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bush administration
On Cheney, Trump, and the Nature of Violence
As a nation, as a unified planet, we need to create a future that’s bigger than Trump, bigger than Cheney—bigger than what they could imagine in terms of global politics and power.
Nov 06, 2025
Let him rest in... peace?
I don’t know. The irony of those words is a little too much for me to grasp as I sit here contemplating the death of Dick Cheney at age 84. Cheney, mastermind and primary organizer on the “war on terror,” which, in a 20-year span of insanity, cost the United States some $8 trillion and killed (murdered) nearly a million people, according to Brown University’s Costs of War Project.
And as though that total weren’t high enough, the project notes that this number is very much an undercount, since it doesn’t include indirect deaths of the war caused by “disease, displacement, and loss of access to food or clean drinking water.”
Revisiting these numbers in the wake of Cheney’s death throws some horrific complexity into the present-day news, that is to say, the authoritarian activities of the Trump administration: Sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement to invade American cities, bombing small boats off the coast of Venezuela, cozying up to authoritarian leaders around the globe and, of course, staying in sync with the Israeli devastation f Gaza.
Trump is just the next step in the violent nation we’ve created: the unhinged step.
President Donald Trump is such an unconstrained blowhard and fascist wannabe, totally open about his desire to arrest, deport, pepperspray, and eliminate every American who dares protest or comedically belittle his policies, that Sen. Bernie Sanders (-Vt.) recently wrote:
This may be the most consequential moment in American history since the civil war. We have a megalomaniacal president who, consumed by his quest for more and more power, is undermining our constitution and the rule of law.
We’re on the verge of losing our country, losing our democracy! I hear it. I feel it. We’re at the edge of a political cliff. But then, in the wake of Dick Cheney’s death, the Bush administration slips back into my awareness and I suddenly find myself plummeting into concern and horror that transcends Trump. Trump has yet to do anything equal to the military hell these guys inflicted on the world, or even equal to their pompous rhetoric about the “axis of evil” they were intent on destroying.
And George W. Bush and Cheney were anti-Trumpers, for God’s sake, furious that Trump took their party away from them. Is this the sin of Trump—taking away not so much our wars but the political correctness in which we swathed them? Trump is an impulsive blatherer, speaking in ordinary-guy language, spewing out whatever he’s thinking in the moment. Yeah, he’s a scary jerk, utterly untrustworthy, but is what we had before him somehow better? Are the monstrous wars—the terror—we’ve waged throughout my lifetime what we want to return to?
I guess what I’m saying is that Trump is just the next step in the violent nation we’ve created: the unhinged step. He’s loosened himself from all sense of political dignity and is free to dance before the world to “YMCA” He’s committed to trashing our Constitution and making himself Boss-in-Chief, but he loves, and is as subservient to, money as any political leader who has preceded him.
All of which leads me back to the book I’m still in the process of writing. As a nation, as a unified planet, we need to create a future that’s bigger than Trump, bigger than Cheney—bigger than what they could imagine in terms of global politics and power. That is to say, we need to create a world that knows how to wage peace. Please understand, in no way do I see this as a simple process. We are creating peace in small fragments all across the planet, but collectively we continue to organize around domination, violence, and dehumanization.
Let me put forth one small piece of the book, which begins to address the nature of violence. I begin by quoting journalist and peace activist Colman McCarthy, who once asked: Why are we violent but not illiterate? This question stuck in my soul.
In the book I wrote: We’re taught to read, of course. The implied analogy here is that violence is the same thing as illiteracy, which is nothing in and of itself, a void, a lack of knowing. Is violence also nothing in and of itself, simply the absence of knowing how to behave with calm rationality and creative compassion? Certainly that doesn’t seem to be the case. To behave with violence, at least with a high level of violence, requires a great deal of knowing. Nations couldn’t go to war if they didn’t have the capacity to organize armies and equip them with up-to-date weaponry; to do this requires an extraordinary amount of “violent literacy,” you might say.
But there is a void of knowing—or perhaps more accurately, a void of control—that surrounds violence. Unlike illiteracy, however, violence has a positive sense of itself. In retrospect, violent behavior may be defended as self-protective and necessary, but in the actual act of it, I believe violence is an abdication of self-ownership, an abdication of everything that is godlike within us: an abdication of our vulnerability. And this abdication is collective...
So why are we violent but not illiterate? Once we’re taught to read, illiteracy is no longer possible or even, in a personal sense, imaginable. Reading isn’t simply a “protest” against illiteracy; reading and writing are steps from nothing to something, channeling spoken language into a world of entirely new possibilities. So what is the nonviolent equivalent of literacy? It’s not protests in the streets; it’s not a countermovement symbolized by peace signs and clenched fists. It’s not a futile demand for an end to violence. What the world needs, and what the New Story must present to us, is the means to evolve beyond violence, in the process reducing violence, in our minds, to the equivalent of illiteracy.
The trans-violent equivalent of literacy must be both intuitive and externally structured; it must be taught. And, indeed, many such systems already exist. The problem is, they don’t reduce simply and easily to a story: a plot device. How is John Wayne atop the stagecoach, as cameras focus in, going to listen to the Apaches’ grievances, absorb the white man’s collective guilt, apologize and begin a journey of atonement? It’s so much easier, when telling a story, to remove one small, inconvenient aspect of reality—consequences—and portray violence as the tool of goodness and the solution to problems.
And thus we have the current world, trying to control its chaos by spewing out ever more state-ordered, state-financed redemptive violence, in the form of war, punishment, news, and entertainment.
Let me leave with a thought: Let’s make America great for the first time.Keep ReadingShow Less
Hey Rupert, the War on Terror Called and It Wants Its Propaganda Back
It’s a pretty old trick for both a Republican administration and its unofficial public relations agents in the Murdoch press to simply label free speech as out of bounds because it “supports terrorism.”
Mar 21, 2025
The arrest and possible deportation of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a Green Card holder with a student visa, for his organizing role at Gaza solidarity protests last year has sent shockwaves throughout American society.
As I wrote at Haaretz (3/11/25), Khalil’s arrest is an intense blow to free speech, as punishment for speech and other First Amendment-protected activities will create a huge chilling effect. In a piece denouncing Khalil’s arrest, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg (3/10/25) quoted American Civil Liberties Union senior staff attorney Brian Hauss saying, “This seems like one of the biggest threats, if not the biggest threat, to First Amendment freedoms in 50 years.”
The Murdoch press has been celebrating the misery visited upon Khalil in a way that hearkens back to the “War on Terror” days.
In a letter (In These Times, 3/18/25) dictated over the phone from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana, Khalil said, “My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza.”
While a judge blocked his deportation, as of this writing, Khalil is still in ICE custody (Al Jazeera, 3/19/25). AP (3/9/25) reported that his arrest is the first known “deportation effort under Trump’s promised crackdown on students who joined protests against Israel’s war in Gaza that swept college campuses” last year. The Trump administration argues, according to the news service, that people like Khalil, whose Green Card was revoked by the State Department, “forfeited their rights to remain in the country by supporting Hamas.”
Alarms Raised
Many in the media have raised alarms about the extreme threat to free speech represented by Khalil’s arrest. Even the editorial board (3/12/25) of the increasingly Trump-pandering Washington Post warned, “If the secretary of state can deport a legal resident simply because he dislikes his or her views, whose First Amendment rights are next?” Other corporate newspapers and outlets (Bloomberg, 3/11/25; USA Today, 3/13/25; Boston Globe, 3/14/25; Financial Times, 3/14/25) published similar defenses of Khalil’s First Amendment rights, arguing that his arrest fundamentally threatens American liberty.
There is a good reason for the outcry. Khalil has not been charged with a crime, but the executive branch, without consulting a judge, revoked his legal status based on his political speech. As The Intercept (3/13/25) described, the federal government is invoking the Immigration and Nationality Act, in which the secretary of state has
the authority to request the deportation of an individual who is not a U.S. citizen, if they have “reasonable ground to believe” the individual’s presence in the country hurts the government’s foreign policy interests.
The Department of Homeland Security justified the arrest on its claims that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas.” In other words, the Trump administration has revoked Khalil’s green card, arrested him, and intends to deport him based on his constitutionally protected protest activities.
Rupert Murdoch’s outlets, rather than speak out against this shredding of the First Amendment, have been promoting the Trump administration line. The Murdoch press has been celebrating the misery visited upon Khalil in a way that hearkens back to the “War on Terror” days.
‘Inimical to the U.S.’
The New York Post (3/10/25) ran the cover headline “ICE Knowing You!” Its editorial board (3/9/25) childishly wrote that “ICE has put fresh teeth on President Donald Trump’s crackdown on campus hate. Hooray!” It said that the anti-genocide protest “movement was never merely about protest.”
Two scholars at the right-wing Manhattan Institute, Ilya Shapiro and Daniel DiMartino, took to the Post op-ed page (3/11/25) to counter the free-speech defense of Khalil. They deemed the Gaza protests “illegal,” saying that stripping permanent residents of the legal protections for those “who reject our values or are hostile to our way of life” doesn’t threaten constitutional freedom.
If demanding a cease-fire in Gaza is pro-Hamas, then a lot of Americans would be guilty, too.
While admitting “we don’t know the details of the due process he’s been given”—which is a crucial consideration when it comes to constitutional protections—the duo said, “But one thing is clear: The executive branch has the authority to vet noncitizens based on their views, thanks to the laws Congress has passed and the Supreme Court has upheld.”
The Post piece repeats a point Shapiro made at the conservative City Journal (3/7/25): “While the government can’t send foreigners to jail for saying things it doesn’t like, it can and should deny or pull visas for those who advocate for causes inimical to the United States.” Who decides what are “causes” that are “inimical”? Secretary of State Marco Rubio, apparently.
Fox News (3/12/25) also referred to Khalil as “pro-Hamas,” reporting that the Department of Homeland Security said “that Khalil ‘led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.’” The link between Khalil’s participation in protests and supporting Hamas is spurious on its face. If demanding a cease-fire in Gaza is pro-Hamas, then a lot of Americans would be guilty, too. Younger Americans, in particular, stand out for their support of Palestinians in the current war (Pew Research, 4/2/24).
Not ‘Really About Speech’
The more erudite but no less fanatically right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial board (3/12/25) said, “A green card comes with legal obligations, including the disavowal of terrorism,” and that “Khalil seems to have violated that obligation.” The board matter-of-factly stated, “The case against Mr. Khalil will depend on the facts of his support for Hamas.”
Matthew Hennessey, the Journal’s deputy editorial features editor (3/12/25), also called him a “pro-Hamas Columbia agitator,” adding, “If he didn’t love [the U.S.], why didn’t he leave it? The world is big. It has many elite universities.” Hennessey added, “When you’re a guest, it’s more than bad manners to cheer the slaughter of your host’s friends.” There’s no proof offered that Khalil did anything illegal, only that he said some things Hennessey didn’t like.
Journal columnist William McGurn (3/10/25) also dismissed the free speech concerns, saying that these protests went beyond speech—again, offering no evidence other than that the president said so. And he warned that pesky judges who stick too close to the Bill of Rights and the rule of law will get in the way of Khalil’s deportation. He said:
“So I bet what will happen,” says Berkeley law professor John Yoo, “is that even though the immigration law says the alien students can be deported, there will be a district judge somewhere who says that the president cannot use that power to punish people based on their First Amendment-protected beliefs and speech. But the Supreme Court will ultimately uphold the law.”
These “protests” weren’t really about speech. If all the “protesters” had done was stand outside waving Palestinian flags and chanting anti-Israel slogans, no one would be talking about deportation. Mr. Trump laid out his rationale on Truth Social: “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump administration will not tolerate it.”
‘War on Terror’ Playbook
Feeling some déjà vu? The right-wing media’s defense of arresting and deporting a green-card holder for engaging in protest rests on simply labeling him and the protests as “pro-Hamas,” the idea being that any criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza is an endorsement of the Palestinian militant group that the U.S. State Department designates as a terrorist organization.
As I told CNN International’s Connect the World (3/12/25), the situation feels similar to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, when it was common for supporters of George W. Bush, including his allies in the right-wing press, to label antiwar protesters as endorsers of anti-American terrorist violence.
Oppose the invasion of Afghanistan? You must be pro-Al Qaeda. Oppose the invasion of Iraq? You must be supportive of Saddam Hussein’s regime. This helped brand any questioning of the administration as treasonous, helping to build consensus not just for aggressive military imperialism at abroad, but in curtailing civil liberties for Americans at home (Extra!, 9/11).
So it’s a pretty old trick for both a Republican administration and its unofficial public relations agents in the Murdoch press to simply label free speech as out of bounds because it “supports terrorism.” Calling Khalil and the anti-genocide protests, which include thousands of supporters of many backgrounds—prominently including Jews—“pro-Hamas” is just another tired trick in the “War on Terror” propaganda playbook.
To understand how shallow this tactic is, keep in mind that Khalil has been on record about his politics and the issue of antisemitism. As a key negotiator for the protests, he had appeared on CNN and was asked about the protests and their impact on the Jewish community. The network (CNN, 4/29/24) summarized:
“I would say that the liberation of Palestine and the Palestinians and the Jewish people are intertwined. They go hand in hand. Antisemitism and any form of racism has no place on campus and in this movement,” Khalil said, noting that some members of Columbia’s encampment are Jewish and held Passover seders earlier this week, led by Jewish Voices for Peace.
“They are an integral part of this movement,” Khalil said of the organization.
Helping to Crush dissent
Note that the Journal‘s McGurn sought comments from Yoo, who is identified only as a law professor, and not a Bush administration attorney who notoriously supported the torture of detainees in the “War on Terror” (NPR, 2/23/10), or as an advisor to the first Trump administration on its aggressive anti-immigration methods (Guardian, 7/20/20). Yoo is also a proponent of applying the unitary executive theory to the Trump administration, which for Yoo, according to the Los Angeles Review of Books (11/1/20),
becomes a springboard to justify Trump’s authoritarian policies on war, immigration, deregulation, executive branch appointments, pardons, and the supervision of Justice Department investigations.
Israel’s own record on respecting freedom of speech is spotty, and has gotten worse since it launched the assault on Gaza (Democracy Now!, 11/9/23; CBC, 5/30/24; 972, 6/24/24; Freedom of the Press Foundation, 10/25/25; Times of Israel, 3/12/25). Israel, however, does not have a constitution, and activists and scholars have chronicled the nation’s erosion of democratic norms (Human Rights Watch, 4/27/21; Journal of Democracy, 7/23; Haaretz, 8/1/23; Deutsche Welle, 11/28/24). The United States is supposed to be governed by a constitution that, at least on paper, sets the gold standard among nations in protecting freedom of speech.
Alas, in the name of patriotism, the Murdoch press wants to erode that part of America’s tradition in order to help the Trump administration amass power and crush dissent.
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I Resigned 22 Years Ago Over the Iraq War... And Wish I Had More Resignations to Give!
I resigned two decades ago due to criminal U.S. policies and now I am in my 22nd year of resistance to criminal policies of successive administrations.
Mar 20, 2025
Twenty-two years ago, on March 19, 2003, I resigned from the U.S. Department of State. I was the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and the third U.S. government employee to resign in opposition to the U.S. war on Iraq. I resigned on the day the Bush administration began the 10-year U.S. war on Iraq on March 19, 2003.
22 Years Later, I Don’t Regret My Decision One Bit
Former President George W. Bush, like the presidents before and after him, lied. His specific lie was about the reason for the U.S. to attack and kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
In 2003, Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s lie was about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction when international weapons inspectors were very clear in their statements that after their exhaustive investigation there were no weapons of mass destruction.
Four Presidential administrations after I resigned—Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump—another roadmap for domestic and international lawbreaking and chaos is guiding a president: Project 2025.
Instead, Bush was following the advisers who wrote the guidebook Project for the New American Century, which called for the overthrow of seven countries in the Middle East, and Iraq was the first to be overthrown.
The names of the authors of this war on the world, the “War on Terror,” still live in infamy: Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and of course, Vice President Dick Cheney.
Bush had already lied about the reason to send the U.S. military into Afghanistan. Instead of mounting an international police dragnet for the leaders of al Qaeda that planned and executed the events of 9/11, the Bush administration wanted to have a platform next to Iran from which to conduct a war on Iran. But, the small, underfunded, poorly-trained Taliban kept the U.S. military and the highly trained and poorly motivated Afghan Army on the run for the 20 years that the U.S. was in Afghanistan.
I was a part of the team that reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan in December 2001. Our small group of diplomats realized very quickly that going after al Qaeda was not the main objective of U.S. intervention in Afghanistan. The focus of U.S. policies and funding in 2002 was elsewhere… and it turned out to be in overthrowing Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
If I had one more resignation…. no, two more resignations...
One Resignation Over Biden’s Complicity in the Genocide of Gaza
In the next 22 years there have been numerous times I felt that if I had still been in the U.S. government, I would have resigned.
Former President Joe Biden’s complicity in the Israeli genocide of Gaza which began in October 2023 deserved resignation… and 14 U.S. government employees have resigned over the weapons and encouragement the Biden administration gave to the Israeli government in the genocide of Gaza with over 60,000 Palestinians killed and tens of thousands still under the rubble by the time Biden left office, with no attempt at getting the Israeli government to stop the killings.
And, let’s not forget the Obama-Biden complicity in the U.S. orchestrated events in Ukraine, including the 2014 right-wing, nationalist overthrow of the government and broken promises to Russia that Ukraine would not become a part of NATO that led to the terrible war between Ukraine and Russia and the fueling of that war by the Biden administration with weapons and total lack of any attempt to bring an end to the dangerous conflict.
Another resignation over Trump’s Actions Domestically and Internationally-Project 2025
And right now, another resignation would be coming from me if I were still in the U.S. government.
Four Presidential administrations after I resigned—Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump—another roadmap for domestic and international lawbreaking and chaos is guiding a president: Project 2025.
While Trump, like Bush before him, disavowed knowledge of any plan cooked up by advisers, Trump is playing into the hands of those with an agenda that will haunt him, an agenda much more wide-ranging than the one Bush allowed to happen.
The rails are off for the destruction of the U.S. government with massive firings of civil servants. Reasonable government reform and downsizing has become government destruction led by unelected Elon Musk, the world’s richest person who has some of the largest government contracts (many of which have been under investigation) leading a team of very young technology mavericks who have no knowledge of the government and are taking over the computer information of the entire U.S. government firing tens of thousands of employees with a keystroke.
Trump is emboldened by the lack of congressional outrage and now is threatening to invade Panama and Greenland and is bullying Canada about becoming a state of the United States, to which the Canadian public and officials have rightly responded with a hockey warning to Trump: “Elbows up!”
Shamefully, the “peace” candidate Trump humiliated and bullied Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House in a meeting over the sale of Ukrainian minerals to pay the U.S. for its weapons in its war with Russia.
While the “peace candidate” Trump’s go-to-envoy, billionaire real-estate investor Steve Witkoff, did hammer out a much-needed cease-fire in the Israeli genocide in Gaza, the cease-fire has now ended in an Israeli two-week blockade of Gaza of food, water, shelter, and electricity and continuation of massive bombing of Gaza and $12 billion more from the U.S. in killer weapons. As the cease-fire came into effect, Trump, true to his style, told the world that Palestinians need to leave Gaza so it can be built back into something “wonderful”... but without them.
And, don’t get me started on the kowtowing by government agencies, universities, and corporations to Trump on the elimination of DEI—Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—as his henchmen erase mentions of women, minorities, disability, and gender in his white male nationalist agenda, seemingly spearheaded by the very unqualified (on every level) Secretary of Offensive Pete Hegseth.
So many issues… and opportunities for resignation and resistance.
From Resignation to Resistance
I resigned two decades ago due to criminal U.S. policies and now I am in my 22nd year of resistance to criminal policies of successive administrations.
Working with many, many organizations on the local (Hawaii Peace and Justice, World Can’t Wait, Students and Faculty for Palestine, Hawaii For Palestine: Under the Olive Tree), national (CODEPINK: Women For Peace, Veterans For Peace, Shut Down Drone Warfare), and international levels (International Peace Bureau, NO to NATO, No to War, World Beyond War, Women Cross DMZ, Pacific Peace Network, Ban Killer Drones) has given me outlets for protest and, very importantly, being with others who are deeply concerned about U.S. administration actions here in our own country and around the world.
You Must Resist
If you are not yet resisting, please join the millions who are on the streets, in Congress, at town hall meetings, writing emails, and calling to end the assault on our country and the world. I have put links to many of the organizations with which I work. Please join us!!!
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'Big Day... for Justice': US Jury Finds Contractor CACI Liable for Abu Ghraib Torture
"This victory is a shining light for everyone who has been oppressed and a strong warning to any company or contractor practicing different forms of torture and abuse," said one of the Iraqi plaintiffs.
Nov 12, 2024
In a landmark verdict cheered by human rights defenders around the world, a federal jury in Virginia found a U.S. military contractor liable for the torture of three prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison during the invasion and occupation of Iraq in the early 2000s.
The jury ordered CACI Premier Technology to pay each of the three Iraqi plaintiffs $3 million in compensatory damages and $11 million in punitive damages, for a total of $42 million. It is the first time that a civilian contractor has been found legally responsible for abusing Abu Ghraib detainees.
The lawsuit against CACI—filed in 2008 by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on behalf of Suhail Al Shimari, Asa'ad Al Zuba'e, and Salah Al-Ejaili—alleged that company officials conspired with U.S. military personnel in subjecting the plaintiffs to torture and other crimes.
As CCR noted Tuesday:
The plaintiffs brought their case under the Alien Tort Statute, a 1789 federal law that allows foreign nationals to seek redress in U.S. courts for certain violations of international law. This historic outcome follows 16 years of litigation, more than 20 attempts by CACI to have the case dismissed, and a previous trial in which the jury was unable to reach a verdict. Never before this case had survivors of U.S. post-9/11 torture testified in a U.S. courtroom. It also featured testimony from U.S. generals, CACI employees, and former [military police officers] involved in the torture.
"Today is a big day for me and for justice," said Al-Ejaili. "I've waited a long time for this day."
"This victory isn't only for the three plaintiffs in this case against a corporation," he added. "This victory is a shining light for everyone who has been oppressed and a strong warning to any company or contractor practicing different forms of torture and abuse."
CCR legal director Baher Azmy said that "our clients have fought bravely for 16 years in search of justice for the horrors they endured at Abu Ghraib, against all of the challenges this massive private military contractor threw in their way over the years to avoid basic accountability for its role in this shameful episode in American history."
"We are awed by our clients' courage and by the power of their testimony in court, and we are grateful that this jury knew enough to credit their story over the deflections of CACI," Azmy added. "We thank the jury for affording our clients the measure of justice they came to a United States court to seek."
Like Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib became a byword for U.S. torture during the Bush administration as it waged a worldwide war on terrorism following the September 11, 2001 attacks. The prison's worldwide notoriety stems from the leak and publication in 2004 of photos showing U.S. troops torturing and abusing Abu Ghraib detainees, both living and dead, often with smiles on their faces.
A 2004 investigation by U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Anthony Jones and Maj. Gen. George Fay found that CACI employees participated in and encouraged the torture of Abu Ghraib prisoners.
Investigators found that employees of CACI and Titan Corporation (now L3 Technologies) tortured Abu Ghraib detainees and encouraged U.S. troops to do likewise. Dozens of Abu Ghraib detainees died in U.S. custody, some of them as a result of being tortured to death. Abu Ghraib prisoners endured torture ranging from rape and being attacked with dogs to being forced to eat pork and renounce Islam.
A separate U.S. Army report concluded that most Abu Ghraib prisoners were innocent, with the Red Cross estimating that between 70-90% of inmates there were wrongfully detained. These include women who were held as bargaining chips to induce suspected militants to surrender.
Eleven low-ranking U.S. soldiers were convicted and jailed for their roles in Abu Ghraib torture. Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the prison's commanding officer, was demoted. No other high-ranking military officer faced accountability for the abuse. Senior Bush administration officials—who had authorized many of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used at prisons including Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay—lied about their knowledge of the torture. None of them were ever held accountable.
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Pentagon Announces 'Long-Overdue' Plea Deals With Tortured 9/11 Defendants
"This should be the beginning of the end of the Guantánamo Bay detention center," said one Amnesty International campaigner.
Jul 31, 2024
Forced into a legal corner due to the torture of men accused of planning the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, the Pentagon on Wednesday announced it has reached plea agreements with three top 9/11 suspects, who will spend the rest of their lives in prison and avoid execution.
The U.S. Department of Defense said in a statement that Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier, the convening authority for the legally dubious Guantánamo Bay military commissions, "has entered into pretrial agreements" with alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi.
Although the Pentagon statement said that "the specific terms and conditions of the pretrial agreements are not available to the public at this time," The New York Times reported that news of the deal was revealed in a recent letter from military prosecutors to relatives of 9/11 victims.
"In exchange for the removal of the death penalty as a possible punishment, these three accused have agreed to plead guilty to all of the charged offenses, including the murder of the 2,976 people listed in the charge sheet," the letter, which was signed by Rear Adm. Aaron C. Rugh, explained.
Responding to the news, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)—which has represented and advocated for Guantánamo detainees—said that "these plea agreements are a substantial step toward ending military commissions and the extralegal nightmare of Guantánamo."
"They were also inevitable because the 9/11 case was never going to be tried before a military commission," CCR continued. "The military commissions at Guantánamo have never provided justice or accountability for anyone. Rather, for the last two decades, they have provided a veneer of legal process that serves only to maintain the unacceptable status quo and cover up the torture and abuse of detainees."
"But as illustrated by the military commission cases of our clients David Hicks and Majid Khan, they have also been a way out of Guantánamo," the group added. "Ironic, because it is ultimately men like our clients Guled Duran and Sharqawi Al Hajj, who committed no offense and are approved for transfer, who remain in detention indefinitely. This has been a central, ugly truth of Guantánamo since it opened in January 2002."
The case against the plea deal trio and other 9/11 defendants—who have been imprisoned by the U.S. military for more than 20 years—was mired in pretrial delays. Defense lawyers asserted that the defendants' torture in CIA "black sites" and at Guantánamo, and the government's subsequent cover-ups, invalidated prosecution evidence against them.
The five 9/11 defendants—the three who struck plea deals plus Ammar al-Baluchi and Ramzi bin al-Shib—were all captured in Pakistan in late 2002 and early 2003 before being turned over to the United States and transferred to CIA black sites, including the notorius "Salt Pit" outside Kabul, Afghanistan, where suspected militant Gul Rahman was tortured to death in November 2002. In 2006, the five were transferred to Guantánamo Bay.
All five men were tortured. Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times and subjected to other tortures approved under the George W. Bush administration's euphemistically named "enhanced interrogation" program. Al-Hawsawi suffered a shredded rectum resulting from sodomization during so-called "rectal hydration" and has had to manually reinsert parts of his anal cavity to defecate.
In 2012, Col. James L. Pohl, then the presiding military commission judge, prohibited all testimony related to the defendants' capture, imprisonment, and torture. According to a May 2016 court filing, Pohl conspired with military prosecutors to destroy evidence in Mohammed's case.
Over the years, numerous Guantánamo prosecutors resigned over what they called a corrupt military commission system designed to guarantee convictions. In 2008, former lead prosecutor Col. Morris Davis blasted the 9/11 trials as "rigged from the start," claiming he was told by a top Bush administration lawyer that acquittals were unacceptable. At least four other military prosecutors asked to be removed from the commissions over perceived unfairness.
This isn't the first time that U.S. torture has stymied military plans to prosecute 9/11 suspects.
In 2004, then-Guantánamo prosecutor Col. Stuart Crouch—whose Marine Corps buddy initially piloted one of the planes that was hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11—refused to prosecute Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who allegedly helped organize the plane's hijacking, citing his torture.
Five years later, Susan J. Crawford, the top Bush administration official in charge of deciding which Guantánamo detainees to bring to trial, declared that the U.S. "tortured" Mohammed al-Qahtani, the alleged would-be 20th 9/11 hijacker, and blocked his prosecution.
More recently, in 2021, all but one member of the military jury convened to hear the case against Guantánamo detainee and alleged terrorist plotter Majid Khan recommended total clemency after the accused testified how he endured torture including rape, being hung from a ceiling beam, and being waterboarded while he was held at a CIA black site in Afghanistan.
Military prosecutors and defense lawyers had been in talks about a possible plea deal for the 9/11 suspects since at least last year. In recent years, people including U.S. Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), 9/11 survivors and victims' relatives, and Ted Olsen—the former Bush solicitor-general who once defended the indefinite detention and torture of Guantánamo prisoners—have called for plea agreements and the prison's closure. However, President Joe Biden reportedly balked at the idea of sparing the defendants' lives.
While many Republican U.S. lawmakers condemned Wednesday's plea agreements as a betrayal to relatives of 9/11 victims, rights groups called the deals a big step toward justice and closure.
"This is an incredibly welcome and long-overdue step," Yumna Rizvi, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Victims of Torture, said on social media. "The Biden administration can and should #CloseGuantanamo."
Daphne Eviatar, director of the Security with Human Rights program at Amnesty International USA, said in a statement: "This is welcome news. Finally, after more than 20 years, there will be some accountability for the 9/11 attacks, and justice for the victims and survivors of those horrific crimes. We are also pleased that there is finally an outcome for at least some of the accused, who were tortured and then languished in detention without trial for more than two decades."
"This should be the beginning of the end of the Guantánamo Bay detention center," she added. "We urge the Biden administration to release the remaining detainees who have not been charged with crimes, and close the facility once and for all."
There are 19 men still imprisoned without charge in Guantánamo. Sixteen have been cleared for release, some of them for many years.
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Two Sides of the Same Coin: the Carceral State from Guantánamo Bay to Death Row
After September 11, 2001, the federal government saw an opportunity to legalize torture in a way that targeted another BIPOC community, and legitimized what it already does to its own citizens.
May 11, 2024
"Ron DeSantis... witnessed the torture, he was at Guantánamo during one of the worst years there. Yet, when he left Guantánamo, he became a leader. He became the leading voice against closure of Guantánamo. Now he is running for the presidency. Imagine that. You know, that man, with his beliefs, with his views.. .he's going to create Guantánamo within the United States."—Mansoor Adayfi, former detainee #441
The Guantánamo Bay detention facility in Cuba is often viewed as an anomaly of the way America treats people in confinement. This assumes that those incarcerated in state and federal prisons receive decent, just treatment, and that Guantánamo is the worst the U.S. has to offer. This is true, in part, but leaves out the larger fact that Guantánamo was spawned from the U.S. carceral state.
After September 11, 2001, the federal government saw an opportunity to legalize torture in a way that targeted another BIPOC community, and legitimized what it already does to its own citizens. Sometimes the hardest truths are also the cruelest: Guantánamo and U.S. prisons are two sides of the same coin.
One by one, hands bound behind their backs, the detainees were marched beyond the confines of the detention center, until the facility's lights shone in the dark from a distance. They were made to kneel in the dirt, the soldiers that brought them to the remote location standing behind, rifles leveled as if waiting for the command to open fire. In the silence, the men on their knees wept. Some begged for their lives. Others prayed a final prayer. It was an excruciating several minutes. The order never came. It had been a mock execution meant to intimidate and terrorize and torture.
The Convention Against torture and Other Cruel and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT Convention) defines torture as any act that intentionally inflicts mental or physical pain or suffering to obtain information or a confession, punishes an individual or third party for an act they committed or are suspected of committing, or intimidates and coerces for any reason based on discrimination, all of which occurs with the consent or at the direction of a public official or someone acting in an official capacity.
What Adayfi may not have known is that what happened at Guantánamo is rooted in the U.S. carceral state, its devolved standard of decency and exceptional brutality—a pattern and practice carried out on its own citizens in a form of class warfare.
As a signatory of the United Nations and Geneva Convention, the U.S. government should be familiar with the CAT Convention. Indeed, for other countries to join the U.N., they cannot, for example, violate human rights. However, where the use of torture and capital punishment are concerned, America holds other countries to high democratic ideals, yet cannot seem to abide by those same standards. According to Joseph Pugliese, professor of cultural studies at Macquarie University, torture is a "normative practice" in the operation of U.S. interests, through an application of its laws both domestically and abroad.
The detention facility at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba, was established in that precise location to deny those confined there meaningful access to the U.S. legal system, constitutional rights, and other processes bound by the international laws of war. The U.S. government confined 780 Muslim men and boys, from 45 different countries, without charges, not as prisoners owed a certain level of human dignity, but as "enemy combatants" who could be dehumanized and tortured under the false flags of "patriotism" and "justice."
Former Guantánamo Bay detainee No. 44, Mansoor Adayfi, was kidnapped by an Afghan warlord and trafficked to the U.S at the age of 19. Adayfi spent 14 years at Guantánamo being beaten, degraded, tortured, and interrogated as an alleged "enemy combatant" before it was determined he was no longer a threat to U.S. security interests and could be released. In his memoir, Don't Forget Us Here, Adayfi asks readers to imagine a reality where American boys, 18 years old or younger, were imprisoned without charges, tortured, punished, and experimented on, and forced to live in solitary confinement for years, if not decades.
What Adayfi may not have known is that what happened at Guantánamo is rooted in the U.S. carceral state, its devolved standard of decency and exceptional brutality—a pattern and practice carried out on its own citizens in a form of class warfare. Some glaring evidence of this link (among the innumerable statistics and cases of institutional brutality) between Guantánamo and the U.S. carceral state is that of Abu Ghraib.
In 2004, U.S. Army reservists guarded Iraqi POWs at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. It would eventually be discovered that, alongside some of the most iconic images from the U.S. war in Iraq, the Army reservists responsible for watching the POWs were instead beating, degrading, sexually humiliating, and torturing them. It would also be revealed that the responsible parties, prior to their duty assignment in Iraq, were correctional officers in state prison systems.
The human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo are, to varying degrees, routine in U.S. prisons: Rape and sexual assaults committed by staff on prisoners, daily physical assaults on people who have spent years in solitary confinement, women forced to give birth while shackled to a hospital bed, brutal cell extractions, unnecessary body cavity searches in women's prisons, and much more. Mental and physical torture, and systemic dehumanizing treatment, are endemic to both state and federal prisons.
"American Citizens will end up one day, being detained indefinitely, tortured, abused, and have no rights. Because if they managed to do it outside, it's on the inside too."—Mansoor Adayfi
While a lack of charges, CIA involvement, and their status as foreign nationals distinguish the individuals held at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, and CIA black sites around the world from those who have been convicted of crimes and sentenced as punishment in U.S. prison systems, conditions of confinement are indeed similar. So too are efforts to ignore or otherwise circumvent due process rights, meaningful access to federal court oversight, and the right to be free from cruel or unusual punishments.
In four separate rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court limited the federal government's ability to detain non- U.S. citizens beyond the reach of constitutional protections and international law:
In Rasul v. Bush (2004), the court held that the "complete jurisdiction and control" maintained by the federal government at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility activated the prisoners' right to challenge their confinement in federal court.
In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004), the court held that the Guantánamo prisoners have a right to "notice of the factual basis for their classification [as an enemy combatants] and a fair opportunity to rebut the Government's factual assertions before a neutral decision-maker."
In Hamden v. Rumsfeld (2006), the court held the executive branch's power to detain "enemy combatant" is limited by congressional war powers, which are restricted by international law. The Bush administration's system for trying the detainees was unauthorized under federal law and the Geneva Convention.
In Boumediene v. Bush (2008), the court held that Guantánamo prisoners have the right to challenge their confinement in federal court by filing a writ of habeas corpus. The ruling in Boumediene was necessary because Congress and the Bush administration sought to go around the court's rulings in Rasul, Hamdi, and Hamden, and keep the federal courts out of Guantánamo by suspending the writ of habeas corpus. This was an extension of the belief that the incarcerated do not deserve a review of the circumstances around their confinement, a belief that predates 9/11.
This logic—extend the punishment but not the protection—is used in virtually every criminal case brought against America's underclass or those deemed unworthy of protection or mercy.
A writ of habeas corpus is used to bring a prisoner before a federal court to ensure that person's confinement is not illegal. The original intent of the habeas petition is drawn from the English Habeas Corpus Act, and is equal to the importance of the Magna Carta, the Petition of Rights, and the Bill of Rights. Just as the Habeas Corpus Act protected English liberty, the American habeas petition is a constitutional guarantee of personal liberty. Viewed another way, the habeas petition is a judicial check against government overreach and a protection of the right of any person under U.S. control to be free from wrongful imprisonment. Efforts to undermine, curtail, or otherwise block access to the federal courts through a habeas petition signal naked power grabs by the government and a weakening of the judiciary's independence.
In theory, filing a habeas petition to the federal court of jurisdiction to challenge one's imprisonment as unconstitutional should be a straightforward process. This assumes knowledge of procedural rules, possession of documents that prove the claim, and at a minimum a clear understanding of the charges. The Guantánamo detainees were completely isolated and without knowledge about the formal charges. They were not arraigned, indicted, or given attorneys. They did not even have so much as pen and paper for the first three years of their confinement. Guantánamo was a "black hole" where virtually all information was "classified," "secret," or a national security matter. It would not be until 2004 that attorneys from the Center for Constitutional Rights mounted habeas challenges on behalf of the detainees. Even then, their efforts faced numerous obstacles and government resistance seeking to block access to the federal courts.
U.S. prisoners do not have unfettered access to federal court review of lower court decisions. Rather than classified Military Commission hearings and special designations as "enemy combatants," prisoners in state and federal prisons have to contend with the procedural kudzu of the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA).
AEDPA gutted the federal judiciary's ability to hear and redress constitutional violations that have been overlooked or ignored by state courts. The expressed congressional intent of AEDPA was to reduce the delays in capital post-conviction appeals by imposing strict time and evidentiary constraints on habeas petitions. And though the law may have initially increased executions nationwide, a decade later they returned to pre-AEDPA levels. The unexpressed, and more diabolical, intent of AEDPA changed the way all criminal cases were reviewed by federal courts, making it so the court would not disturb a conviction or sentence unless it was so unconstitutional as to shock the conscience, rendering habeas review worthless to most criminal defendants.
As Guantánamo detainees fought for access to a legitimate court reviewing their confinement, prisoners in the U.S. likewise struggled to attain that same federal judicial oversight. The weakening of the habeas petition had been a longtime goal of conservatives, years before AEDPA. This is critical to understanding the dissent of the conservative justices in Rasul, Hamdi, Hamden, and Boumediene, and how their ideology manifests in constitutional challenges of the death penalty. In these cases the court held that Guantánamo prisoners, or anyone under complete U.S. control in confinement, have a right to file habeas petitions in federal court. The dissent, however, sided with the Bush administration and Republican-controlled Congress: "Enemy combatants" do not deserve constitutional rights.
This logic—extend the punishment but not the protection—is used in virtually every criminal case brought against America's underclass or those deemed unworthy of protection or mercy. Then, to obscure their intent, the narratives around crime and terrorism are threaded with misinformation and appeals to patriotism.
"They constructed their own language" said Mansoor Adayfi. "They said, 'Well, they are detainees, not prisoners. It is rendition, not torture. They are not being tortured. It's enhanced interrogation.'"
Euphemistic language or "doublespeak" is common to most government narratives. It enables the worst human rights violations with little understanding by the average citizen what is actually being said or done in their name. This is how threats to safety were used to pass laws that created mass incarceration, widespread surveillance in the wake of 9/11, and the continued use of the death penalty in America despite its absence in most democratic nations throughout the world. "Justice" for the victims of 9/11 and other crimes is a co-opted word that not only diminishes constitutional protections for the very people who need it the most, it allows for human experimentation, torture, and state-sanctioned murder.
In Glossip v. Gross, the U.S. Supreme Court split along ideological lines and, in a conservative majority opinion, held Oklahoma's three-drug lethal injection protocol did not violate the Eighth Amendment. Glossip was about more than whether Oklahoma's lethal injection was constitutional; it became a pivotal case in the fundamental constitutionality of capital punishment. Simply put, because the conservative justices held a majority on the court, they denied the death penalty could ever be unconstitutional because it is mentioned in the U.S. Constitution.
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito affirmed the lower court's rejection of the defendant's argument that Oklahoma's lethal injection violated their Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. Alito also held that the prisoners failed to provide an alternative method of execution that "entails less risk of pain." This single statement is responsible for opening the door for states to use other methods of execution, not just the lethal injection. Alito has defended the death penalty in previous cases. In Glossip, he continued that trend: "The death penalty was an accepted punishment at the adoption of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights." The irony of the statement, using the Bill of Rights to ignore the inherent cruelty of the lethal injection, was apparently lost on the justice.
The people who pursue, sanction, and order this brand of "justice," the torture and murder of incapacitated human beings, are seldom around when it is carried out.
Justice Antonin Scalia, in his concurring opinion for Glossip, contended that the Eighth Amendment "was understood to bar only those punishments that added 'terror, pain, and disgrace' to an otherwise permissible capital sentence." Terror, pain, and disgrace are in fact the purpose of capital punishment. If any of the justices who so vigorously defend the use of the death penalty were to be required to witness it in action, if they had a shred of humanity they would not defend it, or the various methods for carrying out an execution, much longer. Especially if they saw a botched execution.
In November, 2022, Kenny Eugene Smith survived Alabama's first attempt to execute him. For over an hour and a half, Smith was tortured as his executioners repeatedly tried and failed to insert IVs in his body for the lethal injection. The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood was Smith's spiritual adviser and ultimately became his best friend in the final moments of his life. In a phone interview, Dr. Hood described some of what Smith experienced in the aftermath of the botched execution:
Kenny compared it to being under a sewing machine, one where the needle punctured deep over and over again. Then, after it was over, it became a mental image that gave him nightmares and terrified his every waking thought. A mental sewing machine constantly stabbIng into his mind.
Smith was driven insane by the botched execution, not just with nightmares, but pervasive anxiety, PTSD, and numerous other diagnoses. Short of being a comatose zombie, doctors could not give Smith enough meds to make him forget. It was a brutal choice: Be sober enough to function socially and suffer images of hypodermic needles perforating his flesh, or ingest all they could give him, still suffer, and be unable to communicate with his wife, friends, and family in his remaining time on Earth. He chose the former.
To underscore the excruciating nature of Smith's botched execution, the minister who was there in 2022 disappeared, not wanting anything to do with executions or be reminded of them by maintaining contact with Kenny Smith. The minister had been traumatized by what he saw.
It bears mentioning that Kenny Smith was not sentenced to death by a jury of his peers; they actually recommended life imprisonment. But the trial judge took matters into his own hands and sentenced Smith to death. The judge's order was the cold calculation of premeditated murder, a morally bankrupt decision that mocked the word "justice."
As the months passed, Smith, Dr. Hood, and Smith's family and friends talked about the fear of yet another execution date. It was one thing to talk about, though, said Dr. Hood, but another to realize with increasing horror and monumental disappointment in humanity that the U.S Supreme Court refused to even review Kenny Smith's emergency appeal for a stay of execution using the novel execution method of nitrogen hypoxia. Only the court's liberal justices—Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—were willing to hear the appeal, but it takes four justices, and none of the conservative justices were interested.
Though not in the execution chamber like Dr. Hood, independent journalist Lee Hedgepeth attended Smith's execution and Alabama's first use of nitrogen hypoxia. Hedgepeth writes that Kenneth Smith reacted immediately to being gassed: "He began thrashing against the straps, his whole body and head violently jerking back and forth for several minutes."
"Soon for around a minute, Smith appeared heaving and retching inside the mask," Hedgepeth continued. Ten minutes later, despite the steady flow of nitrogen gas, Smith made his final visible efforts to live.
After this grotesque display of State government power over its citizenry, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall advertised the revitalized gassing of undesirables: "Alabama has done it, and now so can you." The AG did not attend Smith's execution. Neither did the judge who sentenced Smith to death or the district attorney who pursued the capital sentence. In fact the people who pursue, sanction, and order this brand of "justice," the torture and murder of incapacitated human beings, are seldom around when it is carried out. This is by design, and makes it easier for them to sleep at night, secure in their power and false morality.
"People should have to engage with the punishments they want to inflict on others. Whether that's the judge, jury, prosecutor, or whoever... Part of me thinks they should be forced to carry it out. The process has become too sanitized, the public too disconnected from what the death penalty is: the premeditated murder of another human being."—Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood
Five Muslim men accused of conspiring in the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks have yet to go to trial because of numerous pretrial proceedings at Guantánamo that have lasted over a decade. Military prosecutors made an offer in March 2022 that would spare the prisoners a death sentence if they admitted their alleged roles in 9/11. Defense attorneys of the detainees said their clients wanted certain "accommodations": treatment from a civilian-run program for ongoing health problems they suffer as a result of the torture they experienced, assurances they would not serve their sentence in solitary confinement, and the ability to eat and pray in a communal setting.
Some of the relatives of the nearly 3,000 victims want a trial with the prospect of the prisoners being sentenced to death. Others are "outraged" with the possibility of plea deals, calling for "justice" not "closure." Still other families want the plea agreements to end the indefinite detention at Guantánamo.
Elizabeth L. Miller lost her father Douglas C. Miller, a firefighter who gave his life on 9/11. At the age of 11, Miller wrote to then-President George W. Bush and, along with her classmates who signed with her, begged him to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: "We should be the good country, the peaceful country, but we're not" As a college student, Miller spoke at a 9/11 anniversary event, calling for peace and forgiveness, reminding the attendees the attacks were the actions of a few, not the many. Her family was not invited back. Later, Miller would go on to learn more about the Middle East and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how Guantánamo was used to confine and torture hundreds of people without charges or attorneys:
I learned how other [detainees], including the five men who would later be charged with planning and supporting the 9/11 attacks, were tortured at CIA black sites in foreign countries. All of this was done in the name of justice for the victims like my father. But I felt the United State had abandoned its commitment to human rights and the rule of law. I was ashamed.
President Joe Biden rejected the plea agreements offered to the five men at Guantánamo, declining to "accept the terms" in the United States v. Mohammed, et al. Although Biden placed a moratorium on federal executions after his predecessor executed 12 people in less than a year, this has not stopped federal prosecutors from pursuing capital sentences, nor does it provide more than a fever dream that any elected official with the power to do so has the political will to end the American republic's love affair with punishment sans mercy.
If there is to be a more just society, a United States that closes the Guantánamo Bay detention facility and ends mass incarceration and punishments like those suffered by Kenny Smith, it requires public accountability. Not just accountability for the vindictive, bloodthirsty elected officials calling for the deaths of other human beings, or those who misinform and stir angry mobs with appeals to nationalism. Rather, accountability for anyone who can claim imprisonment and death are a form of "justice," but will never face the person they consign to that fate, or witness the horror of their life thrashing against the straps of a gurney as it is extinguished. Accountability, the sort called upon by those demanding law, order, safety, and justice, is a coin with two sides, and no room for hypocrisy.
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Mistrial Declared in Abu Ghraib Torture Suit Against US Contractor
"This will not be the final word; what happened in Abu Ghraib is engraved into our memories and will never be forgotten in history," one plaintiff vowed.
May 02, 2024
The federal judge presiding over a case filed by three Iraqis who were tortured by U.S. military contractors in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison two decades ago declared a mistrial Thursday after jurors were unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
After eight days of deliberation—a longer period than the trial itself—the eight civil jurors in Alexandria deadlocked over whether employees of CACI conspired with soldiers to torture detainees. The Virginia-based professional services and information technology firm was hired in 2003 during the George W. Bush administration to provide translators and interrogators in Iraq during the U.S.-led invasion and occupation, conspired with soldiers to torture detainees.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema—who said Wednesday that "it's a very difficult case"—declared a mistrial.
Plaintiff Salah Al-Ejaili told The Guardian that "it is enough that we tried and didn't remain silent."
"We might not have received justice yet in our just case today, but what is more important is that we made it to trial and spoke up so the world could hear from us directly," he added. "This will not be the final word; what happened in Abu Ghraib is engraved into our memories and will never be forgotten in history."
Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights—which filed the case—said that "we are, of course, disappointed by the jury's failure to reach a unanimous verdict in favor of our plaintiffs despite the wealth of evidence."
"But we remain awed by the courage of our clients, who have fought for justice for their torment for 16 years," Azmy added. "We look forward to the opportunity to present our case again."
Al Shimari v. CACI, which was first filed in 2008 under the Alien Tort Statute—a law allowing non-U.S. citizens to sue for human rights abuses committed abroad—plaintiffs Suhail Al Shimari, Asa'ad Zuba'e, and Al-Ejaili accused CACI of conspiring with the U.S. military to perpetrate war crimes including torture at Abu Ghraib. The men suffered broken bones, electric shocks, sexual abuse, extreme temperatures, and death threats at the hands of their U.S. interrogators.
The case marked the first time a U.S. jury heard a case brought by Abu Ghraib survivors. Along with the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, the prison became synonymous worldwide with U.S. torture during the War on Terror. Dozens of Abu Ghraib detainees died while in U.S. custody, some of them as a result of being tortured to death. Abu Ghraib prisoners suffered torture and abuse ranging from rape and being attacked with dogs to being forced to eat pork and renounce Islam.
A 2004 probe by Maj. Gen. Anthony Taguba found that the majority of Abu Ghraib prisoners—the Red Cross said 70-90%—were innocent. Women and girls were also imprisoned at Abu Ghraib as bargaining chips to lure militants wanted for resisting the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of their homeland. Some reported rape and sexual abuse by their captors, which reportedly led to the "honor killing" murders of multiple women.
CACI denies any wrongdoing and still gets millions of dollars worth of U.S. government contracts each year. In February, Fortune named CACI one of the "World's Most Admired Companies" for the seventh consecutive year.
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20 Years Later, Abu Ghraib Torture Victims Get Their Day in Court
"Meanwhile, the U.S. government STILL hasn't provided compensation or other redress to people tortured by U.S. troops in Iraq," said one observer. "These three men are the lucky few."
Apr 15, 2024
Two decades after they were tortured by U.S. military contractors at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, three Iraqi victims are finally getting their day in court Monday as a federal court in Virginia takes up a case they brought during the George W. Bush administration.
The case being heard in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Al Shimari v. CACI, was first filed in 2008 under the Alien Tort Statute—which allows non-U.S. citizens to sue for human rights abuses committed abroad—by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on behalf of three Iraqis. The men suffered torture directed and perpetrated by employees of CACI, a Virginia-based professional services and information technology firm hired in 2003 by the Bush administration as translators and interrogators in Iraq during the illegal U.S.-led invasion and occupation.
"This lawsuit is a critical step towards justice for these three men who will finally have their day in court."
Plaintiffs Suhail Al Shimari, Asa'ad Zuba'e, and Salah Al-Ejaili accuse CACI of conspiring to commit war crimes including torture at Abu Ghraib, where the men suffered broken bones, electric shocks, sexual abuse, extreme temperatures, and death threats at the hands of their U.S. interrogators.
"This lawsuit is a critical step towards justice for these three men who will finally have their day in court. But they are the lucky few," Sarah Sanbar, an Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch, wrote on Monday. "For the hundreds of other survivors still suffering from past abuses, their chances of justice remain slim."
"The U.S. government should do the right thing: Take responsibility for their abuses, offer an apology, and open an avenue to redress that has been denied them for too many years," Sanbar added.
U.S. military investigators found that employees of CACI and Titan Corporation (now L3 Technologies) tortured Iraqi prisoners and encouraged U.S. troops to do likewise. Dozens of Abu Ghraib detainees died in U.S. custody, some of them as a result of being tortured to death. Abu Ghraib prisoners endured torture ranging from rape and being attacked with dogs to being forced to eat pork and renounce Islam.
A May 2004 report by Maj. Gen. Anthony Taguba concluded that the majority of Abu Ghraib prisoners—the Red Cross said 70-90%— were innocent. In addition to thousands of men and boys, some women and girls were also jailed there as bargaining chips meant to induce wanted insurgents to surrender. Some of them said they were raped or sexually abused by their American captors; lesser-known Abu Ghraib photos show women being forced to expose their private parts. Some female detainees were reportedly murdered by their own relatives in so-called "honor killings" after their release.
Eleven low-ranking U.S. soldiers were convicted and jailed for their roles in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the prison's commanding officer, was demoted. No other high-ranking military officer faced accountability for the abuse. Senior Bush administration officials—who had authorized many of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used at prisons including Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay—lied about their knowledge of the torture. None of them were ever held accountable.
Bush's successor, former President Barack Obama, promised to investigate—and if warranted, to prosecute—the Bush-era officials responsible for the torture that had become synonymous with the War on Terror. Instead, the Obama administration protected them from prosecution.
In 2013, L3 Technologies agreed to pay $5.28 million to 71 former Abu Ghraib detainees who were subjected to sexual assault and humiliation, rape threats, electrical shocks, mock executions, brutal beatings, and other abuse.
The following year, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling prohibiting Abu Ghraib torture victims from suing U.S. companies implicated in their abuse. But the court later reversed itself, finding the case had sufficient ties to the United States to be heard in an American court. The suit was later dismissed under the political question doctrine, which prevents courts from ruling on issues determined to be essentially political.
However, in 2016, a 4th Circuit panel ruled that "the political question doctrine does not shield from judicial review intentional acts by a government contractor that were unlawful at the time they were committed," allowing the Iraqis' case to proceed.
"This is a historic trial that we hope will deliver some measure of justice and healing for what President Bush rightly deemed disgraceful conduct that dishonored the United States and its values," CCR senior attorney Katherine Gallagher told The Guardian on Monday.
"In many ways, this case may be seen as setting a precedent for holding contractors accountable for human rights violations should they happen in other contexts, too," she added.
CACI—which denies any wrongdoing—has tried to get the case dismissed 20 times. The company still lands millions of dollars worth of U.S. government contracts. In February, Fortune included the firm on its "World's Most Admired Companies" list for the seventh straight year.
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Abu Ghraib Contractor Torture Case Likely Heading to Trial After US Judge's Order
"The ruling has cleared the way, almost 20 years hence, for our clients to tell their story in open court," said the legal director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which filed suit on behalf of detainees.
Aug 02, 2023
Survivors of torture at the hands of U.S. troops and private interrogators cheered a federal judge's rejection this week of an infamous military contractor's latest bid to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Iraqis formerly jailed in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison during the early years of the American-led occupation.
On Monday, Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria refused to dismiss the torture suit against CACI Premier Technology, a military-industrial complex linchpin based in nearby Arlington with more than 22,000 employees and billions of dollars in government contracts.
"I am so happy to receive the news that our case can proceed toward trial."
The lawsuit against CACI—filed in 2008 by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of former detainees Suhail Al Shimari, Asa'ad Al Zuba'e, and Salah Al-Ejaili—alleges that company officials conspired with U.S. military personnel in subjecting the plaintiffs to torture and other crimes. A 2004 investigation by U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Anthony Jones and Maj. Gen. George Fay found that CACI employees participated in and encouraged the torture of Abu Ghraib prisoners.
"I am so happy to receive the news that our case can proceed toward trial," plaintiff Salah Al-Ejaili—an Al Jazeera journalist imprisoned and tortured for two months at Abu Ghraib—said in a statement Tuesday.
"I have stayed patient and hopeful during the two years we have waited for this decision—and throughout the nearly two decades since I was abused at Abu Ghraib—that one day I would achieve justice and accountability in a U.S. court," he added. "Today brings me and the other plaintiffs one step closer."
At Abu Ghraib—where one U.S. torturer "welcomed" a new handcuffed and blindfolded prisoner by throwing him face-first from a vehicle and proclaiming, "You can't spell abuse without Abu"—detainees faced daily abuse described as "sadistic, blatant, and wanton" in a report by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba.
Beatings, death threats, and sexual, religious, and racial abuse were commonplace. Prisoners—up to 90% of whom were innocent, according to a Red Cross report—were also menaced or attacked by trained dogs, forced to masturbate in groups in front of male and female interrogators, and were raped by men and objects, in one instance while a female soldier photographed the teenaged victim. Others were forced to curse their religion or eat pork, which is strictly forbidden to Muslims.
In addition to men, women—some of whom said they were raped or sexually abused by their U.S. captors—were held at Abu Ghraib as bargaining chips meant to coerce wanted males to surrender to occupation authorities. One woman said she was thrown in a cell with the bloody corpse of her brother, one of dozens of Abu Ghraib detainees who died at the hands of U.S. troops, from medical neglect, or shelling by Iraqi insurgents.
Photographs of smiling U.S. troops posing beside the body Manadel al-Jamadi, who was tortured to death at Abu Ghraib, were among the hundreds of horrific images that shocked the world's conscience upon their release after Army whistleblower Sgt. Joe Darby leaked them.
Although 11 low-ranking soldiers were convicted and jailed for their roles in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal and Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the prison's commanding officer, was demoted, no other high-ranking military officer faced accountability for the abuse. Nor did any of the officials in the George W. Bush administration or the Central Intelligence Agency who devised, approved, and ordered the torture of detainees in the so-called War on Terror.
CACI—which has tried to get the case dropped 18 times—argues it is not responsible for its employees' torture of Abu Ghraib prisoners, this time unsuccessfully citing the U.S. Supreme Court's 2021 Doe v. Nestle decision. In that case, the justices ruled 8-1 that companies could not be sued under the Alien Tort Statute—which grants federal courts jurisdiction over civil suits brought by foreign nationals alleging violations of international law—for their alleged complicity in the trafficking and enslavement of West African children in the cocoa industry.
In 2013, CACI shocked observers by suing four of the former Abu Ghraib plaintiffs for $15,000 in witness fees, travel allowances, and deposition transcripts incurred by the multibillion-dollar corporation.
Also in 2013, another contractor, Engility Holdings—formerly known as L-3 Services and Titan Corp.—agreed to pay $5.28 million to 71 former prisoners tortured at Abu Ghraib and other U.S. detention sites in Iraq during the American occupation.
Center for Constitutional Rights legal director Baher Azmy said Brinkema's decision "affirms that the human rights norms vindicated by the Alien Tort Statute remain vital and are available to address a case revealing substantial evidence identified by the court that CACI facilitated and promoted the torture and abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib."
"The ruling," Azmy added, "has cleared the way, almost 20 years hence, for our clients to tell their story in open court."
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Drawings by Guantánamo 'Forever Prisoner' Abu Zubaydah Expose Details of US Torture
The co-author of an "explosive" new report featuring the prisoner's work said that "his drawings are the ultimate repudiation of the failure and abuses of torture."
May 11, 2023
A report published this week featuring previously unreleased drawings by Abu Zubaydah—a 52-year-old Saudi who has been imprisoned by the United States for more than 20 years at CIA "black sites" and Guantánamo Bay—offers new insight into torture suffered by a man caught up in a case of mistaken identity.
The report—entitled American Torturers: FBI and CIA Abuses at Dark Sites and Guantánamo—is based on sketches and descriptions by Zubaydah and other War on Terror torture victims and was led by Seton Hall University law professor Mark Denbeaux and University of California, San Francisco psychiatry professor Jess Ghannam, with the help of Seton Hall law students.
"Despite the efforts of the federal government, particularly the Central Intelligence Agency, to conceal evidence of the actual operation of the 'enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs) deployed on detainees in dark sites and at Guantánamo, a steady drumbeat of disclosures has provided an unparalleled view into this disgraceful episode in the nation's history," the report states.
"Everybody agrees, they tortured the wrong guy; they went ahead anyway so they could get permission to torture other people."
The report notes that Zubaydah's drawings "viscerally convey the brutal reality the CIA sought to hide with its calculated destruction of video recordings of torture conducted by its agents," and "dovetail with the recent accounts of Dr. James Mitchell, a chief architect of the torture regime, who both wrote a book on EITs and testified in hearings on Guantánamo."
"These sources, together with the report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, provide the most complete—and compelling—account to date of America's torture program" in the years after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, the publication states.
Born in Saudi Arabia, Zubaydah moved to the West Bank in Israeli-occupied Palestine as a teenager. He was captured by CIA, FBI, and Pakistani intelligence agents in Pakistan in late March 2002. Shot in the thigh, testicle, and stomach during the raid that led to his capture, Zubaydah—who was mistaken for a high-ranking al-Qaeda member—was transferred to CIA "black sites" in Pakistan, Thailand, Afghanistan, Poland, Northern Africa, and Diego Garcia. In September 2006, he was sent to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where he remains imprisoned.
Zubaydah was the first so-called "high-value" detainee to be tortured by U.S. agents, who treated him as a human guinea pig.
"Everybody agrees, they tortured the wrong guy; they went ahead anyway so they could get permission to torture other people," Denbeaux told The Guardian, which on Thursday posted the report along with an article by Ed Pilkington on Zubaydah's experience.
Then-Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and CIA Director George Tenet gave the green light for U.S. agents to torture Zubaydah—even after learning that the prisoner was cooperative. During one discussion on the matter, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft reportedly remarked: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."
Zubaydah was subjected to the interrupted drowning technique known as "waterboarding" 83 times; rape under the pretext of "rectal feeding"; shackling in excruciating "stress positions"; sleep, sensory, and food deprivation; confinement in small boxes; exposure to extreme temperatures and loud music; death threats; beatings and being slammed into walls; sexual and religious humiliation; and other abuses.
Most of the torture techniques approved by the George W. Bush administration—which included waterboarding, deprivation, stress positions, the use of loud music and dogs, slamming into walls, solitary confinement, and exposure to extreme temperatures—are illegal under both domestic and international law.
In addition to these approved EITs, U.S. military and intelligence personnel subjected terrorism detainees—many of them innocent men, women, and children—to additional abuses, including homicide, rape, imprisonment of relatives as bargaining chips, exposure to sometimes lethally extreme temperatures, and brutal beatings.
"Sexual assault was never approved, nudity was never approved, humiliation by having women present was never approved, and nor was subjecting someone to prolonged torture to the point of exhaustion or worse," Denbeaux told The Guardian.
"Prisoners died of torture at Asadadad, Bagram, and Gardez in Afghanistan and at Abu Ghraib, Camp Whitehorse, Basra, Mosul, Tikrit, Bucca, and an unidentified facility in Iraq."
According to a 2005 report by the National Library of Medicine—a federal agency—based on reviews of military documents, 26 War on Terror detainees died as a result of "criminal homicide," although the paper did not say how many prisoners died on the battlefield or while in U.S. custody.
"Prisoners died of torture at Asadadad, Bagram, and Gardez in Afghanistan and at Abu Ghraib, Camp Whitehorse, Basra, Mosul, Tikrit, Bucca, and an unidentified facility in Iraq," the report stated. "These cases do not include deaths due to medical neglect, mortar attacks on prisons, or the shootings of rioting prisoners."
Zubaydah has never been charged with any crime or tried. He is what's known as a "forever prisoner," as the U.S. has no plans to release him.
Last month, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention called for Zubaydah's immediate release while asserting that his continued imprisonment violates the "fundamental rules of international law" and "may constitute crimes against humanity."
Thirty men remain imprisoned at Guantánamo. Only one has been convicted of a crime. Ten have cases pending before what former military prosecutors have called "rigged" military tribunals, while 16 have been approved or recommended for release.
The administration of President Joe Biden—who has expressed intent to close Guantánamo—has overseen the transfer of a handful of Gitmo prisoners to third countries.
Denbeaux said that "Abu Zubaydah is the poster child for America's torture program."
"He was the first person to be tortured, having been approved by the Department of Justice based on facts that the CIA knew to be false," Denbeaux noted. "His drawings are the ultimate repudiation of the failure and abuses of torture."
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