BAGRAM PRISON DENIES LEGAL RIGHTS TO AFGHAN PRISONERS

I recently urged the Taliban to release the American soldier Bowe Bergdahl captured in Afghanistan. But at the same time I called for the release of the prisoners held by the U.S. at Bagram Air Force base.

All of those imprisoned by the U.S. have never received legal counsel, have never had access to an impartial court, have never been given any of the legal protections commonplace in the civilized world. A person could have nothing to do with Al Qaeda, but be sold into American captivity by people who for one reason or another have a grudge or dispute against him. Most of the prisoners at Bagram are rural Afghani farmers, with little schooling and little resources.

So I am happy to see in today's The New York Times a report by Eric Schmitt that Admiral Mike Mullen is calling for a reexamination of the harsh U.S. policy towards prisoners especially those being held at Bagram.

Writes Schmitt:

"The prison at this air base north of Kabul has become an ominous symbol for Afghans — a place where harsh interrogation methods and sleep deprivation were used routinely in its early years, and where two Afghan detainees died in 2002 after being beaten by American soldiers and hung by their arms from the ceiling of isolation cells."

How is it that the U.S. government and military set up Bagram as a "dark hole" in the first place? Here we have Americans, while claiming and bragging that the U.S. is the home of the brave and the land of the free, who then impose draconian and cruel conditions of imprisonment on other people, not giving a care about their individual rights or injustices meted out to them.

Reports Schmitt:

"“Throughout Afghanistan, Afghans are arbitrarily detained by police, prosecutors, judges and detention center officials with alarming regularity,” the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said in a report in January.

"To help address these problems, Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone of the Marines, credited with successfully revamping American detention practices in Iraq, was assigned to review all detention issues in Afghanistan."

The prison situation in Afghanistan shows that even American soldiers and officers when left unchecked will set up systems that are inhumane and barbaric.

Schmitt reports:

"The problems at the existing American-run prison, the Bagram Theater Internment Facility, have been well documented.

"The prison is a converted aircraft hangar that still holds some of the decrepit aircraft-repair machinery left by the Soviet troops who occupied the country in the 1980s.

"Military personnel who know Bagram and the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, describe the Afghan site as tougher and more spartan.

"The prisoners have fewer privileges and virtually no access to lawyers or the judicial process. Many are still held communally in big cages.

"In the past two weeks, prisoners have refused to leave their cells to protest their indefinite imprisonment."

DAN FROOMKIN HAS EXCELLENT POST ON RECKLESS CLAIMS OF BUSH & CO. TOWARDS IRAN

Dan Froomkin has an excellent run-down in washingtonpost.com on the signals coming out of the Bush administration about its bellicose policy towards Iran. Froomkin lays out many of the reckless statements of Bush, Cheney, Gates and the generals on how Iran is arming "special groups" and Shiite militias, and how these weapons kill U.S. troops.

But as Froomkin notes, there is never any proof. Everything is innuendo and conjecture. Like Defense Sec. Robert Gates claiming Ahmadinejad knows about weapon shipments from Iran to Iraq. Here Froomkin quotes Yochi J. Dreazen of the Wall Street Journal:

"Yochi J. Dreazen reported in Saturday's Wall Street Journal (subscription required): "Senior U.S. defense officials accused Iran of stepping up its shipments of weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq, underscoring a marked hardening of American rhetoric about Iran in recent days.
"Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Iranian support for the Shiite-extremist groups had grown, while Defense Secretary Robert Gates said for the first time that he believed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad knew about the shipments.
"'I find it inconceivable that he does not know,' Mr. Gates told reporters at the Pentagon, adding that Iran was playing a 'malign' role in Iraq.""

Note all that Gates can say is, "I find it inconceivable . . . " But where is the proof that Ahmadinejad knows or directs these shipments? And where is the proof that "Iranian support for the Shiite-extremist groups had grown," as Admiral Mullen claims?

As Froomkin writes:

"Where's the proof? Who knows? Also left unaddressed is the widespread assumption that the Iranians actually supported both sides in the recent Shiite-on-Shiite conflict. And then there's the fact that it was Iran that brought both sides together to end hostilities. . . "

"A rare voice of skepticism about these claims came on Sunday from Sen. Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He told CNN's Wolf Blitzer: "[I]n this hearing on Iraq, Iran kept being mentioned. The fact that the Iranians are intruding. A proxy war is being fought. In other words, it was almost as if we were justifying our continued presence in Iraq with the fact that we may be in a conflict with Iran, and furthermore, the al Qaeda, wherever they may be. It's a very confusing picture to say the least.""