[Col. Writ. 5/28/05] Copyright 2005 Mumia Abu-Jamal
Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo. Bagram. Diego Garcia....
Words have power, and what these words evoke is precisely what American
policy makers want to evoke: terror.
The international human rights group, Amnesty International, recently
called the infamous Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq, "the gulag of our times."
The reference to the torture chambers and repressive Siberian prisons of
the old Soviet Union, marked by the term, 'gulag', was remarkable. It
was also correct.
Predictably, White House mouthpieces dismissed the report as
"ridiculous", saying that they brought 'liberty' to the people of Iraq.
Also remarkable, and in a perverse way, correct. In 2004, U.S. Major
General Geoffrey Miller, the American commander in charge of detentions
and interrogations at Abu Ghraib prison, conducted a press tour of the
dreary facility, to proudly announced newly renovated sections of the
joint, which he dubbed, "Camp Redemption", and "Camp Liberty."
At the height of the Civil Rights Movement, while Black and white youth
tried to register voters in the Deep South, they faced naked white
terrorism from the Ku Klux Klan, and police (who were often one and the
same). On movement offices throughout the region could be found posters
with the following message:
THERE'S A STREET IN ITTA BENA CALLED FREEDOM.
*THERE'S A TOWN IN MISSISSIPPI CALLED LIBERTY.*
THERE'S A DEPARTMENT IN WASHINGTON CALLED JUSTICE.
Words like 'liberty', 'freedom', and 'democracy' are just words.
In Iraq, and in America, they are often used to mask the truth that lies
behind them.
The spring 2005 issue of *Covert Action Quarterly* has a harrowing
article by law professor Marjorie Cohn, who draws the dotted lines
between the torture, brutality, humiliations and repression of
Abu-Ghraib, the White House, the Department of Defense, and other U.S.
government agencies. Using sources like Seymour Hersh's Sept. 2004 book,
*Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu-Ghraib* (Harper Collins
Publ., N.Y.), Cohn leaves little question about how high the crimes of
Abu-Ghraib should rise. She cites a CIA analyst who went to Guantanamo
in the late summer of 2002, who after interviewing 30 detainees, "came
back convinced that we were committing war crimes in Guantanamo."
And, of course, it's not just there.
Think of the thousands of people thrown in Abu-Ghraib by the Americans.
The Red Cross has documented that *70-to- 90%* of those people were
there by mistake.
There, in that hellhole by mistake, where rape, sodomy with foreign
objects, the use of unmuzzled dogs to bite and severely injury
handcuffed prisoners, and beating prisoners to death, has been
documented. Women prisoners have begged their families to smuggle in
poison so that they can kill themselves, to save themselves from the
humiliations they have suffered.
A military consultant with Special Ops ties, told Seymour Hersh that war
crimes were committed in Iraq, with utterly no repercussions. He asked,
rhetorically, "What do you call it when people are tortured and going to
die and the soldiers know it, but do not treat their injuries?" The
consultant then replied, "Execution." [p.43]
The White House would call this "liberty."
Months ago, I wrote that if anyone would be punished for the actions at
Abu-Ghraib, it would be low-level people; those with the least power.
I have no expertise in Iraq, nor in the Middle East, particularly. But I
know a thing or two about prisons; and about whitewashes.
It is not in the least surprising that the U.S. would export the worst
features of its prison culture abroad.
These are Bush's prisons; Rumsfeld's prisons; Gonzalez's prisons; *these
are America's prisons*, and those who are tortured, raped, humiliated,
and traumatized, are done so in your name.
Who will solve these war crimes?
Copyright 2005 Mumia Abu-Jamal
Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo. Bagram. Diego Garcia....
Words have power, and what these words evoke is precisely what American
policy makers want to evoke: terror.
The international human rights group, Amnesty International, recently
called the infamous Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq, "the gulag of our times."
The reference to the torture chambers and repressive Siberian prisons of
the old Soviet Union, marked by the term, 'gulag', was remarkable. It
was also correct.
Predictably, White House mouthpieces dismissed the report as
"ridiculous", saying that they brought 'liberty' to the people of Iraq.
Also remarkable, and in a perverse way, correct. In 2004, U.S. Major
General Geoffrey Miller, the American commander in charge of detentions
and interrogations at Abu Ghraib prison, conducted a press tour of the
dreary facility, to proudly announced newly renovated sections of the
joint, which he dubbed, "Camp Redemption", and "Camp Liberty."
At the height of the Civil Rights Movement, while Black and white youth
tried to register voters in the Deep South, they faced naked white
terrorism from the Ku Klux Klan, and police (who were often one and the
same). On movement offices throughout the region could be found posters
with the following message:
THERE'S A STREET IN ITTA BENA CALLED FREEDOM.
*THERE'S A TOWN IN MISSISSIPPI CALLED LIBERTY.*
THERE'S A DEPARTMENT IN WASHINGTON CALLED JUSTICE.
Words like 'liberty', 'freedom', and 'democracy' are just words.
In Iraq, and in America, they are often used to mask the truth that lies
behind them.
The spring 2005 issue of *Covert Action Quarterly* has a harrowing
article by law professor Marjorie Cohn, who draws the dotted lines
between the torture, brutality, humiliations and repression of
Abu-Ghraib, the White House, the Department of Defense, and other U.S.
government agencies. Using sources like Seymour Hersh's Sept. 2004 book,
*Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu-Ghraib* (Harper Collins
Publ., N.Y.), Cohn leaves little question about how high the crimes of
Abu-Ghraib should rise. She cites a CIA analyst who went to Guantanamo
in the late summer of 2002, who after interviewing 30 detainees, "came
back convinced that we were committing war crimes in Guantanamo."
And, of course, it's not just there.
Think of the thousands of people thrown in Abu-Ghraib by the Americans.
The Red Cross has documented that *70-to- 90%* of those people were
there by mistake.
There, in that hellhole by mistake, where rape, sodomy with foreign
objects, the use of unmuzzled dogs to bite and severely injury
handcuffed prisoners, and beating prisoners to death, has been
documented. Women prisoners have begged their families to smuggle in
poison so that they can kill themselves, to save themselves from the
humiliations they have suffered.
A military consultant with Special Ops ties, told Seymour Hersh that war
crimes were committed in Iraq, with utterly no repercussions. He asked,
rhetorically, "What do you call it when people are tortured and going to
die and the soldiers know it, but do not treat their injuries?" The
consultant then replied, "Execution." [p.43]
The White House would call this "liberty."
Months ago, I wrote that if anyone would be punished for the actions at
Abu-Ghraib, it would be low-level people; those with the least power.
I have no expertise in Iraq, nor in the Middle East, particularly. But I
know a thing or two about prisons; and about whitewashes.
It is not in the least surprising that the U.S. would export the worst
features of its prison culture abroad.
These are Bush's prisons; Rumsfeld's prisons; Gonzalez's prisons; *these
are America's prisons*, and those who are tortured, raped, humiliated,
and traumatized, are done so in your name.
Who will solve these war crimes?
Copyright 2005 Mumia Abu-Jamal
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