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A tense question

I know there’s almost no point in linking to a New York Times editorial, but then, this has never been a news-breaking blog, anyway.  I just thought that for all the paper’s shortcomings in recent years, it deserves some love for this almost-perfect piece of work:

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.

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. . . .

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.

There’s only one note off-key here: “is becoming” should be “has become.” Otherwise, it’s pretty damn good.

Posted by on 03/08 at 11:42 AM

  1. It’s a good editorial, for sure, but there’s another off-key note.  Hundreds of thousands of “average citizens” have very vocally called attention to these and other injustices and demanded they stop.  It’s just that it’s hard for average citizens to be heard when mass media won’t give them the attention they deserve--and that decency dictates.

    Posted by  on  03/08  at  01:05 PM

  2. Good point, Lance.  But if I may, you could also say, “that democracy dictates.”

    I’m just all about the fine-tuning today.

    Posted by  on  03/08  at  01:08 PM

  3. Even if mass media outlets gave every single inch of ink and screen to protests against Gitmo and other abuses, I don’t think it would have any effect on the administration.

    Posted by  on  03/08  at  01:40 PM

  4. The Administration has gone way beyond all hope on this and other matters. What scares me is that
    when I discuss this with people I know, even those who have come to see how thoroughly evil and incompetent this bunch is, either their eyes glaze over, or they think we’re only talking about a bunch of dirty foreigners who probably ARE terrorists anyway!

    Sorry about the run on sentence, but this whole subject gets my blood boiling!

    Posted by  on  03/08  at  01:55 PM

  5. True enough, Amanda.  The same principle holds for anti-war arguments and rallies in 2002-03:  nothing would have stopped this crew.  But there’s still an urgent need to go public (for the reasons Lefty suggests) with the fact that we’ve rounded up the chicken farmer and the guy with a Taliban-esque name, just as there was an urgent need three years ago to make the case that no matter how vile Saddam Hussein was, war in Iraq, as conducted by the neocons, was going to be a political and military disaster.  Believing in this administration’s susceptibility to moral suasion is a fool’s game.  But winning the hearts and minds of Americans before we all piss away our democracy is a thing that’s still worth attempting.

    Posted by Michael  on  03/08  at  02:45 PM

  6. I almost wonder if part of the administration’s strategy is to be so outlandishly corrupt that people who are too busy, or just don’t care, to pay attention refuse to believe it’s happening. I’ve talked to people who think, “This is America, that can’t happen here.”

    I’m literally overwhelmed with the lies and corruption—there’s so much, I can’t stay focused on any topic. Unprovoked invasion of another country, domestic spying, torture, extraordinary renditions and indefinite incarcerations, fraud, cronyism, and always, always lies and hypocrisy. Sure, I’m in for the protests, but where to begin?

    Posted by  on  03/08  at  04:30 PM

  7. You’re right, Michael! Public protest can also win over two constituencies more important than the current administration: 1) the rest of the world, and 2) posterity.

    Posted by  on  03/08  at  04:33 PM

  8. Personally, the only good thing that I see about the administration being so mind-bogglingly corrupt, stupid, and evil, and near-majority American approval of these qualities, is that at least we’ve finally pissed away the remnants of the idea of the U.S. as a special country.  It’s long been time for the rest of the world to start deciding to make progress happen despite us rather than with our lead or even help.

    Posted by  on  03/08  at  04:45 PM

  9. Re #8: “near-majority American approval”? Last I checked, GWB was at 34% approval. No Pollyanna, I (no, I’m merely a humble bot), still, let’s not exaggerate!

    Posted by John Protevi  on  03/08  at  05:04 PM

  10. Ah, but Rich, I still wanna be special!

    There was a big protest asking for the resignation of the governor in the Mexican state of Puebla a couple of weeks ago.  It’s come out that he ordered the arrest and planned a retaliatory rape of a reporter who had linked a manufacturing buddy of his to another man who stands accused of running a child prostitution ring.  I got a little smug talking to my friends here in Mexico saying (more or less,) “Oooh, that sucks.  But that could never happen in the States . . .” I’m sickened by my complacency.  We’re this - - close to banana-republic-land.  A chicken farmer.  Jesus Christ.

    Posted by Caro  on  03/08  at  05:05 PM

  11. I’m with the Protevi-bot, Rich. An early-March ABC/Washington post poll reports that 55% of people polled voted “No” on whether Bush “is honest and trustworthy.” And 44% “strongly disapprove” of “the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president.”

    Posted by  on  03/08  at  05:23 PM

  12. Well, of course the results of those opinion polls vary widely depending on whether pollsters include the Protevi-bot in their surveys, because that bot votes, like, infinity trillion times.

    Posted by Michael  on  03/08  at  05:28 PM

  13. Regarding those polls, confirms what I said in #4.
    I’d wager that a great number of those who responded against W also don’t give a rat’s patoot for what’s going on at Gitmo, etc. Zogby just did a poll of the military in Iraq, which showed a majority wanted the US out either immediately or w/i 6 months. Yet a majority of those polled (or at least a large percentage) still think we had to get rid of Sadam Hussein because of his involvement w/ 9-11!!!

    Posted by  on  03/08  at  05:40 PM

  14. When asked about the NY Times editorial about the chicken farmer, White House Spokesman Scott McClellan said, “if the Times knew anything about the bird flu, they would know that we are being proactive in fighting it.”

    Posted by  on  03/08  at  05:52 PM

  15. Well, I was referring to near-majority approval at the last Presidential election, among the electorate.  (Shaving off a few points for electoral fraud makes it only a near majority).  But really, if you polled America specifically on what is making them not as happy with Bush, I think that mostly it’d be selfish concerns like the economy, the chance that they might actually have their kid sent to war, the feeling that no matter what we do to the rest of the world we’re not supposed to let an *American* city get destroyed, or something like that.  In terms of torture, I’d guess that there are just as many Americans who want more Arabs tortured as who want none.

    The people who want America to still be special have to address the fact that through a good part of the lives of most of the adults here, we were torturing people in Central America.  Before that, the Philippines, before that, slavery.  The American exceptionalism bit was always a lie.  At least now it’s finally a discredited lie.

    Not that I think that any other country is better, of course.

    Posted by  on  03/08  at  05:58 PM

  16. This is not pretty damned good.  This sucks.  It’s been known for years that Gitmo is a concentration camp filled with innocent people.  When did the Times say anything about it? Now the Times has decided that the smart money is anti-Bush so we get this stuff.  Any way the wind blows, that’s their motto.  “This has been our nightmare?” Bullshit. They didn’t lose one minute of sleep over Guantanamo for four years.

    Posted by  on  03/08  at  06:28 PM

  17. Hi Rich, no bigger critic of American exceptionalism than me. And I’m certainly not an expert on public opinion. But I’m not so down about our co-citizens resistance to the government’s use of torture, even on the dreaded “terrorist suspects,” despite the rather relentless repetition of the intuition-pumping “ticking bomb scenarios” our friends like Alan Dershowtitz like to come up with.

    A quick Google brought the following from this November 2005 Pew Foundation poll:

    In addition, large majorities in each group of influentials believe the use of torture against terrorist suspects can rarely if ever be justified. The public is much more tolerant of the use of torture against suspected terrorists – 46% say it can be often or sometimes justified, while 49% believe it is rarely or never justified.

    True, 46% is “near-majority,” but it still doesn’t hurt to note that the pro-torture near-majority is more of a minorty than the anti-torture near-majority.

    But in this December 2005 ABC News poll we find a healthy 64% against torture, with not even Republicans even close to “near majority” status:

    On another issue under current debate, this poll finds that 56 percent of Americans think the U.S. government has a policy of using torture as part of its campaign against terrorism. Yet 64 percent call this practice unacceptable, about the same as in a May 2004 poll. Thirty-two percent see it as acceptable, rising to a high of 41 percent of Republicans.

    Even a humble bot like me can take some solace in those numbers.

    Posted by  on  03/08  at  08:02 PM

  18. Hey Michael - just wanted to let you know Sadly,No! has a plan to heap high praises upon you. You deserve it!

    http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/002425.html

    Posted by Maenad  on  03/08  at  08:46 PM

  19. Protevi, the very article you link to (summarizing the ABC poll Dec 2005) has this to say:

    “[T]his poll finds that 56 percent of Americans think the U.S. government has a policy of using torture as part of its campaign against terrorism. Yet 64 percent call this practice unacceptable, about the same as in a May 2004 poll. Thirty-two percent see it as acceptable, rising to a high of 41 percent of Republicans.

    At the same time, more Americans, 53 percent — especially Republicans, 73 percent — say it would be acceptable for the CIA to hold people suspected of involvement in terrorism in secret prisons in foreign countries where U.S. laws don’t apply — the so-called “black site” prisons that have been reported recently.

    Maybe the poll numbers on that specific issue will go down if the chicken farmer case kicks up enough dust. One point the NY Times editorial makes explicitly is that IF we permit secret prisons outside the rule of US law THEN we open the door to torture. Michael basically made this point, too: “The founding fathers knew that when you dispensed with the rule of law, the inevitable outcome was injustice.” The problem comes (as Caro and Lefty basically point out) when that if-then link is denied: “Detain, yes: torture, no. Not us.”

    I take comfort in the insanely detailed Wikipedia entry on Guantanamo Bay. How cool is that? The masses, many of them American masses, wrote that, right? The entry also proves to my personal satisfaction that one should not dismiss Wikipedia as a reference work on an issue of great pitch and moment just because it also happens to be the best authority on certain Mexican wrestlers.

    Posted by  on  03/08  at  09:03 PM

  20. Wasn’t it Lyndon LaRouche who proved that if an unknown “American” sounding named candidate ran against a known “foreign” sounding named candidate, the American named candidate would win?  As I recall, his party took some local races that way.

    If anything, the atmosphere that allowed that now encourages it.

    Posted by  on  03/08  at  09:57 PM

  21. I’m teaching Tram Nguyen’s _We Are All Suspects Now:  Untold Stories from Immigrant Communities after 9/11_ (Beacon, 2005) in an American Studies course at SUNY Fredonia, so it’s nice to see the NYT finally catching up with an editor from _ColorLines_.  But it’s important to point out that Guantanamo Bay is no isolated phenomenon.  There have been many thousands of detentions and deportations in cities across the U.S. since 9/11.  My students’ reactions range from shock and outrage at stories like these to confusion and cynicism (and that’s only after reading up to the end of the first chapter).  Was wondering what I can point my students who want more info./context towards, besides the usual suspects like David Cole’s _Enemy Aliens_ and web sites of human rights and civil liberties organizations....

    Posted by Bruce Simon  on  03/08  at  10:36 PM

  22. Bruce - I’ve been told Elaine Hagopian’s Civil Rights in Peril is good, though I haven’t read it.

    On a happier note, speaking of polls:

    Percentage of Americans with a favorable view of Richard Cheney: 18

    Percentage of Russians who believe that a certain Iosif Dzhugashvili was a “wise and humane” man: 20

    http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_3574971

    Posted by  on  03/08  at  10:59 PM

  23. Not to blow my own horn (OK… to BLOW MY OWN HORN), but I’ve been posting interviews I’ve had with various attorneys representing Gitmo detainees, and you can hear it from the mouths of the horse’s attorneys Neal Katyal, Joshua Colangelo Bryan, Baher Azmy, and Joshua Dratel (representing Guantanamo detainees) and with attorneys Donna Newman and Andrew Patel (representing “unlawful combatant” Jose Padilila)… and my current interview with Rick Wilson, attorney for the youngest Gitmo detainee Omar Khadr. 

    The truth is out there, boys and girls.  Those who can tell it will happily talk about it…

    (While this is technically “comment spam”, it is relevant to the post.  In short, the interviews reveal a pattern of (1) arbitrary legal procedures that change at whim (2) rules designed to achieve the outcome of the administration-- i.e. everyone is guilty, and we’ll prove that to you! (3) those picked up tend to be poor shlubs in the wrong place and time by and large who (4) we abuse and torture… ) Gitmo, like the other thing Michelle Malkin is proud of, our Japanese internment camps, is something we will one day look back on with shame.  If given the chance to, of course.

    Posted by the talking dog  on  03/08  at  11:26 PM

  24. Those interviews are terrific, own-horn-blowing dog.  Thanks for linking to them; if I’d had my wits about me this morning I would have done so myself.

    Posted by Michael  on  03/08  at  11:33 PM

  25. Hi Amanda, I noticed that discrepancy too, but didn’t know what to make of it. I guess it means that some people don’t approve of torture if Americans do it, but don’t care it it’s done for us by proxy somewhere far away. But what does *that* mean? I don’t get it. Any ideas?

    Posted by  on  03/09  at  12:47 AM

  26. What I’d say it means is that ordinary people are invested in the myth of exceptionalism, and want this degree of deniability in order to protect it.  Their objection to torture is not to torture per se, but to the association of torture with the U.S.  The thought that they do not live in the most advanced, most civilized, etc. nation would hurt their self-image.

    Posted by  on  03/09  at  09:08 AM

  27. Hi Rich, thanks, that’s a very good analysis.

    Posted by  on  03/09  at  09:14 AM

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