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Silenced for Speaking the Truth about Guantanamo
I began my column last week with the words "We know all about Guantanamo". I was wrong. Courtesy of the Toronto press - until a few days ago, when half of them were censored out of the drumhead courts martial that pass for "justice" in this execrable place - I have been learning a lot more. Because the case involves a Canadian citizen - and because the Canadian government is doing sod-all for its passport-carrying prisoner - it hasn't been getting a lot of publicity on this side of the Atlantic. It should.
Omar Khadr was 15 when he allegedly - the word "'allegedly" is going to have to be used for ever, since this is not a fair trial - shot and killed a US Special Forces soldier in eastern Afghanistan in July 2002. Last week, a former US serviceman called Damien Corsetti, nicknamed "The Monster" at the Bagram jailhouse where torture and murder were widespread, agreed via a video link to the Guantanamo "court" that Khadr was trussed up in a cage "in one of the worst places on earth". "We could do basically anything to scare the prisoners," Corsetti announced.
Beating was forbidden, "The Monster" acknowledged, but prisoners could be threatened with "nightmarish scenarios" like rendition to Egypt or Israel where, according to Canada's Globe and Mail, "they would disappear". Which tells you a lot about Israel. Or what the Americans think of Israel. Quite a lot about Egypt, too, come to think of it.
I should add that Mr Khadr, who is now 23, was gravely wounded when he was brought to Bagram. As Mr Corsetti said, "He was a 15-year old kid with three holes in his body, a bunch of shrapnel in his face." The lads at Bagram - the guards and interrogators, that is - dubbed him "Buckshot Bob". Clever, huh?
Mr Corsetti, I should also add, was kind to Mr Khadr. He was earlier acquitted of charges of detainee abuse - not involving Khadr - and now says he is a disabled veteran being treated for "post-traumatic stress disorder". In other words, quite a find for Khadr's defence lawyers. Not for the Canadian government, however, which asked the Obama administration to suppress the fact that in 2003 and 2004, Khadr had given information to officials of the Ottawa department of foreign affairs and to agents of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS, for those who care).
The Canadian Supreme Court (for which I care a lot, because it appears to be fair) has already ruled that the conditions of Khadr's imprisonment at Guantanamo when interrogated by CSIS "constituted a clear violation of Canada's international human rights obligations".
Another American interrogator at Bagram, a sergeant, it turned out at the Guantanamo hearings, had questioned Khadr about his role in the Taliban. This interrogator, named Joshua Claus, was later convicted of detainee abuse - though not against Khadr. Claus also pleaded guilty to assaulting an innocent Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar who died in custody at Bagram.
We know Claus's identity because he gave press interviews to, among others, The Toronto Star, in 2008, when he claimed that his former employers were "trying to imply I'm beating or torturing everybody I ever talked to". Claus said, "Omar was pretty much my first big case. With Omar, I spent a lot of time trying to understand who he was and what I could say to him or do for him, whether it be to bring him extra food or get a letter out to his family." There was a lot more stuff at these hearings, admission of a "fear up" and "fear down" technique, for example - "fear up" apparently involved the threat of rape "by four big black guys".
In other words, another horrible, obscene story from Guantanamo. But wait. We can't have this kind of publicity show in the Canadian press, can we? Not least when Khadr's own government will do nothing for him. So get this. The Pentagon has announced that more than half of the Canadian press - including The Globe and Mail and the Star - will no longer be able to report the Guantanamo "proceedings" because they named Mr Claus as one of the interrogators - even though Mr Claus had himself given interviews to the press two years ago. But he wasn't named at Guantanamo. Get it?
Information already in the public domain is no longer in the public domain when it isn't mentioned at a drumhead trial in Cuba. (Yes, let's just remember that Guantanamo is actually in bloody Cuba!) The Pentagon didn't even call the reporters concerned - they used email, of course, because there might have been an argument, mightn't there?
Fairness in court? Not that we are going to find out. Khadr's father was an al-Qa'ida official. His life was almost certainly saved by US medics - there are some good guys in these wars - but he was most definitely tortured; and Canada (here I quote the Globe and Mail's excellent editorial) "in a sneaky and illegal fashion, participated in the abuse. It turned the fruits of its own interrogations of Mr Khadr to the prosecution, at a time when the military commissions had no explicit bar against evidence obtained coercively".
Too bad we won't have to hear much more about this trial, not in Canada, at least. The Star and The Globe and Mail have since made no reference to Claus's identity. Not surprising, I suppose. But remember, you read it here.


16 Comments so far
Show AllWell, If they are were allowed to be at the trial
we would find this fifteen year old boy was just
trying to protect his mother.
We already know about Bush/Cheney,
It says a lot about Obama/Holder, putting this person
on trial that was wisked away from his mother at
fifteen years old and sent to an illegal prison.
Obama is the one that should be on trial. \
OBAMA, YOU MUST BE A SCUM BAG TO PUT THIS KID ON TRIAL !!!
You know, I like the word "Scum Bag"........With all due respect, you have an assassination list and you send drones in to murder "Alleged" Militants, but, instead murder civilians.....This trial is not a trial it is a "Kangaroo Court" to make Obama look tough on "Fabricated Terrorists"....
With all due respect, I have never seen a man in the office of President so adept at lying....Take the oil disaster and his "anger" at the three companies when his own administration exempted BP from the proper studies and safety measures!
This kid should never have gone to trial, punto final...Everyone in both administrations who continue to support any trials are nothing but "Rich Scum Bags"
Obama DOES have blood on his hands, and this demonstrates his utter contempt for american legal principles.
The US government is now the bad guy.
Absolutely agree which certainly begs the question why a war crimes tribunal has still not been convened so that charges of war crimes, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity can be brought against George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama. Has a firing squad been formed so that they can be brought before their Maker or a gallows built so that they can reap the punishment that they and their administrations so richly deserve?
Correction: the US has ALWAYS been the bad guy. Since the beginning of this countty. Not just the genocide of the Indians and the slaves. From our dealings with Haiti, supporting the Nazis ( the Bush criminal family) to over throwing regimes and putting in brutal dictators like the Duviers? In Haiti, putting the Shaw of Iran in power, supporting Al Quiada, the Taliban, Saddam and countless other brutsl dictators. Most recent is the criminal Saddam before he kicked out our oil companies.
We imported the insane Nazi butchrs and just way too many to count.
Watch Bill Moyer's Secret government on Utube.
We are THE biggest terrorists in the world. They don't hate us for our freedoms. They hate us because of what we Do.
People whose countries we invade are not insurrgents or terrorists. They are defending the lands. Reverse the role. If China invaded the US, what would we do?
The list is too long to include all of our atrocities. Watch the videos.
I do not support the troops in any way. Anyone that joins now for whatever reason are murders. The only way I support the troops is by my tax dollars that my government steals from me. I have no way to stop this.
Obama is just another criminal. Most of Congress is complicit. Why do they continue to fund these illegal acts? We are not at war. We are stealing those other countries resources. China is buying them
12 billion a month while states are killing the poor, disabled and the elderly?AZ and CA and other states are kicking them all off of public support while still giving the corporations and the very wealthy tax breaks.
We are a sick nation. I put my flag decals upside down because we are a nation in distress
one day our bill will come due
anyone want to talk about how much the contractors and all corporations involved in the MIC?
All done for money and greed.
Haiti's people are still homeless. As are the Katrina victims.
Watch the video.
Oh and Climate Change that is being denied? Huge amounts of money is being used to debunk that to give 'them' time to steal resouces. Why do you think the market crashed? Trillions transferred to said corporations to finance this massive resource grab. We are soulless and there isn't anything we can do. Make phone call and sign petions and being ignored. Like the health care, insurance care bill. I could keep going on but I think most CDers know what I am saying.
Now?
other very interesting links to background:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/05/08/joshua-claus-the-rape-threat-and-the-dead-detainees/
Obama supporters are no better than the conservatives who supported Bush II regardless of his criminal war policies.
It becomes ever clearer that the reason so many "liberals" are obessed with the Teabaggers is because their obsession allows them to avoid confronting the immorality of their support for O'Bomber.
"...their obsession allows them to avoid confronting the immorality of their support for O'Bomber."
My personal but realistic opinion is that the tea parties were researched and designed to do just that - distract the sheeple. The more the right wing trashes Obama for his "socialist" ways, the more his worshipers will protect him. It's human nature. The PTB knows that and takes full advantage.
Good points are coming out here, but the right of the Cuban people and government not to have this piece of lower than rat do do US military instalolation on its soil is right in the UN Charter if we could get Obombus to read it and act like someone who would adhere to international law would be a good start.
These atrocities will continue until the US voters change the way they vote. During the last election I was the first in the USA to run on a Platform of Prosecuting Bush etc for War Crimes. I was a candidate for VT Atty General. (Needless to say, I lost the election.) All Attys General have the power to prosecute for murder/war crimes. None have and none ever will until their election depends on it. Everyone knows that US voters are a little challenged in critical thinking skills. Proof - they continue to vote for dem/repubs.
The audacity of hope, that the innocent Muslim men who have been convicted in U.S. Kangaroo courts and sentenced to life in prison, will receive justice and be set free, is in my heart. These men are victims of cowardly fear based on their religion and ethnic origin, not their deeds. Someday someone will wake up to the horrendous injustice of this policy of inhumane treatment by so called civilized Americans and rectify it.But time is going by so quickly , these prisoners are loosing so many years of their lives. I can't believe that Americans can be so cruel and careless.
"cruel and careless"
"Cruel", yes; "careless", no-- unless you're using "careless" in the broad sense of "uncaring" or "unfeeling", that is.
I respect your hope, but don't feel it myself.
The authorities with direct power over the fate of these detainees proceed with the utmost deliberation and purpose. Even seemingly "careless" and preposterous labels like "The Worst of the Worst" are intentionally hawked to frighten an ignorant and panicked populace.
The despotic and totalitarian US government strives to implement a "fix" that ensures that as many victims as possible are effectively "disappeared" and silenced for the remainder of their lives.
The only cure or improvement in the works is the new homicidal targeted-assassination and drone-based policy designed to kill suspected "terrorists" outright on the ubiquitous and imaginary "battlefield" to avoid the pesky, embarrassing problem of effectively disposing of "detainees".
Tragic and horrific.
"Tragic and horrific." -- Obedient Servant
I agree with your post, for the reasons you include.
Oh, and while we're bashing the execrable, torture-loving behavior of the United States:
F*** Canada.
Assuming Canada ever gets off its polite duff long enough to vote Harper out -- assuming the Queen's lackey in Ottawa doesn't allow Harper to prorogue Parliament in perpetuity -- all that will happen is that Canada will get Michael Ignatieff, another neocon, at the helm. Canada is as utterly lacking in political opposition as the United States is.
It needs to be said and said again that Kadr was 15 years old at the time of the alleged incident. It also needs to be said that it was he who was being assaulted while holed up in a building by an armed force of US soldiers, and that if he as claimed (which I personally find dubious given the extent of his injuries and the original doubt about who did what) threw a grenade it was clearly at the time an act of in self defence while in a war zone.
The notion that it is somehow a crime to kill a soldier that is attacking one in a war zone is absurd. War would be a lot more civilised if all soldiers held to this notion, but clearly they don't.
Canada and the US are both obliged by international treaty to give aid and support to child soldiers; to not prosecute them but rather to seek to rehabilitate them; that principle being grounded in the notion that a child soldier is not a criminal participating in war but a victim of war.
It is to Canada's lasting shame that not only is it failing to respect treaties that it has signed but is colluding in the abuse, torture and wrongful imprisonment of not only a 15 year old child soldier, but one of its own citizens.
I say that as a concerned Canadian citizen.