United States human rights violations in foreign black sites and American prisons slated to intensify in President Obama's NDAA police state
On Dec. 31, The Guardian reported on British survivors of the United States "lawless icon" human rights scandal, Guantanamo Bay, who were finally released without charges and Shaker Aamer, not released although cleared two years ago. This tale is of particular interest now that any American is eligible to be subjected to the same abuse under President Barack Obama's newly authorized police state, martial law with his signing the National Defense Authorization Act New Year's Eve, with near full support of Congressional Republicans and Democrats.
"This month marks the 10th anniversary of the first detainees arriving at Guantánamo Bay detention camps, where the open-mesh and barbed-wire cells became synonymous with the abuse of human rights and the scandal of illegal rendition," reported Tracy McVeigh for The Guardian.
"The camp was called an 'icon of lawlessness' by Amnesty International because inside its high-security fences, all conventions of international justice, from the Geneva Convention to access to legal representation, were ignored," as American citizens including children are now vunerable to be subjected under the National Defense Authorization Act passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama on New Year's Eve.
Under President Obama's NDAA FY2012, "[t]he exemption for American citizens from the mandatory detention requirement (section 1032) is the screening language for the next section, 1031, which offers no exemption for American citizens from the authorization to use the military to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial," reported Jonathan Turley for The Guardian on Monday.
"Obama justifies the signing of the NDAA as a means to combating terrorism, as part of a 'counter-terrorism' agenda," writes Prof. Michel Chossudovsky in his Jan. 1 article, "THE INAUGURATION OF POLICE STATE USA 2012. Obama Signs the “National Defense Authorization Act."
"But in substance, any American opposed to the policies of the US government can --under the provisions of the NDAA-- be labeled a 'suspected terrorist' and arrested under military detention," clarifies Prof. Chossudovsky, head of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Indefinite detention of 'suspected terrorist'
McVeigh reports, "Still in operation, despite Barack Obama's pre- and post-election pledges to close it, Guantánamo now houses 171 prisoners, including the last remaining British resident, Shaker Aamer.
Among the 774 adults and children imprisoned in Guantánamo camps on a U.S. naval outpost in Cuba to house 'enemy combatants' of George Bush's war on terror, were nine British citizens and six British residents.
On 14 Feb., 43-year-old Aamer will have spent ten years in Guantánamo, without charge or trial, and two years cleared for release by the US authorities, treatment now applicable for American citizens in Obama's war on terror.
Aamer's 10-year Guantanamo survival anniversary is also the 10th birthday of the youngest of Aamer's four children, Faris, who has never met his father.
"The family, who live in Battersea, south London, have had a difficult time coping. Aamer's wife, Zin, suffers from depression and the children have been badly bullied because of who their dad is. Faris is struggling at school," reports McVeigh.
Interrogators at Kandahar were impressed by Aamer's behavior, attitude, willingness to talk with them and excellent English.
Aamer expressed to other prisoners the need for justice: “We can’t accept this type of behavior . . . We’re human beings and we need to be treated like human beings,” as at least 12,000 prisoners in the scandalous California prison system have said through their ongoing peaceful Pelican Bay Prison Hunger Strike.
During his struggle for justice at Guantanamo, Aamer has been noted for "speaking up incessantly on behalf of his fellow prisoners. In 2004-05, when the Supreme Court ruled the prisoners had habeas corpus rights, Aamer helped a number of prisoners file petitions by designating himself as their 'next friend.'"
In August 2005, Aamer was part of a six-person council allowed to meet and discuss how to end the Guantanamo Bay hunger strike of 200 prisoners. He focused on the right to a fair trial or to be released but, the council was abolished and he was then moved to solitary confinement at Camp Echo for 18 months and mirrored the hidden solitary torture treatment already experienced daily by 100,000 Americans.
For such ongoing "terroristic activities," (seeking truth and justice) Aamer was then transferred to Camp 3, for prisoners with "significant intelligence value." He was officially cleared for release two years ago and expected fly out last year on Feb. 23.
In July of 2005, a letter from Aamer was declassified that reflects cruel and inhumane treatment and sentiments of California inmates who preferred to die for human rights rather than endure torture:
I am dying here every day, mentally and physically. This is happening to all of us. We have been ignored, locked up in the middle of the ocean for four years. Rather than humiliate myself, having to beg for water in Camp Echo, I would rather hurry up a process that is going to happen anyway. It is a matter of religious belief and personal dignity.
I have got kidney problems from the filthy yellow water. I have lung problems from the chemicals they spread all over the floor. I am already arthritic at 40, because I sleep on a steel bed, and they use freezing air conditioning as part of the interrogation process. I have ruined eyes from the permanent, 24 hour fluorescent lights. I have tintinitis in my ears from the permanent noise. I have skin diseases from chemicals and never being allowed to see the sun. I have ulcers and almost permanent constipation from the food. I have been made paranoid, so that I can trust nobody (even my lawyer) because the Americans play with my mind. I would just like to die quietly, by myself.
I was once over 250 lbs. I dropped to 130 lbs in the hunger strike. In respect for Ramadan, I suspended my protest. But on November 4th, I must begin again. I want to join my brothers who will then be on their 90th day. I want to make it easy on everyone.
I want no feeding, no forced tubes, no 'help', no 'intensive assisted feeding'. This is my legal right.
Shaker Aamer
7-11-2005
According to Aamer's account, innocent, intelligent, compassionate, leader in the struggle for justice are qualities that are among criteria of the Bush-Obama "terrorist" to be detained and interrogated. Those qualities are also reflected in today's self-identified Targeted Individuals, the "best Americans" according to noted private investigator, William Taylor.
In a lawless state, arresting the innocent, especially those working to further human rights, is standard operating procedure, in some cases, a military and related private contractor sport.
According to internationally acclaimed human rights defender Andy Worthington and WikiLeaks files, the Bush and Obama administrations knowingly imprisoned innocent men for years without charge and, "in dozens of cases, senior U.S. commanders were said to have concluded that there was no reason for the men to have been transferred to Guantánamo," reported NPR's Democracy Now!
"Among the innocent prisoners were an 89-year-old Afghan villager and a 14-year-old boy who had been kidnapped. Some men were imprisoned at Guantánamo simply because they wore a popular model of Casio watches, which had been used as timers by al-Qaeda. The documents also reveal that the journalist Sami al-Hajj was held at Guantánamo for six years partly in order to be interrogated about his employer, the Al Jazeera network." (Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!)
Worthington told Amy Goodman that instructions included "every single Arab that ends up in U.S. custody has to be sent to Guantánamo. And for the first six months, that applied to every Afghan, as well.
"So, essentially, there was no screening process. Everybody went to Guantánamo. Nothing was known about them. And then they had to invent these reasons as to why they were holding them."
President Barack Obama's ringing in this New Year by signing the NDAA with its provision allowing him to indefinitely detain citizens, including Americans in the same manner foreigners have been abused for ten years in the "war on terror," was "a symbolic moment, to say the least," wrote Jonathan Turley for the Guardian on Monday.
"With Americans distracted with drinking and celebrating, Obama signed one of the greatest rollbacks of civil liberties in the history of our country … and citizens partied in unwitting bliss into the New Year.
"The almost complete failure of the mainstream media to cover this issue is shocking. Many reporters have bought into the spin of the Obama administration as they did the spin over torture by the Bush administration," reported Turley.
"Obama could have refused to sign the bill and the Congress would have rushed to fund the troops. Instead, as confirmed by Senator Levin, the White House conducted a misinformation campaign to secure this power while portraying the president as some type of reluctant absolute ruler, or, as Obama maintains, a reluctant president with dictatorial powers."
Under President Obama's NDAA FY2012, Americans are now vulnerbale to the same human rights abuses that Americans have allowed for ten years in Guantanamo and the long list of black site prisons for such foreign "threats to national security." Especially vulnerable are citizens of integrity who oppose the "lawless" new America.
Copyright Deborah Dupré 2012. All Rights Reserved.
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