A BBC World News article reports that senior Pakistani officials have traveled to the United States to negotiate for the release of 30 Pakistanis that remain at Guantanamo. Pakistan maintains that more than 50 of its citizens, arrested in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taleban regime, were not directly linked to al-Qaeda or any other militant organisation; instead, they were missionaries sympathetic to the Taliban but not linked to Al-Qaeda. American investigators apparently released 20 of the Pakistanis arrested at that time, but have held the remainder at the camp.
An article in today's Washington Post reports that the commander of the detention facility at Guantanamo — Major General Geoffrey Miller — has been transferred to Iraq to oversee the treatment of 8,000 detainees there. The move came after American soldiers working as guards at the American-run prison (formely Abu Ghraib) were charged with sexually and physically abusing inmates. According to military reports, guards at the prison forced prisoners to lie in ''a pyramid of naked detainees" and jumped on their prone bodies, while other detainees were ordered to strip and perform or simulate sex acts.
In an article in this week's National Journal, Stuart Taylor argues that "President Bush seems likely to lose the first big war-on-terrorism battle that has come before the Supreme Court." He bases his conclusion on the justices' questions and comments during the April 20 oral argument in the two consolidated Guantanamo cases, questions which Taylor said reveal a deep skepticism of the administration's claims. In response to the argument that the judicial branch might ultimately decide to defer jurisdiction, Taylor writes:
When presidents push their powers far beyond the legitimate needs of national security, the justices have sometimes put aside their usual deference to the commander-in-chief and pushed back. Bush has foolishly invited such a judicial response ever since his profoundly unwise decision in January 2002—when the military started flying prisoners from Afghanistan to Guantanamo—to spurn both due process and our nation's treaty commitments.
An article in Reuters today said that seven French nationals may soon be returned to their home country. According to the article, lawyers for some French suspects have accused Paris of not putting enough pressure on Washington to have them repatriated. They say Paris is too keen to mend ties with the United States that were frayed over the Iraq war, which France opposed.
In an editorial in today's Seattle Times, Western Washington University professor Floyd McKay worries about the consequences of the Supreme Court's decisions on the cases presented before them today and on April 20th. According to McKay:
There are many frightening aspects to these cases, not the least of which is the plight of any future American captured by a foreign government that then uses this as a precedent for indefinite imprisonment. Our actions appear to be in contradiction of international treaties and agreements, further eroding those basic extensions of human rights. But the most serious impact is what this says about us as a nation and our ability to defend our freedoms against authoritarian power... If the Supreme Court abandons the field, only the First Amendment rights of citizens and media remain to question unrestrained power.
An article in today's Washington Post details the problems faced by the legal team for Airman Ahmad al-Halabi. Apparently, military officials have maintained that the evidence against al-Halabi remains classified, though their explanation of why this is so keeps changing.
"Halabi remains in jail and has been in pre-trial confinement for nine months, and still the government does not have a consolidated, consistent or intelligible position on the classification of information" in the case, al-Halabi's attorneys wrote. "Each time the defense points out the flaws in the classification logic, a different reason for classification of information is created or invented."
According to the post, Al-Halabi, who has been held in solitary confinement on a California military base, is charged with mishandling classified material and attempted espionage, among other charges. The latter charge stems from an alleged plan, apparently never carried out, to pass information to someone in his native Syria.
Paul W. Butler, special assistant to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, told the Boston Globe in an interview this morning that the majority of the prisoners remaining in Guantanamo will be held indefinitely without recourse to trial.
'What I'm saying is that there is a large percentage right now who are either high threat or high intelligence value, that right now there's no intention to try them before a military commission," Butler told the Globe. ''They're dangerous. And we have a responsibility, both to our forces . . . and the rest of the world, to not let those people back out."
According to the Globe, Tom Wilner, a lawyer who argued last week at the Supreme Court, said he was glad to see the government confirming that most detainees won't go on trial. He has been trying to focus more attention on those detainees, he said, but the press and public have mostly thought of the process as one in which most detainees will either be convicted or acquitted. ''The ones who get a trial are the lucky ones," Wilner said. ''My 12 guys will never go before a tribunal, because they have no evidence against them."
According to a wire article from Reuters, Cuba is withdrawing a resolution calling for the United Nations to probe human rights abuses in Guantanamo. Cuba's ambassador to the U.N. claims Cuba is withdrawing the resolution because the United States and its allies were preparing to present a counter motion to prevent any action on Cuba's call.
Both Russia and Mexico had agreed to back Cuba over the past few days, but other countries had balked. Both Cuba and the United State have accused one another of political grandstanding at the UN meeting in Geneva.
According to a report on National Public Radio, the Pentagon's chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo military tribunals is leaving the job. Army Lt. Col. Robert Swann will succeed Army Col. Fred Borch, who leaves next month to take up a post at the Army's Judge Advocates General School. Borch gave no specific reason for his departure, saying he had "enjoyed every minute" of his job. President Bush has approved holding trials for six of the detainees, but trials have not yet been scheduled.
In an article in yesterday's Christian Science Monitor, Warren Richey stresses that the decision in the Guantanamo cases will have wide-ranging effects on the future of the American democratic system. According to Richey:
Legal challenges to the indefinite detention of Al Qaeda and Taliban suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have placed the US Supreme Court at a constitutional crossroads, with potential historic implications for the balance of power in American government. The dispute, set for oral argument before the high court Tuesday, isn't just about whether military detainees held overseas should get a hearing to justify their detention. Rather, the case is forcing the justices to confront far more fundamental questions about the powers of the president as commander in chief in wartime, and the authority of the court to act as a check on executive power when presidential action allegedly violates human rights
More excerpts from the oral arguments in the Supreme Court yesterday. Note that Justice Souter has helpfully explained the meaning of our logo — maybe he's been to the site!
Justice Souter (regarding whether or not the United States has jurisdiction in Guantanamo): ''We even protect the Cuban iguana!''
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (regarding the unique status of the base): "I think Guantanamo, everyone agrees, is an animal — there is no other like it.''
Justice John Paul Stevens (regarding Solicitor General Theodore Olson's opening statement, "We are at war") "The existence of the war is really irrelevant to the legal issue, is it not?"
More listening: Dahlia Lithwick provides an excellent court-side analysis of what's at stake in the Court cases today.
Like other observers, Lithwick noted that the judges refused to budge from the narrow framing of the case -- whether or not the courts had jurisdiction over the base. She also concurred with others in saying that the court seemed deeply divided. Even the "swing voters" were swinging in opposite directions: O'Connor concerned about the obvious differences between the current case and Eisentrager, Kennedy wondering aloud if agreeing that the court had jursdiction would open the door for anyone who's ever been a prisoner of war to seek a trial in an American court.
One point Lithwick made that I haven't seen elsewhere: while the current incarnation of the Supreme Court is generally sympathetic to the Bush Adminstration, they are also deeply invested in preserving the power of the Supreme Court itself.
Click on these links to hear the opening arguments made this morning at the Supreme Court for the consilidated cases of Rasul v Bush and Al Odah v Rumsfeld:
opening argument made by John Gibbons
opening argument made by John Gibbons
As a Washington Post article noted this afternoon, the court seemed divided along its usual left-right lines, with the four more liberal justices, Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer asking questions that suggested strong doubts about the Bush administration's claims, and two of the most conservative justices, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Antonin Scalia, seeming more supportive. Justice Clarence Thomas, as usual, remained silent. Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy, usually the swing votes in close cases, were less clear in their leanings, asking pointed questions of both sides.
Protestors outside the Supreme Court, 11:15 a.m., Tuesday, April 20.
A protestor discusses Guantanamo with tourists standing in line to the Supreme Court, 9:15 a.m., Tuesday, April 20.
Waiting in line to go into the Supreme Court, 8:30 a.m., Tuesday, April 20.
In an editorial about today's Supreme Court cases in the New York Times, Jonathan Hansen, a historian writing a history of Guantanamo Bay, argues that the idea of Cuban control over Guantanamo is a fiction which refers to a non-existent prior moment. "Cuba" as a sovereign nation never controlled the area. Hansen writes:
Not only was Guantánamo Spanish territory when the United States seized it in 1898, but the ensuing lease between Cuba and the United States formalizing American occupation was completed amid a climate of coercion...Congress had pledged America to Cuban independence, which raised the problem of how to secure United States political and economic interests in Cuba after the provisional American government departed. Congress resolved this problem in 1901 by passing the Platt Amendment, which curtailed Cuba's right to conduct its own foreign and fiscal policy, granted America the right to intervene at will in Cuban affairs, and compelled Cuba to "sell or lease to the United States lands necessary for coaling or naval stations at certain specified points, to be agreed upon by the president of the United States."
According to wire reports, the Alabama Attorney General's Office has filed a brief in support of the Adminstration's position on Guantanamo.
"It is simply not appropriate, prudent or lawful for our federal courts to second-guess and interfere with the battlefield decisions of military leaders that resulted in the capture and detention of these persons at Guantanamo Bay," Attorney General Troy King said.
Why the brief? My guess is that Alabama has a bone to pick after its own experience being "second-guessed" by Federal courts last year, after Alabama Supreme Chief Justice Roy Moore was ordered by the Federal District Court to remove a statue depicting the Ten Commandments from the courtroom building.
But wait. Doesn't that mean that Alabamans think THEIR Supreme Court should have the last word?
Two weeks after The New York Times ran a largely neutral article about the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo, An April 19 editorial comes down strongly in favor of a Supreme Court ruling against the detention practices. Calling the Guantanamo policies a "tragic mistake," the Times notes:
They are being followed closely abroad, where they are greatly harming America's reputation for fairness. And — as a group of retired American military officers argue in a friend-of-the-court brief — they will come back to haunt us when Americans are taken captive.
Most important of all, the treatment of the Guantánamo detainees is not true to America's guiding principles. "The practice of arbitrary imprisonments," Alexander Hamilton observed in Federalist No. 84, has been "in all ages" one of "the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny." Much has changed since Sept. 11, 2001, but one thing that has not is this nation's commitment to freedom, and to the rule of law.
An April 17 Washington Post article about Tuesday's Supreme Court arguments neatly summarizes both the obstacles faced by the court challenge to Guantanamo and the stakes involved in the desicion. According to Charles Lane:
"The cases arrive, in the middle of an election year, before a court that is heir to a long tradition of judicial deference to presidents in wartime -- but whose current members have shown little reluctance to second-guess or undo the actions of the other two branches of government. And the impact of the court's rulings -- due at about the same time the United States is scheduled to hand over power to an Iraqi government -- may extend well beyond U.S. borders, to allied governments and international public opinion, which often look to the United States as a symbol of freedom and the rule of law, but have been critical of Bush's approach so far."
In another eleventh-hour move, the administration has allowed one of interrogators of David Hicks, one of the Australian detainees, to appear on the new program 60 Minutes and reveal what Hicks had told him about his training with Al Qaeda. In an interview with ABC News Australia correspondent Lisa Millar, David Hicks' military lawyer, Major Michael Mori, expressed his concern over the sudden, unexpected revelations, given that he has had to work under a gag order:
LISA MILLAR: Major Mori, were you surprised to see that an interrogator was speaking out publicly about what he said he'd learned from David Hicks?
MICHAEL MORI: Well, I was little surprised in the fact that the very strict procedures that I must go through to speak to the media, I'm not sure if he was required to go through any of the same procedures.
LISA MILLAR: Did you learn anything new from what he had to say?
MICHAEL MORI: No, no and I really can't confirm or deny whether what he said is accurate, because I'm still under that protective order.
LISA MILLAR: And what about the information that David Hicks refused to be a suicide bomber?
MICHAEL MORI: Again, I can't say whether that's accurate or not. But I think the comments echoed what I've been saying all along – that David Hicks has not shot or injured any US service members. He's not a terrorist and he did not want to participate in any terrorist activities.
LISA MILLAR: But the interrogator did say David Hicks was in an al-Qaeda camp.
MICHAEL MORI: Again, I can't comment on whether it was accurate or not, but here is this person who claims to have knowledge, echoing the same thing that we've said all along – that he didn't shoot at, you know, US armed forces; that he wasn't a terrorist, and so it really raises the question of why he's been locked up for two-and-a-half years of his life almost.
LISA MILLAR: The information that you heard about David Hicks, do you think it's going to help or hinder your case?
MICHAEL MORI: Look, the only thing that is going to help David Hicks, is if he receives a fair trial and we're able to defend him in a fair justice system. That's the only thing that's going to help David Hicks and that's what we're fighting for and arguing for.
According to an April 16 report by the BBC, some 591 prisoners are still detained at Guantanamo. About 138 have been released unconditionally;
12 have been released into continued detention, including 7 Russians, 4 Saudis and 1 Spaniard.
On April 14, Charles Lane, legal analyist for Slate Magazine, took a closer look at Eisnetrager case, which the Administration is citing as legal precedent for their arguments about jurisdiction. In Habeus Schmabeas, Lane details the significant differences between Eisentrager and the current case before the Court:
"But in what may prove crucial ways, the facts of the cases are dissimilar. Jackson wrote "that the Constitution does not confer … an immunity from military trial and punishment upon an alien enemy engaged in the hostile service of a government at war with the United States." Yet, unlike the China-based Germans, the Guantanamo detainees do not seek to overturn the verdict in a trial against them; they are demanding one.
Nor are the two Britons, two Australians, and 12 Kuwaitis who are contesting their detention at Guantanamo "enemy aliens" in the sense Jackson meant—i.e., citizens of nations with which the United States is at war. Though allegedly hostile to the United States themselves, they are all citizens of friendly countries.
Why might these distinctions make a difference? They are not indisputably related to the jurisdictional question now before the court, but it is difficult to believe the court will be as sanguine about denying habeas jurisdiction in the context of prisoners who have had nothing like the substantial judicial process Eisentrager and company enjoyed. In addition, although Guantanamo is clearly not as much a part of the United States as, say, the old Panama Canal Zone was, it is also clearly not as foreign as postwar China or occupied Germany. Thus, the court may conclude that the unusual extent and duration of U.S. control there could justify jurisdiction in that one place"
In an April 14 article article in The Independent, Corin Redgrave, Head of the Guantanamo Human Rights Commission, described his recent visit to the United States and the Commission's efforts to free the remaining British prisoners in Guantanamo. In particular, Redgrave expressed concern about Moazzam Begg, whose father traveled to the States with the GHRC coalition. Begg's lawyers and family claim that Birmingham-raised Begg was a human rights worker with no contact with Al Qaeda.
Regarding Begg, Redgrave writes:
Mr Azmat Begg, Moazzam Begg's father, had a meeting with some officials at the Foreign Office in London. What they told him about his son's welfare was alarming. Moazzam is held in solitary confinement in that part of the prison called Camp Echo. He sees no natural light, and is only removed from his cell for exercise after dark. Prolonged deprivation of natural light can result in serious vitamin deficiency. Moazzam is "withdrawn".
An April 14 wire service article details the administrations new efforts to convince reporters that human rights violations at Guantanamo are "a myth." Days before the Supreme Court will here oral arguments on Guantanamo, camp officials opened the door to rooms used for interrogations, provided limited information on efforts to gather intelligence from prisoners and showed off a courtroom where military tribunals likely will be conducted. They also allowed some photographs of restricted areas and permitted interviews with interrogators and others who deal with the prisoners.
An April 15 wire article notes that the Guantanamo issue has finally been brought before the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations — ironically, by Cuba, a country that was cited for human rights violations at the same meeting.
The Cuban petition on what it described as the ''concentration camp'' at Guantanamo was made public a few minutes after the Commission approved, by a vote of 22 to 21, with 10 abstentions, the declaration criticising the human rights situation in Cuba, which was presented by Honduras.
An April 14 wire story announced that four Tajik citizens have been released from detention. Apparently, Richard Hoagland explained that the men "were no longer dangerous," thus, "The United States had no wish to interfere in their further personal life." Eight more Tajiks remain at Guantanamo.
On April 10-11, Amnesty International sponsored a gathering of detainee's families and human rights activists in Sana'a, Yemen; the group published an appeal for support directed at governments, NGO's and individual citizens. More information about Amnesty's Guantanamo Campaign is here, including information on protests outside of the Supreme Court on April 20 and 28.
On April 8, another legal challenge to the U.S. military tribunal system at the Guantanamo prison in Cuba was filed by military lawyer Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, who is representing one of the prisoners captured in Afghanistan. Swift filed the suit in his own name in U.S. District Court in Seattle, asserting the Bush administration's plans for his client violate the Constitution, federal law and the nation's obligations under the Geneva Conventions.
The suit asserts his client, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni, was never involved with al-Qaida or with any military action against U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He is described as a Muslim pilgrim who took a job as a driver on Osama bin Laden's Afghan farm and later became a driver for bin Laden himself.
On Wed, March 31, former detainee Jamal al Harith, 37, from Manchester was interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Harith claimed that during his time in Guantanamo he was repeatedly beaten and forcibly injected with drugs.
“I refused to take an injection. They sent in a riot squad, dressed in riot gear, they beat me up, then they put me in chains, then they injected me. After that they put me in isolation for a month as well."
On Friday, April 2nd, the US government announced it was releasing 15 more detainees from Guantanamo. The names have not yet been released, but military officials but said they came from Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Yemen. The Pentagon says about 595 detainees remain at the facility after Friday's release, from a one-time total of more than 700.
Nuri Mert, a Turk taken into custody by the US during the invasion of Afghanistan following the September 11th attacks, was returned to Turkey and released after 4 days of questioning.
A story in the Turkish online newspaper Zaman notes that Mert had been persuaded by Al Queda to travel to Afghanistan, but had actually been captured and imprisoned by Taliban troops before joining up with Al Queda. According to the report:
Mert was then delivered to American soldiers and brought to Guantanamo Bay. He says that he endured psychological and physical torture at Guantanamo, where he was imprisoned for 2 years, and added that he is now suffering from amnesia as a result.
An essay by Tom Englehardt in the April 6 edition of Mother Jones, Guantanamojo, comments on the links between Guantanamo and other "outsourced" detention centers springing up around the globe. In the essay, Englehardt links and comments on several articles written in the Post and New York times over the past few years, including a recent Times article by Neil A. Lewis headlined "Guantanamo Detainees Deliver Intelligence Gains."
Concerning the Times article, Englehardt writes:
The "sources" of this definitive headline turn out to be unnamed "military officials" from an "arranged tour" of the prison complex and two named figures: Maj. Gen. Miller (you remember him) and Steve Rodriguez, "a veteran intelligence officer who oversees the interrogation teams." Of course, they deny all the lurid charges of mistreatment from released prisoners that recently appeared in the British press and claim that, even after up to two years of incarceration and isolation, prisoners at Guantanamo continue to provide "a stream of intelligence." On the face of it, this is an absurd claim and nothing in the piece justifies the headline. Though the piece itself has various caveats ("There is no way so far to verify the situation of the detainees as described by the American officials, nor the charges of mistreatment."), I think the headline alone might put it among my nominees for this year's Judith Miller Single-Sourced Government Informant Award in the Journalism Hall of Shame.
Common sense would call on any reasonable person to question, rather than highlight, the claim that (even if the Guantanamo detainees are exactly who the Americans claim they are) a population of al Qaeda and Taliban foot soldiers held in utter isolation for long periods would be offering a "stream" of useful intelligence at this point or even, for that matter, reliable information.
In the conclusion of his article, Englehardt notes:
Terror is, of course, all too real. Ask the inhabitants of Madrid or Istanbul. Ask us New Yorkers. But its enemy is the light, not the shadows. Its perpetrators of horrors should be brought to trial in the bright light of day according to legal systems we have pride in. They should be brought to account publicly for acts of horror in a place where they can be seen, not tortured privately until they fess up truth, or lies, for a chosen few.