Detainee Alleges Abuse in CIA Prison
The idiocy of President Bush's stance, that he rejects torture but refuses to clarify which acts he would consider to be torture, were highlighted in the transcript of the US tribunal against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who the US accuse of involvement in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 and allegedly organising the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.
His lawyer stated:"The detainee states that he was tortured into confession and once he made a confession his captors were happy and they stopped torturing him," Nashiri's representative read to the tribunal, according to the transcript. "Also, the detainee states that he made up stories during the torture in order to get it to stop."
As any confession obtained through torture is ultimately useless, certainly in obtaining any conviction that carries any certainty of fairness, one wonders why Bush allows such ambiguity on America's position on this?
Tortured people would say anything to make the torturer stop, isn't that the very reason that they are being tortured in the first place? Therefore, no confession obtained by such means can be considered reliable.
And, as Bush refuses to clearly state that the US does not indulge in such practices, isn't he holding out this as a form of defence for every al-Qaeda suspect that he is going to bring before these tribunals?
I am sure the detainee's claims will have no effect on the military tribunal that Bush has formed for the express purpose of finding these guys guilty; however, it does have an effect on how the rest of the world view any guilty findings made by this same tribunal.
The fact that the US are engaging in torture has already been established by Amnesty International.
H (Name withheld) could not see what went on inside the interrogation room but she could hear the screams and some of the questions asked during the interrogations. Whenever interrogators brought in a new prisoner, they would always bring in a block of ice. She did not know why they brought the ice or how they used it during interrogation. But the interrogation sessions always included the ice block and were followed, a few hours later, by a visit to the prisoner, who by then would be unconscious, by two doctors, an American and an Iraqi. The prisoners were invariably taken out of the interrogation room unconscious.Nor are these isolated incidents, but rather seem part of an established pattern.
Amnesty International has presented consistent allegations of brutality and cruelty by US agents against detainees in Iraq and other US detention facilities across the world at the highest levels of the US Government, including the White House, the Department of Defense, and the State Department for the past two years.Supporters of the Bush administration will no doubt dismiss any claims from prisoners that they only confessed because of torture, but surely even the most ardent supporter of the Bush regime would have to concede that, the very fact that there is even a hint that US authorities are engaging in such a practice, makes any guilty verdict carry less moral conviction than it would otherwise have done?
A confession gained by such means would not be admissible in a civilian court of law, which is perhaps the real reason why the Bushites are so determined to try these men in front of military tribunals.
Getting an American civilian jury to convict swarthy foreigners accused of terrorism against Americans can hardly be the most difficult job any American prosecutor has ever been handed.
Therefore, there are many of us who suspect that there must be other reasons as to why Bush is so adamant that he will not go down that path. As more and more of them take the stand and profess that their confessions were obtained through torture, many of us will believe that this is one of the reasons that Bush chose this path.
But, more importantly, none of us will ever be sure that they have got the right people behind bars. How does that make anyone feel more safe?
The policy is not only immoral, it's dumb.
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8 comments:
The case of David Hicks, an Australian man who is the first person to be prosecuted in the Bush military commissions is relevant here. He was singled out as the lab rat at the Guantanamo torture camp, enduring the longest periods of solitary confinement and all the other horrors (i think the FBI rather than Amnesty are perhaps a better source in this respect).
Last week he pleaded guilty to "providing material support to terrorists". As part of his plea Hicks has denied that he was abused or mistreated at Guantanamo. It is just like a Stalinist show trial.
Follow this case at Leftwrites.
W.
I was going to point out how by law how these types of things are required to be prosecuted by military courts due to various reasons, not the least of which is necessary standards of evidence, but instead I thought I'd address this.
Getting an American civilian jury to convict swarthy foreigners accused of terrorism against Americans can hardly be the most difficult job any American prosecutor has ever been handed.
While it may or may not have been intentional, this is referred to as anti-Americanism. What you have done here is try to promote your argument by characterizing most Americans as racist.
Personal observation, from having lived in the UK for three years and having spent additional years of my life in other parts of Europe and the world, the US seems to me to be far less racist than pretty much anywhere I've been to in Europe. But as I said, that's a personal observation and one I can't or wouldn't care to back up with any figures.
Anonymous, Thanks for that. I'll add leftwrites to my blogroll.
Jason,
Cheap jibe. I wasn't implying that Americans are rascist at all. I was implying that the term "Muslim terrorist" is thrown at Americans night and day and that the US is kept in an almost constant state of fear by this administration.
It's a bit like Irish people accused of IRA crimes in Britain in the eighties. There was such a mentality of fear, and a belief that the government knew much more than we did, that many high profile cases of innocent people being jailed took place. In many cases the police lied and withheld evidence, but the jury always gave them the benefit of the doubt as they were worried about letting a terrorist go.
Kel,
Not meant to be a cheap jibe and my mistake if I misinterpreted it, but "Getting an American civilian jury to convict swarthy foreigners" certainly came across to me as implying that an American jury was likely to be racist. Otherwise, why refer to "swarthy foreigners"?
the US is kept in an almost constant state of fear
On what do you judge that we are in a constant state of fear? I can't say I've noticed any palpable fear since right after 9/11.
Nice site, I've browsed through a bit and like your thinking, a little to the left of mine on the political spectrum but I enjoyed reading your thoughts very much. Diversity is, after all a good thing.
If you have any free time feel free to vistit my blog http://pthermopylae.blogspot.com/ which I just recently started.
I certainly didn't mean to imply that Americans were rascist, sorry if I gave that impression. I meant that the stress on "Muslim" terrorists was so prevalent that a guilty verdict would be easier to obtain based on the fact that the accused is a member of this vilified group, in the same way that an Irish person found it very difficult not to be found guilty by association in my country during the eighties at the height of the IRA atrocities.
As for Americans being kept in a state of fear, every speech Bush makes seems to me to imply that he is fighting terrorists overseas to stop them reaching America's shores. I take it that he was re-elected because some people take that argument seriously, which is what I mean by keeping people in a state of fear. I'm not saying that all Americans are walking about shitting themselves, but I do think Bush is pushing a world vision where people's fears are played on.
Leonidas,
I've looked at your site which I liked. I'll visit again. And it's nice to have you over here. Feel free to join in. As you say, diversity is needed.
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