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Today's
Stories
January 31,
2008
Saul Landau
Return
to Afghanistan
William Loren
Katz
Waterboarding:
Torure or Mystery?
January 30,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
McCain
vs. Clinton?
Christopher
Ketcham
The Genius of the Development Industrial-Complex
Robert Weissman
America By the Numbers: The Shameful State of the Union
Neve Gordon
An Experiment in Famine
Paul Craig Roberts
Regulation or Deregulation, Which is Worse?
Joanne Mariner
How Anti-Terror Laws Threaten Free Speech
David Macaray
Labor's Only Real Weapon
Liaquat Ali
Khan
Is NATO Committing Genocide in Afghanistan?
Raymond J. Lawrence
Prankster-in-Chief: Bush's Troubling Non-Verbal Communication
Dan Bacher
The Collapse of the Central Valley Salmon
Website of the Day
Onward Through the Fog
January 29,
2008
Franklin C.
Spinney
Bush's
New War Budget: the $70 Billion Hand-Off
Mike Whitney
The Great Credit Unwind of 2008
Alan Farago
Buyer Beware: Florida, the Candidates and the Latin Builders
Association
Patrick Cockburn
"The Americans Bring Us Only Destruction"
Gary Leupp
"We Can't Afford to Let Them Spill the Beans:" a Sibel
Edmonds Timeline
R. F. Blader
A
World Without Abortion: USA v. Romania
Ahmad Faruqui
Musharraf's Post-Electoral Prospect
Fran Shor
Obama, the Kennedys and "Change We Can Believe In"
Jeremy Scahill
Secret Trials and Criminal Convictions: the Ordeal of the Blackwater
Protesters
Allan Nairn
Bush's
SOTU: Entitlement, Justice and the War of All Against All
Website of the Day
The Ghost of Rambo
January 28,
2008
Patrick Cockburn
Return
to Fallujah
Paul Craig
Roberts
The End of American Liberty
Allan Nairn
The Breaking of the Gaza Wall
Eyad al-Sarraj
/ Sara Roy
Ending the Stranglehold on Gaza
Martha Rosenberg
Obit for the "Front Page" City
Corporate Crime
Reporter
How They Rip Us Off
David Michael Green
Kristolizing Iraq: What a Great Freakin' War
Jennifer Van
Bergen
What's Left?
Nancy Oden
Survival Tips for Hard Times
Divya Karnad
Saving India's Sea Turtles
James L. Secor
Pissed About Pistorious: Why the Olympics Needs a Gimp
Website of
the Day
Yellow Journalism?
January 26
/ 27, 2008
Uri Avnery
Worse
Than a Crime
JoAnn Wypijewski
How the Clintons Lost It, Whatever the Outcome in S. Carolina
Ralph Nader
Ambition, Power and the Clintons
Paul Craig
Roberts
How Bush Destroyed the Dollar
Paul Watson
I'm Proud to be a Pirate!
John Ross
Murder and Cover-Up in Mexico
Fred Gardner
Ross v. Raging Wire: Employer's Right to Fire Workers Held Sacred
by California Supreme Court
Allan Nairn
Little Hands with Fever: Some Consequences of Poverty Death
Joshua Frank
Why Bush Wants to Legalize the Nuke Trade with Turkey
Binoy Kampmark
Société Générale and the Economic
Meltdown
James T. Phillips
America's Sick Comedy: Bringing the War Home
Stan Cox
The Depressing Truth About Anti-Depressants
Eamonn McCann
Hillary's Lie: "I Brought Peace to Northern Ireland"
Ron Jacobs
The Horizons of History: What's at Stake in Bolivia
Seth Sandronsky
California's Health Care Crisis
Ben Terrall
The Future is Unwritten
Poets' Basement
Tripp, Gardner, Gibbons and Davies
Website of
the Weekend
City of Immigrants
January 25,
2008
Douglas Valentine
Operation
Two-Fold: How the CIA Infiltrated the DEA
Patrick Cockburn
US Troops Will Be In Iraq for 10 More Years: an Interview with
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari
JoAnn Wypijewski
Down to the Wire in South Carolina
Heather Gray
Are We Seeing a Racial Shift in the South? Conversations with
South Carolina Voters
Marjorie Cohn
Senate Democrats Poised to Fold to Cheney on FISA
Erica Rosenberg
Environmentalists Out on a Limb: the Perils of Collaboration
Alan Farago
Jeb Bush Goes Nuclear
Robert Weissman
Reclaiming Economic Freedom
Laura Carlsen
Wild Cards: Mining the Hispanic Vote in Nevada
Stephen Lendman
Israeli Repression in the Hebron
Website of the Day
The FIX is In
January 24,
2008
JoAnn Wypijewski
Obama
as Anthologist of Uplift
Paul Craig
Roberts
President Hillary
Alexander Cockburn
Hillary Wants to Talk About Dirty Legal Dealings? Remember Her
Nursing Home Scam?
Kathleen Christison
One and Two State Solutions and the Myth of International Consensus
Jeff Halper
Power to the (Palestinian) People!
Stanley Heller
The Siege of Gaza is Broken
George Wuerthner
The Moronic Sport: ORVs on the Public Lands
Patrick Cockburn
Desperate Iraqi Farmers Turn to Opium
Jeff Sher
Just How "Good" is Your Health Insurance?
Patrick Irelan
Musharraf, the Steadfast Ally?
Charles Modiano
Restoring the Anti-War King
Website of
the Day
An Illustrated History of Trepanation
January 23,
2008
David Rosen
The
Great Disappearing Act: the Presidential Candidates and the Politics
of Sex
David Isenberg
Is
It Really So Hard to Believe That Iran Stopped Its Nuclear Weapons
Program?
Farzana Versey
Hillary's
Harem
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Empire That Must Be Obeyed
Alan Farago
Where Did All the Good Times Go?
Allan Nairn
Indonesian Intelligence Service Threatens to Kill Human Rights
Activist
Kenneth Couesbouc
Another Turn of the Screw
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
How the West was Re-Sold
Michael Donnelly
Obama Strikes Back
Norman Solomon
The Power of Love
Website of the Day
Rafah Today
January 22,
2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Farewell
to Old Economic Nostrums
JoAnn Wypijewski
King Day in Columbia, South Carolina
Al Giordano
Divide and Conquer Politics: How the Clinton Campaign Armed a
Black-Latino Time Bomb in Nevada
Felice Pace
Power Politics in the Klamath: Water, Dams and Salmon
Paul Wolf
Bolívar's Sword
Robert Weissman
Deregulation and the Financial Crisis
Dave Lindorff
The Bush Dollar Trap
Marjorie Cohn
Cheney Impeachment Gains Traction
Richard Neville
Keeping Shakespeare in a Box
Don Fitz /
Zaki Baruti
St. Louis Mayor Booed Off MLK Platform
Ben Terrall
Cindy Sheehan and the Virtues of Divisiveness
Sam Husseini
Stoning Martin Luther King, Jr.
Website of
the Day
Defend the Mapuche!
January 21,
2008
Kevin Alexander
Gray
Playing
the Race Card
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Deferring Dreams, Delusions of Democracy
Pam Martens
How Wall Street Blew Itself Up
David Macaray
Labor's Grim Dilemma: Do We Need a Labor Party?
Uri Avnery
Look Who's Talking
Omar Barghouti
Europe's Collusion in Israel's Slow Genocide
Joe DeRaymond
Protest and Trial in D.C.
B.R. Gowani
Why Islam Should Tolerate Images
Shepherd Bliss
The False U.S. Economy
Jean-Guy Allard
Philip Agee Versus the CIA
Dan Bacher
Leaping Steelhead!
Website of
the Day
Destroyed
By a Rising Flood
January 19
/ 20, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Campaign in Black and White
Saul Landau
Good Time Charlie's War
China Hand
Endgame for Pakistan?
Conn Hallinan
Desert Mirage: What Was the Bombing of Syria Really About?
Ron Jacobs
No Retreat
Dave Lindorff
A Tax Rebate Won't Fix This Mess
Andy Worthington
Canada's Humiliating Double Standard on Torture
Paul Armentano
What's the Going Price for a Joint? More Than You Might Think
Seth Sandronsky
High Crimes and Economics
Michael Donnelly
Dodging Ecocide
Patrick Irelan
The Ordeal of Dr. Safdar Sarki
Martha Rosenberg
The Drug Industry Takes Another Hit
Sherwood Ross
Making the World Safe for Despots: Bush's Global Arms Trade
David Michael
Green
So You Want to be My President, Eh?
James Rothenberg
Unimpeachable: Under House Protection
Daniel Gross
Starbucks Shortchanges Dr. King
Peter N. Carroll
In Memory of Milton Wolff
Susie Day
Croakin' on Hudson
Paul Krassner
Woody Allen Meets Tongue Fu
Poets' Basement
Wolff, Buknatski and Orloski
Website of the Day
Rocky Mountain
Blues
January 18,
2008
Allan Nairn
Killing
Civilians, Carefully
Ralph Nader
When
the Big Boys Get in Trouble, Who Pays the Ultimate Bill?
Joanne Mariner
Terrorism and Preventative Detention
Alan Farago
The Stimulus and the Meltdown
P. Sainath
Pity the Brahmins
R.F. Blader
Beyond Steinem's Feminism
Andy Worthington
A Letter from Guantánamo
John Jonik
Private Insurance is Bad for Your Health
Brian McKenna
Where Even Sharing is Prohibited: Notes from Inside a Michigan
Women's Prison
Daoud Kuttab
This Time Next Year?
Website of the Day
Those South Carolina Voting Machines
January 17,
2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Leader
and Vassal
Christopher
Brauchli
The FBI's Bills Come Due
Robert Fantina
Leadership, Bush and the New York Times
Patrick Irelan
Eternal War
Paul A. Moore
When the Rich Pay No Taxes
Stephen Lendman
Institutionalized Spying on Americans
Beena Sarwar
Bhutto and the "State Within a State"
Walter Brasch
Buzzwords in the Echo Chamber: Change and the Establishment
Brenda Norrell
Bush Legacy in Texas Sours
Adam Federman
End of the Left?
Website of the Day
Democrats for Romney
January 16,
2008
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Return
of the Native
Franklin Lamb
The Bombing at Qarantina
Julian Sanchez
David Weigel
Who Wrote Ron Paul's Newsletters?
Sharon Smith
Ron Paul and the Left: a Slippery Slope?
Allan Nairn
Economic Indicator: No Free Lunch, No Free Market
Ayesha Ijaz
Khan
How the American Media Enables Bush's Iran Fixation
Andy Worthington
A Strategic Call to Close Guantánamo
Richard Behan
Nancy Pelosi, You Must Impeach!
Website of the Day
Obama the New JFK? He's Not That Bad!
January 15,
2008
Andrea Peacock
Breach
of Trust in America's Most Toxic Town: How the EPA is Rubbing
Poison Into Libby's Wounds
Wajahat Ali
An Interview with Seymour Hersh on Iraq, Bush Foreign Policy
and the Prospects of War with Iran
Joe Bageant
Getting Out the Bling Vote
Ralph Nader
The Candidate Taboos
John Ross
Zero Hour: NAFTA and Mexico's Agrarian Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
Jose Padilla vs. John Yoo: Can a National Disgrace be Rectified?
Peter Morici
The Fed Needs More Than a New Communications Strategy
Beena Sarwar
Pakistan's Dirty Tricks Brigade
Robert Weissman
Big Business is Even More Unpopular Than You Thought
Binoy Kampmark
Going Tata in India
Dave Zirin
Dennis Brutus Smacks Down the Hall of Fame
Website of
the Day
David Lynch on the iPhone
January 14,
2008
Ishmael Reed
Ma
and Pa Clinton Flog Uppity Black Man
Roger Morris
Burials in the Sind
Uri Avnery
The
Hands of Esau
Mike Whitney
Bush's Voodoo Stimulus Package
Allan Nairn
General Suharto of Indonesia: One Small Man Leaves a Million
Corpses
William Blum
Oh, By the Way, the Iraqis Don't Really Want Us
Alan Farago
A Subprime Wake Up Call
David Macaray
Are Labor Unions Ready for Prime Time?
Eva Liddell
Getting Drunk with Obama
Zoe Blunt
Road Kill: New Highway Blocked by Protesting Raccoons
Website of the Day
Doug and Andrea Peacock on Grizzlies
January 12
/ 13, 2008
Andrew Cockburn
How
the New England Journal of Medicine Undercounted Iraqi Civilian
Deaths
Saul Landau
60
Years of Empire
Corey D. B. Walker
Barack Obama and the Crisis of the White Intellectual
Col. Dan Smith
Bush, Iran and the Magician of the Tarot
Eric Toussaint
The US Subprime Crisis Goes Global
Ron Jacobs
Television, Murder and Vietnam
Fred Gardner
The People vs. Christopher James Chakos
Stan Cox
Don't Take That Pill!
Jacob G. Hornberger
The Warfare State
Ramzy Baroud
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Joseph Grosso
The Anglosphere: a Special Relationship of Elites
David Díaz-Arias
Imagining An/Other Latin American Left
Stacey Warde
Before We Move On ...
Dan Bacher
Pumped to Extinction: the Decline of the Delta Smelt
Michael Dickinson
Georgie in Jesusland
Website of
Weekend
CounterPunchers Protest Outside NYT Offices
January 11,
2008
Dave Lindorff
Did
Hillary Really Win New Hampshire? More Questions About Diebold
Voting Machines
Paul Craig
Roberts
No
Escape from War and Unemployment
Andy Worthington
Six Years of Guantánamo
Kenneth Couesbouc
Banking on Thin Ice
Jeff Ballinger
Inside the Vienna Consensus
Christopher
Brauchli
Lethal Injection, the Supremes and China
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Paying No Attention to the Presidential Campaigns
Andrew Silverstein
Bush's Weepy Visit to Jerasulem
Marwan Bishara
Bush in the Middle East
Robert Weissman
The First Amendment Gone Wild
Patrick Irelan
Damn the Small Boats!
Website of
the Day
Hillary and the Superdelegates: Or Why She Wins Even When She
Loses
January 10,
2008
Alexander Cockburn
Now
Nader Claims He Didn't Endorse Edwards
Bob Wing
Marqueece Harris-Dawson
Race Within the Race: Obama, the NH Vote and the Specter of Tom
Bradley
Michael Donnelly
White Women Gone Wild?
David Macaray
Three Big Reasons for the Decline of Labor Unions
China Hand
Bush's Delusional Policy Pushes Pakistan to Brink of Catastrophe
Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan: Brotherly, Friendly Countries?
Rannie Amiri
Obama, Man of Kansas or Kenya?
Website of the Day
Iranian Video of the Hormuz Incident
January 9,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
The
Empire Strikes Back
Dave Lindorff
The Bad News from New Hampshire: Death By Triangulation
John Chuckman
Pardon My Laughter: Watching the US Primaries from Canada
James Bovard
Stomping Freedom: Inside the Martial Law Act of 2006
Alan Farago
As Florida Sinks: the View from the Titanic
Russell Mokhiber
Why Picket the New York Times in DC on Friday?
William S. Lind
Kicking the Can Down the Road in Iraq
Peter Morici
Beyond the Sophistry: Why the Trade Deficit Matters
Josh Reubner
Sudan vs. Israel: Double Standard on Divestment
Mike Roselle
The Pursuit of Happiness
Website of the Day
Bottles of Tears on the Wall: Steve Perry on NH
January 8,
2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
No
Jobs for the New Economy (or the Old)
Russell Mokhiber
The Black Hillary: Obama is Just Another Political Sedative
Robert Fantina
The Gulf of Tonkin and the Strait of Hormuz
Dave Zirin
Butts on Parade
Shamako Nobel
I Am an Emcee: the Politics of Hip Hop
John Ross
Zapatista Women Encounter Themselves
Brenda Norrell
Apaches Defend Homeland from Homeland Security
Laura Carlsen
Why Bolivia Matters
Patrick Irelan
Remember the Maine!
Evelyn J. Pringle
The Holes in Bush's FDA
Jonathan M.
Feldman
After Iowa and New Hampshire: a Strategy for Rebuilding the Peace
Movement
Michael Dickinson
Playing Soldier
Website of
the Day
Sean Hannity on the Run!
January 7,
2008
Chris Floyd
There
Will Be Blood: But No Justice for Iraq Atrocities
John Blair
Remove That Man! Creeping Fascism in Indiana
Uri Avnery
The Case of the White Bird
Andy Worthington
Who Are the Gitmo Saudis?
Binoy Kampmark
Needling the Convict: Lethal Injection and the Supreme Court
David Macaray
Women on Strike
Ralph Nader
Obamarama: the Politics of the Smooth Mood
Michael Donnelly
It's the War Vote(s), Stupid!
Ron Jacobs
Ron Paul's Run: Is Being Against the War Enough?
Gideon Levy
The Hostile President
Dave Lindorff
A Real 9/11 Cover-Up? Sibel Edmonds, Turkey and the Bomb
Website of
the Day
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea
January 5 /
6, 2008
Douglas Valentine
Good
Guys in Black Hoods
Kevin Young
The
US Occupation and Popular Opinion in Iraq
Richard Rhames
Saddam
Who?
Saul Landau
Bush Snatches Defeat from Victory
Marc Lynch
Why Bush's Iran Strategy is Failing
Robert Fantina
Iowa, Democrats and the Iraq War
Donna Volatile
Antiwar Soldier: an Interview with Jonathan Hutto, Sr.
Jelle Bruinsma
Norman Finkelstein in The Netherlands
Bob Sutcliffe
Remembering Andrew Glyn, Rebel Economist
Harvey Wasserman
Anti-Nuclear Renaissance
Missy Beattie
Why Obama Can't Save Us
David Swanson
Remembering the Separation of Powers
Jacob Hornberger
The Importance of the Padilla Case
Shepherd Bliss
Survival Tools from Kokopelli Farms
Ron Jacobs
Bleeding Kansas
Poets' Basement
Patti Smith, B.R. Gowani and Peter Buknatski
Website of the Weekend
Jimmy Dean Sausage Call Complaint
January 4,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
A
Good Night in Iowa
Jonathan Cook
War Crimes Airbrushed from History
Paul Craig Roberts
Thinking for Yourself is Now a Crime
Stan Goff
Ron Paul's Monkeywrench
Dave Lindorff
Clinton's Iowa Flop Exposes DLC Myths as Frauds
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
To Pindi Station
Allan Nairn
U.S. Elections Over Before They Began
Joshua Frank
The Failures of Sectarianism
Peter Morici
Economy on the Skids
Mary McInnis
Iowa Cocky-Us: How to be a Caucus Tease
Website of the Day
The Return of Obama Girl
January 3,
2008
Fatima Bhutto
Farewell
to Wadi Bua
Pam Martens
The
Free Market Myth Dissolves into Chaos
Joanne Mariner
The Presidential Candidates and Torture
Zoltan Grossman
Remember the '80s: Social Movements Between Woodstock and the
Web
David Domke
The Echoing Press and Huckabee
Norman Solomon
Edwards Reconsidered
Nikolas Kozloff
Return of the Faux Liberal
Jacob G. Hornberger
The Padilla Case and the Future of Habeas Corpus
Martha Rosenberg
Quit Picking on Huckabee's Son, Michael Vick
Russell Means
This Property is Condemned: a Notice to Those Occupying Lakotah
Lands
Website of the Day
WolfQuest
|
January
31, 2008
Libyan Detainee
Infected with AIDS
Horror
at Guantánamo
By ANDY WORTHINGTON
It really doesn't get any worse than
this.
Candace Gorman, lawyer for
Abdul Hamid al-Ghizzawi, a Libyan detainee at Guantánamo,
reports that her client has been infected with AIDS. Mr. al-Ghizzawi
explained to his lawyer in a letter that he was told about his
infection by a doctor at Guantánamo, adding that he believes
that the infection took place in 2004, when he was given a blood
test, which "resulted in alarm amongst the hospital staff,"
although he was not given any explanation for the alarm at the
time.
On January 28, Candace Gorman
filed an emergency motion with the US Supreme Court, asking for
the US military to provide urgent medical treatment to Mr. al-Ghizzawi,
and also asking for access to her client's medical records. Yesterday
morning, however, Chief Justice John Roberts denied the motion.
While this news is so alarming
that it almost defies description, Mr. al-Ghizzawi's plight is
compounded by the fact that he already suffers from tuberculosis,
which he also contracted in Guantánamo, and hepatitis
B, which was dormant before his arrival at the prison.
In an affidavit filed with
the US District Court in September 2006, Dr. Ronald Sollock,
the Chief Medical Doctor at Guantánamo, confirmed that
Mr. al-Ghizzawi "was subjected to complete medical tests
by the military upon his arrival in Guantánamo in 2002,"
and that he "entered [the prison] in good health,"
although he admitted that "a history of hepatitis B was
identified in tests performed in August 2002" (even though
Mr. al-Ghizzawi was never informed of this fact), and that he
"was exposed to tuberculosis while at the base."
Dr. Sollock also claimed that
Mr. al-Ghizzawi "does not want to be treated for his life
threatening illness[es]," although this is strenuously denied
by Mr. al-Ghizzawi himself, who insists that he has never been
informed about his health problems, and has never been offered
any kind of medical treatment whatsoever.
Despite the gravity of Mr.
al-Ghizzawi's condition, the authorities at Guantánamo
have refused to either confirm or deny his claim that he has
been infected with AIDS. When Candace Gorman approached Andrew
Warden, the Department of Justice attorney assigned to the case,
Warden also refused to be drawn, stating only, "We are not
privy to the particulars of what your client may have been told
by his doctor, if anything, but Guantánamo provides high-quality
medical care to all detainees."
Even before this latest awful
revelation, Candace Gorman had documented the suffering of her
client in painful detail, explaining, in a habeas corpus submission
to the District Court last August, that during her first visit
with him, in July 2006, it was apparent that he was seriously
ill. She described him as "very noticeably jaundiced,"
adding that he was "constantly rubbing his back, his leg
and his abdomen," and that he appeared to be "in constant
pain."
Mr. al-Ghizzawi confirmed that
his health had begun to deteriorate during his first year at
Guantánamo, and had "progressively worsened"
each year. He explained that he had lost 10-15 kilos since his
arrest, that he had "severe pain in his abdomen, left side
and back that travels down his legs," that the pain was
"constant when walking or standing," that his stomach
area was "bloated with two black lines appearing horizontal
across his stomach," and that he had "digestive problems
including vomiting and diarrhea." In this first meeting,
Mr. al-Ghizzawi also explained that "the increased intensity
of the pain in the previous months" had been "so severe
that he had been unable to get up from a lying down position."
During further visits, in September
and November 2006, and in February, May and July 2007, Mr. al-Ghizzawi's
health evidently deteriorated further, prompted, in part, by
the conditions in which he was held. On one occasion, he was
dressed in orange (reserved, in recent years, for "non-compliant"
detainees), and had been stripped of all "comfort items,"
including a thermal shirt that provided a meager defense against
the cold, because he inadvertently had some toilet paper in his
pocket when he went for a shower, and in December 2006 he was
moved to Camp 6, a new supermax facility designed to hold the
"general population" at Guantánamo (including
those who have been cleared for release).
The conditions in Camp 6 are,
bluntly, barbaric. Held in severe isolation, the detainees, in
contrast to convicted criminals on the US mainland, are only
allowed one book a week, are prevented from reading newspapers,
watching TV or listening to the radio, and are, of course, completely
cut off from their families. Mr. al-Ghizzawi explained that he
was "compelled to complain to get so much as clean clothes,"
and his health problems are compounded by the fact that, despite
Guantánamo's tropical heat, the solid metal cells, which
"admit no natural light," are air-conditioned and freezing
cold. In addition, "the men are not provided blankets but
instead are given plastic sheets that are cold and smelly."
Just as severe is the men's
physical and mental isolation. As Candace Gorman explains, they
"cannot converse with anyone unless they kneel on the floor
and attempt to shout greetings through the tiny gap where the
food is pushed in." As a result, Mr. al-Ghizzawi, like all
the other detainees, "passes his days in tedium and loneliness."
During the July 2007 visit, he told Gorman that, "in his
total isolation he had begun talking to himself." He added
that he "recognized that this was a sign of a fraying mental
state" and was "very distraught" about it.
Even if Mr. al-Ghizzawi were
one of the "worst of the worst" -- say, a committed
terrorist with blood on his hands -- this state of affairs would
be deplorable, but as it is, the "evidence" against
Mr. al-Ghizzawi, who, like all the other Guantánamo detainees,
has been held for years without charge or trial, is so weak that,
in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal in 2004 -- those pale
 substitutes for justice, in
which the detainees were denied representation by lawyers, and
prohibited from seeing or hearing the "classified evidence"
against them -- his military-appointed panel declared that there
was insufficient evidence to declare him an "enemy combatant,"
and that he should therefore be released.
We know this because one of
the members of this particular tribunal, Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham,
spoke out last year about the systematic failings of the tribunals,
deriding them as severely flawed, relying on intelligence "of
a generalized nature -- often outdated, often 'generic,' rarely
specifically relating to the individual subjects of the CSRTs
or to the circumstances related to those individuals' status,"
and concluding that they were designed merely to rubberstamp
the detainees' prior designation as "enemy combatants."
Writing of Mr. al-Ghizzawi's
tribunal, Lt. Col. Abraham stated, "On one occasion, I was
assigned to a CSRT panel with two other officers, an Air Force
Colonel and an Air Force Major, the latter understood by me to
be a judge advocate. We reviewed the evidence presented to us
regarding the recommended status of [Mr. al-Ghizzawi]. All of
us found the information presented to lack substance." He
added, "On the basis of the paucity and weakness of the
information provided both during and after the CSRT hearing,
we determined that there was no factual basis for concluding
that the individual should be classified as an enemy combatant."
Lt. Col. Abraham also explained
-- as was backed up in October by a second whistleblower, an
Army Major who had taken part in 49 tribunals -- that unfavorable
decisions were overruled by those in overall charge of the operation,
who then convened a second tribunal to produce the desired result,
and added that this is what had happened in the case of Mr. al-Ghizzawi.
Confirming that all he said
was true, Lt. Col. Abraham and his fellow tribunal members were
prohibited from taking part in any more tribunals, and a second,
secret tribunal was held in Washington D.C., at which it was
duly decided that Mr. al-Ghizzawi was an "enemy combatant"
after all. As mentioned above, this was not the only case in
which an unpopular decision was reversed by the authorities,
but in Mr. al-Ghizzawi's case the implications could be fatal,
perhaps fulfilling a fear that Lt. Col. Abraham expressed to
me in October, when he wrote, "I am saddened by the fact
that more detainees, about whom there is no evidence of involvement
in terrorism, will likely die before something is done."
That Mr. al-Ghizzawi is one
of these men "about whom there is no evidence of involvement
with terrorism" seems abundantly clear from a comparison
of his story with the allegations compiled by the administration.
A former meteorologist, Mr.
al-Ghizzawi, who was born in 1962, had been living in Afghanistan
since the collapse of the last remnants of the Soviet-backed
Communist regime in the early 1990s. Married to an Afghan woman,
and with a daughter who was only a few months old when he was
captured, he and his wife ran a shop in the eastern Afghan city
of Jalalabad, where they "sold honey and spices and later
expanded to include a bakery."
In October 2001, when US forces
began bombing the Jalalabad area, the family fled to the countryside,
where his wife's family lived, thinking that they would be safer
there. In December, however, as news spread that the US authorities
were paying handsome bounties for suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban
members, "armed men came to the home and told the family
to turn over 'the Arab.'" Fearing that his family would
be harmed, Mr. al-Ghizzawi complied, and was then sold to soldiers
of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, who in turn sold him to
the US military.
Against Mr. al-Ghizzawi's story,
the administration has struggled to establish a coherent narrative.
In his CSRT, in November 2004, all the authorities managed to
come up with were claims that he was part of the Libyan Islamic
Fighting Group, an organization opposed to the rule of Libyan
dictator Colonel Gaddafi (the former terror-backing pariah, who
now, of course, is a great friend of the West), and that he had
received military training at camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
By the time of his review board
in September 2006, this tissue-thin Summary of Evidence had been
augmented with additional material, most of which was evidently
made by other detainees, either in Guantánamo or in other
secret prisons. It was alleged that he had met members of al-Qaeda
in Pakistan, and had stayed at an LIFG house in Jalalabad in
1997. Additional allegations included a claim by a "noted
jihadist" that he "was a security leader for Osama
bin Laden during a trip to a guest house in Jalalabad,"
that "an al-Qaeda operative stated he saw the detainee several
times between 2000 and 2001 in Jalalabad," and that he "believed
the detainee was in charge of a guest house for the Libyans,"
and that a member of the LIFG "stated the detainee took
part in the fighting in Afghanistan."
Mr. al-Ghizzawi countered all
the allegations, insisting that he was not a member of either
al-Qaeda or the LIFG, denying "receiving any terrorist training
or being a fighter," and explaining that he "had gone
to Pakistan originally to find work, not to fight as a jihadist."
He added that "he did not fight at all in Afghanistan and
that he did not have the will to fight, stated that he "was
pressured to train as a fighter, but he refused," and also
stated that "the only support he gave the jihad was to teach
the children of the mujahideen." The most glaring contradiction
in the allegations against him, however, was provided by another
"al-Qaeda operative," who stated, unambiguously, "the
detainee is not a member of al-Qaeda or of the Libyan Islamic
Fighting Group."
After a detailed study of the
statements of Lt. Col. Abraham and the other Guantánamo
whistleblowers, and armed with the copious evidence I uncovered,
during my research for The Guantánamo Files, of
false allegations made under duress, or through bribery, by detainees
against their fellow detainees, I know whose story I am inclined
to believe.
What matters more, however,
is that the correct venue for these allegations and counter-allegations
to be tested is in a recognized court of law, not in military
tribunals whose integrity has been critically undermined by former
officers who served on them. Given that Chris Mackey, a former
interrogator at the US prisons in Afghanistan, stated in his
book The Interrogators that there was, effectively, no
screening process in Afghanistan, because every Arab who ended
up in US custody was automatically transferred to Guantánamo,
it's clear that the allegations not only against Mr. al-Ghizzawi,
but also against the majority of other detainees still held in
Guantánamo, have never been tested in any meaningful way
whatsoever.
As I noted at the start of
this article, however, compounding six years of lawless brutality
with this latest evidence of severe medical malpractice almost
beggars belief. As the Supreme Court ponders whether or not to
rule that the detainees have a constitutional right to habeas
corpus (after their statutory right, granted by the Supreme Court
in June 2004, was taken away in 2006's Military Commissions Act),
I can only hope that this analysis of the administration's disdain
for the law and for human suffering will help the justices to
rule for the detainees, and that in the meantime Mr. al-Ghizzawi
does not die in Guantánamo, scorned by a corrupt administration,
and neglected and abandoned by the medical profession.
Andy Worthington (www.andyworthington.co.uk)
is a British historian, and the author of 'The
Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in
America's Illegal Prison' (to be published by Pluto Press
in October 2007).
He can be reached at: andy@andyworthington.co.uk
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