In 2010 Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai commissioned an investigative team of government officials and law makers to examine claims of human rights abuses by the US military at the Bagram Prison (also known as Parwan Detention Facility) just one hour north of Kabul.
Heading the presidential commission is Abdul Qadir Adalatkhwa, Deputy Minister of Justice, a law professor from the University of Kabul.
The special commission’s interviews with Bagram prisoners revealed that many have been incarcerated for up to two years without official charges, due process or evidence to support US allegations that they had conspired to operate with the Taliban or Al Qaeda.
Kabul released information of the commission’s findings citing, ‘many cases of violations of (the) Afghan Constitution’ (German Press Agency), while making further reference to the international war convention (1949 article of the Geneva Conventions setting forth the protocol of humanitarian treatment of war prisoners), as well as other applicable laws of the fledgling Afghan democracy.
Pres. Karzai ordered the US government to cede control of the prison facility within thirty days, which has surreptitiously confined three thousand Afghan and foreign detainees alleged to have been involved in terrorist activities or accessories to terrorism.
Complainants stated that they were kept in dark cells, subjected to humiliating strip searches and in some cases physically abused. In one interview, a 71 year old man stated that he had no idea why he was arrested and that he was also beaten.
In his statement to the press, Justice Minister Adalatkhwa also expressed concern that detainees held for long periods without a legal process would suffer the injustice of being denied the right to defend their innocence.
Actions Of Western Press
The western press has downplayed Pres. Karzai’s effort to sustain democratic principles in his country as a ploy to bolster his political prowess, while the US military has been exercising its jurisdiction at the sprawling Bagram military base to use unmitigated confinement as an instrument of coercion in obtaining confessions.
America’s war on terror has also fashioned an efficient media paradigm that helps Americans feel secure despite the criminal actions of its government domestically (Jose’ Padilla case) and abroad (Abu Ghraib). This general prosaic of public conditioning began right after the 911 attacks when the national psyche was malleable with fear and confusion.
TSA Targets Young White Males
Abdul, a native born Pakistani and employee of the US government recently told me that he was traveling between the US and Asia when the TSA was put in place. For two years he noticed how random checks actually targeted white males in their late teens to early twenties. His initial discernment was entangled by the not-so-random procedure, since he fully expected to be racially profiled. After quite some time he realized that this was an initiative to instill fear and to institutionalize the hearts and minds of future voters and community leaders. He expressed astonishment over the utilitarian methodology of programming acceptance over the loss of privacy.
Abdul considers his observations reminiscent of how ‘security state’ archetypes are characterized by a gradual devolution of political and economic sovereignty through the conditioning of the conscience and dependence upon the state apparatus and how powerful intelligence organizations can easily enforce the political status-quo. In contrast, the average American is assumed to feel protected under a government emboldened by sweeping surveillance powers.
To accentuate the politics involved, it is ironic that the Obama administration stands by while non-citizens held on foreign territory in the combat arena – are still deemed ineligible for a mature legal process, when four years have passed since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (Boumediene v. Bush) that detainees imprisoned in Guantanamo had a constitutionally assured right to court proceedings or judicial review.
Americans who thoughtfully consider the domestic implications of such precedence should be up in arms over how this presidency and the Pentagon have arrogantly stepped upon our flag. Pres. Obama of course wants to be reelected under the premise of being strong in the war on terrorism.
There should be no question in any sound mind that what is being perpetrated for the sake of world peace in Afghanistan is nonetheless applicable under the context of the Guantanamo case. What has been documented by the Kabul justice commission report is in effect a form of psychological torture and a blatant affront to the values of all freedom everywhere. What the US considers as a military necessity continues to incite the reproach of political hypocrisy, unnecessary opposition, undermining America’s attempts to combat terrorism – if one is to reason that counter terrorism is the sole reason for a Middle East occupation.
Some geopolitical strategists look upon America’s occupation as part of a regional enterprise to control Shiite nations (principally Iraq and Iran), which hold the potential market share of future oil reserves, which lie within the geographical confluence of the Sino-Russo petroleum consortium. But since Pres. Karzai has been in office, there have been many delegations between Afghanistan and its Iranian neighbor, with the signing of numerous security agreements. Iran is also vested in counter terrorism and long term infrastructure support in Afghanistan, with annual trade surpassing one billion dollars.
To somewhat emphasize how US policy has become an obstacle to world peace, I met with a former naval officer in 2007 that had been in the area of the Arabian Gulf on an intelligence ship. According to him, Russian, Israeli and the US nuclear submarines were operating in the area. There was numerous intelligence reports demonstrating serious international tensions kept from the public. I was told that ‘a chance incident or even an accident’ could have channeled the sort of confusion and fear that might have escalated to a global conflict, to a nuclear level.
No one can refute that Washington’s prominent military initiatives in the Middle East came as the result of terrorist attacks against Americans. In the height of fear and uncertainty, the prerequisites of a secure America were quickly reshaped to invade Afghanistan, which harbored the 911 mastermind, Osama Bin Laden and his operatives. The invasion of Iraq, which was based upon contrived intelligence by the Bush administration, had a more complex weave incorporating elements of what Americans privately contemplate as their most valuable assets. The real status-quo here is economic security within a corporate-petroleum centric infrastructure, advanced by military superiority. This is one underlying pretext which opened the way for the Pentagon and the corporate complex of arms producers and nation builders to obtain greater wealth through intensified conflicts. The (centralized security state) made it legal to place any individual or group on a threat list if misaligned with the agenda in mind.
Media As Instrument Of Unsupervised Government
The media has and is an instrument of an unsupervised government operating independently of long term public interests, in favor of corporate interests. Media constantly reminds us of the tragic 911 attacks in which 3,000 Americans died, while the disambiguation of ‘false intelligence’ leading to the Iraq war produced five million orphans (nearly half of Iraq’s child population), as reported by the Iraqi health ministry in 2007.
According to evidence compiled by the governments of both Iraq and Afghanistan, thousands of tons of bombs laced with depleted uranium are the cause of long term health problems. In both countries (and in border nations) a manifold increase in child leukemia, as well as thousands of new born deaths have been linked to genetic anomalies associated with radioactive fallout in contaminated areas where the US and the UK made their heaviest attacks. Iraq is gathering evidence to facilitate litigation against the US and UK based on war criminology and the international protocols of the Geneva Conventions.
Americans have abandoned the will to self-rule in favor of material sanctuary
American media has been slamming us with the threat of islamo-fascism, while systematically obfuscating the horror our government’s disproportionate reaction and human rights violations. This is not just any war on terror. It is a well-executed reformation of American conscience. It is the rewriting of history through deception, disinformation and conspiracy upon every precept of freedom established by the crafters of our constitution. It is painfully obvious that this great nation is being reconditioned as a model resembling that of Russia, China and N. Korea.
What is most disturbing is how Americans have abandoned the will to self-rule in favor of material sanctuary.
The great Benjamin Franklin said it best, ‘Those who sacrifice Liberty for Security deserve neither’.
