Liberal Media Enlightens Us Again
John Calvin Jones
www.virtualcitizens.com
2007-04-30

http://www.virtualcitizens.com/articles/Liberal_Media_Enlightens_Us_Again

In June of 2004, then Ombudsman for the Washington Post, Michael Getler, tried to explain to the readers of the Post, the Bush administration, Congress, and anyone else who bothered to pay attention, that they – the writers and editors of the Post – had down played dissent, but could not be held responsible for being absolute sycophants for the illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq.[1]  

Through his page B6 article, Getler insisted that the Post had a number of stories that challenged the official Bush line, but that such pieces were not on page 1.  His concluding argument is not that Bush and others lied, not that the Post eagerly reprinted lies without a scintilla of investigation that would have demonstrated the lies (Getler tells us that the information was classified and nobody provided a leak?!, and Congress failed to attempt to undermine Bush), but simply that there was not enough balance.  

With this legacy of muckraking and truth telling, it is no surprise that in an era when members of Congress and the U.S. military openly say that the war in Iraq is lost, that everyone knew the “aluminum tubes” claim was a lie, that the Niger-Iraqi yellow cake documents were forgeries, the Post has returned to pre-French revolution thinking, that is the role of the press is to be a shill for power.  The latest focus of government propaganda?  The crime that is Guantánamo.  

Land of the Imprisoned Innocent

On 29 April 2007, relying on Bush administration sources, not bothering to ask any questions nor adding any context or history, the future Bob Woodward, Craig Whitlock, wrote a story, “Inmates cleared, but still at Gitmo.  U.S. cites difficulty deporting detainees.” [2]  Rather than detail how and why the Bush administration has committed repeated acts of war crimes, torture, and violated the U.S. Constitution and commonsense in imprisoning hundreds of admittedly innocent men (and boys), Mr. Whitlock returns to the Stephen Colbert style journalism – officials dictate, Whitlock typed.  (The administration makes decisions, a press secretary announces the policy, and the press types what they say).

The headline tells us what we need to know, namely that the U.S. military, holding the worst of the worst terrorists in the world (trained to lie, invite and resist torture, and willing to chew through electrical and engine lines on airplanes – pretty good for goat herders), have been found innocent of belligerence against the Bush military or his allies, yet these men shall remain in prison and isolation …

Filtering Post Dictation

Instead of picking apart and explaining government propaganda, Whitlock earns his Pravda badge by writing numerous passages filled with loaded language, sinful omissions, and unwarranted praise for the Bush administration.  I present and critique three excerpts:

(1) More than a fifth of the approximately 385 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been cleared for release but may have to wait months or years for their freedom because U.S. officials are finding it increasingly difficult to line up places to send them, according to Bush administration officials …

(A)    More than 500 men and boys have been kidnapped, beaten, raped, tortured, abused, denied access to lawyers, family and courts and held in solitary confinement in Gitmo by the U.S. military.  Such action contravenes the U.S. Code of Military Justice, American and International law, the U.S. Constitution and a number of treaties.

(B)     Of the current admitted number of detainees – none of whom have been visited by members of the press – despite suffering from forced confessions, kangaroo courts where hearsay and coerced testimony is entered into evidence against the detainee who is presumed guilty and an unlawful enemy combatant (terrorist without human value or entitled to legal due process), the military still found 85 of them innocent!  How?

(C)    The Bush administration has found no difficulty in paying bounties for innocents, torturing them, kidnapping people like Khalid El-Masri and Maher Arar, handing detainees into the hands of torture regimes in Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Egypt, but somehow the biggest and baddest Empire on the Planet is hamstrung by the likes of Togo, Vanuatu, Benin, Nepal, Greenland, Paraguay, Macedonia or any other mighty nation that will not be part of the coalition of the “willing to receive American torture victims.”

Like a loyal outer-party member, Whitlock adds:

(2) “…Eighty-two remain at Guantanamo and face indefinite waits as U.S. officials struggle to figure out when and where to deport them, and under what conditions.  The delays illustrate how much harder it will be to empty the prison at Guantanamo than it was to fill it after it opened in January 2002 to detain fighters captured in Afghanistan and terrorism suspects captured overseas.”

(A)   To claim that the Bush administration struggles with anything is not remarkable – they obviously struggle with truth, peace, helping Americans facing imminent levee breaches, and reading.  But what kind of person or organization struggles with freedom or releasing admittedly innocent prisoners?  

(B)   There is more than ONE prison in Gitmo … while some have open quarters, others have torture chambers, isolation and sensory deprivation rooms, dogs, and hospitals to treat those on hunger strike.  Moreover, the people currently held in Gitmo are neither fighters nor terrorist suspects.  Such conclusions are evidence from documents released through FOIA requests and statements from the Bush military itself.  In 2003 even the New York Times reported that few if any of the Gitmo detainees were al Qaeda [3]  Rather the U.S. military and the CIA have paid cash to individuals, groups, and governments around the world from the Philippines to Kosova, Bosnia to Uzbekistan, for “intelligence” and terror suspects.  Invariably the men who are grabbed, beaten and sometimes killed like a man named “Dilwar” at Bagram Air Force Base, have nothing to do with al Qaeda, resistance movements or any violent act beyond self-defense.

And just in case you were not paying attention, Whitlock throws in the old “they are not civilized as we are” line, so you have hold righteous indignation for the Ragheads and feel warm and cozy while wrapped in your flag at the same time:

(3) … “In many cases, the prisoners' countries do not want them back.  Yemen, for instance, has balked at accepting some of the 106 Yemeni nationals at Guantanamo by challenging the legality of their citizenship.  Another major obstacle: U.S. laws that prevent the deportation of people to countries where they could face torture or other human rights abuses, as in the case of 17 Chinese Muslim separatists who have been cleared for release but fear they could be executed for political reasons if returned to China.

… “In general, most countries simply do not want to help,” said John B. Bellinger III, legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.  … A case in point is Ahmed Belbacha, 37, an Algerian who worked as a hotel waiter in Britain but has been locked up at Guantanamo for five years.  The Pentagon alleged that Belbacha met al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden twice and received weapons training in Afghanistan.  [Belbacha’s] attorneys dispute [that] and say [that] he was rounded up with other innocents in Pakistan in early 2002.  On February 22, 2007, without explanation, the Pentagon notified Belbacha’s lawyers in London that he had been approved to leave Guantanamo.  

Despite entreaties from the State Department, however, the British government has refused to accept Belbacha and five other immigrants who had lived in the country, because they lack British citizenship.  This [April], Clint Williamson, the State Department's ambassador for war crimes [sic], visited Algiers to discuss possible arrangements for the return of two dozen Algerians who remain at Guantanamo, including Belbacha, but no breakthroughs were reported.  [Algeria] has been slow to accept its citizens.

(A)    Now I understand, even if these people are decidedly innocent of being terrorists, as their own nations refuse them re-entry, they must be guilty of something!  Better safe than sorry.  

(B)     Conversely, for every act of liberation (i.e. saving the world from terrorists by holding them in Gitmo) the Bush administration is saving people like the Uighurs (aka Chinese separatists) from a tyrannical government in Beijing.  China is so bad that it is one of the few countries that executes children … (never mind).

(C)    Getting back to the “America is about freedom and democracy” story, it’s like Mr. Bellinger says, these other countries just do not want to help!  How ungrateful they are, and after all that we have done for them.  Heck I bet that Algeria would still have a democracy elected government were it not for the beneficence of Daddy Bush who supported the military coup in 1992 which tossed the legally elected parliament.  

(D)    Remember above all, America is a just and kind-hearted nation.  For example, though John Walker Lindh is in an American prison for carrying a gun and a grenade for the Taliban, Mr. Belbacha is scheduled for release though he met Satan himself and received training at one of those al Qaida camps.  (Forget what his attorneys say about him being innocent, they are just a bunch of whores – right Whitlock?)  Consider, the American Ambassador FOR war crimes vouching for an Algerian – need the article say anything more?  (By the way who could imagine that the Bush administration has an Ambassador for war crimes?  There must be plenty of competition for that job.  I wonder what the qualifications are?  Good with dogs, handy with glowsticks, and a fondness for male nudity.  Experience in waterboarding, stress positions, and Biscuit Team management?) 

Conclusion

To the Washington Post and Mr. Whitlock, I salute you.  Your commitment to typing, transcribing, and providing ahistorical commentary and reports without context is unrivaled.  Without a steady stream of cheerleading for power, we might get a whiff of the moves to impeach Bush and Cheney (inside and outside Congress) and or rediscover the many books and articles written by professors, lawyers, and activists showing the crimes and abuses of the Bush/Cheney cabal.  (Does anybody read Project Censored?)  I would never want that … I can’t handle the truth.     

John Calvin Jones
www.virtualcitizens.com

[1] Getler, Michael.  2004.  “Ombudsman:  Looking Back Before the War.”  20 June, Washington Post:  B6

[2] Whitlock, Craig and Julie Tate.  2007.  “Inmates cleared but still at Gitmo.  U.S. cites difficulty deporting detainees.”  London, Washington Post, 29 April.  Posted online at:  www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18374971/

[3] See Umansky, Eric.  2003.  Who are the prisoners at Gitmo?  Columbia Journalism Review, Issue 5.  http://www.cjr.org/issues/2006/5/Umanskyb.asp