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Hope Dies at Guantanamo

The Disturbing Case of Adnan Latif

By MARJORIE COHN | The Jurist | June 20, 2012

The tragic case of Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif hit a dead end when the US Supreme Court issued an order refusing to hear his case last week. Latif, a Yemeni man, has been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay since January 2002, after being detained while traveling to seek medical treatment.

Latif had suffered serious head injuries as the result of a car accident in 1994, and the Yemeni government paid for him to receive treatment in Jordan at that time. But his medical problems persisted, and in 1999 Yemen’s Ministry of Public Health recommended that Latif undergo tests, therapy and surgical procedures at his own expense. Unable to afford it, Latif said he left Yemen in 2001 with the help of a charitable worker to seek free medical treatment in Pakistan. When he was picked up in Afghanistan — on his way to Pakistan — and transferred to US custody in December 2001, Latif had his medical records with him.

After a kangaroo court proceeding, a Combatant Status Review Tribunal at Guantanamo declared Latif to be an “enemy combatant.” He was not allowed to attend the hearing, nor was he permitted to see the evidence against him. Instead of a lawyer, he was given a “Personal Representative” — a military officer who did not represent Latif’s interests.

Four years ago, the Supreme Court rejected the Bush administration’s argument that the detainees at Guantanamo had no right to contest the legality of their confinement in US courts. In Boumediene v. Bush, the Court upheld the habeas corpus rights of the detainees, saying they must be given “a meaningful opportunity” to challenge their detention.

Latif petitioned a federal district court for a writ of habeas corpus. The Obama administration opposed the petition, relying on information from an interrogation report. Large sections of the report were blacked out, so it is difficult to know exactly what the report says. But we do know that, according to the report, Latif admitted to being recruited for jihad, receiving weapons training from the Taliban and serving on the front line with other Taliban troops. Latif said his interrogators garbled his words so that their summary bears no relation to what he actually said.

In the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Judge Henry Kennedy granted Latif’s habeas petition, concluding that it could not “credit the information [in the Report] because there is serious question as to whether the [Report] accurately reflects Latif’s words, the incriminating facts in the [Report] are not corroborated, and Latif has presented a plausible alternative story to explain his travel.” It troubled Judge Kennedy that, “[n]o other detainee saw Latif at a training camp or in battle. No other detainee told interrogators that he fled from Afghanistan to Pakistan, from Tora Bora or any other location, with Latif. No other type of evidence links Latif to Al Qaeda, the Taliban, a guest house, or a training camp.”

Particularly significant to Judge Kennedy was that the “fundamentals [of Latif’s story] have remained the same.” More than a dozen interrogation summaries and statements contained “[Latif’s] adamant denials of any involvement with al Qaida [sic] or the Taliban; his serious head injury from a car accident in Yemen; his inability to pay for the necessary medical treatment; and his expectation and hope that [the charitable worker] would get him free medical care.”

Judge Kennedy also reasoned that errors in the report support “an inference that poor translation, sloppy note taking . . . [blacked out] . . . or some combination of those factors resulted in an incorrect summary of Latif’s words.” The fact that Latif was found in possession of his medical papers when seized, according to the judge, “corroborat[ed]” Latif’s “plausible” story.

The government appealed the district court ruling to the conservative US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which reversed the grant of habeas corpus. The appellate court admitted that the interrogation report was “prepared in stressful and chaotic conditions, filtered through interpreters, subject to transcription errors, and heavily redacted [parts blacked out] for national security purposes.” But for the first time, the DC Circuit held that government reports must be accorded a “presumption of regularity.” That means they will be presumed to be true unless the detainee can rebut that presumption.

Judge Janice Rogers Brown, who wrote the opinion for the two judges in the majority on the three-judge appellate panel, twisted Boumediene‘s statement that “innovation” could be used in habeas corpus proceedings into a “presumption of regularity” in government reports. Judge Brown criticized “Boumediene‘s airy suppositions.”

The dissenting appellate judge, David S. Tatel, noted that, in practice, the presumption of regularity will compel courts to rubber-stamp government detentions because “it suggest[s] that whatever the government says must be true.” He concluded that the report in Latif’s case was inherently unreliable because “it contain[s] multiple layers of hearsay.” Judge Tatel accused the majority of denying Latif the “meaningful opportunity” to contest the lawfulness of his detention that Boumediene guarantees.

When seven detainees whose petitions had been denied by the DC Circuit, including Latif, took their cases to the Supreme Court, they hoped the high court would do justice. During the Bush administration, the Court had struck down illegal and unjust executive policies. These included the denial of habeas corpus rights to Guantanamo detainees, the refusal to afford due process to US citizens caught in the “war on terror” and the holding of military commissions because they violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions.

But hope for justice died last week when the Court refused to even consider the propriety of the appellate court’s denial of habeas corpus to those seven detainees. Henceforth, detainees who lose in the DC Circuit cannot expect the Supreme Court to give them relief. Their last stop will be at one of the most right-wing circuits in the country, which overturns or delays all release orders by federal judges if the government objects.

The Supreme Court’s refusal to review the appellate court decisions in these cases has rendered Boumediene a dead letter. Since 2008, two-thirds of detainees who have filed habeas corpus petitions have won at the district court level, yet not one of them has been released by judicial order. Judge Tatel wrote that “it is hard to see what is left of the Supreme Court’s command in Boumediene that habeas review be ‘meaningful.’”

Like many men at Guantanamo, Latif went on a hunger strike to assert the only power he had in the face of utter hopelessness — the power to refuse food. He was force-fed for three months, which, he says, “is like having a dagger shoved down your throat.” As attorney Marc D. Falkoff writes in his chapter about Latif in The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse, “[t]he United Nations Commission on Human Rights calls this torture.”

Of the 800 men and boys held at Guantanamo since 2002, 169 remain. Of those prisoners, 87 have had their release approved by military review boards established during the Bush administration, and later by the Guantanamo Review Task Force established by President Obama in 2009. Yet they continue to languish in the prison camp.

In her opinion, Judge Brown wrote, “Luckily, this is a shrinking category of cases. The ranks of Guantanamo detainees will not be replenished.” Indeed, Obama has sent only one new prisoner to Guantanamo. His strategy is to assassinate “suspected militants” or people present in “suspicious areas” with drones, obviating the necessity of incarcerating them and dealing with their detention in court. As Judge Brown ominously observed, “Boumediene‘s logic is compelling: take no prisoners. Point taken.”

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and past president of the National Lawyers Guild. Her most recent book is The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse.

June 21, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Top Ten Things That Have and Haven’t Changed In the Era of Obama

By Bruce A. Dixon | BAR | June 20, 2012

Black America’s median household wealth, compared to that of whites, has sharply declined under Barack Obama. That’s a change. Just not a good one.

This is a consequence of the foreclosure epidemic which began in 2007 and 2008 and has always been concentrated in black and poor neighborhoods. But the Obama administration has allowed the foreclosure wave to continue without any letup during its first three and a half years, rejecting demands for foreclosure moratoriums or other measures which would make it easier for large numbers of families to remain in their homes. Where the ratio of white to black household wealth four years ago was around 11 to one, today it is greater than 20 to 1.

African Americans still make up 12 or 13% of the nation’s population, remain more than 40% of its locked down and locked up, No change there at all…

Latinos, who make up another 13%, are about 30% of the nation’s prisoners and rising, a slight change, but distinctly for the worse. So seven of every ten US prisoners are from the one quarter of the nation that is black or brown, and that percentage is rising.

The fifty-year war on drugs continues. No change for the better at all there.

Like every president since Nixon, Barack Obama has thwarted states that wanted to decriminalize small amounts of drugs, refuses to treat drug use as a medical problem rather than a police one. Like its predecessors, the Obama administration has expanded the frontiers of the drug war into places like Mexico and Colombia, where the US demand for illegal drugs has given birth to vast industries which may be among the largest and most lucrative, and certainly the most deadly, in those countries.

“Too big to fail” banksters and other financial criminals are still above the law. No change here either.

Not a single person responsible for crashing the economy in 2007 has seen the inside of a prison. It’s just not going to happen. Wall Street insiders give as much, and often more to Democrats than they do to Republicans. So the Obama administration has protected banks and lenders and their co-conspirators from prosecution, and shoveled more than ten trillion more at banksters, including those based outside the US, than the Bush-Cheney gang ever did.

It’s worth remembering that when Bush could not pass his own bailout bill six weeks before the 2008 election, he called Barack Obama into town to spend the week on the phone with Congressional Democrats getting them to switch their votes. So the only change here has been the party in charge.

Although governments will create trillions of new dollars to give to banksters and borrow it back from them at interest in the name of “fixing the economy”, it still won’t create millions of jobs for the unemployed. No change:

In the 1930s, the federal government addressed the Depression by creating hundreds of thousands of jobs out of thin air. They built roads and subways, parks, recreational facilities, dams and bridges. They did theater and historical research like tracking down and interviewing the last living survivors of slavery. It was called the WPA, or Works Progress Administration, under the administration of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The White House could do the same today, creating millions of new jobs, repairing and rebuilding infrastructure, building high speed rail, refitting millions of homes for energy efficiency. But Barack Obama disdains the heritage of his own Democratic party. He sounds more like Hoover than FDR today when he says that it’s the exclusive role of the private sector to create jobs.

It’s still almost impossible to organize a union and fight for your own rights on the job anywhere in the US. No change:

There are laws against firing workers who try, but employers are unafraid to break those laws, while working people are very much afraid to lose their jobs. Candidate Obama did promise to put on his comfortable shoes and walk a picket line. Maybe he just lied. President Obama has frozen the wages and pensions of government workers, and endorsed the traditionally Republican idea that public employee and private pensions and health plans cause economic distress to employes and the economy.

The bipartisan corporate-funded drive to “reform” education by breaking teachers unions, turning teachers into Wal-Mart style temps, hi-stakes testing, dissolving public schools and replacing them by privately owned charter schools, exempt from public accountability continues apace. No change there at all.

Bush’s Secretary of Education called teachers unions “terrorist organizations.” Obama’s Secretary of Education declared that Katrina was the best thing that could have happened to public education in New Orleans.

If anything, the Obama administration’s Race To The Top program pushed the envelope further than Republicans would have been able to without sustained resistance. It required states to compete for available federal education funds based upon how many teachers they can fire, how many public schools they can close, how many so-called “merit pay” schemes and similar atrocities they can inflict. Just as only a vicious warmonger like Nixon could have made the first presidential trip to China, only a black Democrat could have successfully pushed the education policy envelope this far in the anti-democratic directions of charters and educational privatization. If anything, Obama’s heinous education policies provide an even further rightward step-off point for Republicans like Mitt Romney. It didn’t have to be that way.

US troops are in more than 140 countries worldwide, and the US, with under 5% of the world’s people, spends more on the military than the other 95% of humanity combined. Not much change there.

On the other hand, in the first weeks of his administration, President Obama received a Nobel Peace Prize. So the pan-European elite, which feared and despised George Bush, loves Obama. That’s a kind of change they call a distinction without a difference.

The Afghan war drags on, apparently indefinitely. A hundred thousand US-paid mercenaries remain in Iraq, and the war there too is far from over. On the other hand, Barack Obama has been able to use cruise missiles and drones to kill black and brown civilians including children in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan, among other places. US military forces took part in the invasion and overthrow of the African nation of Libya, and the White House has openly rather than covertly sent unknown numbers of US special forces into nobody knows how many countries of Central Africa. A Bush administration doing this would have been greeted with nationwide street demonstrations. But a black Democrat gets a near automatic pass. Is this what the real “race card” looks like?

A US president still orders torture, murder, indefinite imprisonment without trial, and lets corporations that commit crimes abetting those of government employees completely off the hook. But there has been a change here.

When the Bush-Cheney gang did all this stuff, they did it as scofflaws. The Obama Administration has rammed through legislation in Congress and asked for court decisions to cloak most of the previously illegal torture, murder, kidnapping, warrantless spying and similar crimes with thin veneers of legality. This is the all-important difference between having an MBA as president as opposed to a professor of constitutional law.

Black politics, at one time heavily influenced by what Martin Luther King called opposition to the triple evils of racism, militarism, and economic injustice, has shrunken and shriveled under the influence of a new class of corporate funded black political leaders like Corey Booker and Barack Obama. Deep, real and significant change here.

Black politics ain’t about fighting for decent housing or jobs any more. It’s not about diverting resources from the war machine to uplifting the downtrodden. It’s not about funding education or working for the end of the prison state. It’s certainly not about defying unjust laws in the pursuit of just ends, as the Freedom Movement once routinely did.

People forget that King was murdered in Memphis in the middle of a sanitation workers strike in which the National Guard had been called out to patrol the city, and students had stayed home from high school for days to participate in illegal mass actions.

21st century black politics is about electing black politicians, no more and no less. That, and observing Black History Month.

This is far from an exhaustive list, of course.

We could have mentioned the fact that big oil, big agribusiness, big insurance, and big pharma all continue to get whatever they ask for. We might have pointed out that local and state fiscal crises are constantly being provoked, to which the solutions are always “public private partnerships” a standard euphemism for privatizations of public assets like roads, waterworks, generation facilities and public services like payroll, parking and fleet management. We could have pointed out that medical costs are still factors in a majority of personal bankruptcies, and the FCC has essentially abandoned any pretense of regulating the cable and broadcast industries, preferring to simply lease out or auction off the electromagnetic spectrum and leave it all to the “free market”.

Some things have changed over the last four years, and some haven’t. One thing that seems never to change, as long as our choices are restricted to the two corporate parties, is that while you can squint hard enough to make distinctions between Republicans and Democrats, there are few important differences.

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report. He lives and works in Marietta GA, and is a state committee member of the Georgia Green Party. Contact him at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.

June 20, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

The Future Direction of Egypt’s Revolution

By ESAM AL-AMIN | CounterPunch | June 19, 2012

Against all odds the Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB) candidate, Dr. Muhammad Mursi won Egypt’s first presidential election since the ouster of dictator Hosni Mubarak… but barely. Although the official results will not be announced until Thursday, the final tally shows that Mursi received 13.3 million votes (52 percent) while Mubarak’s last prime minister and the candidate of the military and the regime remnants, Gen. Ahmad Shafiq, garnered 12.4 million votes (48 percent).

It should never have been that close. Countless people wonder how a popular revolution that united millions of Egyptians against a corrupt regime and earned the world’s admiration, could have resulted in that same loathed regime on the brink of reclaiming power after little more than a year. Of course, the direct answer to this question is the ominous role played by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which took control of the country after Mubarak’s downfall, as well as the institutions of Egypt’s deep security state.

Their tactics included the direct manipulations of the elections process, the inexplicably favorable decisions by the Mubarak-era Presidential Elections Commission, the use of state media as well as private media outlets controlled by Mubarak-era corrupt businessmen to frighten the public about the specter of an impending theocracy, the clever ability to play the pro-revolution groups against each other, and the SCAF-appointed government’s deliberate disruption of the daily lives of ordinary Egyptians through the constriction of key staples and a lack of security in the street.  Soon the public associated the revolution with instability, shortages and chaos. Dejected, many wished for the days of the old regime.

Throughout last year and aided by the Muslim Brotherhood’s missteps and behind-the-scenes dalliances with the generals, SCAF was able to create acute alienation and sow real mistrust between the MB, the country’s largest organized movement, and the rest of the pro-revolution and youth groups. By the end of March 2012, SCAF felt so emboldened by the success of its plan that it began to openly challenge and threaten the now alienated MB, despite the fact that the group was by that time firmly in charge of both chambers of parliament.

By the end of the first round of the presidential elections, SCAF succeeded in propelling its preferred candidate to second place behind the MB candidate. Ironically, both sides calculated that their chances of capturing the presidency would be greatly enhanced if they faced each other. The military’s candidate believed that he would then reinvent the old regime by presenting to the confused and frightened public with the stark choices between the civil state represented by himself and a menacing religious state epitomized by his opponent. On the other hand, the MB believed that its best chance would be to face a candidate from the loathed Mubarak era so as to force the pro-revolution groups to support its candidate despite the ill feelings generated towards the Islamic group (especially when it abandoned the youth groups during their confrontations with SCAF during much of last year).

After the first round of the presidential elections, the pro-revolution groups garnered almost 15 million votes (with Mursi receiving 5.8 million). On the other hand, Mubarak-era affiliated candidates received 8 million votes (led by Shafiq’s 5.5 million votes.) But the two major (though defeated) candidates supported by the pro-revolution groups in the first round were Hamdein Sabahi and Dr. Abdel Moneim Abol Fotouh, receiving 4.8M and 4.1M votes respectively.

Although Abol Fotouh promptly threw his support behind Mursi, citing the threat to the revolution if the military man won, Sabahi asked his supporters to invalidate their votes or boycott the elections, hoping to create a dynamic where both candidates could somehow lose in the court of public opinion.  This would set the stage for his comeback as the pro-revolution and pro-civil state candidate. Quietly, SCAF’s candidate hoped that enough of Sabahi’s supporters would boycott the elections or invalidate their votes so that the numerical advantage of the pro-revolution groups would be neutralized.

As the military’s scheme was in full force relying on media offensive, bribes, and scare tactics, several polls conducted by state-sponsored institutions confirmed to SCAF that Shafiq had the momentum. The support of the military and the institutions of the deep state became even bolder, so much so that many political analysts thought the elections were practically over. To push this sentiment of inevitability, SCAF threw caution to the wind and committed a major error in judgment.  In fact, it might have actually cost Shafiq the election.

Since the standoff between SCAF and the MB in March, it was widely known that SCAF could push for the dissolution of the elected parliament at any time in order to check the MB’s rise to power. The argument advanced by many pro-revolution groups that had reservations in supporting Mursi was that they did not want the MB to have unchecked control over both branches of government, the legislative and the executive. So when the High Constitutional Court dissolved the parliament two days before the elections, this brazen act of disregard for the electoral will of the Egyptian people actually backfired. A major segment of the Egyptian electorate, who intended to boycott or invalidate their votes, were so infuriated that they decided to vote for Mursi even if they initially did not intend to cast a vote at all (in the final count, less than 1 percent of the electorate invalidated their votes by checking both names on the ballot). Had a half million people out of over 25 million votes cast flipped their votes, the military’s candidate would have won.)

Last winter, in a moment of candor President Jimmy Carter said after meeting with SCAF’s leaders that the military had no intention of relinquishing power. In recent weeks it became quite clear what that observation meant. First, SCAF would utilize the instruments of power of the deep state to install its candidate. If such a scheme did not materialize, SCAF had a back-up plan. In such a case, it would not only take several actions that strip the real powers of the elected president (if he comes from the revolutionary camp), but also usurp all the legislative and executive powers from the newly empowered groups.

Many political figures including former presidential candidate Abol Fotouh called SCAF’s blatant acts “a soft military coup d’état.” Here are a few examples of the power grab measures taken by SCAF in a matter of days:

1)    On June 14, SCAF sent the army to occupy the parliamentary building in anticipation of the dissolution of parliament by the High Court. Within days it issued its own decree to dissolve the parliament and reclaimed all legislative powers to itself. Typically when the parliament is dissolved, the president would be granted temporary legislative powers, to be reviewed later by the parliament when it is reconstituted.

2)    On the same day the Justice Minister made a mockery of the repealed martial laws by effectively restoring the emergency laws and empowering the military and security agencies to arrest and detain anyone indefinitely, as well as to try in military courts any person deemed a threat to public order.

3)    Within two hours of the closing of the polls on June 17, SCAF unilaterally issued a sweeping amended constitutional declaration that effectively transferred much of the presidential powers to itself. For example, it stripped the president of his role as commander-in-chief of the armed forces and gave it to SCAF’s top general, Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi. It prevented the president from promoting or dismissing any military personnel. It also granted itself veto power over any decision by the president related to any military matter including the declaration of war or any domestic use of the armed forces.

Now instead of the military working under the country’s president, the new declaration places the democratically elected president under the thumb of the military. It must be noted that such incredible measures are not dissimilar to the infamous and disastrous 1997 Turkish military coup d’état against the late Prime Minister Necmttin Erbakan.

4)    SCAF stripped the president and the executive branch from any matters related to the state budget. It even declared its own budget secret and not subject to any accountability while providing itself total immunity.

5)    Further, SCAF imposed its will on the new president by effectively retaining for itself the appointment of the most senior cabinet positions such as defense, foreign, and interior ministries, police, finance, justice, and intelligence.

6)    SCAF also started the process of dissolving the one-hundred member constitution-writing committee, appointed delicately by the parliament last week from across all the spectrum of Egyptian political and civil society. In the new constitutional declaration, SCAF gave itself the right to reappoint the one-hundred committee members in a direct violation of the constitutional amendments passed by the people in the March 2011 referendum.

Moreover, if that committee refused to give the military its coveted special status in the new constitution, SCAF claimed a veto power over any articles written in the draft. If the committee then overrides SCAF’s veto, the declaration empowers Mubarak’s appointed judges in the High Court to decide the dispute between the two parties, in an incredible attempt to impose the military’s dictates on the country.

7)    One day after the elections, as it became apparent that SCAF’s candidate was defeated, SCAF issued another decree that revived the National Defense Council (NDC), a body that has been dormant since the late 1980s.  The function of this council is to make decisions on all strategic, defense, and national security matters. In another affront to the first-ever civilian (not to mention democratically elected) president, the NDC’s members comprise eleven generals (all from SCAF) and only five civilians, including the president. It decides all matters by a majority vote, thus tying the hands of the president regardless of where he stands on a particular issue.

8)    Not content with its sweeping power grab, SCAF’s head, Tantawi, then issued another decree appointing one of his assistants, another military general, as the chief of staff of the new elected president to act as the eyes and ears of SCAF over the new president before he even took office. In the eyes of the military the new (read puppet) president would not even be allowed to appoint his own chief of staff.

As expected this wholesale usurpation of power by the military was universally condemned not only by the new elected president, the MB, and the rest of the revolutionary groups, but also by most civil society groups and public figures. Meanwhile, counting on a business as usual with the MB, SCAF has quietly started another tactic to pressure the MB into submission. It revived a court case seeking the dissolution of the MB, declaring it an illegal group and confiscating its assets. A decision on the matter is expected soon.

One of the reasons that SCAF hopes to get its way this time is because it relies on its experience during the last year of making behind-the-scenes deals with the MB. In fact, just a week before the elections, MB deputy leader and strongman Khairat El-Shater met with senior SCAF leaders, offering them a deal that would have granted the military generals many (but not all) of their requests in return for an accommodation of the MB candidate. SCAF’s response was cold and aloof, believing that their candidate was a shoe-in in the elections without the need to compromise.  Little did El-Shater know, they were in fact preparing not only to defeat the Islamic candidate but also to dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood-led parliament.

But after the dissolution of parliament and the anticipated disbanding of the constitution-writing committee, as well as the usurpation of legislative and executive powers by SCAF, the MB decided to re-join the other pro-revolution and civil society groups in challenging the military’s suffocating control over the country, taking to the streets in massive numbers in all of this week.

This showdown between SCAF and the deep state on one hand, and the pro-revolution forces (newly empowered by the defeat of the military’s candidate) promises to engulf the country for the days and weeks ahead. If the Islamic parties led by the MB and the other pro-revolution supporters led by the youth groups, as well as many respected judges across the country such as Judge Husam El-Gheryani (head of the Supreme Judiciary Council as well as the chairman of the constitution-writing committee) join together and take a firm stand against the military, then it might be very difficult for SCAF to have its way.

The demands of the revolutionary groups should be clear: the return of the military to its barracks without any interference of the political or civilian affairs of the state. SCAF must immediately rescind its unconstitutional declaration usurping the legislative and executive powers from the democratically elected parliament and president. It should also cease all efforts to dissolve the constitution-writing committee and allow the political process as negotiated by all various political parties to take place. It should finally halt its behind-the-scenes manipulation of the judiciary to interfere in political matters.

The pro-revolution forces have fortunately dodged a bullet by defeating the military’s candidate. But the struggle to reclaim their revolution must continue to persist. This time all pro-revolution and pro-democracy groups must realize that they will have to swim or drown together as they face the last battle to dismantle the military and security state. No more making behind-closed-doors deals or giving the benefit of the doubt in a tacit understanding between the military and some political groups. The MB must realize that it gained more than 7.5M votes (for a total of 13.3M) from the pro-revolution forces in the second round, after reaching its peak in the first round with 5.8M votes. It must show respect and offer real partnership to these groups.

Hall of fame baseball player Yogi Berra once said, “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice there is.” In theory, pro-revolution supporters should put all their disagreements aside and unite until their remarkable revolution prevails as all counter-revolutionary elements within the state are purged and all the obstacles to its ultimate success are eradicated. It is indeed prudent to think that all such groups could set aside their differences (whether perceived or real) once they realize how hard and to what extent their opponents are determined to break their spirit for real change.

Revolutions are ultimately about the simultaneous act of a great number of people who decide to stand up for the greater good of society over self-interest. Such selfless conduct is often accompanied with the willingness to sacrifice whatever it takes to fulfill the genuine desire for public good and human progress.

Esam Al-Amin can be contacted at alamin1919@gmail.com

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June 20, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Obama Regime: Federal Agents Should Be Allowed To Hold Guns To The Heads Of Children

Ninth Circuit to DEA: Putting a Gun to an 11-Year-Old’s Head Is Not OK

By Mike Riggs | Reason | June 18, 2012

At 7 a.m. on January 20, 2007, DEA agents battered down the door to Thomas and Rosalie Avina’s mobile home in Seeley, California, in search of suspected drug trafficker Louis Alvarez. Thomas Avina met the agents in his living room and told them they were making a mistake. Shouting “Don’t you fucking move,” the agents forced Thomas Avina to the floor at gunpoint, and handcuffed him and his wife, who had been lying on a couch in the living room. As the officers made their way to the back of the house, where the Avina’s 11-year-old and 14-year-old daughters were sleeping, Rosalie Avina screamed, “Don’t hurt my babies. Don’t hurt my babies.”

The agents entered the 14-year-old girl’s room first, shouting “Get down on the fucking ground.” The girl, who was lying on her bed, rolled onto the floor, where the agents handcuffed her. Next they went to the 11-year-old’s room. The girl was sleeping. Agents woke her up by shouting “Get down on the fucking ground.” The girl’s eyes shot open, but she was, according to her own testimony, “frozen in fear.” So the agents dragged her onto the floor. While one agent handcuffed her, another held a gun to her head.

Moments later the two daughters were carried into the living room and placed next to their parents on the floor while DEA agents ransacked their home. After 30 minutes, the agents removed the children’s handcuffs. After two hours, the agents realized they had the wrong house—the product of a sloppy license plate transcription—and left.

In 2008, the Avinas—mom, dad, and both daughters—filed a federal suit against the DEA for excessive use of force, assault, and battery in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. That court ruled in favor of the DEA, and the Avinas appealed. Last week, the family got justice.

While the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals defended the agents’ rough treatment of Thomas and Rosalie, it also declared that yanking the Avina children of their beds and putting guns to their heads did, in fact, constitute the “intentional infliction of emotional distress.” (Read the Obama administration’s defense of the DEA agents.)

“A jury could find that the agents pointed their guns at the head of an eleven-year-old girl, ‘like they were going to shoot [her],’ while she lay on the floor in handcuffs, and that it was excessive for them to do so,” reads the Ninth Circuit’s decision, which was filed June 12. “Similarly, a jury could find that the agents’ decision to force the two girls to lie face down on the floor with their hands cuffed behind their backs was unreasonable.”

More from the decision:

Under our case law, an issue of material fact exists as to whether the actions of the agents were excessive in light of the ages of B.S.A. (age eleven) and B.F.A. (age fourteen) and the limited threat they posed. See Tekle, 511 F.3d 839 (holding that officers were not entitled to summary judgment on excessive force claim where officers pointed guns at an eleven-year-old boy’s head during the arrest of the boy’s father); Motley v. Parks, 432 F.3d 1072, 1089 (9th Cir. 2005) (en banc) (holding that officer’s act of pointing a gun at an infant during the search of a gang member’s house was objectively unreasonable); see also McDonald ex rel. McDonald v. Haskins, 966 F.2d 292, 294-95 (7th Cir. 1992) (holding that officer’s act of pointing his gun at a nine-year-old’s head during the search of home was excessive use of force). Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the United States on B.F.A.’s and B.S.A.’s claims for assault and battery.

In a footnote, the court wrote:

Although there is evidence that the agents released the girls from their handcuffs once they realized how young they were, there is also evidence that the agents knew, prior to entering the girls’ bedrooms, that the girls were children. Rosalie testified that, as the agents were heading towards the girls’ rooms, she screamed at the agents several times, “Don’t hurt my babies.” Moreover, one of the agents testified at his deposition that, when he first saw one of the girls (presumably the older of the two girls), she appeared to be “12 [or] 13 years old.”

The ruling concludes:

Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Avinas, a rational trier of fact could find that agents engaged in “extreme or outrageous” conduct when the agents: (1) pointed their guns at the head of eleven-year-old B.S.A. “like they were going to shoot [her]” while B.S.A. was lying on the floor in handcuffs; (2) forced eleven-year-old B.S.A. and fourteen-year-old B.F.A. to lie face down on the floor with their hands cuffed behind their backs; (3) left B.S.A. and B.F.A. in handcuffs for half an hour; and (4) yelled at eleven-year-old B.S.A. and fourteen-year-old B.F.A. to “[g]et down on the f[uck]ing ground.” See Tekle, 511 F.3d at 856 (holding that officers were not entitled to summary judgment on claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress where officers pointed guns at eleven-year old’s head during the arrest of the eleven-year-old’s father); see also id. at 859 (Fisher, J., concurring). Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the United States on B.F.A.’s and B.S.A.’s claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

As a side note: While this raid was conducted under President George W. Bush, the deputy administrator of the DEA at that time was Michele Leonhart. She is now the administrator of the DEA, thanks to an appointment by President Barack Obama. Furthermore, the Obama Administration could have declined to defend the DEA in this case. Instead, Obama’s Justice Department has decided to make the case that federal agents should be allowed to hold guns to the heads of children.

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June 19, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Island of Impunity: Puerto Rico’s Outlaw Police Force

ACLU | June 19, 2012

A report released by the ACLU in June 2012 concludes that the Puerto Rico Police Department is plagued by a culture of unrestrained abuse and impunity. The PRPD – which, with over 17,000 officers, is the second-largest police department in the U.S – is charged with policing the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

After a comprehensive six-month investigation of policing practices in Puerto Rico, building on eight years of work by the ACLU of Puerto Rico documenting cases of police brutality, the ACLU has concluded that the PRPD commits serious and rampant abuses in violation Puerto Ricans’ constitutional and human rights, including:

  • Use of excessive and lethal force against civilians, especially in poor and Black neighborhoods and Dominican communities, often resulting in serious injury and death. Read More»
  • Violent suppression of peaceful protestors using batons, rubber bullets, and a toxic form of tear gas that was phased out by mainland U.S. police departments in the 1960’s. Read More»
  • Failure to protect victims of domestic violence and to investigate reported crimes of domestic violence, rape, and other gender-based crimes. Read More»

The ACLU’s research shows that these abuses do not represent isolated incidents or aberrant behavior by a few rogue officers, but that such police brutality is pervasive and systemic, island-wide and ongoing. In fact, our research has found that the PRPD’s disciplinary, investigatory, and reporting systems prevent accountability. Read more»

The report offers numerous detailed recommendations, including:

  • The Justice Department should enter into a court-enforceable and court-monitored agreement with the PRPD.
  • The PRPD should develop and implement policies on the use of force, improved training, the investigation of civilian complaints of police abuse, and the discipline of officers.
  • Puerto Rico’s legislature should create an independent and effective oversight body to monitor the PRPD. Read more»

The ACLU’s report comes nine months after the release of a scathing U.S. Justice Department report on the PRPD, which found a pattern and practice of constitutional violations by the department, including widespread use of excessive force. The Justice Department investigation, the findings of which were long-delayed, focused on 2004 to 2008. The ACLU’s report focuses on incidents from 2007 through May 2012.

pr_report_cover.jpg

Read and download the ACLU’s report: “Island of Impunity”

Download the full report » (PDF)
Read the Executive Summary » (PDF)
Descargar el resumen ejecutivo del informe en español » (PDF)

See also:

Slideshow: Police Brutality and Unjustified Use of Lethal Force in Puerto Rico

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June 19, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Muslim Brotherhood Announces Mursi’s Victory in Elections

Al-Manar | June 18, 2012

The Muslim Brotherhood declared early Monday that its candidate, Mohammed Mursi, won Egypt’s presidential election over Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister Ahmad Shafiq.

But the military handed itself the lion’s share power over the new president, sharpening the possibility of confrontation. With parliament dissolved and martial law effectively in force, the generals issued an interim constitution granting themselves sweeping authorities that ensure their hold on the state and subordinate the president.

The Muslim Brotherhood said Sunday it did not recognize the dissolution of parliament, where it was the largest party. It also rejected the military’s right to issue an interim constitution and oversee the drafting of a new one.

Official final results are not due until Thursday, and Shafiq’s campaign challenged the Brotherhood claim, which was based on the group’s compilation of election officials’ returns from nearly all polling centers nationwide.

But at their campaign headquarters, the Brotherhood officials and supporters were ebullient over the turn of fate.

In a victory speech at the headquarters, Mursi said he seeks “stability, love and brotherhood for the Egyptian civil, national, democratic, constitutional and modern state”.

“Thank God, who successfully led us to this blessed revolution. Thank God, who guided the people of Egypt to this correct path, the road of freedom, democracy,” the 60-year-old U.S.-educated engineer declared.

He vowed to all Egyptians, “men, women, mothers, sisters … all political factions, the Muslims, the Christians” to be “a servant for all of them.” “We are not about taking revenge or settling scores. We are all brothers of this nation, we own it together, and we are equal in rights and duties.”

“Down with military rule,” the supporters chanted at the headquarters.

“The next phase is more difficult. We must all unite against the oppressive rule of the military council,” MB founder Ahmed Maher said.

By the group’s count, Mursi took 13.2 million votes, or 51.8 percent, to Shafiq’s 48.1 percent out of 25.5 million votes with more than 99 percent of the more than 13,000 poll centers counted.

The Brotherhood’s early, partial counts proved generally accurate in last month’s first round vote.

The Shafiq campaign accused the Brotherhood of “deceiving the people” by declaring victory. A campaign spokesman on the independent ONTV channel said counting was still going on with Shafiq slightly ahead so far.

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June 18, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , , | Leave a comment

Muslim Brotherhood rejects dissolution of Egyptian parliament

Press TV – June 16, 2012

The Muslim Brotherhood has rejected the military’s decision to dissolve the Egyptian parliament and has demanded that a referendum be held on the issue.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which secured the biggest bloc of seats in two rounds of parliamentary elections in December 2011 and January 2012, issued a statement on Saturday saying “dangerous days” were ahead and the political gains of the revolution that toppled former dictator Hosni Mubarak on February 11, 2011 could be wiped out.

The parliament should only be dissolved by a popular referendum, and the order to dissolve the assembly “represents a coup against the whole democratic process,” the statement added.

The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) — the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood — said in another statement that the decision showed the military council’s desire to “take possession of all powers despite the will of the people.”

Egypt’s ruling military council formally announced the dissolution of the parliament on Saturday following a Supreme Court ruling earlier in the week.

Some critics have compared the move to the beginning of Algeria’s civil war in 1992, when the army cancelled an election an Islamic party was winning.

Egyptians are casting their ballots in a two-day presidential runoff election that began on Saturday and runs until Sunday which pits the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, Mohammed Morsi, against former Prime Minister Ahmad Shafiq.

More than 50 million people are eligible to vote.

Early results of expatriates’ votes show Morsi has won 78 percent.

The ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has vowed to hand over power to the winner of the election by July 1.

Many Egyptians fear that Shafiq is the undeclared candidate of the junta and that the military-appointed election committee overseeing the election will rig the vote in favor of Shafiq.

Angry Egyptian protesters have held many demonstrations across the country in which they urged the authorities to ban all remnants of the Mubarak regime from running as candidates in elections.

June 16, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , , , , | Leave a comment

Issa Amro, coordinator of Youth Against Settlements, arrested at border on way to speaking tour

15 June 2012 | Popular Struggle Coordination Committee

Issa Amro, Coordinator of Youth Against Settlements, was stopped last night by Israeli authorities at the Allenby Bridge. He was arrested and taken to Hebron police station, where he was interrogated for hours on suspicion of involvement in organizing the women’s action that took place in Hebron last Wednesday, at the segregated Shuhada Street.

Amro, was traveling to Italy for a speaking tour organized by the Italian Peace Association to meet Members of the Italian Parliament and Senate, and municipality representatives from different Italian cities.

Issa Amro, a prominent popular resistance activist in Hebron, was arrested several times in the past by the Israeli army for participating in activities to protest the occupation practices in Hebron. Throughout the past few years, Youth Against Settlements has been leading the global campaign to re-open Shuhada street, Hebron’s main commerce center that was closed to Palestinian movement in 1994.

Last Wednesday, approximately 15 Israeli and International women dressed in Palestinian traditional clothing walked through Shuhada Street in silence protesting the policy of preventing Palestinian women from accessing the street. The women were shortly stopped by Israeli soldiers and attacked by both soldiers and settlers. Five activists and one journalist were arrested during the action. Later that day, a Palestinian man was also arrested on suspicion of “conspiracy” related to the same action. All seven were released throughout the next 24 hours, three on condition of a 90 day restraining order from area A and the Hebron area.

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June 15, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Secret Obama Trade Agreement Would Allow Foreign Corporations to Avoid U.S. Laws

By Noel Brinkerhoff | AllGov | June 15, 2012

In order to secure a new international trade agreement with Pacific nations, the Obama administration appears willing to grant foreign corporations the power to avoid U.S. laws.

This revelation came in the form of a leaked document posted online by Citizens Trade Campaign. The material came from negotiations to establish a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact and its authenticity verified by Public Citizen.

According to the Huffington Post, which also reviewed the document, foreign corporations operating within the U.S. could disregard certain domestic requirements and regulations by appealing to an international tribunal—that would have the power to overrule American law.

“The outrageous stuff in this leaked text,” wrote Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, “may well be why U.S. trade officials have been so extremely secretive about these past two years of [trade] negotiations.”

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Congress have complained about the secretive talks and being kept in the dark. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) has introduced legislation requiring the administration to disclose details of the discussions.

Although Congress has not been privy to the negotiations, 600 U.S. corporate advisers have enjoyed access to TPP texts and been permitted to advise U.S. negotiators.

~

Obama Trade Document Leaked, Revealing New Corporate Powers And Broken Campaign Promises (by Zach Carter, Huffington Post)

Public Interest Analysis of Leaked Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Investment Text (by Lori Wallach and Todd Tucker, Public Citizen)

Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement Chapter (CitizensTrade.org)

What will be in the New U.S. Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement? It’s None of Our Business (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)

June 15, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , | Leave a comment

The True Face of Egypt’s Military

By ESAM AL-AMIN | CounterPunch | June 15, 2012

The masks dropped. The cards are shown.

For over a year, Egyptians have wondered who was leading the efforts to frustrate and obliterate their nascent revolution, or what was dubbed in the local media as the “third party” or the “hidden bandit.”

But the mystery is no more.

It was none other than the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the same body that took power from deposed president Hosni Mubarak under the guise of leading the transitional period towards democracy. It was a masterful work of political art.

The final act was on display on Thursday, June 14, 2012, when Egypt’s High Constitutional Court (HCC) not only ruled against banning the military’s candidate and Mubarak’s last Prime Minister, Gen. Ahmad Shafiq, but also dissolved parliament, the only institution that represented the political will of the people in post-revolutionary Egypt. It is important to note that all the justices on the HCC were appointed by Mubarak, and that most if not all are considered regime loyalists.

Incidentally, last March, Parliamentary Speaker and MB leader, Dr. Saad Katatni, said that he was told, in the presence of SCAF’s deputy commander, Gen. Sami Anan, by SCAF’s appointed Prime Minister Dr. Kamal Ganzouri, that the order to dissolve the parliament was in the drawer but would come at the appropriate time.

This dramatic announcement was therefore followed by the parliament passing a law banning most of the former senior officials of the Mubarak regime (including Shafiq) from politics on the grounds of corrupting Egypt’s political life and institutions for decades. Nevertheless, Shafiq was shortly reinstated by the Presidential Elections Commission (PEC) even though it had no jurisdiction on the matter. It is perhaps important to note that the head of the PEC is also the Chief Justice of the HCC. He declared on the same day that the parliamentary elections’ law (that resulted in the victory of the Islamic parties, led by the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), winning seventy five percent of the seats) was unconstitutional. It was the same law that several of the same justices assured all political parties last summer that it passed constitutional muster.

With this brazen act of thwarting the political will of the Egyptian people, the emerging Islamic and revolutionary parties have now been totally stripped of their political ascendency, less than five months after their rise to power. This was accomplished simply by utilizing the institutions of the deep state crafted by a regime that was controlled for decades by corrupt officials, senior military officers, and intelligence agencies. Further, a Mubarak era military man is now on the verge of being “elected” president using the assorted tools of the democratic process.

One of the major demands of the revolution was to end the three-decade old emergency law that allowed the security agencies and the military to arbitrarily arrest and abuse the civil and human rights of any activist at will. But under tremendous public pressure throughout last year, these laws were repealed at the end of last May. But what was kicked out of the door crawled back through the window. Egypt’s Justice Minister announced this week, less than two weeks after the repeal went into effect, that he was empowering all military officers and intelligence personnel to arrest indefinitely any person deemed a security threat to public order.

In a transparently coordinated fashion, before parliament could react to this shameless challenge to the essence of the revolution, it was dissolved within 24 hours by the High Court. Further, within minutes of the decision to dissolve the parliament, hundreds of military and security officers occupied its buildings, preventing any member to enter or even clear their offices. In short, Egypt has come a full circle, the transition to democracy was aborted, the process hijacked, and its remarkable revolution put on life support.

The final act of quietly killing the hopes of Egypt’s youth and the aspirations of its people is coming this Sunday when the presidential elections end in the declaration of a Shafiq presidency. The other candidate in this charade is represented by the MB’s Dr. Muhammad Mursi. For weeks, the MB has been warning against elections fraud perpetrated by the institutions of the deep state and led by its security and intelligence services.

For example, the Elections Commission has refused to hand over the voter lists, which it had no problem doing last winter during the parliamentary elections. But the problem is that these same lists have now increased by a whopping 4.5 million voters, raising suspicions of multiple registrations of regime loyalists who might vote multiple times in different provinces over the two-day elections process (for example 200 thousand regime loyalists voting in twenty different precincts.) Furthermore, elections officials announced that they would refuse to allow elections’ monitors to stay in the same rooms where the ballot boxes are left unattended for 12 hours between the first and the second days of the elections, although they were allowed to stay in and watch the boxes overnight in the previous parliamentary elections last winter.

In addition, the government announced that it is giving all its 6 million employees a two-day vacation and free public transportation to boost participation (an indirect prodding of government employees and their families to vote for Shafiq). In a blatant violation of elections’ laws, hundreds of millions of pounds have been spent on media propaganda to boost SCAF’s candidate, as well as payments to local officials especially in the delta region, to secure the peasants’ votes.

In a nutshell, the intense involvement of the security state is now in the open. But most Egyptians are frustrated and feel that they have been robbed of making a choice consistent with their sixteen-month popular uprising. Before their own eyes they see how the Mubarak regime is slowly being re-invented with the full backing of state institutions under the direction of SCAF, the same military that promised to fulfill the objectives of the revolution.

Most pro-revolution groups, activists, and public intellectuals have called on MB’s candidate Mursi to withdraw from the presidential elections so as to deny the military’s candidate any claim of legitimacy once he is “elected.” But in its desperate attempt to show any achievement in its one-year dalliance with SCAF, it appears that the MB is pressing ahead with the elections. Once again the Islamic group has demonstrated its inability to join in, let alone lead, any revolutionary path, even though its leaders understand fully the determination of SCAF and the state institutions to manipulate the elections and force their candidate on the rest of the people.

During his final interview before the elections, Mursi understood the stakes and his long electoral odds as the elections are being manipulated. Although he believed that he would easily win in free and fair elections, he admitted that elections’ fraud were certain to take place. He further said that he was recently told by President Jimmy Carter that Mubarak was for decades “sleeping in Israel’s bed,” and that “Shafiq would follow in his footsteps.” The former president, who raised many concerns about the first round elections, had earlier stated that he did not believe that the military would hand over power to civilian rule.

Meanwhile, Shafiq, who does not deny his admiration for Mubarak and considers him a role model, has brazenly declared that his first state visit would be to the U.S. in order to signal that he was its preferred candidate. He also said that he would not only keep the peace treaty with Israel, but would also deepen it.

Thus, the MB’s delusion that SCAF will allow it to contest power will soon be exposed. Sooner or later the group will realize that it simply can neither outmaneuver nor win against the military or the deep security state on its own. It will have to fundamentally change its strategic choices and genuinely adopt the revolutionary path in order to defeat the entrenched interests of the deep state. Even if by some miracle their candidate wins the election, the past year has demonstrated that in every state-controlled institution, including the judiciary, no real change will take place unless all the counter-revolutionary elements are purged, a concept that is lost on the MB’s leadership that is used to slow approach reforms or behind-the-scenes questionable deals to preserve its interests.

Disappointed, yet again, with the MB’s attitude to ignore their consensus, most of the revolutionary groups have vowed to press on with their revolution that has been deeply, but not yet gravely, wounded. Former presidential candidate Dr. Abdel Moneim Abol Fotouh, a favorite among many revolutionary and youth groups, has declared that the latest decisions by the High Court allowing the candidacy of Shafiq and the dissolution of parliament were nothing short of a soft coup d’état orchestrated by the military. He called for the immediate establishment of a revolutionary leadership council comprised of all pro-revolution groups and leaders to challenge the military hold on power and Shafiq’s inevitable presidency.

Sensing these threats dozens of such groups that have sacrificed so much since the early days of the revolution, have vowed to join in and continue the difficult struggle to dislodge the military and achieve the main objective of the revolution in establishing a true democratic civil state and ending the culture of the deep security state. Thousands have taken to the streets, while hundreds started a sit-in in Tahrir Square.

They now quietly admit that a hard lesson has been learned. This time their slogan is not “the people and the army are one.” Rather their cry is: “This time we are serious, we will not leave it (the revolution) to anyone.”

Esam Al-Amin can be contacted at alamin1919@gmail.com

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June 15, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Residents Open Gate That Closed Their Village’s Main Entrance

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | June 13, 2012

Dozens of youth of Nabi Saleh Palestinian village, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah, opened on Tuesday evening, the main gate that was installed by the army at the entrance of their village; clashes were reported between the residents and Israeli soldiers.

The Palestine News network reported that dozens of youths broke the chains and locks that were sealing the iron gate, and managed to open it despite the Israeli army attempts to prevent them by firing rounds of live ammunition, and gas bombs. Dozens of residents were treated for the effects of teargas inhalation.

The illegally installed gate was placed by the Israeli army closing the main entrance of Nabi Saleh, depriving the residents from using the road, the only paved road that leads to the village, forcing them to use a longer, unpaved bypass road.

Nabi Saleh village is one of several Palestinian villages that hold weekly nonviolent protests against the illegal Annexation Wall and settlements built on privately owned Palestinian lands, preventing the residents from accessing their orchards.

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June 13, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Victims’ Rights and 9/11 State Violence

By KATHRYN FENSTER | CounterPunch | June 12, 2012

A baseball-esk ID card, one man and an army of drones now determine the fate of a 17 year old girl in Yemen.  As the moral scale on determinations to label terrorists and to legitimate counter-terrorism tilts away from the Allegiance’s pledge to “liberty and justice for all”, September 11th, 2001 remains a current issue.

On the evening of September 10 2001 I was welcomed home by a voicemail from my best friend Zoe Falkenberg.  She proudly told me that she had ridden in a limo to the airport, I bet it was one of those normal airport shuttles misleading called limos.  Zoe and I were two of an inseparable trio, friends who had fought and loved as sisters since the early months of our lives, when we began sharing a nanny.  Zoe called from the airport; she was leaving the next morning for Australia with her little sister Dana, her dad Charlie Falkenberg, and her mom Leslie Whittington.  Mama Les was taking her sabbatical at a university there.

September 11, 2001 was a sunny Tuesday, picturesque clouds spread beautifully across a splendidly blue sky.  I was an 8 year old in Mrs. Kelly’s 4th grade class at University Park Elementary School in University Park, MD.  An administrator announced over the PA system that there would be an early dismissal, one thirty I think.  There was a funny atmosphere, I think there was a movie playing in our classroom, I was doing something for the teacher with colored computer paper.  Not the kind with bright colors, the sad kind that comes in creepy green and peculiar purple.  A lot of parents were picking their kids up early, mine didn’t.  After we were officially dismissed, my dad came to pick up a neighbor and me, her dad was still teaching.  My dad had a funny look on his face, a strained smile.   After arriving at my home, my neighbor and I began playing beanie babies in my top bunk.  At some point I must have speculated about the peculiarity of the day because my neighbor told me she had heard something about planes crashing in the sky.  The story line of our beanie baby game included planes crashing in the sky.  When my mom got home she talked to my dad, and then laid in an unusual way on the hammock in our back yard, I was watching through my window.

Once my neighbor’s parents picked her up I went down to join my family.  I sat down on the green and white striped self-standing hammock.  My parents were standing in front of me,my older brother was nearby.  I was cheery, after all I had gotten out of school early then spent an afternoon playing with a friend.  Then my parents told me that Zoe and her family were gone forever.  My parents must have said that their plane crashed too, but I only remember hearing that my Zoe F and her family were gone forever.

In the years following the attacks, the Falkenbergs have never been far from my mind, but I thought of the people themselves, not of the attack as a whole.  And then in May of last year, US troops killed Osama Bin Laden.  While my facebook newsfeed roared with patriotic statuses, I could not understand why I was not overwhelmed with pride in my country’s recent feat.  I found myself reading Osama Bin Laden’s obituary in the New York Times, trying to rationalize the experiences that lead him to project so much trauma into my own life.  Not long after, the faces of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, Ramzi bin al Shibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi appeared on the public television screens.  The broadcast was to announce that the prime 9/11/01 suspects were to be tried in military tribunals at Guantánamo Bay.  I felt as if I were eight years old again.

It pains me to know that the US government is using the deaths of the Falkenbergs, and thousands of other innocents, to justify atrocious human rights violations.  Anthropological theory can help to explain how human rights violations against the 9/11/01 suspects, including torture, and refusal of due process, inherently violate the rights of both those victims murdered and those still living.  My specific usage of victim defines persons whose lives were profoundly affected by the attacks, mainly those involved in the attacks and their loved ones.  The methods used for interrogation of the 9/11/01 suspects, and the decision to try the suspects in military commissions instead of criminal courts violate the rights of the victims both dead and alive and forces victims into accomplices in the state’s violence.

During their detention, Guantánamo prisoners including the 9/11/01 suspects have been subjected to violations against their basic human rights, including protection from torture.  Interrogators use knowledge of Islamic religious beliefs and values to embarrass and mutilate the detainees’ spiritual rights.  These coercion tactics include female interrogators rubbing red dye that signifies menstrual blood on prisoners to make them dirty, preventing the men’s ability to pray. Waterboarding is another form of torture practiced at Guantánamo, entailing drowning simulation to produce a panic response in the victim.  Mohammed is one of three prisoners who former CIA director General Michael Hayden has publicly recognized as having been subjected to the now explicitly illegal, waterboarding .

The alleged use of these torture  tactics is to discover whether or not the suspects were involved in the 9/11/01 attacks,  to learn more about the attacks, and to prevent future acts of terror, all while seeking justice for the victims.  However, in April of 2011 Attorney General Eric Holder stated that the justice department had developed a strong case to seek the death penalty for the five suspects up for trial Evidence retrieved from torture can be used in military commissions; coerced evidence is not legitimate in criminal courts.  Thus, because Holder stated that the plaintiff legal team was prepared to prosecute Mohammed, bin Attash, bin al Shibh, Abdul Aziz Ali, and al Hawsawi in federal courts, we can assume that there is a sufficient amount of evidence for their persecution that was not obtained through torture.  If there is sufficient legitimate evidence to prosecute the suspects then the Guantánamo torture is unnecessary for a successful judicial trial, making the human rights abuses against these men superfluous for conventional justice.

In addition to violating the rights of the attack suspects, the human rights abuses against the suspects inherently violate the rights of the 9/11/01 victims to dignity postmortem.  One specific atrocity was committed against Mohammad al-Quahtani, the sixth 9/11/01 suspect who has been denied trial, and will instead be held indefinitely at Guantánamo. The interrogator taped a picture of a 9/11/01 victim to his pants.  The use of this image violates the rights of the dead victims to peace postmortem.   But more than that, by using a victim’s image as a tool to harm the suspects, interrogators force the victims’ bodies into tools of aggression.

By invoking the deaths and images of 9/11/01 victims to abuse the suspects, the military interrogators reverse the victim/perpetrator roles.  The dead do not have agency, but by using the deaths of thousands of innocents to justify these human rights abuses, the state forces the victims into the role of accomplice for the state’s violence against Mohammed, bin Attash,  bin al Shibh, Abdul Aziz Ali, al Hawsawi, and al-Quahtani.   The state mutilates the dead victims’ bodies into tools of aggression, forcing the victims into the guise of perpetrator, and allowing the attack suspects to become victims.  Therefore by torturing the 9/11/01 suspects in the name of justice for those killed on September 11th 2001, the state distorts the victims’ positions as innocents murdered on a tragic day, into allies for terrorism.

This violation of the rights of the victims murdered on 9/11/01 has also yielded a violation of the rights of those victims still alive.  The violation of dead victim’s rights leaves one with the question: who is the aggressor, the men whose motivations for and true involvement in the terrorist attacks remain unknown, or the state that consciously links victimized innocents with torture?  This confusion is a problem for the legitimacy of the state because, while the presence of the state remains guaranteed, the state’s threat mars its position as a place of justice.  The threat of the state prevents living victims from understanding the state as a space for justice.  And if we cannot find justice within the bounds of our state, then what can we hope for in a military tribunal at Guantánamo, a place defined by its occupation as outside the binds of law?

Military commissions contain provisions that deny fair trials, and silence defendants, and in doing so, violate their human rights.  For example, the allowance of evidence coerced during cruel and inhumane conditions denies the suspects of their right to due process.   Also, both the judge and the jury are military appointed, thus an unbiased hearing is not possible, denying the suspects of even a chance of their right to due process.  In addition, military commissions bar civilians and press from large portions of the trials.  By excluding civilians and press from the trials, the military commissions prevent a witness to controversial trial proceedings.  The exclusion of civilians from certain trial proceedings also prevents living victims from learning information about the terror attacks that have so much influenced their lives, an important part of healing.  Moreover,  at least bin al Shibh and al Hawsawi have submitted requests to represent themselves, however their appointed military council have thus far prevented this occurrence on the grounds of mental incompetency.  By denying the 9/11/01 suspects the opportunity to speak on their own behalf, the military tribunals refuse to allow a trial in which any sort of justice is possible.  The military commissions are denying justice in their silencing of the suspects because the commissions abjure the defendants of an opportunity to fight for themselves and for their own lives, in essence denying the suspects of their right to life.  Some might say that these state-labeled terrorists do not deserve the chance to defend their own life.  Nevertheless, denying the 9/11/01 suspects a criminal court trial violates both the rights of the suspects to a fair trial and of the living victims to the information that military commissions refuse.

The images and the information that the government has released of and about Mohammed, bin Attash, bin al Shibh, Abdul Aziz Ali, and al Hawsawi has forced the general public to other these men.   The images of the suspects are their Guantánamo mug shots, taken after years of torture.  The result is that the representation of the 9/11/01 suspects broadcast to the public is one of men who the public cannot relate too, and so instead we distance ourselves from these men and other them into the unquestionable group of 9/11 terrorists.

Othering prevents true justice because it refuses the opportunity to question the state’s actions and in doing so forces living victims into accomplices in the state’s violence. By denying the 9/11/01 victims the opportunity to gain information about each of these men’s involvement in the attacks, through both military and suspect testimonies, military commissions abjure living victims of the opportunity to gain the information about both the attacks and the 9/11/01 suspects that is necessary to individualize the suspects and their crimes.  While Mohammed, bin Attash, bin al Shibh, Abdul Aziz Ali, and al Hawsawi remain abstractly as the 9/11 terror suspects, we do not feel an obligation to recognize their individual rights, therefore we do not question the way in which the state treats them.  The denial of information forces silence and in doing so impels us to reflect the position that silence assumes.  One of accompaniment with the government as it commits human rights violations in the name of our dead.  Thus, not only does the denial of transparency inherent in military commissions violate the rights of the 9/11/01 suspects, this abjuration also refuses living victims of their right to information, and in doing so forces us into the role of accomplice to the government’s human rights violations.

Therefore, in violating the rights of Mohammed, bin Attash, bin al Shibh, Abdul Aziz Ali, and al Hawsawi, the state also violates the rights of 9/11/01 victims both living and dead. The state forces dead victims into accomplice roles in violence.  The state withholds information from living victims, causing their othering of the suspects and subsequent position of silence regarding the suspects’ human rights, ultimately forcing living victims to be complicit in the state’s human rights violations.  The National Defense Authorization Act gives the president the discretionary power to order military detention of suspected terrorists.  Obama signed the NDAA into law on New Years Eve of 2011.  This law allows us all to be arbitrarily declared as terrorist suspects. We can no longer allow our government to determine the legacy of September 11th 2001.

Kathryn Fenster is originally from Prince Georges County, MD. She is an anthropology major at Grinnell College, Grinnell Iowa. She can be reached at fensterk@grinnell.edu.

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June 12, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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