The American Law of the Jungle
May 4th, 2008 by WILLIAM KERN
After six years at Guantanamo Bay prison, the only journalist yet to be incarcerated there, Sami Al-Hadj, was released last week. The case of Mr. Al-Hadj, who was a cameraman for Al-Jazeera, has sparked renewed outrage around the world.
It’s not easy reading for an American, but a good sampling of the emotion in the Arab world over the case can be found in this article from Algeria’s French-language Le Quotidien d’Oran.
K. Selim writes for Le Quotidien d’Oran in part:
“The United States is indeed a democracy: Within its own borders, the rule of law is enshrined. But beyond its walls, only the law of the jungle prevails. Guantanamo is a tropical gulag born of Bushian dementia fed by the war-ideology of the neo-cons. Sami Al-Hadj, like most of Bush’s forced pensioners, is innocent, one of many classified as collateral damage that have been victimized by imperial paranoia and hegemony. A young man at the time of his arrest, he’s now nearly an old man as a result of the business of systemic destruction imposed in the name of a disfigured civilization and in utter defiance of the central principles of democracy.”
Echoing the opinion of many non-American journalists, Selim writes:
“He was added to the list [of terrorists] due to the [Pentagon’s] vicious intent to build a case against Al-Jazeera.
WORLDMEETS.US packaged the story with Al-Jazeera’s coverage of Al-Hadj’s release.
By K. Selim
Translated By Sandrine Ageorges
May 3, 2008
Algeria - Le Quotidian - Original Article (French)
Why was Sami Al-Hadj, a Sudanese cameraman for Al-Jazeera, detained six years ago in the gulag at Guantanamo? The question makes little sense, as it would lend credence to the idea that he might be suspect. Now he is not. Sami Al-Hadj was imprisoned at this camp that sits outside the law for one reason: the Americans decided to make it so. That’s all. The rest, all of it, are just lies and fabrications. Propaganda and disinformation. Just like the phantasmagorical weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein was going to deploy in fifty minutes (dixit Tony Blair) and the aberrant permanent state of self-defense of the criminals of Blackwater - mercenaries under contract with the U.S. government who kill for pleasure and are unaccountable under any law.
The United States is indeed a democracy: Within its own borders, the rule of law is enshrined. But beyond its walls, only the law of the jungle prevails. Guantanamo is a tropical gulag born of Bushian dementia fed by the war-ideology of the neo-cons. Sami Al-Hadj, like most of Bush’s forced pensioners, is innocent, one of many classified as collateral damage that have been victimized by imperial paranoia and hegemony. A young man at the time of his arrest, he’s now nearly an old man as a result of the business of systemic destruction imposed in the name of a disfigured civilization and in utter defiance of the central principles of democracy.
In Washington, Commander Jeffrey Gordon, a spokesman for the Pentagon, expressing himself perfectly in the Newspeak of George Orwell , “justified” the cameraman’s detention: “he was designated an enemy combatant by the Department of Defense.” This is the glibbest explanation for a long incarceration under the most shocking conditions we’ve ever heard. “Enemy Combatant.” In the dark mentality of America’s neoconservatives, all Arabs are potentially “enemy combatants,” which is all it takes for the Pentagon and CIA to draw up lists of unfortunates who are forever denied the possibility of correcting this status. In the case of Sami Al-Hadj, he was added to the list by vicious intent to build a “case” against Al-Jazeera. Democracy, a free press and the rule of law - all that the grandeur of the United-States was once based upon - has been swept away in the name of a tragically absurd vision of politics.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the Iraq War and its unfolding ramifications.
This entry was posted on Sunday, May 4th, 2008 at 7:42 pm and is filed under Donald Rumsfeld, Human Rights, Freedom of the Press, White House, Guantanamo Bay, Torture, Bush Administration, Pentagon, Journalism, Bush Derangement Syndrome, US Constitution, Columnists, Neoconservatives, Iraq, War On Terror, Afghanistan, War, Foreign Affairs, Freedom of Speech, Africa, CIA, Terrorism, 9/11, George W. Bush, Law & Legal Matters. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
