Detainee Treatment Act

The Laws of War

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Published March 2, 2009, in Detainee Abuse, Detainee Policy, Detainee Treatment Act, Disappeared, Extraordinary Rendition, war crimes, war on terror, waterboarding

by Raymond Bonner

Matthew Alexander and John Bruning, How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq (New York: Free Press, 2008), 304 pp., $26.00.

David Cole, Justice at War: The Men and Ideas that Shaped America’s War on Terror (New York: New York Review of Books, 2008), 176 pp., $14.95.

Karen Greenberg, The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo’s First 100 Days (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 288 pp., $27.95.

Eric Lichtblau, Bush’s Law: The Remaking of American Justice (New York: Pantheon, 2008), 384 pp., $26.95.

Jane Mayer, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals (New York: Doubleday, 2008), 400 pp., $27.50.

 WITH AN order to close Guantánamo, the Obama administration has acted quickly to move away from the Bush administration’s policies in what it called the “war on terror.” But much more needs to be done to undo the damage to America’s reputation abroad—not just in the Muslim world—and to lessen the chances of starting another chapter in the erosion of America’s civil liberties. And not all measures will be difficult. For starters, President Barack Obama should follow the lead of Britain’s Gordon Brown, who, upon becoming prime minister, stopped using the phrase “war on terror.”

 

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Benchmarking Obama

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Published February 17, 2009, in "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques", Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, Bagram, Black Site, Bush Legacy, C.I.A., CIA Black Sites, Detainee Policy, Detainee Treatment Act, Due Process, Extradition, Extraordinary Rendition, Guantanamo, habeas corpus, human rights, illegal detention, Uyghurs

How to Evaluate the New Administration’s Counter-Terrorism Policies

By JOANNE MARINER

Less than a month into President Obama’s term, many of the Bush Administration’s worst counterterrorism policies have been left behind. Guantanamo has a set date for closure; CIA “black sites” have been banned; and the unfair military commission proceedings at Guantanamo have been suspended.

But there have already been disappointments. On Monday, in appellate argument in the case of Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc., the new administration stuck with an indefensible Bush Administration position on the state secrets privilege. In urging the court to uphold the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging CIA flights that brought suspects to be tortured, the Justice Department acknowledged that the new administration was taking “exactly” the same position as the previous one had.

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Dems signal CIA interrogators not held responsible

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Published January 12, 2009, in C.I.A., Detainee Treatment Act, Obama

By PAMELA HESS

WASHINGTON (AP) — As President-elect Barack Obama assures intelligence officials that his complaints are with the Bush administration, not them, there are growing hints from Democratic Senate allies that spy agency veterans will not be prosecuted for past harsh interrogation and detainee policies.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein told The Associated Press in an interview this week that there is a clear distinction between those who made the policies and those who carried them out.

“They (the CIA) carry out orders and the orders come from the (National Security Council) and the White House, so there’s not a lot of policy debate that goes on there,” she said. “We’re going to continue our looking into the situation and I think that is up to the administration and the director.”

Feinstein declined to comment on whether her committee would take specific action to offer legal cover to those involved in harsh interrogations that some critics say amount to torture.

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Afghan Journalists’ “Shocking” Situation Condemned

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Published July 21, 2008, in Afghanistan, Detainee, Detainee Treatment Act, Journalist, Mohammad Jawed

..If you read nothing else, read this..

Text of report by privately-owned Afghan Ariana TV

[Presenter] National and foreign organizations for protection of journalists have described the condition of journalists in Afghanistan as shocking. They also demanded an unconditional release of Afghan journalist Jawid Ahmad, who is currently being detained in the US Bagram prison. Mariam Asi reports:

[Correspondent] Addressing a press conference held in Kabul, officials from these organizations say Jawid Ahmad, an Afghan journalist, is innocent and that the US forces have imprisoned him illegally. They say the US troops imprison innocent people in Bagram and Guantanamo detention centres on various charges.

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White House Dismissed Legal Advice On Detainees

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Published June 21, 2008, in Detainee, Detainee Abuse, Detainee Treatment Act

By Michael Abramowitz
Washington Post Staff Writer

Senior lawyers inside and outside the Bush administration repeatedly warned the White House that it was risking judicial scrutiny of its detention policies in Guantanamo Bay if it did not pursue a more pragmatic legal strategy that considered the likely reaction of the Supreme Court. But such advice, issued periodically over the past six years, was ignored or discounted, according to current and former administration officials familiar with the debates.

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U.S. abuse of detainees was routine at Afghanistan bases

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Published June 16, 2008, in "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques", Abuse, Afghanistan, Bagram, Detainee, Detainee Abuse, Detainee Treatment Act, Dilawar

By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers

KABUL, Afghanistan — American soldiers herded the detainees into holding pens of razor-sharp concertina wire, the kind that’s used to corral livestock.

The guards kicked, kneed and punched many of the men until they collapsed in pain. U.S. troops shackled and dragged other detainees to small isolation rooms, then hung them by their wrists from chains dangling from the wire mesh ceiling.

Former guards and detainees whom McClatchy interviewed said Bagram was a center of systematic brutality for at least 20 months, starting in late 2001. Yet the soldiers responsible have escaped serious punishment.

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US Guantanamo trials ‘to proceed’

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Published June 14, 2008, in Detainee Treatment Act, Guantanamo

A key ruling by the US Supreme Court on Guantanamo detainees will not affect military trials of enemy combatants, the attorney general has said.

Michael Mukasey said he was disappointed with the court’s decision to allow foreign suspects to challenge their detention in US civilian courts.

But he said the trials of “enemy combatants” due to be held at the naval facility in Cuba would proceed.

The court’s ruling has been welcomed by US and foreign human rights groups.

It is seen as a major legal setback for the Bush administration, although it is not clear whether it will lead to prompt court hearings for the detainees.

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Rally calls for release of Guantanamo detainee

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Published June 9, 2008, in Detainee Treatment Act, DoD, Hizb'ullah, Lies of the U.S. Administration, Poverty

moazzam-beggA BRITISH detainee who survived Guantanamo Bay headed a rally opposing the rise in racism against Muslims.

Moazzam Begg led the protest in Manchester on Thursday along with a vast amount of speakers and David Edgar who is one of Britain’s leading playwrights.

They join the growing demand that Gordon Brown act now to secure the release of British resident Binyam Mohamed.

Mr Mohamed is the last Brit in Guantanamo Bay and faces the death penalty on the bases of a confession tortured out of him, if found guilty by a US military commission. [Shaker Aamer is still there but is to be released to Saudi Arabia]

Campaigners say `he was abused by America and betrayed by Britain’.  [Truer words never spoken]

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Confessed 9/11 mastermind: “I wish to be a martyr” for organizing attacks

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Published June 5, 2008, in "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques", Abuse, C.I.A., Detainee, Detainee Abuse, Detainee Treatment Act, Guantanamo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad

Hmm.. ten mil for a kangaroo kourt.. but can’t give poor kids health care.. tsk tsk tsk… what a farce..

The flight to Guantanamo Bay is in a word, long. Sitting side by side in web seats in the middle of a C-130 cargo plane for more than five hours was an adventure in itself. After arriving and getting an ID badge, the group of 60 or so journalists boarded buses, which were then driven to a ferry for a short ride across the bay.

The bay itself is beautiful. Rolling hills frame the clear blue waters on all sides. Guard posts and American flags dot the landscape. After arriving at the other side of the base, we made our way to an old airplane hangar that is serving as the media center.

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Lawmakers demand freedom for Chinese held at Gitmo

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Published June 5, 2008, in "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques", Detainee, Detainee Abuse, Detainee Treatment Act, Guantanamo, human rights, Lies of the U.S. Administration, Torture, USA, Uyghur

By LARA JAKES JORDAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers chastised the Bush administration on Wednesday for allowing the Chinese government to interrogate Chinese Muslim detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay and demanded they be freed in the United States.

The two lawmakers, Reps. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., and Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., said the Uighurs — members of a Chinese ethnic group — should be compensated and apologized to for any abuse they may have suffered while held in the detention center at U.S. naval base in Cuba.

Uighurs fled their homeland in western China and settled in Afghanistan and Pakistan, only to be swept up later in the U.S.-led dragnet for terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks.

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