April 30, 2007, Villainy
I'm sure many of us will get a kick out of this cartoon teaser-trailer featuring our favorite Democratic front-runner Super-Duper Friend heroes battling Bush Administration villainy...
The problem is, the Bush Administration has engaged in actual villainy far worse than the cartoon variety, unleashing torture and horrors in its wake everywhere. From our friends at Cage Prisoners,
we are sent this report (in pdf) documenting torture and other human rights abuses being done in the name of combatting terrorism with the full cooperation of the United States government in the Horn of Africa. From Cage Prisoner's press release:
Cageprisoner’s report, Inside Africa’s War on Terror, released today reveals the extent of detentions that have been taking place in the Horn of Africa. The rendition of detainees between Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia already exposed through the work of human rights organisations has only served to show part of the problem that is taking place in the region.
According to spokesman for Cageprisoners and former Guantanamo Bay detainee, Moazzam Begg [interviewed by me here],
“Cageprisoners is alarmed by Guantánamo-style prisons being set up and utilised in the Horn of Africa after documenting a series of abductions in which men, women and even children were unlawfully detained. The seizure of civilians, the usage of converted metal shipping containers as holding cells and summary court hearings used to charge those rendered to Ethiopia as ‘illegal combatants’ bears particular resonance with the notorious ‘processes’ established and practiced in Guantánamo Bay.”
What is particularly harrowing about these detentions though, is the extent to which there has been foreign involvement in the detention and interrogation process, but further in the torture that has taken place. Released detainee, Safia Benaouda states,
“…the torture was clearly being planned and orchestrated by the Americans or other western interrogators, as it was only them who were doing any of the interrogations. It was only westerners who were interrogating me while I was in Ethiopia and according to all the info i got from others who were interrogated, it was only westerners interrogating them too, never Ethiopian.”
Any semblance of international humanitarian law and human rights law has been refused to those that have been detained and again the War on Terror has placed detention without due process above protecting the rights of men, women and children.
The Bush Administration believes that it is not constrained by anything-- not American law, not international law, not constraints of civilization or human decency-- not by anything, in the name of combatting "terrorism", whether those caught in the wake are innocent men, women, or all too frequently, children.
What else can one say? I certainly wish this were the least bit surprising. But you all know that as troubling as Guantanamo itself is, it is just the tip of a rather large and fetid iceberg. Is there something we can do about this?
There sure is. May 1st is the national day of action: contact your legislator in Congress, your member of the House, your Senators, and let them know that it is time to close Guantanamo, restore habeas corpus rights, and return to the days when this was a civilized country that respected the rule of law. To quote the father of a Republican Presidential candidate... if not now, when? If not us... who?