13 December 2010 By Dr.
Bouthaina Shaaban At last, it has been acknowledged that Western
intelligence agencies tortured innocent people for
years in the notorious Guantanamo prison. The
admission came through the British government's
approval to pay compensation to 16 Muslims arrested
without charges in Guantanamo. Those suffered all
forms of brutal torture since 2003, including abusing
their religion and its sanctities and symbols. A number of sources have revealed that the British
government preferred to settle the case out of court
for fear of "having to hand over more confidential
documents to the court; for one such document showed
that former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair and his
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw were involved in the
Guantanamo case". (Aljazeera.net, Nov. 17). Since the victims are Muslims, those who arrested
them without any justification will not be brought to
account, as was the case with Bush, Rumsfeld and the
Zionist group controlling the corridors of power in
the White House and Congress responsible for killing a
million Iraqi children through the sanctions and a
million Iraqi civilians during the war on Iraq and by
giving al-Qaeda and terrorism a free hand to
destabilize the Middle East. Omar Deghayes, said he
was tortured in Pakistan in the presence of a
"representative of a British intelligence agency". The
"representative" also went to the Bagram prison and
made numerous accusations against him after which he
was moved to Guantanamo. Sources say that many intelligence agencies, not
only in Britain, but in a number of Western countries,
were involved in crimes of torture and illegal
extradition of prisoners to be subjected to the
torture techniques legitimized by Rumsfeld, which
continue to be practiced today in public and secret
prisons of Western and Israeli intelligence agencies.
At the same time, an American court found Ahmed
Ghailani, the first prisoner in Guantanamo to be
tried, after years of illegal imprisonment, in a civil
court not guilty of crimes of murder and terrorism.
The question is: who compensates human beings for
years of brutal torture during which their bodies have
been abused beyond endurance and their dignity
insulted? How can any money compensate for that? But the more important question is: will these
admissions lead to a serious revision of the laws
passed after 9/11, which allowed for all these
countries to arrest and torture without being held
accountable; or will these 16 cases be just a way of
covering these practices with a thin layer of
‘justice' and ‘democracy'? This incident coincided with a call by Republican
Congressman Buck McKeon, who is likely to chair the
Congress Armed Forces Committee next year, to broaden
the authorities of the 26 American intelligence
agencies "to arrest individuals for unlimited periods
of time without trial". This proves the propaganda
aspects of these compensations, which does not change
the criminal nature of this official terrorism. The fact that Ghailani was found not guilty in 280
charges, for instance, should raise concerns and
doubts about the American strategy in the war on
terror and all the laws passed in this regard. All the revealed facts about Western policies and
strategies towards Arabs and Muslims prove beyond any
doubt the racist nature of these policies and the
politicians behind them. The essence of these policies
is an imperialist one which sees Muslims as inferior
and shows no regard to their lives, or to the security
and stability of their countries. This is the real face of the American policies
which have destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan,
and which are destabilizing Sudan, Lebanon and Yemen
and are in the process of taking what is left of
Palestine. These destabilization campaigns start under
different names but have one goal: implementing the
Zionist project which aims at making the Middle East
divided on sectarian, ethnic and religious lines, so
that its states become similar to the extremist
Zionist entity. The American Secretary of State recently offered
the Sudanese government to remove it from the
terrorist list and reduce the sanctions against Sudan
if it "cooperated in conducting the referendum in a
quiet and appropriate manner". A few weeks ago, the
Secretary had stressed that the "outcome of the
referendum is unequivocal, which is the separation of
the south". This means that the American terrorist
list is nothing but a political instrument used in
order to fragment Arab countries and destabilize them.
It is also used to blackmail Arab countries and
subject them to Israeli hegemony. American foreign
policy is based on accusing Arab countries of
terrorism, then bargaining over dropping these charges
for a price which is usually in the best interest of
Israel. The United States has been making efforts and
spending generously for decades in order to divide
Sudan into religious and ethnic states after it
succeeded in spreading sectarianism in the political
entities it controls and occupies in the Middle East,
so that the ‘Jewish state' is no longer an oddity in
this East which has been characterized by peaceful
coexistence between the three religions and other
sects and ethnicities for thousands of years. Together
with India, the region represents a model of peaceful
sectarian, religious and ethnic diversity and
pluralism. The crimes of Israeli occupation are also
unraveling, despite all the efforts made in the United
States and Europe to cover them up. An Israeli website
has revealed the names and numbers of over 200
criminals who took part in killing innocents and
encouraged others to kill them in Gaza during the
Brutal Israeli attack in 2008-2009. The list includes
names of officers and officials, most prominently
Israeli Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi (Yediot Ahronoth,
18 November 2010). So, are these criminals going to
compensate people whose children, husbands and wives
they have killed? Are they going to pay compensation
for the destruction of schools, uprooting trees,
poisoning water wells and destroying farms? Or is it
another attempt to bestow ‘democracy' and ‘justice' on
reactionary racist regimes which carry out the ugliest
kinds of murder, torture and religious persecution
against Muslims? Comments 💬 التعليقات |