Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian citizen and British resident, was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and then “rendered” by the U.S. to multiple countries (such as Morocco); held incommunicado (no access to lawyers, the International Red Cross or anyone else) and interrogated by U.S. agents until 2004; and then shipped off to Guantanamo, where he has remained ever since.

In May, 2008, Mohamed was accused in a Guantanamo military commission with various acts of Terrorism that carry the death penalty if he’s convicted. The key evidence against him are the confessions the U.S. obtained during that 2002-2004 time period. After charging him, the U.S. Government refused to provide his lawyers with documents and other evidence that would enable Mohamed to prove that those confessions were obtained via torture.

Both the Bush administration and the Obama administration leaned on the British government to stop the publication of documents that showed the US tortured Mohamed. Right wingers claimed that releasing this information would result in fire and brimstone falling from the sky, cats and dogs sleeping together, the end of the world as we know it.

But on 10 February 2010, the British courts ruled the documents must be released, that the fact that the US tortured Mohamed must be made public.

Now, I grant you that it’s only been a week, but it would appear that the world hasn’t come to an end. Though, my cat and my dog have been getting along better than usual.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/19/exceptionalism/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/10/law-binyam-mohamed-case

Sami al-Hajj, … Al Jazeera cameraman … was abducted by the U.S. in late 2001, tortured at Bagram, sent to Guantanamo for seven years — where he was never charged with any crime and was interrogated overwhelmingly about Al Jazeera’s operations, not about Terrorism — and then suddenly released without explanation last year

And then he mentions this little nugget:

a Nexis search of media outlets finds that “Roxana Saberi” — the American journalist detained for three months by Iran and then quickly given a trial and appeal — was mentioned 2,201 times during the first two months of her ordeal alone; by contrast “Sami al-Haj” was mentioned a grand total of 101 times during the first six years of his lawless detention at Guantanamo.

So, an American journalist imprisoned by big, bad Iranian government for three months gets the American news whipped up in a furor over human rights abuses, but a Sudanese cameraman is imprisoned by the United States government for years, and the American news can barely be bothered to report it.

This is nothing but tribalism, the notion that right and wrong is not determined by what you do, but by what tribe you belong to.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/12/23/objectivity/index.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/principles-by-digby-what-is-lesson-here.html

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/11/20091115114337109563.html

Turns out, Blackwater executives authorized a million dollars in bribes to Iraqi officials to silence their criticism

Classy.

No wonder they changed their name to Xe.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/shocker-by-digby-who-could-ever-have.html

Apparently, this is the only way Americans who committed torture and broke various international laws will be held accountable: by other countries. Because America itself is not interested in accountability of its own actions.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/11/05/renditions/index.html

Arar was completely innocent and had no connections to terrorism.

The Canadian government did a full investigation, realized Arar was innocent, publicly disclosd a report of what happened and what went wrong, publicly apologized to Arar, and paid Arer a $9 million dollar settlement.

In contrast, the US government has never admitted doing anything wrong, has never publicly acknowledged what it did, and has repeatedly taken steps to muzzle any attempts to get the US Courts to look at what happened to Arar.

Yesterday the US Courts dismissed Arar’s case entirely, saying that even if the government did violate Arar’s constitutional rights, Arar had no right to sue.

It’s all handwavium, pure and simple. Bury the truth so long as any of the wrongdoers are still alive.

This year, 2009, Obama publicly acknowledged and apologized for the US involvement in Operation Ajax, the 1953 CIA operation to overthrow the democratic government of Iran and install a puppet dictator in the form of the Shah. From 1953 until 2008, the US government had never publicly acknowledged its role in the overthrow of a democratic Iran. For 56 years, the US went about its business in denial.

Obama’s apology to the world was a victory for truth, but it didn’t cost Obama or the administration very much. None of them had been involved in the 1953 operation. None of them were guilty. None of them were culpable. Obama was admitting the guilt of people who were dead, not of something he had done himself.

Apologizing for someone else is only slightly less cowardly than not apologizing at all. True courage, true integrity, would come from a person apologizing for something they themselves had done wrong.

But it seems that 56 years isn’t all that unusual for Americans to come to terms with its actions.

In the 1940’s, America put Americans of Japanese decent into internment camps, a massive failing of justice and liberty. It wasn’t until the mid 1980’s when the US government acknoweldged the wrongness and injustice of its actions, long after the wrongdoers themselves were dead, long after many of the people who had suffered the injustice were dead too. It took 40 years for the US government to apologize and recompense the remaining survivors and the heirs of those who had been imprisoned for the misdeeds of the previous administrations.

Reparations for slavery have never been made, a century after slavery was abolished in America.

So, it seems that 50 years isn’t too unusual of a waiting period for the US government to acknowledge the truth of its actions, apologize to its victims (or the heirs of its victims) for its misdeeds, and compensate its victims (or the heirs of its victims) in some way.

In Maher Arar’s case, Arar was tortured in 2002. That would mean that whatever form of the US government is around in 2052 might finally apologize for what it did to Arar. Arar was born in 1970, so he would be 82 years old if he’s still alive at that point. But the people who tortured him, who ordered his torture, who approved the programs that allowed his torture, they’ll most likely all have died of old age by then. The US Court that ruled that Arar cannot sue, they will all by dead by 2052.

Arar will likely be dead by then too, and whoever is president in 2052 may not even be born yet.

But what sort of “justice” is it if the heirs of the guilty are the only ones who can apologize to the heirs of the victims?

Can there be no justice now? Can Obama not fight for justice today? Or must we wait until all the wrong-doers are dead before the truth can be spoken about what they did?

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/11/03/arar/index.html

A 2004 Department of Defense report on what causes terrorism. Hint, they don’t hate us for our freedom, they hate us for bombing and invading their countries and for supporting Israel no matter what.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/20/terrorism/index.html

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/18/rohde/index.html

A “New York Times” reporter who had been held hostage by the Taliban for seven months reports the source of the Taliban’s hatred for the US. Hint, they don’t hate us for our freedom, they hate us for bombing and invading their countries and for supporting Israel no matter what.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/17/mohamed/index.html

The British High Court ruled that the torture suffered by British citizen Binyam Mohamed at the hands of the CIA are to be publicly disclosed.

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/01/20091229274380583.html

The short of it is, it doesn’t look good.