Obama – Page 2 – Engaging Peace

January 12, 2012, is the 10^th anniversary of the day when terrorism suspects were subjected to indefinite incarceration in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, generally in the absence of any charges or trial.

U.S. authorities admit to the detention of 779 detainees, at least 12 of whom were younger than 18 when detained. Eight died while in detention, six purportedly by suicide.

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the detainees “had the right to challenge the lawfulness of their detention,” but by then over 500 of them had been transferred out of Guantanamo, according to an Amnesty International media briefing, 16 December 2011. Wonder why?

Most Americans have probably heard that detainees at Guantanamo were subjected to many forms of assault identified as torture in international law, plus what the military calls “soft torture”—for example, incessantly blasting the prisoners with loud rock songs such as (please pardon the shocking verbatim quote) “Fuck Your God.”

Think of waterboarding, hanging victims by their wrists for hours, terrifying them with vicious dogs. What would you want to do if someone did that to your friends, or family, or members of your community?

A boston.com article about President Obama on January 22, 2009, said that “He signed executive orders to shut down the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention center within a year and to ban harsh interrogations…” The article also reported that Obama’s incoming director of national intelligence, Retired Admiral Dennis Blair, told Congress that the detention center is “a damaging symbol to the world [and] a rallying cry for terrorist recruitment and harmful to our national security.”

Good ideas, but the detention center still has more than 100 prisoners. Time for a change? This coming Wednesday, January 11, will be a National Day of Action to Close Guantanamo; there will be nonviolent actions across the country, with a major demonstration planned in Washington, DC. Please support these efforts in mind and heart if not in action.

For additional resources, see:

The trailer for the Road to Guantanamo
The complete documentary, Road to Guantanamo
The documentary, Policy of Torture: Taxi to the Dark Side
60 Minutes: Nightmare at Guantanamo Bay.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

By guest author Mike Corgan

One senses a barn door closing after the horses have gone out.

There are well-substantiated rumors that NATO convinced Slobodan Milosevic to abandon his war in Kosovo by demonstrating what we could to do to him with our computers beyond just our airstrikes.

Hellfire missile on predator drone — Hellfire missile on Predator drone, inscribed with "In memory of Honorable Ronald Reagan." Image in public domain.

Several years later, Russians, probably with government support, used computers to shut down Estonia for three days over a perceived slight to a statue honoring Russian liberation of Estonia.

Obama administration officials declined to use cyber war against Qaddafi for fear of the example it might set.

We’ve also taken the lead in using drones to strike targets anywhere in the world. What the Bush administration started, the Obama administration has just about perfected. Think of what goes on daily on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Recall the recent stir about killing two Americans by drone strikes in a remote area of Yemen.

Even the Administration realized that here, too, a line may have been crossed. And drones are a relatively cheap technology available to many countries.

The question for us is what rules or laws specific to this new technology are in force? Simple answer, there really aren’t any.

There have been no conferences, no updates of Geneva Conventions, no sustained discussion in public forums about any of these new ways of war that take us far beyond what troops, tanks and ship have always
done.

These weapons are equally effective no matter who uses them and they are available to all.

The capabilities are here. We need to bring out into the open a discourse about rules, laws and norms now.

Michael T. Corgan, Associate Professor and Associate Chair, International Relations, Boston University

A day that should live in infamy

Lawless technology available to all (Just war, Part 10)