The Guantanamo files

Written By: - Date published: 10:17 am, April 28th, 2011 - 9 comments
Categories: afghanistan, us politics, war - Tags:

The Guardian has obtained a mass of files relating to detainees at America’s infamous Guantánamo Bay:

Guantánamo leaks lift lid on world’s most controversial prison
• Innocent people interrogated for years on slimmest pretexts
• Children, elderly and mentally ill among those wrongfully held
• 172 prisoners remain, some with no prospect of trial or release

More than 700 leaked secret files on the Guantánamo detainees lay bare the inner workings of America’s controversial prison camp in Cuba.

The US military dossiers, obtained by the New York Times and the Guardian, reveal how, alongside the so-called “worst of the worst”, many prisoners were flown to the Guantánamo cages and held captive for years on the flimsiest grounds, or on the basis of lurid confessions extracted by maltreatment. …

The files depict a system often focused less on containing dangerous terrorists or enemy fighters, than on extracting intelligence. Among inmates who proved harmless were an 89-year-old Afghan villager, suffering from senile dementia, and a 14-year-old boy who had been an innocent kidnap victim. …

Obama’s inability to shut Guantánamo has been one of the White House’s most internationally embarrassing policy failures. The files offer an insight into why the administration has been unable to transfer many of the 172 existing prisoners from the island prison where they remain outside the protection of the US courts or the prisoner-of-war provisions of the Geneva conventions.

See the Guardian’s overview of coverage for many other topics, such as how “US agencies fought internal war” over the treatment of prisoners, and “Britain joined renditions despite knowing of torture”. The New York Times blog The Lede is tracking reaction to the release of the files.

Local reaction has been quick to point out the New Zealand connection. Russell Brown at Hard News:

More Secrets and Lies

As the latest round of Wikileaks disclosures, the Guantanamo Files, courses through the global media (more of which below) we should not shrink from confronting a story about our own small part of the same, grim map: Jon Stephenson’s ‘Eyes Wide Shut’, in the latest Metro magazine. …

The thrust of the story is that New Zealand’s political and military leaders have consistently sought to play down – to the extent of covering it up – evidence that our own SAS troops in Afghanistan have breached New Zealand’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions by handing over prisoners to US and Afghani forces in the knowledge that they would likely be mistreated and even tortured. …

There is a good deal more in the story, and I would urge you to get hold of a copy. It offers evidence that Phil Goff, probably Mark Burton, the present Defence minister Wayne Mapp and Prime Minister John Key have actively lied to the public. (Helen Clark, who did authorise a diplomatic cable noting the importance of “international humanitarian law and human rights law” in the light of a damning Human Rights Watch report on US abuses in Afghanistan, might also be looking to her laurels). Disturbingly, it further offers evidence that our next Governor General, former NZDF chief Jerry Mataparae, has also lied.

As usual I/S at No Right Turn doesn’t pull any punches:

Key covers up torture

… Now Prime Minister John Key – who has publicly led that campaign of comfortable lies – has ruled out any inquiry. Despite the evidence presented of both torture and lies about torture, he sees nothing of concern. We don’t need to know what our army is doing in our name in Afghanistan, and we certainly don’t need to know whether our politicians have been systematically lying to us about it. We should all just trust him.

Sorry, but I don’t. We’ve been presented with strong evidence that our politicians have been lying to us. John Key is one of the politicians who has done so. We can not simply accept his word that everything is OK. Particularly on something as serious as this.

In criminal cases, we use an independent body – a judge or a jury – to weigh the evidence. That is what we should be doing here. By refusing to allow such an investigation, Key has moved from potentially being the victim of the army’s lies, to actively covering up collusion in torture. And that makes him a co-conspirator. He should be judged accordingly.

Nobody comes out of this shit storm looking good.

9 comments on “The Guantanamo files ”

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  1. Dotty 1
    28 April 2011 at 11:57 am

    Thanks Wikileaks. Again.

  2. freedom 2
    28 April 2011 at 12:19 pm

    For me the most infuriating aspect of our involvement in this illegal War is the reality that Key has no more control over what he does than we have control over him. He is only following his orders like every good little corporate general should. No different than any other ‘Leader’ out there. So what if they break a few rules! If the mission goes to plan they will be rewarded, if not then the mess they have created means we will have bigger priorities than appointing blame.

    That is in the future, in the present we are little different than the detaineees. Shackled by an engineered circumstance. Constantly assaulted by the Media Corps. We sit, slowly rocking devoid of practical options. Dictated to follow a regime of propoganda exercises, we endeavour to psyche ourselves into believing we can affect change. Then we get taken. Every Election no more than an authorised assault on the general population. As they drag the shell of each voter out of the Booth, even the strongest among us eventually stammers the rote confession. I believe in Democracy

    • Bored 2.1
      28 April 2011 at 1:55 pm

      We are deprived of the opportunity to think with our minds, and given the opportunity to react with our emotions. That is the role of the MSM in their support of the society we live in. And you are right, collectively we can vote them and all they stand for away. That is what they fear, and why they do what they do.

    • Sam 2.2
      28 April 2011 at 2:51 pm

      It’s not an illegal war, it’s a UN-authorised security assistance operation. Thank goodness global policy makers aren’t cowards like you who would rather let the Taliban deny women access to education instead of making difficult commitments for other peoples’ sakes. Take off the anti-American goggles.

      • Bored 2.2.1
        28 April 2011 at 3:03 pm

        Sam, the war was ostensibly an act of retribution for 9/11. Womens rights are incidental to the Americans as a propaganda tool, I note US troops were not deployed prior to 9/11 to help Afgan women. You might also consider that the Taliban got attacked for having a Saudi (bin Laden) holed up on their patch, and for the deeds of a number of dead Saudi hijackers who did his bidding. When bin Ladens supporters took off to Pakistan did they get invaded too? Perhaps not, because Pakistan has not got a potential oil pipeline route from the Caspian to the Gulf?

        We are not anti American, they have no mortgage on being the bad guy.

      • freedom 2.2.2
        28 April 2011 at 3:21 pm

        Sam the media call it a War. The UN call it a War. The Governments of the world call it a War. Even the Military personnel standing over the bodies of slaughtered children call it a War!

        the facts of its legality are entirely up to perception, you choose to see the truth or you don’t

      • terryg 2.2.3
        28 April 2011 at 9:30 pm

        Wow Sam, I can recommend a good ENT surgeon, to help remove the hook, line and sinker you appear to have swallowed.

  3. Bored 3
    28 April 2011 at 1:57 pm

    On the subject of our involvement we should rmember what Martin Luther King said of American involvement in Vietnam

    “The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.”

  4. Pascal's bookie 4
    28 April 2011 at 6:47 pm

    Jon Stephenson and Metro Editor Simon Wilson are going to be on Media7 tonight 9.05 tvnz 7.