Assymmetrical Self-Gagging
Seton Hall has a new report out today on the purported suicides of three Gitmo detainees–Yassar Talal Al Zahrani, Mani Shaman Turki Al Habardi Al Tabi, and Ali Abdullah Ahmed–who all died on June 10, 2006. The report catalogs the many reasons to doubt that these men engaged–as the government claimed when they died–in asymmetrical warfare by committing suicide all at the same time. As the report describes, for the three detainees to have really committed suicide, they would have all had to have done the following:
- Braided a noose by tearing up their sheets and/or clothing
- Made mannequins of themselves so it would appear to the guards that they were asleep in their cells
- Hung sheets to block the view into the cells, a violation of SOPs
- Tied their feet together
- Tied their hands together
- Shoved rags in their mouths and down their throats
- Hung the noose from the metal mesh of the cell wall and/or ceiling
- Climbed up on to the sink, put the noose around their necks and released their weight, resulting in death by strangulation
- Hung dead for at least two hours completely unnoticed by guards
In other words, the cover story the government has offered to explain why all three of these detainees died at the same time doesn’t make any sense.
Now as it happens, just last week the Obama Administration filed an argument saying two of these detainees, Zahrani and Ahmed, could not sue the government for their treatment because the parts of the Millitary Commissions Act that prohibit court review of detention remains in place, in spite of the Boumedienne decision that threw out the habeas restrictions. Here’s that filing.
I’ve leave it to the lawyers to assess the merits of the suit. But this report makes it clear that the government may have reason to want to avoid discovery in this suit.
don’t think my coffee will stay down
O/T
Hold on to your adult beverage!
Seen this yet?
Brownie’s new heckuva job: teaching law school.
On Friday, the University of Denver law school announced the newest addition to its faculty: disgraced former FEMA administrator Michael Brown, forever remembered for doing a “heckuva” (i.e. incompetent) job during Hurricane Katrina. This spring, Brown will be teaching students about the Patriot Act. A description of the course:
The USA PATRIOT Act passed by Congress after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, has been controversial in legal circles, political debates and the media since its passage. The Act created new crimes, new penalties and new procedural rules for use against domestic and foreign terrorists. Despite having safeguards, critics contend some provisions go too far while others contend they do not go far enough. The Act is up for reauthorization and this class is focused on the current status of the Act, its revisions and the legal and policy debate as Congress considers its reauthorization in 2010.
Fred Cheever, the associate dean of academic affairs at the law school, told TPMmuckraker than Brown reached out to the school about teaching the course. Cheever said the school was attracted by Brown’s “extensive experience in government.” (HT: Above the Law)
Think Progress
Don’t ask lawyer Yoo to weigh in, from the Daily Planet?
The Berkeley Daily Planet, The Death of a Public Law School, by Benjamin Eisenberg (J.D. 2011, UC-Berkeley):
The University of California Berkeley Law School is poised to become the most expensive publicly owned law school in the world. Over the next two years, fees will increase by 32%. That means that California students will soon pay almost $52,000 a year in tuition, only a few thousand less than equivalent private law schools. Out-of-state students will pay the same as if they had gone to Harvard or Yale.
With these tuition changes, there will be no more Berkeley public law school. The California public law school dies today.
In this new world, Berkeley will be much like Stanford or Duke, except that the California government will act much like a well-respected alumnus, one that can put its name on a very large plaque in the donor lobby
What’s a few extrajudicial executions of helpless prisoners among friends?
I would like the government to publish a complete and accurate census of all individuals that it has tortured in the past decade, torture as understood by any definition of the word “torture”. Would such a census be possible? It would run to the tens of thousands.
I’m waiting for the YouTube that demonstrates how one person can stuff a rag down their own throat to the point of obstruction and then have time to bind their own feet, put a noose around their own neck (maybe it’s there and loose before the rag?), bind their own hands and then successfully carry out their own hanging. And it has to be a good enough plan that it works three out of three times, without being seen by perpetually patrolling guards.
Oh, those devious al Qaeda folks! They are capable of magic!
Well, they do have that evil trickster Satan on their side.
But if we have God on our side, we should have caught them.
It’s all in the past, folks. We have to look forward, get the agenda passed, and get America to work again.
Boxturtle (Why I’m not Obama’s speechwriter, I don’t know)
Besides, it’s not as open and shut as you think. If the guards didn’t check for 2 hours, that gives the detainees time to do points 1,2. Point 3 doesn’t matter, as that was never seen. And that also covers point 9. This would also explain how items 6,7,8 weren’t detected.
See? Seven points ALREADY explained by one simple mistake!
Now, they tie their feet and climb onto the sink. Put on the noose, stuff the rags into their throats, and tie their hands. The latter SOUNDS difficult, but a stage magician does that in every act. So if one of them was an illusionist, he could easily have taught the others.
The only thing they need to do it is a large supply of rags and clothing to be made into the ropes and dummies. It’s likely the illusionist aquired the materials over time and used his skills to hide them until they were ready.
Boxturtle (How about that job, Mr. Holder?)
According to Andy Worthington, these suicides were all hunger strikers, like Mohamed Saleh al Hanashi, whose supposed death from suicide earlier this year I explored in an article recently.
The amount of surveillance of prisoners at Guantanamo makes most of these suicide stories suspicious. The new report (which at over 100 pages I haven’t fully absorbed yet, and am much beholden to you, EW, for posting here) makes it clear that the prisoners were under constant surveillance. Note that autopsy reports demonstrate that two of the prisoners had been dead for two hours prior to being discovered. One of the prisoners had a broken hyoid bone, a clear sign of manual strangulation.
I’m working on a follow-up to the Hanashi story, and I can reveal one thing from that material, which is that Lt. Commander Brook DeWalt, the Director of Public Affairs at Guantanamo, told me in a telephone interview on Nov. 24 that while he couldn’t confirm the extent of video surveillance, he could confirm that “all detainees are on line-of-sight” monitoring, “or at most a 3 minutes check on every detainee in the facility.” How these three prisoners, who were in separate, non-contiguous cells, were able to do all that EW notes above, and not be noticed for hours boggles the imagination, and suggests — no, demands, a fuller investigation.
While one is thinking of the all the great work done by Mark Denbeaux and the whole Seton Hall University School of Law team, it would do everybody some good to go back and look at their December 2007 report, Captured on Tape: Interrogation and Videotaping at Detainees in Guantanamo (emphasis in original):
Where has the press been on this aspect of the videotape torture scandal… nowhere.
And while I’m throwing out links on Guantanamo, my colleague Stephen Soldz has written a devastating critique, based on a new ACLU FOIA document, on the supposed “rapport” interrogation alternative offered by the FBI and CITF in the Al Qahtani case, The “Ethical Interrogation”: The Myth of Michael Gelles and the al-Qahtani Interrogation. Like the Seton Hall reports, it’s a must read.
Very interesting report from Soldz, Jeff — thanks for that link. Och, the things that some people can rationalize.
More to consider. An earlier Seton Hall report on the suicides has more information about the prisoners. One of the latter, Yassar Talal Al-Zahrani, was only 17 years old when he was arrested by anti-Taliban forces in late 2001. He was never accused of being al Qaeda, but he was, again, like Hanashi, one of the prisoners at Mazar-i-Sharif at the time of the prisoner uprising in late 2001 (where John Walker Lindh was also captured). It’s unknown if, like Hanashi, he was later sent to Shabraghan Prison, where he could have heard of the mass killings by Dostum and (arguably) U.S. Special Forces.
Meanwhile, in the current document, readers may wish to take a look at Appendix J, “Missing and Redacted Pages”. 186 of 191 photo pages in the NCIS investigative file are listing as “missing”. The photos are said to be located at parent Guantanamo command, SOUTHCOM. Another big chunk of missing or redacted pages: 250 SOUTHCOM documents.
Meanwhile, 91 pages of documents from the Armed Forces Medical Examiners are likewise “missing.”
From what I have heard from friends in Afghanistan (retired Brigadier General, director of the ministry of Counter Narcotics) those ” where he could have heard of the mass killings by Dostum and (arguably) U.S.”
Special Forces.”
Mass killings rightfully pissed off the Taliban and fueled even more anger towards the U.S. occupying forces. One Phd candidate now at Ohio University from Afghanistan recently confirmed and added to my question about the “Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death” that around “7000” Taliban members were killed.
I have also often heard from the folks that I am in touch with who live in Afghanistan that the fact that this massacre of Taliban has never made the MSM’s big screen in the U.S. (have only heard Amy Goodman touch this story) only confirms that it would be dangerous for Taliban to surrender to occupying forces. Looked what happenned to the guys who did surrender in 2001. And few folks in the states are even aware of this tragedy.
The major media did cover the mass killings story recently, with a big story by James Risen at the New York Times back on July 11 of this year. Physicians for Human Rights has an ongoing website updating the latest on the story at AfghanMassGraves.org.
Also, on this big story that EW has linked to, the Seton Hall report of the cover-up — for that’s what Scott Horton is calling it right now over at Huff Post — here’s a link to the NCIS highly redacted official report (PDF)of their “investigation.” The Seton Hall analysts rip it to shreds.
Will the “notes” found on the bodies and written by these three individuals ever be released?
The “possible suicide notes” are a major component of the SH report:
Elsewhere (Appendix Q of the report), the researchers conclude:
As to Gitcheegumee’s comment @18, while I’ve read that Blackwater was involved in the rendition of prisoners, including from Guantanamo, to CIA black site prisons, I am not aware of tales of Blackwater interrogators directly torturing prisoners. If others know of that, I’d like to hear about it.
Yeah I went to your link and read that which made me wonder whether those suicide notes would ever be available to the public. Seems highly unlikely
Jeff, do you know if it has ever been established that Blackwater was involved in performing torture on prisoners and/or detainees?
One of the prisoners was to be released in 19 days, which puts a damper on the notion that he had no reason to live. I wonder if they were afraid of what he might say.
Actually, his status as a released innocent would have been as damaging to BushCheney and their claims that Gitmo housed the “worst of the worst”, as anything he might say.
If the suicides weren’t coordinated, the three identical murders were, with blatant obstruction of justice exhibited by many more individuals.
What message to the remaining prisoners might they have been sending? To the local command, the military, contractors and other prisons and prisoners, the purported enemy they were trying to defeat rather than enable? Who’s got the pics and what did they use them for? They wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble, violated their oaths, the UCMJ, exposed so many men, if not also to generate useful PR, for interrogations or to enforce conformity, for example.
I’m sure that’s a factor in the admin’s willingness to cave to the paranoid xenophobes who don’t want any of the prisoners, even those who were entirely innocent, resettled in the U.S., where subsequent interviews might actually make it through to the American public.
Although Omar Khadr was interesting to U.S. intel people in the first place for other reasons (who he knew, where he’d been, what he saw), I wonder whether he’s now a worry because he is so North American, unlike almost all of the other prisoners. According to all reports, he is still very much a North American teenager (older than that now, but with life interrupted), very Disney, Pepsi, etc … Presumably, he would have observed what was going on at GTMO as something not entirely foreign or alien. There must be people who really don’t want to see him interviewed by a serious journalist.
Maybe that prisoner had no idea. Y’know ‘keeping them in the dark’ seems to be SOP for our gulag.
Well, Cheney wanted them for what they might know or to confirm that they didn’t know anything, but might know someone, even if they didn’t know it. The reasoning is right out of Get Smart.
Most of Gitmo’s prisoners were acquired by paying bounties to local warlords. We didn’t have a clue who these prisoners were, just assumed the worst without properly trying to find out. It’s as if we needed to find actors for a theater we’d already built and sold tickets for, but had no play. We’ve been ad libbing ever since.
Well, act II is presently rehearsing in Afghanistan .
“the major media did cover the mass killing story recently” better late than never. But as I have shared at EW’s and many other place from the folks that I talk to from Afghanistan this really really pissed people off. Especially the willingness of both the Bush administration and the OBama administration to sweep these deaths of SURRENDERED TALIBAN MEMBERS IN 2001 due to suffocation under the ocuupying forces watch UNDER THE RUG.
Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow etc have not even whispered about these deaths this tragedy. Amy Goodman was the only one in 2001. She jumped on it as soon as the documentary came out
The unspoken truth: Why WOULDN’T someone stuck for years in Gitmo, being tortured at irregular intervals, with absolutely no hope ever for release, do everything in their power to kill themselves?
I know I would.
“Why WOULDN’T someone stuck for years in Gitmo, being tortured at irregular intervals, with absolutely no hope ever for release, do everything in their power to kill themselves?
I know I would.”
No doubt. After all, they were supposedly on hunger strike. Then again I also think that the guards might have good reasons for “allowing them” to commit suicide, or hurry them along. Some of these individuals would surely have been subject to release and would “talk” about their treatment. The prisoners might not have known this…but their guards would have known things were changing.
So rather than an assymetry we have a perfect symmetry of goals…both the prisoners and guards wanted the prisoners to commit suicide…though obviously for different reasons.
ot..Michigan
Sen. Debbie Stabenow is prepared to kill the public option to make Joe Lieberman and Blanche Lincoln happy:
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)–a staunch public option supporter, told reporters she’d be happy with a health care bill without a public option, so long as it accomplishes the public option’s imperatives of lowering costs and providing competition.
Well, Sen. Stabenow, the goal of the public option was not just to lower costs and provide competition. It was also meant to keep the insurance companies honest, ensure everyone had access to at least one decent plan designed for the public good, and to prevent this reform bill from becoming a massive corporate boondoggle that funnels billions of taxpayer dollars into private insurance coffers.
The bill will give hundreds of billions in federal dollars to the private insurance companies and force millions of Americans to hand over hundreds of billions more. That money will go to the same corporations that have done everything possible to kill meaningful reform. They will use this government-provided bailout to eventually lobby to remove what little regulation this bill will put in place, and to stop future reform efforts.
Where does June 10, 2006 fit in the Torture Tape Destruction timeline?
Were these deaths a message to anyone who wanted to keep the tapes, that if they persisted in their demands then all of the detainees would be suicided?
Many of the conditions of death sound eerily like the recent so-called “suicide” of the man in Tennessee.
I had written a snarky comment about the similarities on the incidents, but my higher angels prevailed. *G*
Yeah, I thought about that, too. Maybe someone with experience about suicide can chime in on how common it is for a suicide person to try to stage it to look like murder. The case you are talking about, though, was “explained” by a life insurance policy that obviously would not pay on a suicide. I doubt the Gitmo prisoners had life insurance, but the wingers will claim that staging their deaths as murders was an aspect of the assymmetrical warfare. The smarter ones might even chime in about the multiple, simultaneous aspect of al Qaeda attacks as a signature…
Ain’t it interestin’ how the wingers can *always* come up with an explanation? :-(((
Yea, we shouldn’t go postal on this one.
The mechanics do seem inconsistent with suicide, if not impossible to square with it. Just take the gag reflex. It’s involuntary, which is why waterboarding can wreak such havoc. Try it with your finger. Shove a rag down one’s own throat well below where it would trigger the gag reflex? If you didn’t yank it out, I suspect you’d pass out, which would leave all those other things undone – tying one’s wrists and ankles, climbing the sink and securing the bedsheet/rope (after you’ve tied your hands and fee), and hanging oneself with it. Buy, hey, those inventive little dark people, they can do what white people can’t. Right.
I know AIG is the underwiter for the employees of wartime contractors.
Wonder if there are life policies on detainees,held by AIG,too?
Remember Goldman Sach’s new financial instrument, viaticals?
Why wouldn’t the murderers have the good sense to pull the rags out of their throats?
For those who still dont understand why we can’t get a government to represent us I again say TERM LIMITS. received this email today:
Wanna get corruption, special interests, and corporate control out of congress next year? Here are a few methods to think about, the first one being the easiest:
1) Vote every member of Congress out of office, regardless of Party affiliation, in the next two elections. Replace them with new ones who have no corporate or special-interest ties.
There may be a handful of honest incumbents left, but most, if they’re not completely corrupt, are more beholden to corporate and special interests than to their constituents. In November of 2010, the entire House of Representatives will stand for re-election; all 435 of them. One third of the Senate, a total of 33 of them, will also stand for re-election.
Break congress’s addiction to corporate and special-interest money by voting every incumbent out. Make your new candidate show you their financial records (or go to http://www.opensecrets.org/races) to see who they accept money from. Find out which companies, industries, and PACs have contributed to your candidate before they get your vote. Try to find candidates who ONLY accept money from individuals, maximum $4600/year.
This way, we can start all over in the House of Representatives with 435 people who have no political favors owed to anyone but their own constituents.
Two years later, in 2012, vote the next third of the incumbents in the Senate out. Same thing in 2014 and, by that time we will have put all new people in that body as well.
2) Clean-Money Campaign Reform: http://www.fairelections.us/article.php?id=26#2
Maine and Arizona are already using clean-money campaigns to get corporate and special interest money out of their state-level elections. California, North Carolina, and many other states have passed clean money legislation as well. Yours can too:. http://www.caclean.org/solution/
Here’s a guy from Texas with his own idea for a national Clean-Money party to overturn Congress:
Introducing the Get Out Of Our House party (GOOOH, pronounced “GO”).
What is GOOOH? A non-partisan plan to replace the politicians.
I watched the series of short videos and might try it out. It seems to be a simple, practical way start Clean Money campaigns on the national level. Their goal is to reach 500,000 members by next year.
3) Return to Paper Ballots instead of Voting Machines.
Technology is a wonderful thing, but ironically, California, Ohio, Florida, and many other states/counties are returning to paper ballots after countless problems (for both red and blue candidates) with touchscreens and other e-voting systems. Here’s an article from Computer World magazine on the subject:
http://blogs.computerworld.com/voting_should_be_a_hand_job
Why trust our election results to computers that can be hacked by special interests, Big Business, and/or malicious computer nerds of all kinds?
In addition to the security issues, another problem with e-voting is the lack of a paper trail. Paper ballots provide that trail. They worked for the first two centuries, they can work for two more.
Volunteer to help with elections in your district, and support your state & county election board’s return to paper ballots before the next elections.
We, the People, have got to take this Country back and we HAVE to do it peacefully. That’s what the Framers of our Constitution envisioned.
ABOLISH corporate personhood.
It *is* rather telling that the more someone knows about technology the stronger their opinion against electronic voting. Give me a piece of paper, let me write down my vote, put it in a safe place in case of a needed recount. Thanks.
And Thom Hartman reports:
Thom’s Blog
Join a Tea Party?
A new Rasmussen poll shows the Tea Party movement is way more popular than the Republican Party it seeks to be a part of – if they were a political party, they would overtake the GOP on the generic Congressional ballot. The results of the poll? Democratic 36%, Tea Party 23%, Republican 18%. What this really shows is the power of populism. And the populists on the left would have a surprisingly broad range of agreements with the populists on the right. No trust of corporate America, and their wholly-owned politicians. A visceral hatred of banks and insurance companies who have been sucking our blood for decades. A horror at the idea of corporations as persons. A mistrust of the Fed. So we populists on the left should be reaching across the aisle to the populists on the right to form a new alliance, and maybe together we can actually produce some meaningful political change in America. Remember, movement politics have always been ahead of political parties in producing major change in America, from abolition to women’s suffrage to civil rights to gay rights. We all need to be showing up at the tea party meetings!
-Thom
Now that Bush isn’t around anymore, how are you people going to find a way to blame this on him?
Well, since it happened on Bush’s watch, I think we’ve got that covered. But just in case, IIRC, the Bush crowd was still trying to blame all the problems on Clinton as they walked out the door, so I’d say that be their own standards, we have 7 years or more to go
Easy, because “you people” can read a calendar. It happened on Bush’s watch, or rather Cheney’s, since the idea that Bush was able or interested in watching his own store isn’t credible.
But, as usual, O continues the coverup, meaning he owns the original crimes.
Yup. Obama is a very conservative “Democrat”. No wonder he and Joe Lieberputz see eye to eye on most issues.
The cover-up ought to be amusing.
oh my – the “you people” opening gambit – always goes over so well, and immediately announces such an earnest ambition to honestly debate.
OT – I’ve been in and out: is there going to be a vote on the Stupak/Nelson amendment any time soon?
I would so love to see you in action in the courtroom (if I’m remembering your occupation correctly).
Yes, and the Dems are saying it will be defeated.
Bob in AZ
Speaking of gagging, the Pulitzer Board seems to be on drugs. It has confused Politico with a news and journalism site:
Foul Matter indeed….
O/T, more C Street/Fellowship antics (Pickering). Link.
fatster, was wondering where you have been!
On the mend now, thank you, Gitcheegumee. BTW, nice pat on the back you got a few days ago.
Yeah, Heckuvajob Brownie’s “reaching out” to the university was ever so touching, wasn’t it? In the meantime, the troops who were ordered to guard a KBR toxic site in Iraq are beginning to die from the experience. What a grievous tragedy!
Thanks for the post and linking the report, EW, and thanks to the commentors (special nod to Jeff Kaye) for all the additional info.
@11 – he didn’t know he was going to be released – his lawyer had been forbidden to tell him.
Boxturtle, you are forgetting that the lawyers were accused of arranging the suicides back when they happened. I’m sure gov found, in all those atty – client documents they confiscated, directions that the lawyers had received from Penn & Teller on how to carry this off.
Isn’t that sthpecial. Hold, abuse and terrorize an innocent adolescent or young man in a Caribbean hell hole for years; finally decide he’s not a threat; decide to do something about it – unlike the decision not to do something about all those others – and then refuse to tell him that inside of two weeks he’d be released.
That’s targeting and terrorizing the innocent for a political end. That’s planned terror as individually evil, if not in the aggregate, as the opponents we claim to fight. That’s the house that Dick Cheney built. Obama seems happy to duplicate it in Bagram and elsewhere. Again, the Gandhi quote seems apt: “Western civilization? I think that would be a good idea.”
Greenwald’s take on those three suicides: Link.
That’s a whole lot of sheet…torn that is. A big one to block the view, several torn up to make the bindings, the gags, and the noose. And is this one of those “open cells” that we always see prisoners in? Or do they now put them in little ones with a single window?
‘Course this is a tropical climate so perhaps extra blankets are given individuals on “suicide watch” (since they were on a hunger strike). Maybe they get colder than usual. Also with the notes found “on the body” one must think they still were wearing some item of clothing. How did they keep on the torn up jump suits that is the prisoner garb?
And how did the guards not see or hear the tearing of sheets and clothing? Was this done over days? And still not noticed. Not a single one of these three seen which would have triggered a general search?
It’s all very good magic. These guys must be regular David Blaines.
Former US Attorney still JAG officer David Iglesias was sent to GITMO last year to help facilitate the closure of the prison. I wonder if any of these suicides crossed his desk ? If not ;why not ? JAG officer Iglesias would be one individual you would hope could get to the truth of these deaths .. and yes we can handle the truth .