Undue Process

About this time last year, details came out prisoner abuse and torture in an Iraqi prison run by the United States military. The scandal was reported mercilessly by the Main Stream Media and threatened to turn the tide of popular support for the war.

The affair centred around the National Guard unit that conducted the atrocities which were some strange combination of amatuer stupidity and inhuman degradation. It has dogged the administration inspite of an overwhelming electoral victory. The recently appointed Attorney General's full name may as well read Alberto Gonsalez-who-wrote-the-memo-sanctioning-torture-at-Abu-Ghraib.

Americans hold dear their right to due process by law, and following the spirit of the Declaration of Independance, assume them to apply them to all men born equal. If history has taught us anything, it is that guaranteed inalienable rights still have to be fought for and no large organized entities can ever be trusted to safeguard those liberties of their own free volition. Consistent application of those principles have shown themselves spotty.

A couple of weeks ago, the New Yorker ran this article detailing the covert practice of 'rendering', which entails the detention of suspects and handing them over to intelligence services who suffer little oversight when it comes to protecting liberties. When an amateur National Guard unit can't get it right, it's time to call in the experts. Enter Morocco, Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Now the first three nations are run by governments friendly to the United States and will no doubt be more than co-operative with the Americans. Why is Syria on this list? Syria, a charter member of President Shrub's 'Axis of Evil'; Syria, who is sneaking insurgents into Iraq; Syria, who everyone but your milkman has accused of assassinating Rafiq Hariri; Syria, who fears war with Israel and an Iraq-based American military while being hemmed in by NATO member Turkey.

As far as contracting for a job that entails the extraction of information regarding matters of US National Security, what business does Syria have in all of this? This is like having industrial firms oversee environmental regulations, or energy oligopolies administer electricity distribution or oil policy, or oil companies tender for military contracts in an oil producing nation that you have just fought a war in. The United States asking Syria to torture and interrogate individuals suspected of crimes against America, is akin to providing chemical and biological weapons to a ruthless dictator and then invading his nation for making use of them. Is it just me, or does all of this sound familiar?

Within a couple of weeks of the New Yorker story hitting the stands, news came out of Saudi Arabia of an American citizen, Ahmed Abu Ali who was detained two years ago while studying at the University of Madinah. He is still being held without charge and without bail. Currently his parents in Falls Church, Virginia are preparing to sue the Department of Justice accusing them of being complicit through rendition, in his dentention by Saudi Authorities. Abu Ali grew up in a suburb of Washington, DC and has a more intircate knowledge of the workings of the city than your average Saudi. Now it is rather unusual that a young able-bodied suburbanite who has hundreds of available instituions of higher learning in his own back yard travels half away around the world to further his education in the hotbed of islamic radicalism. That alone could warrant his detention and questioning, possibly even his extradition. No one argues that he was beyond being a "person of interest" and ought to have been detained and questioned under the provisions of the law. However what has happened has gone beyond the provision of the law and has clearly become an unlawful detention.

Even within the framework of rendition, Abu Ali's usefulness as a material witness or a source of information has long since expired. There is no legal provision for and little utility left in his detention.

In early 2002, a top Al Qaeda operative was apprehended in Pakistan and airlifted to Guantanamo Bay where he was interrogated extensively to learn more of their upcoming operations. Suspecting that he would feel greater pressure if he thought he was going to be tortured by Saudi intelligence services, they flew him to a base in Afghanistan that was simulated to look like it was in Saudi Arabia. Faced with Arab-American FBI agents posing as Saudi Mukhabarat and injected with a truth serum, he shocked everyone by relaxing and expressing relief. He immediately rattled off the names and private phone numbers of four Saudi princes, two of them holding high rank and status within The House of Saud. Before the summer was out, three of them died in rapid succession and the fourth was removed from his sensitive post in Riyadh and assigned to the diplomatic corps. Infact he was television just this past week.

Rendering can definitely yield its fair share of surprises. The previous story was first mentioned by Gerald Posner is his book "Why America Slept". The Saudi royal family has gone into overdrive to deny any and all elements of it. Independent of the information it yielded, the suspect was captured in a war-zone and his activites were known and documented.

The cases of Ahmed Abu Ali, Mohammed Harkat and Maher Arar do not fall into the same category. They have not been formally charged nor does there seem to be any firm evidence to suggest their complicity in any forms of islamic extremism. Just last month a young Bahraini was killed in a shoot out with extremists in Kuwait and the debate came up about how the terror suspects were labelled with little cause or evidence to show. The cases of Mamdouh Habib and Yasser Hamdi fall somehere in between as they were apprehended in Afghanistan during a major war. While yet to be convicted of any involvement in Al Qaeda, they clearly cannot definitively prove complete and utter innocence.

The United States, and especially this administration, vociferously states its intentions to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East. Practices such as these renders those calls hollow. Infact, a federal judge has gone so far as to call the President a 'Vigilante Executive'. Take the case of 64 Bahraini prisoners languishing at the Criminal Investigation Directorate in Adliya. All held without charge under no known provision of law, neither in Bahrain nor anywhere else.

Now, there is no evidence that the American practice of rendering have given such regimes the green light for abitrary arrest and unlwaful detention. However, would you be surprised to find that in heated debates behind closed doors, more than one conscientious objection would have been shot down with "America gets away with it"? Monkey see, monkey do.

If this government, if her people are serious about promoting liberty and freedom, and the rule of law, then America had better take cases like these seriously where it seems that torture seems to get around a lot faster than freedom and liberty.

Comments

[Someone]

Many if these "prisoners" should be thankful they where not shot and killed. The US was and is under no obligation to detain them since they had not been in uniform at the time of their capture. So in effect DUE PROCESS is at work. They are alive by our good graces.

Torture works in various manners. Some need a bullet to the knee to start talking. Some need to be dunked in a tank of water and some just need a hot meal. Freedom is not free and don't ever forget we didn't start this war. We will finish it.

I ask you what is the greatest good for the greatest number of people? 600 or so people under questionable detainment or the wrath they would have and still will inflict on the rest of the world given the chance?

[John]

I get your point in as much as it applies to actual prisoners of war, those captured in battle.

Arar is a Canadian citizen and was picked up while he was in transit through JFK. Abu Ali was in the middle of an exam. Where is the evidence that they were invovled in any sort of guerilla operations?

You're making the argument that anyone suspected of terrorism, key word suspected, doesn't deserve the same legal protections as someone who just merely commits a crime.

I'm making the argument that arbitrary arrest followed by torture, especially when no charges or evidence, much less a conviction is produced merely breeds new generations of terrorists. On one hand you have children growing up without fathers and all they know is that America took away their father, and you have local regimes that push the envelope with their own prisoners.

The enforcement of the law and the right to defend a nation gains greater credibility when done righteously and judiciously.

America needs more allies in this world and fewer enemies.

[YodaBoy]

The fact that Arar and Abu Ali are still being detained tells me there is more to the story that can't be told. Many others who had been picked up have and had been released when it was discovered they had done nothing.

It not wise all the time to let the world know what you know. Some things are better left unsaid until the time is right.

Why should any government put its people in jepordy by disclosing information? Two examples out of how many? Odds are there is information that is causing them to be held and held for good reason. I will side with the US on this one.

[John]

Now was that too difficult?

It's good to see that the media can apply pressure to find the truth. Whether we are given the whole picture is another matter altogether.

To circumvent the Constitution to cover-up an assasination attempt does not hold much water with me. Abu Ali ought to be tried publicly for treason, attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder, not to mention aiding and abetting. No more secret charges and secret tribunals.

Why cover it up? Why keep it in the dark? I will side with the Constitution on this one.

[Tony Manero]

If this was the Superbowl why should or would I tell you my plays in advance. Sure you know some of them but should I hand you my play book?