Justice Stevens Schools John Yoo

Posted on June 30, 2006 by Mash

 

Justice John Paul Stevens vs. John Yoo

 

"Even assuming that Hamden is a dangerous individual who would cause great harm or death to innocent civilians given the opportunity, the Executive nevertheless must comply with the prevailing rule of law in undertaking to try him and subject him to criminal punishment. " – Justice John Paul Stevens writing the majority opinion of the United States Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, et. al.

The United States Supreme Court today rejected the Bush Administration’s contention that it could ignore the United States Constitution and laws and set up kangaroo courts in which to try detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. The Court rejected the argument that the Congress had stripped its jurisdiction by enacting the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005. The Court also held that the Executive Branch must obey the law of war, the Geneva Conventions (including Common Article 3), and the UCMJ. In short, the Court held that the President is not above the law, even in a time of war.

By holding that the President must obey the laws, Justice Stevens took a giant bite out of the Unitary Executive theory that the Bush Administration loves and cherishes so much.  In rather short order, the legal arguments put forth by John Yoo justifying torture now begin to crumble. The Court’s holding that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions binds the actions of the Executive nullifies the argument used by this Administration to exclude parts of Article 3 from the latest Army Field Manual on interrogation. A house of cards built on the fantasy of an unchecked ruler has crumbled today upon colliding with the United States Constitution.

The Bush Administration’s arguments for Executive overreach have never had firm legal grounding. Their grounding has been based on fear and fanaticism. The debate has always been between fanaticism and reason. Today reason won a temporary reprieve. But the fanatics are still in charge of the Ship of State. The Administration’s principal premise, whether it is to justify torture or to justify indefinite detention, has been that the people we are holding are bad, evil, horrible. Therefore, anything we do to them is justified. Every overreaching act of the Bush Administration has been predicated on that fundamental premise.

The Bush Administration tortures a prisoner because it assumes a priori that the prisoner is a terrorist. Therefore, to extract valuable intelligence that might save lives the Administration must torture the terrorist. The bush Administration detains a prisoner indefinitely because it assumes a priori that the prisoner is a terrorist. Therefore, to protect the safety of all Americans the Administration must detain the terrorist indefinitely.

This underlying premise that all we hold are terrorists has emotional appeal to supporters of the Bush Administration and many Americans who are terrified of an unseen and unpredictable enemy. The Administration knows this and never misses an opportunity to perpetuate this notion:

“The important thing here to understand is that the people that are at Guantanamo are bad people.”

“I mean, these are terrorists for the most part. These are people that were captured in the battlefield of Afghanistan or rounded up as part of the al Qaeda network."

”We’ve already screened the detainees there and released a number, sent them back to their home countries. But what’s left is hard core.”  – Vice President Dick Cheney, June 2005

The Administration’s supporters duly follow this line that everyone at Guantanamo Bay and everyone the United States tortures is a terrorist. However, there is plenty of evidence that this is not the case. Many prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were sold to the Americans by enterprising Pakistanis and Afghanis for hefty fees. A large number of these detainees were later found to be innocent and some have been released. There are others at Guantanamo, like Abdur Sayed Rahman and Muhibullah, who are being held there for reasons that defy sanity:

But there are many more, it seems, who sound like Abdur Sayed Rahman, a self-described Pakistani villager who says he was arrested at his modest home in January 2002, flown off to Afghanistan and later accused of being the deputy foreign minister of that country’s deposed Taliban regime.

"I am only a chicken farmer in Pakistan," he protested to American military officers at Guantánamo. "My name is Abdur Sayed Rahman. Abdur Zahid Rahman was the deputy foreign minister of the Taliban."

…

At one review hearing last year, an Afghan referred to by the single name Muhibullah denied accusations that he was either the former Taliban governor of Shibarghan Province or had worked for the governor. The solution to his case should have been simple, Mr. Muhibullah suggested to the three American officers reviewing his case: They should contact the Shibarghan governor and ask him.

But the presiding Marine Corps colonel said it was really up to the detainee to try to contact the governor. Assuming that the annual review board denied his petition for freedom, noted the officer, whose name was censored from the document, Mr. Muhibullah would have a year to do so.

"How do I find the governor of Shibarghan or anybody?" the detainee asked.

"Write to them," the presiding officer responded. "We know that it is difficult but you need to do your best."

"I appreciate your suggestion, but it is not that easy," Mr. Muhibullah said.

The Bush Administration not only detains people without charge who are not terrorists they have also kidnapped and tortured people who are not terrorists. By not following the laws or international Conventions, the Bush Administration has denied itself the tools to determine who is truly a terrorist and who is being unjustly held and tortured. But, based on their principal premise, the distinction between guilt and innocence need not be made.

Having lost the legal fight it remains to be seen if the Bush Administration will be able to stoke the flames of fear enough to convince the American people to look the other way as it continues to torture and detain "terrorists". The Supreme Court has spoken; will the President listen?

Posted in Constitution, Human Rights, Politics, Terrorism, Torture | 2 Comments

The SWIFT Boating Of The Media – A Third World Perspective

Posted on June 28, 2006 by Mash

 

SWIFT

 

I have largely ignored the New York Times report about the Bush Administration’s tracking of international banking transactions. I have done so mainly because this is a non-story. Almost everyone with a pulse had to assume that the Government was monitoring the highly regulated world of international banking. It would be monumentally stupid to assume that financial transactions that are so tightly regulated would not be monitored. So, it came as quite a surprise when the Bush Administration started to accuse the New York Times of divulging secrets that the rest of the world already knew.

As Dan Froomkin pointed out in today’s Washington Post, the "double super secret" organization that the New York Times mentioned in its article is not so secret. SWIFT, or the Society for Worldwide InterBank Financial Telecommunication, is a very public organization that facilitates international bank-to-bank communications. According to its very public website:

SWIFT is the financial industry-owned co-operative supplying secure, standardised messaging services and interface software to 7,800 financial institutions in more than 200 countries. SWIFT’s worldwide community includes banks, broker/dealers and investment managers, as well as their market infrastructures in payments, securities, treasury and trade.

So, it is quite clear that SWIFT is not a "secret" organization. SWIFT also claims on its website that it cooperates with law enforcement, including the US Department of Treasury, to prevent illegal acts and it complies with valid subpoenas. However, tonight on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, terrorism analyst Roger Cressey suggested that though SWIFT may have had a website, it was not widely publicized until the New York Times splashed it across its front page. So, I decided to take a look at how well-known SWIFT was before the New York Times published its article.

Since I am originally from Bangladesh, and Bangladesh is a Third World Muslim majority country, I thought a good place to start would be to find out if an ordinary Bangladeshi might be familiar with SWIFT. With that in mind, I decided to take a look at what a Bangladeshi might have to do if he or she wanted to send money back home. A reasonable place to start would be the Bangladeshi Embassy. It turns out that the Embassy offers its citizens advice on how to remit funds to Bangladesh through participating American banks. It also lists the participating banks’ SWIFT Codes to facilitate the wire transfers. For example, if you wanted to use the Bank of New York to wire money to Bangladesh you would contact the bank at:

Bank of New York
Head Office: One Wall Street, New York, NY 10286, USA
Tel:+ 1212 495 1784, Fax:+1 212 635 1799
E-mail: comments@bankofuy.com SWIFT: IRVTUS3N

Clearly, a Bangladeshi national abroad will become familiar with SWIFT if he tries to wire money home.

But, what about Bangladeshis living in Bangladesh? It turns out that SWIFT is quite the marketing tool in Bangladesh. Banks regularly tout their membership in SWIFT to demonstrate their stability and international connections. For example, the Bangladesh Krishi Bank, which was founded to provide banking services to farmers in Bangladesh, proudly advertises its membership in SWIFT:

Bangladesh Krishi Bank is now a proud member of SWIFT. It is connected with modern international financial tele communication system. L/C advising/transferring and quick transfer of remittances as well as other financial correspondences have become very easy & speedy with the installation of SWIFT.

So, apparently Bangladeshi farmers are also aware of SWIFT.

Ok, so what happens if you are not a Bangladeshi farmer or living abroad. Perhaps you might read a newspaper in Bangladesh and happen to browse the business section of one of the major newspapers, The Daily Star. You might run into an article announcing:

CM Koyes Sami, managing director of The Oriental Bank Limited, has been re-elected chairperson of SWIFT member Group of Bangladesh for the term 2004-2005.

SWIFT is a worldwide community, with head quarter in Belgium, having over 7,500 financial institutions in 199 countries as its members, says a press release.

The guiding principles of SWIFT are to offer the financial services industry a common platform of advanced technology and access to shared solutions through which each member can build its competitive edge.

The organisation is engaged in supplying secure, standardised messaging services and interface software to its members.

The SWIFT community includes commercial banks, investment managers, as well as other market infrastructures requiring payments, and transferring securities, treasury and trade.

The fact of the matter is that SWIFT is ubiquitous in the Third World and known to anyone who attempts to transfer money overseas. If you want to do business with a Bangladeshi company and would like to transfer funds, you must know the company’s bank account number and the bank’s corresponding SWIFT Code. Here is a tariff card of a Bangladeshi company. Feel free to send some money to them.

In case you might be under the impression that Bangladesh might be an exception, here is a link to Nepal’s tourism website that announces that major banks in Nepal use the SWIFT system to transfer money abroad. My guess is that since most of the Third World seems to know about SWIFT, I would not be going out on a limb if I posited that al Queda also knows about SWIFT.

So, is Tony Snow that stupid? After all, when asked about how national security was compromised by the New York Times he said this at the White House briefing: "I am absolutely sure they didn’t know about SWIFT." Someone should tell Mr. Snow that most of the underdeveloped world knew about SWIFT well before the New York Times published its article. It appears the only people who thought this was a secret were the Bush Administration. The question then becomes: Is the Bush Administration’s intelligence that bad or do they think we are idiots?

Posted in Foreign Policy, Politics, Terrorism | 10 Comments

David Beckham’s Right Foot And Zinedine Zidane’s Artistry

Posted on June 28, 2006 by Mash

 

David Beckham and Zinedine Zidane

 

Both England and France have advanced into the quarterfinals of the 2006 World Cup on the backs of their respective captains and aging stars. While the young stars of world soccer continue to shine at this year’s World Cup, the old guard still remind us why we love this game and their contributions to it.

In England’s round of 16 match against Ecuador, David Beckham demonstrated why his right foot is considered a national treasure in England. Beckham scored the game winner with a brilliant free kick in the second half. Even though Beckham was sick before the game, he stayed on the pitch throughout the game and struck when it counted. He became dehydrated and vomited on the field during the game. In spite of his distress, he captained England into the quarterfinals. Click here to watch the video of his sublime free kick.

Zinedine Zidane is perhaps the greatest soccer player of our time. He may also be one of the greatest of all time. He is a master on the ball and his passing and dribbling are nothing short of art. On top of all that, he is a magnificent goal scorer. Zidane has said that he will retire after this World Cup. With that in mind, I watched today’s round of 16 match between France and Spain. France prevailed 3-1 against the Spaniards. France’s second goal came off of Zidane’s free kick and Zidane put the game away with a wonderful solo effort for a third goal with time running out. YouTube does not yet have video of today’s match. So, instead, here are two videos of Zidane’s goals while playing for Real Madrid. In the first video the Irish commentator apparently has an orgasm from watching Zidane score. In the second video, the Spanish commentator wins the prize for the longest rendition of "gooaaaaal" ever captured on tape. Enjoy!

 

Posted in World Cup | 14 Comments

A Parting Of Ways In Iraq

Posted on June 27, 2006 by Mash

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-MalikiOver the weekend Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki offered a national reconciliation plan to the Iraqi National Assembly. The plan offered to the Assembly was lacking some of the more controversial clauses that were part of an earlier draft. Nonetheless the plan signals the beginning of the end of the American occupation of Iraq.

The Prime Minister’s gambit comes a week after his national security advisor floated the idea of a timetable for an American military withdrawal from Iraq. Maliki’s plan highlights the important cross currents in Iraq that the Bush Administration has thus far failed to appreciate or understand. There are three separate wars raging in Iraq. There is a war between the occupying forces and the Iraqi national resistance; there is a war between the United States and the jihadists; and, finally there is a civil war between the Shia, Sunni and Kurds. The United States is fighting only one of these wars – the war against the jihadists.

Maliki’s reconciliation plan aims to end the war against the occupation only. This is the war the United States has been sleepwalking through in its quest to fight the War on Terror on Iraqi soil. The key elements of the national reconciliation plan that address the occupation are:

  • A call for a timetable for the withdrawal of all occupying forces
  • Release of all security detainees being held by the occupying forces
  • Amnesty for resistance forces but not "terrorists" 

These elements of the reconciliation plan have appeal to all major factions in Iraq with the possible exception of the Jihadist foreign fighters. An American withdrawal will take the oxygen out of the Jihadists’ campaign in Iraq. With the Americans gone, the foreign Jihadists become easy targets for native Iraqis and are likely to be driven out rather quickly. With the American withdrawal, Iraq will cease to be a battleground in the war between the United States and the jihadists; a new battleground will undoubtedly be chosen, but at least Iraq will be spared.

A withdrawal of American forces has been the goal of Iraqi Shia, Sunni and Kurds from the outset. However, they have had differing agendas on when and how the withdrawal should take place. The Sunni have always resisted the Americans because they understood that the longer the Americans stay in Iraq, the more firmly the majority Shia will consolidate their hold on power.

The Shia have used the American occupation as cover to consolidate power. They have very astutely managed to ride the American occupation without losing their political independence. You will note that the spiritual leader of the Shia, the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has never once met with any American official – choosing instead to work through intermediaries to influence events. Having now consolidated power, the Shia are ready to remove the "training wheels" by asking the Americans to leave.

The Kurds are the faction in Iraq who can afford to wait the longest for the Americans to leave. However, make no mistake, they certainly want the Americans to leave. They have used the occupation to quietly position their militias around the city of Kirkuk. However, they have made no attempt to take Kirkuk while the Americans are on the ground in Iraq. The Kurds view Kirkuk, with its vast oil wealth, as the future capital of Kurdistan. They will almost certainly take Kirkuk after an American withdrawal from Iraq.

The release of all security detainees being held by American forces is another plank of the plan to end the occupation. Iraqis view these detainees as the resistance and similar to prisoners of war. Thus, they expect that at the end of hostilities, that is, when the Americans withdraw, these prisoners will be released.

The call for amnesty for the Iraqi resistance is perhaps the most controversial element of Maliki’s plan. However, it is a necessary condition for the Iraqis. The earlier draft of the plan made a distinction between "resistance" and "terrorists". This is a crucial distinction for the Iraqis. But the definition of "terrorist" is not the same in Baghdad as it is in Washington. It is clear to the Iraqis that the "resistance" is any Iraqi engaged in attacking American soldiers. To Washington, what Iraqis call the "resistance" are "terrorists". However, when Maliki or the Shia ruling alliance call someone a "terrorist" they are referring to both foreign Jihadists and Sunnis who are engaged in sectarian violence against the Shia. Washington makes no such distinction when it comes to "terrorist"; in Washington, everyone involved in violence in Iraq is a terrorist. When Maliki’s plan calls for offering amnesty to the "resistance" he is aiming to end the occupation, not the civil war. This is an important distinction that the Bush Administration and much of the American press fail to understand.

The American occupation of Iraq was always destined to end. Whether President Bush chooses to "cut and run" or leave at the request of the Iraqis, the occupation by its very nature was always time limited. The Iraqis have always known it. The only unknown was how much havoc it was going to cause Iraqi society. Unfortunately, the more intractable conflict will continue to rage. That is the civil war between the three main factions in Iraq. There is little indication that the civil war is going to subside any time in the future. All indications are that it continues to rage and is likely to get worse. Maliki’s plan, even if it is implemented, will do very little to quell the civil war. The tensions that have been unleashed by the American invasion of Iraq are now set to play themselves out. That tension, manifested in the current Iraqi civil war, has the potential of becoming a regional conflict. If that happens, the legacy of George W Bush will not only be a failed invasion of Iraq but also a destabilization of the entire region.

Posted in Foreign Policy, Iraq, Terrorism | 7 Comments

A Mother Tortured

Posted on June 25, 2006 by Mash

 

Torture Awareness Month

 

This morning I attended a teach-in at the Georgetown University Law Center on Torture and Extraordinary Rendition. The panelists discussed the issue of torture, current torture cases, and pending legislation that will attempt to stop the Bush Administration from torturing. There were many legal, constitutional, and practical arguments put forth as to why torture should not be practiced. However, one argument stood out amongst all the rest. That argument was made by Nora Mislem – a woman, a mother, a torture survivor. In this post I want to tell you her story as best as I can convey with written words. Her story is her argument against torture.

Nora MislemNora Mislem is from Honduras. In the early 1980s she was amongst a group of leftist students in Honduras who went to the Salvadoran border to assist refugees fleeing El Salvador. During this time the Honduran government was running CIA backed death squads to crush and terrorize the opposition. The Reagan Administration, in its proxy war against Marxist guerrillas in Central America, was training and supporting ruthless regimes in Honduras and other neighboring countries. In Honduras, the most notorious acts of murder and torture were being carried out by a CIA trained unit called Battalion 316. In 1981 and again in 1982 Nora Mislem was kidnapped by men from Battalion 316.

Under the custody of Battalion 316, Nora Mislem suffered torture like countless other victims. I sat silent today in the auditorium as she recounted in Spanish what horrors her torturers inflicted upon her. Every once in a while she paused as her translator, Sister Maureen from Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition, described in English the horrors we knew she had spoken in her native tongue. In the next few sentences I will recount what I heard. But when I write them they will sound to the reader like many other tales of torture I am sure you have heard about. However, when I heard them today from her they were neither banal nor distant. They were the words of a human being who had suffered unimaginable horrors at the hands of monsters who continue to live among us.

Nora Mislem was tied up and hooded. She was handcuffed and tied with rubber tubing. She was told that her two-year-old son had been killed by the death squads in retaliation. She was told that soon her parents too would be killed. She was beaten. She was given electric shock all over her body including her genitals. A plastic bag was brought out. A machete was put to her head. She was told she was a dog. She was told her head would be cut off and put in the plastic bag for other dogs to eat. She was told that her genitals would be mutilated. She was repeatedly violated by her male torturers. Then without hope, she was released to live with the physical and emotional scars forever.

I asked her afterwards why she thinks she was tortured, what did her torturers hope to gain by torturing her? She said to me that she believes that she was tortured to instill fear and terror in the population. Others who dared to speak out against the government would face a similar fate. Her torture was an act of terrorism, not a method of interrogation. The purpose was to intimidate and humiliate. Ultimately she was tortured because the torturers had the freedom to torture without facing any consequences.

Nora Mislem’s story is not unique. Unfortunately she is one of many thousands of women, mothers, daughters, sisters and human beings around the world who carry the scars of torture with them every day of their lives. Her story is the story of torture. The Bush Administration has now made all Americans characters in the story of torture.

One of the participants at today’s teach-in made the point that the wrong discussion to have is whether torture as an interrogation technique works or not. That is irrelevant. Torture should not be allowed because it makes monsters of the torturers. When the Bush Administration decided that torture was acceptable, it dehumanized the Americans who are charged with practicing it. It dehumanized us as a people. In the 1980s the United States turned a blind eye when our allies practiced torture – today we have imported the practice and made it our own. Is this the nation we want to be?

Tomorrow, June 26th, has been designated by the United Nations as the International Day in Support of Survivors and Victims of Torture. There will be many events marking the day. After the events are over, many of us will move on with our lives. Occasionally we will rise in opposition to torture and hope our efforts will some day end this evil practice. In time Nora Mislem’s story will likely fade from our memories. However, for Mrs. Mislem and other survivors, torture is a lifelong tragedy. For her and for the thousands of others who continue to suffer torture we as a nation need to become human again. 

Events in Washington DC marking the 9th Annual U.N. International Day in Support of Survivors and Victims of Torture:

  • Beginning Monday, June 26th at 7 a.m., TASSC will hold a 24-hour Vigil in Lafayette Park in Washington, DC. Click here for the schedule. I plan on being there in the evening.
  • Amnesty International USA will lobby Congress tomorrow from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. to stop extraordinary rendition.
Posted in Human Rights, Torture | 8 Comments