War Criminal - the musical version

 

One war criminal dead.... too many still alive. (updated with yet another link.)

 Rumsfeld is finally dead. He is responsible for the deaths of so many innocent people and he never showed a tinch of remorse. 

I won't waste further words on that monster but I will share some:

start with this one.

and then go here.

and if pictures are more your thing try this.

Oh and this is really on point too.

NYT updates the Gitmo database.

 This database has been a go-to for everyone looking for information about Guantanamo and the men/boys that have been held there -- or in the case of my client and 39 other men -- are still being held there.

They have now updated that database. (Click here) I have not reviewed what they have to say about either of my clients - the one who was released (Mr. Al-Ghizzawi) or the one that remains (Razak Ali) (I will do that in the coming days). 

h/o to Don for sending the link.

From Roger Fitch and our friends down under

 Aside from Iraq, George Bush's most transgressive, flagrant flouting of law was establishing a scheme of indefinite detention and military trials at Guantánamo (history here); there the well-documented contempt for international and US domestic law has persisted for years, with a scaffold of purported legality cobbled from extrajudicial acts, political inaction and appellate court acquiescence. 

It's been mostly unlawful from the outset: the secret confinement and torture of invented "illegal enemy combatants" (many of them lawful belligerents); the treatment of men as "war prisoners" who were apprehended (rarely by Americans) for suspected civilian terrorism.

Compounding all that, the arbitrary denial of prisoner of war status hearings, in an "international" conflict that should have attracted full Geneva Convention protections. 

Even the protections of Common Article Three, applicable to "non-international" conflicts, were denied, and Pentagon officials who attempted to provide Geneva protections were sacked (Rick Baccus), bullied (Stuart Couch) and even jailed (Matthew Diaz). 

Lt Comdr Diaz: jailed for sending Guantánamo names to the Centre for Constitutional Rights

Internationally non-compliant military trials were set up, trials that, as law profs David Glazier and David Frakt argued, could themselves be classified as war crimes, and it was all done to avoid legal civilian trials, now rendered impossible because they are tainted by torture and cruelty in violation of the Convention Against Torture. 

Most "convictions" for non-crimes have been overturned on appeal, and perhaps only one charge has been validly pursued, the current one against Abd al-Hadi al-Iraq for killing civilians in a war zone, during a war.

Throughout, the US has denied the men the most basic protection of the US constitution and Anglo-American common law: the unfettered habeas corpus that would have resulted in the release of many of them years ago.

The prisoners' entitlement to full habeas and due process is still being contested by the government, in the Al-Hela case pending before an en banc DC Court of Appeals, a case destined for the supreme court. 

Also pending is the Abu Zubaydah appeal for a civil subpoena, where the state secrets doctrine is being shamefully employed to protect CIA torturers whose identity is a matter of public record. More here. 

Court observers Karen Greenberg and Linda Greenhouse comment on the current state of litigation. 

The Biden administration is meanwhile resolving another Bush-Obama miscarriage of justice, that of Majid Khan, by cutting a deal that will avoid discussion, at his sentencing, of CIA torture. 

Three other prisoners are to be released, including the oldest, Saifullah Paracha, another injustice righted. Still held are people like Mohammed Al-Qahtani: the Pentagon's own Convening Authority declined to refer him for trial, conceding he'd been tortured.

READ THE REST OF FITCH HERE.

From the talking dog

SORRY HAVE BEEN RUNNING BEHIND ON SOME THINGS....

From my perspective, I just try to cling to my own corner of truth [as well as justice and, to the extent consistent with those, which isn't often enough IMHO, the American way] for whomever is still interested in reading about it. And along the way, we can look at some other milestones. Next January, the military prison for Muslim men and boys at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba will have been open for twenty years, even as speculation remains that the Biden administration might be considering finally closing it. Interestingly, the "Periodic Review Board" added three names to the "cleared for release" group, bringing that number up to nine out of the forty remaining prisoners.

For the record, those prisoners are Saifullah Paracha, 73, of Pakistan; Abdul Rabbani, 54, of Pakistan; and Uthman Abdul al-Rahim Uthman, 40, of Yemen. Over the years, I interviewed one of Paracha's attorneys, Gaillard Hunt, and I interviewed one of Uthman's attorneys, Marc Falkoff. I'm pretty sure that Cori Crider, then of Reprieve when I interviewed her, also represented Rabbani, as did Jon Eisenberg, who I also interviewed. Hope springs eternal, though I suspect that come next January, my friend Candace's client Saeed Bakouche a/k/a Razak Ali of Algeria will probably still be held at GTMO (particularly in light of recent legal developements in his case), and I expect my friend Andy to resume his annual visits [as the pandemic dies down, please God] so we can all go down to D.C. to protest GTMO on what I fear will be its 20th anniversary.

READ THE REST HERE

MEMORIAL DAY 2021

 

Supreme Court denies Razak's cert petition

 It was a long shot but I had hoped they would grant my motion to not decide the case - because the DC Circuit Court had granted en banc in a case with similar issues. Unfortunately they did not put the case on hold and so Razak is once again out of luck.

You can read more here.

To Razak Ali's mother

 AND ALL OF THE MOTHER'S OF THE DISAPPEARED  WHO ARE HELD AT GUANTANAMO OR ANYWHERE ELSE ACROSS THE WORLD. WHETHER BY MY COUNTRY OR ANOTHER COUNTRY.

Can (will) Biden close Guantanamo

A must read from TomDispatch -- followed by Karen Greenberg's analysis -- on whether we will finally see the end of Guantanamo.

 The difficulty of closing Guantánamo has shown that once you move outside the laws and norms of this country in a significant way, the return to normalcy becomes ever more problematic — and the longer the exception, the harder such a restoration will be. Remember that, before his presidency was over, George W. Bush went on record acknowledging his preference for closing Guantánamo. Obama made it a goal of his presidency from the outset. Biden, with less fanfare and the lessons of their failures in mind, faces the challenge of finally closing America’s forever prison.

Read the rest here.

h/o to Walt

Fitch is back...

 *   *   *

Biden's litigation posture in pending legal proceedings commenced during Trump's term has been much more progressive than Obama's when he took office (see Fitch, Feb. 24, 2009). Obama accepted and pursued Bush arguments that suited him (e.g, for the accumulation of executive powers), but Biden has altered the government's position in many pending cases. Some major lawsuits remain to be sorted.

Biden's administration has nevertheless availed itself of some harmful rules and regs from the Trump era, and needlessly appealed the Julian Assange extradition that was denied in Britain. 

The Pentagon has announced new military commission charges, against Hambali, a terrorist with no connection to any war, or the US, other than American Bali-bombing victims - far fewer than the Australians affected. 

Biden's Guantánamo litigation strategy complicates senior senators' efforts to close the prison; their arguments, however, assume the continuance of military prosecutions, only one of which truly involves a war-time war crime: that of Abd Al Hadi.

In theory, the promised official end to the war in Afghanistan should bar US claims that the men are detained as "war prisoners". Much depends on Guantánamo appeals headed for (likely unsympathetic) supreme court review.

*   *   *

Read the whole thing here...

Any bets on how this will go?

 WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether the government can block a detainee at Guantánamo Bay from obtaining information from two former C.I.A. contractors involved in torturing him on the ground that it would expose state secrets.

Read the article here.

yes, we should close Guantanamo

 But send these men that have never been charged with a crime to the U.S.? 

NO....Send them home. NOW.

read the op-ed from the former envoy in charge of  doing something with Guantanamo under Obama...

h/o to Don for sending.

Sorry Bob, but the times are not a changin just yet...

 As per my musical interlude in the last post, staying alive in this country of mine is truly difficult if you are not white. And no amount of police training will change that right now -- because the police follow their training (for the most part) when dealing with white people. They do not shoot and kill, stomp on our necks or other manner of torture and killing -- when you are white.  

The answer is difficult and it is made more difficult with the cute language for the alternative -- defund the police. The person that gave that alternative should be.. well anyway. 

It is not helpful to suggest defunding the police because the language scares the hell out of white people-- and unfortuately white people are in charge. We here in the US of A  live in a police militarized state and the enemy is people of color. Real change is extremely difficult but yesterdays verdict gives a modicum of hope.

My friend the Talking Dog has a great post on this issue here.

musical interlude

Staying alive in the U.S. of A....difficult if you are black.

Once released from Guantanamo --you are never really free

 The men released from Guantanamo, for the most part, are never really free. They carry the stigma of having been kept at Guantanamo and labeled a terrorist -- and they carry the scars. Scars from the torture, isolation and years of captivity. When they are released they know little about any deals that were made between the U.S. government and their host country. They are provided little, if any, support.

This is the story of one such man --Lutfi bin Ali. Unfortunately, it is a story that is all to familiar.