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Old Thursday, March 19, 2009
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Default "Obama's Guantanamo." A sunshine policy

Long march of pain will be closed by Obama administration?
USA cannot turn the page of human right abuses until we have read that page. "Difference between guilt and innocence, Nightmarish legacy?
The Bush administration's long march of pain that led to Guantanamo and then on to Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq as well as foreign torture chambers,

The USA Supreme Court's ruling that said that we must conduct ourselves under the Common Article III of the Geneva Convention. And that Common Article III says that, you know, there will be no outrages upon human dignity. It's like—it's very vague. What does that mean, "outrages upon human dignity

Americans are as cruel as others. Americans can turn their backs on law and reciprocity among nations as efficiently as any tribally organized dictatorship. Americans, relying on fear and the human impulse toward vengeance, can dehumanize other human beings with fervor equal to that of others on this planet. the Bagram prison, located on a converted Soviet base about 30 miles north of Kabul.

It's time for a change. It's time, in fact, to face the first and last legacy of Bush detention Era, USA prison at Bagram Air Base, and deal with it.
“The Americans are detaining people without any legal procedure. Prisoners do not have the opportunity to demonstrate their innocence.” The tragedy is, the U.S. is spending tens of millions of dollars building better detention facilities, but still has no process in place to handle these guys," said Sam Zarifi, director of Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific program, which is based in London.

US Decries Abuse but Defends Interrogations: "Stress and Duress" Tactics Used on Terrorism Suspects Held in Secret Overseas Facilities
Deep inside the forbidden zone at the US-occupied Bagram air base in Afghanistan, around the corner from the detention center and beyond the segregated clandestine military units, sits a cluster of metal shipping containers protected by a triple layer of concertina wire. The containers hold the most valuable prizes in the war on terrorism—captured al Qaeda operatives and Taliban commanders

On a bright sunny day two years ago, just before the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the President of the United States strode into the East Room of the White House and informed the high officials, dignitaries, and specially invited September 11 survivor families gathered in rows before him that the United States government had created a dark and secret universe to hold and interrogate captured terrorists

President Obama has given a newly convened task force six months—a long time when people are being held in harsh conditions without charges or recourse—to consider the matter of Bush administration detention practices and formulate new policies (or, of course, retain old ones).

The American detention center, established at the Bagram military base as a temporary screening site after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, is now teeming with some 630 prisoners — more than twice the 275 being held at Guantánamo. The Bagram Theater Internment Facility, as it is called, has held prisoners captured as far away as Central Africa and Southeast Asia, many of whom were sent on to Guantánamo ,50% prisoners are Pakistan 30% are afghan and 20%$ from around the world .http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/wo.../07bagram.html

The investigative file on Bagram, obtained by The Times, showed that the mistreatment of prisoners was routine: shackling them to the ceilings of their cells, depriving them of sleep, kicking and hitting them, sexually humiliating them and threatening them with guard dogs

From the 2004 Church Report (written by Naval Inspector General Admiral T. Church), that military interrogators and guards at Bagram had been given next to no relevant training for the mission of detention and interrogation. A secret CIA prison was allegedly located apart from the regular detention cells at Bagram. military officials had declared that the interrogation techniques at Bagram seemed to work better than those being used at Guantanamo in the same period. And that, after the Supreme Court issued a decision in 2004 to allow prisoners at Guantanamo to challenge their detentions, the prison population at Bagram began to grow

The rising number of detainees at Bagram — up from barely 100 in early 2004 and about 500-700 early last year — has been driven primarily by the deepening war in Afghanistan. American, most of them Taliban fighters captured in raids or on the battlefield. The Bush administration in September 2004 largely halted the movement of prisoners to Guantánamo, leaving Bagram as the preferred alternative to detain terrorism suspects.

A planned expansion of the facility is underway and will—if President Obama chooses to continue the Bush project there—enable up to 1,100 prisoners to be held (a step which will grimly complement the "surge" in American troops now underway in Afghanistan).

There are no figures available on how long most of Bagram's prisoners have been held—although some, it seems, have been imprisoned without charges or recourse for years—or how legal processes are being applied there, if at all. Last spring, the International Herald Tribune reported that Afghans from Bagram were sometimes tried in Afghan criminal proceedings where little evidence and no witnesses were presented.

The Obama administration is not seriously considered declaring the prisoners at Bagram to be "prisoners of war," and so subject to the Geneva Conventions. Currently, they are classified as enemy combatants, as are the prisoners at Guantanamo, and so, in the perverse universe of the Bush administration, free from any of the constraints of international law. The idea that the Conventions are too "rigid" for our moment and need to be put aside for this new extra-legal category has always been false and pernicious, primarily paving the way for the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques

Why The International Committee of the Red Cross is not granted access to all of the prisons or prison areas at Bagram yet, while conditions of detention there should not be brought into accordance with humane treatment and standards. No "ghost prisoners" should be allowed to exist there.

A federal judge recently asked for "the number of detainees held at Bagram Air Base; the number of Bagram detainees who were captured outside Afghanistan; and the number of Bagram detainees who are Afghan citizens," but the information the Obama administration offered the court in response remains classified and redacted from the public record.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has visited the prison, but it remains unclear whether they were able to inspect all of it. A confidential Red Cross report from 2008 supposedly highlighted overcrowding, the use of extreme isolation as a punishment technique, and various violations of the Geneva Convention.

The McCain amendment was an amendment to the United States Senate Department of Defense Authorization bill, commonly referred to as the Amendment on (1) the Army Field Manual and (2) Cruel, Inhumane, Degrading Treatment, amendment #1977 and also known as the McCain Amendment 1977. The amendment prohibited inhumane treatment of prisoners. The Amendment was introduced by Senator John McCain, a candidate for the 2000 presidential Republican primary, who was a candidate for the 2008 elections. On October 5, 2005, the United States Senate voted 90-9 to support the amendment. McCain Amendment roll call". http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LI...n=1&vote=00249.

In October 2004, the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command concluded that there was probable cause to charge 27 officers and enlisted personnel with criminal offenses in the Dilawar case ranging from dereliction of duty to maiming and involuntary manslaughter. Fifteen of the same soldiers were also cited for probable criminal responsibility in the Habibullah case. Seven soldiers have been charged so far. A look at the soldiers accused in Afghanistan abuse investigation". Akron Beacon Journal. December 5, 2005. http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/13336682.htm.

Some interrogators involved in this incident were sent to Iraq and were assigned to the now infamous Abu Ghraib prison.PFC Corsetti was fined and demoted for not having premission to conduct an interrogation at Abu Ghraib. Douglas Jehl (2005-03-12). "Army Details Scale of Abuse of Prisoners in an Afghan Jail". The New York Times.

George W Bush era, who followed his administration's torture, detention and interrogation policies often felt like we were unwilling participants in a perverse game of hide-and-seek. Whenever one of us stumbled upon a startling new document, a horrific new practice, a dismal new prison environment or yet another individual implicated in torture policy, the feeling of revelation would soon be superseded by a sneaking

It is illegal for the government to hold prisoners in such isolation in secret prisons in the United States, which is why the CIA placed them overseas, according to several former and current intelligence officials and other U.S. government officials. Legal experts and intelligence officials said that the CIA's internment practices also would be considered illegal under the laws of several host countries, where detainees have rights to have a lawyer or to mount a defense against allegations of wrongdoing.

Bush administration lawyers argued in 2008 that the Bagram detainees were different from those at Guantánamo. Virtually all of the Bagram prisoners were captured on the battlefield and were being held in a war zone, the lawyers contended, and they could pose a security threat if released.
The Obama administration will also have to decide what to do with non-Afghans who are captured in Afghanistan. The American military has secretly handed over more than 200 militants captured in Iraq and Afghanistan to the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other nation.

There’s a lot of horror stories, and the administration is just not going to want those horror stories to come out. So where are these prisoners going to be sent? Are they going to vanish forever?”

European Union nations want "total transparency" and "maximum information" about Guantánamo Bay detainees before accepting any for resettlement after their release, E.U. officials told the Obama administration.why EU is silent on Bagram prison matter? Why EU is showing double standar.


Dr Aafia Siddiqui from Pakistan was held for years in Bagram Airbase. According to her lawyer, Elaine Whitfield Sharp;“We do know she was at Bagram for a long time. It was a long time. According to my client she was there for years and she was held in American custody; her treatment was horrendous.”

CJP (Judiciary) is restored in Pakistan, and case of missing people is still pending in highest court of Pakistan, will going to has a direct confrontation by CJP with Zardari led PPP government on missing people which is handed over to USA or detained in Bagram prisons.

The US military considers Bagram detainees unlawful combatants who can be detained for as long as they are deemed a threat to Afghan national security. the justice department's decision not to reform the rules was both surprising and "enormously disappointing". the move has angered human rights lawyers, with one saying the new White House was endorsing the view of the old one, that prisons could be created and run outside the law.

In the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Cofer Black, the former head of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center and a famously colorful hard-liner, appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee and made the most telling pronouncement of the era: "All I want to say is that there was 'before' 9/11 and 'after' 9/11. After 9/11 the gloves come off." In the days after the attacks this phrase was everywhere.

Columnists quoted it, television commentators flaunted it, interrogators at Bagram used it in their cables. ("The gloves are coming off gentlemen regarding these detainees), Col Boltz has made it clear that we want these individuals broken

In February, Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, called for the establishment of what he calls a "nonpartisan commission of inquiry," better known as a "Truth and Reconciliation Committee," to investigate "how our detention policies and practices, from Bagram ,Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib, have seriously eroded fundamental American principles of the rule of law." Since Senator Leahy's commission is intended above all to investigate and make public what was done.

Amercian people must acknowledge what was done in their name"—Senate would offer grants of immunity to public officials in exchange for their truthful testimony. He seeks not prosecution and justice but knowledge and exposure, any proposal that includes widespread grants of immunity. They urge investigations and prosecutions of Bush administration officials.Shame on Amercian for such proposal and thought.

President Obama, while declaring that "nobody's above the law, and if there are clear instances of wrongdoing...people should be prosecuted," has also expressed his strong preference for "looking forward" rather than "looking backwards." One can understand the sentiment but even some of the decisions his administration has already made—concerning state secrecy, for example—show the extent to which he and his Department of Justice will be haunted by what his predecessor did.

Consider the uncompromising words of Eric Holder, the attorney general, who in reply to a direct question at his confirmation hearings had declared, "waterboarding is torture."

Host countries have signed the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as has the United States. Yet CIA interrogators in the overseas sites are permitted to use the CIA's approved "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques," some of which are prohibited by the U.N. convention and by U.S. military law. They include tactics such as "waterboarding," in which a prisoner is made to believe he or she is drowning.

Most of the facilities were built and are maintained with congressionally appropriated funds, but the White House has refused to allow the CIA to brief anyone except the House and Senate intelligence committees' chairmen and vice chairmen on the program's generalities

Why Obama administration is not coming up with to prosecute the human right abuses committed by Bush Era. Why Obama administration are willing to give immunity to these criminals and human right abusers.
If Serbian , Rwandans ,Croatians, Sudan,Angolia, (president) can be prosecuted for war crime why USA people and Mr BUSH and his aides are giving Immunity by Obama Administration, shame for UN, EU and world Human right champion nation on human right abuses in Bagram prison on inmates and not giving them legal right to fight their cases ,and keeping them in isolation from years. Usman karim based in Lahore Pakistan lmno25@hotmail.com
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