One of Ours

Gonzales:...let me say that the U.S. will treat people in our custody in accordance with all U.S. obligations including federal statutes, the U.S. Constitution and our treaty obligations. The President has said we do not condone or commit torture. Anyone engaged in conduct that constitutes torture will be held accountable. The President has not directed the use of specific interrogation techniques. There has been no presidential determination necessity or self-defense that would allow conduct that constitutes torture. There has been no presidential determination that circumstances warrant the use of torture to protect the mass security of the United States.

The President has given no order or directive that would immunize from prosecution anyone engaged in conduct that constitutes torture. All interrogation techniques actually authorized have been carefully vetted, are lawful, and do not constitute torture.

Now, a few of the misinformed have asked whether the President's February 7th determination contributed to the abuses at Abu Ghraib. We categorically reject any connection. There are two separate legal regimes that govern action in those arenas. In Iraq, it has always been U.S. position that Geneva applies. From the early days of the conflict, both the White House and the Department of Defense have been very public and clear about that...

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...The definition of torture that the administration uses is the definition that Congress has given us in the torture statute and the reservation of the torture convention...

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HAYNES: ...the vast majority of the techniques employed are an existing Army doctrine, decades old, which were developed in the context of Geneva governing conflicts for prisoners of war, which are so much more protected than unlawful combatants in it's conflict...techniques cannot be considered an isolation. Certainly, any one technique improperly applied could, you know, produce all sorts of undesirable consequences, including perhaps torture. But we -- the United States is not permitted to go near that...

...The Geneva Conventions include a number of requirements or provisions, including, for example, that prisoners of war -- and prisoners of war are the ones that are governed by that particular convention -- shall have access to a canteen, musical instruments, periodic pay in Swiss francs, things of that nature.

So that language is part of what's reflected in that. And the "military necessity" component of it builds in the fact that -- which is also within the Geneva Conventions -- that military necessity can sometimes allow deviations from some of the principles, allow warfare to be conducted in ways that might infringe on the otherwise applicable articles of the convention that would be applicable...

QUESTION: Mr. Dell'Orto, a question for you. There seems to be in the presentation you gave an assumption chain, if you will, having to do with those who end up in Guantanamo, that they were selected from a group captured in Afghanistan, therefore, there seems to be an assumption that they're terrorists; there's an assumption that they've been trained in techniques to avoid interrogation pressures, therefore, if they're giving no information there's an assumption that they have information to give and the pressure must be ramped-up.

As we've seen, there have been, I think, some very credible accounts that there have been all kinds of mix up in people who got brought into Guantanamo. And so how do you make the determination that the person you've got whose not giving you information is somebody who's trained in denying you information, versus just some guy who was just rounded up with the usual suspects and has no business being there?

MR. DELL'ORTO: Well, I don't accept the various premises of your question. First, the determinations made on the battlefield are that we have an unlawful enemy combatant. It's based upon all manner of things that are considered -- is he carrying a weapon, who was he with at the time he's captured. I mean, it's the traditional analysis you go through -- that a commander in the field goes through when he picks up a person. Is it hard in this instance because the guy may not be wearing a uniform? It probably is.

But, still, given the fact that we go from 10,000 down to something considerably less in number shows that there's quite a bit of care taken to cull out, in this instance, not who is an enemy combatant versus who isn't, but among the enemy combatants who are found on the battlefield, who have significant intelligence value or pose a very significant threat. So I would say, in the first instance, it's not a presumption, it's a finding on the battlefield that you have an unlawful enemy combatant.

Once you get him to Guantanamo, simply because he doesn't give you a lot of information, doesn't necessarily lead you to conclude that he has a lot more. It may be that he is a relatively -- a lower level al Qaeda fighter, who may not have more information. But you piece all of that together, the more people you talk to, the more linkage you develop among these folks...

Here’s this week’s round of Arabs’ comments from the forums on the BBC Arabic website. This time the visitors are discussing the murder of Paul Johnson in Saudi Arabia. Most of the posts came from Saudis of course, the rest came from Egyptians, Iraqis, Jordanians and from people in the Emirates...

“Thanks to this site for providing this opportunity, especially for us-the Saudis-who are the most concerned about this issue. We are innocent from what those ignorant criminals did. I’ve studied the Quran and the Hadith of the Prophet and I find nothing that supports the doings of those criminals who are in great need to understand Islam; the religion of forgiveness and kindness before sword and violence”
Hakeem-Al-Riyadh/KSA [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia].

“Condemning this crime won’t have any real influence on those who are damaging our countries. Enough talking, yes, the murder of Mr. Johnson is a coward terrorist attack, etc. we, as Muslims and Arabs must agree to say to the whole world NO TO TERRORISM. YES FOR FREEDOM AND REFORMS. The Arab regimes that are oppressing their peoples and depriving them of their freedom must leave peacefully. I believe that these regimes contributed-directly or indirectly-to the foundation of those fanatic groups, especially in KSA that have always encouraged violence elsewhere. My point is that the Arab world will change and his thoughts will change, only if we decided to deal with the origin of the problem (the persistent regimes) not with the branches. Finally my condolences to the family of Mr. Johnson.”
Abdullah-Al-Zarqa/Jordan.

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“Why do all these disturbances appear now in KSA in this particular timing? Isn’t KSA one of the countries that the US want to make changes in them? Who’s going to benefit from this crime? Islam and Muslims? This crime was carried out by Muslims but these are most likely to be hired and there are foreign hands behind them and these should be the ones to be sued.”
Wafaa’Al-Qadhi-Egypt.

“I’m against killing foreigners because they came to our country for work and to serve our country. We can invite them to become Muslims rather than murdering them”
Mohammed Zahrani-KSA.

“Everyone is condemning this crime and saying that it’s against the teachings of Islam but still we’re doing nothing about it. I think that fighting these sick ideas is the clerics’ responsibility; they should start to educate people and they have to announce Fatwas that forbid and condemn murdering innocent people. Why do they clerics spend their time giving Fatwas about kids’ toys while they bury their heads in the sand when their words are needed to save lives”
Michael-Alexandria.

“Slaughtering the American hostage is much less than what America did to harm Muslims in general and Abu Ghraib prisoners in particular”
Abu Hasan-Qutaif/KSA

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“Terrorism is a serious phenomenon that must be dealt with, not only condemned. All this is because of the wrongful concepts that some clerics, who know nothing about Islam, call for. Moreover, poverty and lack of education create fanaticism. Governors of the Arab and Muslim nations: fear Allah and be fair. May all the fanatics and the radical extremists be damned forever.”
Mohammed Sherif-Baghdad/Iraq.

FORWARD OPERATING BASE GABE, Iraq, June 22 -- Army Pfc. Jason N. Lynch was taking his one-hour shift behind a Humvee-mounted .50-caliber machine gun when the AK-47s started crackling again, just before dusk. As he responded by raking the source of enemy fire, sticking his head and torso out the roof to aim, a single 7.62mm round found a mortal opening just below Lynch's body armor and ripped into his right side.

Lynch, 21, a 6-foot-2 St. Croix islander who reveled in reggae music and yearned to return to his Caribbean home, immediately slumped down into the Humvee, his comrades in Charlie Battery recalled, and he shouted out to no one in particular: "Ah! I'm hit." Those words -- uttered Friday at 6:50 p.m. in Buhriz, a rebellious, date-growing village about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad -- were the last they heard him say.

Although medics struggled to save his life, the internal bleeding was massive, they said, and Lynch swiftly went into shock...

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A group of insurgents using Buhriz as their base made their intentions clear last week by firing rocket-propelled grenades as U.S. officers met with the mayor. So Pittard's U.S. occupation forces went into town, waited for an attack and responded hard when it came.

"We waxed them," he said in an interview.

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"We occupied the strong point because we knew then we would not have to chase down an elusive enemy," said the first to speak, Lt. Col. Steve Bullimore, 43, of St. Joseph, Mo. "We owe it to Jason, to his family, that his death not be in vain, that his sacrifice not in any way be diminished."...

Now that the ban on Japanese cultural imports has been lifted in South Korea, there's lots of evidence of sharing of culture between the two nations. More and more Korean stars are becoming commonplace on Japanese TV, like my favorite, the lovely Yoon Son Ha (her Korean-Japanese accent is so cute). The popular South Korean war film Brotherhood (in Korean, Taegukgi Hwinalrimyeo) is playing in theatres in Japan right now, and when Korean actor Bin Won came to Japan to promote the movie he was surprised to see 500 screaming Japanese fans at the airport to see him. We're glad to see this new cultural sharing between South Korea and Japan and hope to see more of it in the future.

Japan is experiencing a real "bug boom" right now, as millions of elementary school kids learn everything they can about various kinds of beetles like the Goliath Beetle, Rhinoceros Beetle, Eastern Hercules Beetle and a Japanese variety called Ookuwagata. Part of the interest in bugs is being fueled by the popularity of Mushi King ("Bug King"), an arcade game by Sega which spits out a bar-coded insect card that kids use to fight other 3D animated insects. My son loves this game and has a complete collection of the cards, which have information about the bugs printed on them. Last weekend we took the kids to a nearby Insect Zoo which happened to sell various kinds of beetles, and sure enough, my kids conned us into buying two of them as pets. We're now the proud owners of two red-backed Ookuwagata, which sleep in their cage in a dark corner of my son's room.

There's a fun game Japanese kids play, called Shiritori (lit. "take the rear end") Game. To play, someone thinks of a word -- say, chopsticks, which is "hashi" in Japanese. Then the next person takes the last syllable -- "shi" -- and thinks of a word that starts with this syllable, say, "shika" (deer). The next person continues, with a word that starts with "ka" and so on. In Japanese phonetics, the only consonant that can appear by itself without a noun after it is the letter "n", so in Shiritori Game, saying a word that ends in "n" (such as lion, "raion" in Japanese) ends the game for that person. This game is played by virtually all children in Japan and is a fun way for kids (or gaijin) to pick up and reinforce vocabulary words. It's a great game to play in the car, too.