Gitmo USA
The following article speaks for itself. Again: Welcome to the Security State ...
Guantánamo, USA
By Matthew Rothschild
Most people know about the deplorable treatment of detainees down at Guantánamo.
But three detainees—including two U.S. citizens—faced similar treatment right here in the United States, according to documents just released by the ACLU.
Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla and Ali al-Marri were held at naval brigs in Virginia and South Carolina, in isolation, for months at a time without access to lawyers or communication to the outside world.
This was no accident.
The brig guards were instructed by their commanders to apply the standard operating procedures down in Guantánamo up here in the United States.
That’s ironic, to say the least, because the Bush Administration had argued before the Supreme Court that its treatment of detainees in Cuba was beyond the reach of the court because they weren’t on U.S. soil.
The documents consist of e-mails between brig officers and others up the chain of command. Over time, they show the increasing frustration of the brig officers themselves at the restrictions they were ordered to enforce.
One of the first documents, dated April 17, 2002, said: “As I’m sure you understand, DOD does not want this detainee to have any privileges that the detainees at Camp X-Ray don’t have, so all are treated essentially the same way.” (DOD stands for Department of Defense, and Camp X-Ray is in Guantánamo.)
Another document, dated April 20, 2002, shows that one of the detainees was denied the use of a soccer ball because it was not “SOP for Camp X-Ray.”
That same e-mail noted that an attorney at the Federal Public Defenders Office had sent a fax to the brig indicating that “he was interested in determining weather [sic] the detainee seeks to have counsel appointed and requested that I contact his office immediately. I made no calls to the inquiry and forwarded the letter” up the chain of command.
A June 17, 2002, e-mail said, “The detainees are not permitted visits from legal counsel, family members or others, unless specified by SECDEF or his designee.”
A June 28, 2002, e-mail states: “He is continuing to question how much longer he is going to be here and why he has not been afforded to meet with a lawyer.”
The brig officer sympathized with the detainee: “After eight months of incarceration in detention facilities (Kandahar, Camp X-Ray, Norfolk Brig) with no potential end in site and no encouraging news and isolated from his countryman, I can understand how he feels.”
The officer added that the detainee had requested pinochle cards and a gameboy, but those requests had not been answered. Nor was the detainee allowed to send or receive mail to and from his family. And the officer acknowledged holding on to “seven letters that appear to be correspondence for the detainee from the Clerk’s Office U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia.”
Worried about the detainee’s morale, he added: “Know these items are working through the upper levels of government and that they are only small issues by comparison, but here at the deckplate level, I am seeing a morale issue developing and any help with resolving some for the above issues would help in this area.”
A superior officer responded: “No one thinks these are small issues—quite the contrary—which is why we are seeing the very highest levels of Government considering answers.”
(Keep reading ...)
By Matthew Rothschild
Most people know about the deplorable treatment of detainees down at Guantánamo.
But three detainees—including two U.S. citizens—faced similar treatment right here in the United States, according to documents just released by the ACLU.
Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla and Ali al-Marri were held at naval brigs in Virginia and South Carolina, in isolation, for months at a time without access to lawyers or communication to the outside world.
This was no accident.
The brig guards were instructed by their commanders to apply the standard operating procedures down in Guantánamo up here in the United States.
That’s ironic, to say the least, because the Bush Administration had argued before the Supreme Court that its treatment of detainees in Cuba was beyond the reach of the court because they weren’t on U.S. soil.
The documents consist of e-mails between brig officers and others up the chain of command. Over time, they show the increasing frustration of the brig officers themselves at the restrictions they were ordered to enforce.
One of the first documents, dated April 17, 2002, said: “As I’m sure you understand, DOD does not want this detainee to have any privileges that the detainees at Camp X-Ray don’t have, so all are treated essentially the same way.” (DOD stands for Department of Defense, and Camp X-Ray is in Guantánamo.)
Another document, dated April 20, 2002, shows that one of the detainees was denied the use of a soccer ball because it was not “SOP for Camp X-Ray.”
That same e-mail noted that an attorney at the Federal Public Defenders Office had sent a fax to the brig indicating that “he was interested in determining weather [sic] the detainee seeks to have counsel appointed and requested that I contact his office immediately. I made no calls to the inquiry and forwarded the letter” up the chain of command.
A June 17, 2002, e-mail said, “The detainees are not permitted visits from legal counsel, family members or others, unless specified by SECDEF or his designee.”
A June 28, 2002, e-mail states: “He is continuing to question how much longer he is going to be here and why he has not been afforded to meet with a lawyer.”
The brig officer sympathized with the detainee: “After eight months of incarceration in detention facilities (Kandahar, Camp X-Ray, Norfolk Brig) with no potential end in site and no encouraging news and isolated from his countryman, I can understand how he feels.”
The officer added that the detainee had requested pinochle cards and a gameboy, but those requests had not been answered. Nor was the detainee allowed to send or receive mail to and from his family. And the officer acknowledged holding on to “seven letters that appear to be correspondence for the detainee from the Clerk’s Office U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia.”
Worried about the detainee’s morale, he added: “Know these items are working through the upper levels of government and that they are only small issues by comparison, but here at the deckplate level, I am seeing a morale issue developing and any help with resolving some for the above issues would help in this area.”
A superior officer responded: “No one thinks these are small issues—quite the contrary—which is why we are seeing the very highest levels of Government considering answers.”
(Keep reading ...)
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