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<H2 class=date-header><SPAN><FONT size=4>Saturday, July 20,
2013</FONT></SPAN></H2>
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<H3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">John Grishom: "Gitmo, a sad
perversion of American Justice" </H3>
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<TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" class=tr-caption><FONT size=4>US justice:
Making friends around the world</FONT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4>by Richard Mellor</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4>Afscme Local 444, retired</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><BR><FONT size=4>The only way one can avoid being sickened
and disgusted by the existence of the Guantanamo concentration camp in US
occupied Cuba is if one ignores it; and that’s what the vast majority of
Americans do.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For many years
growing up in Britain I paid little attention to the terrorism of the British
state in Northern Ireland as well. I couldn’t avoid the news completely so the
hunger strikers, the B Specials, the sectarian killings the treatment of
Catholics and what it meant, all came to me through the <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“official”</I> state media.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>With some help, I eventually broke out
of my isolation and came to understand the history behind the occupation of
Ireland’s six northern counties and the troubles and violence that was still
occurring there.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4>After spending billions of dollars of US
taxpayer money arming al Qaeda and the Islamic movement in Afghanistan, the
employer/employee relationship between the Pentagon and the Taliban, the
backward reactionary feudal warlords, was eventually severed by 1999. (Up until
1999 every Taliban official was on the payroll of the US government, treatment
of women be damned.) *<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>After 911,
the US offered its new allies, the ruthless Northern Alliance, bounties if they
captured and handed over terrorists which they did with gusto.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>People were then jailed, tortured,
killed and eventually drugged, hooded and flown to the concentration camp at
Guantanamo. As we shared with our readers recently, many Taliban that
surrendered with the promise of amnesty were </FONT><A
href="http://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com/2013/06/us-war-crimes-in-afghanistan-convoy-of.html"><FONT
size=4>brutally murdered under the guidance of US military
personnel.</FONT></A><FONT size=4><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>The fate of three British tourists, rounded up by US allies is well
documented in the movie </FONT><A
href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468094/?ref_=sr_6"><FONT size=4>Road to
Guantanamo</FONT></A><FONT size=4>. For the US public, burdened with the most
censored media and highly efficient state surveillance and propaganda machine,
we have no clue who the people in Guantanamo really are. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4>The hunger strike at Guantanamo is continuing
and some prisoners are considering the only path open to them, plead guilty to
war crimes in the hope of getting some sort of trial.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That’s what 11-year resident, Sufiyan
Barhoumi would like to do the </FONT><A
href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324069104578527012686080732.html"><FONT
size=4>Wall Street Journal reports</FONT></A><FONT size=4> this week.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The problem is that the Pentagon won’t
charge him with anything. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>One of
the reasons is the legal wrangling that is going on around these detainees.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The main war US capitalism is engaged in
is the <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“War on terror”</I>, and <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“terror”</I> not being a nation or having an
army or state as it is actually a tactic, tends to complicate things.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4>The human beings in Guantanamo are not in
America, I don’t mean physically, because Guantanamo is in occupied Cuba, but
legally and other ways.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In the US
under most circumstances, the justice system releases you if you are not charged
with a crime after a certain time.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>But not so in Guantanamo as the WSJ explains:</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV class=MsoNormal><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><FONT
size=4>“Elsewhere in the American justice system, suspects go free unless
prosecutors file charges. In Guantanamo, the opposite is true: Detainees who
aren't charged and are presumed innocent under the Military Commissions Act of
specific war crimes nevertheless face indefinite detention because the Pentagon
has classified them as enemy combatants.”</FONT></I></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“Enemy
combatants” </I>is<I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"> </I>a handy term and
doesn’t fall from the sky by chance.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Language is important it seems. Being <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“enemy combatants”</I> or, as we are finding
out a <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“terrorist”</I> strips you of
rights society offers to the population as a whole or rights that soldiers have
when nations enter conflict.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>British colonialism refused to give the collective term <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“rebellion”</I> to those who fought its
occupation and theft of their land as this would give them legitimacy.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The Mau Mau were terrorists not freedom
fighters, the same with Irish resistance to 500 years of British occupation. The
difference is significant as convicting a Guantanamo inmate of war crimes means
the thugs at the Pentagon must prove it to a military commission beyond a
reasonable doubt.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But with enemy
combatants, all that has to be shown is that a <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“preponderance of evidence”</I><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>or with as the WSJ explains <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“a 51% certainty” </I><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>the accused <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“belonged to a force associated with the
Taliban or Al Qaeda”.</I><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As I
point out above you’d have to arrest the entire US Congress for that but the
statute of limitation has expired on that one conveniently. What al Qaeda is if
it is anything at all is a mystery as any resistance to US imperialism’s
adventures are <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“alleged militants”</I> <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“alleged insurgents” “terrorists”</I>
etc.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Friends of the Pentagon are
always <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“rebels</I>”.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4>So the methods and practices in Guantanamo are
not new.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Domestically, they are
used in US prisons daily.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For
example, Guantanamo authorities are suggesting that they will file charges so
concentration camp occupants can offer some sort of legal response and a chance
of leaving the place if they testify against each other. In the present hunger
strikes in California prisons this is one of the demands, stop forcing inmates
to snitch on each other.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>While it
has been proven that not very useful information comes from torture as people
will say anything to put an end to it, getting prisoners to turn anyone in for
anything in order to improve their own conditions serves the authorities well,
it divides the population, increases internecine gang and racial warfare and
strengthens the forces of the state. This is why the struggle for prisoner’s
rights must include the right to have independent unions that can represent
their interests. In the case of the above mentioned Mr. Barhoumi, they want him
to testify against a fellow inmate considered more important, <BR><BR>Being more
important than Barhoumi this man was not sent straight to Guantanamo but first
to a CIA torture center in Afghanistan where he was waterboarded 83 times
according to the WSJ. As with inmates in the US gulag, the human character is
very strong as is the hatred of organized state forces and people don’t give up
others easily. It’s not a question of taking sides here but even those we oppose
have to be respected at times for their principled commitment to what they
believe rightly or wrongly is a just cause.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Mr. Barhoumi is <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“willing to work with this system and plead
guilty because it’s his only alternative to indefinite detention” </I>Capt.
Justin Swick, his defense attorney tells the WSJ, but he refuses to win his
freedom or possibility of it by testifying against others which is the US
government’s condition to set the process in motion, “<I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">He won’t help convict someone else in a
system he believes is illegitimate” </I>says Swick.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4>There are some decent people in this world.
Swick points out that Guantanamo authorities refused to allow John Grisham
novels in to the camp as they’re <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“problematic”.</I><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’ve never read a Grisham novel so I’m
not really sure what horrific dangers one could produce for US authorities or
how they threaten the American way of life. But I am tempted to read Mr Grishom
whose response to Guantanamo authorities concern about safety and inmate care
was, <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“In response to all their humaneness
is to ask where waterboarding fits in.”</I> adding that <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“Gitmo is a sad perversion of American
justice.”</I></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4>Apparently, the thugs that run the place have
backed off on the Grishom novels for MR. Bargoumi, perhaps as a response to the
massive hunger strike that is occurring there.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Barhoumi is pleased but will wait till
he’s off hunger strike before he reads them.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4>The <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"></SPAN>US state apparatus combines coercion,
manipulation, incarceration and the most brutal violence in its war on the
workers and middle class. Guantanamo is nothing new, not the exception when it
comes to the treatment of the incarcerated.Along with this, racism, sexism and
blaming immigrants and foreigners for their crisis, are all tactics aimed at
weakening the unity of the working class. People have an understanding that to
confront this war machine is serious business and a daunting task; the lack of
mass protests at the war being waged against workers in the US is not simply due
to apathy. Although we have seen some resistance over the past period and
tremendous support for the Occupy Movement as well as lots of isolated
individual struggles around the environment, <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>racism, police brutality, housing etc. ,
I think there is still a strong feeling among the majority of the population
that there’s not much we can do, so there’s a sort of numbing to it all and a <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">“get on with my life”</I> attitude hoping
the tide will turn.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But more and
more Americans are drawing the conclusion that the tide will not turn so this
mood can rapidly change as US history shows and an overconfident US capitalist
class can and will make some serious miscalculations that will hasten this
process.</FONT></DIV>
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size=4></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><FONT size=4>*See Michel Chossudovsky: War and
Globalization </FONT></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>