Obama v. The Military (Again): The Closure of Guantanamo Bay

Binyam Mohamed at Guantanamo Bay: “I Know Beyond A Doubt He Was Tortured”

Andy Worthington lays out the narrative of the military's attempt to undercut President Obama's order for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in 12 months. Worthington's analysis is that Bush Administration political appointees within the Pentagon have been trying to find a way around Obama's command to suspend Military Commissions.

Worthington also reveals an important story missed by most of the media: the month-long hunger strike of at least 42 detainees. The lawyer for British resident Binyam Mohamed has claimed that at least 20 are in critical condition.

Who's Running Guantanamo?

On January 20, the answer to that question seemed obvious. In his inaugural speech, with George W. Bush standing just behind him, President Obama pointedly pledged to "reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals" -- a clear indication that, as he promised in a speech in August 2007, he would dismantle the extra-legal aberrations of the Bush administration's "War on Terror":

When I am President, America will reject torture without exception. America is the country that stood against that kind of behavior, and we will do so again ... As President, I will close Guantánamo, reject the Military Commissions Act, and adhere to the Geneva Conventions ... We will again set an example to the world that the law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers, and that justice is not arbitrary.

The next day, President Obama requested the military judges at Guantánamo to call a halt for four months to all proceedings in the Military Commissions at Guantánamo (the terror trials conceived by Dick Cheney and his close advisers in November 2001), to give the new administration time to review the system and to decide how best to progress with possible prosecutions.

The day after, he signed his first executive orders, stating that Guantánamo would be closed within a year, upholding the absolute ban on torture, ordering the CIA to close all secret prisons, establishing an immediate review of the cases of the remaining 242 prisoners in Guantánamo, and requiring defense secretary Robert Gates to ensure, within 30 days, that the conditions at Guantánamo conformed to the Geneva Conventions.

At first, everything seemed to be going well. Two judges immediately halted pre-trial hearings in the cases of the Canadian Omar Khadr and the five co-defendants accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks, and the President even secured an extra PR victory when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed architect of 9/11, who had been seeking a swift trial and martyrdom in the discredited Commission system, expressed his dissatisfaction to the judge. "We should continue so we don't go backward, we go forward," he said.

The first sign of dissent from the Pentagon

However, on January 29, the Commissions' recently appointed chief judge, Army Col. James M. Pohl, provided the first challenge to the President's plans, when he refused to suspend the arraignment of the Saudi Prisoner Abdul Rahim al-Nashiri, scheduled for today, February 9, stating that "he found the prosecutors' arguments, including the assertion that the Obama administration needed time to review its options, to 'be an unpersuasive basis to delay the arraignment.'"

Suddenly, urgent questions were raised about who was running Guantánamo, as it transpired that, although Barack Obama could request what he wanted, the Commissions, as Col. Pohl pointed out, had been mandated when "Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, which remains in effect." He added, "The Commission is bound by the law as it currently exists, not as it may change in the future."

Moreover, the only official empowered to call off al-Nashiri's arraignment was Susan Crawford, the Commissions' Convening Authority, who retains her position as the senior Pentagon official overseeing the trials, even though she is a protégée of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and a close friend of Cheney's Chief of Staff, David Addington, the two individuals who, more than any others, established the "arbitrary justice" that Barack Obama pledged to bring to an end.

After a few fraught days, Crawford was evidently prevailed upon to call off the arraignment, which she did on February 5, dismissing the charges without prejudice (meaning that they can be reinstated at a later date). She refused to comment on her decision, and in fact has only spoken out publicly on one occasion since being appointed in February 2007, when she admitted, in the week before Obama's inauguration, that the treatment to which Saudi prisoner Mohammed al-Qahtani was subjected amounted to torture. Instead, a Pentagon spokesman stepped forward to state, "It was her decision, but it reflects the fact that the President has issued an executive order which mandates that the Military Commissions be halted, pending the outcome of several reviews of our operations down at Guantánamo."

This was hardly sufficient to assuage doubts about why a Cheney protégée was still in charge of the Commissions, and these doubts were amplified when the Associated Press announced that two more Bush political appointees -- Sandra Hodgkinson, the former deputy assistant defense secretary for detainee affairs, and special assistant Tara Jones -- had been moved to civil service jobs within the Pentagon. Hodgkinson had spent several years defending the Bush administration's detention policies, and Jones, as the AP explained, worked for a Pentagon public affairs program "aimed at persuading military analysts to generate favorable news coverage on the war in Iraq, conditions at Guantánamo and other efforts to combat terrorism," which was "shut down amid fierce Capitol Hill criticism and investigations into whether it violated Pentagon ethics and Federal Communications Commission policy."

The mass hunger strike

However, while Col. Pohl's dissent and the continuing presence of Susan Crawford raise serious doubts about the Pentagon's ability -- or willingness -- to embrace President Obama's post-Bush world, the most troubling developments are at Guantánamo itself. Although Robert Gates, the only senior Bush administration official specifically retained by Obama, has shown a willingness to adjust to the new conditions (which is, presumably, what encouraged Obama to retain him in the first place), it seems unlikely that, even with the best will in the world, he can address the problems currently plaguing Guantánamo in the remaining twelve days of the time allotted to him to review the conditions at the prison.

A month ago -- inspired, in particular, by the seventh anniversary of the prison's opening, and by the change of administration -- at least 42 prisoners at Guantánamo embarked on a hunger strike. According to guidelines laid down by medical practitioners, force-feeding mentally competent prisoners who embark on a hunger strike is prohibited, but at Guantánamo this obligation has never carried any weight. Force-feeding has been part of the regime throughout its history, and was vigorously embraced in January 2006, in response to an intense and long-running mass hunger strike, when a number of special restraint chairs were brought to Guantánamo, which were used to "break" the strike.

As I reported last week, the force-feeding, which involves strapping prisoners into the chairs using 16 separate straps and forcing a tube through their nose and into their stomach twice a day, is clearly a world away from the humane treatment required by the Geneva Conventions, as are the "forced cell extractions" used to take unwilling prisoners to be force-fed.

Now, however, Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley, the military defense attorney for the British resident Binyam Mohamed (whose "extraordinary rendition" and torture set off a Transatlantic scandal last week), has reported that conditions inside the prison have deteriorated still further. In an article in yesterday's Observer, Lt. Col. Bradley, who indicated that her client was "dying in his Guantánamo cell," reported on a visit to the prison last week, and stated,

At least 50 people are on hunger strike, with 20 on the critical list, according to Binyam. The JTF [Joint Task Force] are not commenting because they do not want the public to know what is going on. Binyam has witnessed people being forcibly extracted from their cell. Swat teams in police gear come in and take the person out; if they resist, they are force-fed and then beaten. Binyam has seen this and has not witnessed this before. Guantánamo Bay is in the grip of a mass hunger strike and the numbers are growing; things are worsening.

It is so bad that there are not enough chairs to strap them down and force-feed them for a two- or three-hour period to digest food through a feeding tube. Because there are not enough chairs the guards are having to force-feed them in shifts. After Binyam saw a nearby inmate being beaten it scared him and he decided he was not going to resist. He thought, "I don't want to be beat, injured or killed." Given his health situation, one good blow could be fatal.

Lt. Col. Bradley added that Mohamed's account of the "savage beating" endured by a fellow prisoner was the "first account [she had] personally received of a detainee being physically assaulted at Guantánamo."

And yet, although Lt. Col. Bradley's account indicates that the crisis in Guantánamo is such that ongoing discussions about implementing the Geneva Conventions should be replaced by urgent intervention to address the prisoners' complaints (and alleviating the chronic isolation in which most of the prisoners are held would be a start), the conditions in Guantánamo have been met with a resolute silence from the Pentagon and the White House.

Will it really take another death in Guantánamo -- the sixth -- to provoke an immediate response?

Update on Obama v. The Military: Where Next in Afghanistan?

Is President Obama preparing to stall out the military's request for 25,000 more US troops to Afghanistan?

The Times of London, in an article that is not replicated elsewhere, thinks so. It asserts, on the basis of an unnamed source:

The Pentagon was set to announce the deployment of 17,000 extra soldiers and marines last week but Robert Gates, the defence secretary, postponed the decision after questions from Obama.

The president was concerned by a lack of strategy at his first meeting with Gates and the US joint chiefs of staff last month in “the tank”, the secure conference room in the Pentagon. He asked: “What’s the endgame?” and did not receive a convincing answer.

On its own, that's not strong evidence that Obama is going to block the military's insistence on a "surge" to be announced before the NATO summit on 5 April. However, the excellent Juan Cole stacks up the reasons why Obama might want to pull the plug on Genius/General David Petraeus's plan.

As we've noted for weeks, the US is in a real logistical bind. With the closure of its main supply route from Pakistan, it has to find an alternative for all those extra forces. Russia, however, is playing a double game: while it says publicly it will allow the US to move supplies across its territory, it has encouraged Kyrgyzstan to close the US Manas airbase that is needed for the effort. Meanwhile Uzbekistan, which did host US bases after 9/11 but then evicted American forces in 2005, is only prepared to allow non-military supplies across its supplies.

Conclusion? The US is going to have pay a very high price --- economic and political --- to get full support for an alternative supply route. That is --- and here's a crazy thought --- unless it's prepared to supply Afghanistan from the west via Iran.

But, as good as Cole's analysis is, I think it misses the wider political point. It's pretty clear that Washington would prefer to see the back of President Hamid Karzai, its choice to lead Afghanistan in 2001 but a leader who --- depending on your point of view --- is too tolerant of corruption or too critical of the US approach to be a solid ally in this new surge.

However, unless the US is prepared to abandon the semblance of national government, it needs someone to play the political partner in Kabul. And Karzai, who is getting bolder even as his position is more and more tenuous, has made the process more difficult by suspending elections for the foreseeable future.

That means that, short of a coup, the Obama Administration is encumbered by a national leader who is now an opponent of its plans. And that means that, even if the US can find short-term military success against the insurgents, it has no political "endgame" in sight.

I'm wary of the V-word as an analogy but, for students of history, it might not be a bad idea to revisit Ngo Dinh Diem and Saigon 1963. Let's hope that Barack Obama chooses to take a glance, and draw any suitable lessons, this week.

Today's Obamameter: The Latest in US Foreign Policy (8 February)

Latest Post: Update on Obama v. The Military - Where Next in Afghanistan?
Latest Post: A New US Foreign Policy? The Biden Speech in Munich
Latest Post: Transcript of Joe Biden's Speech on Obama Foreign Policy

Current Obamameter: Settled

7:20 p.m. We've just offered, in a separate post, a latest view of the battle in Washington over the proposed "surge" in Afghanistan.

5:10 p.m. Message to Georgia: No, No, NATO. Following up his overtures to Russia on Saturday in his Munich speech, Vice President Joe Biden made it clear on Sunday that the Obama Administration would not be pushing Georgia's accession to NATO.

After meeting Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, Biden responded to a question about accession: "I'm in favor of Georgia's continued independence and autonomy. That is a decision for Georgia to make."

5:05 p.m. Important news out of Tehran: former President Mohammad Khatami has announced he will run in June's Presidential election.

4:35 p.m. And It Went So Well in Baghdad. President Obama's envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, has said that victory there will be "much tougher" than in Iraq. He told the Munich Security Conference, ""I have never seen anything like the mess we have inherited."

Two US troops and two Afghans were killed by a bomb in Helmand Province on Sunday.



Afternoon Update (4:15 p.m. GMT; 11:15 a.m. Washington): Another bit of publicity around the Afghanistan battle. National Security Advisor James Jones has told a German newspaper that a decision on strategy will be needed by the NATO summit on 5 April. Jones added platitudes such as "answers will not be unilateral but multilateral" and the insistance that NATO and the Afghan Government must stop the drug trade as the "economic fuel of the insurgency".

Decoding? Jones is flagging up the duties that US military, as it "surges", would like to pass on to European partners. That's especially pertinent in Germany, where there is public unease about taking on the hard-line enforcement of a drugs ban. Indeed, it is no coincidence that it was German media that leaked the unwise statement of an American military commander last week that troops should have the right to shoot drug producers on sight, whether or not they are connect to the Taliban.

On the Russian front, Moscow has welcomed Joe Biden's call "to reset the button" of relations. Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said, "It is obvious the new U.S. administration has a very strong desire to change and that inspires optimism,"

4 p.m.  Just back from recording for Al Jazeera's Inside Story and an engaging discussion on the Biden speech and US foreign policy with Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and Rosemary Hollis of City University, London. Airtime is 5:30 p.m. GMT.

1 p.m. Al Jazeera English is now focusing on Afghan President Hamid Karzai's address to the Munich Security Conference. karzai has made a big political play, setting out a strategy of reaching out to the "moderate Taliban" for discussions. This is not a new position for Karzai, but in the midst of the US consideration of a military "surge", the timing of this makes it an important intervention.

Interesting that AJE is framing this as a US v. Afghanistan battle in which "the US will get its way" on the troop build-up, missing the emering story of division within the White House.

We'll follow up later, after speaking with AJE, about the latest from Washington. It appears that President Obama is holding out against immediate approval of the military's proposals because of the lack of an "exit strategy".

8:45 a.m. So how intensive is the Obama Administration's spin campaign on Afghanistan and Pakistan? In the same New York Times that tells Afghan leader Hamid Karzai he could soon be yesterday's man, there is a loving profile of Obama envoy Richard Holbrooke, complete with family photos and Superman rhetoric:

You have a problem that is larger than life. To deal with it you need someone who’s larger than life.

8:33 a.m. The New York Times has a dramatic article on the widening gap between the US and Afghan leader Hamid Karzai, adding weight to the speculation that Washington may try to "ditch" its erstwhile choice to run the country. Fed by inside information from Obama Adminsitration officials, the article opens with an account of how Vice President Joe Biden walked out on a dinner with Karzai last month after the Afghan leader denied any corruption in his Government:

President Obama said he regarded Mr. Karzai as unreliable and ineffective. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said he presided over a “narco-state.” The Americans making Afghan policy, worried that the war is being lost, are vowing to bypass Mr. Karzai and deal directly with the governors in the countryside.

Morning Update (8:30 a.m. GMT; 3:30 a.m. Washington): Pretty quiet overnight, so we've focused this morning, in a separate entry, on an analysis of Joe Biden's speech to the Munich Security Conference, setting out the "new tone" (and, for us, troubling cases) in US foreign policy. We've also posted the transcript of the speech.

Scott Lucas of Enduring America will be appearing on Al Jazeera English at 2 p.m. GMT to discuss the Obama/Biden approach.

Dose of Cold Reality Statement of the Day: Obama Style v. Middle East Substance

Egyptian author Awaa al Aswany in today's New York Times:

I...enlisted the help of my two teenage daughters, May and Nada, to guide me through the world of Egyptian blogs, where young Egyptian men and women can express themselves with relative freedom. There I found a combination of glowing enthusiasm for Mr. Obama, a comparison between the democratic system in America and the tyranny in Egypt, the expectation of a fairer American policy in the Middle East, and then severe disappointment after Mr. Obama’s failure to intercede in Gaza. I thus concluded that no matter how many envoys, speeches or interviews Mr. Obama offers to us, he will not win the hearts and minds of Egyptians until he takes up the injustice in the Middle East. I imagine the same holds true for much of the greater Muslim world.

Scott Lucas on Al Jazeera English "Inside Story"

I'll be appearing on "Inside Story" on Al Jazeera English at 5:30 p.m. GMT, discussing US Vice Pre Joe Biden's speech in Munich and the foreign policy of the Obama Administration.

Al Jazeera English has a live Web stream, though I'm not sure it is in perfect time with the television broadcast. The item will be up later on the Inside Story webpage.