More Good Stuff on the Talking Dog

In case you missed it, last month the Talking Dog landed an interview with Donald Rumsfeld.

A selection:

The Talking Dog: Secretary Rumsfeld, I can't thank you enough for agreeing to this interview. May I say how open-minded it is for you to speak with me, given how critical of you I have been, particularly of detention policies you administered and authorized that I believe verge on, if not outright constitute, war crimes. Do you have a comment on that?

Donald Rumsfeld: Stuff happens. It's untidy, and freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.The

Talking Dog On the subject of detention policy, can you comment on the recent confession at Guantanamo by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the recent guilty plea there by Australian national David Hicks, who received a 9-month sentence after we held him for over 5 years?

Donald Rumsfeld: You go to asymmetrical war with the rack and thumbscrews that you have, not with the rack and thumbscrews that you might want or wish to have at a later time. READ MORE

Is it satire? These days it's hard to tell.

Hicks Heads for the Land Down Under...

David Hicks is scheduled to fly to Australia, perhaps as early as next week, to serve his perfunctory nine-month jail sentence.

Hicks' attorneys did a good job with their client's plea bargain. However, that David Hicks must spend any more time in prison after years of isolation, abuse and denial of due process is an outrage.

Part of the Hick's agreement stipulates that he will not speak to the media for the period of one year. The Australian federal elections are in January, 2008....how very convenient for PM John Howard, Bush's pal in the southern hemisphere.

Source: The Australian

- Adrian Bleifuss Prados

THE ATTORNEY CLIENT RELATIONSHIP

Oh my. Seems one of the big news stories Saturday morning is the fact that some of our Guantánamo clients get frustrated at the lack of progress as we try to get them out of that hell hole.

Can you blame them? Of course not. These men have sat at Guantánamo for more than five years and most of them are innocent of any wrong doing. Our government knows most of these men were picked up by mistake...First we dropped thousands of fliers all over Afghanistan, Pakistan, and who knows where else, offering huge bounties for “murderers and terrorists” and then we were duped into buying these guys from the Pakistani's and the Afghan war lords... and we paid a handsome price for them too.

Of course our military could not be bothered trying to figure out who these men were so we just paid up and took them all. Eighty-two of the men being held at Guantánamo were cleared by our government for release more than 2 years ago because the government admitted that they were captured "by mistake". Since then the government stopped admitting the mistakes and stopped “clearing” the men because it is too embarrassing (even for these clowns) to have all of these men cleared for such a long time but not released... and, get this, the only country we could cajole into taking detainees that we captured by mistake has been Albania…. I guess the coalition of the willing is not quite so willing on this score!

When I took on the representation of Mr. Al-Ghizzawi and later Mr. Razak Ali I knew that this would not be any typical legal representation. For one thing the litigation in court has all been stayed (put on hold) since before I was even involved... You see attorneys have only been allowed at Guantánamo for less than three years... and the judges have not ruled on any matter of substance for more than two and a half of those years... In fact, the only thing the lower courts have been willing to rule on are procedural matters and attorney visit issues... and even these issues have not been ruled on by all of the judges.

As an attorney for my two clients I learned very quickly that the representation was going to involve doing things beyond the typical lawyer stuff... I have now become a quasi-diplomat and a journalist (of sorts…). I have traveled to countries that I hoped might be sympathetic to the plight of my two clients… I have met with representatives from countries near and far and I have asked these representatives to help my clients....even though they do not want to help my country.... And I have taken on this new career of journalism to help spread the word about what is going on both inside and outside Guantánamo, as it relates to these men who have been held without charge for more than five years.

So the bottom line is that the court process has been at a standstill almost since attorneys have been allowed in the door. If some men have in fact given up on their attorneys or on our legal system it would not be surprising to me (although I personally believe the number is quite small based on my frequent conversations with the other attorneys). But this is a frustrating process and although I never had much hope from the legislative side while the Republicans were in control I do admit that I had a faith in our judicial system that I no longer hold. At one time our judicial system was such that people around the world looked at it in envy. I can only imagine that when word came to these men who were languishing at Guantánamo that they were finally going to have attorneys and could challenge their imprisonment in court, that many got their hopes up that justice was just around the corner. Now we know that if justice is around the next corner it is a very long block.

So yes, on occasion our clients, who are now sitting in solitary confinement and quickly going insane..., sometimes get upset at us and our system of law... but it doesn't last long because they know that for now anyway, we are their life line.

I head back to Guantánamo on Monday. It takes a full day to get there and a full day to get back. I will spend three days with my two clients. I will tell them everything I have been doing these last two months since my last visit (and I have been doing a lot). As always I tell my clients the good news and the bad news... and as usual there is very little in the way of good news. My clients will be frustrated, as well they should be. I share their frustration. But the other Guantánamo attorneys and I are doing our best and we have been fighting against the odds and our clients know this. And so they wait, and hope.

Former Guantanamo inmate walks free in Morocco

Thu May 3, 2007 7:13AM EDT
RABAT (Reuters) - A Moroccan man sent home from the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay last week was released by local authorities after terrorism-related charges were dropped, a human rights lawyer and relatives said on Thursday.
Ahmed Errachidi, 41, was arrested on his return to Morocco and appeared before a judge on Wednesday on suspicion of preparing and carrying out terrorist acts, lawyer Mohamed Sebbar told Reuters.
"The charges were dropped, he was released last night and he is now back home with his family," said Sebbar. A relative confirmed his release and return home.
Errachidi spent more than five years at the U.S. detention camp for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba before being freed without charge last week. He has a wife and two young sons living in Morocco.
Relatives say he suffers from bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression, and needs to take medication regularly.
Errachidi lived in Britain for 17 years and worked as a chef in London restaurants. According to the British-based legal charity Reprieve, which represents him, he was arrested in Pakistan after traveling there in 2001 on a business venture to fund a heart operation for his younger son, Imran.
While there, he was affected by television footage of the U.S. invasion of neighboring Afghanistan and went there to try to help refugees from bombing raids, a decision his lawyers say reflected his erratic judgment caused by his illness.
Once in Afghanistan, he soon realized there was nothing he could do and it was dangerous to stay. He was detained after crossing back into Pakistan.
Pakistani officials then "sold Ahmed to the U.S. military for a bounty that was negotiated while he stood by in shackles and a hood", Reprieve said in a press release on his case.
The U.S. government has repatriated 10 Moroccans from Guantanamo in the past three years, according to lawyers.
They were charged with forming criminal gangs, forgery, illegal migration or belonging to an international terrorist organization but only one was imprisoned.
Three Moroccans remain in the maximum security prison in Cuba.

More on Yesterday's Lobby Effort

The Hill and Jurist both have synopses of yesterday's lobby day. We thank everybody for calling their senators and representatives!

From The Hill:

Congress in 1961 designated May 1 as National Law Day to celebrate the United States’ commitment to justice and the rule of law. The attorneys who aim to hold more than 50 meetings on the Hill today say such tradition has been tarnished by Congress’s September 2006 vote to deny habeas corpus to hundreds of detainees held in Guantánamo Bay for more than five years...READ MORE

From Jurist:

About 70 lawyers representing some of the top firms in the US Tuesday lobbied various congressional offices to restore the writ of habeas corpus to Guantanamo Bay detainees brought before military tribunals. The lawyers, who also included public defenders and sole practitioners, held over 50 meetings with Washington legislators, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California), to draw attention to the issue...READ MORE

- Adrian Bleifuss Prados

Guantánamo Lawyers Lobby Congress

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- Seventy-five lawyers for nearly 400 Guantanamo Bay detainees urged Congress on Tuesday to give the prisoners access to U.S. courts.
Fanning out across Capitol Hill for private meetings with senators and House members, the attorneys are seeking legislation to overturn a section of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that stripped the detainees of court access.

Under last year's law, the detainees are entitled to a procedural review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia into whether they were properly designated unlawful enemy combatants.

Congress has supported "executive branch extremism" by enacting legislation that overrides Supreme Court rulings, retired federal appeals court judge John J. Gibbons said at a news conference with some of the lawyers. The court ruled in 2004 and a year ago that detainees do have rights.

"We're not talking about a get-out-of-jail-free card; we're simply talking about having a right to be heard in court," said Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

The center, acting largely on its own, filed the first lawsuits on the detainees' behalf in February 2002, a month after the Bush administration brought the first prisoners to Guantanamo Bay.

Since then, more than 500 lawyers from prominent firms and law schools nationwide have donated their time and paid their own expenses to represent the detainees.

Get Ready for Tomrrow's Call-In!

Michaelmoore.com gets the word out!

The Worst of the Worst?

The Bushies say Guantánamo holds the "worst of the worst," but other than a handful of "high value detainees" (brought in for show before the Military Commissions Act was passed) and a recent arrival from a secret CIA dungeon, this is clearly nonesense.

As the Washington Post reports, more than 80 prisoners have been cleared for release by the government's own procedures....and yet they continue to languish in Guantánamo. The U.S. blames diplomatic impasses, but clearly they prefer to release prisoners in a slow trickle, which makes for less embarrassment (and less of a news story) than a mass-release of dozens of wrongfully imprisoned men and boys.

- Adrian Bleifuss Prados

A good resource:

Last Thursday (April 26), the Senate Armed Services Committee heard testimony "on legal issues regarding individuals detainedby the Department of Defense as unlawful enemy combatants."

The Seton Hall reports, authored by Mark and Joshua Denbeaux, were submitted to the Committee and are conveniently collected on Committee's website, HERE.

- Adrian Bleifuss Prados

CAUSING UNREST AT GUANTÁNAMO

OK, a show of hands please, how many of you thought about me when you saw the article about how the military wants to keep the lawyers out of Guantánamo? It seems the military thinks that we attorneys are acting as a conduit for the media! (If only it were true…) Anyway, that is bush talk for saying that we are doing a heck of a job exposing our clients’ conditions and our government’s un-American activities. We haven’t exposed any deep dark secrets and you should take note of the fact that the military has not accused any of us of misconduct or illegal activity… What they are accusing us of is being in the way. Too bad for them. I, for one, plan on staying “in the way” until the place closes.
So what is going on now? A brief summary: In October, our republican congress passed the military commissions act (MCA), a law that sent our country back to the Middle Ages by repealing the ancient writ of habeas corpus. (And don’t let these scum bags tell you otherwise, this law does not just apply to detainees at Guantánamo.. .it applies to any non-citizen and in the long run could even be applied to citizens that the prez determines are enemy combatants.) In the old days (before October 2006) habeas corpus allowed people being held by the government to challenge their detention by requiring the government to answer some simple questions: like why they were being held and what they were accused of doing. Anyway our government did away with that little law that had been around for 800 years or so.
At the same time the republican congress abolished habeas corpus it proclaimed that the only thing the Guantánamo detainees could challenge is their designation of having been determined to be an enemy combatant…. but the determination of being an enemy combatant was a rigged deal… and many of the detainees did not even participate in the proceedings because they were (correctly) told (by the military) that they did not have to participate because, get this, they had the right to challenge their detention in our federal courts… (oops on that one, huh?)
Well now the courts are closing their doors to the Guantánamo detainees. The appellate court said that the MCA is a legit law, the Supreme Court said it is too early to decide if the law is legit and the men at Guantánamo… well, they will continue to languish at Guantánamo for who knows how long.
And that brings me back to the lawyers… we are the trouble makers because we bring our client’s stories front and center. We are telling you who the men are and what they were doing (or more importantly what they were not doing) when they were sold to our government in return for bounties.
Bush and our military want to get back to the way things were… cages, water boarding… you know the drill. Meanwhile, we attorneys are fighting like hell to continue to represent these men and to visit and write to our clients… but it would sure be nice to have a little help about now.
Law Day. Tuesday May 1st. Can you help us out and contact your senators and your reps and tell them to restore habeas corpus and close the place? And can you ask everyone you know to do the same? If you do your part, I promise that the other habeas counsel and I will do our part and continue to be in the way…

Statement of Omar Khadr's Lawyers

``We have just learned that our client, Omar Khadr, has been charged by the United States government with several offenses that are not even valid war crimes, for which he will be tried by military commission under The Military Commissions Act of 2006. This is the third set of charges laid against Omar. Yet, no matter how many times the government issues new charges, the military commissions system will continue to be an illegitimate one. Indeed, the system is virtually indistinguishable from the one previously invalidated by the Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld just last year.

'The recent plea agreement accepted by David Hicks after less than a day of military commission proceedings and after significant negotiations between Australia and the U.S. demonstrates that the resolution of these cases is political and not the result of a legal process. Clearly, the U.S. is using the case of Omar in an attempt to rehabilitate the military commissions, which Hicks' plea demonstrated is a tainted process. In doing so, the U.S. will be the first country in modern history to try an individual who was a child at the time of the alleged war crimes. Indeed, the charge of conspiracy against Omar is based on alleged acts some of which occurred when Omar was less than 10 years of age.

``Omar Khadr was taken into U.S. custody at the age of 15 and has been detained at Guantánamo since he was 16, in conditions equal to or worse than those given to convicted adult criminals, such as prolonged solitary confinement and repeated instances of torture. After nearly 5 years in such conditions, the government is now demanding his appearance before what can only amount to a kangaroo court. The fact that this Administration has seen fit to designate this youth for trial by military commission is abhorrent.

``Now is the time for Canada and the U.S. to negotiate a political resolution because the commissions system is incapable of justice. Otherwise, Omar, just barely twenty years of age and a minor at the time of the alleged crimes, is guaranteed to be convicted in one of the greatest show trials on earth. This should not be the legacy of America or Canada.''

Signed,

Muneer Ahmad
Kristine Huskey
Richard Wilson
American University
College of Law
Washington D.C.
Lt. Col. Colby Vokey
U.S. Marine Corps.
Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler
U.S. Navy

More Odds & Ends

• "I Hope It's Your Family Members That Die" - U.S. Representative, Dana Rohrabacher on those that question the Bush administration's detention policies in the "war on terror."

• Naomi Wolf offers ten-part instructions on how to close down an open society; step 2: create a gulag:

  Once you have got everyone scared, the next step is to create a prison system outside the rule of law (as Bush put it, he wanted the American detention centre at Guantánamo Bay to be situated in legal "outer space") - where torture takes place. Read More
  

• German-born Murat Kurnaz, has published a memoir, Five Years of My Life about his horrific experiences in Guantánamo.

Moroccan-Born British Resident May be Released

Ahmed Errachidi, a 41-year-old British resident, has been a imprisoned without charge since his capture by bounty hunters in late 2001. (Sound familiar?)

Errachidi has spent three of the last five years in solitary confinement (a psychologically devastating period of isolation). He has been denied due process for years; been beaten and periodically pepper-sprayed ... and now an Administrative Review Board has determined that he is not a threat and should be released.

Unfortunately, because Errachidi is not a British citizen, the U.K. has recused itself of any obligation to bring him home. Emily Thornberry, Mr. Errachidi's local Labour Party MP has this to say:

Guantanamo Bay is an affront to international law. While Ahmed Errachidi has been in Guantanamo he has been subject to appalling abuse and has suffered at least one severe mental breakdown. He should never have been in Guantanamo Bay and he certainly shouldn't be there for a moment longer.

It's completely unacceptable that Ahmed should be left in limbo like this, while the international community wrings its hands about the detainees the US no longer wants.

Surely he has more than sufficient compassionate grounds to be allowed to come back to Britain. Ahmed must be released immediately and I have written to George Bush to tell him so.

READ MORE
- Adrian Bleifuss Prados

Journalists Call for Release of Sami Al-Haj....

Sami Al-Haj, the cameraman held at Guantánamo, has now been on hunger strike for one hundred days.

The International Federation of Journalists, a trade union representing 500,000 of Al-Haj's professional colleagues around the world, has issued a press release calling on the U.S. to release Al-Haj:

IFJ Demands Release of Guantanamo Cameraman after 100 Days of Hunger Strike

17/04/2007

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) called on the US government to release Al-Jazeera cameraman, Sami al-Haj, who this morning started his 100th day of hunger strike after almost five-years of detention at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Centre. Al-Haj was first arrested crossing into Afghanistan with a legitimate visa on 15 December 2001. He was held by the US military at the Bagram base before being transferred to Guantanamo on 13th June 2002. Since then he has been interrogated over 150 occasions, tortured, and accused of terrorism offences. He has never been charged or brought to trial. READ MORE

- Adrian Bleifuss Prados

New on Hufington Post:

Candace's latest piece on Huffington Post discusses recent developments in her Libyan client, Al-Ghizzawi's sad story. Al-Ghizzawi has finally been allowed to see a doctor...but apparently the medical authorities at Guantánamo have no interest in treating his liver condition; the good doctor would only examine Al-Ghizzawi's leg. Mr. Al-Ghizzawi is despondent, his latest letter features this heart-breaking plea:

"Finally, I would like to ask from you the following: to request from the American Government to ship my body to Afghanistan, to my wife, so that I will be near her and my daughter and be buried there. If that was not possible, ask them to ship my body to my family in Libya. The important thing is that I won't be buried under any circumstance in Cuba."

Read more on Huff-Po.