the_plunk (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} the_plunk) wrote,@ 2009-06-09 13:07:00 |
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My Country Did This
Here's an opinion piece from Salon.com that's not at all funny but pretty important for a few reasons:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenw
Lakhdar Boumediene is an Algerian (and Bosnian citizen) who, while living in Bosnia and working for the International Red Crescent, was arrested by the Bosnian government (at the behest of the Bush administration) shortly after 9/11 on charges of plotting to blow up a U.S. and British embassy, but was then quickly cleared by Bosnian courts of any wrongdoing and ordered released. But as he was about to be released -- in January, 2002 -- he was abducted by the U.S. military inside Bosnia and shipped to Guantanamo, where he remained without charges for the next almost 8 years, and was clearly tortured.
In mid-2008, the U.S. Supreme Court -- in a case bearing his name -- ruled that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was unconstitutional because it denied Guantanamo detainees the right of habeas corpus (i.e., to have the validity of the accusations against them reviewed by a court). When, pursuant to that decision, Boumediene finally had a U.S. court review the accusations against him in November, 2008, a federal judge -- the far right, Bush-43-appointed Richard Leon -- ruled there was no credible evidence to justify his detention (as well as the detention of four other Algerian-Bosnian detainees) and ordered them all released immediately. In other words, Boumediene spent almost 8 years in a Guantanamo cage, being brutally tortured, despite there being no evidence (as Bosnian courts had already found) that he had done anything wrong at all. I wrote about Boumediene's story in detail here.
Eight months after Judge Leon ordered him freed, Boumediene -- in May, 2009 -- was finally released from Guantanamo and went to France, which agreed to accept him because he has relatives there. At the time he was shipped to Guantanamo in 2002, he had two very young daughters. They are now 13 and 9 years old, and he obviously doesn't know them.
ABC News' Jake Tapper, as part of his traveling with President Obama this week, was in Paris and commendably took the opportunity to interview Boumediene about his ordeal, including the torture to which he was subjected at Guantanamo. Tapper has written a detailed account here. Here is the less detailed though still substantial video segment that appeared this morning on Good Morning America and presumably will appear on other ABC News shows, including World News Tonight:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO6vcsTy
It would be nice if my country was willing to prosecute the American citizens who perpetrated these crimes, and it would also be nice if our president followed his campaign promises and not endorse expansions of policies he said he would discontinue.
Here's an opinion piece from Salon.com that's not at all funny but pretty important for a few reasons:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenw
Lakhdar Boumediene is an Algerian (and Bosnian citizen) who, while living in Bosnia and working for the International Red Crescent, was arrested by the Bosnian government (at the behest of the Bush administration) shortly after 9/11 on charges of plotting to blow up a U.S. and British embassy, but was then quickly cleared by Bosnian courts of any wrongdoing and ordered released. But as he was about to be released -- in January, 2002 -- he was abducted by the U.S. military inside Bosnia and shipped to Guantanamo, where he remained without charges for the next almost 8 years, and was clearly tortured.
In mid-2008, the U.S. Supreme Court -- in a case bearing his name -- ruled that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was unconstitutional because it denied Guantanamo detainees the right of habeas corpus (i.e., to have the validity of the accusations against them reviewed by a court). When, pursuant to that decision, Boumediene finally had a U.S. court review the accusations against him in November, 2008, a federal judge -- the far right, Bush-43-appointed Richard Leon -- ruled there was no credible evidence to justify his detention (as well as the detention of four other Algerian-Bosnian detainees) and ordered them all released immediately. In other words, Boumediene spent almost 8 years in a Guantanamo cage, being brutally tortured, despite there being no evidence (as Bosnian courts had already found) that he had done anything wrong at all. I wrote about Boumediene's story in detail here.
Eight months after Judge Leon ordered him freed, Boumediene -- in May, 2009 -- was finally released from Guantanamo and went to France, which agreed to accept him because he has relatives there. At the time he was shipped to Guantanamo in 2002, he had two very young daughters. They are now 13 and 9 years old, and he obviously doesn't know them.
ABC News' Jake Tapper, as part of his traveling with President Obama this week, was in Paris and commendably took the opportunity to interview Boumediene about his ordeal, including the torture to which he was subjected at Guantanamo. Tapper has written a detailed account here. Here is the less detailed though still substantial video segment that appeared this morning on Good Morning America and presumably will appear on other ABC News shows, including World News Tonight:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO6vcsTy
It would be nice if my country was willing to prosecute the American citizens who perpetrated these crimes, and it would also be nice if our president followed his campaign promises and not endorse expansions of policies he said he would discontinue.
