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guantanomo redux

Quote:

MI5 criticised for role in case of torture, rendition and secrecy
• MI5 criticised for role in torture case
• UK intelligence agent questioned about alleged war crimes

MI5 participated in the unlawful interrogation of a British resident now held in Guantánamo Bay, the high court found yesterday in a judgment raising serious questions about the conduct of Britain's security and intelligence agencies.
Link to this audio
Richard Norton Taylor on the ruling against MI5

One MI5 officer was so concerned about incriminating himself that he initially declined to answer questions from the judges even in private, the judgment reveals. Though the judges say "no adverse conclusions" should be drawn by the MI5 officer's plea against self-incrimination, they disclose that the officer, Witness B, was questioned about alleged war crimes under the international criminal court act, including torture. The full evidence surrounding Witness B's evidence, and the judges' findings, remain secret.

The MI5 officer interrogated the British resident, Binyam Mohamed, while he was being held in Pakistan in 2002. Mohamed, 30, an Ethiopian national, was later secretly rendered to Morocco, where he says was tortured by having his penis cut with a razor blade. The US subsequently flew him to Afghanistan and he was transferred to Guantánamo Bay in September 2004 where he remains.

In a passage which appears to contradict previous assurances by MI5, Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones concluded: "The conduct of the security service facilitated interviews by or on behalf of the United States when [Mohamed] was being detained by the United States incommunicado and without access to a lawyer." They added: "Under the law of Pakistan, that detention was unlawful."

Asked last month about unrelated allegations involving detainees held in Pakistan, the Home Office said on behalf of MI5: "All security service staff have an awareness of the Human Rights Act 1998, and are fully committed to complying with the requirements of the law when working in the UK and overseas."

It added that the security and intelligence agencies "do not participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture or inhumane or degrading treatment".

In their ruling yesterday, the judges found that MI5 "continued to facilitate" the interviewing of Mohamed at the behest of the US even after he was secretly flown out of Pakistan. It did so, they said, by providing information to America although its officers "must also have appreciated" he was being detained and questioned in a facility which was "that of a foreign government". That government is believed to be Morocco.

The judgment contains two particularly stinging passages. The judges said Witness B worked with the US "to the extent of making it clear to [Mohamed] that the United Kingdom government would not help [him] unless he cooperated fully with the United States authorities". They added: "The relationship of the United Kingdom government to the United States authorities in connection with [Mohamed] was far beyond that of a bystander or witness to the alleged wrongdoing."

Mohamed is due to be tried for terrorist offences before a US military commission in Guantánamo Bay as a result of confessions he says were extracted by torture. He faces the death penalty if found guilty. Without information held by the British government, he could not have a fair trial "as he will not be able to try to establish the only answer he has to the confessions - namely that they were involuntary and abstracted from him by wrongful treatment", the judges said.

Richard Stein, of Leigh Day, Mohamed's lawyer, said outside the court that the government was clearly committed to a fair trial and opposed to the practices of torture and extraordinary rendition. He added: "However, unfortunately when faced with the choice between the rule of law and upsetting its allies the Americans, it waivers in this commitment".

David Miliband, the foreign secretary, has provided the US with documents about the case, though the US has so far refused to release them. Miliband has declined to release further evidence about the case on grounds of national security, arguing that disclosure would harm Britain's intelligence relationship with the US.

The judges will decide which documents about the case must be released after a private court hearing next week.

A Foreign Office spokesman said the implications of the judgment were being considered very carefully. He added: "For strong reasons of national security, to which the court accepted we were entitled to give the highest weight, we could not agree to disclose this information voluntarily."

Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve, the legal rights group also defending Mohamed, said: "The British government may have been accused of being Bush's poodle, but the British courts remain bulldogs when it comes to human rights."

Senior security sources said last night that the judgment was being carefully looked at to see whether changes should be made in MI5's procedures.

They added that the court recognised that Mohamed in 2002 was regarded as someone potentially significant. "Talking to people who could provide life-saving intelligence is MI5's bread and butter," they said.

Guantnamo: MI5 criticised for role in case of torture, rendition and secrecy | UK news | The Guardian

there's a 4 minute audio clip embedded in and a .pdf of the court decision appended to the original

so the crux of this court decision was that the crime committed by MI5 was (a) a war crime the substance of which was (b) co-operating with the americans at guantanomo--so the implication is that what the bush people have set into motion at guantanomo is in itself criminal.

i keep wondering when and how the bush administration is going to be held to account for this and the extraordinary rendition program, and the routinised use of torture....i keep asking myself when this is going to surface as the Problem that it is....and i wonder why it is that, despite the rulings against the system of kangaroo tribunals handed down by the supreme court, no further legal or political questions have arisen.

at what point did stuff like this become routine?
at what point did we decide to think about something else?
how is it that a system which condones this sort of action remains politically legitimate?

at what point did we loose the ability to question the legitimacy of the american political order?
if we cannot question the legitimacy of the order, then it seems to me that we are not free. not in any meaningful way. this because we have *no* power.

this kind of thing is why i have trouble seeing in the primary election charade-coverage more than a sporting event designed to distract by setting up a sense of continuity in the moving-away-from-the-bush-period while at the same time leaving aside the various Problems that these people have created, not just internationally, but for the political order in the united states itself.

or maybe anything does, in fact, go now.

I think the disconnect between American 'life' and what goes on outside of it has been demarcated so broadly that, as long as there are no immediate controversies or implications (especially - maybe even solely - those being played out in the media) it doesn't have to be real for us. Even the increasingly dire economic crisis we are in doesn't seems to be playing out on the other side of this divide with any weight. We're always waiting to be told how to react, without realizing that it is not in the interest of media or governmental entities for us to react appropriately.

I think by the time we realize what has been done it will be too late to realize that it is different.

But then, I get real pissy and dour whenever I try to talk about anything political anymore...

I dunno Roachie, but I do believe it will all culminate into something of note. We as bystanders are watching the process. Perhaps the next administration will resolve this once and for all.

Mixed, I agree with your Allegory of the Cave analogy. But there has to be a tipping point. With each subsequent level of noise increase, people start to turn away from the wall and demand "truth". It may be a slow process but I believe it has to happen. A critical mass has to be reached otherwise it will die down and "go away". Keep in mind, it could happen in the next 4 years, or not for another 30.

It's good you get pissy and dour. We should all be bumped from our comfort zones from time to time. It's what we do next that's significant.

There are two schools of thought here in the US. The first is that we should be a nation of laws, and then everyone, even government officials and the government as an entity, should have to obey them.

The second school of thought is that whatever the current administration does is fine with us.

Unfortunately, most Republicans seem to belong to the second school of thought...at least until a Democrat is elected president.

Quote:

Originally Posted by robot_parade (Post 2512435)

And then there's the Democratic Presidential school of thought...

""Torture Like on 24 Is OK" Bill Clinton

Do you believe some form of torture or extreme coercive techniques have not been condoned or employed under every administration since Washington? It would be convenient to sweep this issue under the Republican floor mat, but history just doesn't agree with your assumption.

so what you're saying, otto, is that the claim "the united states should be a country of laws" is itself a partisan claim?

so by that logic, if you are on the right, you should not see law as an important matter?
so torture should not matter, because law does not matter, because the claim that it does matter is partisan.

nicely played.

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2512646)

Come on roachie... I was addressing the blanket statement

Quote:

Unfortunately, most Republicans seem to belong to the second school of thought...at least until a Democrat is elected president.

I absolutely do not condone torture.

and no... the claim that "the US should be a country of laws" is not a partisan idea. How and why a partisan may attempt persuasion by wrapping themselves with such claims is another story.

thanks for the compliment :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ottopilot (Post 2512461)

It would be convenient to sweep this issue under the Republican floor mat, but history just doesn't agree with your assumption.

No need to generalize and blame all Republicans...just Bush/Cheney with the complicity of their Attorneys General and the failure of the Republican majority Congress (at the time) to meet its oversight obligations.

I cant speak to all of history, but I know of no other recent president who used the Dept of Justice to attempt to rationalize actions that are counter to the Constitution, US laws and international treaty obligations. Specifically, the DoJ torture memo that claims a president can unilaterally define torture outside of the context of the Geneva Conventions or the UN Convention on Torture....or the DoJ memo rationalizing the use of an Authorization of Use of Military Force to justify the NSA wiretapping Americans w/o a warrant or holding foreign nationals indefinitely w/o any access to basic legal rights under US and international law.

One can only hope that the next DoJ will return to performing its primary function of enforcing the laws of the land rather than devoting its time and resources to providing "legal" justifications for questionable ideological acts of a sitting president.

What continues to keep me perplexed is the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" position of many conservative guardians of the Constitution in response to the Bush administration actions noted above.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux (Post 2513213)

What continues to keep me perplexed is the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" position of many conservative guardians of the Constitution in response to the Bush administration actions noted above.

Agreed... it seems that the most "faithful" tend to cling to their political ideals or leadership regardless of facts that may prove contrary.