Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Human Rights Law Blogs -> Never In Our Names

Human Rights Law

: Never In Our Names

Afghanistan: Black Sites Up For Super WalMartification

By Alexa

Here's a little somethin'-somethin' you won't see or hear about from the RNCC this week.

"I wish someone could take the baby. It's cold here at night." -- Shakeba, 17 years old, prisoner of Bagram AFB.

Behind these crumbling prison walls, in series of cold, crude cells where women sleep eight to a room, lies a medieval reality that sits just across the street from Kabul's bustling downtown district. Shakeba is imprisoned with her daughter Ravina, 11 months, for "illegal marriage" because she has no papers to prove her first marriage ended in divorce.  
The United States is building a bigger, new and unimproved warehouse prison in Afghanistan.

Not a novel idea, as I can remember as far back as 2006 plans to converge all the Bush torture gulags into one centralized location. A Super WalMart of black sites. The open speculation even then that when Bush or Cheney or ______, GOP Party Faithful, talked about the need to close Guantanamo, a mass transfer of all prisoners to Bagram was the devil in the details.

Why now? Without a speck of verguenza, I believe it's na' about any illegally imprisoned or enemy combatants, but everything about the Legacy of George W. Bush. The idea of a newly inaugurated Democratic president closing down Bush's torture chambers and rape rooms would be appalling and well, embarrassing.

So trying to follow the Republican logic here, I'm tempted to use the ever-helpful Jeringozator (and whatever it spit back would make more sense than the psychobabble of Bush's reality). But it seems to follow that:

• You can't close down Guantanamo if there is no Guantanano
;
• It'll show those pesky interlopers, the Human Rights Watchers, to try to out-think The Decider. Whiners, all. Now you see it, now you don't.
• Guantanamo is just a leetle bit too hot these days and geographically, too close for comfort.
• Bagram is half a world away, and not exactly accessible to the media, nor is Kabul a quick helicopter flight to and from. Kabul is Perpetual War. Not safe for the media; no Hilton Hotels, not even a rocket-safe roof for the night.
• Transfer 'em all. Let Obama sort it out.

I won't insult your intelligence by detailing the renditions, ghost detainees and murders which have been committed at Bagram. You probably remember David Passaro, the first Blackwater contractor convicted for murder in 2006.

Bagram currently houses hundreds of women and infants, like hamshirah Shakeba. Really superdangerous criminal elements whose offenses are having no divorce papers.

A bastardized version The old Kurt Russell flick Escape From New York (in Pashtun and Dari) seems imminent.

Building is apparently a rush process. Much to do before January 20, 2009. Take your eyes off the resurgence of the Taliban. Kabul's new Super WalMart of Detention is shiny.

If you notice it at all, wouldn't you agree that the worst of the worst are better off together, where child brides and suicidal teenagers can pose no threat to anyone here as they never did to anyone, any damn where?

Full post as published by Never In Our Names on September 02, 2008 (boomark / email).