A little over a year ago former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld came to Boston for a speech and was greeted by crowds demanding his arrest. In these pages and others I reported:
"Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been stripped of legal immunity for acts of torture against US citizens authorized while he was in office. The 7th Circuit made the ruling in the case of two American contractors who were tortured by the US military in Iraq after uncovering a smuggling ring within an Iraqi security company. .. The ruling comes as Rumsfeld begins his book tour with a visit to Boston on Monday, September 26, and as new, uncensored photos of Abu Ghraib spark fresh outrage across Internet."
It turns out that Rumsfeld not only knew about the worst of the worst abuses of the Bush Torture Era, including what was happening at Guantanamo, in Afghanistan, and at Abu Ghraib. He was perhaps even ordered it. Memos with comments in Rumsfeld's own handwriting in the margins said things like "I stand for 8--10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?"
This was in response to individual torture reports detailing prisoners made to stand for long periods of time. Since the human body fails after standing for extended periods, and crumples to the floor involuntarily, other measures might have been necessary to make them stand. Like chaining them to the ceiling.
Dilawar died in custody, his arms dislocated, and, in the words of the National Catholic Reporter, flapping uselessly "like a bird's broken wings." Oh yes, Dilawar was completely innocent of any wrongdoing, as the Army later affirmed. His crime was to be driving his taxi past Bagram AFB on the afternoon after a rocket attack. He was out to make a little gas money before picking up his three sisters, as his mother had told him t, for the local holiday.
Exhibit in investigation on the death of Dilawar, showing how he was chained to the ceiling of his cell
xhibit in investigation on the death of Dilawar, showing how he was chained to the ceiling of his cell by public
But when Rumsfeld came to Boston, instead of arresting Rumsfeld, police arrested protester named Shaun Joseph. In the edifice that is the rule of law and simple humanity, Rumsfeld smashed the furniture, broke all the glassware, and spray-painted the
walls. Yet it is Joseph who is charged with being "disorderly."
Joseph has a court appearance this Thursday and Friday in Boston, March 7 and 8. Supporters will join him and seek support from across the nation.
Unlike with Rumsfeld, there is no evidence that Joseph engaged in the disorderly conduct with which he is charged. In fact there is evidence quite to the contrary. Hence the invitation by his supporters to find the (invisible) "karate chop" at an arresting officer while "resisting arrest" in the video above.
Like a good American, when Shaun Joseph heard Rumsfeld would be in Boston, he joined the crowds demanding his arrest. But he wound up getting arrested himself.
In Joseph Heller's classic anti-war novel "Catch 22" a World War II airman waits in agony as sirens approach his apartment in Rome. He has just killed a prostitute. He is sure he is finished. But when the MPs burst into the apartment, they arrest not him, but another man, for being AWOL. It is just such a gruesome, Kafkaesque inversion of the moral universe we are witnessing with the persecution of Shaun Joseph, while Donald Rumsfeld walks the streets.
Binyam Mohamed was seized by the Pakistani Forces in April 2002 and turned over to the Americans for a $5,000 bounty. In a "black prison" in Morocco he was also hung from the ceiling as he watched an interrogator approach him with a scalpel, and proceed to make cuts in his genitals. He wrote in his diary:
Later, when a US airplane picked me up the following January, a female MP took pictures. She was one of the few Americans who ever showed me any sympathy. When she saw the injuries I had she gasped. They treated me and took more photos when I was in Kabul. Someone told me this was "to show Washington it's healing".
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
