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Murders at Gitmo?
Conor Friedersdorf blogs at True/Slant and The American Scene. Follow him on Twitter at Conor64.
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A new report alleges that the U.S. covered up the 2006 murders of three detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Conor Friedersdorf on why the GOP must reckon with the illegal, immoral acts of the Bush administration before mounting a return to power.
With their victory in Massachusetts, Republicans are eager to defeat the Democratic health-care bill and obstruct a big-government domestic agenda that they regard as creeping tyranny. But an article in Harper’s magazine reminds us that the right is far less willing to question government and champion liberty in foreign policy. In the magazine’s March issue, writer Scott Horton provides circumstantial evidence that the United States government covered up the 2006 murders of three Guantanamo Bay detainees.
The official report issued by the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service called the deaths suicides, implausibly claiming that the trio simultaneously hung themselves in separate, non-adjacent cells after binding their own hands and shoving rags down their own throats. Now four military personnel assigned to guard duty on the night in question “provide evidence that authorities initiated a coverup within hours of the prisoners’ deaths,” Mr. Horton writes, disclosing evidence “that strongly suggests that the three prisoners who died on June 9 had been transported to another location prior to their deaths.”
We may never know exactly how he and his fellow detainees died: A conclusive, independent autopsy is impossible because their bodies were returned to their families with their throats missing.
Why raise this story now that a new administration is running the war on terrorism? We’ve long known that under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney the U.S. government set up a secret prison system where detainees were tortured, and that numerous prisoners held in extra-legal settings died due to extreme abuse by American guards or interrogators.
This new case is nevertheless worth our attention. Beyond the fact that laws were broken and lives extinguished, the Gitmo Three may provide additional proof that the United States perpetrated extreme abuses of power in recent memory—a painful fact that we must acknowledge if we’re to prevent its recurrence.
And yet conservatives are so far content to ignore the story.
If I may address the skeptics on the right directly, it is penny wise and pound foolish to worry about creeping tyranny via government-run health care or gun control when we’re another terrorist attack away from popular support for an archipelago of secret prisons where anyone can be whisked away and tortured without any evidence against them. Look to Europe if you doubt whether government-run health care or black sites run by secret police are a more immediate threat to the liberty of innocents.
Do you think that I exaggerate?
Know that one of the Gitmo Three was arrested at age 17, held for some years without being charged, and scheduled for release at the time of his death due to the military’s conclusion that no evidence linked him to al Qaeda or the Taliban. We may never know exactly how he and his fellow detainees died: A conclusive, independent autopsy is impossible because their bodies were returned to their families with their throats missing.
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Conor Friedersdorf blogs at True/Slant and The American Scene. Follow him on Twitter at Conor64.
AlanD2
This is just another example of Republican / military lawlessness.
It is obvious that if these men were innocent, they would not have been at Gitmo. So they deserved death without a trial, just like all the other detainees should get.
Right, Readon?
gameon
Yes Alan ,you're right.The vast majority of them I would bet are guilty of the war actions they're being held for. I say evacuate our soldiers then close Gitmo with a couple of Tomahawk Cruise Missiles. They're enemies of our nation and killers of our soldiers. And frankly your eagerness to jump to any scumbag terrorists defense at the expense of our soldiers safety is revolting to me .
And by the way ,hows that Tea-Bag we just delivered from Maine taste ? 59 ,,,choke!!!
TheChief
Yeah, remind me how an apparently innocent 17-year old killed in Gitmo protects one single soldier. The rot of your soul is revolting to me.
gameon
Is he innocent like the 74 that have returned to terrorism and murder since being released from gitmo? And what does him being 17 have to do with anything ? How about a little sympathy for all of Al-Qaeda's victims,which include American soldiers,who have been killed by these scumbags. Pick a side and stop being an apologist for Al-Qaeda.
You have no clue what happened aside from this propaganda piece and the spin from the far-left. Passing a verdict on our soldiers without even a shred of due diligence on your part is cowardly and unamerican. I support our soldiers and the hard choices they have to make on a daily basis to keep the pathetic limprists back at home safe.
dirdum
This is laughable:
"I don't think it's particularly bleeding heart to think that we shouldn't have to fake suicides to cover up for abusing prisoners. In fact, I think that's the stance of a hard-core believer in law and order."
There is no real evidence to suggest anyone faked a suicide.
Think about it, if you were going to fake a suicide to cover up murder, why would you gag and bind their hands? wouldn't that look suspicous? Don't you think that was the exact intent of the terrorists?
do you people ever think about what your writing before you print it or do you know your full of it?
littlepapi
And do you ever do any reading before you write moronic things? There is a link the the article, if you wanted to take the time to learn anything before spouting off. The 'official' findings were that these prisoners committed suicide, its not a theory that Conor came up with you dolt. Further, these weren't terrorists. They were scheduled to be released within weeks. When Rear Admiral Harris, during his part of the cover up, accused the deceased of "waging asymmetrical warfare", it looks like he found at least one dupe.
deebee1222
Not many comments here. Does this mean that most Americans really don't want to "go there?" Perhaps we're dealing with war fatigue.
superdad
This is a ugly story. If true it could be interrogation gone bad or some poor judgement and maybe suicide. At least there throats were not slit on TV. As they saying goes war is hell. This should not lead to a another boogey man chase. War is death without trial Al baby, there is nothing obvious here at all.
cadenarich
i guess that SUPERDAD did not bother to read the article--as far as he is concerned- everything and anything that the previous administration did was great and Jesus himself would have approved.
i would wager a huge bet that SUPERDAD is a white male. why i say this is because he stands a lesser chance of being singled out at the airport or on the street because of his skin color... but just wait until we have another OKLAHOMA STYLE MASSACRE and maybe one day he will be walking down the street and a black van will stop, he will be thrown into the van and that will be the last time his loved ones see him. far fetched you say, highly unlikely it seems, maybe so, but in allowing our government to start down this road on the pretext of protecting our country-however true that might be-- is to give them carte blanc to later on widen their scope of just who it is that they deem to fit their profile of a terrorist or a danger to national security or a danger to the state, etc. remember, the citizens of the origional 13 colonies were considered terrorists at one time. thousands of American citizens of japanese descent were rounded up and sent to concentration camps in the 40's.
it strikes me as very strange and a bit off kilter that the very same people who cry and fear the government intruding on their health care or their taxes or their work environment ARE THE VERY SAME ONES WHO WILL TRUST THE VERY SAME GOVERNMENT TO ONLY PICK UP THE TRUE TERRORISTS AMONGST US BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY, THEY CANNOT BE WRONG AND SURELY THEY ARE HONEST AND COMPLETELY TRUST WORTHY.
gameon
If you don't want to be treated like a terrorist then stop doing the things terrorists do and stop hanging out with people who are terrorists. It decreases your chances of being detained for being a terrorist. It's all pretty simple stuff and it has nothing to do with health care, being a white male , Oklahoma City or any of the other unrelated things you brought up.
lalaland2
Jose Padilla was a US citizen arrested and held without charges on a navy brig for 3.5 YEARS (if I remember right) then brought to trial as a civilian rather than an "enemy combatant" on trumped up charges (the judge said the evidence was "light") and sentenced to 17 years. This is a US CITIZEN and THAT's the government we should be scared of, not TARP, healthcare, or any other well-meaning program that isn't "free market" enough for the loonies on the right...
benjoya
yes, but padilla was almost brown enough to be an ay-rab, like people in pakistan and iran. the constitution is still in force, if you're a white enough american.
ohplease59
the problem with your faulty logic gameon is as follows:
1) MANY MANY people at gitmo were not terrorists, did not "hang out" with terrorists, etc. Having a muslim name or being from a muslim country is enough. Look at Hamdi v. Rumsfeld or any one of the other cases (I believe there are 2 others) re: unlawful detentions.
2) We poo poo countries like china, lording our legal system over them as being far superior then persist in saying waterboarding is okay.
Nothing is simple. And that's quite a naive statement. Our government is corrupt and has been so for a very long time now. And if you think bad things only happen to bad people at the hands of the government, you are sorely mistaken.
gregm91436
Good for you, Connor, for speaking out about this, but the rest of your party's failure to respond is embarassing and dangerous.
Gameon--"The vast majority of them I would bet are guilty of the war actions they're being held for." Except that we're not talking about the 'vast majority' or what you'd 'bet.' We're talking about three specific individuals, one of whom was found by our military to be COMPLETELY INNOCENT.
Is that who you are, as a human being? Someone who's okay with the murder of an innocent man? That's terrifying, unchristian, and unamerican.
gameon
No ,he wasn't found to be completely innocent.The military just didn't have evidence to link him to the allegations,big difference.
How can you sit there and preach about "innocents" being killed when you're the one willing to release so called "innocent " terrorists who will immediately go out and kill American soldiers? These people are either terrorists or casualties of war. The fact that these scumbags are able to work the Liberal media propaganda machine is the only unamerican thing going on around here. You are so eager to jump to the defense of these jerks,that's what is terrifying to me. All of it based on circumstantial evidence provided by an unknown author from Harpers Magazine. I back my soldiers ,i'll let you take care of the poor mistreated terrorists.
And get real,secret prisons? How much coverage has Gitmo gotten? There's nothing secret about it. It's just a place where we keep suspected terrorists,not a Soviet union style Gulag. The terrorists know how gullable you are ,that's why they orchestrate these type of things. It's a propaganda piece for Al-Qaeda,courtesy of the Liberal American media. Way to fall for it ,numbnuts.
ArborialBiped
Kudos to Conor.
It always seemed to me that the American conservative catechism went something like this:
If we allow some liberal Democratic policy to take hold -- say, regulating automobile emissions or legislating a minimum wage -- then in ten or twenty years we'll have Big Government thugs strip-searching us at transport centers and "disappearing" people off to secret torture camps. I bought into some of that logic -- slippery slopes and all.
But today's "conservative" Republicans already embrace that supposed road-to-serfdom destination. They clamor for national IDs ("Show us your papers, citizen!") and for ever-more invasive and expensive security checks at airports. They love Gitmo, Bagram and the Eastern European black sites.
And yet they're terrified that "Marxism" and "Fascism" will have descended upon us if more working poor get health coverage, in a plan that is still far to the right of Canada, France, England and Romney's Massachusetts system? WTF?
benjoya
yes, htat's who he is. it's okay to kill innocent people, if they have funny names. like jose.
FlyButanol
Most of the salient points of this story have now transferred to the Obama administration. Granted there are fewer prisoners, but most alleged terrorists abroad, apparently including American citizens, are to be or have been murdered with their families by Predator drone and thus, fewer prisoners to detain at Guantanamo. Not to mention, those few prisoners actually taken rather than killed are held by the CIA and other countries or simply released to avoid the political fallout from increasing the Guantanamo population.
In all of this. I don't see an enlightened policy emerging. There is no strategic advantage to three prisoners dying at Guantanamo compared to an unknown number of entire families murdered outright by direct order of the President. So why do it? Isn't unjustified murder in wartime a crime?
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