Mission & Justice

Philippe Sands; 20/5/08

Over the past five years the name Mohammed Al-Qahtani — detainee 063 at Guant?namo — has been indelibly associated with the Bush administration’s efforts to justify extreme measures in the “war on terror”. This Saudi was apprehended in Afghanistan in late 2001 and taken to Guantanamo in early 2002, included in a group labeled as the “worst of the worst”. His identity got a full airing in June 2004, as the administration struggled to contain the fallout from the Abu Ghraib pictures. Alleged to be the 20th hijacker, Al-Qahtani became its justification for abandoning a longstanding prohibition on the use of cruelty by the military. Two of the administration’s most senior lawyers — White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Defense Department General Counsel Jim Haynes — stood before the world’s media and laid out the official story to explain the move to aggressive interrogation: It occurred as a result of a bottom-up request from an aggressive combatant commander at Guantanamo; it was implemented within the law and on the basis of careful legal advice; and it produced useful and important results.

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Tim Shipman; 19/5/08

Soldiers fighting alongside American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq would face criminal prosecution if allied governments go ahead with plans to sign a treaty limiting the use of cluster bombs, US diplomats have warned. US officials are concerned Britain may trade the rights of British soldiers to placate critics of cluster bombs. Representatives from 122 nations, including Britain and Australia, will meet in Dublin today to set the terms of a deal that would outlaw the use of most cluster munitions. Pressure groups have battled for a decade to ban the bombs, because the small bomblets dropped on airfields and enemy tanks do not always explode during wartime and have been blamed for killing civilians later.

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18/5/08

The United States plans to build a new detention camp at Bagram military base in Afghanistan, a Defence Department spokesman has said. A Pentagon spokesman confirmed the move on Saturday, detailing that a planned 40 acre complex at the Bagram military base will soon be built. Lieutenant Colonel Mark Wright said: “I can confirm there are indeed plans to build a new detention facility at Bagram airfield.” The new facility is said to hold about 1,100 detainees and cost about $60million.

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Tom Coghlan; 17/5/08

Western secret services in Afghanistan are acting like South American “death squads”, a United Nations human rights expert has claimed. Professor Richard Alston of the United Nations Human Rights Council said the intelligence agencies and Afghan militias were targeting suspected insurgency leaders with “impunity”. Their missions, he said, were “unaccountable to any international military authority”. Although Professor Alston refused to identify which intelligence services he was talking about, his comments follow criticism of the activities of CIA units, often by military personnel from other nations operating in Afghanistan.

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11/5/08

Slowly, and sadly, the consequences of Australia’s open-ended commitment of troops to Afghanistan are becoming apparent. Last week, the funeral was held for Lance Corporal Jason Marks, the fifth Australian soldier to be killed there since 2002. His death reminds us of the practical perils facing young Australians sent to perform a deadly task in our name. Other news from Afghanistan last week highlights other perils facing our soldiers. Allegations of mistreatment of prisoners captured by Australians reveal they operate in a legal and moral minefield — complexities typical of any war, but which have a unique character in Afghanistan.

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Brendan Nicholson; 10/5/08

Three investigations are under way into allegations that Australian troops maltreated Afghan civilians captured during a raid on a bomb-making facility. The Australian Defence Force chief, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, said in Afghanistan that an initial inquiry carried out in country indicated there was no truth in the allegations but he had immediately sent two teams to the country to investigate further. One team consists of military police, who would thoroughly investigate the allegations. The second team would carry out a longer-term administrative investigation to see if any issues emerged that needed to be dealt with. As well, the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan has launched

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6/5/08

Five Afghan detainees who were released from Guantanamo Bay last week have been sent to jail upon their arrival in Afghanistan. They had been detained at Guantanamo Bay with the Al Jazeera cameraman, Sami al-Hajj. Al-Hajj and the Afghan detainees were on the same plane after they were released from the US military prison. he detainees, who have been taken to the Pul-i-Charkhe prison on the outskirts of Kabul, the Afghan capital, will now face Afghan courts. Detainees from Guantanamo Bay and any other US prison facility are usually transferred to Afghan custody once they are released.

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James Emery; 6/5/08

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the export value of Afghanistan’s opium production was about $4 billion last year, of which 24 percent went to those working at the lower to middle end of the opium chain. The bulk of the money goes to regional and international trafficking organizations that have ties with the Taliban, terrorists, and multinational criminal organizations. “Counter-narcotics is one of the key challenges,” said Ashraf Haidari, political counselor at the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, D.C. “I think that unless we resolve the narcotics problem, it can undo many of our achievements, especially the governance and the rule of law. Narcotics traders are corrupting everyone that is not paid well; the police primarily, but also the judicial system up to institutions that constitute the face of the government.”

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Tom Hyland; 4/5/08

Prisoners captured by Australian and Dutch troops in Afghanistan allege they have been beaten after being handed over to the notorious Afghan secret police. While the Australian Defence Force says there is no evidence prisoners taken by Australian troops have been mistreated, official documents show three have complained they were beaten around the head by secret police after being captured by the Dutch-Australian taskforce. The Dutch documents show prisoners are routinely handed over to Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS), which human rights groups accuse of torturing and abusing prisoners.

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Mark Dodd; 29/4/08

Australian troops in Afghanistan face a “difficult and dangerous and bloody” year, and the nation must be prepared for further deaths, Kevin Rudd warned yesterday. In his bleakest yet assessment of the challenge facing coalition forces in Afghanistan, the Prime Minister said history was against foreign military forces operating in the war-torn country but Australia was in for the “long haul”. His grim warning follows the death of special forces soldier Lance Corporal Jason Marks, 27, from the Sydney-based 4th Battalion Royal Australian Regiment. Four other commandos received serious wounds. Corporal Marks was the fifth Australian soldier to die in Afghanistan since coalition troops launched their campaign against the Taliban and al-Qa’ida in 2002. Four Australians have now died since October last year.

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