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The laws of the 'United States'
do not apply within the base at Guantánamo, to those that the prison was
built to hold-therefore the USA cannot continue to fly the US flag that
supposedly stands for the rules of law that have been with this nation
since its formal founding. We cannot have the 'legal situation'
inside Gitmo 'both ways'! Either Guantánamo is an American base,
and thereby an outpost of American military law, set up under the US
Constitution - Or Gitmo is a rogue-place, a prison unto itself that might
as well fly the flags of Blackwater and the Jolly-Roger of International
Piracy, that together actually represent what goes on inside that place.
The criminal confinement at Gitmo,
exists outside the bounds of all civilized practices and procedures, and
has become known world-wide as an institution without rules: a place more
suited to the practices and procedures of the Marquee De Sade, than to
anything that has ever been routinely paid for by US taxpayers. Recently
the Decider's lackeys; divulged what they thought of as a very revealing
confession, by someone they say was one of the monsters behind 911. Of
course that fraud backfired, big-time! Because anyone under torture for a
number of years would of course confess to anything and everything, just
to get the torture to stop: Which is why torture has been barred from US
law, and practice. The man who designed these practices and procedures is
non-other than the current US Attorney General, under fire for lying to
Congress, and to the public about his role in the firing of eight US
Attorneys.
Instead of giving him a lawyer,
and bringing him before congress to "testify under oath" - let's
just strip him of his name and send him to Guantánamo, where he can
experience first hand the results of his handy-work. No charges need to be
brought, no lawyers will be allowed, and he can just sit there for the
rest of his life, being on occasion tortured, sodomized, beaten, starved -
but hey - he designed all that so if it's good enough for other criminals,
then it's damn well good enough for Roberto Gonzalez!
 This sounds extreme, but I
mention it because unless people can envision this outrage, or experience
it first-hand, then apparently most cannot really understand the depth of
the unfairness, the personal isolation, the extent of the duplicity, or
the criminality inherent in treating people as we treat those inside Gitmo.
Just as the illustration clarifies, the Department of Justice has been
transformed from what it once was to this Vulture-of-Opportunity and to
the self-determined upending of anything like justice or fairness. No
individual or nation should ever have the power to lock anyone away for
the rest of his or her natural life - with no appeal, no defenders, and
virtually no contact with anyone that is not a guard. It would be kinder
to bury that individual alive, at least that way the torture would end.
The Defenders-of-the-Decider and his minions from the dark side; have
apparently never understood that no person or government has the right to
lock anyone away for the rest of their natural lives, without any charges,
or without the right to challenge anything about their imprisonment.
This Outrage was crafted by
Gonzalez and his two-bit leader to simply terrify the world - to
intimidate any and all that might ever challenge those unilaterally
criminal-actions that led to the pre-emptive strikes; the strikes that
have metaphorically put everyone of us into our own prisons of the mind.
Of course this is not literal - but it exists, just as certainly as if we
were directly subject to the thugs that wear the uniforms of the US
military inside the cages in Guantánamo! That's what led to the title of
this article: "Take Down That Flag!"
To hold prisoners in this way,
and then to put them into a Kangaroo Courtroom situation - that is nothing
more than a mockery of anything even remotely related to 'Justice,' and
that is a compounding factor of the original illegalities, when committed
against another human being. The stated reasons for this treatment came
from the mouth of a criminal many-times-over, George W. Bush whose entire
life has been built upon nothing but lies, and his personal fondness for
condemning both people and animals to death. This 'Decider' has
nothing-in-common with the world when it comes to understanding or
leadership, much less when what is needed is credibility in the eyes of
the world-court of public opinion.
Gonzalez as first-stooge, in his
capacity as The Attorney General of the United States (supposedly the top
law-enforcement officer in this land) - is guilty of these and many other
crimes contained in the USA PATRIOT Acts, One & Two; and moreover he,
along with his predecessor J. Edgar Ashcroft, has been responsible for the
attitudes and criminal practices beneath the spying on the public; behind
the conversion of American citizens into nothing but suspects to be listed
and categorized as potential threats to the security of the United States:
when in fact the only crime therein, in over 95% of these 'cases' was to have a funny name, or to come from a country that
'the Decider' has decided is "a threat."
 The public has been mesmerized
into silence and fear of these unbelievably outrageous criminals, and of
what they might still be capable of doing to each one of us - hence the
silence that has damned us all to pay for these crimes of the Decider's
delusional fantasies! The United States was able to prosper, despite the
flaws within the nation and its policies, long before we fell victim to
this madness that mimics those who would claim the mantle of that 'specialness'
that now allows any self-appointed criminal to claim the right of Imperial
majesty. This is especially true in a world already fraught with pain and
poverty on a grand scale that has now been forced back into our own
endless wars of aggression and repression: all because we have allowed
those who should have been imprisoned long ago to take charge of the
institutions of this government. Gonzalez, his staff and advisors, and his
boss ought to be Impeached, along with Cheney: and if they are found
guilty they should all be punished according to the severity of the crimes
they have committed against the Constitution and the people; in whatever's
left of this country. Whenever 'Justice' is delayed on this scale, then it
is surely DENIED to all of us in perpetuity!
After having gone to the Supreme
Court twice, who found that the treatment in Guantánamo was
unconstitutional; the Congress came up with something called the Military
Commissions Act. This 'new' policy apparently condones the same things
that the two previously unconstitutional readings contained, so it's going
back to the Supreme Court for a third time. To be clear-what the Military
Commissions Act does is to condone torture and coercion, and hearsay
evidence, along with no right to hear the charges against the individual,
prior to trial. The right to an attorney is apparently conditional upon
the lawyers signing off on "the rules of the new court," without
ever knowing what those "new rules are." In addition prisoners
are not permitted to even meet privately with their lawyers, even when a
lawyer is allowed to 'represent' a defendant. There are currently 14
people in Guantánamo that will be charged under the MCA, and there are
also another 385 prisoners being held without charges, that will never be
tried-for anything - because Bush says that they are "enemy
combatants" so-no one cares!
However the most basic criminal
aspect to all of this is that the Military Commissions Act strips the
accused of the right to Habeus Corpus, (the right to challenge the reasons
for arrest or detention) in the first place. That right or writ: goes all
the way back in time to 1215 A.D. This 'right' has become universally
recognized by the entire community of nations, as has the inhumanity of
torture, the inadmissibility of hearsay, along with the right to a fair
trail. 'Fair Trials' are what is basically impossible to get
under the terms and conditions of the new Military Commissions Act. It
should also be remembered that Roberto Gonzalez also told the Congress in
public testimony that "there is no right of Habeus Corpus in the
Constitution" - and this came from the so-called Attorney General for
the United States! If for no other reason, Gonzalez needs to be
unceremoniously fired for that statement-just ask any functioning lawyer
in that profession.
At the very least we must demand
that the flag over Gitmo represents what really goes on in there - if we
fail to call them on this travesty of national and international law -
then we deserve George W. Bush!
Jim Kirwan
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