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Exposing Guantanamo and David Hicks Comment by Larry Ross, April 11, 2007
The Bush regime has a criminal strategy of labelling anyone they choose, who they claim opposes their illegal attack and occupation of foreign countries, as an "enemy combatant". These people are usually completely innocent of such ridiculous charges. They can then be seized from anywhere in the world, imprisoned and tortured indefinitely without charge or trial at Guantanamo Bay or any other of a number of prisons in US client countries with a reputation for torture. Whether they are innocent or guilty of such trumped up unacceptable charges does not matter to the Bush regime. It is a well-known fact that confessions obtained by torture are considered worthless under civilized law, as the tortured will say anything to stop the agonies inflicted by the torturers. All US politicians, lawyers, police and members of justice departments know this, yet the US continues this medieval practice with the help and participation of these people. Why? The purpose I believe is to create hatred and fear of the US . The US needs to create enemies in order to justify a series of wars with the support of its own poorly informed citizens. The illegal war in Iraq was based on the lies of the Bush regime, with false imprisonments and torture, including murder and shaming of prisoners, and massive bombings of the Iraq infrastructure, even after the US had defeated the forces of Saddam Hussein. US war and occupation policies such as this created terrorist incidents seven times greater than before the war according to a US report. The Bush-neocon plan is to conquer and dominate Middle East nations, their oil resources and permanently occupy Iraq with massive new US military bases, and the largest US embassy in the world. Chaos, civil war and a series of weak puppet Iraqi regimes answerable to Washington is used to justify this continuing US military occupation. More terrorist incidents, and an expanding number of enemies helps promote instability, thus justifying the US presence and their phony excuse of ' giving Iraqi democracy a chance'. As an ex-CIA agent and author of books on the CIA and related subjects (see below), William Blum is highly qualified to expose the truth, which follows.
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Land of the free, home of the War on Terrorism by William Blum, April 8, 2007 "They told us this was one of the world's worst terrorists, and he got the sentence of a drunken driver," said Ben Wizner, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, referring to David Hicks, a 31-year-old Australian who in a plea bargain with a US military court will serve nine months in prison, largely in Australia. That's after five years at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba without being charged with a crime, without a trial, without a conviction. Under the deal, Hicks agreed not to talk to reporters for one year (a slap in the face of free speech), to forever waive any profit from telling his story (a slap -- mon Dieu! -- in the face of free enterprise), to submit to US interrogation and testify at future US trials or international tribunals (an open invitation to the US government to hound the young man for the rest of his life), to renounce any claims of mistreatment or unlawful detention (a requirement which would be unconstitutional in a civilian US court). "If the United States were not ashamed of its conduct, it wouldn't hide behind a gag order," said Wizner.)[1] Like so many other "terrorists" held by the United States in recent years, Hicks had been "sold" to the American military for a bounty offered by the US, a phenomenon repeated frequently in Afghanistan and Pakistan. US officials had to know that once they offered payments to a very poor area to turn in bodies that almost anyone was fair game. Other "terrorists" have been turned in as reprisals for all sorts of personal hatreds and feuds. Many others -- abroad and in the United States -- have been incarcerated by the United States simply for working for, or merely contributing money to, charitable organizations with alleged or real ties to a "terrorist organization", as determined by a list kept by the State Department, a list conspicuously political. It was recently disclosed that an Iraqi resident of Britain is being released from Guantánamo after four years. His crime? He refused to work as an informer for the CIA and MI5, the British security service. His business partner is still being held in Guantánamo, for the same crime.[2] Finally, there are those many other poor souls who have been picked up simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. "Most of these guys weren't fighting. They were running," General Martin Lucenti, former deputy commander of Guantánamo, has pointed out.[3] Thousands of people thrown into hell on earth for no earthly good reason. The world media has been overflowing with their individual tales of horror and sadness for five very long years. Said Guantánamo's former commander, General Jay Hood: "Sometimes we just didn't get the right folks."[4] Not that the torture they were put through would be justified if they were in fact "the right folks". Hicks was taken into custody in Afghanistan in 2001. He was a convert to Islam and like many others from many countries had gone to Afghanistan for religious reasons, had wound up on the side of the Taliban in the civil war that had been going on since the early 1990s, and had received military training at a Taliban camp. The United States has insisted on calling such camps "terrorist training camps", or "anti-American terrorist training camps", or "al-Qaeda terrorist training camps". Almost every individual or group not in love with US foreign policy, which Washington wants to stigmatize, is charged with being associated with, or being a member of, al Qaeda, as if there's a precise and meaningful distinction between people retaliating against American imperialism while being a member of al Qaeda and retaliating against American imperialism while NOT being a member of al Qaeda; as if al Qaeda gives out membership cards to fit into your wallet, as if there are chapters of al Qaeda that put out a weekly newsletter and hold a potluck on the first Monday of each month. |
