The Truth Be Told: Very Few "Detainees" Are Legitimate Enemies

They Came For The Chicken Farmer

This has been our nightmare since the Bush administration began stashing prisoners it did not want to account for in Guantánamo Bay: An ordinary man with a name something like a Taliban bigwig's is swept up in the dragnet and imprisoned without any hope of proving his innocence.

A case of mistaken identity's turning an innocent person into a prisoner-for-life was supposed to be impossible. President Bush told Americans to trust in his judgment after he arrogated the right to arrest anyone, anywhere in the world, and toss people into indefinite detention. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld infamously proclaimed that the men at Guantánamo Bay were "the worst of the worst."

But it has long been evident that this was nonsense, and a lawsuit by The Associated Press has now demonstrated the truth in shameful detail. The suit compelled the release of records from hearings for some of the 760 or so men who have been imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay. (About 490 are still there.) Far too many show no signs of being a threat to American national security. Some, it appears, did nothing at all. And they have no way to get a fair hearing because Gitmo was created outside the law.

These facts are why we are compelled to insist that the government rigidly adhere to the first principles embodied in our Constitution, including those provisions adopted into our Constitution by way of a ratified treaty. The government is not trustworthy without inherent checks and balances. Our forefathers and framers knew that government would always seek the highest degree of power possible, always seeking to curtail and limit the rights of the individual, the smallest communities and the least among the nation whenever possible.

Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, the prisons in Afghanistan, the process called "rendition" and the warrantless spying are all illustrative of this truth. Our government is not trustworthy in its current state of entrenchment and fear-mongering. Our exective branch leaders are too secretive, too misleading and too willing to tell self-serving lies. Our congress is too involved with selling access, influence and acquiring wealth and power for its own kind. The Supreme Court is too willing to give the government or big corporations latitude, grace or permission to do as they will. Our last presidential election was up for grabs not on principle, justice or fact, but on the basis of power, influence and ideology.

Take the case of Abdur Sayed Rahman, as recounted in Monday's Times. The transcripts quote Mr. Rahman as saying he was arrested in his Pakistani village in January 2002, flown to Afghanistan, accused of being the Taliban's deputy foreign minister and then thrown into a cell in Guantánamo Bay. "I am only a chicken farmer in Pakistan," he said, adding that the Taliban official was named Abdur Zahid Rahman.

According to media reports and official case documents released as of late, most of the "detainees" (we have to call them detainees because prisoners have rights that detainees did not receive) were not enemy combatants, enemy sympathizers or terrorists of any kind. How many chicken farmers must be incarcerated and denied due process before we collectively call for an end to this chicken manure?

Other cases included prisoners who owned a particular kind of cheap watch supposedly favored by Al Qaeda. An Afghan was accused of being the former Taliban governor of a province and subjected to a pretzel logic that would make Joseph Heller cringe. He said he was a different person entirely and asked the tribunal to contact the current governor and verify his story. The presiding officer refused, saying it was up to the prisoner to produce the evidence. The incarcerated Afghan then pointed out that he was being held virtually incommunicado in a United States prison in a remote corner of Cuba and not allowed to make calls. The presiding officer assured the prisoner that he would have plenty of time to write a letter — during the year of continued detention before his case might be reviewed again.

Due process is one of those cheacks and balances built into the Constitution. Can we all see why it is an important part of good government? Can we all see how it has allowed our political and military leaders to stray from a path of righteousness?

Some of the prisoners proudly proclaimed their allegiance to the Taliban or Al Qaeda. But far too many seemed to be innocents or lowly foot soldiers simply caught up in the whirlwind after 9/11.

But does open support of the beliefs of an organization--or even a quasi-organization--rise to the level of criminality or the status of an enemy combatant? If that is the case, why do we not arrest all the members of the ACLU, the Christian Coalition, the American Communist Party, as well as the Republican and Democratic Parties? Certainly the words of Congressman Murtha, a decorated veteran of the US military, could be deemed by those that oppose his views as "combatant"? Why do we not arrest him for his views against the Bush administration? Now that the Bush administration is ticking off numerous senators and representatives, are these congressmen not alos enemy combatants as well?

Here's an idea: Let's round up half of the members of the Senate, half the members of the House, the First Lady and her daughters, Lynne Cheney, the children of Don Rumsfeld and the family of Condaleeza Rice and imprison them for an undeterimined period of time. During that incarceration we place them all in cramped quarters, undress them and put them in "uncomfortable positions," feed them food they cannot eat, force feed them if they refuse to eat, and submit them to daily interrogations by teams of intelligence operatives that refuse to believe that they are innocent and actually citizens of the United States. If any of them claim to be members of congress, let's place them in solitary confinement. If they claim to be family members of our leaders, ignore them. Anyone want to bet that upon release from such circumstances that there would be changes in law, policy and executive power?

Because Mr. Bush does not recognize that American law or international treaties apply to his decisions as commander in chief, these prisoners were initially not given hearings. The transcripts are from proceedings that were begun under a court order. They started years after the prisoners were originally captured — a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions. And they were conducted under rules that mock any notion of democratic justice.

Prisoners do not see the evidence against them and barely have access to legal counsel. Now, thanks to a horrible law sponsored by Senators Lindsey Graham, a Republican, and Carl Levin, a Democrat, they have virtually no right of appeal. The law even permits the use of evidence obtained by torture.

If the stories of the chicken farmer and the men with the wrong watches are new, the broad outlines of this disaster have long been visible. It is shocking in itself, and in the fact that average citizens have not risen up to demand that these abuses come to an end. The founding fathers knew that when you dispensed with the rule of law, the inevitable outcome was injustice. Now America is becoming the thing they sought to end.

The treatment of these people is unconscionable, un-American, unethical, and Un-Christian. The treatment of these detainees belies the fact that no one in the current government leadership understand the basic principles embodied in our Constitution, nor the basic values of human decency.