A transcript of Gitmo "Justice"

As I've mentioned a few times before:  Two new reports--under-covered, even by blogger-types--have shaken my  assumption that most of the Gitmo detainees were Taliban foot soldiers. Now I suspect--as I told my colleague Bob Wright yesterday [V]--most of them are simply innocent.

The  reports—one by the National Journal and the other a more detailed study by a Seton Hall law professor who represents two detainees—used Pentagon data to give breakdowns of just who the military has concluded it’s detained. According to the Seton Hall report, about 55 percent of the detainees were found to have committed no hostile acts against the U.S. or its allies. Only eight percent have been labeled "al-Qaida fighters” and just about 10 percent “Taliban fighters.”

About two-thirds of the detainees have been found to be “associated with” with al-Qaida or the Taliban, the lowest of three levels of connection the military defines for detainees.  The  evidence for those "associations" include, “use of a guest house,” “possession of an AK-47”—in a region where such possession is de rigueur —and “possession of a Casio watch.”

I’m all for erring on the side of national security when it comes to capturing al-Qaida suspects. But what we also  need is a reasonably good process for separating out the innocent from the guilty. The military’s tribunals as currently configured—which have accepted the “evidence” I just mentioned—aren't one.

To give you a flavor take a look below at a (previously unreleased) partial transcript of one hearing. It reads like something out of Abbott and Costello.

First a bit of background:

Abd Al-Malik is a 26-year-old Yemeni who was "captured" in Afghanistan in 2002. Al-Malik says he was there to teach the Koran. He acknowledges that he along with his wife and child were given housing by the Taliban. He says it was in exchange for teaching. The only other evidence against him is the testimony" of "Detainee  63" who was abused during interrogations and according to the FBI showed signs of "severe psychological trauma."

Now, the transcript [which comes via this letter the detainee's lawyer, Marc Falkoff, sent the military]:

Detainee: Regarding [the charge that] I worked at various guesthouses and offices. What was the work?

Tribunal President: I can not answer that. This is the first time we have seen this evidence. I know nothing more than what is written here.

Detainee: The same with me, I don't know anything about this. I had a house that the Taliban gave me to live with my wife, that's it...Regarding the [charge] that I was seen frequently seen at Usama Bin Laden's side. Who saw me?

Tribunal President: I don't know.

Detainee: If it says,  frequently seen, you have to prove that. I am aware of the laws and the courts....Regarding, also, the detainee attended various other training camps and resided at a Kandahar,  Afghanistan guesthouse. What training camps?

Tribunal President: Did you attend any training camps while you were in Afghanistan?

Detainee: Never.

Tribunal President: Then that answers the question.

Detainee: That I resided at a Kandahar guesthouse. This guesthouse, do you mean my house, was my house a guesthouse?

Tribunal President: I would assume so.

Detainee: If it was my house then of course I was there. But, if it is another person's guesthouse, then no.

Again, the only other significant alleged evidence against al-Malik is one detainee's accusations.  According to the FBI, that detainee, Mohamed al-Kahtani, was kept in an "isolation facility" for 160 days. He was menaced by dogs, made to wear women's underwear and questioned for up to 20 hours at a time. The FBI said he "evidenc[ed] behavior consistent with extreme psychological trauma (talking to nonexistent people, reporting hearing voices, cowering in a corner of his cell covered with a sheet for hours on end.)"

Al-Malik isn't the only detainee who has been subject to the of allegations of Al-Kahtani . According to the Pentagon, Al-Kahatani has spoken against 30 detainees.  (Allegations from one  detainee, it's not clear whom, have served as the main evidence against 60 fellow detainees. He told interrogators he saw the men at an-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan. But  a U.S. officer looked at the men’s files and told the National Journal they showed no evidence the men were in Afghanistan at the time.)

As for Al-Malik, he is still at Gitmo and still classified as an enemy combatant.

 

(Special hat-tip to Corine Hegland, who wrote the still-underappreciated National Journal series cited above, and kindly helped me with info about al-Kahatani.)

Comments

[Carl Spackler]

Hey, the Taliban always give free housing. Afghanistan is lousy with houses, most with pools. And of course teaching the Koran, you don't thing he was 'teaching' the nasty kill the Jew/pagans bla,bla parts? Na.
And of course the guys that picked up this hapless Imam of Peace, the Special Forces, the MI guys, the CIA guys, the NSA stuff you'll never see, well they're all dolts. They're not smart, stylish, sensitive like you. And the Imam swears on a stack of Korans Honest. Hey, lets just say (come on, be honest) that those that we don't know (I’m talking about other professional Americans here) are, well, sadly, stupid lazy and need our/your dilettante criticism.
Congratulations.

[Matt V]

Hey Carl,
Ever think that maybe that guy wasn't picked up by special forces? Maybe he was turned in by another Afghan seeking some easy reward money.

Nahhh, that would never happen.

In other news, OJ Simpson still hasn't found the real killers. But he will, because all our systems (justice, military, economic, etc.) work absolutely perfectly, all the time.

[bart mills]

in last graf, it's 'who' not 'whom.'

bitter laughter only possible response to administgration's trashing of american ideals.

thanks for the outrage.

[Alexis Bryers]

Does anyone get flashbacks of the movie Brazil when watching this Orwellian period of our history?

Brazil was a film based in the 'future' in a society bent on disfunctional materialism and constantly harrassed by terrorists. In this society, an information system exists to identify and barbarously capture suspected terrorists and then process them through a macabre torturing process that is nationally and legally sanctioned. The whole premise of the film is that a bug falls into the machine that gathers the data and accidentally changes the name of a suspect from Bortle to Gortle, or something like that. The whole mistake ends up in a poor innocwnt man being shipped of brutally and then tortured and then killed. The beauty of it is that in this society, the cost of being arrested, killed, and buried is actually passed into the family. When an insurance company finds out that it was an error, they go through process of trying to refund the widow. The whole story almost reads as a perfect parrallel to the whole Guantamo scandal. Very visionary film if you consider it was written and produced by one of the Monty Python clan about 20 years ago. It gives you a much more chilling perspective in a farcical fashion of what our society is digressing into.

[Josh Parks]

Umansky's argument is that the Gitmo detainees are not primarily Taliban foot soldiers as he once assumed, and that a good many of them may in fact be innocent of any crimes for which they might justifiably be held against their will by a foreign power.

He cites two reports which relied on Pentagon data and which paint a picture that's certainly at odds with the notion that the Gitmo detainees are Taliban regulars, as well as an excerpt from a hearing transcript which if nothing else shows a man trying to respond to charges (based at least in part on the claims of a man our FBI thinks is nuts) without much if any access to the evidence against him.

Speckler's argument, once you brush off the irony, is that we should be suspicious of anyone who is provided housing by the Taliban, teaches the Koran, and falls into the custody of a member of American military or intelligence forces. More important, his contention is that said suspicion not only justifies capturing such people, flying them to a foreign country's prison, and denying them access to their own public legal system, let alone ours; those activities should not even be questioned. We should have faith that the abilities and professionalism of our soldiers and operatives are sufficient to protect us from those who would do us harm while simultaneously ensuring that the percentage of people imprisoned for spurious or arbitrary reasons will be kept to an acceptable level.

Speckler's logic is circular. Our soldiers and operatives only detain people with good reason. What's the reason which justifies detainment? Because they were caught by our soldiers and operatives. Abbott and Costello indeed.

Let's say for a moment that Speckler's right, and that, in spite of even Pentagon data in this case, there's no reason to question the job our soldiers and operatives are doing in our name. That means that there's no reason to doubt the FBI's assertion that the man (al-Kahtani) making the allegations against the detainee in the hearing has undergone "extreme psychological trauma." The problem is, if our practically infallible soldiers and operatives picked up the detainee because of what al-Khatani said, and the practically infallible FBI says al-Kahtani is likely to be crackers, someone has to be wrong, which Speckler seems to think is not possible, or at least highly unlikely. Under these incompatible premises, Speckler's argument falls apart.

If I'm judging this debate, seems to me it's advantage Umansky. Granted, it's not a fair fight, since I'm sure Speckler actually works for a living and doesn't have time to come up with better support for his case.

The underlying truth of Speckler's comment is that relatively few people give a shit about al-Malik, or al-Kahtani, for that matter, or anybody like them. On that point, he is dead on.

The ironic thing is that Speckler's defense takes on all the trappings of being a team player for Team USA, when in fact his faith in the my-[fill-in-the-blank]-right-or-wrong argument is actually more representative of places like Afghanistan. There are many places in the world where Speckler's views on the infallibility of soldiers and spies and the presumption of guilt for those caught by them would be most welcome. He would probably go quite far in such a place, assuming he could learn the local language. I wonder if he's ever considered living in one of them, then he wouldn't be confounded by all the dilettante criticism from smart, stylish, sensitive people like myself.