from the Center for American Progress …..

Five Years Too Long

‘Yesterday, protesters "from Kuwait to the Cuban countryside" marked the fifth anniversary of the arrival of the first detainees to the U.S. prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The track record of the Guantanamo detention program "can be summed up quite simply: five years, zero convictions." More than 770 captives have been held there and just 10 have been charged with crimes. "Instead of advancing American security," Human Rights First said on the anniversary, "the abuses of Guantanamo have stained America's reputation for justice, fairness, and transparency." "Like my predecessor, I believe that prison at Guantanamo should be closed," new United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. "I also remember that President Bush himself has said he would like to close it." Bush did say he would "like to close Guantanamo," yet the admiral in charge of the facilities operations said yesterday, "I think that we’ll have a detention facility and a detention mission for the foreseeable future." As Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch said, "It's time to close Guantanamo."

PREVIOUS GUANTANAMO HEARINGS WERE 'SHAMS': New hearings conducted under the controversial Military Commissions Act that was passed last year have already begun. The Pentagon is constructing "a mini-city on an abandoned airfield to stage the trials -- two new courtrooms with space for two more, dining, housing and work space for up to 1,200 military and civilians working at the trials, and media, conference and classified information centers." (The site will cost $125 million.) And "armed with a new Military Commissions law, the Pentagon is preparing to hold multiple trials in multiple venues -- even as Justice and Defense Department lawyers are still writing new guidelines for new trials." An internal worksheet "says the Pentagon anticipates trying '75 to 80' of the 430 or so detainees under an 'increased operations tempo.'" Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI) and John Warner (R-VA) have filed a letter protesting the move. There is little evidence the trials held in the new facility will be any better than previous hearings, in which the government "called no witnesses, withheld evidence from detainees and usually reached a decision within a day as it determined that hundreds of men...were 'enemy combatants.'" A report by Seton Hall University law professor Mark Denbeaux found the "government did not produce any witnesses in any hearing" and in "91 percent of the hearings, the detainees did not present any evidence." "No American would ever consider this to be hearing," Denbeaux said. "This is a show trial." In addition, lawyers who have properly represented their detainee clients have been smeared or otherwise punished for doing so.

WHO ARE THE GITMO DETAINEES?: "It's important for Americans and others across the world to understand the kind of people held at Guantanamo," Bush said a few months ago. "These aren't common criminals, or bystanders accidentally swept up on the battlefield - we have in place a rigorous process to ensure those held at Guantanamo Bay belong at Guantanamo." Facts tell a different story. A National Journal investigation found that "seventy-five of the 132 men" examined are "not accused of taking part in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners." Just 57 of the 132 men, or 43 percent, are "accused of being on a battlefield in post-9/11 Afghanistan. The government's documents tie only eight of the 132 men directly to plans for terrorist attacks outside of Afghanistan." Stuart Taylor of the National Journal found "fewer than 20 percent of the Guantanamo detainees, the best available evidence suggests, have ever been Qaeda members. ... Many scores, and perhaps hundreds, of the detainees were not even Taliban foot soldiers, let alone Qaeda terrorists. They were innocent, wrongly seized noncombatants with no intention of joining the Qaeda campaign to murder Americans." The AP found that once Guantanamo detainees were returned to their home country, four-fifths of them "were either freed without being charged or were cleared of charges related to their detention." "Only a tiny fraction of transferred detainees have been put on trial," and all 29 detainees who were repatriated to Britain, Spain, Germany, Russia, Australia, Turkey, Denmark, Bahrain and the Maldives were freed, "some within hours after being sent home for 'continued detention.'"

MORE PAST ABUSES EMERGE: Accusations of past Guantanamo detainee abuse continue to trickle out. The Washington Post recently reported that in 2002, "FBI agents witnessed possible mistreatment of the Koran at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including at least one instance in which an interrogator squatted over Islam’s holy text in an apparent attempt to offend a captive." In other incidents, "interrogators wrapped a bearded prisoner's head in duct tape 'because he would not stop quoting the Koran'"; another interrogator 'dressed as a Catholic priest before 'baptizing'" a detainee. The AP reported, "Guards at Guantanamo Bay bragged about beating detainees and described it as common practice, a Marine sergeant said in a sworn statement." The Marine described practices such as "hitting the detainee's head into the cell door" and "punching [them] in the face." Now, prisoners "are being driven insane by a tightening of conditions and the situation of their indefinite detention without trial, according to lawyers and rights activists involved with the U.S. camp."

A TARNISHED INTERNATIONAL REPUTATION: Leaders from around the world are calling for the camp's closure. "I think it would be better if [Guantanamo] was closed for all the reasons that we have given over a long period of time," UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has said. The British Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett added, "The continuing detention without fair trial of prisoners is unacceptable in terms of human rights, but it is also ineffective in terms of counter-terrorism." "If you just look at how we are perceived in the world and the kind of criticism we have taken over Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and renditions, whether we believe it or not, people are now starting to question whether we’re following our own high standards," former Secretary of State Colin Powell said in September. "We've lost a generation of goodwill in the Muslim world," the former director of the CIA's Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program said. "Because of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and other abuses we have lost on the concepts of justice, fairness and the rule of law, and that’s the heart of the American idea." The Center for American Progress has a plan to shift detainees at Guantanamo to the detention facility at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and prosecute them in general courts-martial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

RESTORING HABEAS CORPUS: The Military Commissions Act passed last year included "language stripping detainees of habeas corpus rights," which has been a foundation of the Western system of justice for centuries. Without these rights, detainees in places like Guantanamo have no ability to question their detention. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) introduced legislation in November that would amend the existing law governing military tribunals of detainees. Among other reforms, the bill sought "to give habeas corpus protections to military detainees” and narrow the definition of "unlawful enemy combatant" to individuals who directly participate in hostilities against the United States. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), who voted for the Military Commissions Act last year, acknowledges the courts will declare the portion dealing with habeas corpus rights "unconstitutional." (Take action to help restore this fundamental right here.)

The Editor,

Sydney Morning Herald. January 14, 2007.

How ironic that David Hicks - rendered, imprisoned, tortured & denied his legal & human rights by the United States for more than five years - has managed to make Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, & the Howard government, co-hostages of this appalling travesty of justice (‘Australia’s most wanted’, Herald, January 13).

As Hicks continues to suffer from the arrogant, illegal & brutish behaviour of the criminal Bush administration, Philip Ruddock’s Amnesty badge has become emblematic of the Howard government’s cynical political expediency & barren morality.

Languishing in isolation & being slowly driven to the brink of madness, David Hicks could not imagine how simmering public anger at the betrayal of our most enduring value – a fair go – may well prove instrumental in destroying the very government that has abandoned him.

John Richardson.

‘In one of the most severe blows the Bush administration has dealt to our constitutional democracy, the Pentagon attacked the lawyers who have volunteered to represent the Guantánamo detainees.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles Stimson threatened corporate lawyers who agree to defend the men and boys imprisoned there. Flashing a list of corporations that use law firms doing this pro bono work, Stimson declared, "Corporate C.E.O.'s seeing this should ask firms to choose between lucrative retainers and representing terrorists."

In 1770, John Adams defended nine British soldiers including a captain who stood accused of killing five Americans. No other lawyer would defend them. Adams thought no one in a free country should be denied the right to a fair trial and the right to counsel. He was subjected to scorn and ridicule and claimed to have lost half his law practice as a result of his efforts.

Adams later said his representation of those British soldiers was "one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested actions of my whole life, and one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country."’

Pentagon Attacks Lawyers Of Guantanamo Detainees

‘The father of Guantanamo detainee David Hicks says he doesn't believe Foreign Minister Alexander Downer's assertion that his son is in good health.

Terry Hicks today called for an independent medical assessment of his son, dismissing Mr Downer's remarks that there is "no suggestion that he (Hicks) was suffering from mental illness".

Mr Downer said a foreign national had visited Hicks, being held by the US at its Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba, and reported that he was in good health.

Mr Hicks questioned Mr Downer's information, saying an independent psychiatrist not linked to the military or a government needed to assess his son.

"I think Mr Downer's getting information that is not quite correct," Mr Hicks said today.

"We know the situation is different from that - David is not well."

Mr Hicks said he wanted to know who visited his son - something Mr Downer refused to reveal.’

Hick's Father Challenges Downer

meanwhile, for the morally bankrupt Darth Ruddock, champion of the abuse of law & steadfast defender of the phoney bushit administration’s notion of “fair” justice, I offer this obscene insight into the experience of the Guantanamo detainees, including David Hicks …..

‘I fell into the world of Guantánamo in October 2005. The Chicago Council of Lawyers had organized a luncheon discussion on the legal issues surrounding the infamous detention facility at the U.S. naval base in eastern Cuba. I received an email thanking me for my attendance (I should have gone but didn’t) and asking for volunteers to represent the nearly 200 known unrepresented prisoners at the base.

I had assumed that I was well-informed about our criminal president and his assault on the rule of law; it never occurred to me that four years after being captured (and more than one year after the Supreme Court affirmed their right to hearing and counsel) individuals were still being held without legal representation. I replied to the e-mail, offering my services.

During a conference call for volunteer lawyers, I got a sense of what the job might entail. For example, attorneys are required to turn their client notes over to the government after visiting prisoners. I naively asked, “What about attorney-client privilege?” This, like so many other protections and legal principles, doesn’t apply to Guantánamo. Attorneys often return from the base with urgent news, but have to wait weeks for the government to clear their notes. The government rarely, if ever, classifies the content; this procedure simply delays and encumbers our work.’

Diary Of A Guantánamo Attorney

elsewhere …..

‘A Pentagon official who criticized large U.S. law firms for representing terrorism suspects at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has apologized for his comments, saying that his discussion on a local radio program does not reflect his "core beliefs."

Charles D. "Cully" Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, said yesterday that he regrets what he told Federal News Radio on Thursday, when he suggested that chief executives of U.S. companies should question being represented by lawyers who do pro bono work for terrorism suspects. The Washington Post editorial page reported Stimson's comments Friday.’

US Official Apologizes For Guantanamo Remarks

Such an apology is obviously beyond our shameless attorney-general .....