By Kenneth J. Theisen
Bush Official: Many Gitmo Prisoners Were and Are Innocent
On March 19th, Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, told the Associated Press, "There are still innocent people there [at Guantanamo]. Some have been there six or seven years."
He told the AP he learned this information through briefings and by communicating with military commanders. Similar information was reported by Jane Mayer in her book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals. In that 2008 book, Mayer told of one U.S. commander at Gitmo who estimated that at least one-third of the prisoners there were totally innocent of any terrorist connections. But they were still held for years.
At the same time that government officials were being briefed about all the innocent men picked up in the so-called war on terror we were hearing from Bush and Cheney that Gitmo held the “worst of the worst.”
But on March 17th Wilkerson wrote in the Washington Note political blog that, “It did not matter if a detainee were innocent. Indeed, because he lived in Afghanistan and was captured on or near the battle area, he must know something of importance." He was told that intelligence analysts still hoped to gather "sufficient information about a village, a region, or a group of individuals, that dots could be connected and terrorists or their plots could be identified." He also reported on the blog that there was no real attempt to discriminate "who we were transporting to Cuba for detention and interrogation…U.S. leadership became aware of this lack of proper vetting very early on and, thus, of the reality that many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value, and should be immediately released."
Wilkerson informed the AP that many detainees "clearly had no connection to al Qaeda and the Taliban and were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Pakistanis turned many over for $5,000 a head."
As we all now know, Gitmo was a hellhole run by the U.S. government where torture and inhumane treatment was the fate that detainees met there. Some died as well. To date, no U.S. officials have been tried for the crimes against humanity that occurred there. Gitmo is also still operating until Obama’s administration can find another hellhole to hold the detainees.
U.N. Report: Israeli Attack on Gaza a “War Crime”
Richard Falk, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, in a report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council on March 19th stated that Israel’s recent war on Gaza "would seem to constitute a war crime of the greatest magnitude under international law".
In his report he described the war as a "massive assault on a densely populated urbanized setting," with the civilian population subjected to "an inhumane form of warfare that kills, maims and inflicts mental harm."
Falk said that because the Geneva Convention requires forces at war to be able to distinguish between military targets and civilians, if that is not possible then "launching the attacks is inherently unlawful." The war on Gaza left 1,434 Palestinians dead. Many were women and children.
Falk reported that the Israeli blockade of the Gaza border was also not legally justified and may represent a "crime against peace." According to Falk, sealing the border and denying people the right to flee the war zone as refugees may also be a crime against humanity. He also said that Israel violated international law by the "targeting of schools, mosques and ambulances" during the offensive, and its use of weapons including white phosphorus.
As of this writing no one in the Obama administration has commented on this latest report of the crimes committed by the close U.S. ally in the Middle East. But given time, I am sure the Obama administration will dismiss it and defend Israel, as it has previously done.
Obama and Congressional Hypocrites Attack AIG Bonuses
In the last week, President Obama and congressional Democrats have unleashed a string of verbal attacks against insurer AIG for giving out $165 million in bonuses to its traders who helped drive the company into such desperate financial straits that the federal government had to bail out the struggling company with billions in taxpayer dollars. We were told AIG was too big to let fail, as our so-called national “leaders” showered our money on AIG and other mega-corporations with little debate.
On March 19th the house passed a bill to tax at 90 percent most bonuses paid to executives of companies receiving taxpayer money. Aside from the fact that this may be unconstitutional and unenforceable, there is the issue of hypocrisy. Just last month the same Congress passed the $787 billion stimulus bill which had a provision protecting the bonuses in it. Obama made a big deal out of signing the law at that time.
The actions of Obama and congressional leaders such as Nancy Pelosi remind me of the scene in Casablanca where the police chief played by Claude Raines says he is “shocked, shocked” to learn that there was gambling going on at Rick’s Nightclub, despite the fact that he gambled there regularly. After all, AIG execs had been responsible for the financial mismanagement of the company before they begged for more government money to waste. What did Obama and Congress think these crooks would do with more money – use it to benefit the masses of people who are suffering in this country?
In this latest scandal out of Washington, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd stated that Obama’s Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner wanted the provision in the law. His boss, President Obama, is also now imitating Raines’ character by attacking the bonuses. In asking for the special provision, Geithner professed he had been concerned that limiting the bonuses would break legal contracts.
On March 19th on Jay Leno’s show Obama defended Geithner and himself. He told Leno, "On the AIG thing, all these contracts were written well before I took office, but ultimately, I’m now the guy who’s responsible to fix it. And one of the things that I’m trying to break is a pattern in Washington where everybody is always looking for somebody else to blame. And I think Geithner is doing an outstanding job. He is a smart guy and he’s a calm and steady guy. I don’t think people fully appreciate the plate that was handed him." But even though the contracts may have been written before Obama took office, he did sign the law that protected the bonuses after Geithner had it inserted into the stimulus bill.
Here is an idea. How about substantiating these peoples claims. All you have here is a couple of people saying, “… some prisoners are innocent…” This article is a he said/ she said article with no meat in it. You protestors are a total joke. Show me documents, site some histoy. Seriously.