BTIF: Bagram, Black Hole

I've been a fan of Eliza Griswold ever since I read some of her poetry in the New Yorker and then read more of her work on the Pastun/tribal Pakistani-Afghan border. Her latest piece for the New Republic, "The Other Guantantamo: Black Hole" is a wake-up call.



Sometimes the spotlight on Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo leads the public to forget that the US still operates a prison at Bagram Airbase, and probably other secret prisons in Afghanistan. The military has a virtual free-hand to treat the 650 prisoners there as it wishes because of the lack of media scrutiny and the overall lack of interest in Afghanistan. What I find really interesting is the father of a detainee's insistence on the existence of photos proving abuse at Bagram. He desperately knows that after Abu Ghraib, without photos, the world simply does not care. I decided to post the whole article here for future reference:

Early last spring, outside a guesthouse in Kabul where I was staying, an injured Afghan man limped up to the locked gate. He wore a blazer with suede elbow patches and leaned on crutches. Because a suicide bomber had attacked the building not long before, a guard blocked the entrance of the unannounced supplicant. The fact that the man refused to give his name didn't help his case. But, finally, once inside, he blurted his reason for traveling across a war zone to the building: He had heard that American lawyers with whom I was traveling were staying there and that these lawyers wanted to represent prisoners held by the Americans at Bagram Airbase, some 40 miles north. "My son is in prison at Bagram," the man said, clutching a cell phone: A sympathetic Afghan guard inside Bagram Theater Internment Facility (btif) had sent him a photograph of his son after he had been badly beaten, his eye swollen shut.

Btif is currently home to about 650 detainees. Unlike the prison in Guantánamo, there aren't congressional junkets regularly touring the facility, let alone any reporters. Inside one of the low-slung, pale concrete buildings, on the vast floor of what was once a machine shop, is a scene one former interrogator describes as a dungeon, full of "medieval sounds"--the dragging of leg shackles, shouts from military police. Most of its windows, initially installed by the Soviet army, are broken and boarded up. There are six large 60-foot-long cages ringed in coiled barbed wire where detainees are kept, 15 to 20 prisoners to a cage. Before the prisoners enter or leave these cages, they are transferred temporarily to cages large enough for only one prisoner called "sally ports," which are encased in coils of concertina wire and reinforced with steel beams. On a level above the machine shop floor, there are isolation rooms walled in plywood with chicken-wire ceilings.

The man had come to the guest house on bad information. The lawyers with whom I traveled represented prisoners in Guantánamo, and they weren't seeking new clients from Bagram. As the man took in this depressing fact, he grew irate and began pressing his case with even greater fervor. "There are more photographs," he exclaimed, turning to leave. "Someday, you will see them."

That day may be fast approaching. The photos accompanying this piece are the first to be published from inside the prison. Last month, lawyers pleaded two separate cases before the D.C. District Court, demanding that the justices review petitions of habeas corpus for Bagram detainees. These cases represent the rare moment when Bagram will actually receive scrutiny. Unlike Guantánamo, a puddle-jumper away from Miami, Bagram is tucked into the Afghan countryside, not far from where combat with the Taliban still flares. And this remoteness has made the plight of its prisoners all the more dire: Only the International Committee of the Red Cross knows the names of Bagram's occupants. Eric Lewis, a co-counsel in one of the habeas cases, says, "The nightmare of Guantánamo is something of a picnic compared to Bagram," a fact that prisoners can relate with firsthand knowledge: A good portion of the detainees in Guantánamo were first held in Bagram. "Our clients were beaten more badly in Afghanistan than in Guantánamo, basically because, in Cuba, the whole world is watching," says Lewis.

Bagram is a 6.5-square-mile plot located on the vast, once-verdant Shomali plain and encircled by the snowy Panjshir mountains. After the Soviet invasion in the late '70s, the Russians built a two-mile runway and airbase at Bagram. During the decades of civil war, the defunct base repeatedly switched between Taliban and Northern Alliance control. In late 2001, as it trounced the Taliban, the United States took possession of the base and outfitted its cavernous machine shop to detain captured combatants. Former prisoners and interrogators say that there were old Soviet signs written in Cyrillic still on the walls.

The detention facility was designed as a short-term collection point, where American interrogators sorted erroneous and low-level captures from those of higher intelligence value. And, at first, the prison actually served this purpose: Detainees from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and North Africa were transported to Guantánamo--although there are still some Arabs held at Bagram. (We know this, in part, because a Yemeni prisoner, held virtually incommunicado for more than five years, sent his father a letter through the Red Cross. "BT," meaning Bagram Theater, was marked on the upper-left-hand corner.)

From the start, the processing of prisoners entailed some grisly practices. When Captain Carolyn Wood assumed control of the prison in the summer of 2002--she ran it until taking over Abu Ghraib a year later--interrogation tactics came to include beatings, anal violation with sharp objects, blows to the genitals, and "peroneal" strikes (an incapacitating blow to the leg with a baton, a knee, or a shin). We know about these tactics because an internal Army investigation into two prisoner deaths was obtained by The New York Times. These detainees--a 22-year-old taxi driver and the brother of a Taliban commander--were found dead and hanging from the wrists by shackles. A coroner's report said the two men died after being subjected to dozens of peroneal strikes. According to the coroner's report, the "pulpified" legs of one of the corpses looked as if they had "been run over by a bus."

During these early years, one of the most notorious figures at the prison was Private First Class Damien M. Corsetti, known in turns as the "King of Torture" and "Monster." Corsetti tattooed an Italian translation of the latter moniker across his stomach. In the end, a military tribunal cleared Corsetti of all charges. His lawyer successfully argued before the tribunal that the rules for detainee treatment were unclear: "The president of the United States doesn't know what the rules are. The secretary of defense doesn't know what the rules are. But the government expects this Pfc. to know what the rules are?" But, in the course of proving his innocence, Corsetti revealed several damning details. One of the prisoners he called to testify on his behalf told the military judges that a Saudi detainee recounted how Corsetti had threatened to rape him. He had even taken out his penis and yelled, "This is your God!"

It's not that Bagram has entirely escaped scrutiny. Army investigators have recommended criminal charges for 27 alleged Bagram-based torturers. But, of these 27, only four soldiers have been sentenced to prison time--for no more than several months. The alleged abusers have evaded punishment largely with the help of, among others, Donald Rumsfeld, who approved a December 2002 memorandum that permitted the use of stripping, dogs, and stress positions in interrogations. In fact, many of the top brass who presided over Bagram have done more than escape punishment. Despite the many accounts of Captain Wood's encouragement of torture--Amnesty International has called her a "torture architect"--she has received two Bronze Stars.

While Bagram began as a temporary jail, it has over time morphed into a more permanent facility. As the bulk of its Arab prisoners were shipped to Guantánamo, it increasingly held Afghans for long (and in many cases indefinite) terms. "One of the worst aspects of Bagram is that no one knows how long they'll be held there," says Sam Zia-Zarifi, the research director for the Asia division of Human Rights Watch. The secrecy shrouding the prison makes it hard to discern the precise composition of its occupants. But we do know that, last year, its population swelled by about 100 detainees, thanks to new U.S.-nato operations aimed at routing the resurgent Taliban. And even the Pentagon has implicitly conceded that the prison no longer serves its initial short-term purpose, changing its name from Bagram Collection Point to the Bagram Theater Internment Facility.

During this transformation, some of the worst abuses at Bagram, such as anal violations and beatings, have been curbed, according to former detainees, the Afghan Human Rights Commission, and Human Rights Watch. The Department of Defense claims that prisoners now gain an average of 15 pounds during their detention. And, several weeks ago, the first Afghan prisoners were transferred from Bagram into Afghan custody in the U.S.-built wing of the infamous Policharki prison. Lieutenant Colonel Todd Vician, a spokesman for the Department of Defense, tells me, "We have no desire to be the world's jailer."

But, for all these changes, the growing detainee population still lives in overcrowded cages. Prisoners don't even have the limited access to lawyers available to prisoners in Guantánamo. Nor do they have the right to Combatant Status Review Tribunals, which Guantánamo detainees won in the 2004 Supreme Court ruling in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. Instead, if a combat commander chooses, he can convene an Enemy Combatant Review Board (ecrb), at which the detainee has no right to a personal advocate, no chance to speak in his own defense, and no opportunity to review the evidence against him. The detainee isn't even allowed to attend. And, thanks to such limited access to justice, many former detainees say they have no idea why they were either detained or released.

With a victory in the pending habeas cases, Bagram detainees might eventually win the same legal rights now held by Guantánamo prisoners. But, according to Tina Foster, executive director of the International Justice Network and co-counsel on the habeas petitions, "Even if the cases are successful, we are unlikely to see dramatic changes at Bagram any time soon." It will remain too far from the public eye, too deep in a war zone, to receive the public pressure that forced the reform of Guantánamo. That's a shame, because the prison--and, more precisely, its infamy--has hurt the American cause in Afghanistan. "[It] undermines our legitimacy in building democracy and human rights in Afghanistan," says Barnett Rubin, director of studies at New York University's Center on International Cooperation.

I began to understand this cost as I sat in the Kabul guesthouse with the American lawyers. Over a cup of tea, one local official named Zalmay Shah told us that he had once worked closely with U.S. Special Forces. At the beginning of the U.S. invasion, he had helped a commander named "Tony" round up a handful of midlevel Taliban. The soldiers had awarded him a letter of commendation for his efforts, and he developed a sincere affection for the Americans. That soon changed.

While delivering one wanted man into U.S. custody, Shah was himself arrested, hooded, shackled, and stripped. Soldiers taped his mouth shut, refusing to let him spit out the snuff he was chewing. For three days, his jailers in Bagram denied him food. All the while, Shah pleaded his innocence and reminded the Americans of his friendship with "Tony." And, eventually, the Americans concluded that they had mistakenly identified the man as a Taliban official and released him. Despite all this, the U.S. military has continued to ask Shah for his help. "I have refused," he told us. "When the Americans came, we thought we would be free. But, on the contrary, we have suffered." Placing his elbows on the table, he hunched forward and cupped his hands around the now cold tea. "If the Americans don't change their policies soon, neither we nor they will have a way out."

Dilawar, RIP

Thanks to the attention that "Taxi to the Dark Side" is garnering in the mainstream media (Post, WSJ, Salon), for a while at least, innocent Afghan Dilawar is remembered as a victim of American military institutionalized brutality.

Tenet Denies CIA Torture

"Journalist" allowing the Administration to manhandle him.

"Listen to me."

"I want you to listen to me!"

Tenet sounds like a stupid Hollywood character, not the head of the Central Intelligence Agency.

"There was so much we did not know!"

This kind of bluster is typical of the Bush Administration, which combats solid questions with bullying. They refuse to prove any of their own supposed accomplishments or disprove charges of torture on the grounds that this proof would "threaten our security" ("I can't talk about techniques").

To see the full interview, and see if CBS' journalist actually challenges this nonsense (don't hold your breath) tune into 60 Minutes on Sunday April 29.

'Taxi to the Dark Side'

Finally a "big" documentary about the Bagram homicides. Abu Ghraib has elicited a huge reaction especially in the past two years, by artists, writers and documentarists. But the sad fate of those tortured to death in Afghanistan has been largely forgotten. Recall that of the original 27 men recommended to prosecutors by Army investigators the killing of innocents Dilawar and Habibullah, only 6 were convicted or pled guilty. The stiffest punishment handed down has been 5 months in a military prison.

Involved among others as executive producer was journalist Sid Blumenthal. The film by Alex Gibney "Taxi to the Dark Side" portrays the arrest of taxi driver Dilawar and to his killing at Bagram Air Base. It premiers at the Tribeca Film Festival next week.

Tom Tomorrow shares his thoughts after seeing a preview.

Priests on trial for Arizona torture protest

Two California priests, Fransiscan Father Louis Vitale and Jesuit Father Steve Kelly, related to the Catholic Worker movement, were arrested in November 2006 for trespassing at Ft. Huachuca military base in Southern Arizona. They knelt in front of the entry gates to the base to pray, with 120 other protesters, and asked to deliver a letter to the former Chief of Military Intelligence in Iraq. Both have served time for Fort Benning "School of the Americas" protests. They were arraigned April 3 and are awaiting trial in June. From the group Pace e Bene and Redwood City Catholic Worker House respectively, the two are seasoned advocates of non-violence. According to the California Catholic Daily:

Vitale and Kelly were among 120 protesters at Ft. Huachuca. They claim U.S. military intelligence teaches torture interrogation techniques at Ft. Huachuca -- the same techniques used at Abu Ghraib and, allegedly, at Guantanamo.

It was at Ft. Huachuca that Vietnam-era manuals advocating torture techniques were translated into Spanish for use at the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, Georgia -- a center that, critics have long said, has trained police and military officers who tortured and killed political enemies of repressive Latin American governments.

In November, Vitale and Kelly were arrested for kneeling to pray on the road leading to Ft. Huachuca’s gate. They face federal and state charges for refusing to follow police orders and for trespass. The priests attempted to speak to enlisted soldiers and to deliver a letter to Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast. “Nothing justifies the inhumane treatment of our fellow brothers and sisters,” said the priests’ letter. “Torture is a useless and unreliable tool that leads to an accepted practice of terrorization and the rationalization of wrongdoing.”

Fast had been chief of intelligence in Iraq, responsible for overseeing Abu Ghraib at the time of the tortures there. Exonerated of wrongdoing by military investigators, she was given command of the military intelligence center, located at Ft. Huachuca, in 2005.

Both Vitale and Kelly have been imprisoned before for anti-war and anti-torture civil disobedience. Vitale served time in 2002 and 2006 for protests at Ft. Benning and, in 2003, for obstructing traffic in San Francisco and blocking the entrance to the British Consulate there in protest of the Iraq War. Kelly has served time for attempting to disarm nuclear weapons delivery systems.

“I believe it is a way to raise consciousness,” Vitale told the San Francisco Faith in 2003. “I’m a strong a believer in something Martin Luther King called the ‘theology of stepping off the curb,’ as when he went to Selma and places like that. It’s putting your body there in a non-violent way.”

If convicted in June, Vitale and Kelly could be sentenced to up to ten months in prison.

It is a small victory that the priests will remain free during the pre-trial period. Here is the text of the letter they attempted to deliver to Major General Barbara Fast:

To: Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast -
We are here today as concerned U.S. people, veterans and clergy, to speak with enlisted personnel about the illegality and immorality of torture according to international humanitarian law, including the Geneva Conventions.

We condemn torture as a dehumanization of both prisoners and interrogators, resulting in humiliation, disability and even death. In addition to the hundreds of detainees who have died, we are also concerned about U.S. military personnel. Alyssa Peterson committed suicide after participating in the torture of Iraqi prisoners. Lynndie England and others have been imprisoned for their illegal activities.

We are here today at Ft. Huachuca in solidarity with tens of thousands of people at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Ft. Benning, Georgia (formerly known as the School of the Americas) to say that the training of torturers must immediately stop. Nothing justifies the inhumane treatment of our fellow brothers and sisters. Torture by U.S. military personnel has reached alarming proportions and has horrified people around the world.

We are convinced that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 is unconstitutional. We totally reject its conclusions. Torture is a useless and unreliable tool that leads to an accepted practice of terrorization and the rationalization of wrongdoing.

We are here today to repent and clearly state that because of our sense of moral and human decency we condemn torture. NOT IN OUR NAME.

Signed this 19th day of November, 2006 -

Louis Vitale,OFM
Steve Kelly, SJ

Biographical data on Vitale and Kelly:

Fr. Louie Vitale is a member of Pace e Bene, whose mission is "to develop the spirituality and practice of active nonviolence as a way of living and being and as a process for cultural transformation." Fr. Vitale is also a co-founder of the Nevada Desert Experience, a faith-based organization that has opposed nuclear weapons testing for a quarter of a century. Fr. Vitale recently served six months in jail following his arrest at the Ft. Benning vigil in November, 2005, and was ejected from congressional hearings in September after speaking out against the Military Commissions Act.

Fr. Steve Kelly is a member of the Redwood City Catholic Worker community and has served time in federal prison for the nonviolent direct disarmament of nuclear weapon delivery systems. In December, 2005, Kelly served as chaplain for Witness to Torture, a delegation of over two dozen U.S. anti-torture activists who defied the U.S. embargo of Cuba with a peaceful march through that nation to the gates of the Guantanamo Bay navel base and prison camp.

Afghanistan to release US "vigilante"

The Afghan government has granted amnesty to Jack Idema, the last "mysterious" ex-special forces caught on a vigilante mission in Afghanistan. Idema, if readers will recall, was detained after having been charged with kidnapping and running a private prison. He claimed at the time he was working for the Pentagon, which the Defense Department vigorously denied. They later admitted having "taken" a man that Idema handed over to them.

According to BBC, NATO was even fooled by Idema and his friends Edward Caraballo and Brent Bennett, who had uniforms and allegedly special passports and visas.

Idema claimed the FBI was out to get him, and sued the US government in 2005 to secure his release. His case was moving through the court system in the US when word came from Kabul earlier this month that he would be released.

Captured in 2004, Idema claims he was tortured by US and Afghan captors, and it is known that he lived through a rebellion in Policharki prison, a notorious facility in Kabul. According to AP:

Idema's lawyer, John E. Tiffany, said the U.S. government coordinated Idema's amnesty to avoid having to respond to the allegations of torture and government misconduct.

"The Aghan government doesn't do anything unless the United States government tells them to do it," Tiffany said. "They got caught with their pants down. Finally, a federal judge with courage and intellect said, 'Hey, wait a minute. Let's look at this."

"They would like nothing more than never having to respond," Tiffany said. "If they have to respond to a laundry list of areas that the judge very clearly laid out, you put yourself of great risk of taking positions that will be exposed as lies."

Government attorneys said that's not the case. The State Department learned that Idema's amnesty was final on March 15, nearly a week before Sullivan's order, according to court documents.

Idema was captured in 2004 along with fellow Americans Brent Bennett and Edward Caraballo. Idema and Bennett a former U.S. soldiers. Caraballo was an investigative journalist. Bennett and Caraballo have since been released.

Tiffany said Tuesday he did not know whether Idema has been freed. An Afghan official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information, said Idema remains in Policharki, the main prison in Kabul.

The Justice Department said in court documents that Idema was holding up his own release by refusing to leave Afghanistan without Bennett's dog.

More material here.

Drugging the lipless: truth serum

Ex-commander of Abu Ghraib Janis Karpinski alleged recently in a public appearance that she suspected the US of using sodium pentathol, or the "truth serum" on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. This could explain the seemingly exaggerated and meglomaniac confessions he made recently. He was known as breaking all endurance records in the face of various types of torture applied to him.



British spy novelist Frederick Forsyth made even more sweeping allegations in a recent entertaining interview with Der Spiegel. He claimed that the use of truth serum is widespread in the "black sites" in Afghanistan, and that the US can turn prisoner's minds into "tapioca pudding." His new novel The Afghan paints his dark vision of CIA activities in Afghanistan.

The US has refused to confirm or deny the use of sodium pentathol or any other drugs on American "enemy combatant" José Padilla, who has now been declared by a number of psychiatrists not mentally fit to stand trial after his years in secret captivity.

Even though the efficacy of sodium pentathol, which is a barbiturate-type anaesthetic, was in question as early as the 1970s, it seems the CIA persisted in experimentation with it ever since.

The Bush administration seems to be attempting to keep the legal avenues open for the use of truth serums and other forms of torture at the President's discretion. In regards to an anti-torture section of a military spending bill in late 2005, in the President's signing statement, he made it clear he reserved the final word on torture and drugging of prisoners.

Who will come forward and be the "truth serum" whistleblower, à la Joe Darby of Abu Ghraib?

In it together: Anglos dodging responsibility, spending (and earning) a fortune

In the UK, the acquittal of two British officers in the killing of Baha Mousa in Basra in 2003 led many to question the use of military trials. The proceedings against a number of officers involved in the death of Mousa all led to acquittals, an apparently cost the British taxpayer over £20 million. The judge who acquitted the men said there was no evidence against the men because there was an obvious, inpenetrable code of silence among those involved. And just today, we learn that 10 British detainees in Basra pulled a quite simple escape.

In Canada, the controversy over the investigation of the "handing over" and disappearance of a Taliban soldier captured on the battlefield to the Afghan Army rages on. Meanwhile, miltary lawyers appointed to defend Canadian Omar Khadr, the only juvenile brought to Guantanamo from Afghanistan, say the cards are stacked against him. The US has used coercion and torture to gather the majority of "admissable evidence." His lawyers also claim the Canadian government is abandonning the now 20-year-old Khadr.

In the US, the beginning of a hearing to determine whether the only officer charged with Abu Ghraib abuses shall face court martial hearings revealed that Sgt Steven Jordan plans to dispute the legality of evidence against him. He claims that investigating Generals Fay and Taguba did not properly inform him of his rights.

Also, Staff Sgt. Ray Girouard was found guilty of negligent homicide in relation to the killings of three prisoners north-west of Baghdad in May 2006. The maximum sentence for this is three years, whereas premeditated murder carries up to life without parole. He was also convicted of covering up the crimes. His attempts to prove he was under orders to "kill at military-age men" and pass responsibility up the military command seemed to have failed. But he raised significant questions about the orders he was given.

Australian Prime Minister's surprise visit to the troops in southern Afghanistan reminds that Australian David Hicks, captured in Afghanistan in 2001, is awaiting his military commission trial. His lawyers are attempting to delay the proceedings, challenging the his very detention in US courts. He will in any case appear in a hearing on March 23, the first time he will have seen his family in 2 1/2 years. Meanwhile, an Australian firm Morris Corporation, won the $65 million contract to supply meals at US Detention facilities in Iraq.

Canadians take bold step to curb abuse

The Canadian Press reported today that Canadian forces in Kandahar will work together with the Afghanistan Independent Commission for Human Rights (AICHR) to ensure that no detainee abuse occurs under Canada's watch.

Earlier allegations of physical abuse of detainees at Kandahar Base in 2006 marred the Canadian force's image in the south of Afghanistan. Official investigations in these are on-going. Concerns over torture in Afghan prisons will also be a focus of the AICHR, which will now be notified when detainees are handed from Canadian to Afghan custody. This makes Canada the only NATO partner with this policy so far.

The Kandahar office of Afghanistan's human rights commission has agreed to act as a watchdog for detainees captured by Canadians to ensure that valid complaints of abuse are investigated, the Canadian Press has learned.

The secret agreement with military commanders papers over concerns raised by human rights groups about the practice of handing captured Taliban prisoners over to Afghan authorities who have a reputation for torture. It could also take some of the fire out of a burning debate over allegations that Canadian troops abused detainees last spring.

"Canadians respect human rights very well," Abdul Quadar Noorzai, the Kandahar manager of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said in an interview. He was eager to trumpet the agreement signed last Friday with Brig.-Gen. Tim Grant, commander of Canadian troops in Afghanistan.

"It is one of the greatest acts taken by them and I really appreciate it from the core of my heart," said a beaming Noorzai, who's been working for a year to carve out such an arrangement.

Marc Raider, a spokesman for the Defence Department in Ottawa, confirmed the existence of the agreement and said it builds on a December 2005 technical arrangement signed between Afghanistan's defence minister and Canadian Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier.

[...]The negotiations were started almost a year ago when Nader Naderi, commissioner of the Afghan human rights commission based in Kabul, went to Canada and met with the minister of defence.

Noorzai said eventually he would like to see the agreement expanded, or a separate arrangement signed, that would allow the commission to report on civilian shootings by foreign troops.

Over the past month, four Afghan bystanders have been killed in shootings involving Canadian soldiers.

Ex-CIA contractor gets 8 years

David Passaro, ex-Navy and CIA contractor, received an 8 year sentence for felony assault against Afghan prisoner Abdul Wali who was killed in June 2003.

Prosecutors argued that Abdul Wali pleaded to be shot to end his pain.

Passaro admitted that he "did not show Wali the compassion he deserved." From ABC News:

In a letter to the judge, the former governor of Afghanistan's Kunar province, Said Fazel Akbar, said the prisoner's death did "tremendous damage" to the credibility of the American-led coalition there and was used as propaganda by al Qaeda and Taliban forces.

"The distrust of the Americans increased, the security and reconstruction efforts of Afghanistan were dealt a blow, and the only people to gain from Dave Passaro's actions were al Qaeda and their partners," he wrote.

Political firestorm in Ottawa over allegations

The Canadian press certainly jumped on the allegations of detainee abuse by Canadian troops at Kandahar Base in spring 2006. The headline from the Globe and Mail says it all:

Full inquiry ordered into treatment of detainees

Defence Minister vows findings will be made public: 'This is not Somalia'; Military officials will scour Afghanistan looking for 3 men who had been held by soldiers

Canadian CNews gauged the reaction of Afghans to these latest allegations:

Allegations that Afghan detainees were abused after they were captured by Canadians came as no surprise Tuesday to Kandahar residents who have mixed feelings about the soldiers from Canada.

Residents remember shooting incidents that have killed at least two Afghans over the past year and injured several others, many of them motorists or motorcyclists who failed to obey Canadian orders to stop. The latest reports of alleged abuse touched a raw nerve in Kandahar, even though the suspects involved were believed to be Taliban insurgents.

"They promised to do reconstruction," Afadullah, 30, an auto mechanic with a shop near the city's gate, said about the Canadians through a translator.

"If (the Canadians) cannot co-operate with us, they should go home and then the Americans should send somebody else."

But others in Kandahar were prepared to give Canadians the benefit of the doubt. They urged patience while the allegation is being checked out.

"Canadians are better than Americans; more humble," said Abdul Khan, a taxi driver.

"They can be forgiven as long as they promise to stop shooting at civilians."

Alleged recent Canadian detainee abuse, Kandahar

It appears that the US forces are not the only ones accused of beating three detainees in Afghanistan. The alleged incidents occurred in April 2006, at Kandahar base. There have been prior incidents of abuse at Kandahar.

A Canadian Law Professor at University of Ottawa, Amir Attaran, requested documents relating to the incident under Canada's Access to Information Act.

From CBC News:

Attaran said he received three documents from the Department of National Defence, hand-written reports from Canadian military police in Kandahar. The documents show three men were brought to military police by a single interrogator in one day and all had a pattern of injuries to their faces, heads and upper bodies, he told CBC Tuesday.

"It seems to me that if one interrogator has brought in three people in a single day with very similar injuries, this is something that merits investigation," he said.

Attaran sent the information to the Military Police Complaints Commission, a civilian-run body that investigates complaints.

Commission head Peter Tinsley informed Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier and the head of the military police, Capt. Steve Moore, of the allegations, said a report Tuesday in the Globe and Mail.

Attaran said he doesn't know all the details surrounding the incident because DND has refused to provide all the documents he has requested, including a photo of one of the men.

"Only yesterday, because this was about to break in the press, did the DND agree to conduct an internal investigation. An inquiry of this kind should be open to the public," he said.

A group of Canadian soldiers captured the Afghans near a small town about 50 kilometres west of Kandahar, where more than 2,000 Canadians are serving. The men were taken to the medical centre on the Kandahar base.

A military report says the man with the most serious injuries — bruises and cuts to his arm, back and chest — was injured when his hands were tied behind his back.

The military initially said "appropriate force" was used against the man, who it said was a bomb-maker.

One of the detainees was described in military reports as "non-compliant," while a second was described as "extremely belligerent," taking four men to subdue him.

Khadr, only juvenile at Guantanamo, charged

Omar Khadr, a Canadian who was imprisoned at age 15 in Afghanistan in 2002, has been charged with murder after waiting more than four years in Guantanamo Bay. Although charges were made against Khadr last year, they were dropped after the Supreme Court found the planned tribunals unconstitutional.

Although Khadr has appeared in court a couple of times, no new photos of him have been made available, so the photo of him at age 15 is the only one available. It looks like a school photo.



From Canadian CBC news:

Khadr, who was born in Toronto and lived for years in various southern Ontario communities, was arrested in Afghanistan in July 2002. The U.S. military alleges that he killed an American medic in a grenade attack, which wounded several other American soldiers.

Khadr has been held ever since in Guantanamo. His lawyers and human rights groups say he has been abused in the prison.

The charges against Khadr, the Australian and the Yemeni are not considered formal until they are approved by a U.S. Defence Department legal adviser and an official who oversees the trials.

The process should take two weeks, said Davis. He said the trials will not begin until at least the spring.

The chief prosecutor said it made sense to start with charges against Khadr, who is the only Canadian at Guantanamo, and the other two men.

"Those three have been around for a while, and they were prepared and ready to go," he said.

Khadr and nine other prisoners were previously charged with various offenses, but the charges were dropped in June 2006, when the U.S. Supreme Court intervened.

The court ruled that President George W. Bush overstepped his authority when he ordered the initial military tribunals at Guantanamo. The court also said the tribunal rules violated international and U.S. laws.

U.S. Congress passed a new bill authorizing new military hearings, with new rules, and Bush signed it into law in October 2006. Some of the rules have drawn criticisms from activists because they allow for the use of hearsay and coerced evidence.

The military plans to charge 60 to 80 Guantanamo prisoners under the new system.

Khadr has been accused of training with al-Qaeda.

His father, Ahmed Said Khadr, was reportedly a close associate of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The elder Khadr, who moved his family from Canada to Afghanistan in the 1980s, was killed in a gun battle in Pakistan in 2003.

Along with Khadr, Australian David Hicks was also charged. His legal team accused the US Military of harassing them and attempting to undermine them by announcing the charges the day they had left the prison.

'Probable cause' for assault in Gardez

The Criminal Investigation Command of the Army has admitted that probable cause for assault in a Gardez US Special Forces compound in March 2003. The Army investigators refuse to confirm the assault investigation relates to the beating death of Afghan Army recruit, 18-year old Jamal Naseer, but the place and date correspond to his death.

The LA Times broke the story in 2004. Stories by Kevin Sack and Craig Pyes of the LA Times in September 2006 painted a grim picture of what was really happening at the Special Forces base in Gardez. Here is the latest from the LA Times:

A number of other Afghans who were taken prisoner along with Naseer have said they were severely beaten and otherwise abused while being held at the base by soldiers with the 20th Special Forces Group, an Alabama-based National Guard unit.

Concurrently, the Army investigators determined there was not probable cause to charge anyone in the separate case of an Afghan detainee who died in the custody of the same 20th Special Forces Group team, known as ODA 2021. That detainee, an unarmed woodcutter named Wakil Mohammed, was shot in the face by a soldier during a search of the village of Wazi after a fierce firefight, also in March 2003, according to Afghan witnesses interviewed by The Times.

Grey, the CID spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement that "the case involving Wazi was unfounded." That term is used, he said, "when there is not probable cause to believe that the offense occurred … considering the quality and quantity of all available evidence."

In March 2005, however, CID announced it had found probable cause in the Wazi case to recommend charges of murder against one member of the 20th Special Forces Group and of dereliction of duty against another soldier for not reporting Mohammed's death. Those referrals, known as "listings," have since been rescinded, but Grey declined to say what had changed.

Details of Mohammed's death were revealed in a two-part series about ODA 2021 that was published in The Times in September.

Grey said both investigations were closed by CID on Jan. 11. "If any new credible information becomes available, CID stands ready to reopen the investigation," he said.

The deaths of Naseer and Mohammed were never reported to higher authorities, according to both the battalion and group commanders who oversaw the 20th Group's operations in Afghanistan. That distinguished them from scores of other questionable deaths of detainees in U.S. custody in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Times account last fall cited numerous Afghan witnesses who saw Naseer immediately before and after his death and said he appeared to have been badly beaten. It quoted one Special Forces member as saying the team held a meeting after the detainee died to coordinate stories should an investigation arise.

"Everybody on the team had knowledge of it," the soldier said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "You just don't talk about that stuff in the Special Forces community. What happens downrange stays downrange."

Other detainees arrested with Naseer also showed signs of severe beating that were noted in local doctors' reports after their release from the base. One of those detainees was a man with one leg.

The commander of the Special Forces team at the time of both deaths was Chief Warrant Officer Kenneth C. Waller, a full-time National Guardsman who continues to work at 20th Group headquarters in Birmingham. Grey would not say whether Waller, who is now 36, is among those implicated in the CID investigation.

Officials with 20th Group said today that Waller, despite the ongoing case involving his unit, is currently deployed to East Africa, as is Col. Leonard Kiser, the 20th Group's current commanding officer. Neither was available for comment.

While the Special Forces team in Gardez consisted mostly of Alabama National Guardsmen, it also included several members from other groups.

One of them, Sgt. 1st Class Michael E. MacMillan, an intelligence analyst with the 7th Special Forces Group at Ft. Bragg, was depicted by other team members as being heavily involved in the interrogation of detainees at the base.

Year in Review

As this blog was dormant for much of the year, here we provide a detention/interrogation year in review:

January

Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen held at Guantanamo Bay who was a minor when he was detained by US forces in Afghanistan, was arraigned by a military tribunal.

General Geoffrey Miller testifies before Congress regarding the use of dogs on detainees in Abu Ghraib.


February

The final soldier charged with involvement of in the deaths of Habibullah and Dilawar was acquitted by US Military Courts.

Human Rights First concludes that 34 prisoners had died in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002, and that 8-12 were tortured to death.

Federal judge David Trager throws out the suit by a Canadian who was sent to Syria to be tortured. (In 2002, Canadian citizen Maher Arar, born in Syria was passing through a New York airport, detained and subsequently "rendered" to Syria and tortured)

Prisoners riot at Policharki Jail in Afghanistan, demanding retrials.


March

Times exposes alleged abuses by the secret task force "6-26" in Iraq.

Army Sargeant Michael J. Smith is found guilty on 6 of 13 counts of abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib, for the use of dogs on detainees. He gets 6 months jail time, when the maximum sentence would have been 8 years.


April

AP Photographer Bilal Hussein is imprisoned in Ramadi. The US claims he was apprehended with two other militants, surrounded by bombs making material. Journalist defense groups try in vain to get more information on his case.

New data released by the Detainee Abuse and Accountability Project alleges that over 600 military and contractors may have been involved in detainee abuse in Iraq. Only 40 members of the armed services have been sentenced to jailtime, and one civilian.


May

A federal judge dismisses the civil law suit against the American government brought by Khaled El-Masri, a German Lebanese-born man who was abducted by the CIA while on vacation in Macedonia in 2003. The rationale: the suit would endanger the US' national security.


June

Limited theatrical release of Michael Winterbottom's The Road to Guantanamo in the US.


July

Iranian-American filmmaker Cyrus Kar filed suit with the US government over his detention in 2005.


September

America turns Abu Ghraib, empty, over to Iraqi control. Its prisoners were moved to Camp Cropper.

President Bush claims the CIA's secret prisons across the world have been emptied.

A new Army manual for interrogation is published, banning hooding, forced nakedness and other stress positions.

AP goes public with their photographer's detention in Ramadi in April, calling for the US to either charge or release him.


October

President Bush signs the Military Commissions Act into law, according to many legal experts, denying habeas corpus rights to non-US citizens and legal aliens in the US. There is debate as to whether it denies habeas rights to American citizens. The Times calls it "a tyrannical law that will be ranked with the low points in American democracy".

Afghanistan's Reconciliation Commission visits Bagram in a bid to get more prisoners released. The number of detainees is thought to be around 500 at the time.

The US (apparently) bombs militants in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area, killing 80 people in Pakistan's tribal area. Many were civilians.

HRW questions NATO's move towards reliance on "close air support" and bombing of civilian regions, and suggests they create a mechanism to compensate civilians affected by bombing.


November

ICG releases a report called "Countering Afghanistan’s Insurgency: No Quick Fixes" suggesting that priority be given to rule of law and fixing the judiciary.

The European Commission concludes that many EU countries were aware of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" flights.


December

The US releases 26 detainees from Bagram Theater Internment Facility. Around 475 are believed to remain.

An ex-Navyman and security contractor in Baghdad reveals to the Times he was kept prisoner for 3 months at Camp Cropper after attemping to blow the whistle on suspicious activities by his firm. He claims he received "less legal council than Saddam."

Pakistan announces it detained over 500 Taleban and handed 400 of them over to the Afghan government.

It's not easy being unembedded in Uruzgan

A number of Dutch journalists have been reporting from Uruzgan province since their force arrived earlier this year as part of the NATO force "stabilizing" Afghanistan. Only one, it seems, was willing to go it alone and report unembedded from the province. Arnold Karskens, quite a war-reporting legend in Holland, was allegedly mistreated by Dutch forces in his most recent trip to Uruzgan in which he remained unembedded.


Gov/Warlord Jan Mohammed, photo by Karskens

While reporting for Dutch newspapers and TV (in Dutch unfortunately) he was "sent back" at one roadblock on a public road. This from Spinwatch

Karskens was refused entry to the Dutch military base near Tarin Kowt, even though the commander of the base had earlier declared publicly that they would not distinguish between 'embedded' and free journalists. According to another journalist present in the military base who wrote about it in the Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool, soldiers guarding the entrance of the base had instructions not to let Karskens in "unless one of his legs is shot off".

About this blog

We have not been able to maintain the blog from March-December 2006. We have republished it at this site, and hope that it will serve as a record and resource. If you have not already seen it, or if you would like to view it again, please take a moment to watch Taliban Country, the film which inspired this site.

Taliban Country was featured in a number of film festivals in 2004-5, and aired in six countries. It continues to be a reference and interest has not abated. It has only become more relevant in recent months with the recognized resurgence of the Taliban and the escalating war with NATO in Southern Afghanistan.

For queries regarding purchase, please contact Journeyman Films.

"Return of the Taliban"

This frontline report is focused on the border area with Pakistan. It contains some chilling information about how the Taliban has reinforced itself there, and how the US has taken to controversial assassinations using unmanned drones, creating more enemies in Pakistan. Featured is the case of abducted and assassinated journalist Hayatullah Khan, whose photographs served as evidence of the American assassination of suspected Al-Qaeda militant Abu Hamza.

"Taliban Rising"

This film is a brief (highly pessimistic) interview with The Nation's Christian Parenti, who claims many of his westernized friends in Afghanistan have started to make increasingly sympathetic statements towards the Taliban.

The article provides deeper insight. Many of these same issues he brings up existed three years ago already, and are examined in Taliban Country, such as the impact of searches of residential compounds.

He describes the "Iraqization" of the insurgency in Afghanistan and provides a portrait of life in the southern part of the country.

Guantanamo film US release for early summer

The Road to Guantanamo, director Michael Winterbottom's film about three Britons' ordeal from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay is set to be released by a North American distributor in the US in early summer. Roadside Film's recent releases have included Supersize Me and What the Bleep do we Know?

The film will premiere in the US later this month at the Tribeca Film Festival.