Khadr: “You’re Trying to Humiliate Me”
If you’ve been following Spencer and Carol Rosenberg, you know that the news from Omar Khadr’s hearing has been dominated by Khadr’s two refusals to come to the hearing room, yesterday because he didn’t want to wear the blackout goggles they use while transporting detainees at Gitmo, today because he didn’t want to undergo a waistband search before being transported to the hearing room.
I certainly can’t say whether Khadr really doesn’t want to undergo these procedures–which the government says are routine–or whether he wants to call the world press’ attention to these procedures (anyway, how do you separate the two?). But in any case, he has succeeded, to some extent, in doing the latter (Spencer tweeted that Gitmo authorities actually explained “which digit gets inserted” in a waistband search).
Both times, the authorities dutifully reported Khadr’s comments about humiliation. Yesterday, he said, “You’re trying to humiliate me,” and today he said, “I want to come to court but I want to come respectfully.”
Here’s how the Toronto Globe and Mail (which in some ways would be the key audience for such a story) reported the repeated refusals:
For the second day in a row, Omar Khadr refused to appear Friday for pre-trial hearing on murder and terrorism charges, claiming he was being subjected to unnecessary and humiliating searches by military guards.
[snip]
“I want to come to court but I want to come respectfully,” Mr. Khadr said, according to U.S. Marine Capt Laura Bruzzese, who testified at the opening of today’s session.
Military Judge Col Patrick Parrish said the hearing would proceed without Mr. Khadr.
“He objects to having his waistband searched” but that is a reasonable security measure, the judge said, adding that Mr. Khadr’s objections – unlike those of a day earlier — were unrelated to his eye problems.
[snip]
But Mr. Khadr’s condition and his care eclipsed Thursday’s hearing. The military judge, Col. Parrish, refused defence requests that a doctor on the defence team be allowed to testify as to the seriousness of Mr. Khadr’s eye problems. Mr. Khadr failed to appear for the morning session after he refused to wear the sensory-depriving, blacked-out, ski goggles and earmuffs detainees are required to wear for transport from the prison camps to the courtroom.
Col. Parrish then cancelled it and warned Mr. Khadr’s lawyers that unless they persuaded him to attend, he would order him trussed up and brought to the court, at least long enough for him to be told of his right to absent himself. That right was apparently omitted from Mr. Khadr’s arraignment.
Col. Parrish rejected defence requests to examine whether Mr. Khadr should be forced to wear the goggles, even while in the back of the armoured vehicle used to transfer prisoners from the camps to the court. The judge said he “wasn’t going to second guess the decisions made by security” personnel.
I’m curious what you all make of this. To Americans, certainly, such procedures aren’t going to seem out of order–we see US-based prisoners subjected to bureaucratized dehumanization on teevee all the time. That’s not as true of the rest of the world. Yet, it seems to detract from the issues specific to Khadr that piss off the rest of the world even more, that the US is trying someone who for actions allegedly committed as a teenager.
I found Spencer’s post on the video being allowed interesting. I sure hope the hearing extends the same opportunity to Khadr to show pictures and video of his being tortured. Since evidence of torture would go more to the heart of this trial.
this treatment of a prisoner is horrendous – as horrendous today as it was with american citizen jose padilla three years ago – and a clear warning to americans of what their government is capable of doing to THEM.
in addition, there is the small matter of the government lying, blatantly lying, to the public and to the courts about the “need” for these security measures.
american government security organizations lying about their activities and lying about the justifications for those activities has become par for the course, whether your local police or the national security agency.
that too should be a warning to us all.
time for a national security overhaul.
up against the wall,
m-fing “public security” nazis.
Black out goggles and earmuffs, even in the transfer van? As the Toronto Globe and Mail notes, this is meant to be a form of sensory deprivation. According to accounts I’ve read, these “transfers” within Guantanamo can take some time, and this kind of sensory deprivation is meant to disorient the prisoner. It is also no doubt meant to remind him of even longer periods of sensory deprivation he has undergone, and if his response were at all arousing to the nervous system, or brought a trauma response of overarousal (PTSD or in that spectrum), then the use of goggles/earmuffs could also trigger anxiety responses.
It is outrageous the judge will not allow any argument re the goggles (and I’d add the earmuffs), especially if Omar has an eye problem.
I don’t believe putting prisoners in goggles and earmuffs for transfer is any kind of standard practice in the United States. Criminal attorneys and prosecutors, am I right?
Yes. It would also be a reminder of how “helpless” and dependent on Authority the detainee is, I think. I seem to recall that Aafia Siddiqui tried to bring up a similar point [mandatory invasive body searches?] in the beginning of her trial.
I have never heard of such a thing in Canada. We’ve watched TV footage of serial killers being transported in handcuffs in the backs of police cars — that’s usually as far as things go. I mean, there can’t be many scarier people in the world than Paul Bernardo (baby-faced blond), and no one ever put goggles and earmuffs on him.
I think that the melodramatic first swoops on the Toronto Paintball 18 in 2006 may have involved some hooding, but that case was quickly overtaken by comedy unto farce and is close to fizzling. The security-certificate cases have involved some humiliation (secret hearings, unjustified detention, ankle bracelets after release, etc), and again, those cases are collapsing because CSIS are ashamed to admit in open court that they’ve been running on evidence from Abu Zubaydah (well, there’s more than that, but there’s that).
But anyway, that’s all I can think of. A lot of Canadians are going to be outraged by this:
Have I ever told you how I feel about men (or even women) with public power who take on the voice of the patriarchy? I had better not. Our blog has a pathetically low swear-word quotient — I’ll do my swearing there.
Not only Canadians.
Have you been watching how this is playing on teevee? (I supposed I should be able to get CBC from Windsor on my Sat channels, but I’ve never succeeded.)
Canada has had years to become outraged about this case, glad to hear it might actually do so. Sorry we Americans had to hit such a low bar to make it happen.
I can’t say it is never done, but it would have to be some very unusual circumstances. I have had a case where my client was hooded, but only one that I recall.
Hooding is now banned by the military (supposedly), that’s why the goggles and earmuffs.
Why not a vehicle with no windows and playing loud music. If you can not see out of the vehicle and unable to hear the sound of the road.
There has to be a way to transport without giving direction, sound of road etc away.
As of this moment he is being treated as a convict, not a suspect that is innocent according to our constitution, not that there is a usable enforcement mechanism to guide our elected officials to do the right thing constitutionally.
Khadr’s right. The only possible explanation for this “security” protocol is it is being done for show. It is intended to humiliate him and to demonstrate to the viewing audience that Khadr is exceedingly dangerous.
The only other rationale would be that his jailers are incompetent. How else could one plausibly explain the possibility of a waistband weapon or that he must not see nor hear anything between his prison and court?
Nope. This is further evidence that the military commissions are nothing but show trials.
The only ones being truly humiliated here are American citizens by the actions of their lawless government.
While I appreciate your points, and politically support the wider view you are describing about the debasement of this country by such practices, I do not think you appreciate the profound effects upon the individual of humiliation, degradation, and techniques which are meant to produce “Monopolisation of Perception.” It is not merely for “show”.
May I remind readers here that the latter was one of the Biderman techniques taught to Guantanamo BSCT personnel and interrogators, according to documents released as part of the SASC investigation into detainee abuse. See http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/supporting/2008/Documents.SASC.061708.pdf
As I wrote in a recent research article, published in Guild Practitioner:
Moreover, I’d note, the “field expedient” use of goggles or blindfolds and earmuffs on prisoners is considered powerful enough that its use is not supposed to exceed 12 hours, without approval from higher-ups. Even more, medical personnel must be on hand for use of this technique (goggles and earmuffs). Why is that? Because even temporary use of this sensory deprivation technique can produce powerful psychological symptoms, even psychotic symptoms. The context of being held by all-powerful, hostile powers without access to sight or sound cues is terrifying.
(Try it sometimes with even friends. But on blindfold and earmuffs — really good, sound-canceling ones, and have them drive you around for an hour, move you from room to room, have them jostle you some and just act even a little hostile. See if you begin to experience some anxiety. — On second hand, don’t try it. I don’t want you to replicate Zimbardo’s Prison experiment, which ended disastrously.)
Humiliation and fear together constitute psychological torture. Here it is being done in front of the eyes of the world, but people are inured to it, have been psychologically numbed themselves. So yes, phred, I agree with you that Americans should feel humiliated by these show trials, but please do not underestimate the powerful effect of the tactics being used upon Mr. Khadr. And yes, tjbs, you are right they are treating him without any presumption of innocence. That is true of all or the vast majority of men at Guantanamo. But even a “convict” should not be treated the way this prisoner is being treated.
My bold. You are quite mistaken.
I appreciate all of the hard work you have put into informing the rest of us of the brutality that has been perpetrated on our prisoners by our government officials. I am acutely aware of this, but to suggest that the “show” aspect of what our government has been doing for the past decade is a secondary aspect is to miss the point entirely.
Everything that OBushCo have been doing has been to take our country in a direction it would not otherwise go. They have achieved this through unrelenting propaganda and implementation of policies to serve as constant reminders that our very existence is constantly under threat. We must be vigilant. We must submit to authority and its literally obscene overreach wherever and whenever it is asserted.
The assault on our Constitution is continuing unabated. Just this morning I read that the federal response to the unconstitutional Arizona law is to go it one better by issuing National ID cards. How refreshing. Now we will all have to show our papers upon command. And poof! There goes the racial profiling problem, because we will all be properly labeled, corralled, and subjugated by our government by of and for the corporation.
Dems and Reps have been working assiduously in concert for quite some time now to completely remake our relationship with our government, to radically alter our society, and to restore the ancient and self-perpetuating feudal power systems of old.
This is not about Khadr. It never was. It has always been about political power and that message is being directed at us. Resistance is futile.
Reject assimilation.
; )
“Col. Parrish then cancelled it and warned Mr. Khadr’s lawyers that unless they persuaded him to attend, he would order him trussed up and brought to the court, at least long enough for him to be told of his right to absent himself. That right was apparently omitted from Mr. Khadr’s arraignment.”
What the hell is “trussed up”
Trussed has an interesting etymology (see below) that certainly was not known to Col. Parrish. His use of this term unwittingly ties the government’s current activities towards Khadr with the more depraved activities that the government wishes to sweep under the rug.
From Dictionary.com:
Truss–
From Merriam-Webster’s on-line dictionary:
Torture–
Col. Parrish is unintentionally showing us how he feels about Mr. Khadr. Torture to achieve the ends desired is acceptable.
That’s very interesting. Thanks.
“Come to court willingly, or I’ll have you beaten until you do.”
Nice justice there, judge. Nice presumption of innocence, too.
The man is not a judge, these commissions do not deserve the label “court”.
O/T…don’t know if this has been posted already. It is on topic for a post from yesterday.
”New Manual for Military Commissions Disregards the Commander-in-Chief , Congressional Intent and Laws of War”,/i>; David Frakt; 4/29/10
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-frakt/new-manual-for-military-c_b_557720.html
Khadr did come to court — a more recent report from Michelle Shephard of the TStar. (Both the Star and the G&M are good sources, though.)
True, though not today. They’ve taken away Khadr’s chair in the hearing room.
Right — sorry. I was reading backwards. *blush* Got my chronology straight now.
ondelette @ 23, fair enough: our current government will not lift a finger to help Omar unless forced by the Supreme Court, and even then they lift the finger only halfway. They’re neocons: they enjoy seeing people punished.
The last time I saw a poll, public opinion was close to evenly split on Khadr’s case. I think hard reporting on what is really going on might change things. The courts have consistently ruled that his rights have been violated, and all the opposition parties (who make up a majority in the Commons but fear an election) have voted to demand Khadr’s repatriation. Steve pays no attention to that sort of thing, and he hates the courts.
Oh, and EW @ 22: I do not have a teevee right now — strange but true. I watch everything a day late online. ;-) Petro?
I have a Big TeeVee, but I avoid teh news, cuz they mostly look like Glenn Beck. Y’all are welcome to check out this article – via cbc.ca
The comments are particularly revealing of Canuck opinion because the majority are sensible, objective views … with a few wingnuts tossed in, for variety.
I can’t say it any better than this commenter:
“Khadr, who is accused by the United States of murder, conspiracy and supporting terrorism in the Afghan war”
Supporting Terrorism? Are they serious? He was 15… Most 15 years old’s I know are not supporting anything… rather they are in need of support.
America, what a sick nation… Picking on children in their twisted witch hunts…
Take a step back off your panic driven, media sponsored hate talking points and take an honest look at the American banking industry, Wall Street and the Military machine that is so pervasive and powerful in America and ask yourself who is really terrorizing this world!
If your answer is still Omar Khadr… You need help…”
Well, that’s unusual. I usually avoid reading the comments at cbc.ca — or most of the msm sites — because they get so vile. The no-nothing brigade seem to show up in full force. The Maclean’s blogs (Coyne, Wherry, Wells) get good discussions going, I think because those guys actually read and participate and delete/ban. None of them is very strong on this topic, though. For that you need the regulars at the Star (Shephard) and the Grope and Flail.
Coyne wrote such a fine discussion of Speaker Milliken’s ruling, btw, on parliamentary supremacy. For those who don’t know Andrew Coyne, he is an ultra-Tory of the old-school type (although he’s a generation younger than I am), but he gets the basic principles and structures of democracy and law, and he’s too honest and smart to fall for Steve’s little tyrannies. We sent you David Frum because we needed to keep Coyne to ourselves. ;-)
“Parrish refused to hear defence witnesses testify about Khadr’s medical condition and would not “second guess” the security procedures at the U.S. naval prison here.
But outside of court, retired army brigadier general and physician Stephen Xenakis said he considered Khadr’s medical situation “urgent” and believed the goggles only exacerbated it. Xenakis has spent hours evaluating Khadr and is expected to be a key defence witness during these pre-trial hearings.”
So why did Parrish refuse to hear defense witnesses about Khar’s medical condition?
One may argue that “empathy” should not be a requirement for those who “practice” ANY form of AMERICAN law; or as it is quaintly known, “the rule of law”, however, a modicum of humanity and a smidgen of “perspective”, beyond brute arrogance and intellectual hubris, might be useful.
The use of psychological disadvantage, through deliberate disorientation and confusion, is clear evidence of a “system” and an ideology gone stark staring bonkers.
Is the American “leadership” so frightened that it has nothing of genuine substance to present, in actual courts of law, that it must resort to the most pathetic of behaviors?
Such kangaroos as may be watching this particular ring, in the ongoing circus, must be ringing up their attorneys … for defamation.
Someone once said, regarding appearing stupid; “It is better to keep one’s mouth shut, than to confirm the truth, for all to see.”
The government may believe they are hiding the truth, but another truth is becoming very clear … to all … who have the eyes to see.
DW
(above) – “Have I ever told you how I feel about men (or even women) with public power who take on the voice of the patriarchy?”
We, as a nation, will not protest because we americans love winners and with our $650 BILLION waste of treasure on weaponry, tactics, strategies, and lost lives in the War on Terror we have to take out our frustration on someone and why not a 15 year old (now 23) shackled and cuffed – “Look How Tough We Are!”
Kaffee: Colonel Jessep, did you order the Code Red?!
Judge: You don’t have to answer that question!
Jessep: I’ll answer the question. You want answers?
Kaffee: I think I’m entitled.
Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I want the truth!
Jessep: You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives! You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall! You need me on that wall! We use words like Honor, Code, Loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline! I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said “Thank you” and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to!
Kaffee: Did you order the Code Red?
Jessep: I did the job that—
Kaffee: Did you order the Code Red?
Jessep: You’re goddamn right I did!
Jessep: You fuckin’ people. You have no idea how to defend a nation. All you did was weaken a country today, Kaffee. That’s all you did. You put people’s lives in danger. Sweet dreams, son.
(A Few Good Men)
We’ve become both predator and prey.
Note on the graphic accompanying Shephard’s report the drawing of FBI special agent Robert Fuller, whose name will certainly go down in history if I have anything to do with it.
On 19 January last year, the last time they started up Omar’s trial, Fuller testified that, under interrogation at Bagram, Omar had identified Maher Arar as someone he had seen at camps in Afghanistan on particular dates. First, those claims from Khadr have been disproven by CSIS and the RCMP, in one case because the RCMP already had Arar under surveillance.
So why would Khadr have identified Arar? Well, we’re told (I assume the defence will get to this) that he was asked again and again if that wasn’t Arar, and he finally said he supposed it might be. Khadr at that point was 15 years old and seriously wounded.
Now, maybe special agent Fuller is just an innocent who was never informed that CSIS and the RCMP had years ago disproved what he nevertheless testified to last year. And maybe he isn’t the goon who coerced Khadr into testifying. But someone is.
If this keeps up, special agent Fuller is gonna owe me a keyboard, I am pounding so hard.
This is surreal. A hearing to find out whether information from his interrogation is lawful due to charges of abusive treatment and torture, and he is required to wear deprivation props to the hearing? Reminds me of strip and cavity searches required of Aafia Siddiqui before her mandatory presence at her competency hearing — where the issue was whether she was incompetent due to mental illness stemming from alleged torture, and where the issue of how she was interrogated by the FBI, to produce the evidence the prosecution psychiatrists relied on very heavily, never came up.
Doesn’t the government (i.e. the judges, the prosecutors, etc.) have any idea what all this looks like? Are they trying to look like criminals in the eyes of the world, does it give them some known-only-to-the-few advantage? My feeling is that they are trying to impress whoever will be handing down the verdict with some kind of exaggerated danger posed by the defendants. But no judge, civilian or military, court or commission, seems to question the tactic. Why?
jeff kaye @11
i was intrigued by your mention of “biderman techniques”, to whit,
“May I remind readers here that the latter was one of the Biderman techniques taught to Guantanamo BSCT personnel and interrogators, according to documents released as part of the SASC investigation into detainee abuse. See http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/supporting/2008/Documents.SASC.061708.pdf ”
the cite was too long and physically difficult for me to read.
so i went to wikiP.
here, for others who might like to explore jeff’s info further, is some of what i found on biderman techniques:
at
http://humanrights.ucdavis.edu/projects/the-guantanamo-testimonials-project/testimonies/testimonies-of-the-defense-department/military-training-materials
“… this table was none other than Biderman’s 1957 chart of Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance, copied here:
……
As it turns out, this chart was prepared by sociologist Albert Biderman as a summary of his research into the methods employed by the Chinese communists to coerce information and false confessions from American servicemen captured during the Korean War.1 In an earlier and more detailed study,2 Biderman described these methods as “abominable outrages,” adding that “[p]probably no other aspect of communism reveals more thoroughly its disrespect for truth and the individuals than its resort to these techniques”.3 …” (my bold)
i cannot emphasize strongly enough what ill it portends for a democracy when its most powerful security bureaucracy (its military) begins to use techniques developed by a totalitarian security bureaucracy.
I should have posted a link to the blog article I did a couple years back analyzing the Biderman document, and demystifying certain accompanying beliefs about it, i.e., that it on communist techniques, at least solely.
The article was Nuts and Bolts: How the U.S. Organized Torture . I’m going to repost at The Seminal, as I think it’s a good reference.
As for the origins of the torture program, re Biderman’s quote, I addressed that in another article around the same time:
The history of the subject has been subordinated to propaganda purposes, and we should be wary of this, because the only reason for the latter is to whip up emotional sentiments and produce fear.
To phred @16: I remember the story of the blind men and the elephant. Each of us is emphasizing an important aspect of the overall phenonmena. Each of us is right, and the terrible thing is how monstrous the overall creature actually is. (My apologies to elephants for using this metaphor.)
To bmaz: thanks for the info.
To EW: thanks for covering this story.
Agreed.
continuing from #21
and here is a portion of the nytimes article cited in the center for human rights report above (no doubt ew cited it here much earlier):
http://humanrights.ucdavis.edu/projects/the-guantanamo-testimonials-project/testimonies/testimonies-of-the-defense-department/china-inspired-interrogations-at-guantanamo-correction-appended
[ China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo (Correction Appended)
New York Times
by Scott Shane
July 2, 2008
WASHINGTON — The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”
What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.
The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency… ]
I do not recall any case in this area where a defendent was hooded going to court, though there have been high security prisoner transfers where they’ve been used.
It is not uncommon for a prisoner to appear in jail clothing and heavily shackeled, sometimes with shock vests. And a strip search is standard anytime a security prisoner might have had contact with civilians, including his lawyer. I suspect thats fairly standard everywhere.
Given all the times he’s already been hooded and searched, griping about this instance sounds like publicity seeking to me. He’s not going to get any additional sympathy, were I him I’d get my butt to court and try to talk about what was done to get me to talk.
Boxturtle (Even in a fake court, pissing off the judge is unwise)
Would you want to apply that reasoning to HUAC sessions as well?
I could agree that Welch did show up to deliver his famous inquiry, but then, he was not subjected to this kind of detention and treatment, and he knew he was going to have the microphone at some point. At some point, the only possible resistance to a scripted show trial might well be to refuse to play your designated role.
What other options remain, when all the other participants have left no sense of decency?
Given what three of the four lawyers said on that House panel (see other thread), I can see why the gov’t would want to be disorienting Khadr (and/or his lawyers) as much as possible. The point made by those three lawyers was quite simple: there is no *legal* difference between Khadr throwing a grenade (if he did) and a CIA agent launching a drone attack (assuming one did).
(There are, of course, many non-legal details, such as the color of the attacker and defender, and whether the weapon being used is high- or low-tech, but these don’t make a legal difference at all. Both would be illegal combatants.)
To play the naif, what legitimate purpose is served by these goggles and earmuffs? They sound like what kidnappers would use to prevent their victims from picking up clues about their whereabouts and transportation route. Is the government concerned that Khadr could use such information to facilitate an escape?
My naivete doesn’t have an answer beyond humiliation or assertion of dominance.
In a word, yes. Offically.
Boxturtle (unoffically, I think Jeff is much closer to the mark)
If anyone is interested in seeing what progressive Canadian bloggers are saying about topics like this, one place to start is Progressive Bloggers, which is an aggregator — Canadian bloggers tend to depend a lot on the aggregators because we are mostly so small.
At the top of the centre column at the moment: Dr Dawg, “Omar Khadr’s kangaroo judge.” Dawg is generally well respected, so.
Thanks.
jeff kaye @31
thanks for the clarification and cites, jeff.
ain’t “emptywheel” a great place to learn??
so jeff,
where DID the interrogation techniques identified by biderman originate?
were they in fact used on american military personnel ?
was the list/chart cited just a list of historical techniques used across the world?
were they a list of techniques developed by the u.s.?
The origins of the techniques in the chart are complex. As Biderman describes it, he is looking at ways they were used by communist interrogators, but is clear that they derive from the techniques of other and earlier police and intelligence agencies. The Okhrana, the Tsarist predecessor of the Cheka (KGB, etc.), used isolation as a major technique.
If you read the historian Dejali’s book, Torture and Democracy, you will get an idea of the complex, cultural transmission of torture techniques. The terms used by Biderman are primarily his own, and once you start labeling and codifying such models, then — voila — you’ve now created a model.
For a fictional example of the use of these techniques, try The Moon Goddess and the Son by Donald Kingsbury. There is some heavy-duty roleplaying that includes using those methods to change the behavior and thought pattterns of one character.
Btw, I just realized I’m probably going to have to repost this entire thread. The topic is one Mary has a lot to say one, but I stupidly posted it as Derby weekend kicks off.
Can Paddy O’Prado handle the dirt at the derby?
I’m betting my three-mint julep derivative, that Paddy is not just a line on the Balance Sheet…
Bay State O’Librul
Quite so I should think. I’m dreaming of mint juleps on the veranda….
One hell of a fifteen year-old: blinded by shrapnel in his left eye, but still able and determined to find and toss a hand grenade and to kill a top-notch US special forces soldier, all while sitting in the rubble of a prior strike. One might think someone in this tale is telling fibs.
I thought it was called a “fish tale?”
One should keep in mind that Khadr’s family, and particularly his father, was well connected with Al Quaeda prior to 9/11 and all that. Omar was captured and tortured to try to get whatever information he might have overheard from the family.
At least in those early days, it wasn’t quite on to torture 15 year olds, unless they were caught tossing grenades at soldiers on the battlefield. The charges were probably nonsense from the beginning, but nonsense that had to be followed through with for propriety.
One of my clients was cleared and released last month from Guantanamo (after 8 years)…that didn’t stop the military from putting the earmuffs and eye blocks on him for the entire flight to his new country (which was just about 12 hours)…and they handed him off to his new government with those contraptions still on him.
WTF is this about?- we convince countries to take our innocent clients and we deliver them in prison clothes, shackled, with blinders and ear muffs.
It is disgraceful what we are doing as a nation.
Indeed. And fine work, in spite of how long it took in light of the roadblocks confronted, on Al-Ghizzawi.
Wot bmaz said. Thank you for all you do.
I’ve been watching the Doe v. Reed case and it makes me think, as I often do, about the courage of the lawyers who originally (and still) stepped up to the plate and even more so about how the administration’s (this one’s, not just *that* one’s) efforts on these detention/torture/human trafficking issues seem deliberately calculated to put the lawyers and judges who are trying to clean up after them directly in the line of fire.
It’s taken a lot of courage and commitment for lawyers like yourself who have put your careers and lives on hold for these cases as well – thank you. It’s really disturbing that a part of what we have ended up with from the legacy is the determination by our court system that torture is a “foreseeable consequence” of detention by the US government.
I wonder about your client – did he know, as he was put in earmuff and eye blocks and loaded, that he was going somewhere to be released?
(EW: Yep -it’s Derby weekend and a monsoon coming and the filly’s a mudder – but I can always come back later)
Echoing Mary … a *toast* to all you Lawyers, who defend our liberties and freedoms, often in the face of brutal opposition.
Zenyatta is STILL the best horse in the country.
Rachel had a bad day today.
http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/horse/columns/story?columnist=finley_bill&id=5151954
Zenyatta – still 16 for 16.
Ah! Was just coming over to note that! Sad for RA, but the Breeders Cup Classic Zenyatta won in an awesome run, and that RA didn’t even ante up for, sealed the deal for me quite a while back.
He knew that he was told he was on his way to Georgia but since they shackled him and put the blinders and earmuffs on him he figure it was a trick and then were sending him off to another jail or to be executed. He was scared to death the entire flight and even after he landed and was brought to a van where the shackles etc were taken off he still didn’t believe he would be free because, as he asked me, “who would treat a free man like that?”
Yes…who could be so cruel?
I wondered about something like that. It’s not all that consistent with “you’re being released” to put someone in that gear to send them off. I would have been pretty terrified.
Thank you for representing American values.
Apparently American values have changed. But human values must not…have not.
Joining in with the others to thank you for your work. A virtual drink on me…
Agreed. I don’t know how you do your work, and hazard such close contact with this kind of behavior, without losing your own mind. Thanks for all your wonderful work, especially on the Al-Ghizzawi case.
As I said above, the goggles and earmuffs are to show control and supremacy. Sensory deprivation is very powerful. NO OTHER TORTURE TECHNIQUE HAS BEEN SO THOROUGHLY RESEARCHED. (caps emphasis not for shouting, but because the fact carries such importance)
Sounds like this is all about humiliation. What else could it be. When does the International Criminal court or some other international body step in and attempt to humiliate the U.S. Tough to do I know but where is the international justice system on this treatment?
Thank you for your work. Ew’s place has convinced me that there are sincere lawyers out there focused on social and political justice
These are the deeds of men who do not believe in their own laws and courts, and who do not wish to see justice not approved by their own narrow minds. They are, I am sure, getting their kicks in while their victim is still down and shackled.
With men like these, King George could have held the colonies – if they had served on Washington’s side, instead of wearing red coats, that is.
jeff kaye @41
thanks again jeff.
skimming, i constructed this history of the biderman techniques.
after the korean war some of our manly man public commenters began declaring how shameful it was that american soldiers had confessed while being tortured by the chinese.
the pentagon wanted to counter that view and so hired albert biderman, a reasonably well-respected military sociologist to do a study of american soldiers captured and “interrogated”.
there were just under 300 soldiers in biderman’s sample.
as part of writing up his study, biderman developed a summary chart showing harsh techniques of interrogation which i believe was presented to a congressional comm.
so those techniques seem unambiguously to have been employed by chinese interrogators against americans who were prisoners of war.
in skimming, i notice that since their ennunciation, the biderman techniques have been linked, over and over, to abuse in relationships. i assume that would be spousal, child, elder, etc.
hcgorman @46
congratulations on what must have been a tremendously frustrating effort.
i would love to understand how individuals like yourself, professionals though you be, can keep your cool thru 8 yrs of govt arrogance, stonewalling, blaming the victim, and cruelty.
wine helps….lots of wine.
Bourbon here; but completely agreed.
Back to the Risen subpoena. Apparently, there are subpoenas being prepared for other reporters, too.
(Apologies if a dupe.)
hcgorman
let me add my heart-felt appreciation for your tremendous effort.
in my view you are not just defending your client,
you are defending the system of laws americans have hammered out over the last 250+ years from an extraordinary threat.
hcgorman:
As orionATL says @ 65, you, and other lawyers of conscience and humanity, are representing the “rule of law” itself. That you must do so in spite of the government of the United States, that you must do so BECAUSE that government is claiming to be the law unto itself, should give all human beings of conscience, particularly AMERICAN citizens, both substantial concern and the determined will to demand justice, to insist upon it … for all people … not merely for those who have the taxpayers’ money and unchecked power.
A government that disrespects the law to the extent which ours, in so very many ways, clearly does … presents a clear and present danger to both reason and the fundamental rights of human beings.
A government cannot be just a little bit corrupt.
Ours has chosen to defend the lie.
With no holds barred.
hcgorman, I salute your courage, your understanding, and your humanity.
DW
leen @72
thanks, leen.
that is very interesting information.
sounds like there is a subtle effort afoot by some military personnel to contest kadhr’s treatment.
there certainly have been a number of collective statements by high-level retired military oposing torture.
There are definitely differences and tensions among the military judges, prosecutors, and defence counsel; that’s been apparent for a long time. There was a major struggle last year between the chief defence counsel, Col Peter Masciola, and Khadr’s then-lawyer Lt-Cmdr William Kuebler, which Kuebler won in theory but lost in fact. (Masciola just locked Kuebler out of his office, in defiance of a judge’s ruling — don’t know how he got away with that.) Kuebler has been a wonderful defender, but he’s been replaced now before the commission by two American civilian lawyers (who sound good too); at least one of his Canadian lawyers is down in GTMO as well.
A lot of the JAGs are very good guys — they may be conservative loyal Americans, but they know their law, and they fight — I do believe that. I don’t understand the system well enough to explain more, but it looks to me as though it’s the bosses at every level who are political.
Basically, the guys that have been abusing this prisoner are afraid that he’s innocent and will identify who has been abusing him publicly. It’s disgusting and certainly humiliating treatment he is receiving. In effect he has been punished and is being punished for crimes he may or may not have committed. This punishment has been going on for almost a decade now. I’d say that the war criminals and the sociopaths are winning the war of terror, hands down.
hcgorman
Toutes mes félicitations!
Andrew Sullivan had a posting yesterday reminding us that hooding was used against the prisoners charged with involvement in the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/04/a-history-of-hooding.html.
Which has reminded me that the hooding of these prisoners is shown in John Ford’s The Prisoner of Shark Island. If memory serves, the movie shows the prisoners being marched into the courtroom of the military commission with hoods over their heads. And Ford presents that commission as a real kangaroo court.
People then had at least the excuse that they were acting in the heat of passion, mere weeks after the assassination. What’s our excuse?
Paul Koring’s G&M report on yesterday’s and today’s (update) sessions includes a detail that I have a legal question about.
Apparently the commission went into secret session today to view the video(s?) of CSIS interviews with Khadr at GTMO in 2003. (Many people will have watched at least parts of those videos on YouTubes made after the Supremes here ordered them released in 2008.)
However, there’s a problem. The Supremes ruled in 2008 that Khadr’s rights had been violated by CSIS and DFAIT visits in 2003 and 2004, which led to the release of some of those records (Canadian only, not American, although we have some classified American evidence).
Last year, in a follow-up decision regarding the government’s responsibility to request Khadr’s repatriation, the court told the government that while it respected the government’s jurisdictional claims about who conducts foreign relations, jurisdictional claims cannot be used to violate the constitution. The government’s (extremely minimal) response to that decision was to ask the U.S. government not to use any of the evidence collected by CSIS and/or DFAIT in legal procedings against him.
So my question is: does today’s showing of the CSIS video(s) in a pre-trial hearing signify that the U.S. government has refused the request of the Canadian government not to use such evidence? Does it make a difference that this is pre-trial and not trial, or that it is in secret session?
I was distracted by other business yesterday, so I’m glad that this thread is still alive.
What this diary reminds me of, is Erving Goffman’s classic, Asylums. He was writing about a different kind of institution, but the principles he so brilliantly articulated there are at work here, too.
Bob in AZ
bobschacht @81
erving goffman
of
“the presentation of self in everday life”?