[Peace-discuss] Durbin, Obama voted against habeas corpus, for coercion

Tue Feb 28 19:03:50 CST 2006

[This column appeared in tonight's News-Gazette.  Both our
senators voted for the "Defense Appropriation Act, 2006,"
which contained the "Detainee Treatment Act of 2005,"
described here by Hentoff.  --CGE]

    Force-feeding detainees
    By Nat Hentoff

    As many as 130 of our prisoners at Guantanamo -- some held
now for four years without seeing the key evidence against
them -- have been engaging in a hunger strike in their
desperation. Only four of them are still on a hunger strike,
due to the ruthless efforts of military officers to stop the
strike. Lawyers for some of these detainees have told me of
the methods being used to force feed the desperate prisoners
-- as also described on National Public Radio (Feb. 9) by
another of their attorneys, Neil Koslowe.
    The desperate hunger-strikers are put in a metal restraint
chair which ties them down in six positions, and the officers
"force open their mouths and then they shove down their mouths
nutritional supplements mixed with milk of magnesia and other
ingredients. The prisoners get nauseous, they vomit. They
defecate over themselves. They urinate over themselves." Some,
for hours a day, are kept in the metal chairs.
    As Tim Golden reported in a front-page story in the Feb. 9
New York Times, this is being done because "the death of one
or more prisoners (who starve themselves) could intensify the
international criticism of the detention center." Deep in Mr.
Golden's story is the further reason this classic definition
of cruel and unusual punishment is taking place: "Detainees'
lawyers said they believe that the tougher approach to the
hunger strikes was related to the passage in Congress of a
measure intended to curtail the detainees' access to United
States courts."
    The new law is the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, passed
by Congress and signed into law by President Bush on Dec. 30.
It strips prisoners at Guantanamo of the habeas-corpus rights
provided them by the Supreme Court in Rasul et al. v. Bush in
2004, when the Court ruled that prisoners at Guantanamo, "no
less than American citizens," are entitled to the right of
habeas corpus the basic American due-process right. (The first
statute by the first Congress in 1789 was the Habeas Corpus
Act.)  After the Supreme Court's decision, nearly 100
habeas-corpus petitions were filed by lawyers for the
prisoners. But on Jan. 6, acting swiftly on the basis of the
Detainee Treatment Act, the Justice Department started asking
judges to dismiss all these petitions.
    The senator who first introduced this cruel-and-unusual
punishment legislation later somewhat amended and co-sponsored
by Sens. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, and Jon Kyl, Arizona
Republican, is Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican.
He said he wanted to stop our federal courts being flooded by
insubstantial lawsuits.
    The ultimate effect of Mr. Graham's handiwork overruling
the Supreme Court is illuminated by Tom Wilner, an attorney
for 12 Kuwaiti prisoners: "It tears the heart out of anything
good from the (John) McCain prohibition against cruel, inhuman
and degrading treatment of detainees.
    "It prohibits them from suing U.S. officials for their
treatment, and in new language slipped into the bill (during
the House-Senate conference committee sessions) actually
authorizes the tribunals at Guantanamo to use statements
obtained through 'coercion' (that could include torture) as
'probative' testimony." Why has the principled Mr. McCain not
protested this legislation publicly? This disgraceful
treatment of prisoners is not only Mr. Graham's bitter legacy,
but that of every member of Congress who voted for the
Detainee Treatment Act and the president who signed it
    As Mr. Wilner told me: "This law is a disaster a giant
step backward for human rights. By eliminating the Great Writ
(habeas corpus) and authorizing the use of coercion, it
undermines the very foundation of our system." But once the
military at Guantanamo heard the welcome news of this law,
they felt free to deal with helpless and hopeless prisoners as
they have with a Wilner client, Fawzi Al Odah. He is quoted in
Golden's New York Times report as hearing "screams of pain"
from a hunger-striker in the next cell as a thick tube was
inserted into his nose.
    At the other detainee's urging, Al Odah told (Mr. Wilner)
that he planned to end his hunger strike the next day." In an
Associated Press report on Al Odah's retreat, the prisoner
explained, "I'm brave, but I'm not stupid. On the chair, I'll
be restrained and unable to resist. They are determined to
torture me." (Al Odah has not been accused of being part of Al
Qaeda.) An official at Guantanamo told the Feb. 13 London
Daily Telegraph: "We are proud of the fact that none of the
detainees held at Guantanamo Bay had died since it opened."
Congratulations. On Feb. 13, I saw on television a pack of
White House reporters bedeviling Bush press secretary Scott
McClellan on why they had not been told immediately of Vice
President Dick Cheney's hunting accident. It didn't occur to
any of them to ask Mr. McClellan if this compassionate
president has any misgivings about signing the Detainee
Treatment Act of 2005 and the resultant force-feeding.
    Reporters, make note: There will be a hearing on this
lawless law before the D.C. Circuit of Appeal on March 22.