Welcome to Amerika!!

Now that we know more about what has been going on in the American torture system in Iraq, we can understand more about the case (1) of Guantánamo chaplain Captain James Yee(2). He was arrested while allegedly in possession of classified documents "that (3) a chaplain shouldn't have." After adding some more bogus charges, the Pentagon eventually had to drop every charge against him except for the bogus ones, and he was eventually completely, albeit grudgingly, (4) exonerated of them too. Yee, however, remains under a gag order.

Could Yee's documents relate to the torture going on at Guantánamo Bay? Is the gag order what the Pentagon was really after?

He had lists of the detainees and lists of their interrogators (it would be interesting to find out if any of these worthies ended up in Iraq). If Yee had proof of torture in September 2003, it would show clearly how long this problem has been going on, and that torture is the new systematic strategy of the Bush Administration. It would also prove that the Pentagon was trying to cover up its criminal pattern of torture months before torture in Iraq made the mainstream news. The torture in Iraq is just the logical conclusion of steps taken by the Bush Administration - the Patriot Act, enemy combatants held without chance of trial or legal representation, mass domestic arrests on racist grounds with hundreds or even thousands of detainees held for months without charge and then quietly released, the entire charade of Guantánamo Bay being outside of both American and international law, detainees at Guantánamo held for no reason at all (remember the British detainees who were eventually released into British custody, with the British authorities interviewing them and releasing them all within hours), the unpunished beating deaths by the military of at least two detainees in Afghanistan, and untold horrors being perpetrated in the new American gulags around the world, not to mention the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere - which constitute a declaration of violence and war against the whole world (including selected citizens of the United States). Iraq is no aberration, and is not the work of 'bad apples'. It is official American policy. It is the new American reality. There has been some discussion comparing Bush's America to Nazi Germany. Look at the newest picture (5) released by Seymour Hersh, of a naked man cowering in abject terror as the hillbillies are about to unleash a vicious dog on him, and tell me if you don't see the concentration camps of Nazi Germany (the hillbillies must think they've died and gone to hillbilly heaven, with their freedom to play out their life-long fantasies on Iraqis of what they'd all like to do to black people).

The thug who the Bush Administration has brought in to 'fix' the situation in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, not only was involved in Guantánamo Bay, but was brought to Iraq in August and September to improve the efficiency of the American interrogation techniques in Iraq, and recommended (6) that the U.S. military police become "actively engaged in setting the conditions for the successful exploitation of the internees”. Miller was also directly (7) behind the persecution of Captain Yee. If is as if Hitler was accused of conducting medical experiments on unwilling human subjects, and brought in Dr. Mengele to fix the problem. Despite some grudging apologies, the prisons are still (8) operational and the interrogations continue. Miller is now on the scene to ensure that leaks are repressed until after the next American Presidential election. Americans will vote for Bush, thus approving the new American moral standards. Welcome to Amerika!

Notes:
(1) www.captainyee.org/
(2) Missteps seen in Muslim Captain’s spy case
www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/national/04YEE.html?ex=1388552400&en=05cf04d69a8d4c9f&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND
(3) US Army chaplain arrested
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/09/20/chaplain.arrest/
(4) Reprimand Against Yee Overturned
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,117134,00.html
(5) New photo shows naked prisoner’s ordeal
www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/10/1084041298612.html
(6) US General rejects blame for abuses
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/05/09/MNGBV6IMME1.DTL
(7) He is not guilty and he is not innocent
www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1180773,00.html
(8) Author of Army Report to Testify on Abuse
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4855930/

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Last updated 16/05/2004

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