In the last decade, the United States has increasingly become a symbol of hypocrisy as a nation that has violated many international principles that it helped create after 9-11. That record was reinforced this week after the Afghan government (not exactly the paragon of civil liberties) refused to adopt indefinite detention rules pushed by the Obama Administration. Of course, President Obama has continued the indefinite detention of the Bush Administration and the operation of the Guantanamo Bay facility over the objections of civil libertarians. We recently saw the death of a detainee who was found years ago not to be a national security risk and never proven to be guilty of a single crime. Yet, in its effort to create a “new Democracy” in the Afghanistan, the Obama Administration was insisting that it replicate our own indefinite detention rules. In the meantime, a federal court has stayed a prior court order that enjoined the provision on indefinite detention under the Obama Administration’s 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.
A judicial panel ruled that administrative detention runs counter to the country’s laws. Yet the Obama Administration said that unless the country adopted this authoritarian measure, it may not turn over prisoners to Afghan officials. We are still holding more than 600 Afghans.
The death of Adnan Latif, a Yemeni, has become the latest symbol of our abusive policy of detention. As early as 2004, the military determined that he should be released but never told his lawyers until years later. In 2010 a federal court ordered his release. He would never live to see freedom.
Source: Guardian
George Zimmerman shot a guy who was beating George’s head onto concrete while astride him. Dead choir boy has a chorus of family and geek fat lawyer guy who paint a nice picture of him. A judge should dismiss this case based on his motion. Mommy, daddy and fat whining lawyer can whine forever. Free George!
Jeremy Scahill: “Little Known Military Thug Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo Under Obama”
May 19, 2009
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/19/jeremy_scahill_little_known_military_thug
Summary of program:
“Jeremy Scahill reports the Obama administration is continuing to use a notorious military police unit at Guantanamo that regularly brutalizes unarmed prisoners, including gang-beating them, breaking their bones, gouging their eyes and dousing them with chemicals. This force, officially known as the Immediate Reaction Force, has been labeled the “Extreme Repression Force” by Guantanamo prisoners, and human rights lawyers call their actions illegal.”
mespo,
From the ACLU aticle:
“After reviewing his case, the Department of Defense in 2004 recommended that Mr. Latif be returned to his native Yemen. For reasons unknown, he remained incarcerated. Again, in 2007, the Defense Department determined Mr. Latif should be transferred from Guantánamo “subject to the process for making appropriate diplomatic arrangements for his departure.” But he remained incarcerated. In 2009, President Obama’s Guantánamo Bay Task Force, comprised of U.S. intelligence, law enforcement and military agencies, unanimously approved Mr. Latif once more for transfer… ”
and
“Then in 2010, after an exhaustive review of all of the government’s evidence against Mr. Latif, U.S. District Court Judge Henry Kennedy ordered his release, finding the government had not shown Mr. Latif was part of Al Qaeda or an associated force. The ruling gave force to the Supreme Court’s historic 2008 decision that Guantánamo prisoners had the right to challenge their imprisonment in federal court, and the courts would subject the government’s case for detention to meaningful review.
“Judge Kennedy found that the Obama administration’s case for Mr. Latif’s continued incarceration turned on one raw hearsay intelligence report, unvetted by expert government analysts. Not a single eyewitness placed Mr. Latif at any training camp, guesthouse or battlefield in Afghanistan. Mr. Latif’s lawyers demonstrated that the intelligence report was riddled with errors and inconsistencies. But President Obama’s Justice Department chose to appeal Judge Kennedy’s decision…”
*****
It appears the DOD, a government task force, and a U.S. District Court Judge determined that Latif should have been released. Were they all wrong in drawing their conclusions about Latif after reviewing all the evidence they had in his case?
Another thing occurs to me about Guantanamo. We justify our conduct toward the detainees by two main threads: (a) our reasonable suspicion of them and fear of them; and (b) their apparent opposition to us, giving rise to the need to control them.
OK there you have George Zimmerman’s attitude toward Trayvon Martin.
Was there a legal basis for us to do what we did, based on our suspicions, fears and concerns coupled with their opposition? I continue to think not. Not in any constitution I have read.
It’s not really about my “disdain for Guantanamo,” Mespo, with all due respect. It’s about my firm belief that the conduct at, before and around Guantanamo was the worst government-thug behavior imaginable, and that the rights of every person there, guilty or innocent, have been violated for a prolonged period of time, and that the existence of Guantanamo at this point in time is an indictment of our government. Do I know the particulars of this guy whose name I only learned on the blog? Not at all. In fact, since Guantanamo is outside my area of interest, I know about it very peripherally. I don’t care if he “confessed” to Congress itself in the middle of a filibuster. If he didn’t get convicted of a major crime (defined in a criminal code to which he was subject, of course) with due process I do not consider him guilty of anything. And when you get the lead prosecutor quitting because he says he cannot fulfill his function, what do you have? Do you have a defensible system of laws there?
malisha:
He confessed to FBI agents. There are photos showing he was not coerced. But why let a few facts get into the way of your suppositions that … er … well anything’s possible. Why don’t we stick with what actually did happen instead of indulging your disdain for Guantanamo by speculating on what might have happened. It’s all right there in the public record.
Latif might have confessed to anything when he was grabbed up in a war zone. We all know that some confessions are not constitutional enough to stand up in court. And another problem with any confessions you might have from Guantanamo detainees is lack of control over those who initially “arrested” the “defendants” in the first place.
There is, was, and can be NO justification for Guantanamo. ESPECIALLY since the chief prosecutor there, upon quitting and publicly revealing his reasons (few years ago) said he had been advised there “must be no acquittals.”
Guantanamo was just a very big undeniable piece of proof that we have reached a point where WHATEVER the government (at ANY LEVEL) wants to do can be arranged by some combination of:
1- ignoring the rules
2- putting together a hodgepodge of actions that is difficult to describe and follow
3- involving enough low level people to force them into more and more rogue behavior at their own risk
4- lying
5- secrecy
6 – unmitigated force including assassination and torture and
[my personal favorite]
7- acting like there was some great overriding need to do it all because the country would suffer had it not been done and since it was done, the suffering of those it was done to was either deserved or otherwise justified OR the complainers are BAD and need to be punished.
That is what the four syllables: GUAN TAN A MO
mean to me. And I have never been there.
Elaine M:
“I have to ask how many of that 27.9% were “confirmed” and how many were “suspected” of later engaging in militant activity. And what is the definition of “militant activity” as used in this context?”
******************
Those terms are specifically defined for you in the biannual reports:
http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Reports%20and%20Pubs/Reports%20and%20Pubs%202012/Summary%20of%20the%20Reengagement%20of%20Detainees%20Formerly%20Held%20at%20GTMO.pdf
” Not a single eyewitness placed Mr. Latif at any training camp, guesthouse or battlefield in Afghanistan. ”
***********************
No one that is except Latif, himself.
I’m struck, Elaine, by the almost magical omission from the article you posted about Latif’s confession of his direct involvement with fighting for the Taliban against the Northern Alliance. The author also forgets about Latif’s mental instability; his suicide attempts; his throwing of human bodily fluids at guards; and his well trodden al-Qaeda sanctioned route through Pakistan to the battlefields in Afghanistan; his al-Qaeda handler; his lack of a passport; his admitted training in warfare by the Taliban; his adherence to jihad; the confirmatory notes of the two FBI agents who conducted the investigation and interrogation; and his denial of relief by two federal courts who heard every word of his tale of woe about misquotes and mistaken interrogations. No, those pesky facts fade into insignificance in the mind of one who seeks to blame the American government for every wrong — real and imagined.
That may pass as unbiased news in some circles, but not with anyone who’s interested in the truth. If you’d like the real facts, you can always read the public record:
http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/C891703993091388852579ED007142EF/$file/10-5319-1371305.pdf
The Ultimate Injustice at Guantánamo: The Death of Adnan Latif
By Zachary Katznelson, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project
http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/ultimate-injustice-guantanamo-death-adnan-latif
09/12/2012
On Saturday, Guantánamo prisoner Adnan Latif was found unresponsive in his cell in Guantánamo’s Camp 5, the disciplinary wing of the camp, and pronounced dead. His identity was revealed only yesterday. Mr. Latif’s case, in life and now in death, represents the repercussions of our government’s failed Guantánamo policy and demonstrates the responsibility each branch has played in that failure.
Mr. Latif was seized by Pakistani authorities near the Afghan border in late 2001, handed over to the U.S. Government, then transferred to Guantánamo in January 2002. He maintained his innocence of any affiliation with terrorism, explaining that he had traveled to the region in August 2001 to receive medical treatment from a charity for a head injury he received in a car accident – treatment he was unable to afford at home. The U.S. government claimed Mr. Latif had been recruited in Yemen to attend a training camp in Afghanistan.
After reviewing his case, the Department of Defense in 2004 recommended that Mr. Latif be returned to his native Yemen. For reasons unknown, he remained incarcerated. Again, in 2007, the Defense Department determined Mr. Latif should be transferred from Guantánamo “subject to the process for making appropriate diplomatic arrangements for his departure.” But he remained incarcerated. In 2009, President Obama’s Guantánamo Bay Task Force, comprised of U.S. intelligence, law enforcement and military agencies, unanimously approved Mr. Latif once more for transfer. Then came the Christmas Day 2009 bombing attempt, apparently orchestrated by a group based in Yemen, and President Obama ordered a moratorium on transfers there. Mr. Latif remained incarcerated. Congress subsequently imposed such onerous conditions on transfers from Guantánamo to any country that moratorium or not, Mr. Latif had little chance to be set free – absent a court order. And so, years after the government first told Mr. Latif he could go home, he remained incarcerated.
Then in 2010, after an exhaustive review of all of the government’s evidence against Mr. Latif, U.S. District Court Judge Henry Kennedy ordered his release, finding the government had not shown Mr. Latif was part of Al Qaeda or an associated force. The ruling gave force to the Supreme Court’s historic 2008 decision that Guantánamo prisoners had the right to challenge their imprisonment in federal court, and the courts would subject the government’s case for detention to meaningful review.
Judge Kennedy found that the Obama administration’s case for Mr. Latif’s continued incarceration turned on one raw hearsay intelligence report, unvetted by expert government analysts. Not a single eyewitness placed Mr. Latif at any training camp, guesthouse or battlefield in Afghanistan. Mr. Latif’s lawyers demonstrated that the intelligence report was riddled with errors and inconsistencies. But President Obama’s Justice Department chose to appeal Judge Kennedy’s decision. In a profoundly flawed ruling, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision, holding that the government’s single raw intelligence report should be presumed correct, despite its myriad flaws. Two judges of a three-judge panel overturned long-standing judicial principles and substituted their own judgment for the trial court’s seasoned view of the evidence. In the words of the dissenting justice: “Not content with moving the goal posts, the court calls the game in the government’s favor.”
This past June, the Supreme Court refused to hear Mr. Latif’s appeal of the D.C. Circuit’s decision. Without comment, Supreme Court turned its back on Mr. Latif and others like him, letting stand the appellate court’s now overly deferential standard for courts to test the government’s evidence.
During his time in Guantánamo, Mr. Latif repeatedly went on hunger strike to peacefully protest his brutal treatment and imprisonment without charge or trial. When the mental pain became too much, his lawyers said, he tried to take his own life, more than once slitting his wrists, other times eating shards of metal and glass.
Each time Mr. Latif was cleared to go home by the executive branch – and a single time by a court – a military officer would have come to his cell to tell him he was leaving Guantánamo. Imagine hearing that repeated possibility of freedom, only for hopes to be dashed every single time. Now Adnan Latif is dead.
Dozens of other men still in Guantánamo have received similar repeated news, only to find it changed nothing in their daily lives and they remained in prison. How many of those other men who have never even been charged with a crime will our government allow to languish until death?
Lawyer for Latif:
“For those actually picked up on the battlefield, I agree. That describes less than 10 percent of the nearly 800 men who have been held at Guantanamo. It does not describe Latif or any of my other clients.”
************************
Your client, Latif. was picked up by Pakistani security near the Afghan border in late 2001 (and after 9-11) while traveling from Yemen without a passport. He admitted that (1) ‘” Alawi [in reality al Qaeda operative Abu Kalud] talked about jihad” with him, (2) ‘” Alawi took him to the Taliban,” (3) the Taliban “gave him weapons training,” (4) the Taliban “put him on the front line facing the then US ally, the Northern Alliance, north of Kabul,” and (5) “[h]e remained there, under the command of Afghan leader Abu Fazl until Taliban troops retreated and Kabul fell.'” Thus, while he was not picked up on a battlefield, he was undoubtedly heading for the next one. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for your client’s position. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals didn’t buy his travel for medical treatment shtick in the face of these admissions. They also didn’t buy his Norm Crosby routine that he was the master of malaprops or simply mis-translated.
# # # # # # #
“And I take issue with the notion of “sitting out the war” when the “war” is against a noun rather than a state, or even an entity. As Justice O’Connor foresaw in Hamdi, we have long since passed the point where our traditional notions of law-of-war detention have unraveled, because the parameters of the conflict are continually redefined such that “hostilities” will never end.”
******************
You know full well Hamdi applied only to citizen detainees not non-citizens, and my sympathy for non-citizens combatants, seeking to cut our throats, is not as extensive as your own. Under Rasul, these non-citizen combatants deserve only a status hearing and legal representation. And while O’Connor in her plurality decision wondered about an endless war she reaffirmed the right of the government to detain these folks to prevent them from killing or attempting to kill more Americans. These folks joined in armed conflict against the US and its allies. To suggest these combatants (as your client clearly was by his own admission) are harmed because their comrades persist in continuing a senseless fight ad infinitum is a “their problem,” not an “our problem.” al-Qaeda could capitulate and declare peace today and their hapless stooges would be free by the harvest moon. Why should we worry more about the length of the detention of their foot soldiers than they do?
# # # # # # #
“It’s interesting, though, how invasion and occupation of one’s land by the superior forces of a morally condescending and hypocritical power brings out one’s “savagery,” particularly when such invasion and occupation is accompanied by the indiscriminate killing of civilians and incessant disdain and contempt for one’s culture and religion. (To be clear: I speak here not of the young Americans in harm’s way, but of the older Americans who in their hubris and arrogance put them there.)”
*************************
I have no idea what morally condescending and hypocritical power you are speaking of–perhaps your delving into Russian history, but that statement does not inure to the US. (or even to your client who is a Yemen national). Let me repeat for the record that we were attacked on 9-11 by terrorists, the common enemy of all, and we pursued those murderers into a amorphous tribal state that absorbed and protected them. Their benefactors, the theocratic anachronism, known as the Taliban, merged into allegiance with al-Qaeda and took up arms. Our dismantling of that savage bunch of misogynists– who felt no compunction about throwing battery acid into the eyes of little girls going to school, or killing innocents by the thousands — was a liberation to the people of Afghanistan. One wonders why you do not share the disdain for the “culture” of the Taliban, but given your sympathies perhaps your trite reply to the parents of folks who died protecting your right to speak as you do makes quite a bit of sense. You may call it “hubris and arrogance;” international law calls it self-defense pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1368.
# # # # # # #
““Tell me how we might explain to the family of a deceased US serviceman or servicewoman that by releasing a detainee who then rejoins the terrorist movement and who acts alone or in concert to kill their loved one is in furtherance of our law and ideals? ”
The same way we explain to the family of a deceased civilian who was killed by a convicted-but-released criminal, or by a criminal who “got off on a technicality,” that such releases are in furtherance of our law and ideals.”
**************************
That explanation rings cold. The criminal released by virtue of the application of our law or the criminal released on parole was lawfully released. There is nothing in law that required your client’s release. His habeas appeal was overturned by the DC Circuit and he was not released under due process of law as your other examples suggest. While the difference might be lost upon grieving family members it is far more easy for the public to accept a ruling of an American court that a prisoner is lawfully entitled to release. Enemies deserve only what our law requires, not more rights than our citizens enjoy. Lest we forget, they are trying to kill and maim our people or our allies.
Sorry, my friend, to most Americans including this lawyer, your client is deserving neither of sympathy nor publicity. He made his bed; he can’t now be heard to complain –posthumously or otherwise — about having to lie in it.
Nick Spinelli: >bettykath, Please just Google rerleased Gitmo detainees and you will see a long list of those who have killed soldiers and civilains.<
And exactly what MADE these people 'sociopaths' as you charged earlier? What MADE the released detainees supposedly 'kill soldiers and civilians'? Could it be torture? How about being imprisoned for the 'crime' of defending THEIR country against another country determined to take control of THEIR country? How many of THEIR soldiers and civilians have WE killed? How many of these detainees have been actually PROVEN to be terrorists? You know, if you treat a person like an animal long enough, he will eventually live down to your expectation. There was a time in this country when we were above this. Unfortunately, we no longer have the right to point the finger at anyone else.
I agree with the Pirate guy above. Kill em if you catch them. No use trying to interrogate them. Pirate is a Pirate, whether on the water or out of uniform on the land. Kill em when ya gottem. Take no prisoners. Gitmo is dumbo.
You know I’ve been thinking about the fact that everyone here (with the possible exception of lawyers) finds it un-shocking that some of us can reveal experiences with the court system (and occasionally other governmental agencies in the executive or judicial branches) that are really no better than what we see in many of the countries whose governments evoke nothing but the most intense horror from us. Is it not conceivable that the degree of corruption and evil in the system is the level to which the population adjusts, and that we are no better or worse at such adjustment than, say, Afghans or Pakistanis? Or Israelis? Or Saudis?
We have a system that can bring equal parts of shame and pride; yet we let our politicians run around crowing in pride and we don’t insist upon identifying and fumigating the shame. We are no better than anyone we invade, in the final analysis — it’s just that we started off relatively recently with a LOT OF RESOURCES and added to our own stock by importing HUMAN RESOURCES (nasty phrase that means exactly what it says) from elsewhere in a kind of reverse colonialism that we still don’t adequately own up to.
Who are we to accept “the bad with the good” when we police the whole world? Why are we not more outraged at our own public officials who certainy tip the scales to “BAD” as soon as they consolidate their power, NEARLY EVERY SINGLE TIME!
It’s late in the world for more Ghandis and yet, who has the big guns will keep them. We should just check our pride at the door and enter the stables admitting they have never been cleaned. If there’s pride, it’s pride that we have a population that has largely survived the crap piled up in here.
And the biggest abuse is the lie.
Yeah, I didn’t take my “calm down” pill this morning.
Elaine M, I’ll bet they spoke up at some local nonprofit organization that asked them about what had happened to them. If they had any complaints about their paid vacation at Guantanamo, that was probably considered pretty militant. I have a friend who spoke at an anti-war rally in the US AFTER he had served in Vietnam and been honorably discharged. He was arrested HERE and charged with Treason HERE and convicted HERE and sentenced to 20 years in the federal pen, and was incarcerated 6 months before some federal congressman, hearing about the case, worked out a deal behind the scenes so he would be released and his charges would be disappeared so he didn’t talk about it any more. He traded his next 19 years of prison for shutting up about the whole thing. He recently served on a state court grand jury as foreman, and he honestly FORGOT he had once been convicted of a felony! When I reminded him, he said, “OH YEAH!”
mespo,
“In a summary report, the office of the Director of National Intelligence said that 27.9 percent of the 599 former detainees released from Guantanamo were either confirmed or suspected of later engaging in militant activity.”
I have to ask how many of that 27.9% were “confirmed” and how many were “suspected” of later engaging in militant activity. And what is the definition of “militant activity” as used in this context?
Oh, and when we explain the death of the serviceperson in an unnecessary war, to the family, don’t forget to tell them that you’re planning on another unnecessary war, this time with Iran. The family may have other members in the military, who are still alive. Equal opportunity.
Lawyer for Latif,
Well said. Thanks.
Actually, the most recent release has numbers as of July, and can be found here:
http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Reports%20and%20Pubs/Reports%20and%20Pubs%202012/Summary%20of%20the%20Reengagement%20of%20Detainees%20Formerly%20Held%20at%20GTMO.pdf
Either way, your March numbers and the July numbers are consistent with my point that the recidivism rate is in the mid-20s. As I said, that is a much lower rate than in the domestic criminal context.
” These people picked up on the battlefield are presumed combatants and are entitled to a status hearing.”
For those actually picked up on the battlefield, I agree. That describes less than 10 percent of the nearly 800 men who have been held at Guantanamo. It does not describe Latif or any of my other clients.
” Beyond that they have no greater rights than any other captured combatant and get to sit out the war.”
Again, for those detainees who were actually “captured combatants,” I agree. But again, very very few Guantanamo prisoners were captured combatants. And I take issue with the notion of “sitting out the war” when the “war” is against a noun rather than a state, or even an entity. As Justice O’Connor foresaw in Hamdi, we have long since passed the point where our traditional notions of law-of-war detention have unraveled, because the parameters of the conflict are continually redefined such that “hostilities” will never end.
“Tell me how we might explain to the family of a deceased US serviceman or servicewoman that by releasing a detainee who then rejoins the terrorist movement and who acts alone or in concert to kill their loved one is in furtherance of our law and ideals? ”
The same way we explain to the family of a deceased civilian who was killed by a convicted-but-released criminal, or by a criminal who “got off on a technicality,” that such releases are in furtherance of our law and ideals.
You also seem to be suffering from the misperception that most of the prisoners in Guantanamo are or were “terrorists.” Not so. The vast majority were — at most — footsoldiers in the Taliban’s civil war against the Northern Alliance and had no issues with the United States. At least, not as of 2001.
“your concern for the young American men and women still in harm’s way and fighting a savage enemy with no remorse for killing and maiming them”
I have great concern for those young Americans and I fervently hope they are removed from harm’s way as quickly as possible. It’s interesting, though, how invasion and occupation of one’s land by the superior forces of a morally condescending and hypocritical power brings out one’s “savagery,” particularly when such invasion and occupation is accompanied by the indiscriminate killing of civilians and incessant disdain and contempt for one’s culture and religion. (To be clear: I speak here not of the young Americans in harm’s way, but of the older Americans who in their hubris and arrogance put them there.)
One can only imagine how Americans would react under similar circumstances.
Mespo:
“Tell me how we might explain to the family of a deceased US serviceman or servicewoman that by releasing a detainee who then rejoins the terrorist movement and who acts alone or in concert to kill their loved one is in furtherance of our law and ideals? “An enormously low rate” is the thinnest of gruel and the coldest of comfort to people who bear the sacrifice in defense of our rights.”
I would imagine that you’d explain the death of the serviceperson in the same way that you’d explain the death of anyone resulting from an entirely useless, unnecessary war. Which the last several wars have been.
Which of my rights were being defended? The right to destroy smaller countries, and secure lucrative oil contracts for multinational corporations?
Armies do not defend rights. Armies act at the behest of governments to defend against invaders, or invade other countries.
These activities are often called “war,” which is used as an excuse to curtail rights, not defend them. For instance, rights to a fair trial, or rights to not be detained indefinitely, which have been removed due to the present state of perpetual war.