles at all times and in all situations. This operation - the War on Terror - is no different... It is important to remember that the burden of leadership is to ensure that high moral and ethical practices are maintained in even the most demanding situations."
But, speaking about prisoner deaths while in U.S. custody, Gen. Xenakis charged, "To date, we have no indication that either the Army Medical Department or the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs has conducted a thorough investigation of the medical care provided to detainees and the circumstances surrounding the known deaths."
The new guidelines, said Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, consolidates "principles and procedures for U.S. military medical personnel when working with detainees under control of U.S. armed forces."
The guidelines specify that military medical personnel must observe medical ethics, make medically appropriate decisions, and report inhumane treatment. Military healthcare professionals must "be guided by professional judgment and standards similar to those that would be applied to members of the U.S. armed forces, including duty to protect the physical and mental health of the detainee" and "will not participate in any activity that is not consistent with applicable law."
But in a briefing for reporters, Winkenwerder declined to say whether the guidelines would prohibit some of the activities described by former interrogators and others. He said the medical personnel "were not driving the interrogations" but were there as "consultants".
Winkenwerder added that "only a very, very small number of reports of observation of possible abuse" have been recorded. Pentagon officials have previously said that the practices at Guantánamo did not violate ethics guidelines.
The Pentagon invited representatives of a number of health-related professional associations, including the American Medical Association, to pay a one-day visit to Guantanamo Bay. But they were not allowed to interview any detainees.
One of those attending, Prof. Nancy Sherman, who teaches philosophy at Georgetown University and has written extensively about ethics in the military, said that the DOD had worked hard to present a positive, upbeat image of what occurred at Guantánamo. "I think what was being sought was some sort of confirmation that their practices were ethically sound" and that some of the news accounts were wrong, she said.
Professor Sherman added that the distinction between using psychiatrists and psychologists as consultants rather than as providers of medical care was a tenuous one that invited ethical problems.
Winkenwerder said the new procedures separate individuals who are providing care from health professionals who work in other capacities in detention operations. Medical personnel who are in a provider-patient relationship with detainees -- those who actually provide treatment -- "shall not and will not undertake detainee-related activities for purposes other than to provide health care," he said.
"Such healthcare personnel shall not actively solicit information from detainees for purposes other than healthcare purposes," he explained.
But medical professionals in other roles in detention operations should not provide actual care for detainees, the new guidelines say. Such individuals might include behavioral-science specialists, such as FBI profilers; forensic psychiatrists, who are often appointed by a court to evaluate the mental competency or sanity of an individual; prison psychologists, who evaluate the potential danger of somebody to society; or public-health experts, who evaluate potential for disease outbreaks.
Which still leaves us with nagging questions: Aren't forensic psychiatrists physicians? Aren't they, as well as behavioral science specialists and prison psychologists, governed by the ethical rules of their professions?
Medical doctors take an oath to "do no harm". While psychologists and behavioral science specialists may not have to take such an oath, they are nonetheless committed to doing good, not harm.
And what part of "do no harm" don't they understand? It doesn't require an oath to act ethically. And there is nothing ethical about advising interrogators about how to "break" detainees.
.
BALL IN THE SUPREME'S COURT
By William Fisher
This week the U.S. Supreme Court will hear what will almost certainly be one of the landmark cases of the past fifty years.
Their decision will determine whether the Supreme Court will continue to assert its authority to review and check the executive’s power to detain and try individuals caught up in the “war on terror.”
The case is called Hamdan versus Rumsfeld. The Hamdan is Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who has been a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2002. The Rumsfeld is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whose department has jurisdiction over all detainees held at U.S.-controlled military prisons.
Since the Court agreed to hear Hamdan’s case, the administration of President George W. Bush filed an extraordinary motion to dismiss it. The government argues that a law passed by Congress late last year was intended to deny the right of habeas corpus to all prisoners in U.S. custody -- including not only new cases, but those that were pending at the time Congress acted. The Bush administration contends that Congress intended to strip the high court of its jurisdiction to hear any challenge arising out of the detentions at Guantanamo Bay.
But according to Deborah Perlstein, an attorney with legal advocacy group Human Rights First, “Apart from the weakness of the Administration’s case on the merits, the statute passed by Congress last year makes clear its intent to apply only to cases arising after Hamdan’s.”
Perlstein told us, “It’s hard to see even this new Court accepting that kind of frontal assault on its own power.”
Two new Justices have been appointed to sit on the Supreme Court in the past few months. John Roberts has become chief justice, replacing William Renquist, who died. And Samuel J. Alito Jr. has joined the court, replacing Sandra Day O’Connor, who resigned after 24 years as an associate justice.
Even if the justices resolve the court-stripping issue, it will be left to decide two other weighty questions: Does the President have the authority to convene military commissions to try alleged terrorists and ignore the procedural protections that Congress and the Constitution have long afforded those facing U.S. military trials? And are the Geneva Conventions – the laws of war that the United States long ago ratified and made part of U.S. law – enforceable by individuals in federal court?
According to Perlstein, “Either one of these questions is generational in nature. Taken together, they give Hamdan the potential to be one of the most important cases the Supreme Court has heard on the issue of presidential power in the past half-century.”
To complicate matters further, Chief Justice Roberts has recused himself from the Hamdan case because he participated in ruling on it in a lower court before his recent appointment. That means eight justices will hear the arguments, thus eliminating the possibility of the 5-4 decision often made by this court in contentious cases.
But, says Perlstein, “More significant than the absence of Chief Justice Roberts, is the absence of Justice Rehnquist and O’Connor in this kind of case. Those justices had for the past nearly 30 years been at the leading edge of the Court’s assertion of its own power, above Congress and the Executive, as a co-equal branch of government. Whether the absence of their voices will have left a court more reluctant to weigh in on matters of individual rights in the face of government power remains to be seen.”
The Hamdan case has been bouncing around the U.S. justice system for several years, beginning in 2004, when the DOD Formally referred charges against the 34-year-old Yemeni national, one of six Guantánamo detainees who were designated by President Bush in July 2003 as subject to trial by military commission under the President’s Order of November 13, 2001. Hamdan was captured by Afghan forces and handed over to the U.S. military in Afghanistan in late 2001.
The government accuses Hamdan of serving as Osama Bin Laden’s bodyguard and personal driver, delivering weapons to al Qaeda members and purchasing vehicles for Bin Laden’s security detail. He is formally charged with conspiracy to attack civilians, attack civilian objects, murder, destruction of property, and terrorism.
Held at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, since early 2002, Mr. Hamdan is currently represented by Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, who brought suit in 2004 seeking Hamdan’s release from solitary confinement and declaring the commissions unconstitutional.
Documents unsealed in early August reveal allegations that Hamdan was beaten, threatened, and kept in isolation for upwards of eight months. A military commission preliminary hearing began the week of August 23, 2004.
In September 2004, the petition was re-filed in the federal district court for the District of Columbia, and, in November 2004, that court found the military commission unlawful because the process violated the laws of war and military law, and stayed the commission.
In July 2005 the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed the district court and upheld the commission as lawful. Hamdan’s lawyers appealed the ruling, and in November 2005 the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
In January 2006, the government filed a motion for the Supreme Court to dismiss the case on the ground that the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (the Graham/Levin amendment) divested Hamdan of the right to seek habeas corpus in a federal court.
That law entered congress as an amendment to a massive war-spending bill. It was introduced as a compromise by Sen. Lindsey Graham, a conservative Republican from South Carolina and a former military judge, and Sen. Carl Levin, a liberal Democrat from Michigan.
HRF’s Perlstein told IPS the Graham-Levin compromise was “a mistake”. She says that she understands Senator Graham’s motivation – “to try to address the uncertain legal status of those held in a U.S. detention system that includes thousands of people worldwide.”
However, she adds, “The great irony of Congress’ action here was to guarantee that the question of the legal status of those stuck in limbo already for years would remain unresolved, and would continue to be litigated for some time to come. Apart from the Amendment’s legal infirmities – trying to strip the federal courts of the power to enforce the Constitution against an executive branch strikingly uninterested in law – as a matter of security policy, it effectively made matters worse.”
Brian J. Foley, a professor at Florida Coastal School of Law, told us he was uncertain about whether the Graham-Levin measure “clearly supports an argument that it is prospective only. Legislative history may say otherwise, but courts might not consider legislative history if they think the text is clear. It will be up to the courts”
However, he adds, “Congress did make clear that it doesn't want to give these prisoners a way to 'complain' about conditions of confinement, including torture. Congress made clear that it doesn't want to give them a way to 'complain' that they are not being given a hearing, or that getting a decision in a hearing is taking too long. Congress was foolish to pass this law, because these enormous presidential powers can so easily be turned against US citizens. What if a US citizen is rounded up and never given a hearing to test whether he's an enemy combatant -- or even a US citizen? Well, he can't access the courts, thanks to this statute. The only hope is that the Constitution's right to habeas corpus transcends this statute. That will ultimately be a major issue in the Supreme Court, and we can only hope that the justices don't simply side with the Administration.”
The High Court’s decision will not be public until July. Meanwhile, American citizens ought to be pondering whether it wants to become a monarchy, ruled by a president. They also ought to give some serious thought to the kind of message indefinite detention of prisoners without a real trials sends to the rest of the world.
This week the U.S. Supreme Court will hear what will almost certainly be one of the landmark cases of the past fifty years.
Their decision will determine whether the Supreme Court will continue to assert its authority to review and check the executive’s power to detain and try individuals caught up in the “war on terror.”
The case is called Hamdan versus Rumsfeld. The Hamdan is Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who has been a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2002. The Rumsfeld is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whose department has jurisdiction over all detainees held at U.S.-controlled military prisons.
Since the Court agreed to hear Hamdan’s case, the administration of President George W. Bush filed an extraordinary motion to dismiss it. The government argues that a law passed by Congress late last year was intended to deny the right of habeas corpus to all prisoners in U.S. custody -- including not only new cases, but those that were pending at the time Congress acted. The Bush administration contends that Congress intended to strip the high court of its jurisdiction to hear any challenge arising out of the detentions at Guantanamo Bay.
But according to Deborah Perlstein, an attorney with legal advocacy group Human Rights First, “Apart from the weakness of the Administration’s case on the merits, the statute passed by Congress last year makes clear its intent to apply only to cases arising after Hamdan’s.”
Perlstein told us, “It’s hard to see even this new Court accepting that kind of frontal assault on its own power.”
Two new Justices have been appointed to sit on the Supreme Court in the past few months. John Roberts has become chief justice, replacing William Renquist, who died. And Samuel J. Alito Jr. has joined the court, replacing Sandra Day O’Connor, who resigned after 24 years as an associate justice.
Even if the justices resolve the court-stripping issue, it will be left to decide two other weighty questions: Does the President have the authority to convene military commissions to try alleged terrorists and ignore the procedural protections that Congress and the Constitution have long afforded those facing U.S. military trials? And are the Geneva Conventions – the laws of war that the United States long ago ratified and made part of U.S. law – enforceable by individuals in federal court?
According to Perlstein, “Either one of these questions is generational in nature. Taken together, they give Hamdan the potential to be one of the most important cases the Supreme Court has heard on the issue of presidential power in the past half-century.”
To complicate matters further, Chief Justice Roberts has recused himself from the Hamdan case because he participated in ruling on it in a lower court before his recent appointment. That means eight justices will hear the arguments, thus eliminating the possibility of the 5-4 decision often made by this court in contentious cases.
But, says Perlstein, “More significant than the absence of Chief Justice Roberts, is the absence of Justice Rehnquist and O’Connor in this kind of case. Those justices had for the past nearly 30 years been at the leading edge of the Court’s assertion of its own power, above Congress and the Executive, as a co-equal branch of government. Whether the absence of their voices will have left a court more reluctant to weigh in on matters of individual rights in the face of government power remains to be seen.”
The Hamdan case has been bouncing around the U.S. justice system for several years, beginning in 2004, when the DOD Formally referred charges against the 34-year-old Yemeni national, one of six Guantánamo detainees who were designated by President Bush in July 2003 as subject to trial by military commission under the President’s Order of November 13, 2001. Hamdan was captured by Afghan forces and handed over to the U.S. military in Afghanistan in late 2001.
The government accuses Hamdan of serving as Osama Bin Laden’s bodyguard and personal driver, delivering weapons to al Qaeda members and purchasing vehicles for Bin Laden’s security detail. He is formally charged with conspiracy to attack civilians, attack civilian objects, murder, destruction of property, and terrorism.
Held at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, since early 2002, Mr. Hamdan is currently represented by Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, who brought suit in 2004 seeking Hamdan’s release from solitary confinement and declaring the commissions unconstitutional.
Documents unsealed in early August reveal allegations that Hamdan was beaten, threatened, and kept in isolation for upwards of eight months. A military commission preliminary hearing began the week of August 23, 2004.
In September 2004, the petition was re-filed in the federal district court for the District of Columbia, and, in November 2004, that court found the military commission unlawful because the process violated the laws of war and military law, and stayed the commission.
In July 2005 the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed the district court and upheld the commission as lawful. Hamdan’s lawyers appealed the ruling, and in November 2005 the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
In January 2006, the government filed a motion for the Supreme Court to dismiss the case on the ground that the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (the Graham/Levin amendment) divested Hamdan of the right to seek habeas corpus in a federal court.
That law entered congress as an amendment to a massive war-spending bill. It was introduced as a compromise by Sen. Lindsey Graham, a conservative Republican from South Carolina and a former military judge, and Sen. Carl Levin, a liberal Democrat from Michigan.
HRF’s Perlstein told IPS the Graham-Levin compromise was “a mistake”. She says that she understands Senator Graham’s motivation – “to try to address the uncertain legal status of those held in a U.S. detention system that includes thousands of people worldwide.”
However, she adds, “The great irony of Congress’ action here was to guarantee that the question of the legal status of those stuck in limbo already for years would remain unresolved, and would continue to be litigated for some time to come. Apart from the Amendment’s legal infirmities – trying to strip the federal courts of the power to enforce the Constitution against an executive branch strikingly uninterested in law – as a matter of security policy, it effectively made matters worse.”
Brian J. Foley, a professor at Florida Coastal School of Law, told us he was uncertain about whether the Graham-Levin measure “clearly supports an argument that it is prospective only. Legislative history may say otherwise, but courts might not consider legislative history if they think the text is clear. It will be up to the courts”
However, he adds, “Congress did make clear that it doesn't want to give these prisoners a way to 'complain' about conditions of confinement, including torture. Congress made clear that it doesn't want to give them a way to 'complain' that they are not being given a hearing, or that getting a decision in a hearing is taking too long. Congress was foolish to pass this law, because these enormous presidential powers can so easily be turned against US citizens. What if a US citizen is rounded up and never given a hearing to test whether he's an enemy combatant -- or even a US citizen? Well, he can't access the courts, thanks to this statute. The only hope is that the Constitution's right to habeas corpus transcends this statute. That will ultimately be a major issue in the Supreme Court, and we can only hope that the justices don't simply side with the Administration.”
The High Court’s decision will not be public until July. Meanwhile, American citizens ought to be pondering whether it wants to become a monarchy, ruled by a president. They also ought to give some serious thought to the kind of message indefinite detention of prisoners without a real trials sends to the rest of the world.
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