Guantanamo Bay
With this unholy concentration camp in the news once again, it's perhaps a good time to do some reflection on what we are actually dealing with here:
Johann Hari
The Independent, London
GUANTANAMO BAY (Mar 10, 2007)
Guantanamo Bay -- America's shining torture camp on a hill -- is humming with new activity this week. Fourteen newbies have arrived, almost certainly from secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe, where they have been waterboarded into passivity. They include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused of masterminding the 9/11 massacres, and a man known as Hambali who allegedly planned the Bali bombing in which 200 innocent clubbers were incinerated. There won't be much time to settle in: the show-trials begin immediately. In these new military tribunals, the defendants can be shut out of their own trial at any time (along with their lawyers), evidence acquired via torture is admissible, and the accused can end up convicted on the basis of evidence they have not seen and cannot challenge.
The Bush administration propaganda -- we don't torture, there will be a fair legal process -- is unusually ridiculous, even by their standards. When Congress tried to pass a blanket ban on the use of torture by U.S. forces last year, the president demanded an exemption for the CIA. What is that, if not a tacit admission? In what way are these trials fair? We have become so numbed to the idea of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram Airbase after five years that it's worth remembering: we are talking about a string of prison camps where a democratic country, supported by us, is torturing people to death.
With this unholy concentration camp in the news once again, it's perhaps a good time to do some reflection on what we are actually dealing with here:
Johann Hari
The Independent, London
GUANTANAMO BAY (Mar 10, 2007)
Guantanamo Bay -- America's shining torture camp on a hill -- is humming with new activity this week. Fourteen newbies have arrived, almost certainly from secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe, where they have been waterboarded into passivity. They include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused of masterminding the 9/11 massacres, and a man known as Hambali who allegedly planned the Bali bombing in which 200 innocent clubbers were incinerated. There won't be much time to settle in: the show-trials begin immediately. In these new military tribunals, the defendants can be shut out of their own trial at any time (along with their lawyers), evidence acquired via torture is admissible, and the accused can end up convicted on the basis of evidence they have not seen and cannot challenge.
The Bush administration propaganda -- we don't torture, there will be a fair legal process -- is unusually ridiculous, even by their standards. When Congress tried to pass a blanket ban on the use of torture by U.S. forces last year, the president demanded an exemption for the CIA. What is that, if not a tacit admission? In what way are these trials fair? We have become so numbed to the idea of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram Airbase after five years that it's worth remembering: we are talking about a string of prison camps where a democratic country, supported by us, is torturing people to death.
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