Good news, everyone. After six and a half years in Guantanamo Bay, Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al Hajj has finally been released without charge this weekend. He is now back with his family in Sudan, although his release was conditioned upon his being banned from leaving the country or working as a journalist.
The noises about the notorious prison complex being shut down seem to have gone away for the time being; still, it’s only one of a network of such places across the world and on Diego Garcia, and it’s going to take nothing short of the full scale defeat of American imperialism to get those gone.
Anyway, before it became tied up with the torture resort we’ve come to know and love, Gitmo was best known for the Cuban patriotic song Guantanamera. Although originally the story of a peasant girl from Guantanamo who broke the narrator’s heart, the structure lends itself to adaptation and “the Guantanamera became a popular vehicle for romantic, patriotic, humorous, or social commentary lyrics, in Cuba and elsewhere in the Spanish speaking world”. The classic version comes from a patriotic poem by Jose Martin, and on youtube you’ll find versions by Celia Cruz and even, if you dare, a pisspoor retread by Wyclef Jean.
The most pertinent version, though, is Guantanamero, written by Richard Stallman after he made the link between the prison camp and the song. The download is in .ogg format, which I’d never heard of before, but my mp3 player had no particular problem with it. Lyrics follow, in Spanish and English.
Me odiaba mi primo
Por celos a mi carrera.
Lo arrestaron y dijo
Que terrorista yo era.Guantanamero, soy preso guantanamero.
Guantanamero, soy preso guantanamero.Ha decidido el imperio
Tenerme por siempre preso
Y la cuestión es hacerlo
Con o sin falso proceso.Guantanamero, etc.
Cuando me hieren el cuerpo,
Dicen que no me torturan.
Causan heridas profundas
De esas que nunca se curan.Guantanamero, etc.
No me permiten que duerma:
Mi fin no es un misterio.
Voy a salir cuando muera
O caiga el gran imperio.Guantanamero, etc.
My cousin hated me;
He was jealous of my career.
They arrested him and he said
I was a terrorist.Guantanaman, I’m a Guantanaman prisoner.
Guantanaman, I’m a Guantanaman prisoner.The empire has decided
To keep me in prison forever.
The question is whether to do it
With or without a fake trial.Guantanaman, I’m a Guantanaman prisoner.
Guantanaman, I’m a Guantanaman prisoner.When they injure my body
They say they are not torturing me.
They cause me grave wounds
Such as never heal.Guantanaman, I’m a Guantanaman prisoner.
Guantanaman, I’m a Guantanaman prisoner.They don’t let me sleep:
My end is no mystery.
I will get out when I die
Or the great empire falls.Guantanaman, I’m a Guantanaman prisoner.
Guantanaman, I’m a Guantanaman prisoner.
And the not so good Gitmo news.
Prisoners that aren’t called prisoners; torture that isn’t called torture. Not even Kafka could come up with that…
Oooh, a rightwing troll. How exciting. There are a few problems with your analysis, Marc.
First, the assumption that torture is an effective method of interrogation. When the torture is harsh enough, people will say anything to make it stop. Anything. Not so much the truth as whatever they think the interrogator wants to hear.
Second, the assumption that the inhabitants of Gitmo are terrorists. They are accused of terrorism, often on virtually no evidence, and have been through no due process to establish whether they are or are not. Frequently, it transpires that they are not, and they end up being released without charge after several years in torture camp, as was the case with Sami al Hajj.
Third, the assumption that US foreign policy is formulated with the intention of making the world a safer place, at least for US citizens. That runs contrary to all we’ve ever seen, really, especially in the last decade or so.
So let’s take the example you point to, of a man who was freed from Guantanamo and, later, carried out a suicide attack on Vichy-Iraqi forces. Your argument seems to be, never release anyone from Guantanamo ever. But hasn’t it occured to you that maybe, just maybe, it was because of what they suffered in US custody that inspired the two men with a desire for revenge? Is that not even within the bounds of the possible, that four years of arbitrary torture might just fill you with hatred, with an urge to hurt those who hurt you?
It could be that you dispute the findings of the Kuwaiti court that judged him not guilty, after not hearing the evidence acquired under torture. For both moral reasons and the practical reasons I outlined above, I think it is right to exclude such evidence, but no matter, let’s run with your implied hypothesis, that the decision to transfer him was made not because he was deemed harmless, but for political reasons. Maybe, maybe not, but you can’t pretend that prison camps are supposed to be apolitical,for security purposes only.
Detainees in Guantanamo - just like Israeli soldiers held by Hezbollah and Hamas - give the US political leverage over their home countries. The repatriations of al Ajmi and al Hajj to their respective countries won’t have come for free. In the case of al Hajj, they were transparently using him for political ends: though he was obviously not guilty of any crime, they spent years trying to extract a “confession” that al Jazeera worked for al Qaeda. A few years ago, remember, al Jazeera frequently found itself in the crosshairs of the “Coalition”, and it is easy to see how such a confession could be useful.
Even if you reject all of the above, remember that we are talking about the actions of one man. One, out of all the detainees that have passed through Guantanamo. I don’t know the exact number of people we’re talking about, but according to one of the articles you linked to there are now nearly three hundred detainees, down from a high of nearly eight hundred, so we’re looking at five hundred people at the very very least, one of whom has gone on to attack the US’ allies in occupied Iraq. So that’s nothing in percentage terms, and if you want to make all the inhabitants of Gitmo suffer for the acts of one of their number, then you’re talking about collective punishment - illegal under international law, and rightly so.
It’s morbidly hilarious that Nazi POWs got better treatment than this.
Vasey - “It’s morbidly hilarious that Nazi POWs got better treatment than this.”
If you believe that you’re a clueless buffoon.
And you’re a cock. Haha. Cock. No, but seriously, well done for your comprehensive riposte of the points I raised; it’s unfortunate that not everyone is up to your level of astute commentary and that we’re now reduced to name calling. You cock.
You’re right. Those POW camps where the prisoners weren’t routinely tortured are a figment of my imagination.
Dave - “And you’re a cock. Haha. Cock. No, but seriously, well done for your comprehensive riposte of the points I raised; it’s unfortunate that not everyone is up to your level of astute commentary and that we’re now reduced to name calling. You cock.
First of all if you really care about any rebuttal to your argument you would revisit my post where your disingenuous comment was deconstructed. However, your use of child-like name calling goes to prove you don’t really give a damn about anything constructive.
Vasey - “You’re right. Those POW camps where the prisoners weren’t routinely tortured are a figment of my imagination.”
Without a reliable source, something you’ve failed to provide in two opportunities now, your claim of fact is just that an unverified claim by you.
So, you got a source… or nothing but hot air?
What? You expect me to go out and look up history textbooks to prove that Eden Camp wasn’t just conjured up out of thin air as some sort of post-war propaganda piece? Uh, no. I’ll pass, thanks. If you’re determined to be that disingenuous about things, then you’re welcome to claim victory, because I’ve got better things to do with my time.
Marc, I share the “what do you want me to do your homework for you?” rebuttal to your demands for sources. However, I stumbled upon this and thought of you.
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/05/13/how-to-build-a-human-bomb/“
I’ll add to my previous post that I’m quite aware that many German soldiers were shot before they could be taken prisoner and end up in places like Eden Camp. It doesn’t matter. That happens in every war - Every. Single. One. - and the laughable War on Terror is no different by any stretch of the imagination. There aren’t even the justifications that anyone shooting Germans out of hand would have had; there are no death camps, no armies threatening Washington DC, and a distinct lack of years of grinding war that have left the US in ruins. I’m also discounting the Eastern Front because, frankly, it’s not relevant to any analogy to the War on Terror. The USSR doesn’t even exist anymore and its successor state certainly has no bearing on what America and its lapdogs get up to in the Middle East.