Tag: bagram

This is a must read review in Salon of today’s court ruling on “Boumediene vs Bush”  written by Glenn Greenwald, which gives the history of the creation of Bush’s prison gulag in 2006 with the Military Commissions Act, and background and then says:

  Congratulations to the United States and Obama for winning the power to abduct people anywhere in the world and then imprison them for as long as they want with no judicial review of any kind.  

If you’re secretly kidnapped by, say,  a military for profit contractor and shipped off to Gitmo, the Bush DOJ contended that the detainee under Boumediene has a right to a hearing (when they get “around to it,” years later, if you survived the torture) but when you’re secretly kidnapped by Only God Knows What or Who and shipped off to Bagram’s Secret little hell holes in Afghanistan, then the non existent detainee has no rights to any such kind of hearing.  

Greenwald:

 In other words, the detainee’s Constitutional rights depends on where the Government decides to drop them off to be encaged.  One of the first acts undertaken by the Obama DOJ that actually shocked civil libertarians was when, last February, as The New York Times put it, Obama lawyers “told a federal judge that military detainees in Afghanistan have no legal right to challenge their imprisonment there, embracing a key argument of former President Bush’s legal team.”

But last April, John Bates, the Bush-43-appointed, right-wing judge overseeing the case, rejected the Bush/Obama position and held that Boumediene applies to detainees picked up outside of Afghanistan and then shipped to Bagram.  

But which Bagram are they being shipped to ?  The known Bagram Prison, or the one Gen McChrystal’s Secret Special Forces and the CIA and Blackwater Xe’s operations aren’t admitting the existence of ?  

From the ACLU’s A Ponzi Scheme of Torture

Chapter 4, Part 3  3/20/2010

http://www.thetorturereport.or…

(this same link in a form which does not jump all over the page when the mouse attempts to scroll over it here:  http://www.thetorturereport.or…  )

Timeline Summary of Binyam Mohamed and Abu Zubaydah:

April 2002.  Binyam Mohamed arrested in Pakistan.  Interrogated by the British Secret Service MI6. Tortured in Moroccan secret prisons.

Sept 2004 Binyam Mohamed sent to Guantanamo, from Bagram, Afghanistan. Although declared an

“enemy combatant”  Nov 2004, Binyam Mohamed decides not to participate in the military Tribunal created by President Bush in Oct 2001.

2005  Binyam Mohamed charged with conspiring against the U.S., with “Usama Bin Laden (a/k/a Abu Abdullah), Saif al Adel, Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri (a/k/a “the Doctor”), Mohammad Atef (a/k/a Abu Hafs al Masri), Abd al Hadi al Iraq, Zayn al Abidin Muammad Husayn (a/k/a Abu Zubayda hereinafter “Abu Zubayda”), Jose Padilla, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad” to commit acts of terrorism.

Zubaydah, the vanishing man-

(Binyam)Mohamed was formally recharged with conspiracy on May 28, 2008. The charge sheet is virtually identical to the one issued on November 4, 2005, except that Richard Reid’s name has been removed from paragraph (e) and every reference to Abu Zubaydah has been purged from the document. Where before “Binyam Mohammad then traveled to Birmel, Afghanistan and was introduced to Abu Zubayda” and “Abu Zubayda promised him training in Pakistan building remote control devices for explosives,” for example, now “Binyam Mohamed then traveled to Birmel Afghanistan, and trained on building remote control devices.” “After arriving in Lahore, Binyam Mohammad and Jose Padilla met with Abu Zubayda in private and discussed plans for attacks against the United States” and “Abu Zubayda stated he preferred Binyam Mohamed conduct an ‘overseas’ operation instead of going back to Afghanistan” became “After arriving in Lahore, Binyam Mohamed and Jose Padilla plotted attacks against the United States. After these discussions, Mohamed and Padilla agreed to be sent to the United States to conduct these operations rather than returning to Afghanistan.”23 [23]

Sept 22, 2008. Lt Col Darrel Vandeveld, US military Tribunal prosecutor, requests to resign his military commission, stating he had ethical qualms about continuing to prosecute Guantanamo detainees without evidence being made available for the defense.

Oct 20, 2008.  Pentagon dropped all charges against Binyam Mohamed and four other detainees whose original charge sheets had linked them to Abu Zubaydah.

Oct 21, 2008. The United Kingdom notifies the Foreign Office they are about to hand down notice on releasing CIA documents for Binyam Mohamed’s attorneys.

Oct 22, 2008.   The British courts rule.  A British – US diplomatic tug of war over who goes first, releasing what classified documents, trying to hide the torture evidence, results. This year, a few paragraphs were released, showing that the British govt. secret services did know of Binyam Mohamed’s incarceration.

Jan 22, 2009.  President Obama orders Guantanamo closed, bans torture, forms task force to review all cases.

Feb 23, 2010.  Binyam Mohamed finally freed and returned to the UK.

from Binyam Mohamed’s Statement the day he was released:

….For myself, the very worst moment came when I realised in Morocco that the people who were torturing me were receiving questions and materials from British intelligence. I had met with British intelligence in Pakistan. I had been open with them. Yet the very people who I hoped would come to my rescue, I later realised, had allied themselves with my abusers.

I am not asking for vengeance; only that the truth should be made known, so that nobody in the future should have to endure what I have endured.

h/t David Swanson

A large coalition of human rights groups has planned rallies and marches in major U.S. cities, including a rally in Washington, D.C.’s John Marshall Park at 11 a.m. followed by a noon march to the Justice Department where some participants will risk arrest in nonviolent protest if a special prosecutor for torture is not appointed.  Torture Accountability

For those who are not able to go to Washington, D.C., rallies are also planned for San Francisco, CA; Pasadena, CA; Thousand Oaks, CA; Boston, MA; Salt Lake City, UT; Seattle, WA; Portland, OR; Las Vegas, NV; Honolulu, HI; Tampa, FL; Philadelphia, PA; and Anchorage, AK, with details available online:  Events Across the U.S.  Hopefully, some of you will be able to attend one of these very important rallies.

Of interest, in San Francisco and Pasadena, citizens will submit a formal judicial misconduct complaint against 9th Circuit Court Judge, Jay Bybee, former Assistant Attorney General.   I can only think of this as a positive move in this maze of affiliates of considered, acted upon, carried out TORTURE!

Keep going!

Ex-detainees allege Bagram abuse

The Sunday editorial in the New York Times was highly critical of the recent decision of the Obama administration to appeal the D.C. Federal Appeals Court ruling allowing habeas rights to some prisoners at Bagram.

The government furthermore asked for a stay in the proceedings of any cases under this ruling:

In sum, the extensive harms to the Government and the public interest involved in further proceedings envisioned by the Court in these cases, and the likelihood of respondents’ success on the merits of appeal, strongly warrant a stay pending appeal.

The NYT editorial, “The Next Guantánamo,” put it this way: