Deeper Into Darkness:

Slavery and Betrayal in Bush's Gulag         
by Chris Floyd     
Rich Kastelein has unearthed more background on the literally atrocious case of recently released Gitmo captive Bisher al-Rawi, whose story was highlighted here yesterday. Meanwhile "Smintheus," a frequent commenter here and author of the blog "Inconvenient News" offers further clarification, and a damning examination of a much-overlooked aspect of Bush's gulag: it is a literal system of slavery, where human beings are bought and sold, traded and transported like meat: "America's Slaves."

While yesterday's post focused on the ludicrous charges used by Gambian authorities to detain al-Rawi and his friend, Jamil el-Banna -- that a battery charger in their luggage was a "suspicious device" -- the Independent story provided by Kastelein and Smintheus' work focuses on the real reason the two men were detained, at the specific request of British intelligence: to press-gang them into work as spies for the Anglo-American "war on terror."

 

 

 

Ironically, al-Rawi, who was finally released from the American concentration camp in Guantanamo Bay last week, had previously done some work for British intelligence, acting as a go-between between MI5 and a controversial Muslim cleric the Brits were investigating, Abu Qatada. MI5 approached al-Rawi, who agreed to help, without payment. It was not a spy mission; al-Rawi was working openly as an intermediary between the cleric and the agency, with the agreement of both sides. As the Independent notes, even while the British government claimed they couldn't find the "dangerous" cleric, they were trying to establish a relationship with him through al-Rawi. Jamil el-Banna later played a very minor role, driving Abu Qatada's wife and children on two occasions, the second at the request of British intelligence.

Eventually, Abu Qatada was arrested by British authorities, and al-Rawi, his role as an intermediary now ended, sought to return to private life, working with his brother's peanut oil plant in Gambia. But it seems that Bush's Terror Warriors had other plans. They wanted to plant spies in the Muslim community, and wanted to do it right away -- no long, slow infiltration of trained agents. What better way than to grab a few likely prospects -- guys who'd been cooperative before -- and threaten to deep-six them into the American gulag if they didn't play ball?

And that's what happened. The tale unfolded by the men's attorney -- American lawyer George Mickum -- in the Independent last month, before al-Rawi's release, is a sickening story indeed. The horror lies not only in the specific atrocities meted out to al-Rawi and el-Banna (who remains in the Gitmo camp), but in the fact that there is nothing unusual in their story. It has been repeated countless times -- literally countless, for we have no way of knowing how many people have been sent through the meat grinder of Bush's gulag. It is also revelatory of the true nature of the "tribunals" and "status reviews" that Bush has established for his penal colony -- lawless farces from the word go, as we noted yesterday.

In case you missed the Independent story when it first came out (as I did, although Rich didn't), it is worth reading in full, and quoting at length. Because this is what the United States of America stands for in the world today: torture, extortion, cruelty and injustice. And if you support the Bush Administration in any way, by active bootlicking or passive acceptance, then this is what you stand for too.


From the Independent:

 

...Gambian authorities detained Mr al-Rawi, Mr el-Banna and their friends immediately after the group landed in Africa. Indeed, shortly after the arrest, Gambian authorities told the arrested group that the British had told them to make the arrests. There is no question that British officials rendered Mr al-Rawi and Mr el-Banna into the hands of CIA officials in Africa in November of 2002. During one of Mr el-Banna's more than 100 interrogation sessions, his interrogator told him his adopted country had betrayed him...

Mr al-Rawi states that "from the very beginning in the Gambia the CIA said, 'The British told us that one of you was helping MI5.' By the second day in the Gambia, they [the CIA] were asking me to work for the US in Britain. I said I would not."

Although Mr al-Rawi's brother Wahab and another friend were released after a month and returned to England, Mr al-Rawi and Mr el-Banna were rendered at the end of 2002 in a CIA Gulfstream jet, one of a fleet of jets used by the CIA in its "extraordinary rendition" programme, in which the US transports victims to foreign countries for the express purpose of torture....

Mr al-Rawi and Mr el-Banna were taken to the notorious "dark prison" in Kabul, Afghanistan. There, both men were imprisoned underground in isolation and darkness and tortured over two weeks. They were held in leg shackles 24 hours a day. They were starved, beaten, dragged along floors while shackled, and kicked. Round-the-clock screams from fellow prisoners made sleep impossible.

Subsequently, they were transferred to the US Air Force base at Bagram, Afghanistan. Although they were chained hand and foot and hooded, while waiting to be transported, their captors beat them. Mr el-Banna, in particular, was beaten repeatedly.

In Bagram, they were imprisoned and tortured for another two months. They were beaten, starved, and sleep deprived. What is particularly noteworthy is the fact that the only information the interrogators were interested in was information about Abu Qatada. Over the years, CIA and military interrogators have repeatedly attempted to suborn testimony from both men, linking Abu Qatada to al-Qa'ida. Mr el-Banna has repeatedly refused offers of freedom, money, and passports in exchange for false testimony.

Ultimately, both men were transported to Guantanamo, a trip so harrowing that a government informer, who was posing as a prisoner and had to be transported and treated the same as other prisoners, stated in a television interview that, at the time, he wished someone would shoot him. Forced to wear darkened goggles, face-masks and earphones, chained at the ankles, handcuffed behind their backs with thin plastic that caused incredible pain, and, in some cases, lasting damage, starving and sick prisoners who had been deprived of sleep were forced to maintain a sitting position, legs forward and chained without moving for nearly 24 hours.

If they moved they were beaten, kicked, hit with blunt objects. The government informer lasted barely one month in the intolerable conditions in Guantanamo before demanding freedom. During the first month at Guantanamo in which both were kept in strict solitary confinement, the pair were interrogated six hours per day and kept in the interrogation room for 14 hours per day, sometimes in freezing temperatures to induce hypothermia, one of the many techniques approved for use by the Bush administration. In some cases they were short-shackled, hands behind heels, for the entire time.


Bear in mind: neither of these men were captured "on the battlefield," neither of them had been involved in any terrorist activities, and both of them had in fact been cooperative with Western intelligence. And this is what happened to them. Imagine the treatment inflicted upon those who have been rendered into Bush's gulag on some measure of suspicion -- however spurious or well-founded.

...The military has taken great pains to prevent any exculpatory information from creeping into the official records to ensure prisoners have no chance to exonerate themselves. In Guantanamo, Mr al-Rawi has met perhaps 10 different CIA agents. One agent who went by the name "Elizabeth" told him: "Don't think that leaving here will come without a price." Mr al-Rawi said: "She asked me whether I would work with them, and I said no. [She] suggested, 'How about working with MI5?'"

...I advised the men more than one month before I travelled to Guantanamo in September 2004, advising them not to appear before the CSRT (Combatant Status Review Tribunal) or participate in the process. My letters were not delivered until after each had participated in his tribunal. I advised them against participating, among other reasons because the tribunals were permitted to rely on information obtained under torture. Both men were not even permitted to review all the evidence against them, and thus had no chance to defend themselves...

At the conclusion, Mr el-Banna's personal representative, a soldier and non-lawyer who could be compelled under the CSRT rules to testify against him courageously dissented from the tribunal's conclusion, including a formal statement in the CSRT record: "The personal representative states that the record is insufficient to prove that the detainee is an enemy combatant."

...My security clearance allows me to review all of the classified evidence in the cases, including all the evidence the tribunal relied upon to conclude that Mr al-Rawi and Mr el-Banna were enemy combatants. There is no evidence in the record, classified or unclassified, which supports the military's determination that these are enemy combatants. None.

Again, this is what can happen to Muslims who actually cooperate in an aboveboard fashion with the intelligence services of the Anglo-American Terror Warriors. If they refuse to give their lives over to black ops and betrayal, they can simply be "disappeared" into the hideous system of brutality and slavery that Bush has created.
 

 

 

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