Today's Stories

July 17, 2008

James G. Abourezk
Big Oil's Raid on the Great Plains

July 16, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
Star Whores: How John McCain Doomed Mt. Graham

Paul Craig Roberts
War Crimes Paradox

Conn Hallinan
To the Edge in the Middle East

Dave Lindorff
Torture for Torturers?

William S. Lind
Running the Narrows in Iraq

Christopher Brauchli
Sweepstakes Politics

Website of the Day
History of Iraqi Art

July 15, 2008

Michael Hudson
Why the Bail Out of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is Bad Economic Policy

Brian Cloughley
Iran's Missile Tests

Patrick Cockburn
Sadr's Militia May Live to Fight Another Day

John Ross
Crunchtime for Mexico's Oil

Howard Lisnoff
When Torture Was Practiced on U.S. Soil

Website of the Day
Rachel Corrie Soccer Tournament

July 14, 2008

Uri Avnery
Will Israel and / or the US Attack Iran?

Paul Craig Roberts
Enabling Tyranny

Trish Schuh
Talking to Iran's Only Jewish Member of Parliament: an Interview with Morris Motamed

Patrick Cockburn
Immunity in Iraq

Mike Whitney
Betancourt Unbound

Alan Farago
Will Miami's Cubans Vote Blue?

Seth Sandronsky
Taxing U.S. Stocks and Bonds

Phyllis Pollack
Stones Paint It Black

Website of the Day
Our Pal in Butte, Jackie Corr, RIP

July 12 / 13, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Lock and Load--It's the Law!

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Origins of the Western Greens

James Abourezk
Talking World War III Blues: From Dylan to Iran

Nicole Colson
The Ethanol Scam

Stan Cox
Fixing a Broken Agriculture

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Is There an Oil Shortage?

Wajahat Ali /
Omid Safi
The Future of Iran: an Interview with Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi

John Stauber
There May be a Left, But is it Moving? An Interview with David Sirota

Alan Farago
The Crash of the King of Liquidity

Missy Beattie
Dark Neighborhoods

Robert Fantina
Bush's Last Yes Man: Canada, Guantanamo and Yankee Poodles

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak Hires the Mosque

Gregory Kafoury
After the Obama Betrayal

Fran Shor
The Audacity of Hype

Martha Rosenberg
Why Heifer International is Rolling in Dung

David Macaray
Will There be an Actors Strike?

Andrew Wimmer
No Lies! No War!

Ron Jacobs
They Call Me the Seeker

Farzana Versey
The Kashmir Chiaroscuro

Kim Nicolini
Angelina Jolie's Wanted: Taking the M-Fers Down with Guns and Exploding Rats

Poets' Basement
Wright, Fleming, Solomon and Birnbaum

Website of the Weekend
Parsing Jesse Ventura

July 11, 2008

Kevin Alexander Gray
Why Does Barack Obama Hate My Family?

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Historical Amnesia and the Shoot Down of Iran Air Flight 655

Peter Morici
Breaking Down the Trade Deficit

Mike Whitney
Worse Than McCain?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Oiling the War Machine

Robert Weissman
Crime, Punishment and ExxonMobil

Ramzy Baroud
The Not-So-Historic Barak-Talabani Handshake

Kelly Overton
If There is a Chimp Heaven

Adrian Burgos
In Praise of Jules Tygiel

Website of the Day
Wendell Berry on Mountaintop Removal

July 10, 2008

Brian McKenna
McCain's Melanoma Cover-Up

Paul Craig Roberts
Watching Greed Murder the Economy

Saul Landau
Mississippi River Blues

Ron Jacobs
Who Will Leave Iraq First?

Joshua Frank
Cutting Deals with Big Timber's Darth Vader

Peter Morici
What's Driving the Wall Street Rout

Alan Maass
Jesse Helms Finally Does the Right Thing

Robert Weissman
Humanitarian Failure at the G8

William Blum
Dr. Strangelove

Alan Farago
Coral Reef Meltdown

Website of the Day
Lieberman Must Go!

July 9, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Are They Really Oil Wars?

Luis Rodriguez
The Deadly Fallout from Gang Injunctions

Sheldon Richman
What's Wrong with Selling Your Vote?

Fatemeh Keshavarz
Lessons from Sa'di of Shiraz on "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"

Chad Hanson
Blowing Smoke: Logging Industry Lies on Forest Fires and Climate Change

Sen. Russ Feingold
The Problems with the FISA Bill

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Defining Deviancy Down with FISA

Dave Lindorff
Paul Krugman's Blind Spot

Stanley Heller
A Damned Good Assembly

Philip Rizk
Sick at the Gaza Crossing

Website of the Day
Mumia on Nader

July 8, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Riding the Colombia Gravy Train

Laura Carlsen
North America Doesn't Exist: the New Geography of Trade

Mike Whitney
Bush's Rampage in Somalia

Andy Worthington
Scandal at Diego Garcia

Patrick Irelan
The Empire Goes to the Movies

Chellis Glendinning
The Un-tied States of America

David Macaray
A Union Story

Dave Lindorff
Mumia's Long-Shot Appeal

John Chuckman
The Myths of Independence Day

Phillip Doe
FISA and the Decline of America

Website of the Day
Daniel Ellsberg on Warrantless Wiretap Bill

July 7, 2008

Patrick Bond
Can Reparations for Apartheid Profits be Won in US Courts?

Kathy Kelly
Cold Shoulders

Andy Worthington
Repatriation as Russian Roulette

Clifton Ross
A Rescue Staged for the Screen

Elizabeth Schulte
Obama's War Room

Ralph Nader
The Patriotism of Deeds

Dave Lindorff
Keeping Count

Binoy Kampmark
The World According to Jesse Helms

Stephen Fleischman
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Change

Website of the Day
Time for a Change

July 5 / 6, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Could Anyone be "Worse" Than Bush?

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
Preliminary Notes from No Man's Land

Patrick Cockburn
Blowback from a Strike on Iran

Mike Whitney
Hunkering Down in Afghanistan with Field Marshall Obama

Robert Fantina
Obama, Iraq and Change

Binoy Kampmark
The Anwar Case: Snitching and Sodomizing

Rannie Amiri
Can Nasrallah Unite Lebanon?

Eric Ruder
Hidden Casualties

Brian Cloughley
Israel Flexes Its Muscles

William Blum
Some Thoughts on Patriotism

Frank Barat
The One-Word Solution

Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Phony Pollution Accounting

David Yearsley
Rubbert Shines, as US Envoy Puts Foot in His Mouth

Ron Jacobs
U.S. Blues

Karim Makdisi
On Soccer and Politics in Lebanon

Wendy Thompson /
Chris Kutalik
What Can We Learn from the American Axle Strike?

N.D. Jayaprakash
The NPT as a Roadblock to Disarmament

Ramzy Baroud
Journalistic Imperatives

Kelly Overton
Animal Rights and Obama

Richard Neville
Bitch Fights and Tomorrow's Top Model

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Gibbons, Matson and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Ginsberg and Cassady on "Extremists"

July 4, 2008

Kathy Kelly
Istiklal

Dave Lindorff
My War Story

Paul Krassner
Confessions of a Barista

Jackie Corr
In the Footsteps of Evel Knievel: Obama Heads Back to Butte

Laray Polk
Military-Industrial Convergence

Dan Bacher
Dead Runs: Salmon Fishing Banned in Central Valley Rivers

Walter Brasch
The Rocket's Red Glare--May be Chinese

Charles Modiano
Hall of Fame Hypocrisy

Website of the Day
Springsteen: Independence Day

July 3, 2008

Sharon Smith
Exxon's Legal Guardians

Andy Worthington
Another Torture Victim Gets Charged

Laura Carlsen
NAFTA and the Elephant in the Room

Peter Morici
Crisis Grips the Jobs Market

Ramzi Kysia
Breaking Into a Prison

Martha Rosenberg
Mandatory School Milk and the Early Death of Football Players

Anne Landman
Who Really Benefits From Voluntary Codes of Corporate Conduct?

Dave Zirin
Grand Theft Hoops

Kristin Bricker
US Contractor Leads Torture Training in Mexico

Website of the Day
Bush Tours America to Survey Damage from His Presidency

July 2, 2008

Patrick Irelan
Holy Obama

Vijay Prashad
Lunch with Karzai

Brian Cloughley
Sense of Honor, French and US Style

Ralph Nader
Economic Domino Theory

Robert Fantina
General Stupidity: McCain, Obama and Clark

Dave Lindorff
What's So Special About Veterans?

Parvez Ahmed
Obama and Those Pesky Muslim Rumors

Robert Bryce
The Democrats and Off-Shore Drilling

Website of the Day
King Corn: Q&A

July 1, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Two Months Later, Seymour Hersh Strains to Catch Up With CounterPunch

Mike Whitney
Getting to the Heart of America's Economic Crisis: an Interview with Michael Hudson

Douglas Macgregor
Obama's General?

Steven Higgs
Fighting the NAFTA Super-Highway

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo as Alice in Wonderland

Binoy Kampmark
The Global Seed Police

Dave Lindorff
Blood Money Democrats

Roger Burbach
Fighting Food Fascism

Richard W. Behan
The Story Behind George Bush's Lies

Gary Leupp
The McCain Edge Among Voters on Iraq

Website of the Day
Mountaintop Removal and the Fight for Coalfield Justice

July 17, 2008

Omar Khadr's Canadian Interrogations at Guantanamo

"Screwed Up" and "Abused"

By ANDY WORTHINGTON

As the Abu Ghraib scandal demonstrates, a photo is worth a thousand words -- even if, as Errol Morris’ newly-released documentary Standard Operating Procedure demonstrates, those words are sometimes what the viewer wishes to see, rather than what actually happened.

There is, therefore, enormous excitement in the media about the first ever release of images from interrogations in Guantánamo: seven and a half hours of footage from interrogations of Canadian citizen Omar Khadr, who was just 15 years old when he was seized after a firefight with US soldiers in Afghanistan in July 2002.

In February 2003, when he was still only 16, Omar was visited by representatives of his home country’s Air Force Office of Special Investigations. As has already been widely reported, the video footage from these interrogations -- released to Omar’s Canadian lawyers, Nathan Whitling and Dennis Edney, as the result of a decision in May by the Supreme Court of Canada and a decision in June by the Federal Court of Canada -- shows Omar displaying his wounds, weeping uncontrollably and pulling at his hair in despair.

Despite the excitement, however, documents relating to these interrogations have been available for the last six days, and it’s my belief that they demonstrate the confusion of a desperately lonely imprisoned child without any of the dubious voyeurism that the images bring, whilst also allowing a useful distance from which to appreciate the general coldness and indifference of the interrogators. As Whitling noted in an email accompanying the documents’ release, “The documents paint a picture of a victimized and exploited boy.”

The Canadian representatives interrogated Omar for four days, and in three separate documents relating to the sessions they ran through the lines of questioning they pursued, which were mainly to do with his family history and his knowledge of al-Qaeda. Omar’s father, who funded orphanages in Afghanistan, was also friendly with Osama bin Laden, and Omar and his three brothers spent much of their childhood in Afghanistan and Pakistan, on occasion sharing a compound with the bin Laden family.

Absent from these reports, however, is any detailed questioning relating to Omar’s supposed crime -- the killing of a US soldier during the firefight in which he was captured, the veracity of which has only recently been exposed to scrutiny. Also missing are the odd flashes of humanity that can be gleaned from the videotape, when, for example, one of the interrogators attempts to calm Omar, who is clearly distraught, by saying, “I know this is stressful.”

These human touches are, however, overshadowed by the interrogators’ general indifference to Omar’s plight. As Whitling and Edney noted when they released the documents, although Omar was clearly “suffering from severe emotional problems connected with his detention and interrogation, crying heavily on more than one occasion,” the Canadian officials “dismissed his claims of abuse on the flimsiest of pretexts,” writing, in one of the reports, that his allegations of torture at the US prison in Bagram, Afghanistan, which have, of course, subsequently been verified by numerous sources, “did not ring true.”

The interrogators were also indifferent when Omar broke down after describing how he was severely wounded in one eye during the firefight that led to his capture. One report relates, “Khadr stated, ‘I lost my eyes,’ indicating that when he was shot, it affected his vision. Khadr put his head back in his hands and cried heavily. The interrogators left him at this point.” On another occasion, another report states, “Khadr has not received any letters from family since being detained. The interviewers then provided Khadr with a letter, which had recently arrived at Camp Delta. The letter was from his grandmother in Canada. Khadr was left along to review the letter. Khadr was watched using a video monitor and a one-way piece of glass. Khadr appeared to cry while reading the letter. Tears were coming from his eyes and he was rubbing his eyes and nose.”

This might not be quite so worrying if Omar was an adult at the time of his capture and interrogations -- although it would still raise uncomfortable questions about Canadian complicity in the US detention of a Canadian citizen in worryingly novel circumstances, held neither as a Prisoner of War protected by the Geneva Conventions, nor as a criminal suspect facing a regular trial.

Given Omar’s circumstances, however, it directly contravenes the terms of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which both the United States and Canada are signatories, which stipulates that juvenile prisoners -- defined as those accused of a crime that took place when they were under 18 years of age -- “require special protection.” The Optional Protocol specifically recognizes “the special needs of those children who are particularly vulnerable to recruitment or use in hostilities”, and requires its signatories to promote “the physical and psychosocial rehabilitation and social reintegration of children who are victims of armed conflict.”

Clearly, these requirements have not been fulfilled in Omar’s case, and the Canadians’ complicity in Omar’s detention and interrogation also, of course, make a mockery of the Canadian government’s insistent mantra -- that it would not intervene in Omar's case since it had received assurances from the United States that Omar was being humanely -- which, as Whitney notes, “has now been proven to have been an attempt to misinform the Canadian public.”

Also included in the documents released by Whitling and Edney, although not featured in the videotapes, are notes from a second visit with Omar, by Jim Gould of the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, in March 2004. In a summary of the visit by R. Scott Hetherington, the Director of the Foreign Intelligence Division, Gould, who regarded himself as “an amateur observer of the human condition,” described Omar as “a thoroughly ‘screwed-up’ young man,” adding, pertinently, ‘All those persons who have been in positions of authority over him have abused him and his trust, for their own purposes. In this group can be included his parent and grandparents, his associates in Afghanistan and fellow detainees in Camp Delta and the US military.” Significantly, Gould also noted that, as during the visit in 2003, Omar “recanted all previous statements, including his confession to having thrown the grenade that killed the American soldier.”

Despite being rather patronizing about Omar, Gould’s statement included riveting details of the US military’s treatment of Omar, explaining that, “in an effort to make him more amenable and willing to talk” the authorities had placed him on the “frequent flyer program,” the euphemistic name for a program of prolonged sleep deprivation. “For the three weeks prior to Mr. Gould’s visit,” the report continued, Omar “has not been permitted more than three hours in any location. At three hour intervals he is moved to another block, thus denying him uninterrupted sleep.” Gould was also told that Omar would “soon be placed in isolation for up to three weeks” and would then be interviewed again.

Although Gould was critical of Omar’s US interrogator, noting that he “seemed to be trying to intimidate Omar or force Omar to talk rather then trying to cajole him into cooperation,” he was unconcerned about the prolonged sleep deprivation, noting, nonchalantly, that Omar “did not appear to have been affected by three weeks on the ‘frequent flyer’ program.” Four years later, however, on June 25, 2008, Mr. Justice Richard Mosley of the Federal Court of Canada thought differently, and ruled that this treatment constituted a breach of theUnited Nations Convention against Torture and the Geneva Conventions. As Nathan Whitling noted, without elaboration, “The Canadian government did not attempt to appeal this decision.”

The most distressing anecdote from Gould’s report, however, which, bizarrely, he portrayed as an example of Omar “hav[ing] some feelings,” followed a session with an interrogator from the Department of Defense, who had shown him a photo of his family, only for Omar to deny that he knew anyone in the picture. “Left alone with the picture and despite his shackles,” the report continued, “Omar urinated on the picture. The MPs cleaned him, the picture and floor and again left him alone with the picture -- after shortening his shackles so that he couldn’t urinate on the picture again. But, with the flexibility of youth, he was able to lower his trousers and again urinated on the picture. Again the MPs cleaned up and left him alone with the picture on a table in front of him. After two and a half hours alone and probably assuming that he was no longer being watched, Omar laid his head down on the table beside the picture in what was seen as an affectionate manner.”

This is an example of Omar “hav[ing] some feelings”? In my world, which I hope you share, it shows a horrendously isolated and abused teenager displaying mood swings that are symptomatic of extreme mental disturbance.

As Dr. Eric Trupin, who has conducted extensive research on the effects of incarceration on adolescents, explained in 2005 after reviewing the results of mental status tests administered by Omar’s US lawyers, which followed three years of interrogations that began as soon as Omar was captured, and which had a cumulative effect that the Canadians either could not or would not consider:

The impact of these harsh interrogation techniques on an adolescent such as O.K. [Omar], who also has been isolated for almost three years, is potentially catastrophic to his future development. Long-term consequences of harsh interrogation techniques are both more pronounced for adolescents and more difficult to remediate or treat even after such interrogations are discontinued, particularly if the victim is uncertain as to whether they will resume. It is my opinion, to a reasonable scientific certainty, that O.K.'s continued subjection to the threat of physical and mental abuse places him at significant risk for future psychiatric deterioration, which may include irreversible psychiatric symptoms and disorders, such as a psychosis with treatment-resistant hallucinations, paranoid delusions and persistent self-harming attempts.

Andy Worthington is a British historian, and the author of 'The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison' (published by Pluto Press). Visit his website at: www.andyworthington.co.uk
He can be reached at: andy@andyworthington.co.uk

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