Rest of world turns as usual

It's been all Honduras here for the last month because for once I feel I can actually contribute something by blogging. I'm no expert, but fifteen years of Central American solidarity work and my (weak, weak) Spanish still put me far ahead of many people likely to be mildly interested but unable or uninclined to seek out information. Connecting with posters who are experts in one way or another, and who're using their skills to provide a solid alternative to the superficial and zombie-lie-filled old media, reminds me that another world is possible.

But maybe, reader, you're looking for an update on how our own democracy continues to be threatened by an out-of-control military in a permanent-war national security mindset, impunity for torture, and an overweening oligarchy. A Lovely Promise is here to serve:

- Peaceful and law-abiding people and organizations continue to be massively spied on by the U.S. military and "fusion centers" that connect the military with intelligence and law enforcement agencies and completely unregulated, unaccountable private database contractors.

- U.S. troops are never going to leave Iraq. The ones who've come home are assaulting and killing other people and themselves, and those who stay alive and out of jail are heading off to that other war. Which is unwinnable and on its way to becoming permanently unpopular.

- No one who ordered or had command responsibility for torture (always illegal) is going to be prosecuted. At most, cases might be brought against some more scapegoats, underlings who went beyond what was "authorized" (impossibly, illegally) in spurious opinions written by Justice and Defense Dept. lawyers.

- Corporate rule of our politics and media means that the very best we can hope for in the way of health care reform is the House bill, H.R. 3200. And it sucks.

- The banks and financial companies own us. That very much includes Pres. Obama, who's helping to keep us from being able to see what's being done with the trillions we've handed over to them.

But there are occasional bright spots: Mohammed Jawad, who was twelve when U.S. soldiers took him prisoner in 2002, has been ordered to be freed next month and returned home to Afghanistan, won't face charges there, and probably won't face U.S. criminal charges (in part because much of the "evidence" against him was produced by torture). Huzzah! [Hat tip Gary Farber]
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Where is Hassan Ghul?

We don't torture.

And we certainly don't remove captured prisoners of war from an active theater to a secret prison and never account for their whereabouts.

That's 'disappearing', something that we just don't do.
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Torture Awareness Month Update

Everyone's observing Torture Awareness Month in their own way.

The clique of criminals who rule us are making efforts to cover up the extent and specifics of the tortures to which prisoners at Guantanamo have been subjected, while doing so in a way that actually calls attention to the cover-up:

Urging interrogators in a printed operations manual to destroy their notes to avoid revealing torture.

Using a sound delay and mute button to prevent observers at the arraignment of five defendants in Guantanamo from hearing the men describe their treatment, while allowing several outright references to torture.

The crudeness of these evasions makes it hard for those who want to deny that a systematic policy of torture is in effect to keep up the pretense.

Carol Rosenberg's coverage for the Miami Herald of the show trials underway at Guantanamo is the best in the corporate media. Her account of the recent arraignment of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and four other defendants makes vivid the surreal, Soviet atmosphere in which prosecutors and defendants cooperated to shed the defense lawyers who might slow down the express train to judicial murder/martyrdom/permanent destruction of witnesses to torture.

Some other journalists who've already earned respect are about to mark this month by strengthening their reputation for putting the truth in front of the public. Here's a preview from one of them, John Walcott:

Next Sunday, June 15, McClatchy will begin publishing the most extensive investigation to date of the treatment of detainees, not only at Guantanamo but also at Bagram and Kandahar in Afghanistan. Reporters Tom Lasseter and Matt Schofield tracked down and interviewed 66 former detainees -- more than any other organization, media or NGO, we think -- in 11 countries on three continents. They also interviewed former prison guards, interrogators, translators, Pentagon and administration officials, defense lawyers and Afghan intelligence and security officials to paint the most complete picture we could of who U.S. picked up, how and why, what happened to “suspected enemy combatants” and who’s responsible.

The package was overseen by the McClatchy Washington Bureau’s Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign editor, Roy Gutman, the editor of "Crimes of War" and the author of a new book on U.S. policy toward Afghanistan before 9/11. It includes five main stories, a video, photos, numerous sidebars, the stories of all 66 former detainees and an online database.

If you don’t live in an area served by one of our papers, or even if you do, you can find the whole package at www.mcclatchydc.com starting on Sunday, June 15 and running for five days.

[A heartfelt hat tip to bmaz at Emptywheel for all the items above.]

The Supreme Court is observing Torture Awareness Month by upholding, narrowly, the principle of habeas corpus that is fundamental to preventing indefinite detention and torture: the guarantee of access to civilian federal courts to contest the basis of the detention. As Human Rights First pointed out in fighting Congress's craven passage of the habeas-stripping Military Commissions Act in September 2006, virtually everything known about the mistreatment of prisoners up to that point was made public only through the process of their habeas appeals.

The Boumediene/Al Odah decision is not as far-reaching as some had hoped, but not as narrow as some had feared. It is resoundingly Constitution-affirming. A sigh of relief, a small sip of champagne.

Speaking of affirming the Constitution, Rep. Dennis Kucinich and three co-sponsors this week made Bush's policy of torture two of the central articles of impeachment (pdf) introduced against him, along with 33 other high crimes and misdemeanors. The House Judiciary Committee has to take the next step.

So. What are you doing for Torture Awareness Month?

Update: 15 June, 2:00 pm - The McClatchy series has begun. Bless them for including photos of each of the detainees in their 'detainee database', a degree of humanization that even many sympathetic accounts have not reached.

What's the hurry?

Yesterday a young man committed suicide in Guantanamo. Abdul Rahman Ma Ath Thafir al Amri, 34, of Taif, Saudi Arabia, was never charged with a crime. He was never permitted to see a lawyer. He has been imprisoned for the last five years. He was interrogated again and again and again, and quite possibly tortured. For most of the past year he has been locked away, like the hundreds of other men held with no charges and no hope of a trial or release, in a solitary cell for 22 hours a day.

His death deepens the stain on this country. The hopelessness that drove him to suicide was created by those who voted to deny him the fundamental right of habeas corpus. You, Sherrod Brown. You, Debbie Stabenow. You, Arlen Specter. You, John "What's the hurry?" Warner. If there were any justice in this world, you and all the other cowards like you would have nightmares for the rest of your lives about being locked away forever with no redress, no hope of release, no contact with the rest of the world.

Security theater

Call me cynical. I see a clear connection between 1) the recent New York Times and Washington Post stories about our government's moves to further limit contacts between Guantanamo prisoners and their lawyers, 2) recent Senate efforts to restore prisoners' habeas rights, and 3) today's big splash: 'Al Qaeda Suspect Caught, Sent to Guantanamo'.

Abdul al-Hadi al-Iraqi has apparently been held for months now in one of the CIA's many secret prisons around the world. His very public transfer to Guantanamo is meant to reinforce the picture the government wants to paint of that prison as holding "the worst of the worst," a term that might be fairly applied to up to thirty detainees there.

Today's news, like the ruling regime's efforts to hamstring and stigmatize defense and human rights lawyers, is part of an ongoing effort to obscure the disgraceful reality: We are holding hundreds of men in living coffins. Most have been there for years without being charged with any crime; indeed, most probably never will. They have never had anything remotely resembling a fair process to determine the basis on which we are holding them. The question faces us: will we hold them forever?

Fine with the senior senator from my state: "What is the hurry?" Sen. John Warner, R-Va., asked at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing."

[Further detail from one of the lawyers affected in comments at Jim Henley's blog.]

Update: 27 April, 2:45 pm - Jan in San Francisco has an excellent roundup of the Democratic presidential candidates' statements on the subject of closing Guantanamo.