Tue 13 May 2008
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then of what value might be a full size three dimensional replica?
This past week, from Thursday, May 8th through Sunday, May 11th, Amnesty International USA provided South Florida residents a glimpse of the day-to-day experience of detainees at Guantánamo.
At the Tina Hills Pavilion, Amnesty exhibited a full size replica of a Guantanamo detainee cell.
Sitting in the cell replica, it’s easy to reflect on the scope of the injustice it manifests.
These cells serve as the vehicle for the repudiation of the fundamental principles upon which the United States was founded.
One of our signature documents, The Declaration of Independence , states:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty…”
In the context of human society, this constituted a truly revolutionary discovery; that man, by his very nature, imposed certain requirements and limitations on the social structure.
Particularly, with regards to the matter of governance.
“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government”
Nowhere in this document is it suggested that these rights apply only to Americans. Nor that they only apply on American soil.
To the contrary, it is virtually explicit that these rights are founded in human nature. In force wherever people establish a society.
And yet one of the arguments for the ongoing crime we call Guantanamo is that it is not on American soil!
Specifically, the fundamental right Guantanamo is designed to overturn is what is referred to as “habeaus corpus”
Article One Section 9 of the United States Constitution, our other signature document:
“The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”
The right of a detainee to informed, impartial judicial review of the basis for their detention had been recognized in written law since the 17th century.
IN an ABC news interview, the titular head of the nominal “free world” stated: “I didn’t have any problems at all trying to find out what Khalid Sheik Mohammed knew.”
“He was the person who ordered the suicide attack — I mean, the 9/11 attacks,”
And so it becomes a foregone conclusion, requiring his mere say-so.
Indeed, former chief prosecutor, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, recently testified that under pressure from Pentagon officials he’d been told that there could be no aquittals.
The argument could be made that the dolt in the Oval Office is incapable of appreciating the implications of his actions.
Ironically, one detainee recently stood before a judge in a military commissions courtroom and displayed a clear grasp of the concept of rule of law.
In June of 2006, the Supreme Court decided the case of Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld. Salim Ahmed Hamdan had argued that the commission trying him lacked protections required by the Geneva Conventions and The United States Uniform Code of Military Justice.
It seemed, at the time, that the court had ruled in Hamdan’s favor. But Justice John Paul Stevens stated in his majority opinion: “Hamdan does not challenge, and we do not today address, the Government’s power to detain him for the duration of active hostilities.”
Virtually inviting congress to make “adjustments”, which they did.
“Everyone tells me the law. But where is the law?” asked Handan at a recent hearing.
“The law is clear. The Constitution is clear. International law is clear,” he said to the judge. “Why don’t we follow the law? Where is the justice?”
In a Salon article, “Lawless in Guantánamo” , Jennifer Daskal writes:
“Hamdan pleaded for a fair trial, reminded the judge of his Supreme Court victory, and questioned why the U.S. government then proceeded to change the law and keep him locked up. “Is it just for my case?” he asked.
But Hamdan’s central question remained: “By what law will you try me?”
The judge responded with the only answer he could: The military commissions law passed by Congress in 2006.
“But the government changed the law to its advantage,” Hamdan replied. “I am not being tried by the American law.”
And Hamdan left the courtroom, having made clear that he would no longer participate in a commissions system unmoored from American criminal law, the Constitution and international law.
The court closed down for the night. It reassembled in the morning and went straight into scheduling. But its star figure was missing. A trial date was set for June 2. With or without Hamdan.”
Unlike bush, Hamdan understands the boundless implications of the process to which he is an immediate, material victim.
Another victim, further down the road in the process, the recently released Sami al-Hajj had this to say:
“Our human condition, our human dignity was violated, and the American administration went beyond all human values, all moral values, all religious values. In Guantanamo … rats are treated with more humanity. But we have people from more than 50 countries that are completely deprived of all rights and privileges. And they will not give them the rights that they give animals… for more than seven years, [inmates] did not get a chance to be brought before a civil court to defend their just case”
al-Hajj is an Al Jazeera cameraman.
Al Jazeera is one news organization singularly familiar with georgewbush’s brand of lawlessness.
In November of 2001, their office in Kabul Afganistan was attacked.
In April of 2003 the Sheraton Hotel in Basra, in southern Iraq was bombed. It’s only guests?
Al Jazeera journalists.
And in November of 2005, georgewbush contempated bombing their headquarters in the Washington-friendly nation of Qatar.
Amnesty’s exhibit now moves on to Philadelphia, the next stop on it’s seven city tour. Other planned stops include Washington, DC, Portland, Maine, St. Louis, Los Angeles and…Crawford, Texas.
The Cell replica includes one amenity that it goes without saying the real thing lacks. An opportunity for the “detainee” to record a thirty second video.
I kind of flubbed my chance, incapable of such conciseness. I was able to spend a little time handing out some of Amnesty’s brochures at the local marketplace, and over the course of a busy weekend, stopped by several times to offer encouragement and moral support.
The title of the brochure was “Counter Terror With Justice”. With that simple phrase, Amnesty sums up the core issue of the bogus “War on Terror”.
Id est, if we were to begin to engage the rest of humanity from within the parameters of a justice society, the threat of terrorism, however real it may be currently, would simply peter out over time, it’s motivation no longer.
I was rewarded for my efforts with a great orange t-shirt, comemmorating the the Guantanamo cell tour.
It features that pregnant phrase, “Counter Terror With Justice”.
–The Bikemessenger
