Today's Stories

May 27, 2008

Greg Kafoury
Is Obama Turning Right?

Jean Bricmont
Western Delusions

Tim Wise
Farrakhan is not the Problem

May 26, 2008

Uri Avnery
The Syrian Option

Bill Quigley
War Immemorial Day

Col. Dan Smith
Retreating from Hell: a Different Memorial Day

Cindy Sheehan
Why Memorial Day is a Double-Whammy for Me

Marjorie Cohn
Hillary's Assassination Politics: Her Last Shot?

Fred Gardner
Does the VA Care?

Raymond J. Lawrence
Pain Pays: Getting Rich at NY Presbyterian Hospital

Harvey Wasserman
Mugging the Election System

Moncia Benderman
Truth Matters

David Rovics
In Praise of Utah Phillips

Website of the Day
Fox News Jokes About "Knocking Off" Osama and Obama

May 24 / 25, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Death-Wish Hillary Primes Manchurian Candidate

Jeffrey St. Clair
Yellowstone: How Sununu Shrank the Ecosystem

Barbara Rose Johnston
Dam Legacies, Damned Futures

Nikolas Kozloff
U.S. Fourth Fleet in Venezuelan Waters

Adriana Kojeve
The Environment and the 2008 Elections

Robert Fantina
Justice Department's Revelations on Torture

Dave Lindorff
Bush's War on Children in Iraq

David Yearsley
The War on Kitsch

Nelson P. Valdés
The Buying of "Democracy" Agents in Cuba

Kathleen M. Barry
Celebrating Ethnic Cleansing

John Ross
Mexico's Narco Opera Reaches for High Point

Allison Kilkenny
Apathy Doesn't Live in Bronx

Fred Gardner
Orangeburg, 1968

Elizabeth Schulte
Can the Whole World be Fed?

Daniel Gross
Remembering the Wendy's Massacre: the Dangerous Side of Retail Work

Christopher Brauchli
The Search for a Token Right-winger

Richard Rhames
A Nation of Sheep

Daniel Cassidy
My Mother

Poets' Basement
Davies, Klipschutz and Willson

Website of the Weekend
Happy Birthday, Bob

May 23, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
War Abroad, Poverty at Home

Alan Farago
The Radical Extremists of the Building Industry

Conn Hallinan
Ballots and Bullets: From Beirut to Bolivia

Mark Engler
The World After Bush

George Wuerthner
Cars and Cows: Living Large in America

Kamran Matin
The Kurds and American Neo-Imperialism

Sandy Boyer /
Shaun Harkin
The Long Incarceration of Pol Brennan

Robert Weitzel
A "Holey" Instrument of Peace in Iraq

Cindy Sheehan
An Uphill Battle

Liaquat Ali Khan
Pakistan's Futile Constitutional Amendment

Website of the Day
A Message from the Moral Compass of the McCain Campaign

May 22, 2008

Vijay Prashad
Racist Grammar

Joanne Mariner
A Military Commissions Cheat Sheet

Sharon Smith
60 Years of Apartheid

Jeff Birkenstein
Disaster Redux: Some Early Thoughts on the Earthquake in China

Brendan McQuade
From Obama to the PRTs in Iraq

Peter Morici
The Sorry State of the Banking Industry

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Restoration Boulevard

Dave Zirin
What I Want to Ask Mary Tillman

Ron Jacobs
CPR for the Antiwar Movement

Stephen Lendman
Immoral Hazard

Website of the Day
Hagee: God Sent Hitler to Drive the Jews to Israel

May 21, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Gothic Politics of Hillary Clinton

Nikolas Kozloff
U.S. Military Bases in South America

Alan Farago
Miami, Cuba and the Presidential Campaign

Dave Lindorff
Big John and the Scary, Scary Iran Threat

David Model
Genocide in Iraq?

Eric Walberg
Afghanistan: Who is the Enemy?

Franklin Lamb
Lebanon Gets a President

Kenneth Couesbouc
Tax Against Tyranny

Website of the Day
Child Labor and War-Affected Children: a Photo Essay

May 20, 2008

Ralph Nader
A Trip Inside Google

Uri Avnery
With Friends Like These

Patrick Irelan
The Empire and the Fleet

Ray McGovern
Come Out, Admiral Fallon, Wherever You Are

David Macaray
The UAW Strike Against American Axle

Chris Genovali
Big Oil on the Water: Skating Around the Tanker Issue

Ibrahim Fawal
Birmingham, Israel and the Nakba

Christopher Ketcham
Let Us Now Praise Famous Suicides

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo Trial Delayed

Martha Rosenberg
Merck is a Repeat Offender

Website of the Day
Defend the Students Who Pied Tom Friedman

May 19, 2008

Saul Landau
Cuba Will Live

Paul Craig Roberts
The Metamorphosis of the Conservative Movement

Brian McKenna
Brotherly Love in Philly's Badlands

Patrick Cockburn
City of the Dead: Mosul on Lockdown

B. R. Gowani
The Central Problem Pakistan Needs to Tackle

Dr. Trudy Bond
Psychologists and Torture: If Not Now, When?

Cindy Sheehan
Whose War is It?

John Mohawk
The Warriors Who Turned to Peace

Remi Kanazi
When Free Speech Doesn't Come for Free

Robert Day
I Get a Horse

Website of the Day
Evolve or Die

May 17 / 18, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The View from the Crusaders' Castle

Tim Wise
Testosterone is Not to Blame: Why Sexism isn't the Reason for Hillary's Loss

Andy Worthington
Gitmo Trials: Betrayal, Backsliding and Boycotts

Robert Fantina
The Double-Talk Express Derails

Karim Makdisi
In the Wake of the Doha Truce

Harry Browne
Only Ireland Can Vote on EU's Future

John Ross
Suicide by Taco? The Demise of Mexico's PRD

Dave Lindorff
Fear at the Pump

Robert Weissman
Pharmaceutical Payola

Laray Polk
Bush Family Appeasement

David Yearsley
Puritans in Seattle

Ron Jacobs
Riot Squads, Privatization and the National Front

Paul Quinnett
My Last Flight

Sam Bahour
Refugees are the Key

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Poverty Wages

Dr. Susan Block
The Groom May Kiss the Groom

Kim Nicolini
Paranoid Park: Inside the Fractured Landscape of Male Adolescence

Jeremy Scahill
John Cusack's War

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Dominguez, Gerard and Davies

May 16, 2008

Stephen Soldz
Involuntary Drugging of Detainees

Jonathan Cook
Police Attack Al-Nakba March

Paul Craig Roberts
Lies of Aggression

Christopher Brauchli
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Pharmacy

James L. Secor
Olympic Torch China: the View from Shaoxing

Franklin Lamb
Did Hezbollah Thwart a Bush/Olmert Attack on Beirut?

Linn Washington, Jr.
The Price of Protecting Racist Cops

Dave Lindorff
What West Virginia Means

May 15, 2008

Stan Cox
Big Brother Close Up

Jeff Halper
Rethinking Israel After 60 Years

Greg Moses
Living for the Children of Palestine

John Ross
Why Mexican Justice is a Euphemism

Ron Jacobs
Go to Work, Go to Jail

Binoy Kampmark
Indian Jailbirds: the Case of Binayak Sen

Eve Spangler
We Should Not Celebrate Dispossession

Martha Rosenberg
Meat Wars with South Korea

Website of the Day
Idaho Wolf Killers

May 14, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Oil Wars

Reza Fiyouzat
Torture, a Bully's Creed

Felice Pace
California Water Politics: Of Dams and Water Buffaloes

Hamdan A. Yousuf / Dania S. Ahmed
A Generation Defined by War

Robert Weitzel
Hillary's "Final Solution" to the Persian Problem

Ralph Nader
You're Either with the American People or the Big Auto Bosses

Dave Lindorff
Hillary, McCain and the Stupid Vote

Missy Comley Beattie
White Heaven: Hillary's W. Virginia Idyll

Neve Gordon
Israel as a Site of Struggle

Dr. Susan Block
A Washington Witch Hanging

Website of the Day
Hillary's Downfall

May 13, 2008

David Rosen
Sexual Terrorism: the Sadistic Side of Bush's War on Terror

Alan Farago
Nuclear Florida: Beachfront Reactors in an Age of Rising Sea Levels?

Saul Landau
The Crisis at Home

Saree Makdisi
Forget the Two-State Solution

Paul Craig Roberts
How Empires Fall

Andy Worthington
Gitmo's Suicide Bomber

Brother Bede Vincent
The Problem with Rev. Wright--There are Too Few Like Him

Linda Mamoun
Marketing Ethnic Cleansing

David Macaray
The Myth That Won't Die

Website of the Day
Burning the Future: Coal in America

May 12, 2008

St. Clair / Frank
The Pentagon's Toxic Legacy

Ziga Vodovnik
Rebels Against Tyranny: an Interview with Howard Zinn on Anarchism

Gary Leupp
Why All of Our Efforts Won't Stop an Attack on Iran

Frankln Lamb
Choufeit's Bloody Pentacost

Suzanne Baroud
The Ambition of Hillary Clinton

Martha Rosenberg
Farmer Ernie's Chamber of Horrors

Dave Zirin
The Boss's Boycott

Carl Finamore
I Ain't Gonna Work No More

Peter Morici
Recession Watch

Richard Rhames
The Third Way to Nowhere

Website of the Day
The Untold Story of Black New Orleans

May 10 / 11, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Real Clear Numbers: 101,000 Casualties a Year

Franklin Lamb
Hezbollah Eases Up and Beirut Opens Its Shutters

Ciara Gilmartin
A Surge in Iraqi Detainees

Diane Farsetta
Inside a Nuclear Industry Soirée

Kent Paterson
Mother's Day in Ciudad Juarez

Alan Farago
The Social Engineers

Rannie Amiri
Beirut on the Brink

Patrick Irelan
Bolivia, Morales and the Red Ponchos

Robert Fantina
The Lexicon Legacy of George W. Bush

Nikolas Kozloff
El Salvador 2009: Another Feather in the Cap of Chavez?

George Ciccariello-Maher
The Yumare Massacre, 22 Years On

David Yearsley
Bacharach at 80

Ron Jacobs
Rosa Luxemburg's Shock Doctrine

John Holt
Can Yellowstone Survive?

David Michael Green
It's So Over

Ben Terrall
Dealing Sleep

Kim Nicolini
The Best Film of the Bush Era?

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Orloski, Frisella, Gladstone-Gelman

May 9, 2008

Franklin Lamb
A Wild Day in Beirut

Andy Worthington
The Afghans of Gitmo

Benjamin Dangl
Polarizing Bolivia

Mark A. Huddle
Remembering Mildred Loving, an Unsung Hero of the Civil Rights Movement

David Macaray
Hollywood Gives SAG the Brush Off

Dave Lindorff
Team Clinton: Going Down Ugly

C.G. Estabrook
The Way We Live Now

Matt Kosko
McCain, Clinton, Obama and the Wages of Lesser-Evilism

Robert Weissman
Big Business is not the Solution to Global Poverty

Michael Dickinson
Jailing the Joint

Website of the Day
The Role of Third Parties in the U.S.A.

May 8, 2008

Sharon Smith
Rockefeller Family Fables

Saul Landau
The NATO Axiom

Laura Carlsen
A Primer on Plan Mexico

Binoy Kampmark
Food Riots are Coming to the U.S.

Kenneth Couesbouc
China's Paper Feet

Liaquat Ali Khan
Pakistan's Constitutional Shenanigans

Franklin Lamb
Blindsided, Hezbollah Mulls Its Response

Sen. Russ Feingold
Government in Secret

George Wuerthner
The Problems with Conservation Easements

Richard W. Behan
A Brief Exposé of a Fraudulent War

Adam Federman
Marching for Sean Bell

Website of the Day
State of the Air

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A Fact Sheet on the Upcoming Trials

The Guantánamo 16

By ANDY WORTHINGTON

As a 16th prisoner at Guantánamo, Noor Uthman Muhammed, is put forward for trial by Military Commission (the much-criticized system of trials for “terror suspects” invented in the wake of the 9/11 attacks), here’s a brief guide to the men and their stories.

1. David Hicks. An Australian, who was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001, Hicks accepted a plea bargain in March 2007, admitting to providing “material support for terrorism,” and dropping well-documented claims that he was abused in US custody, in exchange for a nine-month sentence, the majority of which was served in Australia. It has been claimed, plausibly, that his plea bargain was the result of political maneuvering between US Vice President Dick Cheney and Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

2. Omar Khadr. A Canadian, who was just 15 years old when he was captured after a firefight in Afghanistan in July 2002, Khadr is accused of killing a US soldier, although developments over the last six months in his pre-trial hearings suggest that exculpatory evidence, indicating that he was not responsible for the murder, was withheld from his defense team. In the latest twist in Khadr’s case, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled last week that Canadian agents acted illegally when they interrogated Khadr at Guantánamo in 2003 and handed the intelligence to US authorities.

3. Salim Hamdan. A Yemeni, who was a driver for Osama bin Laden and was captured while attempting to cross the Pakistani border in December 2001, Hamdan is accused of being an active member of al-Qaeda, although his defense team argues that he was just a paid employee. It was Hamdan’s case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, that caused the Supreme Court to rule that the first version of the Commissions were illegal in June 2006 (although they were later revived by Congress). In April, Hamdan decided to boycott his trial proceedings, and on May 9, following a blistering attack on the legitimacy of the Commissions by their former chief prosecutor, Col. Morris Davis, the judge in Hamdan’s case, Capt. Keith Allred, took the unprecedented step of barring the Commissions’ Pentagon-appointed legal adviser, Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, from playing any further part in Hamdan’s trial. The following week, Capt. Allred made headlines again by postponing the start date of Hamdan’s trial until late July, citing the importance of a pending Supreme Court decision about the prisoners’ rights.

4. Mohamed Jawad. An Afghan, who was just 16 or 17 years old at the time of his capture, Jawad is accused of throwing a grenade that wounded two US soldiers and an Afghan interpreter in December 2002, although he has always claimed that Afghan police obtained his “confession” through torture. At his arraignment in March, he rejected the trial proceedings, and alleged that he had been tortured at the US prison at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, and had been mistreated in Guantánamo. At a pre-trial hearing in May, Air Force Major David Frakt, who was assigned to represent him on April 28, told the court, “Mr. Jawad is an innocent man. He has been held for five years. He was a homeless boy wrongfully accused and beaten into confession by the Afghanistan police.”

5. Ahmed al-Darbi. A Saudi, who is accused of plotting attacks on shipping for al-Qaeda, al-Darbi was kidnapped in Azerbaijan and rendered to Guantánamo via Afghanistan in 2002. At his arraignment in April, he refused to take part in the Commissions, prompting his military-appointed lawyer, Army Lt. Col. Bryan Broyles, to comment that, in order to comply with established legal rules that prevent lawyers from representing clients who refuse their services (which are worryingly at odds with the Commissions’ own rules), his role in al-Darbi’s forthcoming trial was now equivalent to that of a “potted plant.”

6. Ibrahim al-Qosi. A Sudanese, who is accused of being a bodyguard and a driver for Osama bin Laden, and a quartermaster for al-Qaeda, al-Qosi, who was captured after crossing the Pakistani border in December 2001, was previously charged in the Commissions’ first aborted incarnation. In April, he also boycotted his pre-trial hearing, telling the judge, “I do not recognize the justice or the lawfulness of this court,” and adding, “What is happening in your courts is in fact a sham, which aims solely that the cases move at the pace of a turtle in order to gain some time to keep us in these boxes without any human or legal rights.”

7. Ali Hamza al-Bahlul. A Yemeni, who is accused of producing videos for al-Qaeda and servings as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, al-Bahlul, who was captured after crossing the Pakistani border in December 2001, was previously charged in the Commissions’ first aborted incarnation. In May, he also boycotted his pre-trial hearing, proudly proclaiming his association with Osama bin Laden, and telling the judge, “We will continue our jihad and nothing’s going to stop us. You must not oppress the people in the land. Your oppression against us and your support to the strategic ally in the region is what made me leave my house and today, I’m telling you, and you’re a man of law, if you sentence me to life … me and the others will be the reason for the continuation of the war against America.”

8. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM). Reportedly the third most important figure in al-Qaeda, after Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, KSM, who was captured in Pakistan in March 2003, and the four men described below are among the 14 “high-value detainees” transferred to Guantánamo in September 2006 after being held for years in secret prisons run by the CIA. KSM confessed in his military tribunal in Guantánamo last year (convened to confirm that he was an “enemy combatant” who could be tried by Military Commission) that he was “responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z.” He is one of three “high-value detainees” whom CIA director Michael Hayden admitted had been subjected to waterboarding (a torture technique that involves controlled drowning) while held in a secret prison run by the CIA.

KSM and his co-defendants, who were charged in connection with the 9/11 attacks in February, are due to be arraigned on June 5, although his recently appointed military lawyer, Navy JAG Prescott Prince, recently told the Los Angeles Times, “I think it's the constitutional case of our time. Because in the 221st year of America, the question is whether the Constitution applies to the government.” He added, “I have no idea whether he did even half of those things he is accused of doing. But if he did commit those offenses, there are still issues of whether this court has jurisdiction, whether he is an enemy combatant who should be tried in a tribunal of this nature.” Prince also said, “He (KSM) believes his treatment has been illegal. I believe it's been illegal too. And I personally believe that he cannot, as a result of all these things, get a fair trial.”

9. Ramzi bin al-Shibh. A Yemeni, and reportedly a friend of the 9/11 hijackers, who helped coordinate the attacks with KSM after he was unable to enter the United States to train as a pilot for the operation, as he originally planned, bin al-Shibh was captured in Pakistan in September 2002. After being held in secret CIA custody for four years, he refused to take part in his tribunal at Guantánamo, and if he speaks at his arraignment it will be his first publicly available statement since his capture.

10. Mustafa al-Hawsawi. A Saudi, who was captured with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Hawsawi is accused of sourcing funding for the 9/11 attacks from Dubai. In his tribunal at Guantánamo, he admitted providing support for jihadists, including transferring money for some of the 9/11 hijackers, although he denied that he was a member of al-Qaeda. Last week, his lawyer, Army Maj. Jon Jackson, sought fruitlessly to delay his arraignment, in particular because he has only been allowed to meet his client twice, and “has not received any potential evidence against al-Hawsawi supporting charges that ‘allege a complex conspiracy spanning several years,’” as the Associated Press put it.

11. Ali Abdul Aziz Ali. Also known as Ammar al-Baluchi, he is a nephew of KSM, and was captured in Pakistan with Walid bin Attash (see below) in April 2003. In his tribunal at Guantánamo last year, he admitted transferring money on behalf of some of the 9/11 hijackers, but insisted that he was a legitimate businessman, who regularly transferred money for Arabs, without knowing what it would be used for.

12. Walid bin Attash. A Saudi, who lost a leg in Afghanistan before 9/11, bin Attash stated in his tribunal at Guantánamo that he was the link between Osama bin Laden and the Nairobi cell during al-Qaeda’s African embassy bombings in 1998, and admitted that he played a major part in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, explaining that he “put together the plan for the operation for a year and a half,” and that he bought the explosives and the boat, and recruited the bombers.

13. Mohammed al-Qahtani. A Saudi, who was reportedly recruited as the 20th hijacker for the 9/11 attacks, but was refused entry into the United States by immigration officials, al-Qahtani was tortured for several months at Guantánamo in late 2002 and early 2003. Although he was put forward for trial by Military Commission in February, with KSM and the other four men described above, the charges against him were dropped in May, when the others were formally charged, either because evidence of his torture is admissible (whereas that obtained in secret prisons by the CIA is not), or because of a pronounced deterioration in his mental health since he was first charged, which led to a number of suicide attempts. It’s possible, but unlikely that he will be charged again.

14. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani. A Tanzanian, and one of the 14 “high-value detainees” transferred to Guantánamo from secret CIA prisons in September 2006, Ghailani, who was captured after a gun battle in Gujrat, Pakistan in July 2004, is accused of being a coordinator of the African embassy bombings, and of running a document-forging operation for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. In his tribunal, he described himself as a peripheral character in the African embassy bombings, who was duped by others around him, although he admitted forging documents for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Evidence of a revealing false allegation that he made in Guantánamo, which I discovered during research for The Guantánamo Files, was reported here.

15. Mohammed Kamin. An Afghan, who was captured in 2003, Kamin is accused of “providing material support for terrorism,” specifically by receiving training at “an al-Qaeda training camp,” conducting surveillance on US and coalition military bases and activities, planting two mines under a bridge, and launching missiles at the city of Khost while it was occupied by US and coalition forces. He is not charged with harming, let along killing US forces, and were it not for his supposed al-Qaeda connection -- he apparently stated in interrogation that he was “recruited by an al-Qaeda cell leader” -- it would, I think, be impossible to make the case that he was involved in “terrorism” at all.

For his arraignment on May 21, 2008, Kamin refused to leave his cell, and was dragged to the court by guards. The judge, Air Force Col. W. Thomas Cumbie, explained that he was handcuffed and shackled because he had “attempted to spit on and bite one of the guards” on his way to the courtroom. Refusing to be represented by a US military lawyer, Kamin called the charges “a lie and a forgery,” according to Reuters, adding that he had no connection with al-Qaeda or the Taliban, and that he “did not recognize the court's legitimacy and would not attend future hearings.” In a brief statement, he said, “My judge is the god that has created the sky and the land. He will be my lawyer and represent me. I wait for his decision. That's enough.”

16. Noor Uthman Muhammed. A Sudanese, Muhammed was captured in Pakistan in March 2002, during the raid that netted the alleged senior al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah (whose significance is disputed, along with his mental health). While Abu Zubaydah has not been charged before the Military Commissions, Muhammed was charged with “conspiracy” and “providing material support for terrorism” on May 23, 2008. He is accused of serving as the deputy emir and a weapons instructor at the Khaldan training camp in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2000, when the camp was closed. It is also alleged that he delivered a fax machine to Osama bin Laden at a training camp in 1999.

Noticeably, these charges do not relate to the 9/11 attacks, and in his tribunal at Guantánamo in 2004, Muhammed insisted that Khaldan was “a place to get training” that had nothing to do with either al-Qaeda or the Taliban. “People come over to that camp, train for about a month to a month and a half, then they go back to their hometown,” he said, adding that what the people did with the training they received was their own business. This may well have been an evasive explanation on Muhammed’s part, but he is not the only prisoner to state that Khaldan was not connected with al-Qaeda, and that Abu Zubaydah did not have a close relationship with the leadership of al-Qaeda. Similar claims, as I reported here, were made by Abu Zubaydah himself, and by a released Saudi prisoner called Khalid al-Hubayshi, and it will be interesting to see what Muhammed will have to say when he is arraigned -- unless, of course, he follows recent trends by boycotting the proceedings completely.

Andy Worthington is a British historian, and the author of 'The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison' (published by Pluto Press). Visit his website at: www.andyworthington.co.uk

He can be reached at: andy@andyworthington.co.uk

 

 

 

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