The hammer falls on Guantanamo Bay
Due process for all?
Dean Jensen, Volunteer Staff
“Donald wept through the proceedings. His tears soaked the canvas that cloaked his twisted face and they stained his orange jumpsuit where with such rare distinction he once displayed the evidence of his outstanding contributions to the maintenance of kingdom come. But those days are gone.” — Glen Lambert
South of the border, our friends in the U.S. government are preparing to put to trial six men who, they claim, are somehow responsible for the attacks of 9-11. (Didn’t those planes explode? I can’t remember.) These men were captured outside of U.S. territory, and have been held, without charge, in Guantanamo Bay since 2003.
Presently, judges presiding over the military tribunal that is to jointly try these men are seeking the death penalty, should they be found guilty. Also up for debate is whether or not “evidence obtained through ‘aggressive’ methods such as waterboarding would be admissible,” says Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, the legal adviser to the American military tribunal system. Waterboarding, for those who are unaware, is a practice whereby the victim undergoes repeated “simulated” drowning while strapped down and otherwise helpless. It is considered a form of torture.
Waterboarding was a favoured practice during the Spanish Inquisition and has been condemned internationally countless times since. While the Congress banned United States military personnel from using the practice in 2005, that ban does not extend to the CIA. Malcolm Nance, an advisor to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2006, publicly stated that “waterboarding is a torture technique – period.” This aggressive interrogation method, according to CIA director Michael Hayden, has “been used on only about 30 of the 100 al-Qai’da suspects being held by the US,” including, of course, the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay.
Thirty to 100 people, eh? How’s that for restraint? But how many of these so-called al Qaida “suspects” were really terrorists and not merely anyone (Arab) in the wrong place at the wrong time?
In 1957, Henri Alleg, an Algerian journalist, was tortured by French (colonial) forces and forced to undergo waterboarding “treatment” so that he would cough up the names and addresses of sympathetic Algerians. In his book The Question, he describes the procedure: “I had the impression of drowning, and a terrible agony, that of death itself, took possession of me. In spite of myself, all the muscles of my body struggled uselessly to save me from suffocation. In spite of myself, the fingers of both my hands shook uncontrollably. ‘That’s it! He’s going to talk,’ said a voice.”
Under threat of imminent demise by way of “simulated” drowning, electric shocks, or plain old brutal beatings, wouldn’t anyone spew out a stream of confessions long enough to illicit indictments to whatever trumped up charges those holding the hose are seeking? Could it be, maybe, that this is presently the case in Guantanamo?
Equally (if not more) troubling is the fact that this “kangaroo court” of appointed military personnel act as judge, jury and executioner, all the while remaining part of a chain of command whereby they are subject to the orders of their superiors. In 1944, regarding the trial of captured Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita as a war criminal, dissenting American Supreme Court Justice Francis Murphy commented: “an uncurbed spirit of revenge and retribution, masked in formal legal procedure for the purposes of dealing with an enemy commander, can do more lasting harm than all the atrocities giving rise to that spirit.” Yamashita’s trial, while slightly different than the one pending presently, does indeed share similarities with the legal situation of the Guantanamo detainees through the disregard for American Constitutional guarantees, not to mention International Law, a concept which American governments regularly refuse to recognize.
In this case, the superiors have already decided that, guilty or not, these six prisoners are guilty as sin, and payment is long past due. To find otherwise would be to admit that the American government and military machine, from the lowest ranking grunt to the Commander-in-Chief, has made a mistake, and America never makes mistakes. Ever.
These goings-on down south should worry us, friends. If (and, almost undoubtedly, when) these six men hang, it will set yet another dangerous precedent in regards to American foreign and internal policy. Dissenters, national and international, will have been robbed of the process of law and due course of such things as international conventions; and rights to freedom and justice the Yanks claim to embrace themselves, are supposed to secure, for all people.
Again and again, the U.S. government, and, implicitly, all those who stand (or cower, in Canada’s case) behind it on the international stage have shown that those freedoms and justice they champion are but hollow shells of what should be. There is no freedom afforded those who refuse to ride for Brand America. Waterboarding, electro-shock, and such trivialities are only the beginning. Punishment, henceforth, will be swift, brutal, and entirely unhindered by false-fronted checks or balances. Anyone will talk, given the pressure. How much could you stand if the tables were suddenly turned? How about George, or Dick, or Donnie?
Turn back, now, all ye who lack in intestinal fortitude; fall in line behind the flag, and avert your eyes when you hear the trumpets’ sound. For the rest of you, friends; stand tall, and keep your heads up when the hammer falls.
Dean Jensen hears the tolling of a bell.
