tagged w/ "War on Terror"
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• Innocent people interrogated for years on slimmest pretexts
• Children, elderly and mentally ill among those wrongfully held
• 172 prisoners remain, some with no prospect of trial or release
More than 700 leaked secret files on the Guantánamo detainees lay bare the inner workings of America's controversial prison camp in Cuba.
The US military dossiers, obtained by the New York Times and the Guardian, reveal how, alongside the so-called "worst of the worst", many prisoners were flown to the Guantánamo cages and held captive for years on the flimsiest grounds, or on the basis of lurid confessions extracted by maltreatment.
The 759 Guantánamo files, classified "secret", cover almost every inmate since the camp was opened in 2002. More than two years after President Obama ordered the closure of the prison, 172 are still held there.
The files depict a system often focused less on containing dangerous terrorists or enemy fighters, than on extracting intelligence. Among inmates who proved harmless were an 89-year-old Afghan villager, suffering from senile dementia, and a 14-year-old boy who had been an innocent kidnap victim.
The old man was transported to Cuba to interrogate him about "suspicious phone numbers" found in his compound. The 14-year-old was shipped out merely because of "his possible knowledge of Taliban...local leaders"
• Innocent people interrogated for years on slimmest pretexts
• Children, elderly and mentally ill among those wrongfully held
• 172 prisoners remain, some with no prospect of trial or release
Obama's inability to shut Guantánamo has been one of the White House's most internationally embarrassing policy failures. The files offer an insight into why the administration has been unable to transfer many of the 172 existing prisoners from the island prison where they remain outside the protection of the US courts or the prisoner-of-war provisions of the Geneva conventions.
The range of those still held captive includes detainees who have been admittedly tortured so badly they can never be successfully tried, informers who must be protected from reprisals, and a group of Chinese Muslims from the Uighur minority who have nowhere to go.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/25/guantanamo-files-lift-lid-prison• Innocent people interrogated for years on slimmest pretexts
• Children,... more
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She did find a few scattered articles, all about a Terre Haute CMU, described as a secret experimental unit for second-tier terrorism inmates who were almost all Arab and Muslim Americans.
There was, in fact, little to be found; the Bush administration had quietly opened the CMUs in Terre Haute and Marion in December 2006 and March 2008, respectively, circumventing the usual process federal agencies normally follow that subjects them to public scrutiny and transparency. The first whisper of what the government was planning reached public ears in April 2006, when the BOP—in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act (APA)—published its proposed rule for “Limited Communication for Terrorist Inmates.” Under the APA, federal agencies like the BOP must publish notice of any new regulations and solicit public comments in order to operate legally. After a period of review, the agency publishes the finalized rule.
In the 2006 rule, the BOP proposed restricting the communications of inmates with a “link to terrorist-related activity” to one six-page letter per week, one fifteen-minute call per month and one one-hour visit per month, limited to immediate family members. The rule left it to the discretion of the warden whether visits would be contact or noncontact. (As a point of comparison, the BOP generally allows most prisoners 300 minutes of calls per month and places few caps on the number or duration of visits prisoners may receive. Even at the only federal Supermax, inmates are allowed thirty-five hours of visits a month.)
Several civil rights groups, led by the ACLU, submitted comments criticizing the proposed rule as flawed and potentially unconstitutional. The rule also appeared to be unnecessary, as the law already allowed monitoring and restricting inmates’ communications to detect and prevent criminal activity. After the period for comments closed in June 2006, observers waited for the BOP to publish its finalized rule.
Then in February 2007 came a stunning revelation: the BOP had not only abandoned the rule-making process; it had apparently bypassed it altogether by opening a prison unit in December 2006 in which all the inmates were subject to communications restrictions almost exactly like those described in the proposed rule. This secret unit came to light when supporters of an Iraqi-born American physician, Rafil Dhafir, made public a letter he had written describing his harrowing transfer to a new prison unit in Terre Haute. He called it “a nationwide operation to put Muslims/Arabs in one place so that we can be closely monitored regarding our communications.”
(In 2005 Dhafir had been sentenced to twenty-two years in prison for violating sanctions against Iraq by sending money to a charity he had founded there, as well as for fraud, money laundering, tax evasion and a variety of other nonviolent crimes. He had no terrorism convictions or charges.)
http://www.thenation.com/article/159161/gitmo-heartland?rel=emailNationShe did find a few scattered articles, all about a Terre Haute CMU, described as a... more
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David Milliband, The UK Foreign Secretary, has said he thinks the idea of a "war on terror" is misguided. In a piece he wrote for The Guardian, Milliband said that the groups staging attacks are not one unified enemy but various different organizations with different agendas.David Milliband, The UK Foreign Secretary, has said he thinks the idea of a "war... more
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Two luxury hotels in Mumbai have re-opened less than a month after they were badly damaged in attacks on the city that killed at least 170 people.
The Trident-Oberoi and Taj Mahal Palace hotels were the scene of fierce battles between Indian forces and several gunmen which lasted for several days.
The manager of the Trident said it had been full of people when it re-opened.
Armed guards and sniffer dogs were stationed at both hotels and X-ray machines to screen their guests' bags.
About 80 guests and staff at the two hotels were killed as the gunmen went on a shooting spree through the buildings between 26 and 29 November.
Nine gunmen were killed and one is in police custody. Indian officials allege that they were linked to a Pakistan-based militant group.
Earlier, one survivor from the Taj siege told the BBC that that some guests had been shot and killed by the militants after police said it was safe to leave.
The senior policeman in charge of the operation in the hotel has denied the allegations against his officers.Two luxury hotels in Mumbai have re-opened less than a month after they were badly... more
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In a communique after a meeting of foreign ministers in Ethiopia it backed Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein, whom the president tried to dismiss.
The grouping also discussed ways to replace Ethiopian troops when they pull out of Somalia in the next few weeks.
African Union commission head Jean Ping said Nigeria was ready to send troops.
Torn by internal conflict, Somalia has been without an effective central government for more than 15 years.
Infighting
The BBC's Elizabeth Blunt in Addis Ababa says there was no doubt whose side this meeting of the Inter-governmental Authority on Development (Igad) was on.
In a place of honour on the platform was Ahmed Mohammed Goala, the Somali prime minister's newly appointed foreign minister, not his predecessor, who had been associated with President Abdullahi, our correspondent says.
At the end of the meeting, the foreign ministers of the six member states expressed their support for Mr Nur and his newly appointed cabinet, and said they regretted the attempt by the president to replace him last Sunday.
Mr Abdullahi said the government had been "paralysed by corruption, inefficiency and treason" and failed to bring peace.
However, Somalia's parliament declared the sacking illegal and passed a vote of confidence in Mr Nur by a huge majority on Monday.
In the communique issued at the end of the meeting, Igad gave its strong backing to Mr Nur and his government.
"[Igad] regrets the attempts by President Abdullahi Yusuf to unconstitutionally appoint a new prime minister that Igad does not recognise, and decides to impose sanctions on him and his associates immediately," it said.
It also called on other countries to take similar measures.
Our correspondent says that in addition to the infighting in the Somali government, the imminent departure of Ethiopian troops from the country overshadowed the meeting.
Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin said his country's decision to pull out over the coming weeks was "irrevocable".
Igad formally thanked the Ethiopians for the sacrifices they had made to advance the cause of peace in Somalia, but made no appeal to them to change their mind and stay.
The issue of peacekeeping will be considered further at a meeting of the African Union's Peace and Security Council on Monday.
Ministers now have the task of trying to beef up the AU's mission in Somalia, which will no longer have the comfort of knowing it can call for Ethiopian back-up when needed, our correspondent adds.
At the Igad meeting, the president of the African Union Commission said Nigeria had promised to send a battalion of about 850 soldiers to Somalia next month, and that Burundi and Uganda would each send an additional battalion.In a communique after a meeting of foreign ministers in Ethiopia it backed Prime... more
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Somali resistance fighters have taken over large sections of the country under occupation by the US-backed Ethiopian military. The failure of this imperialist plot is a tremendous blow to American foreign policy.Somali resistance fighters have taken over large sections of the country under... more
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Immigration and civil liberties groups condemned a new U.S. government policy to collect DNA samples from all noncitizens detained by authorities and all people arrested for federal crimes.
The new Justice Department rule, published Wednesday and effective Jan. 9, dramatically expands a federal law enforcement database of genetic identifiers, which is now limited to storing information about convicted criminals and arrestees from 13 states.Immigration and civil liberties groups condemned a new U.S. government policy to... more
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The Pentagon's inspector general said yesterday that the Defense Department's public affairs office may have "inappropriately" merged public affairs and propaganda operations in 2007 and 2008 when it contracted out $1 million in work for a strategic communications plan for use by the military in collaboration with the State Department.The Pentagon's inspector general said yesterday that the Defense... more
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Hundreds of airline employees suspected of smuggling drugs and people, report says
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The Documentary PBS Does Not Want You to See Before Jan 21, 2009.
"Torturing Democracy" is a new documentary which details how the government set aside the rule of law in its pursuit of harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists.
Annotated Transcript:
The annotated transcript of "Torturing Democracy" provides the script of every word spoken during the 90-minute documentary, backed up with specific citations, footnotes and links, and includes documentation for the dramatizations in the film. Posting the annotated transcript allows viewers to check the facts for themselves, and enables researchers to build on the reporting to take the story even further. To download this 385k file in PDF format, click here: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/torturingdemocracy/documents/td_transcript.pdfThe Documentary PBS Does Not Want You to See Before Jan 21, 2009.
"Torturing... more
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Perhaps, if Senator McCain had focused on this significant issue as a Senator rather than persue his presidential dreams he could have actually served America 's interests earlier by persuing this issue sooner; better late than never I suppose...
Senior U.S. officials authorized the use of aggressive interrogation techniques resulting in the abuse of military detainees in U.S. custody, according to a report released by the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.
The authorization was not only the cause of aggressive interrogation techniques, but also conveyed the message that it was OK to mistreat and degrade detainees in U.S. custody, according to the report released by panel Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and ranking member John McCain (R-Ariz.).Perhaps, if Senator McCain had focused on this significant issue as a Senator rather... more
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Somalia's moderate Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Ahmed returned to Mogadishu for the first time in two years Wednesday and a local rights group said fighting had killed 16,210 civilians since then.
Security was tightened in the capital as Sharif, who is in talks with the country's Western-backed interim government, was rushed to a hotel in a northern district of the city surrounded by government troops and Islamist militiamen.
The U.N. special envoy to Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, said Sharif's return was "most welcome," while the sight of gunmen who used to shoot at each other now working side by side cheered many of the capital's war-weary residents.
"His enemies have welcomed him as a friend today ... Sharif's presence will minimize the violence, even if it doesn't end it completely," said 44-year-old local Hassan Garaad.
"Islamists wearing turbans and soldiers with uniforms together in one place is a peaceful sign for Mogadishu."
Sharif was one of two main leaders of a sharia courts group driven from the capital by government soldiers and their Ethiopian military allies at the start of last year.
ISLAMISTS BATTLE
Sharif's return brought a rare ray of hope to some Somalis. But experts say he has little influence over Islamist hardliners who have steadily gained ground to control most of the south, and are camped on the outskirts of Mogadishu.
Exposing splits in the Islamist ranks, the latest battle between two rebel factions killed at least four people days ahead of a planned Ethiopian military withdrawal that could leave the capital open for an insurgent assault. [nLA596009]
Witnesses said hardline al Shabaab fighters clashed with more moderate Islamic Courts militia Tuesday in El Garas, 50 km (30 miles) southeast of the central town of Dusamareb. Both sides fired heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
Spokesman from neither side were immediately available.
Addis Ababa has become increasingly frustrated by the financial cost, by feuding between its leaders, and the absence of a serious, international effort to pacify Somalia.
Now Ethiopia says it will pull out its troops by the end of December, leaving a probable power vacuum and more bloodshed.
The Mogadishu-based Elman Peace and Human Rights Organization has been tracking the casualties since Islamist insurgents launched a rebellion against Somalia's interim government and its Ethiopian military allies early in 2007.
Elman said 7,574 civilians had been killed so far in 2008, adding to 8,636 killed the year before. In a report, it said nearly 29,000 people had been wounded over that two-year period.
The Islamists' main weakness is the rift between hardliners such as Shabaab -- which the United States accuses of having links to al Qaeda -- and the more moderate elements such as Sharif's.
Presidential spokesman Hussein Mohamed Mohamud told Reuters Sharif was a peace-loving leader who would change the situation in the country for the better. "He will also tell the truth to Somalis who were confused and disturbed by al Shabaab," he said.Somalia's moderate Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Ahmed returned to Mogadishu for... more
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Indymedia reports - The new Counter Terrorism Bill, currently in The Lords, contains an amendment to Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000. This amendment will make it an offence, punishable by up to ten years imprisonment, to publish or elicit information about any police constable "of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism".
Furthermore, Schedule 7 of the Bill applies this amendment to internet service providers and web hosting services. This means they will have a legal duty to remove all sites perceived to fall under this offence, and has provisions for use at home and abroad.
It is unclear what information will be classed as “useful” to terrorists, but due to this ambiguous wording, the Bill has implications for bloggers, journalists, photographers, activists and anyone who values freedom of speech.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/11/413023.html?c=onIndymedia reports - The new Counter Terrorism Bill, currently in The Lords, contains... more
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NAIROBI, Kenya—Clement Ibrahim Muhibitabo is one of the forgotten ones.
So is Ines Chine. So is Abdul Hamid Moosa.
Rwandan, Tunisian and South African citizens respectively, the three Africans are among the victims of one of the largest if most obscure rendition programs in the global war on terror: the mass arrest, deportation and secret imprisonment of some 100 people who fled an invasion of Somalia last year—a roundup that even included women and small children.
The snatch-and-jail operation was carried out by U.S. allies Kenya and Ethiopia but involved CIA and FBI interrogators, say European diplomats, human-rights groups and the program's many detainees.
It may be little-known to the American public, yet it has stoked deep anti-U.S. sentiment among Muslims in the Horn of Africa.
That fury may even have contributed to the bloody election crisis in Kenya that first erupted last December and killed 1,300 people. Muslim human-rights groups and political analysts in Kenya say the renditions helped incite the nation's Muslims to vote en bloc against a pro-American president and set the stage for an explosive, razor-close election.
While the operation netted a handful of hard-core Islamist militants who were training at jihadist camps in Somalia—an American among them—the vast majority of the detainees have been released without charges.
Many were held for months at "black site" secret prisons in Ethiopia. Today they have scattered across Africa and the world, their stories overshadowed by the more famous detainees at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"You know what was strange? They only interrogated me twice," the Rwandan, Muhibitabo, recalled of the American agents who showed up in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, to grill him about Al Qaeda. "It was like I was unimportant to them. Like I was a mistake. A mistake that took away four months of my life."
Like most of the people ensnared in a security affair known locally as "Africa's Guantanamo," Muhibitabo, a gem trader, was arrested after fleeing to Kenya from Somalia in January 2007.
With covert U.S. support, Ethiopia had just toppled a radical Islamist movement in Somalia. And jittery authorities in neighboring Kenya, advised by CIA and FBI agents, were screening the tide of refugees streaming across their border for militants.
At least 150 suspects from more than 18 countries ended up being shunted into Kenyan jails, says Human Rights Watch, an international humanitarian group. More than 100 were later loaded, handcuffed and blindfolded, onto chartered airliners and flown secretly to Ethiopia for months of further questioning.
"We had no access to lawyers, no contact with embassies, no phone calls," said Moosa, 42, a South African accountant who says he traveled to Somalia to look into the possibility of charity work for the country's Islamic movement.
"I was kept in solitary for a month, shackled ankle and feet, night and day," said Moosa, who spent almost five months in Ethiopian custody. "The Ethiopians would come collect me, blindfold me and drive me to some apartment in Addis. And the Americans would be there waiting behind a desk, asking me over and over about my terrorist connections."
Kenya and Ethiopia—both Christian-dominated countries—have longtime security concerns with their anarchic neighbor, Muslim Somalia. For its part, the U.S. has accused Somalia's Islamists of hosting top Al Qaeda operatives such as Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a mastermind of the 1998 bombings of U.S. Embassies in Africa.NAIROBI, Kenya—Clement Ibrahim Muhibitabo is one of the forgotten ones.
So is... more
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Ethiopia entered Somalia two years ago to remove the Union of Islamic Courts , elements of whose leadership had been making provocative and aggressive statements about Ethiopia.
But the reality is that Ethiopian intervention, backed by the US and others, seems to have bolstered precisely the elements of the UIC, al-Shabab, that are most at odds with Ethiopia's interests and may very well have fatally undermined any chance Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) had of gaining legitimacy.
Ethiopia has announced that they will leave Somalia, come what may, by the end of the year.
This announcement follows warnings to Somalia's government from its major backer to get its act together.
Ethiopian troops helped install the internationally recognised government in Mogadishu last year and without Ethiopian support ministers would still at best be holed up in Baidoa or more likely comfortably in the hotels of Nairobi.
But without popular support or local legitimacy the government has singularly failed to establish itself, as even President Abdullahi Yusuf appears to be admitting.Ethiopia entered Somalia two years ago to remove the Union of Islamic Courts ,... more
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2,042 Days -- or -- 291 Weeks and 5 Days since "mission accomplished"
price paid for Bush to "wag the dog" .............. priceless!
GIBSON: What were you most unprepared for?
BUSH: Well, I think I was unprepared for war. In other words, I didn't campaign and say, "Please vote for me, I'll be able to handle an attack." In other words, I didn't anticipate war. Presidents -- one of the things about the modern presidency is that the unexpected will happen.
transcript if Gibson's interview
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=63560462,042 Days -- or -- 291 Weeks and 5 Days since "mission... more
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Of course the US fears a Pakistani role in India attacks... I am wondering if the American govt was a part of it to set up the next war for Obama. Again we see Americans killed on foreign soil in a country where they claim Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are operating... then Obama comes out and makes a statement that could have come from Bush-s own lying warmongering lips about how we have to in essence fight terrrorism everywhere it is.
My condolences go out to all who lost loved ones in that hotel siege, but I cannot help but wonder if this is the next phase in the plan. How long will it take before it escalates and Obama has to send troops there from Iraq? And of course both Pakistan and India have nukes, so that is an extra added bonus for the warmongers who are salivating at another venue to keep their war on terror going. We cannot allow war and imperialism to really END now can we?
Then we would have to bail out the defense contractors along with Wall Street, the banks, the auto industry and every other industry in this country that comes with their hands out. So, is this the parting shot of Bush and his warmongering PNAC regime to leave us entangled in war in this region with the threat of nuclear war as an added bonus? Well, if it is, Obama actually sounds as though he sure is willing to keep it going for them. If that is the case and he does so and more of our children die for it, then he should face the same unpopularity and scorn as Bush did for lying to the American people.Of course the US fears a Pakistani role in India attacks... I am wondering if the... more
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For the first time ever a British MP has been arrested for attempting to breach the Official Secrets Act. Damian Green, a Conservative Party shadow immigration minister and MP for Ashford in South East England was detained for over nine hours by counter-terrorism officers whilst his family home and parliamentary and constituency offices searched.
It is believed (according to numerous bloggers of various political persuasions) have speculated tat Mr Green's latest attempt to leak secret government information relates to its involvement in the "war on terror" and further infringements on civil liberties. His office has accused the Prime Minister of declaring the police state "open for business".For the first time ever a British MP has been arrested for attempting to breach the... more
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Auditors with the Government Accountability Office have found that 45 of 48 major investment programs managed by the Homeland Security Department were not evaluated according to department policies, and 18 of those were not reviewed at all.
"Consequently, DHS has not identified and addressed cost, schedule and performance problems in many major investments," GAO stated in a report (GAO-09-29) released on Thursday. Auditors found that at least 14 of the programs had experienced such issues.
Among the investments that did not receive mandatory oversight board evaluations was the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Consolidated Alert and Warning System, a $1.6 billion program to update the Emergency Alerting System. Another was Customs and Border Protection's Secure Freight Initiative, a $1.7 billion program designed to test the feasibility of scanning all U.S.-bound cargo containers at foreign seaports.Auditors with the Government Accountability Office have found that 45 of 48 major... more
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A grande legacy in the mold of Reagon. Will we every shake free of these two?
Whether it’s relaxing pollution control standards for power plants or allowing loaded weapons into national parks, the Bush Administration is scrambling to approve or change as many federal rules as it can before it hands off power to President-elect Barack Obama. This surge of “midnight regulations” presents a thorny question for the next administration: What can it do to void rules it thinks should be undone?A grande legacy in the mold of Reagon. Will we every shake free of these two?... more
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