There is no justice here...

On October 26, Omar Khadr, a Canadian who was captured in Afghanistan eight years ago at the age of fifteen, and the last Western citizen detained in Guantanamo, struck a plea agreement with US military authorities.
The son of an al-Qaeda official who had brought his family to live in Afghanistan and who died in 2003, he pleaded guilty to the following charges: murder in violation of the laws of war; spying; providing material support for terrorism; conspiracy and attempted murder.
In exchange, Mr. Khadr was to receive an eight-year sentence, the last seven to be served in Canada.
Following his guilty plea, Omar Khadr was asked a long list of questions, a 50-paragraph, eight-page stipulation elaborating the details on which the plea agreement was based, entailing admitting all charges in the form of a public confession.
As a result, Khadr recognized being an alien, unprivileged, enemy belligerent.
Such belligerents, according to the US, have no legal right to attack US forces, even on the battlefield.
He also admitted to being a member of al-Qaeda, and of having committed murder in violation of the laws of war.
During a four-hour battle, he was accused of throwing a grenade that killed Sgt 1st Class Christopher Speer.
Sporting a dark suit, the young man, holding his head in his hands, repeatedly answered yes when asked by the judge to reply to the charges leveled against him.
The judge, Col. Patrick Parrish, asked Omar Khadr, has anyone forced you to enter into this stipulation? He answered no.
Later, he asked him, it’s your voluntary decision to continue with the plea of guilty?
Yes, he responded.
The judge also enquired whether anyone had made promises should he agree to plead guilty.
Naturally, the young man said no.
Tellingly, Omar Khadr, as part of the agreement, pledged to neither appeal the sentence nor later take legal action against the US.
One hour after it had begun, the hearing was over…
A further hearing would take place in the following days to determine the sentence of Omar Khadr, the first child soldier to be prosecuted by a Western nation since WWII.
Previously however, he had rejected a similar plea bargain offer because an admission of guilt would have justified the abuses inflicted on him since 2002, and, for all practical purposes, exonerated the US of all responsibility for torturing and arbitrarily detaining him for eight years.
I will not take any of the offers because it’ll give the US government an excuse for torturing me and abusing me when I was a child, he wrote.
Apart from his testimony, obtained in 2002 while he was wounded, and under duress at Bagram, described by an interrogator there as one of the worst places on Earth, there was little actual evidence against him, and no eyewitnesses to the principle charge, throwing the grenade that killed Christopher Speer.
In fact, there are reports-classified photographs and defence documents obtained by the Star-indicating that Khadr was already wounded and buried in rubble when Speer was killed. The prosecution ignored that evidence.
Why then, plead guilty?
Military commissions were created to produce guilty verdicts, regardless of the facts.
No one has ever been acquitted by such a court.
The day before the trial was to begin last August, the judge declared admissible Khadr’s forced confession…There was thus no mystery as to how the trial would end…
Last July, Omar Khadr repudiated all his lawyers, discouraged by a process he knew was specifically designed to convict him.
It is going to be the same thing with or without lawyers. It's going to be a life sentence, he wrote the court.
Before the trial, Guantanamo’s chief prosecutor, John Murphy told the press that there is a substantial likelihood of conviction based on the evidence.
A guilty verdict was therefore, a foregone conclusion and so would be the sentence delivered by a jury of US military officers: life in prison.
He is anxious to avoid a trial before that kangaroo court, Kate Whitling, one of Omar Khadr’s Canadian lawyers, told CNN.
The prosecutors had not dared to demand the death penalty, due to Khadr’s young age at the time of Speer’s death.
Did Khadr have much of a choice, hence?
There is no justice here. He either pleads guilty to avoid trial, or he goes to trial and the trial is an unfair process, his attorney, Denis Edney, told The Globe and Mail.
It came down to a choice, between an illegal trial and going home-and he chose the latter, he added.
The fact that the agreement stipulated that he could go home after one further year in Guantanamo was the decisive factor.
Tellingly, Omar Khadr had also accepted responsibility for two other murders no one had previously accused him of committing in order to secure a deal that would send him home.
For his lawyer, this confirms that he would have admitted to the killing of John F. Kennedy if doing so would have got him out of Gitmo.
Hence, Khadr’s admission of guilt was the only legal strategy possible, the only one enabling him to return to Canada.
For Khadr and his lawyer, it has no bearing on his actual responsibility for the deeds he is accused of having committed.
In our view, it’s all a fiction, Mr. Edney told The Globe and Mail. In our view, Mr. Khadr is innocent.
The irony is that his lawyer advised him to commit perjury and confess to murder and other serious crimes, as the lesser of two evils.
What is deeply disturbing about this case is the nature of the crimes Khadr was compelled to admit in order to avoid a trial that would have sent him to jail for life.
When MM. Obama and Gates revived the military commissions last year (the former had initially suspended them upon becoming President), a new definition of war crimes was appended.
According to Lt. Col. David Frakt, a former Guantanamo military defense lawyer, a detainee may be convicted of murder in the violation of the law of war even if they did not actually violate the law of war…
In the new [Military Commissions] Manual the following official comment has been included in explanation of the offense of Murder in Violation of the Law of War: « an accused may be convicted in a military commission … if the commission finds that the accused engaged in conduct traditionally triable by military commission (e.g., spying; murder committed while the accused did not meet the requirements of privileged belligerency) even if such conduct does not violate the international law of war», he added.
In short, the US reserves the right to accuse and convict anyone it chooses of war crimes, at its discretion, even if no war crimes were committed…
Secondly, the US will ignore international law when it finds it convenient to do so.
In essence, only in the US are the actions Omar Khadr has been accused of committing on the battlefield war crimes.
Everywhere else, they would have been considered but acts of war.
As a soldier, Christopher Speer did not enjoy a protected status (he was neither unarmed nor injured at the time of his death, for instance), and was killed during a four-hour firefight.
Furthermore, juveniles, even on a battlefield, are protected under international law.
Those holding them are under the obligation to assure their rehabilitation and social reintegration (UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice, Beijing Rules), and provide educational and recreational opportunities (UN Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty).
Instead, the US chose to ignore international law, detain him for years, abuse and torture him, and try him as an adult for war crimes no one recognizes as such but the US, though he was but fifteen at the time.
No wonder President Obama did not want him judged in federal court...
Martin Scheinin, UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, and professor of international law at the European University in Florence, Italy characterized the United States’ conduct in this case thus: I think it is a disgrace and a shame for the United States, he told AFP. None of the crimes for which Omar Khadr pleaded guilty are war crimes. Not a single one.
They are crimes codified in the Military Commissions Act several years after the fact. The court judging Omar Khadr is not even a military court, but a military commission which should not have the authority to deal with ordinary crimes, he added.
Furthermore, the charges that led to the Omar Khadr trial and conviction were not crimes when he was accused of having committed them…
In fact, wrote Daphne Eviatar, Senior Associate in Human Rights First’s Law and Security Program, they weren’t deemed war crimes by the United States until 2006- four years after Khadr allegedly committed them.
In essence, Khadr was imprisoned, judged and convicted for crimes that were not crimes at all when he supposedly committed them in 2002.
There is no justice here, to repeat Mr. Edney’s lucid conclusion.
On October 31st, the military commission jury, composed of seven officers, sentenced Omar Khadr to a forty-year prison sentence for the crimes he admitted committing during the initial hearing.
During the sentencing hearing, the prosecutor presented ten witnesses, including the widow of the fallen Sergeant, Tabitha Speer.
You will always be a murderer in my eyes, she told Khadr.
Everybody wants to talk about how he’s the victim, how he’s the child. I don’t see that. He made a choice. My children had no choice [and] didn’t deserve to have their father taken by someone like you, she added.
Another important witness was Dr. Michael Welner, who had had the opportunity to interview Omar Khadr for some seven hours over two days.
He explained that, in Guantanamo, Khadr had been marinating in a radical Islamic community.
He is devout. He is angry. He identifies with his family, which has radical leanings. He is not remorseful and he is not westernized although he is very articulate and smooth. He’s highly dangerous. He murdered. He has been part of al-Qaeda. And we’re still at war, he told the court.
Yet, Khadr would not have been in a position to marinate there, assuming he was, if the US had not arbitrarily detained him in Guantanamo.
The psychiatrist seems to be confirming an accusation made by many critics of Guantanamo: the arbitrary detentions and abusive treatment exacerbate (when they do not actually engender) Islamic militancy and radicalism, potentially transforming ordinary individuals caught by US forces (or sold to them by unscrupulous Afghans or Pakistanis) because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, into dangerous extremists.
These individuals cannot be charged because there is no evidence, or if there is, has been potentially been defiled by torture.
Scores of Yemeni detainees for instance are still being held in Guantanamo even though the US government itself has conceded there are no longer any grounds to hold them.
Yet, due to the cargo parcel bomb plot revealed earlier this month, and last Christmas’ attempted attack on a US passenger aircraft also involving militants based in Yemen, no one in Washington has had the political courage to push for their release and send them home.
Congress and the White House seem to fear they may engage in militant activity should they return home.
Hence, even thought they have committed no wrong, and thus have been imprisoned arbitrarily, they are still being held for what they might one day do…
The Doctor’s testimony was undermined however, when it was discovered that his conclusions were based on the work of Danish psychologist Nicolai Sennels, author of Among Criminal Muslims.
The latter has characterized the Qur’an as a criminal book that forces people to do criminal things, and claimed that massive inbreeding within the Muslim culture during the last 1,400 years may have done catastrophic damage to their gene pool.
The defense was allowed to present only four witnesses.
Significantly, the details of the plea prevented Khadr's lawyers from putting anyone on the stand who actually knew Omar Khadr and believed he was not guilty, or at least didn't have a real choice about whether or not to assist al Qaeda and his father as an adolescent. A witness contradicting the plea would have called the entire deal into question, wrote Daphne Eviatar.
In addition, the judge refused to authorize any testimony regarding the abusive treatment inflicted on Khadr at both Bagram and Guantanamo.
One witness however, did contradict Welner’s testimony.
According to Cpt. Patrick McCarthy, a former legal adviser at Guantanamo, Omar Khadr was a model prisoner, respectful and helpful to military personnel.
Furthermore, he was not one of the radical detainees who assaulted guards.
Mr. Khadr was always very respectful. He had a pleasant demeanor. He was friendly…
Fifteen-year-olds, in my opinion, should not be held to the same level of accountability as adults, he concluded.
His account of Omar Khadr is corroborated by Arlette Zinck, and English professor at King’s University College in Edmonton, Canada, who developed an epistolary relationship with the young detainee.
Contrary to what Dr. Welner had alleged, Omar Khadr did not read only Harry Potter and the Qur’an.
Under cross-examination, he was compelled to admit that the young man also read Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, Obama’s Dreams from my Father, and A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah, among other works.
This may have been the result of Ms. Zinck’s positive influence.
In the media, she described the young man as a voracious reader, and a polite, thoughtful, intelligent person.
Omar Khadr expressed interest in attending King’s University College after his release.
Zinck indicated that she would write him a letter of recommendation should he apply.
This was not sufficient to sway the jury, who sentenced him to forty years in jail.
Fortunately for Mr. Khadr, the plea agreement guaranteed a maximum sentence of eight years, with the last seven to be served in Canada, which has finally accepted his repatriation.
Canada, unlike other Western nations such as Australia, Britain or France has always refused to get involved and intervene in order to obtain the release of one of its citizens.
Even after the guilty plea was announced, Lawrence Cannon, a spokeswoman for Canada’s Foreign Minister declared, this matter is between Mr. Khadr and the US government. We have no further comment.
Canadian security agents however, did not hesitate to collaborate with the Americans.
They interrogated their own citizen and shared their findings with his American jailers.
The nation’s Supreme Court, in a 9-0 ruling, concluded that the government’s inaction offends the most basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained youth suspects.
Canada’s only contribution to his well-being, according to Mr. Edney, was to send him a pair of sunglasses (he has only one eye remaining and the other is damaged as a result of the fighting in 2002) this summer…
For President Obama, the plea bargain and the sentence hearing had the double advantage of ending a trial that could only embarrass the US.
Nevertheless, the US President will be remembered in the history books for at least one, though sinister, deed: he is the only Western leader ever to prosecute a juvenile for war crimes.
It is a singular and signal accomplishment indeed, for he chose a path not even MM. Bush and Cheney dared to tread…
Needless to say, justice was certainly not served on that dismal occasion.
I think it’s a lose-lose, where both the Obama administration and Omar Khadr mitigated their losses and cut the best deal that they could, Col. Morris Davis, a former chief prosecutor of military commissions at Guantanamo and architect of the case against Khadr, told CTV.
Yet, at what price?
The prosecution feared that the guilty plea would only encounter skepticism and so compelled Omar Khadr to deny that he had been made any promises in exchange, and had not been forced, if not blackmailed, to accept its terms.
The judge had even the audacity to tell Mr. Khadr: you should only do this if you truly believe it is your best interest.
In essence, Omar Khadr was confronted with the following dilemma: comprehensively accept the US claims in this case, that he is an alien, unprivileged, enemy belligerent, committed murder in violation of the laws of war thereby legitimizing these constructs of the Bush and Obama administrations, in exchange for an eight year sentence, or refuse the agreement and face a trial that had only one possible conclusion: life in prison.
Caught between Scylla and Charybdis, he chose Scylla.
Incidentally, since he has already been imprisoned for eight years, should he not be freed today?
He may be the only prisoner to have been jailed for sixteen years after having been sentenced to eight…
In short, President Obama’s military commission extorted a guilty plea in order to spare itself the embarrassment of convicting a juvenile to life in prison on bogus legal grounds.
As the Star concluded, in an article called A travesty of justice, the guilty plea spares Obama the ignominy of a full trial of a child soldier in a sham court, yet not the ignominy of having arbitrarily detained and abused a juvenile then manufactured charges to justify the odious treatment inflicted.
(The photograph above is by Brennan Linsley/Reuters)

The enemies of justice and democracy lurk not only on the rugged Afghan-Pakistan border but in Washington as well...

Last Wednesday, a federal court in New York convicted Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a thirty-six-year-old Tanzanian, of one count of conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property.
The first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be tried in a civilian court, he was acquitted however, on the other 284 counts, including 224 for murder, one for each victim of the bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998.
The prosecutors plan to demand the maximum penalty when Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is sentenced next January, that is to say, life in prison.
Quite predictably however, opponents of the Obama administration, which has pledged to try some Guantanamo detainees in US civilian courts, seized on the verdict to excoriate the President and Attorney General Eric Holder, deeming that all terrorists suspects (for, until they have been tried and convicted, are but that, suspects) should be tried solely by military commissions.
Liz Cheney, daughter of the former Vice -President, and head of the conservative organization Keep America Safe, issued a statement that began thus:
The Obama Administration recklessly insisted on a civilian trial for Ahmed Ghailani, and rolled the dice in a time of war.
For such critics, conducting a fair trial for a terrorism suspect, which, by definition, will preserve and respect the rights of the accused, is by nature reckless.
For them, civilian courts and jurors obviously cannot be trusted to deliver the only verdict that is acceptable in such cases, and in a time of war, a guilty one…
Hence, to expect them to bring this about is akin to rolling the dice.
If the evidence against these suspects is so sound and convincing, then why are these critics making such a claim?
Ironically, the fundamental strengths of the civilian court system, the examination and evaluation of the evidence presented by the prosecution and cross-examined by the defense is in fact, a liability for these critics.
For, if the evidence fails to convince a jury, the defendant could actually be acquitted, an unconscionable act for them.
As far as they are concerned, terrorists are to be judged by special courts, convicted and locked away, if not given the death penalty, and certainly not acquitted or partially acquitted during a free and fair trial.
The latter are for Americans, not foreign terrorists…
Failing to convict these terrorists on all counts sends the wrong message to our enemies. It’s dangerous. It signals weakness in a time of war, according to Keep America Safe.
Weakness?
When a democracy resorts to the rule of law and civilian courts, where the rights of both the prosecution and the defendant are scrupulously respected, to try terrorism suspects, is it truly putting its weakness on display?
A democracy remains true to itself and its values by always adhering to the rule of law even when, or especially when, dealing with enemies who hold both human life and justice in contempt.
In addition, which is the more efficient method to combat Islamic extremism?
Detain them for years in secret prisons and Guantanamo, subject them to abject abuse and torture, try them in special courts that deny them their fundamental rights and before which no American citizen would ever be brought, when they are tried at all, or subject them to the same rules that we reserve for ourselves, and ensure that they are treated humanely and fairly?
Which method does more to validate and vindicate al-Qaeda’s anti-Western ideology, to inflame Muslim public opinion against the West, to recruit additional militants in al-Qaeda’s anti-western, nihilistic jihad, the former or the latter?
The best way, the only way to discredit the fanatics and their vile tactics and inflammatory language is to steadfastly remain ourselves, and not resort to practices that only thuggish regimes utilize…
Secret detention, endless detention, abuse, torture, bogus trials, this is what the extremists thrive on and use to fuel their followers‘ bitterness and wrath toward the West…
Remaining true to itself and its laws thus, in no way undermines a society and its ability to defend itself from external threats such as terrorism, but actually strengthens it.
In addition, would not our image in the Islamic world measurably improve if we ceased invading and occupying Muslim countries, refrain from killing hundreds if not thousands of Muslims each year, and made an even half-hearted attempt to resolve the Palestinian question?
In essence, the more we respect our own principles and values, the feebler the Islamic extremist movements will become…
For many Republicans however, such as Peter King, the future chairman of the House of Representatives’ homeland security committee, civilian courts cannot deliver their brand of justice.
He characterized the Ghailani verdict as a total miscarriage of justice, and added, this tragic verdict demonstrates the absolute insanity of the Obama administration’s decision to try al-Qaeda terrorists in civilian courts.
What is tragic about a verdict delivered by an independent, civilian jury that simply examined the evidence (the admissible evidence, that is) and responded as it saw fit?
In a democracy, that is called justice.
What must also be mentioned however is that none of the defendants are al-Qaeda terrorists until they have been recognized as such by a court.
For Mr. King and his like-minded colleagues, the simple fact that someone has been detained in Guantanamo and thus recognized as an unlawful combatant by the President is sufficient proof of guilt.
Why then, bother conducting a fair trial that may expose the evidence against many suspects for what it is, bogus and tainted?
The trial becomes a mere formality, when there actually is one, designed to sentence the guilty to the most severe penalty possible.
That is how you treat enemies during a time of war, according to the Bush/Cheney/King school of constitutional rights.
These people are warriors, to quote Senator Graham, but unlawful ones, such that the President who has designated them as such can them deprive them of their rights at the stroke of a pen, particularly the right to a fair trial.
These foreigners simply do not deserve one, for the simple fact that they allegedly dared to attack America, and by doing so, forfeited all the rights civilized nations afford not only their citizens but also those individuals that fall under their jurisdiction.
It is this conception of justice that many would characterize as total insanity.
Mr. King considers insane the proposition that the rights of all human beings should be respected, even those of one’s enemies.
Incidentally, Mr. King has enthusiastically defended George Bush for approving the use of waterboarding on detainees such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind, and even suggested that the former President should get a medal for having done so.
Currently on a book tour, Mr. Bush has repeatedly boasted having authorized it against terrorist suspects.
Waterboarding however, is considered a war crime by all civilized countries including the US, until the Bush/Cheney presidency, that is.
In fact, during the Tokyo Trials convened at the conclusion of WWII, Japanese soldiers were prosecuted for having committed acts of torture that included waterboarding.
The Japanese were tried, convicted, and hung for war crimes committed against American POWs. Among those charges for which they were convicted was waterboarding, John McCain himself told reporters in 2007.
Amnesty International and the ACLU have called for an investigation to examine whether or not former President Bush did violate US and international law banning the use of torture.
Will Attorney General Eric Holder consider appointing a special prosecutor?
This is highly unlikely even though the US is under the legal obligation to investigate all potential violations of the ban on torture committed by its citizens. If it does not, foreign nations may elect to do so.
Yet, President Obama having established at the outset of his mandate that he wanted to look forward and not backward, it is highly unlikely Mr. Holder will take the slightest initiative to satisfy the demands of Amnesty International and the ACLU.
The President himself however, while visiting Indonesia earlier this month, urged his hosts to investigate the abuses of the Suharto regime.
We can’t go forward without looking backwards, he told them.
Why should that be true for Indonesia but not for the US?
In the end, is Mr. King evenly remotely interested in justice?
We must try them (al-Qaeda terrorists) as wartime enemies and try them in military commissions at Guantanamo, he added.
Why?
Evidence obtained through coercion and torture is inadmissible in a civilian court.
Case in point, prosecutors in the Ghailani case declined to present his confession as evidence during the trial.
The statements obtained while he was detained illegally in one of the CIA’s secret prisons and then at Guantanamo were coerced and obtained under duress, according to his lawyers.
Furthermore, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan who presided over the proceedings refused to authorize the testimony of a potentially giant witness for the government, Hussein Abebe, a Tanzanian who allegedly sold Ghailani the explosives that were then used during the embassy attacks.
Investigators learned of the witness’ existence during the interrogation sessions held at the secret prison and then at Guantanamo.
Since Ghailani was most probably tortured during his detention, any information thus obtained was deemed inadmissible by the court, and rightly so.
As a result, the opponents of civilian, thus fair trials were quick to point out that only military commissions could adequately try terrorist suspects.
The judge in this case, applying constitutional and legal standards to which all U.S. citizens are entitled, threw out important evidence. The result is that the jury acquitted on all but one conspiracy count, Lamar Smith, future Judiciary Committee Chairman from Texas, told the NYT.
For the supporters of military commissions, that the important evidence was obtained through torture is irrelevant.
Military commissions were created for this very purpose: convict defendants with evidence (the accuracy of which is also irrelevant as long as it is incriminating) that no civilian court could ever take seriously, and thus admit it as such.
Omar Khadr’s confession obtained, like Ghailani’s under torture, was declared admissible by the presiding military judge at his militarty commission trial.
The military commissions serve one purpose and one purpose only: deliver a guilty verdict, or threaten detainees with life imprisonment in order to extort a plea bargain whereby they recognize their guilt in exchange of a more lenient sentence, as in the Omar Khadr case (I hope to deal with this in a future post).
Constitutional and legal standards only apply to US citizens, these supporters of torture and military commissions erroneously claim.
As such these foreigners, even if, like Khadr, they were only fifteen when apprehended by US forces, will have to settle for military commissions (if they are to be tried at all and not condemned by the President to indefinite detention), where tainted evidence is welcome, and skeptical jurors absent altogether.
US Army officers are considered more reliable to produce the desired (guilty) verdict.
This is what the Cheneys, Smiths and Kings call justice…
Ironically, it is the very tactics employed by the Bush/Cheney administration and enthusiastically supported by MM. King, Smith and Ms. Cheney and so many other Republicans and not a few Democrats, the enhanced interrogation techniques (and what everyone else call torture), that produced the verdict now so shrilly denounced as inadequate by these apologists of torture!
Unfortunately, however, this verdict, and the rabid attacks that followed it, may lead the Obama administration to conclude it is unwise to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a civilian court, as it had vowed to do one year ago.
It may now decide that choosing the civilian trial may be too politically risky and burdensome.
Indeed, how much legitimate, untainted evidence against Mohammed is available, and would it be sufficient to convince a jury to convict him?
Would a military commissions trial be satisfactory and credible?
Assuredly not.
Hence, Obama may be tempted to resort to the most unacceptable and morally repugnant of options: indefinite detention…
This disgraceful option would simply comfort those critics of Guantanamo who have always claimed that it was nothing but a modern-day Bastille, where individuals are arbitrarily detained by royal fiat, the presidential, lettres de cachet, and beyond the reach of the law and justice.
What is equally clear, his declarations to the contrary notwithstanding, is that Obama has no intention of closing Guantanamo as promised.
He did not think it worth his while to expend the necessary political capital do so while the Democrats held the majority in Congress. Now that he has lost the House, this issue will be for the next President to address or not.
Mr. King made this quite clear: they couldn’t come close to getting that done when the democrats were in charge. There’s no way they’re going to get it now that Republicans are in charge, he declared…No less was expected of him…
The enemies of justice and democracy lurk not only on the rugged Afghan-Pakistan border but in Washington as well.
These US militants, we presume unwittingly, are trying to accomplish what bin Laden could only dream of and that his nemesis Bush/Cheney initiated so potently, the subversion of the nation’s values and constitution, all in the name of preserving freedom and security and winning their sacrosanct war on terror.
What is deeply disappointing is that Obama did not see fit to decisively reverse course and base the political and ideological struggle against Islamic extremism (you may have noticed I did not use the expression war, for this is a struggle military forces are doomed to lose) on the values of justice and democracy, universal values at that, and not on the perversion of them which is what the Bush/Cheney supporters and torture enthusiasts chose to do, hoping to shock and awe their foes into submission…
On the day after his inauguration, Obama vowed to continue the struggle against terrorism, but he said, we are going to do so in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals.
The Republicans and many Democrats have clearly turned their backs on such a principled approach.
Let us hope President Obama will not do likewise…
Success in the struggle against al-Qaeda and their followers depends on it.
(the photograph of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani can was found here)

Is democracy a luxury that China cannot afford?

Do authoritarian and repressive regimes have an intrinsic advantage when launching an economic policy the aim of which is to modernize rapidly an impoverished and underdeveloped nation?
Can only such regimes deliver quick economic growth?
Conversely, does democracy inhibit rapid economic growth because of the obligations it willingly shoulders, such as catering to the needs of various and often antagonistic constituencies?
In short, could China have created the world’s second largest economy in just thirty years had it not been led by an authoritarian and repressive regime which denied its citizens all of their fundamental rights in order to produce the desired outcome, economic prosperity?
Should China therefore, heed the advice of the west and launch its Fifth Modernization, democratization, or wait until the nation’s economy is robust enough to satisfy the material needs of most, if not all, Chinese?
Some in Asia, such as Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, in a recent NYT op-ed, accuse the West of being shortsighted on the issue of democratization.
The notion that by recognizing and encouraging Chinese dissidents such as Liu Xiaobo the West can help foster a democratic movement in China is a delusion, a counterproductive one, which can only lead to instability not democracy, he claims.
Infatuated with its ideals of justice and democracy, the West refuses to entertain the notion that there may exist what Mr. Mahbubani calls an alternative point of view, presumably embodied by the regime.
If, as Mr. Mahbubani noticed, few Chinese did indeed publicly celebrate Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize, it is because they feared enduring the wrath of those enforcing this alternative point of view.
Nevertheless, some actually had the courage to do so, and were promptly arrested and have been harassed by that alternative point of view’s security apparatus ever since.
No one denies the great benefits that Deng Xiaoping’s modernization program based on opening up the country to outside and particularly Western influence unleashed.
That is indeed an unparalleled achievement and worthy of praise.
Many foreigners came to China to invest, and thousands of young Chinese went abroad to study…
If Western values are so pernicious, why did Deng allow them to go?
Surely, Mr. Deng must have evaluated the potential consequences of exposing thousands of youths to the Western, democratic model.
Those brazen enough to believe that not only socialism (another Western import) could have Chinese characteristics, but democracy as well, and brought those ideas home, were maimed and killed by the thousands on June 4, 1989 at Tiananmen.
MM. Deng and Li actually unleashed the PLA on China’s youth…
It is reassuring to note that Mr. Mahbubani brands the autocratic regime’s reaction a mistake.
Most observers around the world saw an authoritarian regime commit, not a mistake, but a great crime in order to preserve its monopoly on power.
What in the end was more destabilizing and traumatic, the call for democracy, or the violent repression of the democracy movement?
How many were killed on that fateful day?
The great leaders in Beijing never divulged the figure, to preserve stability no doubt…
Yet, the values of justice and democracy are not Western, Eastern or Central, they are universal.
La Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen was not bestowed by the French revolutionaries on the French alone, but on all of humanity.
No doubt, no doubt, we are told, but these foreign values would be too destabilizing for a country like China.
Better to keep over a billion people shackled to ensure that they do not destabilize a system now able to feed them properly.
That is the argument the apologists of tyranny always invoke to justify depriving human beings of their fundamental rights.
Democracy activists are thus dismissed as selfish, vain and irresponsible stooges of foreign powers, unwittingly undermining the nation and impeding its progress.
Furthermore, this argument goes, democracy is the central element in a Western plot designed to overthrow the regime. Those converted to Western values are thus either fools or traitors.
Only the autocrats know what is good for China, certainly not those foreigners who did such great harm to China in a not-so-distant past and even less those criminals or fools who parrot their justice-and-democracy propaganda.
Leave China alone, the admirers of the Chinese leadership argue.
Only a regime ruthlessly imposing order and discipline could have achieved such remarkable growth in the span of a generation, these apologists claim.
As such, China’s leaders should be commended for their achievements, not condemned for their human rights abuses, mere collateral damage on the road to prosperity.
Mr. Mahbubani does have a point however, when he emphasizes that the West does have a double standard on the human rights question.
The US has indeed much to answer for: not only Guantanamo but also Abu Ghraib, Bagram, secret prisons, ghost detainees, extraordinary renditions, warrantless wiretapping, enhanced interrogation techniques (what Bush administration lawyers call torture), and the list goes on...
Those blatant and flagrant human rights abuses tarnished America’s reputation, which it will take decades of virtuous behavior to restore.
These abuses also undermined its moral authority and left it in no position to criticize anyone’s human rights record.
Alas, President Obama has elected to preserve Guantanamo, military commissions, extraordinary renditions, indefinite detention and so on, thus betraying the great faith placed in him by human rights activists in the US and throughout the world.
MM. Bush and Cheney must feel vindicated indeed…
The UK is also currently grappling with its own version of Abu Ghraib.
Nevertheless, do these human rights abuses justify Tiananmen, the jailing of a non-violent pro-democracy literature professor, and the systematic repression of democracy activists?
No, and nothing ever will.
One can measure the level a civilization has reached by the way it treats its own people.
Feeding and providing for a nation of over one billion people is indeed an extraordinary feat and Deng’s contribution in this effort is evident.
Yet, what is the point of providing for them if the price is persecution?
What choice does the regime allow its citizens, or rather, subjects?
Live decently, but without any rights.
Demand to live decently without forfeiting those rights and you are deprived of both the former and the latter.
The autocrats have been able to deliver a measure of prosperity but only by negating all those fundamental rights China vowed to respect (e.g., Article 35 of its constitution, and the international covenants that it signed ).
Do material progress and prosperity justify tyranny?
Should we condone the crimes committed by the thugs who rule in Beijing because they have succeeded in erecting the planet’s second largest economy?
Does the end, relative prosperity, justify the means, systematic repression of all pro-democracy activism?
Are we to understand that, if Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to eleven years in jail, it is for a good cause, for the well-being of the Chinese people?
Presumably, his revolutionary ideas (simply demanding that the autocrats respect the country’s constitution) could prove contagious and infect other Chinese citizens, leading them to demand that their rights be also respected.
Where would that leave the regime?
What the autocrats are in facts trying to preserve is not stability, but their monopoly on power.
If the regime were truly interested in stability, than it would start a dialogue with such moderates as Liu Xiaobo, and negotiate a path conciliating both economic growth and democratic rights.
India faces many of the challenges confronting China today: a huge population whose material needs must be met; ethnic, and religious tensions; massive pockets of poverty and underdevelopment, particularly in the countryside; huge inequality-inducing income variations, for instance.
Yet, it has attempted to confront these daunting issues with the help of its people, not in spite of or against them.
It is the Indians who elect their rulers, not a miniscule minority of apparatchiks in secret meetings, behind closed doors.
Has democracy in India led to unrest?
Sometimes, but to instability and anarchy?
No!
Only the Chinese can compel the regime to give back what it has extorted, their fundamental democratic and human rights. Few in the West have any doubt about that.
A Nobel Peace Prize will do little to overthrow an authoritarian regime, but perhaps it can help call attention to the fate of a brave man the autocrats in Beijing have tried so resolutely to humiliate and destroy.
This Nobel Peace Prize is trying to convey to them the following message: do not try to fool your people or us; Liu is no criminal, only a man whose ambition is to live like one, in dignity and freedom.
The world is watching and admiring China’s rise, but also the fortitude and resilience of Liu Xiaobo and his fellow dissidents
The resurrection of the Chinese nation cannot come at the price of the dignity and fundamental rights of its people.
The regime will be held accountable for the way its treats them, and its crimes, all its crimes exposed and denounced.
Hence, contrary to what Mr. Mahbubani maliciously claims, it is not Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize that is ignoble, but the ruling clique’s fanatical persecution of a man who only believes that we should end the practice of viewing words as crimes…
(the photograph of Chinese President Hu Jintao unveiling a statue of Deng Xiaoping in 2004 is by Xinhua)

Why not conduct this relationship on our terms…?

Nicholas Sarkozy will become head of the G-20 this week, and has set out an ambitious agenda for his twelve-month presidency.
He hopes, no less, to reform the international monetary system, develop mechanisms to prevent excess volatility in commodity markets and modify international institutions, where major decisions are made, so that they more accurately reflect the political and economic realities of today’s world.
The international monetary system has not evolved since 1945 and Bretton Woods, the French President told AFP. Then, there was but one major economy, the US, and one principle currency, the Dollar. You can imagine the complexity of the new system that should replace it. It is France’s ambition to ensure that everyone shows the willingness to discuss establishing a new system guaranteeing international stability.
It is preferable to try and create a new system fit for the twenty first century then to continue trading barbs about the current situation, he added.
In order to try and accomplish these major reforms, Nicholas Sarkozy will need help and is counting on the Chinese to support his positions, that may not be so palatable to the US, principle beneficiary of the current system.
As such, The French President hosted his counterpart in Paris and Nice last week.
Hu Jintao came to France on a three-day state visit, and was greeted at Orly Airport
by Sarkozy himself, accompanied by his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.
The Chinese President was also invited to a formal dinner at the Elysée Palace.
To ensure that everything went smoothly, the state visit did not include any press conferences. As a result, the Chinese President did not have to field any embarrassing questions regarding Nobel Peace Prize recipient Liu Xiaobo, or the appalling human rights situation in China.
That evidently, was one of the prerequisites in order to obtain Chinese support for the French G-20 agenda.
Some countries in the G-20 weigh more than others. Nothing can be achieved today without the agreement of China, a senior French official told the NYT.
The next day, the two leaders who were meeting this time in Nice agreed to promote the reform of the international financial system, according to the Chinese news website cri.cn.
Yet, it remains to be seen how far the Chinese will go, for such a reform could entail a reevaluation of the yuan, a major demand of the US and EU.
Chinese prosperity has been principally fueled by the export of Chinese goods abroad, rendered highly competitive due to what many consider an undervalued currency.
A reevaluation would undoubtedly undermine the allure of Chinese goods, currently accounting for 12.3% of all international exports, up from 7% in 2000.
Another objective of the state visit is to boost trade between France and China, currently valued at but 40 billion Euros per year.
Both presidents hope to double that figure by 2015.
Some 16 billion Euros worth of contracts were signed between France and China during the visit.
Airbus sold 102 aircrafts to Chinese airlines, a deal worth some $14 billion.
The French nuclear giant Areva won a 2.5 billion Euro contract to provide 20,000 tons of uranium to the Chinese electrical company CGNPC.
The French oil company Total will invest some 2 billion Euros in a petrochemical plant in China.
Alcatel-Lucent also signed three contacts with Chinese mobile phone operators, worth over one billion Euros.
These transactions however, should do little to blunt China’s 22 billion Euro trade surplus with France (the deficit stood at 5.7 billion in 2007).
China sells the French mostly textile and clothes, but also more and more mobiles and computers…
France’s share of the Chinese market is modest if not insignificant: 1.3%, much less than Germany…
In France however, some were upset by the fact that Nicholas Sarkozy was so accommodating during the visit.
Reporteurs sans Frontières, a French human rights organization that defends press freedom demonstrated its disapproval. As Hu Jintao’s car was driving up the Champs-Elysées on Friday morning, several activists waved open umbrellas on which Free Liu Xiaobo was written.
They were promptly rounded up by the police and taken to the local precinct.
The organization’s secretary general, Jean François Julliard, was indignant.
It is simply inconceivable that France, birthplace of human rights, should not even mention the plight of Chinese dissidents, victims of systematic government repression against democracy activists. How can President Sarkozy go back on his word thus?
During the 2007 campaign, he had vowed to place human rights at the center of his diplomacy, he declared in a statement posted on RSF’s website.
Some twenty French professors of Chinese also sent a letter to Sarkozy asking him to intervene in order to secure the freedom of Liu Xiaobo and all other political prisoners.
China has only intensified its pressure on pro-democracy and free speech activists since the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Liu.
So far, the Chinese Communist Party’s response has been to harass, arrest or confine dozens of dissidents to their homes, wrote Tom Lasseter, of McClatchy Newspapers.
Liu’s friends are particularly under pressure.
They said Liu Xiaobo is a criminal and we should not spread information about criminals, Wu Wei told McClatchy.
The situation is getting really bad, Yu Jie, a writer and friend of Liu, told the NYT.
A prominent Chinese human rights lawyer, Pu Zhiqiang is still under police surveillance. Police officers accused him of being a running dog for the Western countries and a traitor to the motherland.
It is the very notion of freedom of speech that the Beijing autocrats cannot tolerate.
Allowing criticism of the government would quickly sap its authority, undermine its legitimacy, expose its corruptions and moral bankruptcy and lead to its downfall.
The repression against all those brave enough to demand this right is therefore fierce.
The biggest threat to this government is freedom of speech. They don’t like Liu’s ideas about being able to criticize the government, Li Fangping, also a human rights lawyer, told McClatchy.
The police know these people are not going to cause the collapse of the Communist Party. They persecute these activists because they are people who can spread the news within Chinese society, Nicolas Bequelin, of HRW, told the NYT.
In addition, the Chinese government still hopes to blunt the impact abroad of Liu’s Nobel Peace Prize by urging EU governments to boycott the ceremony next month.
It also demands that, contrary to custom, they issue no congratulatory message to the recipient. One diplomat was not surprised, you could expect it, because if you look at their reaction, it’s been unreasonable. It’s not something that looks very good, but it is something that it seems they cannot understand, he told the NYT.
Did Nicholas Sarkozy strike the right tone and balance during the visit, or should he have publicly challenged his host on China’s human rights record?
President Hu Jintao is someone you can talk to. There are many differences of opinion between the Chinese and the French, but we discussed all the issues. There are no taboos, particularly on the human rights question. We have values to defend and we defend them while also respecting our partners, and understanding that their culture is different from ours, that they have come a long way and that we must encourage them to open up further, the French President declared.
Yet, the Chinese did not intend to discuss Liu Xiaobo or the human rights question. This is not an issue that should be discussed between France and China, Fu Ying, China’s deputy Foreign minister said.
France’s Foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner begged to differ however.
Both presidents discussed this matter and yours truly spent an hour-and-a half with Yang Jiechi, the Chinese Foreign minister, discussing human rights issues, and in particular, the dissident winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, he told the French radio RTL.
We have to believe Mr. Kouchner for no public statements on the important issue were made by either party.
Did Sarkozy make too many concessions therefore, in order to obtain future Chinese political support and significant economic deals?
Alas, the answer is yes…
At the outset of his presidency, Nicholas Sarkozy had a bolder and much more ambitious approach to China. He had told the Chinese that he would boycott the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games if the Chinese government did not initiate a dialogue with the Dalai Lama. Riots had erupted in Tibet against Chinese repressive rule in March.
The Chinese were furious, accusing Sarkozy, who had publicly met with the Tibetan ruler, of supporting the latter’s separatist activities, and of attempting to sabotage the Games.
In addition, Tibetan and human rights activists took advantage of the Olympic torch relay in Paris to demonstrate against the Chinese regime in front of the world’s cameras…
During a scuffle between the activists and the police, a handicapped Chinese athlete participating in the relay, Jin Jing, fell. Images of the assaulted athlete, to quote Chinese media, were an instant internet hit, and subsequently picked up by official Chinese media, which transformed Jin into a martyr.
In retaliation, and with official Chinese support, bloggers campaigned for a boycott of French products and firms such as Carrefour, the French supermarket chain.
Sarkozy was profusely lampooned on the web, and France was accused of betrayal.
Hence, Franco-Chinese relations seriously deteriorated.
Perhaps, as a result, Sarkozy did attend the Olympic ceremony after all even though no discussions between China and the Dalai Lama had taken place, as he had demanded…
In Chinese eyes, the credibility and authority of the French President were not enhanced by this change of heart…
The need to improve relations with China was rendered all the more urgent and vital by the extent and depth of the financial and economic crisis that beleaguered France and the West and from which China emerged largely unscathed, its economy booming anew.
China is often portrayed as the world’s principle banker, the only player able to save capitalism, and the ultimate market where our firms can prevail, Marie Holzman, president of Solidarité Chine, a NGO born after the June 4, 1989 Massacre, told the French weekly L’Express.
In this context, France needed China more than China needed France.
As a result, the concessions have been all one sided.
We flatter China and treat its autocratic and ruthless leaders with utmost respect because we need their financial support and economic help to emerge from recession.
Yet, this policy of appeasement has been a major mistake.
We give the impression that we cannot survive without them, but it is the reverse that is true. The servile attitude we have demonstrated these last thirty years has transformed us into the accomplices of a dictatorial regime, Marie Holzman said.
The Chinese thrive on such weakness and have nothing but contempt for those who can afford no other role.
What they do respect and heed is power, and authority.
Exerting both does not necessarily entail being economically blacklisted by Beijing.
What is interesting is the comparison with Germany.
Angela Merkel did not attend the Beijing Olympics; she publicly met with the Dalai Lama and congratulated Liu Xiaobo after he received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Yet, china voiced no objections.
There is a double standard. Why?
Because Germany’s position has been firm and constant, and does not change every year. France has lacked a long-term China policy. For China, this is an obvious sign of weakness, and they only respect strength, Jean-Vincent Brisset, a French China scholar, told TF1News.
The French are not taken seriously by the Chinese because of their versatility.
They prefer predictability and, as their approach to Germany demonstrates, do not mix business and politics. France’s policy, it seems, is nothing but business…
We have the power to influence China, and should not simply submit to its political imperatives.
China’s booming economy is principally export driven. It therefore, needs our markets to continue growing and prospering. That is the price of social stability, which the regime desperately needs to foster if it hopes to maintain its monopoly on political power. This is the source, and probably the sole one, of its legitimacy: prosperity for the Chinese people in exchange of their total political subjugation.
Hence, we, in the West, are in a position to demand that China respect its constitution (and, in particular Article 35, which states, Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration) and its international treaty obligations, if it wants to continue having unfettered access to our markets.
Why should the China relationship not be conducted on our terms for once?
For, surely, the Hu Jintao visit to France was a one-sided affair, 16 billion Euros worth of contracts notwithstanding.
If the Chinese President wants to come to France, he should do so but on our terms.
He deserves to be welcomed as the leader of a great nation, but should not expect and be given special treatment.
Other world leaders visiting Paris meet with the press.
If Mr. Hu is afraid to encounter a free press, he should stay in Beijing.
If China’s human rights policy embarrasses even him, then he should alter it or, again stay at home.
If it does not, then let him defend it publicly.
We should not allow him to visit France as he would a Chinese province, with no demonstrators or journalists anywhere to be seen…
Liu Xiaobo is in jail because he publicly and unabashedly espoused the values we profess to hold so dear.
He defends them much more nobly and bravely than we do, for we dare not even speak his name publicly before a Chinese leader.
It behooves all EU governments to rebuff China’s impudent attempts to intimidate them into boycotting the Nobel award ceremony and ignoring Liu Xiaobo.
The thugs who rule in Beijing should be made unequivocally aware that democrats in the West and everywhere else will hold them accountable for their actions wherever they go and that our silence and complicity cannot be bought.
(all translations from the French are minne; the photograph above of Hu Jintao and Nicholas Sarkozy in Nice is by Philippe Wojazer AFP)