Dirty Hippies » Torture

U.S. Justice: Is The Joke On You?

Tom Sullivan — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 17:29:50 +0000

Here’s a neat get-out-of-jail trick. The secret is it doesn’t usually work for ordinary crimes by flesh-and-blood people — for smoking marijuana or selling food stamps for rent money, for example. No, those people we warehouse in taxpayer-funded Corrections Corporation of America for-profit prisons. This trick works best for those who have turned themselves into the unnatural, corporate persons they serve. Creatures of appetite and instinct. Bloodless. Soulless. Like vampires, but without the teen angst.

The former Blackwater Security, a North Carolina company with a history of legal troubles, this week walked away from 17 federal charges by paying fines: $7 million for arms trafficking and other charges on top of $42 million for other violations of the Arms Export Control Act and the International Trafficking in Arms Regulations.
Aljazeera:

The decision comes after a five-year, multi-agency federal investigation in which the company admitted “certain facts”, according to Thomas Walker, a prosecutor in North Carolina.

Walker said the probe revealed “an array of criminal allegations” with some “involving the manufacture and shipment of short-barrelled rifles, fully automatic weapons, armoured helicopters, and armoured personnel carriers”.

The organisation also faced charges under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for unlicenced training of foreign nationals and firearms violations during its assignments in Iraq and Sudan.

Blackwater, one of the largest private security firm’s employed by the US in Iraq, came under intense international criticism after an incident on September 16, 2007, when five of its guards protecting a US diplomatic convoy, opened fire in Baghdad’s busy Nisur Square, killing at least 14 Iraqi civilians.

From the San Francisco Examiner:

According to Justice Department documents, list of violations includes the possession automatic weapons in the United States without registration, deceptive statements made to government firearms officials about weapons tranferred (sic) to the Kingdom of Jordan, and passing secret plans for armored personnel carriers to Sweden and Denmark without U.S. government approval.

A separate violation entailed illegally shipping body armor to nations overseas.

It’s a damned good thing Blackwater’s repeat offenders were just accused of illegal weapons possession, gun running and violating international laws. Now, if like the Bush-Cheney administration Blackwater had admitted “certain facts” like kidnapping and torturing prisoners, or like Wall Street’s mercenaries they had obliterated millions of old men’s and women’s pensions with fraudulent derivatives, crashed the world’s economy, and had thrown millions of homes across the country into foreclosure and their former owners on to food stamps, the U.S. Justice Department woulda opened up a can of whup-ass.

(Cross-posted from Scrutiny Hooligans.)

Bradley Manning: Death by Underwear Waistband

Russ Wellen — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 00:05:36 +0000

Cross-posted from the Foreign Policy in Focus blog Focal Points.

In an earlier Focal Points post on depriving Pfc. Bradley Manning of his clothing for three days, we quoted the New York Times:

First Lt. Brian Villiard, a Marine spokesman, said. . . . that the step was “not punitive” and that it was in accordance with brig rules, but he said that he was not allowed to say more. . . . “It would be inappropriate for me to explain it. . . . I can confirm that it did happen, but I can’t explain it to you without violating the detainee’s privacy.”

Manning’s lawyer, David Coombs, subsequently learned the rationale, which he posted it at his website Army Court Martial Defense.

On Wednesday March 2, 2011, PFC Manning was told that his Article 138 complaint requesting that he be removed from Maximum custody and Prevention of Injury (POI) Watch had been denied by the Quantico commander, Colonel Daniel J. Choike. Understandably frustrated by this decision after enduring over seven months of unduly harsh confinement conditions, PFC Manning inquired of the Brig operations officer what he needed to do in order to be downgraded from Maximum custody and POI. . . . In response to PFC Manning’s question, he was told that there was nothing he could do to downgrade his detainee status and that the Brig simply considered him a risk of self-harm. PFC Manning then remarked that the POI restrictions were “absurd” and sarcastically stated that if he wanted to harm himself, he could conceivably do so with the elastic waistband of his underwear or with his flip-flops.

Hey, maybe Col. Choike is right: look at the self-abuse Manning has already inflicted on himself with his humor and sense of irony. Still, Choife is whiffing on a learning moment. He should interrogate Manning to learn how he would turn the elastic in his underwear or flip-flops into a his garrote. It could be incorporated into SERE training* to help our troops escape if they’re captured by the enemy.

As for the rest of us, Pfc. Manning has much to teach us in the way of courage.

*SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) military training in, among other things, evading and/or surviving capture.

Spanish High Court Rules Torture Case Against US Can Proceed

Joshua Holland — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 21:30:40 +0000

Spain’s highest court ruled that a controversial case against US officials for authorizing the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay could proceed, rejecting an attempt by a Spanish prosecutor to end the investigation. The decision is a major victory for human rights activists, and a blow to the US government.

According to a cable released by Wikileaks, the Obama administration tried to kill the case, one of two being pursued by Spanish authorities. Here’s a report by the Miami Herald:

It was three months into Barack Obama’s presidency, and the administration — under pressure to do something about alleged abuses in Bush-era interrogation policies — turned to a Florida senator to deliver a sensitive message to Spain:

Don’t indict former President George W. Bush’s legal brain trust for alleged torture in the treatment of war on terror detainees, warned Mel Martinez on one of his frequent trips to Madrid. Doing so would chill U.S.-Spanish relations.

Rather than a resolution, though, a senior Spanish diplomat gave the former GOP chairman and housing secretary a lesson in Spain’s separation of powers. “The independence of the judiciary and the process must be respected,” then-acting Foreign Minister Angel Lossada replied on April 15, 2009. Then for emphasis, “Lossada reiterated to Martinez that the executive branch of government could not close any judicial investigation and urged that this case not affect the overall relationship.”

And here’s some background on the case, from the Center for Constitutional Rights:

On April 27, 2009, Judge Baltasar Garzón issued a decision opening a preliminary investigation into what he termed “an authorized and systematic plan of torture and ill-treatment on persons deprived of their freedom without any charge and without the basic rights of any detainee, set out and required by applicable international conventions,” in US detention facilities. This decision related to the alleged torture and abuse of four former Guantánamo detainees: Hamed Abderrahman Ahmed, Ikassrien Lahcen, Jamiel Abdul Latif Al Banna and Omar Deghayes. All four men had previously been the subject of a criminal case in Spain, but were subsequently acquitted because of the use of torture and other forms of serious abuse to which they had been subjected during their detention and interrogations at Guantánamo; Judge Garzón had previously issued the extradition requests for Messrs Al Banna and Deghayes. Mr Ahmed is a Spanish citizen and Mr Ikassrien had been a Spanish resident for more than 13 years. The decision presents six pages of facts related to the torture and abuse the four men suffered including being held in cells made of chicken-wire in intense heat; being subjected to constant loud music, extreme temperatures and bright lights; constant interrogations without counsel; sexual assault; forced nakedness; threats of death; and severe beatings. The preliminary investigation did not name potential defendants, but included “possible material and instigating perpetrators, necessary collaborators and accomplices.” Judge Garzón found that the facts relate to violations under the Spanish Penal Code, the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture, the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the Organic Law of the Judicial Power (Article 23.4).

The principle of universal jurisdiction for prosecuting human rights abuses is grounded in the terrible consequences of impunity. If a country has the will to prosecute its own offenders, and a neutral judiciary with which to do so, foreign courts won’t take up the case.

But that is obviously not the case with the United States, where a former president has admitted publicly to personally authorizing the torture of prisoners, yet no domestic investigation was launched in order to bring him or his advisors to justice.

PS: My 2007 interview with CCR’s Michael Ratner is among my favorites: Human Rights Crusader Michael Ratner: We’ll Keep Going After Bush and Cheney When They Leave Office

Cross-posted around town.