"Execution"? Hardly. "Murder" is a more appropriate label for what was done
to Pearl.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Bartlett" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 6:06 PM
Subject: Re: [CHOMSKY] Well? Where's the indignation?:-)


> At 7:40 PM -0500 26/2/02, D. Simmons wrote:
>
> >    Actually, I think "Americanness" and "Jewishness" matters quite a bit
to
> >many on this list. David Pearl's throat was slit and his head severed and
> >paraded about because he was born an American and a Jew. It happened
while he
> >was being held captive. That is why I had the audacity to mention it.
Unlike
> >the near hysteria on this list over the possibility that an Al Queda or
> >Taliban prisoner may not have an adequate selection of breakfast scones
to
> >select from each morning at Guantanomo, there was nothing but silence
here
> >concerning the treatment of prisoner Pearl at the hands of Al Queda
> >sympathizers.
>
> I must have overlooked the concerns about the quality of the scones at the
Guantanomo Gulag. Of course I am aware that you have been at great pains to
characterise objections to the illegal incarceration of people there as
petty complaints about their treatment, but that is just a red herring.
>
> Just to make it clear, the objection to holding these captives is not
based on any sympathy for them. Neither is their breakfast menu a
fundamental concern. The concern is that they are held without any lawful
basis, they are being arbitrarily detained without any recourse to law.
>
> A secondary concern has been that they are being held in cages only fit
for an animal, contrary to the requirements of the Geneva convention. But
there might be some practical justification for that and there are some
indications that the primitive conditions might be merely temporary.
>
> In any case, the issue is whether the US has any basis for holding these
people prisoners at all, so the conditions under which they are unlawfully
imprisoned is a side one.
>
> Obviously the same principle applies to anyone who is unlawfully kidnapped
and held prisoner, including the American prisoner David Pearl. To simply
complain about the conditions in which he was being held, is akin to
nit-picking that his execution was not carried out in a proper way. The
point is that his execution was completely arbitrary and unlawful, just as
his kidnapping and imprisonment was arbitrary and unlawful.
>
> Just as the kidnapping and imprisonment of those held at Guantanomo Bay is
arbitrary and unlawful.
>
> But surely you can see that there is a world of difference between a crime
committed by a furtive group of individuals and a crime committed by the
most powerful nation on earth?
>
> Surely you can see that? One group of criminals is subject to punishment
if caught, and a strong likelihood that they will be caught. The other group
of criminals doesn't even bother to hide their crime, relying on
overwhelming brute force to protect them from punishment.
>
> Obviously the latter group of criminals presents the biggest danger for
law abiding people throughout the world, because their brazen and witless
arrogance, combined with their enthusiasm and capacity to inflict violence
and injury on anyone who questions them. But you seem to be arguing that, by
daring to point out the crimes of the US government, we are condoning the
crimes of others.
>
> The leap of logic is not warranted.  Condemning brazen criminal behaviour
by nation states does not somehow imply we are condoning criminal behaviour
by secret conspiracies of individuals. It is merely an indication that we
regard the former as a higher priority. Not to mention that stating our
objections is about the only thing we can do, making a citizen's arrest is
quite impractical and there is no police force with the resources to
apprehend them. In any case, there are millions of crimes committed every
day by individuals and criminal gangs. It is absurd to expect each and every
crime to be individually condemned by anyone who wants to condemn any
particular crime.
>
> As the following article demonstrates, the prisoners at Guantanomo are
being held by the US government on a mere whim. There appears to be not the
slightest idea what they are going to do with them and little or no evidence
that they have committed any crimes with which they can be charged. They are
being held arbitrarily and unlawfully by a government that has no respect
for and probably no comprehension of the concept of the rule of law.
>
> I'm indignant about that because I expect the government of a great power
to behave differently. But if you want us to judge the US government (and
the US people) by the standards of common criminals and organised criminal
gangs in backward countries, then your comparison of the crimes and our
reaction to the crimes makes sense.
>
> Or do you just want to distract attention from the crimes of your
government, by demanding that we focus instead on the crimes of some rat-bag
fringe group in Pakistan? Of course their argument would probably be that
two wrongs make a right, revenge is justified, no matter if the person they
take revenge on is completely innocent of involvement in the crimes of the
US government.
>
> Just for the record, I don't agree. Likewise I don't agree that the US
Government is justified in punishing the prisoners at Guantanomo Bay for
crimes which the US Government can produce no evidence they were involved
in. I'm sure that, like the Pakistani thugs, the US government is very keen
to punish someone. Someone as it happens that they can't actually get their
hands on (the same problem the murderers of Danial Pearl have.)
>
> So just like Pearl's murderers, the US government is arbitrarily venting
its frustration on the nearest thing they can find. Yes, the crimes are very
similar. Yes, they are both crimes. But the criminals are not equal by any
stretch of the imagination, one is a much greater concern than the other,
because one possesses a greater capacity to lower the tone of the world's
affairs.
>
> Bill Bartlett
> Bracknell Tas
>
> ---
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,658785,00.html
>
> US fails to find evidence at Camp X-Ray
>
> Matthew Engel in Washington
> Wednesday February 27, 2002
> The Guardian
>
> Despite holding nearly 500 prisoners from the war in Afghanistan, the
Americans have still not identified any that might be suitable candidates
for the military tribunals set up after the September 11 attacks. And the
Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke admitted yesterday that the US
government was still working out the rules under which the tribunals would
operate.
>
> However, both Ms Clarke and her boss, Donald Rumsfeld, the defence
secretary, rejected suggestions that there was any hold-up gathering
evidence against the prisoners.
>
> "There is no holdup," Ms Clarke said. The new situation presented by the
war meant much work had to go into constructing new rules. "But there's also
not a sense that we've got a person or two people that we feel are really
likely candidates," she admitted.
>
> With 194 prisoners already at Guantanamo Bay - all supposedly hardened
terrorists - and a further 300 still held in Afghanistan, the failure to
identify a single candidate for a tribunal will cause further unease among
US allies, already concerned about the implications of US unwillingness to
concede the captives prisoner-of-war status.
>
> Yesterday the home secretary, David Blunkett, criticised Mr Rumsfeld for
saying that British prisoners at Camp X-Ray could be allowed home provided
they were prosecuted in this country. He said Mr Rumsfeld was "probably not
aware that we have a crown prosecution service".
>
> He added: "Before anyone is detained and before they're charged, the crown
prosecution service has to examine the evidence that's been presented
against them and that is what we will do."
>
> He said the government would be "seeking clarification" of Mr Rumsfeld's
remarks. "If anyone is transferred to this country it will be on the
evidence in this case, the evidence that the United States have adduced from
picking them up in Afghanistan," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
>
> "It's not appropriate to make a judgment about what you do with someone
before they've been charged, never mind afterwards."
>
> The Pentagon admission about the lack of evidence gathered from the
prisoners appears to confirm the suspicion that the tribunal option was set
up hastily to avoid the possibility of having to give Osama bin Laden, or
one of his leading cohorts, an OJ Simpson-style showbiz trial, but was never
properly thought through.
>
> Mr Rumsfeld said the US had not even attempted to sort the prisoners for
possible prosecution yet. It had been focusing on extracting intelligence,
and the process of deciding who might be tried for what was just starting.
>
> He said there were six options for the prisoners: placing them before a
tribunal, putting them through the criminal justice system, putting them
through the US military justice system, sending them back to their country
of origin, detention for the period of the conflict, and release. He thought
"some" of the prisoners might be appropriate candidates for the tribunals.
>
> Mr Rumsfeld said last week he would prefer that they be sent back to their
home countries. But he added that they would only be repatriated to
countries that were certain to prosecute them. The US did not want them to
"get in more airplanes and have them fly into the Pentagon and the World
Trade Centre again," he said.