One of the many interesting tidbits to come out of President Bush’s brief press conference today following his meeting with German Chancellor Merkel, was a rejection of the German government’s request that the prison at Guantanamo Bay be shut down. According to Chancellor Merkel, she brought the issue up at their closed door meeting. Bush’s response? See for yourself:
“I can understand why she brought it up because there’s some misperceptions about Guantanamo.”
He disputed reports that detainees there have been mistreated.
Bush said the prison camp would remain open “so long as the war on terror goes on, and so long as there’s a threat.”
All rather standard stuff from the Bush disinformation team at the White House. They have long maintained that allegations of abuse at Guantanamo are “absurd,” so it really wasn’t surprising to hear Bush speak of “misperceptions,” and to issue denials of mistreatment. And the idea that Guantanamo will exist as long as the “threat exists” while chilling, isn’t exactly new either.
However, it was another statement he made at the Press conference, also unsurprising, that really caught my eye:
The camp on the U.S. Navy base there is “a necessary part of protecting the American people,” Bush said . . .
I have to ask: Which Americans, Mr. Bush?
Which Americans need to be protected through the use of indefinite detentions of unknown persons without any trial other than before “Potemkin” Military Tribunals” at which the prosecutors outnumber the defense counsel 4:1?
Tribunals which the outnumbered defense lawyers have openly criticized as not permitting basic principles of due process and fundamental fairness, such as the right to confront one’s accuser, have access to evidence against you or even get to choose your own defense counsel.
Tribunals which one Federal District Court has ruled unconstitutional in a case which the Bush administration is desperately trying to prevent the Supreme Court from hearing at all.
A prison where prisoners have been denied the right to file a habeas corpus motion with US Courts challenging their imprisonment.
A prison where tales of abuse and torture of detainees are well documented in the Government’s own interrogation reports, in internal FBI memos and by the few detainees who have been released from Guantanamo.
We know that many of the Guantanamo prisoners have already been determined to be innocent of any Taliban or Al Qaida connections, yet still they are being held. We know that some were as young as 15 years old when they were captured, and some even younger. Apparently, Americans need to be protected from adolescents these days.
Can anyone explain how such actions are protecting Americans? We have violated our fundamental principles of justice, broken treaties and US laws regarding the treatment of prisoners, and even killed innocent people all in the pursuit of security. Our reputation with even our closest allies is mud, and we have engendered such hatred and animosity among the Arab and Muslim world that our children and grandchildren will be at an increased risk of future acts of terrorism for decades.
So I ask again: Who is being protected by this Mr. Bush?
Is it Generals who “take the Fifth” rather than testify before a court martial hearing as to interrogation procedures? Or is it someone higher up the chain of command?
Newly released military documents show U.S. Army investigators closed a probe into allegations an Iraqi detainee had been abused by a shadowy military task force after its members used fake names and asserted that key computer files had been lost.
The documents shed light on Task Force 6-26, a special operations unit, and confirmed the existence of a secret military “Special Access Program” associated with it, ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh said on Thursday.
. . . The memo said the investigation should not be reopened. “Hell, even if we reopened it we wouldn’t get anymore information than we already have,” the memo stated.
Singh said previous documents indicated Task Force 6-26 was linked to other instances of detainee abuse in Iraq.
“This document suggests that Task Force 6-26 was part of a larger, clandestine program that we think may have links with high-ranking officials, because obviously someone high up had the authority to put this program in place,” Singh said in a telephone interview.
All I know, is that what’s happening at Guantanamo Bay, and elsewhere in the name of protecting Americans, sure as hell isn’t protecting me. Or you.