[Ppnews] Of Confessions and Torture

[Political Prisoner News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/kimberly04042007.html

April 4, 2007


None of the Democratic Contenders Has Called for the Closure of the 
Guantanamo Prison


Of Confessions and Torture

By MARGARET KIMBERLY

"I have been forced to run in leg shackles that regularly ripped the 
skin off my ankles. Many other detainees experienced the same."

- Guantanamo detainee David Hicks.

"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z."

- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's Guantanamo confession.

Guantanamo is awash in confessions these days. Walid Mohammad bin 
Attash claims to have blown up the USS Cole. Khalid Sheik Mohammed 
confessed to planning 9/11, the bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa, 
and night clubs in Bali. He also confessed to killing of Daniel Pearl 
and perhaps Anna Nicole Smith, too.

An Australian prisoner, David Hicks, has confessed to terrorist 
activity. He spent 5 years at Guantanamo and recently pleaded guilty 
to providing material support for terrorism, which wasn't even 
against U.S. law until October 2006. The only way for him to return 
home was to confess. He also had to sign an agreement denying his 
previous statements that he had been tortured. He had to promise not 
to sue the U.S. government, make any money from telling the story of 
his ordeal, or talk to the media for at least one year.

These confessions are not taken seriously by any intelligent people 
in this country and they are certainly not taken seriously by anyone 
outside of it. Even the namby pamby Congressional actions on Iraq are 
sending the Bushites into a frenzy of show trials to justify waging 
endless war on the rest of humanity. The confessions will surely be 
repeated when the bombing of Iran begins.

Not only are these military tribunals a travesty and a great 
injustice to the people involved, but they have doomed our country. 
The hatred that spawned the 9/11 attacks has only grown with time. 
Now all Americans have bulls eyes on their heads because of the evil 
people who run this government.

There have been many brave efforts to stop this evil doing, but so 
far it has come to naught. U.S. courts have dismissed lawsuits, 
Congress enabled the administration by approving the kangaroo court 
system. Truth tellers like Democratic Senator Richard Durbin are sent 
to the wood shed by their own party for rightly comparing Guantanamo 
to a Nazi prison.

David Hicks is a white Australian who converted to Islam and lived in 
Afghanistan in 2001. He has been held for five years and was denied 
the most basic constitutional rights that he would have enjoyed in 
Australia or the United States. His family made his case a cause 
celebre in his country and forced his Bush-loving prime minister, 
John Howard, to negotiate for his release.

Howard is facing a tough election in November, so he doesn't want 
Hicks mucking things up by telling his harrowing tales. Get him out 
but don't let him talk until a more opportune time. So the man who 
was called terror enemy number one and originally threatened with a 
20 year sentence will now be allowed to serve nine months in his 
native Australia.

Even if America survives until November 2008 and manages to get the 
Republicans out of the White House, none of the Democratic front 
runners has said anything about closing Gitmo and using the court 
system that successfully tried terror suspects before Bush came to 
office. Barack Obama thinks military courts are better.

"I've heard, for example, the argument that it should be military 
courts, and not federal judges, who should make decisions on these 
detainees. I actually agree with that. The problem is that the 
structure of the military proceedings has been poorly thought through."

Senator Smarty Pants also predicted that terror suspects would have 
counsel and be able to present evidence on their behalf.

"He (Khalid Mohammed) will have counsel, he will be able to present 
evidence, and he will be able to rebut the Government's case. The 
feeling is that he is guilty of a war crime and to do otherwise might 
violate some of our agreements under the Geneva Conventions. I think 
that is good, that we are going to provide him with some procedure 
and process."

It is news to me that guilt of war crimes is determined by a 
Senator's feelings. No one at Gitmo checked with the superstar media 
darling before they kept Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from calling 
witnesses or having attorneys present. Hillary Clinton, in her 
typical fear of saying anything of substance, has said nothing about 
the process.

There will be no respite from the destruction of the Constitution and 
the dismissal of International Law followed by the rest of the world. 
We are in great danger from our own government and that danger will 
not lessen after the inauguration of a new president in January of 2009.

While Washington burns, reporters have fun with Karl Rove at the 
annual Correspondents Association dinner. Rove and Bush have the 
nerve to joke about breaking the law and the press make fools of 
themselves in order to stay in their good graces. If we had real 
journalists, this annual embarrassment would be cancelled for lack of 
participants. But we don't have real journalists, so they continue to 
whore for a living while somewhere revenge is being plotted against 
every American. When the strike comes most people won't even know why 
and David Hicks won't be able to tell us.

Margaret Kimberley is an editor and senior columnist for the 
<http://www.blackagendareport.com/>Black Agenda Report. Her Freedom 
Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York 
City, and can be reached via e-Mail at 
Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com. When sending email, 
please remember to replace the (at) with @.


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