American Gulag

By Crispin Sartwell

 

 

It appears that the Bush Administration, and in particular the Defense Department and CIA, have established an international gulag, a far-flung system of extra-legal detention and torture facilities around the world.

 

   One of the most disturbing developments in this story comes from Afghanistan, where former Green Beret Jack Idema, along with two other people, was recently convicted of operating a secret prison. and torturing people there.

 

    Idema has claimed with some evidence that he was a contractor for American intelligence, which of course the intelligence and military authorities have denied.

 

    The question, I think, could pretty easily be answered if we knew who Idema was holding and why, and where the prisoners are now, but that information does not appear to be part of anyone's coverage of the story.

 

    At any rate, ask yourself: why would an American military man move to Afghanistan and start a private prison? Just for grins? Or perhaps for money. But then who would pay for that sort of thing? I don't think there is any plausible explanation other than that he was a contract torturer for the American military.

 

   And according to the Democracy Now! website, Pentagon spokesman Christopher Conway has quietly confirmed that Idema helped the American military capture at least one suspect.

 

    Where you have one such contract, there are going to be others: such a thing represents a policy decision. The idea of setting up a system of secret, private torture facilities would almost have to occur to people whose activities have been as scrutinized as those at Abu Ghraib.

 

   But in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, people are held - in some cases for years - without charge or recourse and are interrogated with brutality. One would expect that under such circumstances, in which prisoners have no rights and authorities no accountability, many people would be held mistakenly. And indeed, as soon as the detentions are challenged in even a minor way, the cases turn out to be unsustainable.

 

    Many prisoners were released from Abu Ghraib after the scandal, and the Pentagon is now releasing almost anyone from Guantanamo who is coming up for a hearing (as required by the American courts). Most cases that have come up for scrutiny have fallen apart, while people who have been released tell tales of severe mistreatment. Those tales themselves are motivations for the Bush administration to hold others secretly so that they need never be released.

 

   Indeed, a hundred or more prisoners at Abu Ghraib were held 'off the books' in complete secrecy: they simply disappeared, a favorite tactic of totalitarian regimes the world over. And they were held this way specifically so they would not be interviewed by the Red Cross.

 

    But Abu Ghraib is only one of up to fifty detention facilities and camps operated by Americans in Iraq, and there are perhaps a dozen more in Afghanistan. One suspects that that there are also entirely secret facilities.

 

    What we know already is bad enough. At least several dozen people have died in detention facilities over the last three years, most by violence committed by their captors. Hundreds of others tell tales of arbitrary detention and torture.

 

    An emblematic case is that of Yasser Hamdi, the 'enemy combatant' against whom no evidence was ever provided. Hamdi spent almost three years in solitary confinement in a South Carolina brig.  As soon as the Supreme Court ruled that he could retain counsel he was released. This is an indication of what might happen in many other cases.

 

      But it's what we don't know that should be worrying us. We don't really know how many people are being held, or where. We don't know whether the military is resorting to secret prisons run by hired detention and torture squads.

 

    Perhaps in a half century, when the archive in a stripped form becomes available, we'll find out just how evil we are right now.