Post by Djevara on May 10, 2004 0:45:09 GMT
The issues of basic Human Rights and Civil Liberties (and their abuse by states, authorities, organisations and individuals) are two separate but related issues which may never have been more pertinent or under greater risk even in so-called democratic countries. From Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib, from Darfur to Uzebikistan, right up to Belmarsh Detention Centre in England - there are a terrifying number of examples of the true horror of our world - one which gloss magazines, tabloid journalism and sitcoms help most of us pretend don't exist. But those who are silent are COMPLICIT in the crimes - they do it because we allow them to get away with it.
In the current times there are so many issues that it would not do justice to attempt to sum up arguments in one brief introduction such as here. On our website there are numerous links to organisations and resources for education and action. Freedom and justice is not something that can be relied upon, and certainly not to come from those who are in comfortable positions of power - it calls on our eternal vigilance. Be part of the fight.
If you're looking for places to *start*, you can do worse than: Naom Chomsky (anything), "I.O.U,: The Debt Threat And Why We Must Defuse It" - Noreena Hertz, or any number of online sites such as Indymedia (www.indymedia.org), Wildfire (www.wildfirejo.org.uk) and of course Amnesty Intl (www.amnesty.org). If you are interested in the more general progressive/alternative movement, you could start with looking at AdBusters (www.adbusters.org for some great starting ideas.
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Case Study: Guantanamo Bay / Camp Delta - Shame of The West
(Source: http://www.sourcewatch.org)
Guantanamo Camp Xray is also known as Guantánamo, GTMO/GITMO, and Camp Delta. (GTMO is shorthand for GuanTanaMO. "gitmo" is the pronunciation.)
The Offical website of Joint Task Force GTMO (http://www.nsgtmo.navy.mil/JTFgtmo/), the group designated responsible[1] (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/dod/jtf-gtmo.htm) for operating the detainee detention facility and conducting interrogations, declares "Honor Bound to Defend Freedom".
Table of contents [showhide]
1 Emerging Details
2 Background
3 SourceWatch Resources
4 External References
[edit]
Emerging Details
* David Rose and Gaby Hinsliff, "US guards 'filmed beatings' at terror camp. Senator urges action as Briton reveals Guantanamo abuse," (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1217973,00.html) Guardian/UK, May 16, 2004.
* Seymour M. Hersh, in his book "Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib" (HarperCollins), "asserts that a Central Intelligence Agency analyst who visited the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in the late summer of 2002 filed a report of abuses there that drew the attention of Gen. John A. Gordon, a deputy to Condoleezza Rice, the White House national security adviser. But when General Gordon called the matter to her attention and she discussed it with other senior officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, no significant change resulted. Mr. Hersh's account is based on anonymous sources, some secondhand, and could not be independently verified." [2] (http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091304C.shtml)
"General John A. Gordon, the deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism, who reported directly to Condoleezza Rice, had retired from the military as a four-star general in 2000 had served as a deputy director of the CIA for three years. He was deeply troubled and distressed by the report, and by its implications for the treatment, in retaliation, of captured American soldiers. Gordon, according to a former administration official, told colleagues that he thought "it was totally out of character with the American value system", and "that if the actions at Guantánamo ever became public, it'd be damaging to the president"." [3] (http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091404A.shtml)
[edit]
Background
U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay is the oldest U.S. base overseas and the only one in Cuba. The primary mission of Guantanamo Bay is to serve as a strategic logistics base for the Navy's Atlantic Fleet and to support counter drug operations in the Caribbean. The US jurisdiction is counter to international law given that the Cuban government has sought its removal – payments aren't possible given that the Cubans reject payments and the US refuses to pay base rights.
On June 13, 2003, Brown & Root Services, a division of Kellogg Brown and Root, Arlington, Va., was awarded a $12,495,601 modification to Task Order 0038 at under a cost-reimbursement, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity construction contract for various facilities, Radio Range, U.S. Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay. The work to be performed includes new facilities for traffic control checkpoints (main and secondary checkpoints), troop bed-down facility, troop dining facility and destructive weather improvements to detention facility structures. The project will also include site work, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, plumbing and electrical work, as required for the various facilities. [4] (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/guantanamo-bay.htm)
Following the events of September 11, 2001, the military operations in Afghanistan and the ensuing capture of numerous inidviduals alleged to be members or fighters aligned with Al Qaida and and the Taliban, a decision was made to transfer a number of detainees to the Camp X-Ray facility. The base was to serve as a temporary holding facility for detainees that come under U.S. control during the war on terrorism.
With the opening of Camp Delta, Camp X-ray was closed on April 29, 2002. 300 detainees previously held at Camp X-Ray were transferred to Camp Delta on April 28, 2002. The rest were transferred on April 29, 2002. [5] (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/guantanamo-bay_x-ray.htm)
Guantanamo is central to the Bush Administration's strategy to prevent judicial review of the legal status of prisoners. Located on Cuban territory, it is the "legal equivalent of outer space," according to one US government official, unlike military bases on US territories. These other locations were ruled out as prison sites because they fall under the jurisdiction of the often-liberal Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals. [6] (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/guantanamo-bay_delta.htm)
"A year and a half after September 11, 2001, at least two articles of the Bill of Rights were dead letters--the fourth prohibiting unwarranted searches and seizures and the sixth guaranteeing a jury of peers, the assistance of an attorney in offering a defense, the right to confront one's accusers, protection against self-incrimination, and, most critically, the requirement that the government spell out its charges and make them public." [7] (http://www.presentdanger.org/papers/sorrows2003.html)
"Of the more than 600 detainees at the US prison camp at Guantanamo, none has been charged with any crime, and none has had access to a lawyer, although some have been in captivity of one kind or another for two years." [8] (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1098523,00.html)
On December 18, 2003, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the executive branch may not indefinitely imprison foreign nationals at Guantanamo without charge and without providing them with the effective means to challenge their detention. [9] (http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=15099)
* Opinion by Judge Reinhardt Filed December 18, 2003, in U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Falen Gherebi (Petitioner-Appellant) v. George Walker Bush; Donald H. Rumsfeld (Respondents-Appellees), No. 03-55785 D.C. No. CV-03-01267-AHM; Argued and Submitted August 11, 2003, San Francisco, California. [http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/429E2096892C3D8388256E00005FEB65/$file/0355785final.pdf?openelement] (paste into browser).
In July 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court made some decisions about cases pending with regard to Guantanamo detention and the civil liberty rights of enemy combatants. Perspectives on those decisions:
* Elaine Cassel, Civil Liberties Watch (http://www.progressivetrail.org/articles/040629Cassel.shtml?mail=29): "Taken together, the decisions are more important for what they did not do. Their significance for the future, particularly if Bush is reelected, cannot be underestimated."
In the current times there are so many issues that it would not do justice to attempt to sum up arguments in one brief introduction such as here. On our website there are numerous links to organisations and resources for education and action. Freedom and justice is not something that can be relied upon, and certainly not to come from those who are in comfortable positions of power - it calls on our eternal vigilance. Be part of the fight.
If you're looking for places to *start*, you can do worse than: Naom Chomsky (anything), "I.O.U,: The Debt Threat And Why We Must Defuse It" - Noreena Hertz, or any number of online sites such as Indymedia (www.indymedia.org), Wildfire (www.wildfirejo.org.uk) and of course Amnesty Intl (www.amnesty.org). If you are interested in the more general progressive/alternative movement, you could start with looking at AdBusters (www.adbusters.org for some great starting ideas.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Case Study: Guantanamo Bay / Camp Delta - Shame of The West
(Source: http://www.sourcewatch.org)
Guantanamo Camp Xray is also known as Guantánamo, GTMO/GITMO, and Camp Delta. (GTMO is shorthand for GuanTanaMO. "gitmo" is the pronunciation.)
The Offical website of Joint Task Force GTMO (http://www.nsgtmo.navy.mil/JTFgtmo/), the group designated responsible[1] (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/dod/jtf-gtmo.htm) for operating the detainee detention facility and conducting interrogations, declares "Honor Bound to Defend Freedom".
Table of contents [showhide]
1 Emerging Details
2 Background
3 SourceWatch Resources
4 External References
[edit]
Emerging Details
* David Rose and Gaby Hinsliff, "US guards 'filmed beatings' at terror camp. Senator urges action as Briton reveals Guantanamo abuse," (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1217973,00.html) Guardian/UK, May 16, 2004.
* Seymour M. Hersh, in his book "Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib" (HarperCollins), "asserts that a Central Intelligence Agency analyst who visited the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in the late summer of 2002 filed a report of abuses there that drew the attention of Gen. John A. Gordon, a deputy to Condoleezza Rice, the White House national security adviser. But when General Gordon called the matter to her attention and she discussed it with other senior officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, no significant change resulted. Mr. Hersh's account is based on anonymous sources, some secondhand, and could not be independently verified." [2] (http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091304C.shtml)
"General John A. Gordon, the deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism, who reported directly to Condoleezza Rice, had retired from the military as a four-star general in 2000 had served as a deputy director of the CIA for three years. He was deeply troubled and distressed by the report, and by its implications for the treatment, in retaliation, of captured American soldiers. Gordon, according to a former administration official, told colleagues that he thought "it was totally out of character with the American value system", and "that if the actions at Guantánamo ever became public, it'd be damaging to the president"." [3] (http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091404A.shtml)
[edit]
Background
U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay is the oldest U.S. base overseas and the only one in Cuba. The primary mission of Guantanamo Bay is to serve as a strategic logistics base for the Navy's Atlantic Fleet and to support counter drug operations in the Caribbean. The US jurisdiction is counter to international law given that the Cuban government has sought its removal – payments aren't possible given that the Cubans reject payments and the US refuses to pay base rights.
On June 13, 2003, Brown & Root Services, a division of Kellogg Brown and Root, Arlington, Va., was awarded a $12,495,601 modification to Task Order 0038 at under a cost-reimbursement, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity construction contract for various facilities, Radio Range, U.S. Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay. The work to be performed includes new facilities for traffic control checkpoints (main and secondary checkpoints), troop bed-down facility, troop dining facility and destructive weather improvements to detention facility structures. The project will also include site work, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, plumbing and electrical work, as required for the various facilities. [4] (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/guantanamo-bay.htm)
Following the events of September 11, 2001, the military operations in Afghanistan and the ensuing capture of numerous inidviduals alleged to be members or fighters aligned with Al Qaida and and the Taliban, a decision was made to transfer a number of detainees to the Camp X-Ray facility. The base was to serve as a temporary holding facility for detainees that come under U.S. control during the war on terrorism.
With the opening of Camp Delta, Camp X-ray was closed on April 29, 2002. 300 detainees previously held at Camp X-Ray were transferred to Camp Delta on April 28, 2002. The rest were transferred on April 29, 2002. [5] (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/guantanamo-bay_x-ray.htm)
Guantanamo is central to the Bush Administration's strategy to prevent judicial review of the legal status of prisoners. Located on Cuban territory, it is the "legal equivalent of outer space," according to one US government official, unlike military bases on US territories. These other locations were ruled out as prison sites because they fall under the jurisdiction of the often-liberal Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals. [6] (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/guantanamo-bay_delta.htm)
"A year and a half after September 11, 2001, at least two articles of the Bill of Rights were dead letters--the fourth prohibiting unwarranted searches and seizures and the sixth guaranteeing a jury of peers, the assistance of an attorney in offering a defense, the right to confront one's accusers, protection against self-incrimination, and, most critically, the requirement that the government spell out its charges and make them public." [7] (http://www.presentdanger.org/papers/sorrows2003.html)
"Of the more than 600 detainees at the US prison camp at Guantanamo, none has been charged with any crime, and none has had access to a lawyer, although some have been in captivity of one kind or another for two years." [8] (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1098523,00.html)
On December 18, 2003, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the executive branch may not indefinitely imprison foreign nationals at Guantanamo without charge and without providing them with the effective means to challenge their detention. [9] (http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=15099)
* Opinion by Judge Reinhardt Filed December 18, 2003, in U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Falen Gherebi (Petitioner-Appellant) v. George Walker Bush; Donald H. Rumsfeld (Respondents-Appellees), No. 03-55785 D.C. No. CV-03-01267-AHM; Argued and Submitted August 11, 2003, San Francisco, California. [http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/429E2096892C3D8388256E00005FEB65/$file/0355785final.pdf?openelement] (paste into browser).
In July 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court made some decisions about cases pending with regard to Guantanamo detention and the civil liberty rights of enemy combatants. Perspectives on those decisions:
* Elaine Cassel, Civil Liberties Watch (http://www.progressivetrail.org/articles/040629Cassel.shtml?mail=29): "Taken together, the decisions are more important for what they did not do. Their significance for the future, particularly if Bush is reelected, cannot be underestimated."