Asymmetric Accomplices to Murder

(source of graphic)

Remember back in June of 2006 when three Guantanamo detainees allegedly killed themselves? At the time I opined that "reports should say 'the alleged suicides' of three captives with no access to due process." And a few days later when Dan Schorr allowed John Ydstie to report the deaths as suicides, I noted that "it is essential that when prisoners are seized and held extrajudicially and die in custody, one must be skeptical about the conditions of the deaths..."

My skepticism was justified. On January 18, 2010, Harper magazine published a stunning investigative piece documenting (with FOUR named military sources) the apparent murders of those three detainees by US agents at the Guantanamo Prison Camp - and the subsequent coverup of the murders at the highest levels (e.g. war criminal Admiral Harris). The news of these likely murders is not completely unexpected, because as Scott Horton pointed out over a month ago (Dec. 7, 2009), a professor and Seton Hall students poured over the 503 page redacted military investigation (huge PDF file here) and found not only glaring inconsistencies (e.g. the victims had rags stuffed in their throats - the victims had no rags stuffed in their throats), but ludicrous assumptions underlying the official military story (i.e. under intense prison surveillance all three had to simultaneously bind themselves and hang themselves and go undetected for two hours!)

So how did NPR react to this damning news? So far absolutely nothing in the on-air news shows. This is completely inexcusable given the things that NPR reported (repeated) as facts regarding the detainee deaths:

• June 10, 2006 ATC (first major report on the deaths) - Jackie Northam: "the military says that the men hanged themselves....everything is coming from the Pentagon at this point, and they're saying that the suicides were planned and were coordinated....They described them all as dangerous members of terrorists organizations....they described this as an act of warfare...."
• June 11, 2006 Weekend Edition Sunday- Jackie Northam: "All three of the men had made nooses out of their bedclothes and out of the sheets and that, and that's how they hanged themselves.....[the US military] said it was well planned out by these men, who they called dangerous prisoners.....the military called this, not an act of desperation, Liane, but an act of warfare. The Guantanamo commander...Navy Rear Admiral Harry Harris said that these men were committed Jihadists....And this falls in line with what the military has always said, that anytime that these suicide attempts are made, it's a tactic used by al-Qaida to garner support..."
• June 12, 2006 ME - Jackie Northam: "...a prison guard at Guantanamo Bay discovered one of the detainees had hanged himself....Shortly after, guards discovered two more prisoners in the same area of the detention camp, had also hanged themselves.....Harris called the three men committed jihadists....Harris said the suicides were an act of what he called asymmetric warfare..."
• June 12, 2006 ATC - Jackie Northam: "Military officials at Guantanamo say the three detainees who committed suicide were ardent Jihadists who were willing to kill Americans and others....The Pentagon says he was a mid- to high-level al-Qaida operative. [The second] is described as a frontline fighter for the Taliban....Guantanamo Bay spokesman Commander Robert Duran said today that [the third] also had links to a terrorist group."
• May 31, 2007 ME [almost a year later] reporting on another supposed suicide Northam again states, "We're expecting to hear later today...whether he hanged himself like the other three prisoners did last summer, or whether it was something else." Renee Montagne adds, "And those of three prisoners who succeeded in killing themselves last year, they hanged themselves. What does the military do to try to prevent suicides?"

As you can see, not only did NPR repeat all the claims of the Pentagon as fact, but also repeated verbatim the US military's completely unsubstantiated claims about the detainees being dangerous terrorists. It's really tragic that it took a law professor and his students to slog through the military's sloppy coverup and that one reporter at Harper's magazine manages to get four former military men to go on the record with their revelations. It's funny that no one at NPR knows how to read long PDF files or how to get in touch with whistleblowers... If NPR had a shred of integrity, it would quickly and forcefully revisit it's coverage of the detainee deaths, issue an apology and remind listeners that there was never any proof for the statements that it repeated again and again as fact.

I should mention that - with grotesque timing (and typical obliviousness) - NPR did have a related story on the same day that the Horton story broke: June 19th's Morning Edition featured the inept Madeline Brand interviewing torture lawyer, and dynamic professor, John Yoo who was on to pimp his book and his slimy reputation. Brand flailed about, mentioning water boarding once and pointing out the unending nature of the "war on terror," but never pursued Yoo's evasions with follow-up questions and never brought up the obvious criminal behaviors sanctioned by Yoo and his Office of Legal Counsel - forced nudity, wall slamming, forced coldness, sleep deprivation, enforced painful stress positions, etc. Needless to say, she made no mention of the numerous detainee deaths by torture which have followed from Yoo's determinations that US "terror" detainees are outside the protections of US and international laws.

On NPR Supermax is Super Funny

Considering whether Guantanamo detainees might end up in the Florence, Colorado Supermax prison, NPR put Melissa Block on the phone with Bob Wood. According to Block "He's publisher of the Florence Citizen; his newspaper was active in helping bring Supermax to Florence and he says the prison is good for the local economy." Essentially, Wood tells block that bringing Guantanamo prisoners to the Supermax in Florence is not a controversial issue at all.

Block glibly closes the interview with this anecdote:

"By the way we also called the mayor of Florence, Colorado - Bart Hall - who told us this: 'Florence is used to having very bad boys at the Supermax. We weren't expecting it to house a bunch of kindergartners."

Oh man, that is so funny. Unlike those bitter, humorless Quakers, I just laughed and laughed to think of "more than twenty thousand prisoners in the United States...in special super-maximum security facilities....locked in small, sometimes windowless, cells....A few times a week...let out for showers and solitary exercise....[with] almost no access to educational or recreational activities...." What a riot! Ho! and kindergartners....yes, the idea of children in inhumane detention is just so clever and witty....

I just hope that NPR will hurry up and call up some of America's finest torturers enhanced interrogators so they can regale us with torture humor. Oh Melissa, you certainly are a very bad girl!

Summer Camp With Steve and Jackie

At the top of the hour Thursday morning I had to hear Inskeep cheerily remark that NPR would visit Guantanamo where prisoners are "taking art classes, growing tomatoes, and learning English..." Inskeep also described the prisoners as "terror detainees."

Jackie Northam was the tour guide for this Potemkin trip to Gitmo where we heard from chummy US military personnel about the inmates of Camp 4 - the "highly compliant" inmates who get to stay outside their cells, use basketball and soccer facilities, take art classes, garden and learn English.

There were a few details missing in this story about current conditions at Guantanamo. Somehow Jackie missed out on the rough and tumble fun of detainee v. Immediate Reaction Force games. She could have found a redacted history of these brave competitors at the UC-Davis Human Rights Center or talked with one of the detainee players. Amazingly, Jackie also missed the family-style feedings attended by 10% of Guantanamo "terror detainees."

Maybe I'm not being fair to Jackie and Steve. After all, change is in the air (not), summer is almost here, and things are just so much improved at Guantanamo...aren't they?

Something Decent

Today I get a rare chance to make a positive comment about something on NPR news - and with Scott Simon involved, too. Next thing you know, it'll be snowing in Alabama!

On WE Sunday, NPR talked to a former guard about abuses he witnessed at Guantanamo. In spite of a few misfires - e.g. Simon claiming that "there have been few first hand accounts of what the military prison at Guantanamo Bay is really like" - I have to say that (though way too late) it was a good start.

The best part of the story was the reference in the report to the Guantanamo Testimonials Project at UC Davis's Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas. I can't believe I actually learned about a new information resource from NPR! On the story web site NPR even provides this link to the guard's testimony based on the UC Davis site.

Planet Gitmo

Welcome to NPR's world of All Things Gitmo. On Wednesday's ATG Michele Norris serves as our guide into the circular thinking that would make Joseph Heller blush. Here she is serving as a deputized spokesperson for the Borgs the Pentagon:

"The Pentagon said yesterday that 61 former detainees who were released, quote, 'returned to the fight against the US' meaning that they had returned to some form of terrorism." So for those detainees who are deemed dangerous, but for whom no clear evidence exists for prosecution, what should be done with the prisoners that fall in that category?"

That is quite a statement. Notice how broad the label of terrorism has become for NPR: anyone who is in "the fight against the US" is now engaged in "some form of terrorism." That is precisely the twisted line of thinking that permeates the US armed forces. Consider this very typical DOD article from the American Forces Press Service back in March 30, 2008 regarding the Iraqi insurgents:

"An American aircrew killed 12 insurgents today after they attacked a U.S. infantry patrol in northern Baghdad. Soldiers assigned to the 4th Infantry Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team pursued the insurgents after they had broken off their attack. U.S. military aircraft arrived to provide air-to-ground support. After positively identifying the attackers, the air weapons team engaged and killed the 12 terrorists. "

It's a pretty nifty trick to turn a guerrilla band of 12 fighters who are willing to attack a US infantry patrol into "terrorists." What civilians were they attacking? What civilian targets had they engaged?

Returning to Norris' statement, one can ask the same questions regarding the 61 victims of the US torture camp at Guantanamo Bay. What form of terrorism? What acts of terrorism did they engage in? Do you have ANY evidence to back up your dramatic charge that they "returned to some form of terrorism"? Oops, did I just request "evidence"? (How quaint of me.) Regarding evidence, Norris has some very modern ideas about that: she wonders about "those detainees who are deemed dangerous, but for whom no clear evidence exists for prosecution, what should be done...?" Yes, indeed - what should be done?

More Go Slow Gitmo

Tonight on ATC a virtual repeat piece from back in November, including the expert opinions of Scott Silliman again. Look at this report from the Detroit Free Press; there are a lot of experts with similar backgrounds as Silliman who want Bush administration officials investigated for war crimes - but not Silliman (sounds like a ticket to the NPR studio to me).

You can take look at the comments under the web posting of the report to see what I contributed there regarding Silliman's rather unique views on dangerousness and evidence.

A Lot of Awful Work Has Been Done

...or "an awful lot of work has to be done" to shut down Guantanamo - so says former Air Force lawyer and current Duke professor, Scott Silliman. It is telling that on the day after the release of a report on the "shattered lives" of released Guantanamo detainees, NPR and Jackie Northam are doing the awful work of convincing listeners that closing the prison camp will be a lot more complicated than they might have thought "during the heady days of the presidential campaign...[when as Northam reminds us] Obama spoke with easy assurance about his plans for Guantanamo Bay and the handling of terror suspects...."

Listen in vain to NPR's report for anyone mentioning torture, war crimes, violations of international law at Guantanamo. Conveniently, with such acts unmentioned, the issue of accountability and restitution never comes up. For Northam the only important issue is the difficulties that closing Guantanamo will present for the US government, "specifically what to do with the roughly 250 prisoners still held at Guantanamo."

To articulate the quandries of the poor, befuddled US government, who better to turn to than US government/military insiders such as Scott Silliman (see above), Commander Glen Sulmasy (of the Coast Guard Academy), and Matthew Waxman (of the Pentagon, State Department and Hoover Institution). One outsider, Vincent Warren with the Center for Constitutional Rights is mentioned for a very brief comment on favorable international attitudes to the new Obama administration. Here's how the cast performed:

• Silliman (who can't decide whether torture is effective) is on to argue for courts martial type proceedings as opposed to normal court proceedings that can be too "long and complicated."
• Sumasy, who is gung-ho for a more focused "war on terror" (in spite of what Juan Cole and Tony Karon think), is featured in this report for his advocacy of "hybrid courts or national security courts."
• Waxman (who to his credit fought against torture from his Pentagon posting) is on to emphasize that the only problem with sending the detainees somewhere like Bagram Air Base (Bagram!) is that it would not address the fundamental issue of what legal process detainees are "entitled" to. You have to ask why NPR wasn't covering Waxman back in October of 2007 when it mattered.

Listening to this NPR story I wondered when we will hear from about Gitmo from someone at Amnesty International, or the ACLU, or the Center for Constitutional Rights (to actually talk about their work). Maybe it will be tomorrow...or the day after that...or...

Open Season on Afghanis

Yesterday's ATC featured one baby step forward, followed by a huge stride backwards. Robert Siegel was talking with Globe and Mail correspondent Colin Freeze discussing the released video of Omar Khadar.

Siegel deserves credit for asking the obvious -but rarely asked - question. Discussing the capture of the teen fighter Khadar in Afghanistan he says:

"....a story about a firefight...he allegedly throws a hand grenade...that sounds to be as close to the capture of a POW and as different from capturing somebody who's hatching a plot to bomb an airplanes let's say as I can imagine. I just wonder if that's a point of contention that his lawyers have raised?"

It's a well stated question, and his guest, Freeze, responds:

"Oh certainly and it's also something we got to ask John Bellinger of the US State Department - a legal adviser there; he gave a briefing to Canadian media on that one. Bellinger's answer was by our laws, al-Qaeda, Taliban were illegal enemy fighters. By UN resolutions we were okay to fire at them, but because they were by nature illegal fighters, anything they fired back was illegal. So therefore what Omar Kadar did was a war crime."

When I heard this stunning response, I thought. Please follow up, please... No chance. Here's just a few possible follow-ups that any journalist might have made:

• Doesn't John Bellinger represent the Bush Administration anyway? Why would his interpretation be decisive? [Bellinger is a complete Bush tool. As his bio notes, "From February 2001 to January 2005, ....he provided legal advice to the President, the National Security Adviser, NSC Principals, and NSC and White House staff on a broad range of national security and international legal matters."]

• What UN resolutions are you referring to?

• Are you suggesting that a UN resolution backed the US military attack on Afghanistan in 2001, and also prohibited any military response by the Afghanis?

Seriously, the UN had plenty of condemnation and sanctions against the Taliban, but nothing like Bellinger and Freeze claim. I came across one coherent argument for denying Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters POW status here, but it's conclusion is interpretive at best.

Remix

Yesterday Wade Goodwyn reported on the three freed US military contractors who had been hostages of the FARC.

Goodwyn notes: "The Americans had some pointed and angry words for their former captors.....he [Gonsalves] had scorn for the rebels, he described his captors' cruelty to the hostages and he mocked the guerrillas rhetoric about building a better more democratic Colombia while they acted like bullies."

No comment needed.

A Little Self Confession

If I should disappear into the loving hands of US interrogators for five years could you please take any confessions and self-professions I might make with a wee grain of salt. Here's NPR in the last two days as they parrot the US CIA/military allegations against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed:

• Montagne (on ME, June 5, 2008): "Among the group is Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the attacks. He has not been seen in public since his arrest...more than five years ago."
• Siegel (on ATC, June 5, 2008): "Among them Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has boasted that the attacks were his idea..."
• Montagne (on ME, June 6,2008): "...it was the first time the self-professed mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks has been seen in public since his arrest more than five years ago."

For a little contrast look at this report from CTV (Canada). Notice how it opens with identifying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as "the reputed mastermind." The CTV report also mentions a few interesting tidbits that Jackie Northam failed to mention:

"A sound feed to journalists from the courtroom was turned off twice. The first time, a soldier told reporters it was because a detainee was discussing a medication he had been given, which was a privacy issue.
But his defense attorney, Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, told The Associated Press later that the prisoner had been discussing his five years as a prisoner of the United States.
The sound was also turned off when another defendant discussed early days of his imprisonment. Judge Ralph Kohlmann said that in both cases sound was turned off because classified information was discussed."

***

"It's an inquisition. It's not a trial," Mohammed said in broken English, his voice rising. "After torturing they transfer us to inquisition-land in Guantanamo."

Well, what do you know, the audio gets cut when that nasty little topic of torture pops up. I guess the military, like NPR, wants to avoid such a distasteful subject, even when it's been noted and documented.

Cuba Calling

"President Bush today challenged the Cuban government to make good on its apparent commitment to reform," says Michele Norris on Wednesday's ATC. She's not kidding. I guess poor Mee-shill doesn't see the irony of the head coach of Team Torture calling for reform on the little island where said team has one of its most notorious little workout camps. Norris finishes her opening lines with "Bush said he would allow Americans to send cell phones to Cubans." That's pretty rich, too. I wonder if it might be some of those same phones that the Decider had tracked while he trashed our quaint little Constitution - and got away with it?

I know, I know - I'm such a fuddy-duddy when it comes to our Bill of Rights. What really matters, according to Tom Gjelten, is "The issue of how the United States can support democracy in Cuba under the changing conditions there..." Democracy...seriously...just like in Haiti, Nicaragua, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, etc.

All Pentagon All the Time

Both this morning and this afternoon Guy Raz reports on the Pentagon's announcement that it will seek the death penalty for six detainees imprisoned at Guantanamo. Poor Guy Raz, stuck inside the maze of the Pentagon, just can't find a non-Pentagon point of view no matter which way he turns. According to Raz "the way the Pentagon is describing it, this will be an open trial relatively similar to a civilian court" and "all six men will be able to call witnesses" and "cross examine" the prosecution witnesses, "and examine all the evidence." Dang, sounds like a good show trial to me! In the afternoon Raz turned over a lot of the reporting duties to Kangaroo Court Specialist Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann from the Pentagon. Hartmann assures us that the six prisoners will get "a fair trial consistent with American standards of justice." Ah yes - and Raz will give us a fair report consistent with American standards of journalism, too.

Raz does note that the trial process will take years, and he mentions that "all of the accused men have alleged they were tortured under US military custody - in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the CIA has admitted that he was subjected to waterboarding." But he also repeats the completely unreliable "admissions" of guilt made by Mohammed as if they were acceptable testimony.

What we don't hear is one single intelligent, dissenting viewpoint. Raz apparently has never heard of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, or the American Civil Liberties Union. But who needs those wacky do-gooders when Guy Raz and Pentagon officials can cover all the angles?

This I Know

"Aghast and disgusted" was the reaction of one reader of this blog to Weekend Edition Sunday's broadcast of its "This I Believe" segment. It's an appropriate reaction. The essay, by a war criminal former interrogator at the US-run Guantanamo prison camp should have been left on the editing room floor (or better yet dropped in the garbage). In it the pseudonymous "Alex Anderson" unloads some real doozies:

• The detainees I worked with were murderers and rapists.
• Some committed crimes so horrific that I lost sleep wondering what would happen if they were set free.
• There was one detainee, Mustaf....He'd committed murders and did things we all wished he could take back.

Commentary or not, this is a staggering bunch of rubbish to run on a news show. There is not one shred of sourced evidence to back up these statements. According to the essay, and NPR's website, the woman who wrote and delivered the essay was a US soldier for one year in Iraq, a private contractor there for another six months, and then an interrogator at Guantanamo. (The irony of her focus on rape and murder is painful given her history in Iraq.)

And just in case the torture and abuse you've read about regarding Gitmo have disturbed you, Alex tells us that "many people would be surprised at the civilized lifestyle I experienced in Guantanamo." In this laid back Caribbean resort Alex "began to meet again with my clients, which is what I chose to call my detainees." In fact, for her interrogation sessions she would "meet, play dominoes, I'd bring chocolate and we'd talk a lot." Golly, a real summer camp rap session!

I've never cared much for the "This I Believe" segment; it often seem to be striving a bit too hard for sincerity, even when coming from serial liars like Newt Gingrich and Colin Powell, but this one crossed a line. This I know: at a time when Guantanamo is still a journalistic and legal black hole, this piece is pure propaganda; and to broadcast someone claiming that a specific group of people are murderers and rapists with no available proof is utterly inexcusable. As in the Anne Garrels' torture story , it's as if NPR has lost any sense of basic standards.

Our Day is Coming

On ATC Michele Norris opens NPR's report on Cuba, "'Your day is coming,' that was the message from President Bush to Cuban dissidents today...it was an attempt to rally the world to help Cuban dissidents seize this moment." It's fascinating how hard it is to tell where Bush leaves off and Norris begins.

After this fine introduction, Michele Kelemen takes the baton and is off like Marion Jones. But poor Kelemen; she just can't get it straight on Cuba. Like a good little parrot, she chirps Bush verbatim, "He said of Cuba, the socialist paradise is a tropical gulag and he said there are horrors still unknown that once revealed will shock the conscience of humanity and shame the regime's defenders." That is some fine irony given the little US gulag that's been humming along down in Cuba for over five years, and yes there will be more "horrors still unknown" from Gitmo that will be revealed in the future (Is there a journalist in the house?)

So do we get any dissenting views on US policy toward Cuba? Sure, from Phil Peters of the far right Lexington Institute! Kelemen introduces Peters by commenting on Bush's speech: "...and though he won lots of applause from Cuba-watchers inside the room; those outside have serious doubts." What a brazen distortion of language. She implies that the range of Cuba-watchers extends from the rightwingers inside the US government to the rightwingers in rightwing think tanks! I'd say that fulfill's NPR's committment to "present all important views on a subject." Notice, too, how positive the misnomer "Cuba-watchers" sounds.

Well, Michele Norris, the Decider has declared that "your day is coming." But if you want to know what that glorious day looks like you might want to see it in action at our own little corner of "Cuba Libre." Just put on your X-ray glasses; you can't miss it!

Skinning the Kangaroo Skinner in a Kangaroo Court

It was a bitter irony to listen to ATC today. Jackie Northam stooges for the Gitmo sham "trial" of David Hicks. She reports about his "guilty plea" and all the allegations he "admitted" to: "they essentially followed the trajectory of his few months in Afghanistan right through to when he was captured there in December 2001…allegations talked about how Hicks trained at al-Qaeda camps, he learned about weapons and basic explosives, he was trained in urban warfare at one camp and that included kidnapping techniques and assassination methods…how he fought with the Taliban and al-Qaeda members against US and coalition forces…" Not one reference to the fact that these allegations have no legitimate evidence backing them, that they flout international standards, and that the entire procedure was a legal farce. Also no reference to the sexual torture that America's finest inflicted on Hicks.

It was so perfect that this sorry excuse for journalism was followed by the story of the British soldiers being held by the Iranians and the justifiable skepticism over their "admissions" of wrongdoing.

In Court?

On ATC tonight I heard Michelle Norris describe the upcoming story analyzing the supposed "confession" of Khalid Sheik Mohammed as one that would look into "what to make of claims made in court by Al-Qaeda’s number three."

Some might call it quibbling, but it is insidious to refer to the travesty of justice taking place in Guantanamo as "court." To call it court gives it a dignity and legitimacy that it does not deserve. A court? No. A kangaroo court? Definitely.

And of course this doesn't even touch on the perversity of the story itself, where Siegel interviews Paul Pillar, a former CIA official, to discuss and analyze the "confession" of a man tortured by the CIA.

"24" World

The mainstream news is all abuzz with "confessions" from Gitmo. Since when did the confessions of tortured individuals, tried in secret military tribunals count as legitimate news. Oh silly me, I keep thinking we live in a democratic republic with laws and a free press (that is so pre-9/11). I feel like I'm living in an episode of "24" with Jack Bauer.

NPR was right in there with the rest. On the top-of-the-hour news broadcast (at 8pm) I heard Cory Flintoff say "military interrogators at Guantanamo Bay Cuba say Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has claimed responsibility for organizing the September 11th attacks and many other acts of terrorism..." Amazing!

It may be true or it may not be; does it really matter? In my humble opinion what does matter is that the whole procedure of kidnappings, ghost detainees, torture, renditions, secret prisons, and military tribunals--a betrayal of whatever American ideals are worth defending--is being given the media stamp of legitimacy by these uncritical broadcasts from Guantanamo.

Tough Ship

Yesterday Nina Totenberg did a fairly good job of letting the lawyers for Jose Padilla lay out the evidence of the barbaric treatment that their client suffered at the hands of the US government while being held incommunicado for over two years in a US Navy brig. The details were chilling (tortured with absolute sensory deprivation, shackling, no bedding, no human contact, etc. for TWO full years). The report concluded with Totenberg's noting that a source within the government affirmed that the goal of the government was to render Padilla so mentally damaged that he could be remanded to a psychological prison - apparently forever. See this post at Daily Kos for more on Totenberg's report.

Also yesterday, the ACLU made news with the FBI reports on torture at Guantanamo. If you read the reports you'll find descriptions of the treatment meted out to prisoners there: prisoners shackled in fetal position to a bolt in the floor in their urine and feces for over 24 hours (in extreme cold and heat), a prisoner with his bearded head heavily duct taped, a prisoner with an Israeli flag draped on him, a Quran squatted on and straddled by an interrogator, guards and interrogators bragging about lap dancing on a prisoner, and baptizing a prisoner, etc.)

This constext made it grotesque, but in character for NPR (see posts of Sept. 9th and Sept. 7th) to interview Jackie Northam with her upbeat, admiring tone as she assessed conditions at Guantanamo. She says "Each commander has his own way of doing business and leaves his own imprint at Guantanamo" (I'll say!) Of the current war criminal running Guantanamo, Rear Adm. Harry Harris, she says "things have tightened up since he arrived last spring" and "he runs a tough ship down there." Regarding the hundreds of uncharged, un-indicted prisoners who have no legal rights to even challenge their detention, Northam says, "Adm. Harris told me the last time I was there that there are no medium-security terrorists, only maximum-security terrorists." She, of course, fails to mention that there is not one shred of independent, legitimate, verifiable evidence to support this Orwellian claim.

A Glimpse

It was refreshing that NPR aired the Guantanamo tapes this morning and evening and let them stand for the mockery of justice they represent. Finally a audio-glimpse into the Kafkaesque world of GWOT justice. I do think it would be more responsible for journalists to call the prisoners extrajudicial detainees, or arbitrary detainees instead of "terror suspects." Given that there is no impartial, verifiable evidence on which to base suspicion of these prisoners, calling them "suspects" gives an undeserved legitimacy to the whole sham. That being said, the audiotapes are a powerful indictment of the legal fraud being perpetrated by the US government and military on these prisoners and on our Constitutional liberties and principles -- and NPR should be proud of airing them.