Terwijl in de Verenigde Staten soldaat Bradley Manning (23), de klokkenluider die WikiLeaks informatie verschafte over onder meer oorlogsmisdaden in Irak en Afghanistan, systematisch geïsoleerd en onmenselijk behandeld wordt, overweegt het kabinet-Rutte de uitlevering van internetactivist Rop Gonggrijp aan de V.S.
Gonggrijp, oprichter van Nederlands eerste internetprovider XS4ALL, is al jaren bezorgd over enerzijds de toenemende greep van overheden wereldwijd op informatie over hun burgers, en anderzijds de geheimhouding van onwelgevallige informatie. Hoewel hij niet structureel betrokken is geweest bij WikiLeaks, dat zijn zorgen deelt, heeft hij wel meegewerkt aan de totstandkoming en publicatie van de “Collateral Murder”-video – waarop te zien is hoe de bemanning van een Amerikaanse Apache-helikopter in Irak als in een computerspel onschuldige burgers en journalisten vermoordt. Een nobele daad van Gonggrijp, zou je zeggen, gezien de aard van de handelingen en de overmatige reactie van de Amerikaanse overheid op het vrijkomen van deze informatie.
Daar denkt minister Rosenthal (VVD) dus blijkbaar anders over – evenals de Telegraaf, die Gonggrijp een “linkse terreuractivist” en “Assanges adjudant” noemde. Wat Rosenthal betreft is uitlevering van Gonggrijp aan de V.S. – hoewel het Europees Parlement vragen heeft gesteld over de waarschijnlijk illegale methodes van datavergaring die de Amerikaanse overheid op onder meer Gonggrijp heeft toegepast – niet uitgesloten. Dat medewerkers van WikiLeaks door de regering-Obama stelselmatig geïntimideerd en onder druk gezet worden doet er blijkbaar niet toe. Sterker nog, Rosenthal zegt – hoewel de woordvoerder van het Amerikaanse ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken vorige maand nog ontslagen werd omdat hij de behandeling van Manning ‘belachelijk en contraproductief’ had genoemd – hier niet eens van op de hoogte te zijn.
GroenLinks-Kamerlid Arjen El Fassed noemt de antwoorden van Rosenthal ‘genânt’. Dat is nog een understatement, wat mij betreft.
Minister Uri Rosenthal sluit niet uit dat Nederland XS4ALL-oprichter en stemcomputercriticus Rop Gonggrijp gaat uitleveren aan de VS. De procedure is volgens hem met voldoende waarborgen omkleed.
Dat blijkt uit antwoorden van de Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken op vragen van het GroenLinks-kamerlid Arjan El Fassed. Sinds begin dit jaar is duidelijk dat de Amerikaanse autoriteiten onderzoek doen naar Gonggrijp. Daar wordt gekeken naar de vermeende rol van Gonggrijp bij Wikileaks.
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Gonggrijp komt voor in het onderzoek naar Bradley Manning, die ervan wordt verdacht documenten te hebben gelekt. Gonggrijp zou hebben meegeholpen aan het samenstellen van de film Collateral Murder, waarin te zien is hoe vanuit een Amerikaanse gevechtshelikopter journalisten onder vuur worden genomen. Volgens Rosenthal is die video de aanleiding: “De naam van de heer Gonggrijp wordt hierbij genoemd omdat hij Wikileaks, naar eigen zeggen, heeft geholpen een video over Irak te publiceren en er een strafrechtelijk onderzoek loopt naar degene die de beelden aan Wikileaks heeft verstrekt.”
Op dit moment ligt er volgens de bewindvoerder geen aanklacht tegen Gonggrijp, maar als dat zo is dan sluit hij uitlevering niet uit. “Uit dat verzoek dient onder andere te blijken naar welke strafbare feiten onderzoek wordt gedaan, zodat de Amerikaanse strafrechtelijke belangen kunnen worden afgewogen tegen de belangen van betrokkene”, stelt Rosenthal. “Dat proces is met voldoende waarborgen omkleed. Ik sluit daarom niet nu uit dat Nederland medewerking zal verlenen.”
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De uitspraak is belangrijk. Als er daadwerkelijk een aanklacht komt dan wordt niet op inhoud van de zaak getoetst, maar alleen op procedurele zaken gelet. Zo mag er nooit de doodstraf worden opgelegd. Dat er veel ophef is over de behandeling van Bradley Manning in de gevangenis, is Rosenthal niet bekend. “Met het detentieregime van de heer Manning ben ik niet bekend. Het betreft een Amerikaanse strafzaak tegen een verdachte met de Amerikaanse nationaliteit.” Vorige maand stapte de voorlichter van de Amerikaanse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken nog op, omdat hij de behandeling van Manning kwalificeerde als ‘belachelijk’ en ‘stom’.
Dat er valt te twijfelen op de manier waarop de VS met gevangenen omgaan weet de bewindvoerder wel. Nederland heeft in november 2010 vragen tijdens een soort examen voor de mensenrechten, de Universal Periodic Review, vragen over de VS gesteld. Zo zijn onder andere vragen gesteld over regeling rond seksueel geweld tegen homo’s en of eerdere aanbevelingen rond het vastbinden van vrouwen tijdens de bevalling. “Tot slot is gevraagd wat de Amerikaanse regering doet om de lichamelijke en geestelijke situatie van gevangenen in penitentiaire instellingen te verbeteren.”
Eerder werd al duidelijk dat Nederland niet in actie voor Gonggrijp willen komen, zoals de IJslanders dat wel voor hun parlementslid Birgitta Jónsdóttir doen.
Gonggrijp heeft altijd ontkend onderdeel van Wikileaks te zijn, maar is open over zijn bijdrage aan de Colleteral Murder video. Die bestond vooral uit het doen ondersteunende zaken bij het samenstellen van de video.
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In een reactie zegt El Fassed de antwoorden ‘genânt’ te vinden. “Ze doen niet eens meer een poging om te verhullen dat ze hier geen aandacht aan willen geven”, vertelt hij Webwereld. “Wij zullen de minister van Buitenlandse Zaken bij het aankomend debat over mensenrechten hierover opheldering vragen.”
The NYT reports that Bradley Manning (23) - the American soldier who originally passed the Iraq helicopter video, the Iraq and Afghan war logs and the US diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks – is being treated in an increasingly inhumane way in the cell in which he is locked up in Quantico, Virginia. He is now permanently stripped of this clothes during the night and the morning inspection, where he stands along the other detainees. This comes in addition to his 23-hour solitary confinement; his one hour of outside-cell time, during which he is shackled and must walk around all time; his deprivation of exercise; and the constant surveillance he is under. Bradley Manning, even though he is not suicidal and has acted like a model detainee (although he’s increasingly showing signs of psychological duress) has been forced to endure this treatment for the past ten months.
Four days ago, charges of ‘aiding the enemy’ have been filed against him, which could theoretically lead to the death penalty.
Let’s be clear about this: Bradley Manning’s treatment amounts to torture. Forced nudity is a breach of the standards of the Geneva Conventions, and prolonged solitary confinement is torture anyhow. And this is being done under one President Barack Obama. Manning is the person thanks to whom we know that American soldiers in Iraq shot innocent civilians from an Apache helicopter; thanks to whom we know how high the death toll of the Iraq War really was; and thanks to whom we know all those revelations from the WikiLeaks cables, that are still coming out. They even played a role in the Tunisian uprising, leading to the historic events of the past few weeks. In other words, this person is a hero if there ever was one. And yet, even though he has not been convicted of any crime, he is being handled in a manner reserved for the worst criminals in Supermax prisons (or terror suspects in Guantánamo Bay).
Here’s an excerpt from the chat logs between Adrian Lamo (the guy who turned him in) and Manning, revealing the latter’s motivations for revealing information being held secret to the public:
Manning: [B]ecause it’s public data. . . . it belongs in the public domain -information should be free – it belongs in the public domain – because another state would just take advantage of the information… try and get some edge – if its out in the open . . . it should be a public good.
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Lamo: what’s your endgame plan, then?. . .
Manning: well, it was forwarded to [WikiLeaks] – and god knows what happens now – hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms – if not, than [sic] we’re doomed – as a species – i will officially give up on the society we have if nothing happens – the reaction to the [Baghdad Apache attack] video gave me immense hope; CNN’s iReport was overwhelmed; Twitter exploded – people who saw, knew there was something wrong . . . Washington Post sat on the video… David Finkel acquired a copy while embedded out here. . . . – i want people to see the truth . . . regardless of who they are . . . because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.
So this is how the American government treats whistleblowers. And it is all happening under the watchful eye of President Obama, who as a candidate in 2007 said the following things:
They will be ready to show the world that we are not a country that ships prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far off countries. That we are not a country that runs prisons which lock people away without ever telling them why they are there or what they are charged with. That we are not a country which preaches compassion and justice to others while we allow bodies to float down the streets of a major American city.
That is not who we are.
Yes we can, President Obama. Change we can believe in.
Well well, it seems that all the talk about WikiLeaks causing damage to American diplomacy and interests – leading right-wing commentators to label Julian Assange a ‘terrorist’ and call for his assassination - has been severely overblown.
I still think that a whisteblowers’ organization like WikiLeaks should take care to redact documents so that individuals like Afghan informants will not be harmed; and that releasing documents about either diplomatic gossip or vulnerable infrastructure is either unnecessary or irresponsible; but otherwise, it’s transparency 1, secrecy 0.
The damage caused by the WikiLeaks controversy has caused little real and lasting damage to American diplomacy, senior state department officials have concluded.
It emerged in private briefings to Congress by top diplomats that the fallout from the release of thousands of private diplomatic cables from all over the globe has not been especially bad.
This is in direct opposition to the official stance of the White House and the US government which has been vocal in condemning the whistle-blowing organisation and seeking to bring its founder, Julian Assange, to trial in the US.
A congressional official briefed on the reviews told Reuters news agency that the administration felt compelled to say publicly that the revelations had seriously damaged American interests in order to bolster legal efforts to shut down the WikiLeaks website and bring charges against the leakers. “I think they want to present the toughest front they can muster,” the official said.
The official implied that the WikiLeaks fiasco was bad public relations but had little concrete impact on policy.
“We were told [it] was embarrassing, not damaging,” the official added.
It appears that damage was localised in terms of a few specific cables, for example about Yemen, and thus expected to be containable in the long-run.
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So far WikiLeaks has released just a fraction of a cache of diplomatic messages which came into its possession. It has done so with the co-operation of several global news organisations like the Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel.
- Update: Nieuwe cable over bezoek Balkenende aan Obama. Waarin o.m. staat dat Verhagen bang was dat opname van Guantánamo-gevangenen in Nederland de populariteit van Wilders zou doen vergroten; dat Nederland harder roept dan handelt over klimaatverandering; en dat Beatrix waarschijnlijk binnen een jaar zou aftreden.
- Update: Absurd eigenlijk hoe veel die kabinetsleden de Amerikanen vertellen. Van Middelkoop noemt de besluitvorming in het kabinet tegen de ambassadeur ”frustrerend”. Classy.
- Update: Belangrijkste nieuws is ongetwijfeld Beatrix die een voorstander blijkt van de Afghanistan-missie (net als het merendeel van de Nederlandse elite, de ‘senior body politic’). Edit: De Volkskrant houdt er een andere interpretatie van de term “finding a way forward” op na.
Verder schijnt Wouter Bos nogal alleen te hebben gestaan in het kabinet én de PvdA-Kamerfractie met zijn verzet. Amerikanen hadden ook enorm de pik op Bos en de PvdA.
Opmerkelijk vind ik (maar daar heb ik verder nog niemand over gehoord) dat Bos wel in vertrouwen tegen de Amerikaanse ambassadeur heeft gezegd dat Nederland na 2010 nog wel in Afghanistan zal blijven, alleen niet in Uruzgan.
Ook aardig is dat de relatie tussen Verhagen en Koenders omschreven wordt als “gespannen, maar niet vijandig”. Van Middelkoop wordt beschreven als ‘het derde wiel aan de wagen’.
Authentieke cables te bekijken hier: codeberichten 1150 (15 juni 2000), 114457 (5 juli 2007), 222211 (25 augustus 2009) en 241007 (21 december 2009)
Codebericht 241007 (21 december 2009), over kabinetsberaad:
1. (S) SUMMARY: Dutch cabinet deliberations on Afghanistan are stalled going into the holiday break, with no clear indication when the impasse will be broken. Dutch post-2010 commitments to Afghanistan are being held hostage to the Labor Party´s (PvdA) uncompromising stance. Ambassador´s engagement with key leaders reveals few new assessments: Dutch will likely stay in Afghanistan focusing on training, enablers and development – outside of Uruzgan. END SUMMARY
4. (S) PvdA – Bos has completely shunned the diplomatic corps, relegating Afghanistan discussions to Koenders who has categorically said the Dutch will not be in Uruzgan after 2010 except for development efforts. The Australian Ambassador met with PvdA Foreign Affairs spokesperson Martijn van Dam who was even more unyielding on the Uruzgan departure. He stated that if Dutch security was needed in Uruzgan for development efforts after 2010, then the Dutch would simply stop those efforts as well. The PvdA defense spokesperson opined that it would not be of any benefit for U.S. leaders to engage either Bos or van Dam as they were not “open-minded” on Afghanistan. The PvdA is a party in disarray; their December 12 party congress was very mixed. Although there was no formal party statement made on Afghanistan, Labor´s position remained clear – it was standing firm on withdrawal of all troops from Uruzgan in 2010. Bos has stated he wants a Cabinet decision around January 8, before the Davids Commission issues it report about the political support the Dutch Government gave the U.S. decision to attack Iraq in 2003. Press commentary after the party congress heavily criticized Labor for failing to recognize: (1) any positive developments in Uruzgan over the past two years; (2) the importance for the Dutch to support the new NATO strategy and mission; and (3) the lives lost Qthe new NATO strategy and mission; and (3) the lives lost needlessly and effort wasted if the Dutch withdrew from Uruzgan
Codebericht 222211 (25 augustus 2009), o.m. over Beatrix:
1. (C) This cable continues reporting on post´s efforts to get the Dutch to “yes” on a post-2010 deployment in Afghanistan (reftels).
2. (S/NF) SUMMARY: Labor Party leader Bos told the Ambassador in confidence (STRICTLY PROTECT) the Dutch will likely stay in Afghanistan post-2010 but not in Uruzgan. The cabinet will probably not take that decision until the end of the year. Post recommends next steps in our engagement (para 7). END SUMMARY.
(…)
4. (S/NF) Bos then said the Government, with Labor Party support, will be able to stay in Afghanistan after its current mandate expires, but not in Uruzgan. The Ambassador pressed Bos that it was more logical for the Dutch to remain in Uruzgan where they had developed important contacts with local tribes and leaders as well as funded numerous projects. Bos admitted this was true, but did not know if staying in Uruzgan would fly with his party.
6. (S/NF) COMMENT: Queen Beatrix commented to the Ambassador during her credentialing ceremony on August 19 that finding a way forward on Afghanistan “would be difficult,” but must be done. It appears the senior leadership of the body politic agrees. We had heard from other Cabinet members, including Foreign Minister Verhagen, that Bos and the Labor Party would likely agree to extending the Dutch mission in Afghanistan past 2010. Bos´s statement, however, was the first time any senior Labor Party leader had made that clear. Although appearing to draw a line in the sand about leaving Uruzgan, Qappearing to draw a line in the sand about leaving Uruzgan, Bos did not seem categorical about that issue. In our engagement, we need to continue to stress the Alliance need for the Dutch to remain in Afghanistan and in Uruzgan, in particular; the progress the Dutch have made in Uruzgan and the need to build upon their stability and development efforts there; the increased U.S. contribution in military and civilian personnel and resources in Afghanistan; and the enhanced contributions of NATO and other partners. A word of caution – the Dutch are concerned Jan Mohammed, the former governor and local warlord, might be re-appointed governor of Uruzgan if Pres. Karzai is re-elected. If that were to happen, everyone, including our strongest supporters, says the Dutch will not/not return to Uruzgan under any circumstances. END COMMENT.
Codebericht 114457 (5 juli 2007), over relaties binnen het kabinet:
1. (C) Summary: The GONL sent a letter to the Dutch Parliament on June 30 noting it will decide this summer whether to extend its ISAF mission in Afghanistan. The decision will follow an exhaustive review of all options, including staying in the mission´s current capacity, reducing its contribution or moving to another location, or even withdrawing altogether. Cabinet officials have stressed that “all options are on the table,” while public statements by Defense Minister Eimert van Middelkoop in favor of remaining in some capacity may have tipped the hand of the GONL and temporarily unsettled the political process. Dutch officials are cautiously optimistic that the conditions are in place to arrive at a positive extension decision, but stress that sequencing is vital: first the review of options, then consultations with Allies, followed by a decision and subsequent debate with Parliament. End summary.
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19. (S//NOFORN) Working level contacts describe the relationship between Verhagen and Koenders as “contentious but not outright hostile.” Instead of direct confrontation, the two often wage battles through their staffs at the working level, said MFA Security Affairs Chief Robert de Groot. That said, when the two ministers agree, the resulting decision has added weight and is often “ironclad.” Van Middelkoop is described as “the third wheel,” or the “inexperienced junior partner” by working level contacts. While substantively knowledgeable, his inexperience in the government is obvious, and he often defers to Verhagen and Koenders.
1.(C) SUMMARY: THE DUTCH ARE PLEASED THAT THE 6/13-14 EU GAC ENDORSED MORE FREQUENT UPDATES OF THE EU SERBIA VISA BAN LIST. THEY THINK THEY NOW HAVE A POLITICALLY RESPONSIVE TOOL TO PRESSURE MILOSEVIC AND HIS REGIME. THEY STILL SUPPORT CLOSER EU COORDINATION WITH NON-EU STATES ON FINANCIAL SANCTIONS, BUT SEE LITTLE PROSPECT OF AN EU CONSENSUS ON THIS POINT. THEY SUGGEST MORE AD HOC APPROACHES TO THIS PROBLEM AND WELCOME FURTHER BILATERAL CONSULTATION WITH THE U.S. FINALLY, THE DUTCH SAY THAT THE UK AND THE NETHERLANDS ARE “BRAINSTORMING” ON HOW TO MANAGE ANTICIPATED AUGUST CALLS TO DROP OUTRIGHT THE EU SERBIA FLIGHT BAN. END SUMMARY.
Daar gaat m’n dag… Om 16.00 uur hierrrinchecken! RTL en NRC hebben alle diplomatieke cables uit standplaats Den Haag in handen gekregen. 3000 berichten, van 2000 tot 2010. En gaan daar lekker over berichten. O.m. over Beatrix die zich uitliet over de Afghanistan-missie (zie onder).
RTL Nieuws en NRC Handelsblad hebben de beschikking gekregen over de duizenden diplomatieke codeberichten van de Amerikaanse diplomatieke dienst uit Den Haag. Het gaat hier om rapportages van de Amerikaanse ambassade in Nederland aan de Verenigde Staten. RTL en NRC hebben inzage gekregen in alle codeberichten vanuit Nederland in de ruim 250.000 WikiLeaks-documenten.
RTL Nieuws en NRC Handelsblad kregen toegang tot de stukken via de Noorse krant Aftenposten, die enkele weken geleden, buiten de WikiLeaks-organisatie om, alle 250.000 diplomatieke berichten in handen kreeg. RTL en NRC berichten vandaag om 16.00 uur over een deel van de documenten. RTL doet dit in een extra RTL Z-bulletin bij RTL 7 en NRC Handelsblad vanaf vanmiddag in de krant en op nrc.nl. Later deze week volgen meer berichten over de rest van de stukken.
De twee Nederlandse nieuwsorganisaties maken deel uit van een kleine club van Europese media die de handen ineen hebben geslagen om de tienduizenden diplomatieke berichten te onderzoeken en journalistiek te duiden. Naast Aftenposten, RTL Nieuws en NRC gaat het om Svenska Dagbladet (Zweden) en Politiken (Denemarken).
Na tweeënhalve week wachten is er dan eindelijk een diplomatieke kabel geheel gewijd aan Nederland! En wederom staat er weinig wereldschokkends in, maar is het smakelijk leesvoer. De geheime briefing, gedateerd op 6 juli 2009, is gericht aan Barack Obama, anticiperend op Balkenende’s bezoek aan de V.S., en beschrijft de toenmalige situatie in de Nederlandse politiek.
Aardig is de beschrijving van Balkenende als een “lichtgewicht Harry Potter”, en van Wilders als “goud-bepruikte, opstandige parlementariër”. De Amerikanen analyseren correct de fragiliteit van Balkenende-IV (de PvdA is “in verval”), voorspellen nog correcter de val van het kabinet na de gemeenteraadsverkiezingen, en schieten wederom raak met de verwachting dat de PVV weleens heel groot kon worden. Wilders wordt overigens gezien als een “bedreiging” voor Amerikaanse belangen.
Of de these dat onze verstoting uit de G20 verband houdt met het beeïndigen van de missie in Afghanistan hierdoor bevestigd wordt weet ik niet. We hebben na juli 2009 toch nog deelgenomen aan de G20?
Monday, 06 July 2009, 12:08
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 THE HAGUE 000395
SIPDIS
STATE PLEASE PASS TO WHITE HOUSE FOR THE PRESIDENT EO 12958 DECL: 07/06/2019 TAGS PREL, OVIP, ECON, EFIN, PINR, MOPS, NL SUBJECT: NETHERLANDS: OVERVIEW FOR THE PRESIDENT’S JULY 14
MEETING WITH DUTCH PRIME MINISTER BALKENENDE
Classified By: Charge d’Affaires Michael F. Gallagher for reasons 1.4 ( b) and (d).
Mr. President:
1. (C) Your July 14 meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Jan Pieter Balkenende provides an opportunity for us to urge the Dutch to continue as part of NATO in Afghanistan and to enlist PM Balkenende in solving Guantanamo issues. For his part, Balkenende will seek to continue the Dutch role in the G20 and to find a common ground to work with us on climate change and the Middle East.
2. (C) Balkenende, in office through four coalitions since 2002, is a cunning politician who does not impose his vision on coalition partners, but maneuvers effectively to achieve the intended goal. At first, he was dismissed as a lightweight “Harry Potter” look-alike, but he has consistently and skillfully delivered Cabinet support for U.S. policy objectives while balancing fragile parliamentary majorities. Balkenende,s current center-left coalition government (“Balkenende IV”) is held together more by fear of early elections than any unity of vision. The financial crisis has plunged the Netherlands into a recession likely to last through 2010, and the Cabinet must continually defend its three relatively modest stimulus packages against calls to do more to spur recovery. Balkenende is also under pressure from a skeptical public to withdraw the Netherlands, 1,800 troops from Afghanistan in 2010. His main coalition partner, the Labor Party, is in decline, having fared poorly in the 2006 national election and the 2009 European Parliament election, and believes rejecting a continuing role in Afghanistan will please its base and may win back supporters.
3. (S) The Wilders Factor: Golden-pompadoured, maverick parliamentarian Geert Wilders, anti-Islam, nationalist Freedom Party remains a thorn in the coalition’s side, capitalizing on the social stresses resulting from the failure to fully integrate almost a million Dutch Muslims, mostly of Moroccan or Turkish descent. In existence only since 2006, the Freedom Party, tightly controlled by Wilders, has grown to be the Netherlands second largest, and fastest growing, party. Recent polls suggest it could even replace Balkenende,s Christian Democrats as the top party in 2011 parliamentary elections. Wilders is no friend of the U.S.: he opposes Dutch military involvement in Afghanistan; he believes development assistance is money wasted; he opposes NATO missions outside “allied” territory; he is against most EU initiatives; and, most troubling, he forments fear and hatred of immigrants.
4. (C) As a result of these currents, Balkenende,s coalition finds itself in a precarious position and could fall within a year (most likely after municipal elections in March 2010). The Prime Minister is aware we want him to deliver continued Dutch boots on the ground in Afghanistan after 2010 and help with Guantanamo detainees. He knows there are high risks/expectations involved in his meeting with you, but we understand he is coming to offer as much as he thinks he can deliver at this time.
5. (S) Balkenende, a long-time champion of U.S.-Dutch relations, seeks to establish a strong relationship with you and capitalize on your popularity. The Dutch public overwhelmingly supported your election in November, and you remain hugely popular here as a beacon of change. Balkenende Qremain hugely popular here as a beacon of change. Balkenende will encourage you to view the long arc of the U.S.-Dutch relationship, not just current bumps in the road (e.g. the likely drawdown of Dutch forces in Afghanistan after 2010). He wants you to see the Netherlands as America,s friend and partner, with significant Dutch contributions to our shared foreign policy priorities: Dutch military presence in Afghanistan and support for NATO; support for U.S. intervention in Iraq; active participation in the EU, NATO, and other multilateral institutions; substantial and sustained foreign development assistance; and a long-standing commitment to promoting human rights, tolerance, and the rule of law. And, he will ask you for a seat at the G-20 table in Pittsburgh as well as for a meeting at the White House in September for the Crown Prince.
6. (C) Balkenende will use your private, one-on-one session to highlight your shared personal values and experiences. He believes social organizations are more effective in promoting change than government. His philosophy is that we must treat
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one another with dignity and respect as we live and work together. Your Father,s Day call for fathers to accept more responsibility in the rearing of their children resonated with him. Balkenende will also likely use the one-on-one session to pinpoint the political difficulties of the deliverables we are seeking. Rather than cover a laundry list of topics, the Dutch want the larger meeting to focus on 1) Afghanistan/Pakistan, 2) the future of the global economic system (including the role of the G20 and how to help developing countries), 3) the Middle East Peace Process/Iran, and 4) climate change. The Prime Minister is anticipating other key foreign policy issues (e.g. human rights, Russia, NATO, non-proliferation, energy security, 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson,s voyage to Manhattan – NY400) can be covered by staff or only briefly mentioned to stay focused on the major issues. Two cables will follow which will expand on these topics.
With all the fuss about either the WikiLeaks cables or the Anonymous hacks, the fate of Bradley Manning, the 22-year old private in the U.S. Army who allegedly leaked the Apache helicopter video, the Afghan and Iraq war documents and the U.S. embassy cables to WikiLeaks, has received scarce attention.
The indispensable Glenn Greenwald, however, has a large piece about the conditions of Manning’s detention. For seven months straight, Manning has been held in solitary confinement (a treatment normally reserved for the worst convicted criminals) in Kuwait and Quantico, Virginia. He only has one hour of outside time a day, and has even been denied sheets and a pillow. He is not allowed to exercise, and is under constant surveillance to enforce this. Also, he has no access to news and current evens programs. This is based on interviews with friends and relatives, as well as a Quantico brig official.
Conceivably, even though Manning has acted as a model detainee with no disciplinary problems, he is now starting to show signs of psychological stress and exhaustion; and is treated with antidepresssants as a result. As Greenwald notes, the complete isolation of solitary confinement is considered torture by many nations. Moreover, Manning has not even been convicted of anything! Yet, he is receiving the treatment normally reserved for the worst criminals in Supermax prisons.
Please spread word of this injustice far and wide. Manning is the guy thanks to whom we know about the Apache helicopter incident, the higher death tolls in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S.-run United Nations espionage program, Pfizer’s smear tactics in Nigerian drug experiment trials, and so much more.
You can donate to the legal defense fund of Bradley Manning here.
- Update: MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann has a segment on the inhumane conditions of Manning’s detention. Also, Glenn Greenwald appeared on Democracy Now! to discuss this.
Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has never been convicted of that crime, nor of any other crime. Despite that, he has been detained at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia for five months — and for two months before that in a military jail in Kuwait — under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture. Interviews with several people directly familiar with the conditions of Manning’s detention, ultimately including a Quantico brig official (Lt. Brian Villiard) who confirmed much of what they conveyed, establishes that the accused leaker is subjected to detention conditions likely to create long-term psychological injuries.
Since his arrest in May, Manning has been a model detainee, without any episodes of violence or disciplinary problems. He nonetheless was declared from the start to be a “Maximum Custody Detainee,” the highest and most repressive level of military detention, which then became the basis for the series of inhumane measures imposed on him.
From the beginning of his detention, Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement. For 23 out of 24 hours every day — for seven straight months and counting — he sits completely alone in his cell. Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted; he’s barred even from exercising and is under constant surveillance to enforce those restrictions. For reasons that appear completely punitive, he’s being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed (he is not and never has been on suicide watch). For the one hour per day when he is freed from this isolation, he is barred from accessing any news or current events programs. Lt. Villiard protested that the conditions are not “like jail movies where someone gets thrown into the hole,” but confirmed that he is in solitary confinement, isolated entirely alone in his cell except for the one hour per day he is taken out.
In sum, Manning has been subjected for many months without pause to inhumane, personality-erasing, soul-destroying, insanity-inducing conditions of isolation similar to those perfected at America’s Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado: all without so much as having been convicted of anything. And as is true of many prisoners subjected to warped treatment of this sort, the brig’s medical personnel now administer regular doses of anti-depressants to Manning to prevent his brain from snapping from the effects of this isolation.
(…)
Manning is barred from communicating with any reporters, even indirectly, so nothing he has said can be quoted here. But David House, a 23-year-old MIT researcher who befriended Manning after his detention (and then had his laptops, camera and cellphone seized by Homeland Security when entering the U.S.) is one of the few people to have visited Manning several times at Quantico. He describes palpable changes in Manning’s physical appearance and behavior just over the course of the several months that he’s been visiting him. Like most individuals held in severe isolation, Manning sleeps much of the day, is particularly frustrated by the petty, vindictive denial of a pillow or sheets, and suffers from less and less outdoor time as part of his one-hour daily removal from his cage.
(…)
That is plainly what is going on here. Anyone remotely affiliated with WikiLeaks, including American citizens (and plenty of other government critics), has their property seized and communications stored at the border without so much as a warrant. Julian Assange — despite never having been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime — has now spent more than a week in solitary confinement with severe restrictions under what his lawyer calls “Dickensian conditions.” But Bradley Manning has suffered much worse, and not for a week, but for seven months, with no end in sight. If you became aware of secret information revealing serious wrongdoing, deceit and/or criminality on the part of the U.S. Government, would you — knowing that you could and likely would be imprisoned under these kinds of repressive, torturous conditions for months on end without so much as a trial: just locked away by yourself 23 hours a day without recourse — be willing to expose it? That’s the climate of fear and intimidation which these inhumane detention conditions are intended to create.
Behold: an hour-long documentary from Swedish television on the organization and man of the year: WikiLeaks, and Julian Assange. From the early beginnings to the publication of the Collateral Murder video, the Afghan war logs, the Iraq war diaries and Cablegate. Must-watch.
From the description on YouTube (it was uploaded two days ago):
Exclusive rough-cut of first in-depth documentary on WikiLeaks and the people behind it!
From summer 2010 until now, Swedish Television has been following the secretive media network WikiLeaks and its enigmatic Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange.
Reporters Jesper Huor and Bosse Lindquist have traveled to key countries where WikiLeaks operates, interviewing top members, such as Assange, new Spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson, as well as people like Daniel Domscheit-Berg who now is starting his own version – Openleaks.org!
Where is the secretive organization heading? Stronger than ever, or broken by the US? Who is Assange: champion of freedom, spy or rapist? What are his objectives? What are the consequences for the internet?
Well, here you have me complaining about how the DDoS attacks of Anonymous are distracting from the real issue – the content of the cables leaked by WikiLeaks – and here you have Anonymous changing their strategy.
If this .gif that is popping up ’round the Internet is to be believed, Anonymous, instead of attacking websites of entities hostile to WikiLeaks, is going to delve into the content of the cables and spread it everywhere – including on YouTube, hidden behind tags like ‘Tea Party’ and ‘Justin Bieber’.
Delving into the cables and exposing and analyzing their contents is exactly what we’ve been trying to do at this blog the past two weeks (here, here, here, here and here), so this is welcome news. Keep up the good work!
Due to an extended period of traveling my internet access ebbs and flows, so blogging will be light from this corner over the next forty days (most access is used to just try to catch up to events as they unfold!). But I thought this piece was a nice complement to Adriejan’s earlier post on his thoughts on what Assange has done via WikiLeaks and how it might be interpreted morally and legally. The article essentially brings in two pretty insightful lawyers to consider what lies ahead for lies ahead legally for Assange (on the leaks only):
GWEN IFILL: Now, for a look at the legal questions surrounding the Assange case, we turn to Jeffrey Smith, a partner at the Arnold & Porter law firm. He served as general counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1995 to 1996. And Abbe Lowell, partner at the law firm McDermott, Will & Emery, he’s been involved in a number of high-profile cases and has defended clients charged with espionage.
Welcome to you both, gentlemen. Jeff Smith, what jeopardy is Assange actually in?
JEFFREY SMITH: I think he’s in serious legal jeopardy. And I think he should be.
Obviously, the U.S. government is looking at a variety of charges, espionage being the most central. But there are a number of other things, as the attorney general said, for which he might be charged.
GWEN IFILL: For instance?
JEFFREY SMITH: Well, there’s a variety of possibilities, including mishandling of government property, theft, receipt of theft of government property, other things that I’m sure the government is looking at, possible disclosure of the identity of intelligence agents, any number of things.
GWEN IFILL: What kind of case can you imagine being made against him?
Is it one that could stick, Mr. Lowell?
ABBE LOWELL: Well, first, it’s not hard to charge him, because grand juries do that with not such a high level of proof.
The question will be whether a charge sticks. And that’s depending on a number of factors. One is, there’s never been a prosecution of the recipient of this kind of information under the Espionage Act, when that entity claims to have First Amendment media protection.
So, one issue will be whether or not WikiLeaks is a media outlet, and whether or not Assange is a journalist. If so, it’s one question as to whether that statute applies constitutionally. Secondly, if it does, there’s cases that say that, again, it’s easy to charge, but to convict, the government has to have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he had the highest specific intent to do harm to the United States that you possibly can have.
And that may be something they can prove, but people shouldn’t think that this is just a walkaway. It’s not that easy.
GWEN IFILL: Not a slam-dunk. Define, first of all — assuming that espionage is one approach which the Justice Department is pursuing, define what that means.
JEFFREY SMITH: In this context, as Abbe says, it’s never been used, but the plain language of the statute does say that it is a crime for someone who has national defense information without authority to convey it to someone else, knowing that it will do harm to the United States.
Over the years, the courts have added to that, knowing that it will do harm, the requirement that the individual act in bad faith. And my own judgment is that that will be pretty easy to prove here. I do not think that what Assange did, this massive release of information, with no patina of journalism around it, I think it’s hard to believe that that will be constitutionally protected activity.
GWEN IFILL: Let’s talk — let’s just get that off the table, this whole question of whether he is a journalist and whether he is — what he did was constitutionally protected.
In your opinion?
ABBE LOWELL: Well, here’s what the government would say in bringing a case.
The government will say that this is just providing the vehicle of a site in which raw material is dumped out, with no editorial function and no real activity, ergo, it’s not really journalism.
And what journalists likely will say, because the line is a very fuzzy one, and it’s a dangerous one under the First Amendment, and Assange will say back, is, no, acquiring information by whatever means and disseminating it to the public is the definition of journalism.
It has not been tested. It is ironic that this issue of what is the new media, what is the Internet may be defined and tested under the auspices of a 1917 criminal statute called the Espionage Act.
GWEN IFILL: Because this is — what we remember is the Pentagon Papers, for instance, the case of Daniel Ellsberg, who wasn’t a journalist, but released these documents, which were hard-copy documents.
JEFFREY SMITH: Yes.
GWEN IFILL: They weren’t electronic documents, so it wasn’t as many. But does that make a difference in how we gauge this?
JEFFREY SMITH: I think there are a lot of differences.
First of all, the Pentagon papers case, as it went before the Supreme Court, was a prior-restraint case. That is to say, the government was trying to prevent The New York Times from publishing it, rather than prosecute Ellsberg for disclosing it.
And, even in that case, a majority of justices on the Supreme Court said, admittedly not central to the decision, but said that prosecution of journalists might be possible in some circumstances. Justice Douglas dissented.
But I think this may be a case — I think he has no real hope to call himself a journalist. He even solicits people on his Web site for them to submit classified documents or secrets. So, in some respects, he’s inducing others to violate the law. And I don’t think the courts would look favorably on that.
ABBE LOWELL: Gwen, the thing is that, up until now, these have been very selective cases with very selective disclosures…
GWEN IFILL: Right.
ABBE LOWELL: … whether or not it’s a single potential document or whether or not it’s a single specific disclosure, not hundreds of thousands, and not done in this fashion.
So, therefore, the WikiLeaks case is going to be the test at the outer limits of how far the First Amendment may protect. And what are those words in that very old statute, the Espionage Act, going to mean, when they were written in the wake of World War I for a phenomenon of maps and ledgers and diagrams, and being applied in 2010 to terabytes of information?
GWEN IFILL: Well, and also to kind of a post-terror environment, or which…
JEFFREY SMITH: Yes.
GWEN IFILL: But I’m curious, one little detail, which is, he’s not a U.S. citizen. How liable is he under these laws?
JEFFREY SMITH: Well, there’s one case in which an East German citizen was convicted under the statutes.
I don’t think — he undoubtedly would raise the question of extraterritorial application, but I don’t think his citizenship makes any difference. It will have had an impact on the United States. And I think the courts won’t give him any slack on that issue.
ABBE LOWELL: And he, if he wants to, will raise the defense of whatever he gets out of the First Amendment which would be applicable to him in the United States, even if he wasn’t a U.S. citizen. So, it will cut both ways.
But, because he is not in the United States, there’s the extra issue of whether he can be extradited. And that’s a whole different set of obstacles for the U.S. to get. And, anyway, it’s just not that simple, that he’s done something and we’re going to have him here the day after tomorrow to face charges.
GWEN IFILL: Nothing is terribly simple in this case.
What — what about the idea that he has stolen government property, that he is in possession and is disseminating something that belongs to somebody else?
JEFFREY SMITH: I think there’s a relatively minor dimension of this. It may be a case — a charge brought against him, but the much more serious is the espionage harm to the national security.
And I think that I’m — frankly, I’m hopeful that the government is able to obtain jurisdiction over him and successfully prosecute him.
ABBE LOWELL: I think that’s what the attorney general was referring to, in part.
GWEN IFILL: Yes.
ABBE LOWELL: I mean, I — it’s an easier, in some ways, case to make than to sort through the First Amendment protection of the Espionage Act’s application to the media.
And the wrinkle there is that he’s not the one who stole the information, at least as far as what is being reported.
GWEN IFILL: Private Bradley Manning is alleged to have — the Army private — to have done it.
ABBE LOWELL: That’s right. So, as to whether or not the normal theft of government information can be applied to him is yet another complication. Now, it is a serious crime. And it can be charged and punished as a felony. And it’s always easier to go after the easier statute than it is to do the other.
So, if you’re looking at — to what the federal government could do, they will look at the Espionage Act. They will look at the theft of government information or government material. And we will see if there’s even a more creative one that the attorney general had in mind.
GWEN IFILL: What is the difference, theoretically, between what Julian Assange did in this case and what newspapers did in publishing the information he gave them, The New York Times, The Guardian in London?
JEFFREY SMITH: I think it’s a fundamental difference. What Assange did was solicit this young private, assuming that’s — he’s the source of it, to give him the secrets. And then he just put it out or is proposing to put it out.
What the newspapers have done, in my judgment, is constitutionally protected. They looked at the material. They talked to the U.S. government. They asked the U.S. government what harm would result. They made certain redactions in the documents. They did other reporting surrounding the cables to see how it fit in the broader picture of what’s going on.
And I think that’s fundamentally different than what Assange did.
GWEN IFILL: And…
ABBE LOWELL: And from a…
GWEN IFILL: Go ahead.
ABBE LOWELL: … First Amendment point of view, Gwen, though, not so fast.
GWEN IFILL: Well, that’s what I was going to ask. Is there a broader definition of the First Amendment protection here that could be applied?
ABBE LOWELL: You know, Jeff is correct that, in terms of conduct, depending on what conduct is found, whether or not he did solicit the private or not, for example, would be a very big difference.
JEFFREY SMITH: Yes.
ABBE LOWELL: But — but, putting that aside, let’s just say that you are comparing apples to apples, and the apples were what he discloses to the public and what the other media disclosed. If it’s the same cables with the same redactions, if it’s the same kind of information, that will not distinguish his conduct well from what the other, let’s say, more traditional media does.
And I will tell you, whether or not it changes the charge will be a very big part of his defense, to show that those two acts are the same.
GWEN IFILL: It sounds very much like, at least from a legal sense, this story is just beginning.
JEFFREY SMITH: Yes.
GWEN IFILL: Jeff Smith and Abbe Lowell, thank you both very much.
JEFFREY SMITH: You’re very welcome.
To be clear, the piece is full of opinion, legal and otherwise, but I think it nonetheless provides a good look at the considerations on the table and, in part at least, some of the perspectives likely being considered at various levels of the U.S. government. It is quite interesting that this case may be “tested under the auspices of a 1917 criminal statute called the Espionage Act”. Clearly those who drafted the Act had no capacity to envisage some of the practical realities at the heart of this case. That said, I think the principles of the Act are what are at play in this case, and so it is probably a red herring to point to a lack of congruence between a 1917 Act and technological innovation.
According to The Guardian, Julian Assange is set to appear in a British court today to discuss the Interpol arrest warrant issued by Sweden.
If you think about it, this is unbelievable. When ever does someone accused of relatively minor sexual misconduct come on an international Interpol arrest list?
Only when that person angers U.S. and European governments, of course.
- Update 3: New shit has come to light: Assange has told the City of Westminster Magistrates Court that he will fight extradition to Sweden. Also, credit card company Visa has suspended all payments to Wikileaks. More on Huffpost.
- Update 4: De VPRO heeft ook een mirror van WikiLeaks online! Dat maakt twee Nederlandse publieke omroepen. Screw you, CDA.
Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is expected to appear in a UK court today after his lawyers said he would meet police to discuss a European arrest warrant from Sweden relating to alleged sexual assaults.
As the legal net continued to close around the whistleblowers’ website and the US attorney general, Eric Holder, said he had authorised “a number of things to be done” to combat the organisation, Assange appeared to be reconciling himself to a lengthy personal court battle to avoid extradition to Sweden.
Jennifer Robinson, a solicitor with Finers Stephens Innocent, which represents the Australian freedom of information campaigner, told the Guardian: “We have a received an arrest warrant [related to claims in Sweden]. We are negotiating a meeting with police.”
Another lawyer representing Assange, Mark Stephens, added: “He has not been charged with anything. We are in the process of making arrangements to meet the police by consent, in order to facilitate the taking of that question and answer that is needed. It’s about time we got to the end of the day and we got some truth, justice and rule of law.”
Stephens explained that the interview would happen in the “foreseeable future” but he could not give a precise time. According to other sources, it is thought that Assange would appear before a court to negotiate bail .
Assange is seeking supporters to put up surety and bail for him. He said he expected to have to post bail of between £100,000 and £200,000 and would require up to six people offering surety, or risked being held on remand.
In recent days, Assange, 39, has told friends he is increasingly convinced the US is behind Swedish prosecutors’ attempts to extradite him for questioning on the assault allegations.
He has said the original allegations against him were motivated by “personal issues” but that Sweden had subsequently behaved as “a cipher” for the US.
Assange has also said that he declined to return to Sweden to face prosecutors because he feared he would not receive a fair trial, and prosecutors had requested that he be held in solitary confinement and incommunicado.
This weekend Assange said he was exhausted by the effort of running his defence against the allegations in Sweden and the release of the US embassy cables at the same time, as well as running WikiLeaks itself, which has split since some supporters became disaffected over Assange’s handling of the Afghanistan war logs. Once he turns himself in to the police, he will have to appear before a magistrates’ court within 24 hours, where he will seek release on bail. A full hearing of his extradition case would have to be heard within 28 days.
In the past, Assange has dismissed the allegations, stating on Twitter: “The charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing.”
Last week Stephens added: “This appears to be a persecution and a prosecution. It is highly irregular and unusual for the Swedish authorities to issue [an Interpol] red notice in the teeth of the undisputed fact that Mr Assange has agreed to meet voluntarily to answer the prosecutor’s questions.”
achanth Mr Assange,
have there ever been documents forwarded to you which deal with the topic of UFOs or extraterrestrials?
And Assange answers:
Many weirdos email us about UFOs or how they discovered that they were the anti-christ whilst talking with their ex-wife at a garden party over a pot-plant. However, as yet they have not satisfied two of our publishing rules.
1) that the documents not be self-authored;
2) that they be original. However, it is worth noting that in yet-to-be-published parts of the cablegate archive there are indeed references to UFOs.
Because of DDOS attacks (and likely, pressure by the U.S. government on the hosting) the original domain WikiLeaks.org has been shut off. Fortunately, they’re back online at WikiLeaks.ch.
Unfortunately, this means that all the links in our blogging on WikiLeaks, which refer to the .org domain, are dead.
Here’s hoping they can go back to their old domain soon. Everybody can, by the way, download the complete Cablegate archive on his or her computer via this torrentthis torrent. (Note: this is WikiLeaks’ “insurance policy”: the torrent likely contains the Cablegate documents, but the encryption key will only be provided in case the site goes down permanently.)
- Update: Real big fat kudos to Dutch blog GeenStijl. They uploaded a WikiLeaks mirror on their own server.
Edit: The mirror is now also hosted on the site of their sister broadcasting company PowNed: click here. Funny thing is that PowNed receives subsidy from the Dutch government.
WikiLeaks is a gift that keeps on giving. Just by accident – I was looking for a document that revealed that the Netherlands, together with Germany and Italy, proposed to remove American nuclear weapons from its soil – I stumbled on this report of a meeting between John Bellinger (above), legal advisor of then-State Secretary Condoleezza Rice, and a couple of important European counterterrorism figures, back in 2006. These include John Cooper, Director-General for Common Foreign and Security Policy at the EU Council Secretariat, and Gijs de Vries, EU Coordinator for the Fight against Terrorism.
The report reveals nothing new, but it does provide a great summary of the legal (or quasi-legal) architecture of the Bush-Cheney War on Terror. On the meeting, Bellinger tries to explain this legal architecture – why suspected terrorists can be held indefinitely at Guantánamo, how extraordinary renditions can be justified, why the Geneva Conventions don’t apply – and tries to convince his European counterparts of their appropriateness. I was very relieved when reading the reactions of the Europeans at the table: very critical, and not very convinced at all.
So if you’re interested in how the Bush administration, rather candidly I must say, defended its treatment of terrorism suspects abroad, and how well it fared in this case in Europe, read on.
Secstate Legal Adviser John Bellinger met with a comprehensive array of EU interlocutors in Brussels on February 7-8 to discuss U.S. views on the legal framework for the war on terrorism. He stressed that U.S. decisions on how to deal with an unprecedented global terrorist threat had been made after serious consideration of all legal and political options, and that European officials must publicly underline U.S. EU solidarity in the fight against terror. On Guantanamo detainees and Al Qaeda, Bellinger argued that the U.S. was and is acting in the context of a new form of international armed conflict, and that therefore, while the Geneva Conventions do not fit this new situation well, the rules of war provide a more appropriate framework than domestic criminal law. He discussed European concerns about the treatment of detainees. Bellinger also argued that rendition is a vital tool against terror. Finally, he urged the EU not to support a Cuban resolution at the UN Human Rights Commission on Guantanamo. The EU response to the visit was for the most part extremely positive, with the Legal Adviser of the Austrian EU presidency underlining that ”the fight against terror is our (shared) struggle.” Europeans, however, remain concerned about protection issues.
Note how the Bush-Cheney administration reasoned in terms of a “new paradigm”: the idea that the War on Terror is not a metaphorical construct, but an actual war, an international armed conflict, to which the rules of war apply. Yet, the rules of war according to Bush-Cheney only apply selectively, to the extent that the U.S. President deems fit. The Geneva Conventions and the Torture Convention, after all, to them do not apply to terror suspects.
Here we see more of this:
Bellinger stressed that the situation in which the U.S. and its allies find themselves is unprecedented –faced with thousands of Al Qaeda and associated terrorists around the globe whose goal is to inflict mass casualties on innocent civilians by any means possible. The legal frameworks that are readily available, the Geneva Conventions or domestic criminal law, do not fit this unprecedented situation well.
(…)
The U.S. believes that the continuing struggle against Al Qaeda remains a legal state of international armed conflict.
(…)
Al Qaeda is not the same as domestic European terrorist groups like the IRA or RAF because it is global and operates outside the U.S. and across borders. It is in effect a new manifestation on the battlefield, that of “armies of terrorists.” Conceptually, this is a military conflict, not a police action to round up criminals.
Yet even though this is apparently an international armed conflict, the Geneva Conventions to the U.S. do not apply. Al Qaeda is not a ‘High Contracting Party’ to the Conventions, they are not soldiers wearing uniforms, and neither are they ‘protected persons’ (civilians caught up in a conflict). So what are they then?
If not covered as POWs or protected persons, what, then, is the status of Al Qaeda and Taliban combatants? (…) [They] are best defined as unlawful combatants who do not have a right to any protections under the Geneva Conventions.
And this, then, is a new category of people that can be held indefinitely, have no right to a hearing in court, and can be tortured and extradited at will. Of course the Bush-Cheney administration and Mr. Bellinger ignored completely that large parts of the Geneva Conventions, and the Torture Convention, are simply common law – they apply regardless of the state of conflict or the participants in it. Each person in the world is free from being detained indefinitely without recourse to a legal court, and free from torture.
Yet the Americans apply international law only selectively, to the extent to which “military necessity” allows it. And what military necessity is, is of course to the unreviewable discretion of the U.S. President. This is the war paradigm reasoning again.
Accordingly, to clarify U.S. policy towards detainees President Bush issued a public directive on February 7, 2002, titled “Humane Treatment of Al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees.” This directive orders that all detainees under the control of the Armed Forces be treated humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, consistent with the Geneva Conventions. In addition, the U.S. remains bound by, and committed to, the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. This includes Article 4, which prohibits torture, and Article 3, which prohibits transfers of persons to countries where there is substantial likelihood that they will be tortured. Article 3 is applied on a case-by-case basis.
Bellinger however does address the obvious question: if detainees can be held for the duration of the “war”, and if the War on Terror is only over when America declares it over (which willl, probably, never occur), does that mean that people can be held forever? Why, yes, they can:
Can detainees be held indefinitely? What if some are innocent? The U.S. recognizes that these are troubling questions, but does not believe such questions could justify a decision not to detain people who represent a danger to American citizens. To deal with this problem at Guantanamo, the U.S. has created an annual Administrative Review Board process to determine, for each individual detainee, whether that detainee should still be considered as in a state of war with the U.S.
(…)
The question has also been raised as to the possible innocence of Guantanamo detainees. As the Geneva Conventions dictate, if there is any doubt about whether or not an individual is a POW, there must be an Article 5 tribunal. Since Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters clearly did not meet the conditions necessary to be granted POW status, the President decided that Article 5 tribunals were not necessary.
So, in a twisted rendering of the language of international law, individuals can be determined to be “in a state of war” with the U.S., whereas status determination tribunals for terror suspects need not be established, as there is no doubt as to their status: they are terrorists.
Bellinger than goes on to the address the European concern that people have been snatched from the street by the CIA, and transported to Guantánamo, or secret “black sites” that we don’t even know about. Although it has by now been confirmed that people (and sometimes innocent people) have been abducted by the CIA, back in 2006 it could still be denied. He also chooses not to go into CIA flights:
Bellinger sought to dispel allegations that hundreds of people had been kidnapped from European streets. He pointed out that there is no evidence for such allegations, and that the United States respects the sovereignty of European governments. On renditions, CIA flights, and other intelligence operations, the U.S. will not confirm or deny specific allegations, in order not to compromise the confidentiality of intelligence operations as such.
After that, Bellinger tries to bully the Europeans into not supporting a motion by Cuba against American actions at Guantánamo in the U.N. Human Rights Commission:
Some EU interlocutors expressed concern that some EU member states would support a Cuban resolution against U.S. actions in Guantanamo at the upcoming UN Human Rights Commission, that might be modeled after a European Parliament resolution on the subject. Bellinger warned that European support for a Guanatanamo resolution would be a serious setback to U.S.-EU cooperation against terrorism, and give the unacceptable impression that the EU was aligned with Cuba against the U.S.
Soo… Having come at the end of his expose, how did the Europeans at the table react?
Although Bellinger tries to cover it up in diplomatic language, and calls the paragraph “European Reactions Positive for U.S.”, I’d say it’s pretty clear that they were critical and not convinced. Which, by the way, creates the question why Bellinger would report that European reactions were positive. Maybe to make himself look good back home?
By and large, Bellinger’s European interlocutors responded very positively to his visit. Their questions were many and varied, and all of the meetings were marked by vigorous but constructive discussion. It is clear that many Europeans continue to believe that Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions can be applied to enemy combatants, and still afford the United States the flexibility it seeks. It is also apparent that lingering concerns (fed by negative public perceptions) remain about the treatment of detainees, and protection against wrongful detentions. Some governments remain focused on renditions, and the possibility that there will be negative revelations that impact on them directly.
That said, the visit was very helpful in beginning to dispel European misunderstandings and misgivings about our pursuit of the war on terror. Continued engagement on these issues is critical in the coming months to persuade EU governments to stand more firmly and publicly in the face of their public’s concerns and suspicion regarding Guantanamo, renditions, and the legality of U.S. actions against Al Qaeda. The Austrian Chair of the COJUR meeting, Ferdinand Trauttmansdorf, concluded the meeting with the following message: “We leave this discussion with the notion that America is carefully considering these difficult questions in good faith.” He said also that the fight against terror was a burden shared by the EU, and that the U.S. has as much of a right to ask questions of the EU, as the EU does of the U.S. On the upcoming Human Rights Commission, urgent consultations with the EU will be necessary to avert the possibility of EU support for a Cuban Guantanamo resolution.
Note the quasi-objective and kinda manipulative tone that seems to be common to confidential diplomatic memos (we saw it earlier in the secret CIA document on the manipulation of European public opinion on the war in Afghanistan). Lingering concerns are “fed by negative public perceptions”. The meeting was helpful in beginning to “dispel” European “misunderstandings” and “misgivings” about the war on terror. “Continued engagement” by the U.S. is necessary to push European governments in line vis-a-vis their publics critical of Guantánamo Bay and illegal CIA flights.
Finally, I found it very interesting that the U.S. administration was so worried that the EU would support a Cuban resolution in the U.N. on Guantánamo Bay. Does anyone know how that played out?
In conclusion, what do we learn from scrutiny of this document? Well, as I said, nothing really new. It only confirms again the extent to which the Bush-Cheney administration reasoned from a “war paradigm”: the idea that the fight against Al Qaeda is a new kind of actual international armed conflict, to which the rules of war however only apply limitedly. This reasoning allows them to treat terror suspects in utter disregard of international law. Moreover, since an end to the ”War” on Terror is not in sight, since it is not limited to boundaries, and since it is ultimately to the President’s unreviewable discretion whether military necessity exists, this makes the U.S. kind of a universal imperial policeman, with nothing that can be put in its way. Is that clear-cut authoritarianism? I’d say it is. Happily, at least also behind the scenes, some people stood up.
I’ve still not gotten to writing up the Khadr post yet. In part because each time I set forth to write the thing another important event unfolds. The latest bit of information comes by way of the WikiLeaks Cablegate.
It turns out that French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner raised the subject of Khadr with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in their first bilateral meeting, held on February 5th, 2009 in Paris. Unfortunately, the cable does not provide a great deal of detail on exactly what Kouchner said. The details are limited to essentially two lines in the cable:
On GTMO, [Kouchner] indicated Europe would help on a case-by-case basis, and asked the U.S. for assistance with a 15-year old Canadian national…
(…)
At the end of this discussion, [Kouchner] handed the Secretary a paper concerning Omar Khadr, a 15-year old Muslim of Canadian origin. The Secretary agreed to review the case.
Canada’s record on Khadr is dismal. Omar Khadr is, of course, a Canadian citizen, born and raised in the country until he was shipped off to a Taliban training camp by his terrorism financier father who was an associate of Osama Bin Laden (not that that should condition his or anyone’s citizenship). Canada is the only western country that has not pleaded for the return of its only citizen detained in Guantanamo; the nationals of all other western countries (Great Britain, Germany, Sweden and Australia) detained in Guantanamo had long been repatriated by their respective embassies while Khadr has languished in Gitmo for the last 8 years and was subject to torture. The refusal of both the previous Liberal and current Conservative governments to respect the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, of which it was one of the architects and is a signatory is a blight on the reputation of a country that likes to slap itself on the back for its record of human rights.
It is awfully depressing that Khadr had to rely on the Foreign Minister of another country to make his case while his own was own country was willing to be complicit in his torture and the denial of his legal rights, as recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada.
Update: I want to make this point because I think it is important. Obviously Khadr’s treatment goes to the very heart of a comment Adriejan made on this post, discussing some of the reaction to WikiLeaks including calls for Assange’s assassination.
This can be seen in another leaked cable that recounts a meeting with former head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Jim Judd, from 2008. It makes the fact that Khadr was reliant on the French even more depressing.
(…)
¶2. (S/NF) Counselor of the Department of State Eliot Cohen and CSIS Director Jim Judd in Ottawa on July 2 discussed threats posed by violent Islamist groups in Canada, and recent developments in Pakistan and Afghanistan. (CSIS is Canada’s lead agency for national security intelligence.) Director Judd ascribed an “Alice in Wonderland” worldview to Canadians and their courts, whose judges have tied CSIS “in knots,” making it ever more difficult to detect and prevent terror attacks in Canada and abroad. The situation, he commented, left government security agencies on the defensive and losing public support for their effort to protect Canada and its allies.
Legal Wrangling Risks Chill Effect
———————————-
¶3. (S/NF) Responding to Dr. Cohen’s query, Judd said CSIS had responded to recent, non-specific intelligence on possible terror operations by “vigorously harassing” known Hezbollah members in Canada. According to Judd, CSIS’ current assessment is that no attack is “in the offing” in Canada. He noted, however, that Hezbollah members, and their lawyers, were considering new avenues of litigation resulting from recent court rulings that, Judd complained, had inappropriately treated intelligence agencies like law enforcement bodies (refs A and C). The Director observed that CSIS was “sinking deeper and deeper into judicial processes,” making Legal Affairs the fastest growing division of his organization. Indeed, he added, legal challenges were becoming a “distraction” that could have a major “chill effect” on intelligence officials.
¶4. (S/NF) Judd derided recent judgments in Canada’s courts that threaten to undermine foreign government intelligence that threaten to undermine foreign government intelligence-and information-sharing with Canada. These judgments posit that Canadian authorities cannot use information that “may have been” derived from torture, and that any Canadian public official who conveys such information may be subject to criminal prosecution. This, he commented, put the government in a reverse-onus situation whereby it would have to “prove” the innocence of partner nations in the face of assumed wrongdoing.
¶5. (S/NF) Judd credited Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s minority Conservative government for “taking it on the chin and pressing ahead” with common sense measures despite court challenges and political knocks from the opposition and interest groups. When asked to look to the future, Judd predicted that Canada would soon implement UK-like legal procedures that make intelligence available to “vetted defense lawyers who see everything the judge sees.”
Terror Cases and Communities Present Mixed Pictures
——————————————— ——
¶6. (C/NF) Judd commented that cherry-picked sections of the court-ordered release of a DVD of Guantanamo detainee and Canadian citizen Omar Khadr (ref D) would likely show three (Canadian) adults interrogating a kid who breaks down in tears. He observed that the images would no doubt trigger “knee-jerk anti-Americanism” and “paroxysms of moral outrage, a Canadian specialty,” as well as lead to a new round of heightened pressure on the government to press for Khadr’s return to Canada. He predicted that PM Harper’s government would nonetheless continue to resist this pressure.
(…)
It is one, undoubtedly very bad, thing when governments break laws. It is quite another when the machinery of government begins to treat the law as a hindrance and to dismiss demands from citizens and legal institutions to ensure that same government’s decisions and behaviour accord with the law as the stuff of “an “Alice in Wonderland” worldview” or to dismiss the unwillingness of citizens to passively accept the torture and the denial of legal rights of one of their fellow citizens as mere “knee-jerk anti-Americanism” or that old favourite “Canadian specialty”, “paroxysms of moral outrage”.
If you’re ready for some puking in the morning, Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald provides an overview of the response of rightwing American media and pundits to the whole WikiLeaks affair.
Unsurprisingly, since we haven’t treated the problem seriously, it has gotten worse. Julian Assange at Wikileaks has released massive amounts of classified data. Some of it is embarrassing. Some of it is very sensitive. Some of it could have political ramifications for our friends around the world, and worst of all, some of it could lead to the deaths of people who’ve risked their lives to help America. That’s the first reason why the CIA should have already killed Julian Assange.
1) Julian Assange aided the Taliban and risked the lives of Afghans who helped American forces.
(…)
2) Killing Julian Assange would send a message: Julian Assange is not an American citizen and he has no constitutional rights. So, there’s no reason that the CIA can’t kill him. Moreover, ask yourself a simple question: If Julian Assange is shot in the head tomorrow or if his car is blown up when he turns the key, what message do you think that would send about releasing sensitive American data? Do you think there would be any more classified American information showing up on Wikileaks?
(…)
3) You can’t run a government without secrets.
(…)
4) Releasing the information to the world is even worse than giving it to a single foreign government.
(…)
5) We need to regain the confidence of our allies who’ve been burned by these leaks.
Well, they’re probably going to have their way, as I wouldn’t wage any bets on the lifespan of Julian Assange – who has already announced that Russia and big corporations are next. Either that, or he’ll be arrested by Interpol.
Do that, and you make him a martyr.
- Update: Mark adds another shocking example, showing that this kind of reasoning is not confined to the U.S.
This clip shows Tom Flanagan – the former chief of staff to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Howard of the Conservative Party of Canada and Professor of Political Science at the University of Calgary – also suggesting that the United States should assassinate Assange on the CBC. Flanagan seems to be advocating a special version of masculinity whereby your toughness is associated with appearing on television advocating that someone else ‘man up’ (as if the suggestion that the rule of law be tossed out the window is not deranged enough).
Interessant. Hoewel de New York Times, The Guardian en Der Spiegel een beperkt grasduinen in de originele documenten toestaan, heb ik zo snel niet iets uit of over Nederland kunnen vinden. De Volkskrant bericht echter dat 2745 van de kwart miljoen door WikiLeaks openbaar gemaakte geheime Amerikaanse diplomatieke documenten over Nederland handelen.
Zeer benieuwd wat daar in staat.
- Edit: Ah, Der Spiegel heeft meer. Volgens hen zijn er 3021 stukken uit Nederland, waarvan 45 “Secret Noforn” – oftewel niet voor buitenlandse ogen bestemd. Die stammen zo te zien uit de periode 2001-2010.
- Edit 2: The Guardian voorziet ons in onderstaand mooie plaatje. Den Haag is aardig vertegenwoordigd.
- Edit 3: Legers Twitteraars zijn inmiddels bezig de documenten door te pluizen. #cablegate is de te volgen hashtag! Check de Cable Viewer om zelf documenten door te nemen!
- Edit 4 @ 1.00 uur: Nederlandse tactical nukes genoemd in VS-overleg met Duitsland. Met de Cable Viewer naar tag NATO, en dan naar document 09BERLIN1433 “NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR HEUSGEN ON AFGHANISTAN”. Ctrl-f op “Netherlands”:
TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS
¶8. (C) In response to Gordon’s question about how the government planned to take forward the commitment in the coalition agreement to seek the removal of all remaining nuclear weapons from Germany, Heusgen distanced the Chancellery from the proposal, claiming that this had been forced upon them by FM Westerwelle. Heusgen said that from his perspective, it made no sense to unilaterally withdraw ”the 20″ tactical nuclear weapons still in Germany while Russia maintains “thousands” of them. It would only be worth it if both sides drew down. Gordon noted that it was important to think through all the potential consequences of the German proposal before going forward. For example, a withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Germany and perhaps from Belgium and the Netherlands could make it very difficult politically for Turkey to maintain its own stockpile, even though it was still convinced of the need to do so.
Van de ruim 250 duizend Amerikaanse diplomatieke documenten die klokkenluidersite Wikileaks de komende maanden zal publiceren, handelen er 2.745 over Nederland.
Dat valt op te maken uit een grafiek die Wikileaks zondagavond online plaatste. Dat zijn er net iets minder dan over Duitsland, en iets meer dan over Turkmenistan.
De meeste documenten gaan over Irak (15.365), gevolgd door Turkije (11.086), Iran (10.093) en Israël (9.520). Ook Afghanistan is goed vertegenwoordigd met 7.095 documenten.
Er zijn ook relatief veel documenten gelekt die op de Amerikaanse ambassade in Den Haag zijn opgesteld; zo’n 3.000. Van slechts 17 andere Amerikaanse overheidsinstanties zullen er de komende tijd meer documenten online komen.
One of the most important revelations from the WikiLeaks classified diplomatic cable publication is possibly that, as we blogged about earlier, not only Israel is urging the U.S. to go military on Iran before it acquires nuclear weaponry, but so do Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. For the Sunni leaders of these states, the prospect of the Shiite republic having an atom bomb must be awful.
And not only that: the sense is that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, this might set off a Middle East arms race, with other states scrambling to arm themselves as well. On the other hand: imagine the prospect of either Israel unilaterally attacking Iran, or the US engaging in its third war against an Islamic state in a decade.
Yet since, whether we like it or not, a military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities by either Israel or the US is increasingly in the air (the war drums are already being beaten by American conservatives), this is pretty consequential information.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear programme, according to leaked US diplomatic cables that describe how other Arab allies have secretly agitated for military action against Tehran.
The revelations, in secret memos from US embassies across the Middle East, expose behind-the-scenes pressures in the scramble to contain the Islamic Republic, which the US, Arab states and Israel suspect is close to acquiring nuclear weapons. Bombing Iranian nuclear facilities has hitherto been viewed as a desperate last resort that could ignite a far wider war.
The Saudi king was recorded as having “frequently exhorted the US to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons programme”, one cable stated. “He told you [Americans] to cut off the head of the snake,” the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir said, according to a report on Abdullah’s meeting with the US general David Petraeus in April 2008.
The cables also highlight Israel’s anxiety to preserve its regional nuclear monopoly, its readiness to go it alone against Iran – and its unstinting attempts to influence American policy. The defence minister, Ehud Barak, estimated in June 2009 that there was a window of “between six and 18 months from now in which stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons might still be viable”. After that, Barak said, “any military solution would result in unacceptable collateral damage.”
The leaked US cables also reveal that:
• Officials in Jordan and Bahrain have openly called for Iran’s nuclear programme to be stopped by any means, including military.
• Leaders in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt referred to Iran as “evil”, an “existential threat” and a power that “is going to take us to war”.
• Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, warned in February that if diplomatic efforts failed, “we risk nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, war prompted by an Israeli strike, or both”.
[In] a meeting with Italy’s foreign minister earlier this year, Gates said time was running out. If Iran were allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, the US and its allies would face a different world in four to five years, with a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. King Abdullah had warned the Americans that if Iran developed nuclear weapons “everyone in the region would do the same, including Saudi Arabia”.
(…)
No US ally is keener on military action than Israel, and officials there have repeatedly warned that time is running out. “If the Iranians continue to protect and harden their nuclear sites, it will be more difficult to target and damage them,” the US embassy reported Israeli defence officials as saying in November 2009.
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