I’m tired. Not a lot of sleep last night. I spent it in one of those semi-states of sleep, the sort where you’re aware that you have to be mindful of something that requires that you remain somewhat conscious but are still trying to sleep at the same time.

It’s clear and sunny here again today, as it has been this past week. In fact, it’s been uncommonly beautiful for this time of year, even given the chill the wind provides here on the West Coast that has the annoying ability to cut through everything that you’re wearing and go straight to your bones. We share that phenomenon with the UK, where it’s routine business as well.

I’m rambling, and I’m aware of it. I’m rambling because I’m having one of those mornings that I’m finding it difficult to concentrate. I’m having one of those mornings because, as has been the case over the last month, the list of things to touch upon grows so quickly every day that it seems almost impossible to retain it all and then translate it into something cogent.

Just off the top of my head there’s…

The recent revelation that the Canadian Armed Forces have stopped the transfer of prisoners to Afghan authorities because of a report of abuse on the 5th of November of last year despite the fact that last May, after a scandal broke regarding the Canadian transfer of prisoners to Afghan authorities that were known for their use of torture, the government claimed that it was taking steps to immediately rectify the situation.

The recently released Manley Report, which, although critical of numerous aspects of the mission in Afghanistan, has basically provided the government with what can only be viewed as a blank cheque with regards to Canadian combat operations in that country. Of course, the report is non-binding, but its ramifications on a political level are extremely convenient. Canada, of course, is only one of three nations involved in direct combat operations in Afghanistan, and of the three represents the smallest contingent. That being the case, our losses, compared to those of the United States and the UK, are wholly disproportionate. The debate, however, remains transfixed on our continued support of the mission’s objectives, to help stabilize the nation and provide it security, even though other members of ISAF, with considerably larger forces in country, continue to refuse to have their contingents involved in direct combat operations. There is also the concern that even though our efforts are aimed at ensuring democratic stability in Afghanistan, that its implementation is, in effect, the representation of Western regional aspirations, and therefore not dissimilar to Soviet regional aspirations in the 70’s when the USSR was responsible for aiding in the supplanting of a pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. Thus, the real test of Afghan democracy will come when the nation has been secured and Western exploitative practices begin in earnest.

That is certainly not to say that the Taliban should be allowed to run rampant and plunge the nation into complete chaos, only that precluding the possibility of negotiations for the purposes of resolution is counter productive. Ultimately, there are always going to be those that support some, if not all, of the Taliban’s agenda, which raises a very important question: must those that do be wholly eliminated before progress can be made? And if they are not, what assurances do we have that there will not be a resurgence in the future that could seriously threaten the stability of the country, even after it possesses a well trained and equipped military? Given that, is it not fair to say that Western military involvement, on even the smallest of levels, will be required in Afghanistan for years to come?

Of course, all of that doesn’t even touch on the realities of the Pakistani frontier and the support covertly supplied those in opposition to the current Afghan government by elements within the Pakistani military establishment itself.

The possibility that Kenya could explode at any moment despite last minute attempts at political reconciliation aimed at stemming violence. As it stands now, the country is already in the early stages of a humanitarian crisis and also on the cusp of what could quickly turn into a genocidal event.

The recent disparity of global markets.

The continuing unrest in Pakistan.

The case of Canadian Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr, who has been held at the facility since 2002. Khadr was captured at the age of 15 and, as the French Foreign Ministry recently pointed out…

“…all children associated with an armed conflict should be treated accordingly. As a minor at the time of the events, Mr. Khadr must be given special treatment — a point on which there is a universal consensus.”

The Canadian government has refused to intercede in Khadr’s case.

Gaza. While many have taken to illegally entering Egypt so that they can attempt to get food, fuel, and other sundries, Israel’s position remains steadfast, that being that the blockade is a move against the continued rocket attacks emanating from Gaza into Israel. The majority of the United Nations Security Council has labeled the blockade a violation of international humanitarian law and a collective punishment against the entire population, but the United States refuses to support that position without the inclusion of language that supports Israel’s concerns regarding the actions of Palestinian militants. Caught in the middle are, as usual, the 1.5 million residents of Gaza itself.

The firing of Linda Keen, President of The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, hours before she was to appear before a House committee in Ottawa. Keen was fired, according to Federal Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn, due to the government’s ‘lack of confidence in her leadership’. This, of course, happened after the Commission’s attempt to have the Chalk River facility closed due to safety concerns and government’s decision to ignore the Commission.

The realities of the sanctions against Iran.

The ruinous economic reality of America’s imperialist adventures.

The frightening resurgence of Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz.

Media attacks on Heath Ledger following his death.

The Jose Padilla affair.

The continued humanitarian crisis unfolding in Somalia.

The Sudanese government’s decision to make Musa Hilal, a man accused of coordinating the Janjiweed militias in Darfur, an advisor to Federal Affairs Minister Abdel Basit Sabderat.

And So Forth

In truth, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Iraq is, of course, absent – primarily recent events in Baquba - as is the ever-evolving telecommunications scandal in the US and the Sibel Edmonds affair, the unrest in Zimbabwe, and events in Chiapas.

Last, but certainly not least, there are also those voices that tend to make excellent arguments on a routine basis, such as Robert Fisk, Stephen Zunes, and (for your viewing pleasure), the always brilliant Chalmers Johnson…

Over the last seven years, critics of this blog have repeatedly asked why, as a Canadian, I spend so much time focusing on US foreign policy and its ramifications abroad. One would think the answer to that question apparent enough, but the recent uproar caused by the leaking of a manual produced by our Foreign Ministry for diplomats identifying the United States, among others, as a nation whose practices regarding prisoners includes the possibility of torture and detention outside of the rule of law provides a glaring example of why the influence of the United States, and its current policies, on this country should be of real concern to all Canadians.

After the exposure of the manual, the Conservative government of this country worked to expediently appease the United States and Israel, claiming that their inclusion was a mistake, selling out its own Foreign Ministry in the process and, dare I say, the Canadian people.

In effect, the Foreign Ministry’s manual will be altered not because the United States isn’t guilty of such practices, but because of their objections to the ‘audacity’ of the Foreign Ministry, a position entirely defended by our own government, the very same government of which the Foreign Ministry is a part. Thus, we have offered our sincerest apologies for ‘the error’, claiming that it does not reflect Canadian policy.

Of course, you’ll not see our government apologizing to China, Egypt, Iran, or Afghanistan, who were also included. Ironically, China is one of our foremost trading partners despite its human rights record, we’re currently part of a force occupying Afghanistan and have been culpable in the transfer of prisoners to local authorities that are guilty of employing torture, and Egypt, despite its regime, remains a significant recipient of US military aid. Iran, of course, remains the stickiest of issues, though it should not be overlooked that we are the leading supplier of oil to the United States (we provide 17% of it, more than any other country), and it is in our best interest to ensure that the expensive practice of exploiting the tar sands remains lucrative given the increase in global oil prices and the fact that an Iranian oil bourse based in the Euro would have devastating effects on our industry and the world market. Were Iran not a member of Mr. Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’, the fact that it possesses 10% of the world’s reserves would definitely be a factor with regards to the continued development and success of our own industry, as their reserves are far easier, and cheaper, to exploit.

With regards to this country’s position on US torture practices, the Maher Arar case set a precedent that cannot, and should not, be overlooked. Rendered to Syria by the CIA with the assistance of the RCMP and CSIS, Arar spent a year in a Syrian jail where he was tortured and made to confess to being a member of terrorist organization. As most are aware, Arar has since been cleared of all such suspicions and, more importantly, his ordeal uncovered our cooperation with the United States in the practice of rendition and, ultimately, their use of a foreign proxy for the purposes of interrogation, which included the use of torture.

And yet, we’re groveling because the US is offended that it’s been included.

“Angry U.S. officials asked that the Guantanamo Bay reference be stricken from the manual. “We find it offensive for us to be on the same list with countries like Iran and China,” huffed U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins. “Quite frankly, it’s absurd.”

Of course, being the obedient lap dog that we are, we have pledged to amend the manual and remove all references to the United States.

An editorialist for the Hartford Current put is best today, writing…

“The Bush administration got an unexpected glimpse in the mirror and didn’t like what it saw. But instead of addressing the problem, it’s arranging to have the mirror removed.”

Thankfully, the Bush administration can count on the Harper administration to make that removal a reality.

The prison at Bagram, not something that is commonly referenced with regards to US detention facilities. While Guantanamo garners most of the world’s attention, the prison at the US base at Bagram is currently home to 630 prisoners, almost three times as many as are being held at Guantanamo…

“In 2005, following well-documented accounts of detainee deaths, torture, and “disappeared” prisoners, the U.S. undertook efforts to turn the facility over to the Afghan government. But thanks to a series of legal, bureaucratic and administrative missteps, the prison is still under U.S. military control. And a recent confidential report from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has reportedly complained about the continued mistreatment of prisoners.

The ICRC report is said to cite massive overcrowding, “harsh” conditions, lack of clarity about the legal basis for detention, prisoners held “incommunicado”, in “a previously undisclosed warren of isolation cells,” and “sometimes subjected to cruel treatment in violation of the Geneva Conventions.” Some prisoners have been held without charges or lawyers for more than five years.”

And what would a US detention facility be without the initial denial of abuse only to be later recounted after the press did some digging…

“U.S. military officials in Afghanistan initially said the deaths were from natural causes. Lt. Gen. Daniel K. McNeill, the commander of allied forces in Afghanistan at the time, denied then that prisoners had been chained to the ceiling or that conditions at Bagram endangered the lives of prisoners.

But after an investigation by The New York Times, the Army acknowledged that the deaths were homicides. The prisoners were chained to the ceiling and beaten, causing their deaths. Military coroners ruled that both the prisoners’ deaths were homicide.”

Of course, the US is attempting to have the prisoners transferred to a new facility that is under Afghan control. Unfortunately, one of the entanglements stopping it from happening is the Afghan government’s refusal to adopt the current administration’s model that requires prisoners to be labeled ‘enemy combatants’ and therefore held outside of the statutes of the Afghan legal system.

Since the scandal involving the destruction of CIA tapes surfaced I have been trying to compile information regarding it. I have, thus far, made a few entries regarding the issue, but wanted to delve further into it having found some very interesting information.

First, Michael Ratner, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and noted human rights lawyer, has made numerous points regarding the tapes that are of value. The first is actual quite simple. If the CIA was worried that the tapes could expose who was involved in the interrogations, as they’ve stated, they could have simply digitally pixilated out the faces of those involved, a procedure that is, by no means, complicated.

The second is that the only reason to actually destroy the tapes is to conceal the methods used in the interrogation process; that much, I believe, is evident. If the tapes showed acts of torture, it would violate the United States Anti-Torture Statue, and those responsible could be prosecuted under that law and face penalties – including everyone knowingly involved in initiating the policy itself. Being that the United States does not adhere to the authority of the International Criminal Court regarding such matters, the only legal hurdle left to face would be the US’s own Anti-Torture Statute.

Now, as many of you are aware, an ex-CIA agent, John Kiriakou, recently conducted several interviews about the tapes and the methods used during the interrogations. Being that he is no longer a member of the Central Intelligence Agency, to reveal that information Kiriakou would have had to have gone through a Clearance Review to be able to reveal that waterboarding was in fact used as a method of interrogation. In essence, the Central Intelligence Agency would have had to clear it before Kiriakou was able to discuss the issue. Interestingly, the CIA has now asked the US Justice Department to investigate whether Kiriakou illegally disclosed classified information.

Given that, the CIA has done at least one of two things.

The first is that it has all but admitted that the United States employs waterboarding as a interrogation technique, not to mention the fact that it did so at a Black Site, being that the tapes were not made at Guantanamo or any other known facility that the CIA has been willing to openly admit to.

The second, and this is speculation on my part, though not out of the realm of possibility, is that it quietly approved Kiriakou’s public admission to protect itself.

Now, that might sound absurd to some of you, but the history of the CIA as it pertains to its relationships with those administrations that have abused it should not be overlooked. In truth, it works both ways. The CIA has also been responsible for manipulating administrative policy in the past, there’s no question of that, especially during the Dulles era. But in this case, the CIA might very well be attempting to forgo being scapegoated by placing the blame where the blame actually lies – on the administration itself. The very same administration that has worked diligently to categorize waterboarding as a procedure that does not constitute torture.

The most telling piece of evidence that supports this theory is that four members of the Bush administration openly discussed the destruction of the tapes with the CIA between 2003 and 2005. The four individuals, Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, John Bellinger, and Harriet Miers, had foreknowledge of the tapes contents, and their role in discussing the destruction of the tapes not only underscores the administration’s involvement in the creation of interrogation policy itself, but that it played a role in willingly covering up evidence that demonstrated its criminality.

Also of import is that fact that the 9/11 Commission made repeated requests to the CIA for all materials regarding the interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects. Such material would have included the tapes in question, which were not made available to the Commission. This, of course, brings into question the CIA’s motives for not supplying the tapes to the Commission. Was it at the behest of the administration? Were the tapes ultimately destroyed because their content, in the hands of the Commission, would have been disastrous for the administration? The Commission asked the CIA for all documents, reports, and information regarding interrogation in 2003 and 2004. Of course, by 2004 the Abu Ghraib scandal had broke, so handing over tapes that showed US operatives torturing an individual would have certainly been a political risk not worth taking. Thus, in 2004, the CIA claimed that it had, in fact, handed over all relevant materials to the Commission. The tapes, of course, were not.

Some in Congress are now claiming that the CIA is guilty of obstruction of justice. Backed into a corner, the question that must now be asked is if the CIA will fight back, and by doing so work to turn the tables on an administration that has abused it for the last five years.

Loopholes. In this particular case, I’ve been sitting here shaking my head for the past half hour because it doesn’t get any more mind boggling than this. Follow the handy graphic created for your enjoyment…

That’s right, cherubs. In the end, a legal ambiguity might excuse the destruction of the tapes because the interrogations captured on video were conducted at locations that the United States adamantly refused to admit existed until the EU launched an official investigation into the existence of Black Sites in Eastern Europe. Of course, that doesn’t mean that they were limited to Eastern Europe, just that the exposure of the system occurred because of those particular locations. In truth, if you do a little digging, you’ll discover that, beyond the use of foreign destinations for purposes of Rendition, Black Sites have existed, or continue to exist, in Africa (Ethiopia is suspected of being one of the latest locales), the Middle East, South East Asia, and in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ironically, it wasn’t too long ago that Condoleezza Rice was denying their existence. Now they may very well provide the thinnest of legal loopholes and offer the CIA, and the administration, a rabbit hole to conveniently fall down.

I’d like to write an entry wholly dedicated to Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly regarding his recent diatribe on waterboarding. In it, he asked viewers if they would employ the practice if it would save the lives of their children and loved ones. Of course, as is O’Reilly’s style, he answered that question for them, claiming that they obviously would.

I don’t really care about this issue as it applies to the current US political landscape, it’s to be expected that O’Reilly would present the matter in such a light while completely overlooking the larger picture. The larger picture is, of course, precedent and its implications regarding global human rights standards. If the United States can employ a technique that has been considered torture since the 13th century, one that was used by the Gestapo and the Japanese during World War 2 which led to war crimes convictions at the end of that war by allied prosecutors, then it only stands to reason that the global precedent being set is extremely dangerous. How are we to condemn the use of such practices by others - because make no mistake, we are that hypocritical. And what of those that possess a far more ‘flexible’ view of ‘interrogation techniques’? What if, in other nations, lawmakers have backed the use of other practices that constitute torture? According to O’Reilly, if Congress says it isn’t torture, then it isn’t, and therefore can be used.

So, first and foremost, is O’Reilly’s question to his viewers regarding the use of waterboarding to protect their children and loved ones limited to Americans, or is it a universal proposition? If it is, and Iraqi insurgents (and by that I am not referring to Salafi Jihadi groups), who view US forces as a threat to their well being, capture a US service person and ‘interrogate’ them for information about military maneuvers in hopes of avoiding the loss of civilian lives due to, for example, impending US air strikes, is waterboarding still tolerable?

How about in the case of the Russians, the Chinese, the Egyptians, the Israelis, the Iranians, the Afghans, the Pakistanis, the Somalis, the Ethiopians, the Sudanese, the Colombians, the Saudis, the North Koreans – in fact, anyone that can claim the use of such methods paramount in the acquisition of information for the purposes of national security? Or do you have to have attained some entirely fictitious sense of overwhelming moral superiority to actually employ torture and claim it justifiable?

Here’s the deal. Only those that possess the ability to excuse themselves because of their overwhelming military superiority can justify such hypocrisy. That is, whether Mr. O’Reilly likes it or not, a historical fact. Those that possess unchallenged power have the ability to cast the despicable in an entirely purposeful light, a practice that is evident throughout recorded history.

That said; where does it stop? Does it end at waterboarding? Does it end at the preemptive invasion of other nations in an attempt to ensure national security? Does it end when enough innocent people in far distant lands have been slaughtered and traumatized and displaced by the millions?

Ultimately, I challenge Mr. O’Reilly to define the term ‘harsh methods’ given that the practice of waterboarding has survived as a recognized method of torture for roughly 600 years. O’Reilly claims that such methods work, and that those that disagree are somehow diluting themselves. But the fact of the matter is, if Bill O’Reilly were waterboarded, I have this funny feeling that his ‘interrogators’ could have him confessing to numerous things, both real and imagined, in no time at all. And as for outright torture being effective, give me ten minutes with Mr. O’Reilly held in four point restraints and a surgical scalpel at my disposal and I can guarantee you he’d admit to not only being a pedophile, but a member of the baseball hall of fame and Santa Claus.

The Word Of One Man

O’Reilly’s position regarding waterboarding is, in part, based on the recent interview of John Kiriakou, a former CIA agent that was a part of the ‘interrogation’ team that waterboarded Abu Zubaydah. In the interview, Kiriakou claimed that the intelligence gleaned from the interrogation disrupted maybe dozens of attacks, a point that O’Reilly then amplifies by claiming that it could have saved thousands of lives.

If the severity of the intelligence gleaned was of such dire import, how about some concrete proof regarding how that intelligence was used to seriously disrupt terrorist activities? For all anyone knows, every word of what Zubaydah told his captors could have been baseless. How are we, the public, to know? According to Kiriakou, Zubaydah lasted approximately 30 to 35 seconds before breaking and then, a day later, decided to talk. But beyond that, there is no proof that what Zubaydah told the CIA was at all accurate. For all anyone knows, it could have led to false detentions, dead ends, or even minimal successes provided to placate the CIA’s interests in an attempt to secure more favorable terms in captivity.

Of course, individuals such as Mr. O’Reilly would claim such information a matter of national security and therefore not open to public scrutiny. But if that’s the case, how is anyone to actually know if any information gained through the use of waterboarding is at all accurate? In truth, and at this point, anything could be said to justify the practice and tangible results would never have to be provided anyone other than those culpable in the institution of the practice itself.

“Honor bound to defend freedom”. It has a nice ring to it. Its patriotic zeal eases the mind, swells the heart, and clears the conscience. Surely whatever transpires beyond those fences and barbed wire is for the best. We are, after all, at war.

In fact, in light of the recent CIA tape scandal, a former CIA agent has come forward and claimed that the practice of waterboarding has saved lives, that it got Abu Zubaydah to talk in less than 35 seconds, which, according to the agent, may have averted “dozens” of planned al-Qaeda attacks. He also claimed that the use of the practice, which has been considered an act of torture since the Inquisition, was approved at the highest levels of government. Of course, he also refers to the ‘program’, that being the method of interrogating of prisoners, as ‘lawful’.

For centuries the men of ancient Rome corrupted themselves for what they believed the betterment of the republic. Murder and political corruption were justified by claiming them necessary for the preservation of the republic. Outright tyranny, they argued, was the true enemy of the state, and therefore whatever was required to subvert it was tolerable. Ironically, they argued, of course, that the people whom they claimed to represent and protect were too ignorant to understand the intricacies of that duty.

Be it men of nobility and wealth acting within the framework of an outwardly judicious political construct or a benevolent imperial dictation, the truth is that both are equally as dangerous and misrepresentative of that which they claim to ultimately represent – the interests of the people based on their belief of the principles of the state itself. It is best to remember that Rome’s first imperial son, Gaius Octavius Thurinus, later renamed Augustus, the adopted son of Gaius Julius Caesar, rose to power not only through military and political calculation, but also on a platform of public welfare and security. His singular rule, which officially began shortly after the battle of Actium, is known as Pax Augusta, the longest period of peace and minimal conquest between 27 BC and 180 AD. But despite this, his legacy was that of the usurpation of representative government, even though prior to his ascension it never truly existed. The truth, of course, is that the Senate, which consisted wholly of the nobility, ruled Rome by a consensus almost wholly steeped in self-preservation and greed.

If any of that sounds familiar, or applicable, to present circumstances, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. For even Cato, despite the glorifications foisted upon him by historians, was a part of the very mechanism that, while claiming to represent the people, did little more than represent its own interests.

So here we find ourselves, in the clutches of a global war of ambiguity in which measures have been taken that completely contradict the principles of those engaged in it. The truth is that very little has changed over the last 2,100 years when it comes to representative government and its realities. Politics is still a game of self-preservation, and despite what is said by those who claim to represent those principles steeped in a variety of warm phrases, how the game is played has not significantly been altered. To dare to swim headlong against the current, to commit oneself to the possibility of destruction because of it, is something that those elected to government rarely consider solely because it flies in the face of political self-preservation. That being the case, who is left to defend that which has been sold us, those impeccable credentials that separate us from those creatures of the world that adhere to no such code?

Now there’s a question.

The destruction of the now infamous CIA tapes, which was undertaken supposedly to protect the identities of those conducting the interrogations, is simply a representation of a reality that has long existed but is rarely confronted. That the people’s understanding of political necessity is entirely dependent on the manner in which it’s presented them, and that that manner is rarely, if ever, accurate. That is precisely how a nation whose founding principles are in direct opposition to the actions of the current administration can be swayed to believe that the abandonment of those principles is not occurring, but that they are actually being protected. Fear, like waves against rocks, pounds the public relentlessly making the usurpation of those principles not merely tolerable, but supportable. And in the midst of it all, political self-preservation ensures that it remains the status quo.

The destruction of tapes, the ongoing argument regarding what does and does not constitute torture – these are simply distractions. In the end, the only question that must be answered is - are we willing to become something unrecognizable in the name of preserving the corruption of what we ultimately perceive ourselves to be? And if that perception is not viewed as corrupted, then who are we?

As we’re all aware, Santa Claus doesn’t exist. Neither does the tooth fairy, Frosty the Snowman, the Boogieman, the Easter Bunny, and, of course, Black Sites, nor the illegal seizure and transport of foreign nationals by the United States, a practice known as Rendition.

Were one to ask Maher Arar, he would certainly tell you that Rendition is a very real practice, having been a victim of it. US intelligence leaned on the RCMP, the RCMP offered up a lamb, Arar was seized at JFK, flown to Washington and then to Jordan where he was driven to the Syrian border and handed over to the Syrian authorities who then, over the course of a year, held him in prison and tortured him in an attempt to extract information regarding a subject he knew nothing about – al-Qaeda.

Of course, the inquiry into Arar’s Rendition resulted in the sacking of the head of the RCMP, an apology from the government, and a financial settlement. But thus far US courts have rejected Arar’s attempts to hold the government that was actually responsible for the Rendition accountable.

No real surprise there.

Unfortunately, Canada is not alone in complicity when it comes to aiding and abetting the practice of Rendition. Others have willfully allowed planes Rendering detainees to use their airspace and even land within their borders, fully aware of their cargo and purpose…

“The secret flight plans of American military planes have revealed for the first time how European countries helped send prisoners, including British citizens, to the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

Despite widespread criticism of alleged human rights abuses and torture at the US base in Cuba, a Sunday Times investigation has shown that at least five European countries gave the United States permission to fly nearly 700 terrorist suspects across their territory.

Three years ago, The Sunday Times published flight logs of CIA civilian jets in Europe, setting off a controversy over the whether countries across the continent have been secretly involved in America’s rendition of terrorist suspects to countries that carry out torture.

The row is now set to be reignited. Inquiries by Ana Gomes, a Portuguese member of the European parliament, have uncovered not only more CIA flight logs but also more sensitive military flight plans, which until now have remained a closely guarded secret.

The logs show how most prisoners changed planes at a Turkish military airbase and flew across Greek, Italian and Portuguese airspace. Others reached Cuba after touching down in Spain, whose governing socialist party once expressed indignation at conditions in Guantanamo.

The flight logs show that three Britons - Shafiq Rasul, Jamal Udeen and Asif Iqbal - were flown across Europe to Cuba on January 14, 2002. Moazzam Begg, another Briton, was taken by the same route to Guantanamo on February 2, 2003; and Binyam Mohamed, a British resident whose release the British government is now trying to negotiate, arrived in Cuba after crossing Europe in a special flight in September 2004.

According to the flight plans, the first 23 prisoners to arrive at Guantanamo - including another British citizen, Feroz Abbasi, then 21, and an Australian, David Hicks - had arrived at the American naval base in Cuba after flying from the Moron airbase in Spain.

Abbasi has claimed in a statement that prisoners were abused within hours of arriving. “We were made to sit on our heels, one foot over the other, supported by one foot’s toes alone, for hours. Some of us were old, weak, fatigued, and injured - they were the ones to drop first in the searing Caribbean heat.”

Described by the Pentagon as the “worst of the worst” from Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the images of prisoners such as Abbasi dressed in orange jumpsuits, their heads shaved and shackled by their wrists and ankles, shocked the world. Within a day, Donald Rumsfeld, then US defence secretary, announced that the Geneva conventions would not apply to what were now called “enemy combatants”.

Last week, Europe’s leading watchdog on human rights alleged that European countries had breached the international convention against torture by giving the US secret permission to use its airspace.

Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, said: “What happened at Guantanamo was torture and it is illegal to provide facilities or anything to make this torture possible. Under the law, European governments should have intervened and should not have given permission to let these flights happen.”

Gomes added: “It’s clear to me that Guantanamo could not have been created without the involvement of European countries.”

Methods used at Guantanamo Bay, condemned by Britain’s Court of Appeal as a legal “black hole” and as a “monstrous failure of justice” by one law lord, have included the prolonged use of isolation, sleep deprivation, and use of stress positions. “These are methods that have been declared as unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights,” Hammarberg said.

The military flight plans show that all key flights arriving in Guantanamo had come across European airspace either through Spain or the Incirlik airbase in southeastern Turkey. The Sunday Times compared the military flight plans against a database compiled by Reprieve, the British-based charity that represents Guantanamo prisoners, of when prisoners first weighed in at the camp.

The investigation, cross-checked against other Pentagon documents, shows for the first time which prisoner arrived on which flight at Guantanamo, and by what route. At least 170 other prisoners flew over Spanish territory, more than 700 crossed Portuguese space, and more than 680 were transshipped at Incirlik. Most flights also crossed Greek and Italian airspace, according to a source in European air traffic control.

On February 2 2003, for example, a US Air Force C-17 Globemaster plane took off from Incirlik with 27 prisoners on board for Cuba. The same day, prisoner number 558 weighed in at 136lb (62kg) at the camp. He can be named as Moazzam Begg, now 39, from Birmingham, who was released in January 2005, and has never been charged with a crime.

Interviewed by phone last week, Begg recalled: “Inside the plane there was a chain around our waist, and it connected to cuffs around my wrists, which were tied in the back, and to my ankles. We were seated but it was so painful not being able to speak, to hear, to breathe properly, to look, to turn left or right, to move your hands, stretch your legs, or anything.” At the time flights were landing in Spain and crossing Spanish airspace, socialist leaders there were expressing “indignation” over conditions in Guantanamo. Now the socialists are in government after winning an election in March 2004 just after the Madrid train bombings and they are being asked to defend Spain’s continued collaboration with American operations. Under international law, government and military planes can cross another country’s territory only with diplomatic permission.

In a statement to the European parliament on the visits of CIA planes to Spain, the foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos has testified: “Our territory may have been used not to commit crimes on it, but as a stopover on the way to committing crime in another country.”

Spain, it has now emerged, had a specific agreement with the US to allow flights and visits to Spanish airbases for American planes.

In Portugal, the foreign minister Luis Amado has said flights across his country’s airspace took place “under the aegis of the UN and Nato and that Portugal naturally follows the principle of good faith in the relations with its allies”. Nato’s role in Guantanamo stems from a secret agreement made in Brussels on October 4 2001 by all Nato members, including Britain. Although never made public, Lord Robertson, the former British defence secretary who was later Nato’s secretary-general, explained that day that Nato had agreed to provide “blanket overflight clearances for the United States and other allies’ aircraft for military flights related to operations against terrorism”.

Today, Nato is more coy about its role in helping send prisoners to Guantanamo.

In a letter to Gomes, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the current secretary-general, said no Nato planes had “flown to or from Guantanamo Bay” and that Nato “as an organisation has no involvement or co-ordinating role in providing clearance or overflight rights for other flights”. Turkey, meanwhile, has declared that its agencies had “reached no findings regarding any unacknowledged deprivation of liberty conducted by foreign agencies within the territory of the republic of Turkey or any transport by aircraft or otherwise of the persons deprived of their liberty”.

In London, Clive Stafford Smith, legal director of Reprieve, said, with America threatening that Guantanamo prisoners faced the death penalty, European governments had made “pious statements” that they would never send prisoners to the US without obtaining assurances they would not be executed.

Stafford Smith added: “Some European governments, it’s now clear, systematically assisted in clandestine flights and illegal prisoner transfers to Guantanamo Bay. We need a full investigation and Europeans need to face their responsibility for these crimes.”

If Guantanamo is, as the United States has repeatedly claimed, filled with some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world, and they have overwhelming proof of culpability, then why not try them based on the evidence that they have in a wholly transparent fashion? What does the US have to lose by refusing to engage in such a process compared to the military kangaroo court that has been fashioned to deal with it? Of course, given the legal ambiguity of the status given those detained, to undertake truly transparent proceedings would, of course, thrust to the forefront the afore mentioned ambiguity that has been employed by the United States regarding the classification of those being detained. Serious questions would have to be confronted regarding the Geneva Conventions, access to the International Red Cross/Red Crescent, and, most importantly, the legal classification of detainees as it applies to either international law or the laws of the United States itself.

How long will the detainees at Guantanamo be held? If an individual has been interned there for years, what actionable intelligence could they still possess now? And if they possess none, or have run their course as a mole within the population in exchange for God knows what, then they either have to be tried for a crime or released. That’s how the law works, especially as it applies to a nation founded on the rule of law that is holding them beyond the law.

Of course, there are other options to consider. That some of the individuals that were held, and endured God knows what, were flipped because they were told they would spend the rest of their lives as prisoners if they didn’t. Thus, they could be shuttled off to various locations around the world in an attempt to have them infiltrate various known radical elements within certain communities. Then again, who’s to say they wouldn’t simply disappear given the chance? Perhaps threats were made against their families, maybe members of their families are also being detained – the truth is that the possibilities are endless. But one thing that remains constant is the fact that there are hundreds of individuals being held incommunicado and outside of the strictures of any truly recognized legal platform. US Combatant Status Review Tribunals do not apply, no matter the justifications given by the US government, because the rights afforded those that face them are overwhelmingly limited, not to mention the fact that such proceedings, that are without legal precedent both internationally and under US law, are considered matters of national security and thus entirely suspect to the influence of policy objectives.

The overthrow of the ICU in Somalia was AFRICOM’s first challenge. Using Ethiopia as a military proxy, and backing their initial invasion of Somalia with air strikes and the insertion of special forces teams, the United States helped plunge Somalia back into a state of chaos that has resulted in a crisis that is being compared to that of Darfur.

The justification for their direction of the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia was that several members of the ICU had ties to al-Qaeda. The ICU’s implementation of Sharia law concerned the United States (who, ironically, has no qualms about its existence in Saudia Arabia), even though in the case of Mogadishu it provided stability where none had existed for more than a decade, with many Somalis, for the first time in a very long time, openly confessing that despite its implementation they were content to have a governing body in place that could provide stability. The US reaction, of course, was one that lent on the possible evolution of a terror-state governed by such a body.

What has occurred in Somalia since has gone largely under reported, and the situation there has become catastrophic in scope. From today’s New York Times…

“The worst humanitarian crisis in Africa may not be unfolding in Darfur, but here, along a 20-mile strip of busted-up asphalt, several top United Nations officials said.

A year ago, the road between the market town of Afgooye and the capital of Mogadishu was just another typical Somali byway, lined with overgrown cactuses and the occasional bullet-riddled building. Now it is a corridor teeming with misery, with 200,000 recently displaced people crammed into swelling camps that are rapidly running out of food.

Natheefa Ali, who trudged up this road a week ago to escape the bloodbath that Mogadishu has turned into, said Monday that her 10-month-old baby was so malnourished she could not swallow.

“Look,” Ms. Natheefa said, pointing to her daughter’s splotchy legs, “her skin is falling off, too.”

Top United Nations officials who specialize in Somalia said the country had higher malnutrition rates, more current bloodshed and fewer aid workers than Darfur, which is often publicized as the world’s most pressing humanitarian crisis and has taken clear priority in terms of getting peacekeepers and aid money.

The relentless urban combat in Mogadishu, between an unpopular transitional government — installed partially with American help — and a determined Islamist insurgency, has driven waves of desperate people up the Afgooye road, where more than 70 camps of twigs and plastic have popped up seemingly overnight.

The people here are hungry, exposed, sick and dying. And the few aid organizations willing to brave a lawless, notoriously dangerous environment cannot keep up with their needs, like providing milk to the thousands of babies with fading heartbeats and bulging eyes. “Many of these kids are going to die,” said Eric Laroche, the head of United Nations humanitarian operations in Somalia. “We don’t have the capacity to reach them.”

He added: “If this were happening in Darfur, there would be a big fuss. But Somalia has been a forgotten emergency for years.”

The officials working on Somalia are trying to draw more attention to the country’s plight, which they feel has fallen into Darfur’s shadow. They have recently organized several trips, including one on Monday, for journalists to see for themselves.

“The situation in Somalia is the worst on the continent,” said Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the top United Nations official for Somalia.

That situation has included floods, droughts, locusts, suicide bombers, roadside bombs and near-daily assassinations.

United Nations officials said the recent round of plagues, natural and man-made, coupled with the residual chaos that has consumed Somalia for more than a decade, have put the country on the brink of famine. In the worst-hit areas, like Afgooye, recent surveys indicate the malnutrition rate is 19 percent, compared with about 13 percent in Darfur; 15 percent is considered the emergency threshold.

The officials, in making the comparison, were not trying to diminish the problems in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have died from violence and disease since 2003. But they said they were concerned that the crisis here was increasingly urgent.

Unlike Darfur, where the suffering is being eased by a billion-dollar aid operation and more than 10,000 aid workers, Somalia is still considered mostly a no-go zone. Just last week, a Somali aid worker and a guard were shot to death at an aid distribution center in Afgooye. United Nations officials estimate that total emergency aid is under $200 million, partly because it is so difficult just getting food into the country.

Pirates lurking off the coast of Somalia have attacked more than 20 ships this year, including two carrying United Nations food. The militias that rule the streets — typically teenage gunmen in wraparound sunglasses and flip-flops — have jacked up roadblock taxes to $400 per truck. The transitional government last month jailed a senior official of the United Nations food program in Somalia, accusing him of helping terrorists, though he was eventually released.”

“Installed partially with American help”. Now there’s an understatement.

This passage, though, is rather telling…

“United Nations officials now concede that the country was in better shape during the brief reign of Somalia’s Islamist movement last year. “It was more peaceful, and much easier for us to work,” Mr. Laroche said. “The Islamists didn’t cause us any problems.”

Off The Books

Since the US backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, the United States has been gifted use of notorious Ethiopian jails to house and question detainees, despite the fact that they have been afforded the ability to conveniently claim that such individuals are not technically in US custody…

“Ethiopia, which denies holding secret prisoners, is a country with a long history of human rights abuses. In recent years, it has also been a key U.S. ally in the fight against al-Qaida, which has been trying to sink roots among Muslims in the Horn of Africa.

U.S. government officials contacted by AP acknowledged questioning prisoners in Ethiopia. But they said American agents were following the law and were fully justified in their actions because they are investigating past attacks and current threats of terrorism.

The prisoners were never in American custody, said an FBI spokesman, Richard Kolko, who denied the agency would support or be party to illegal arrests. He said U.S. agents were allowed limited access by governments in the Horn of Africa to question prisoners as part of the FBI’s counter-terrorism work.

Western security officials, who insisted on anonymity because the issue related to security matters, told AP that among those held were well-known suspects with strong links to al-Qaida.

But some U.S. allies have expressed consternation at the transfers to the prisons. One Western diplomat in Nairobi, who agreed to speak to AP only if not quoted to avoid angering U.S. officials, said he sees the United States as playing a guiding role in the operation.

John Sifton, a Human Rights Watch expert on counter-terrorism, went further. He said in an e-mail that the United States has acted as “ringleader” in what he labeled a “decentralized, outsourced Guantanamo.”

Details of the arrests, transfers and interrogations slowly emerged as AP and human rights groups investigated the disappearances, diplomats tracked their missing citizens and the first detainees to be released told their stories.

One investigator from an international human rights group, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak to the media, said Ethiopia had secret jails at three locations: Addis Ababa, the capital; an Ethiopian air base 37 miles east of the capital; and the far eastern desert close to the Somali border.”

As an added tidbit, it should also come as no surprise that Ethiopia is believed to be the country in which AFRICOM’s headquarters are located.

It’s been a question in the US for some time now – is waterboarding a form of torture? The Bush administration claims that it isn’t. The former US Attorney General claimed that it wasn’t. The newly confirmed US Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, claimed that he wasn’t even aware of what it was during his confirmation hearing – and this is a man that has presided over several high-profile terror trials.

In truth, waterboarding is a practice that dates back centuries, to the Spanish Inquisition in fact, if not before. The Gestapo and the Japanese used it during the Second World War – bizarrely, it was, at that time, considered a form of torture. The practice involves the simulation of drowning a person in hopes of eliciting information. Of course, as countless studies have shown, the use of torture doesn’t commonly result in the production of useful information, rather anything that will simply make the torture of that person stop. The results of waterboarding are no different.

Despite the current ambiguity of the US position regarding its use, not to mention how those being waterboarded have been legally classified, the practice is in direct contravention of the Geneva Conventions, to which the United States claims to subscribe. At least, that is, when it suits them.

Put another way – were an American operative to be, for example, captured inside Iran and waterboarded by the Iranians, how do you think it would then be defined by the United States? As torture? Or just a routine part of questioning? According to Senator John McCain, who is a Republican Presidential hopeful, and also spent years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, waterboarding is a form of torture. In fact, he claimed it to be “no different than holding a pistol to his head and firing a blank”.

Let’s take a look at a little history regarding the United States and waterboarding courtesy of the Washington Post…

“On Jan. 21, 1968, The Washington Post published a front-page photograph of a U.S. soldier supervising the questioning of a captured North Vietnamese soldier who is being held down as water was poured on his face while his nose and mouth were covered by a cloth. The picture, taken four days earlier near Da Nang, had a caption that said the technique induced “a flooding sense of suffocation and drowning, meant to make him talk.”

The article said the practice was “fairly common” in part because “those who practice it say it combines the advantages of being unpleasant enough to make people talk while still not causing permanent injury.”

The picture reportedly led to an Army investigation.

Twenty-one years earlier, in 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.

“Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) told his colleagues last Thursday during the debate on military commissions legislation. “We punished people with 15 years of hard labor when waterboarding was used against Americans in World War II,” he said.

A CIA interrogation training manual declassified 12 years ago, “KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation — July 1963,” outlined a procedure similar to waterboarding. Subjects were suspended in tanks of water wearing blackout masks that allowed for breathing. Within hours, the subjects felt tension and so-called environmental anxiety. “Providing relief for growing discomfort, the questioner assumes a benevolent role,” the manual states.

The KUBARK manual was the product of more than a decade of research and testing, refining lessons learned from the Korean War, where U.S. airmen were subjected to a new type of “touchless torture” until they confessed to a bogus plan to use biological weapons against the North Koreans.

Used to train new interrogators, the handbook presented “basic information about coercive techniques available for use in the interrogation situation.” When it comes to torture, however, the handbook advised that “the threat to inflict pain . . . can trigger fears more damaging than the immediate sensation of pain.”

In the post-Vietnam period, the Navy SEALs and some Army Special Forces used a form of waterboarding with trainees to prepare them to resist interrogation if captured. The waterboarding proved so successful in breaking their will, says one former Navy captain familiar with the practice, “they stopped using it because it hurt morale.”

Torture is not alone defined by the physical abuse of a person. It is defined as the conduct of an individual with the intent of imposing great physical or mental suffering or anxiety on another. Note that ‘mental suffering or anxiety’ is also included in the definition.

For those that don’t think that this is a serious issue, former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld might disagree…

“October 26, 2007, Paris, France – Today, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) along with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), and the French League for Human Rights (LDH) filed a complaint with the Paris Prosecutor before the “Court of First Instance” (Tribunal de Grande Instance) charging former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with ordering and authorizing torture. Rumsfeld was in Paris for a talk sponsored by Foreign Policy magazine.

“The filing of this French case against Rumsfeld demonstrates that we will not rest until those U.S. officials involved in the torture program are brought to justice. Rumsfeld must understand that he has no place to hide. A torturer is an enemy of all humankind,” said CCR President Michael Ratner.

“France is under the obligation to investigate and prosecute Rumsfeld’s accountability for crimes of torture in Guantanamo and Iraq. France has no choice but to open an investigation if an alleged torturer is on its territory. I hope that the fight against impunity will not be sacrificed in the name of politics. We call on France to refuse to be a safe haven for criminals.” said FIDH President Souhayr Belhassen.

“We want to combat impunity and therefore demand a judicial investigation and a criminal prosecution wherever there is jurisdiction over the torture incidents,” said ECCHR General Secretary Wolfgang Kaleck.

“That a criminal State representative should benefit from impunity is always unacceptable. Because the USA is the super power of the beginning of this century and, above all, because it is a democracy, the impunity of Donald Rumsfeld is even more insufferable than that of a Hissène Habré or a Radovan Karadzic”, underlined Jean-Pierre Dubois, LDH President.”

The irony, of course, is that even though Mr. Rumsfeld is no longer a member of the US government, were he to actually be arrested in France or Germany - where such charges have been filed - the reaction of the United States would be swift and severe. Of course, Mr. Sarkozy’s government would never tolerate it for obvious political reasons, which, to me, is simply aiding and abetting after the fact. Donald Rumsfeld is a private citizen now, not a member of government, and thus, in France, not to mention Canada, subject to laws pertaining to war crimes.

Unfortunately, when you were once a member of the government of the world’s foremost military power, one that refuses to recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court to spare its own from criminal prosecution, there’s little chance that you’ll ever be faced with answering for anything.

But that is not to say that there aren’t those in the United States that completely disagree with the government’s position on waterboarding – only that if they happen to be in a position to have their opinion heard at the federal level they’re simply shuffled off.

In 2004, acting assistant attorney general Daniel Levin was so concerned about the waterboarding issued that he volunteered to undergo the procedure so that he could experience it for himself. And while he knew that he would not die, and that nothing harmful would be allowed to happen to him, he claimed after the fact that the procedure ‘clearly simulated drowning’. While working on a memo regarding tighter controls being implemented over interrogation techniques, Levin was dismissed when Alberto Gonzales was appointed Attorney General…

The horrible truth is that the issue of waterboarding is simply the tip of the iceberg. In comparison to the abuse suffered by those that have been rendered by the United States to countries in which torture practices are commonplace, or to security forces who are known to torture, waterboarding may be the least of their concerns. What occurs at the hands of others has been reported at being worse in many cases, and as far as Black Sites are concerned, what occurs at them remains a mystery.