Crimes Against Humanity Hearings and How I Met An American Hero
So I met Ray McGovern, a retired CIA veteran analyst of 27 years.
Mr. McGovern isn't very tall and he is very soft-spoken. But I was star-struck nonetheless.
I was sitting on the floor of a large multipurpose room at Riverside Church in Manhattan. My friend and I went there to hear the testimony to the International Commission of Inquiry On Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration. I hadn't been there for more than five minutes - practically every seat was taken as Barbara Olshansky from the Center for Constitutional Rights spoke about the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. I was sitting on my wool coat when two older white-haired men walked by and I immediately recognized McGovern. He has been a hero of mine since I first saw him, which I believe was in the movie "Uncovered" by Robert Greenwald - a fabulous documentary. McGovern then went on to impress me as he sat next to a then-relatively-unknown Cindy Sheehan at the basement hearings on the Downing Street Minutes led by Rep. John Conyers, another American hero.
McGovern speaks truth to power and he does it so well. I love him. He was so nice and about two hours after I briefly introduced myself and thanked him for everything he's done, he spoke to me and my friend for a few minutes about how much work it is going to take to get the war criminal out of the White House. McGovern will go to Washington on Feb. 2 for the "Presentation of the Verdicts" with the rest of Not in Our Name.
Anyway, I couldn't take notes at the hearings because I stupidly left my notebook at home. It was okay cause I was so star-struck by McGovern (what does that say about me that I am a groupie for a retired intelligence analyst?) that I doubt I could have controlled my pen.
Fortunately, a lot of the testimony was nothing new to me, especially the testimony of Janis Karpinski, the brigadier general once in charge of Abu Ghraib and other detention centers in Iraq. What was new to me from her was hearing just how out of the loop she was and how meetings and investigations were conducted behind her back, simply because she was a woman with experience who played by the rules. When she first saw the Abu Ghraib photos, the ones we all have seen - the naked piles, the leash, the dogs - she could not believe what she saw.
Also, she said that women U.S. soldiers were forced to cross the barracks late at night to go to the bathroom and there was a lot of sexual assault as a result. Of course, no one would see to it that a closer restroom could be built. So to keep from having to make the dangerous trek, these women would not drink after 4 p.m. Problem is, it's hot as hell in Iraq and some of them would die of dehydration! And not just that, but General Sanchez asked people not to list the cause of death anymore as dehydration. This is all according to Karpinski. She received a standing ovation, and I'm thinking of purchasing her book, "One Woman's Army."
For me the most fascinating testimony came from Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, that paragon of human rights that is our close ally in the war on terror (or maybe the war in Iraq, or maybe the Global Struggle Against Extremism). He said that 1 of every 8 people in Uzbekistan is a member of a police force or secret police, so they spy on each other...during interrogations, when you get dipped in boiling liquid, it's only to your chest, so you're conscious the whole time (I thought maybe they just threw you in there - one woman received her husband's body in a sealed coffin, Murray said; when she opened it, he had been battered and you could see that his whole body from the chest down was scalded). America last year, or the year before, or annually (this is why I wish I had my notebook) gave $500 million to Uzbekistan, and that was more aid than we gave to every sub-Saharan West African country combined. And $80 million of that went straight to the Uzbek secret police. GREAT. Oh, and we use bad intelligence ALL THE TIME from Uzbekistan. intelligence that was obtained via torture. So while they were torturing long before the CIA entered the picture, the CIA and USA are creating a demand for this (bad) intelligence, and hence keeping the torturous cycle in Uzbekistan going.
Poor Uzbeks. Uzbekistan, Murray said, is the world's second largest exported of cotton, and a huge fraction of Uzbeks work on cotton plantations. They can't leave, they make 7 cents a day and they work 12 hours a week, six hours a day.
Secret police, forced labor, torture, citizen spies...sounds like a lovely place, no? And these are our allies. It's quite disgusting.
I bought a black T-shirt at the event that says "WANTED FOR MASS MURDER" then has photos of Tweedledee (Cheney) and Tweedledum (Bush), Condi Rice, and Mike Chertoff. I wore it home and kept it on when I went to this little Italian deli in Emerson. Got many looks, but no one said anything. I also bought a button that says "Fascism Happens," and took a roll of stickers from the World Can't Wait folks, who are buzzing about organizing for their State of the Union events and subsequent rally in D.C. Bush - you's outta here!!!
Mr. McGovern isn't very tall and he is very soft-spoken. But I was star-struck nonetheless.
I was sitting on the floor of a large multipurpose room at Riverside Church in Manhattan. My friend and I went there to hear the testimony to the International Commission of Inquiry On Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration. I hadn't been there for more than five minutes - practically every seat was taken as Barbara Olshansky from the Center for Constitutional Rights spoke about the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. I was sitting on my wool coat when two older white-haired men walked by and I immediately recognized McGovern. He has been a hero of mine since I first saw him, which I believe was in the movie "Uncovered" by Robert Greenwald - a fabulous documentary. McGovern then went on to impress me as he sat next to a then-relatively-unknown Cindy Sheehan at the basement hearings on the Downing Street Minutes led by Rep. John Conyers, another American hero.
McGovern speaks truth to power and he does it so well. I love him. He was so nice and about two hours after I briefly introduced myself and thanked him for everything he's done, he spoke to me and my friend for a few minutes about how much work it is going to take to get the war criminal out of the White House. McGovern will go to Washington on Feb. 2 for the "Presentation of the Verdicts" with the rest of Not in Our Name.
Anyway, I couldn't take notes at the hearings because I stupidly left my notebook at home. It was okay cause I was so star-struck by McGovern (what does that say about me that I am a groupie for a retired intelligence analyst?) that I doubt I could have controlled my pen.
Fortunately, a lot of the testimony was nothing new to me, especially the testimony of Janis Karpinski, the brigadier general once in charge of Abu Ghraib and other detention centers in Iraq. What was new to me from her was hearing just how out of the loop she was and how meetings and investigations were conducted behind her back, simply because she was a woman with experience who played by the rules. When she first saw the Abu Ghraib photos, the ones we all have seen - the naked piles, the leash, the dogs - she could not believe what she saw.
Also, she said that women U.S. soldiers were forced to cross the barracks late at night to go to the bathroom and there was a lot of sexual assault as a result. Of course, no one would see to it that a closer restroom could be built. So to keep from having to make the dangerous trek, these women would not drink after 4 p.m. Problem is, it's hot as hell in Iraq and some of them would die of dehydration! And not just that, but General Sanchez asked people not to list the cause of death anymore as dehydration. This is all according to Karpinski. She received a standing ovation, and I'm thinking of purchasing her book, "One Woman's Army."
For me the most fascinating testimony came from Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, that paragon of human rights that is our close ally in the war on terror (or maybe the war in Iraq, or maybe the Global Struggle Against Extremism). He said that 1 of every 8 people in Uzbekistan is a member of a police force or secret police, so they spy on each other...during interrogations, when you get dipped in boiling liquid, it's only to your chest, so you're conscious the whole time (I thought maybe they just threw you in there - one woman received her husband's body in a sealed coffin, Murray said; when she opened it, he had been battered and you could see that his whole body from the chest down was scalded). America last year, or the year before, or annually (this is why I wish I had my notebook) gave $500 million to Uzbekistan, and that was more aid than we gave to every sub-Saharan West African country combined. And $80 million of that went straight to the Uzbek secret police. GREAT. Oh, and we use bad intelligence ALL THE TIME from Uzbekistan. intelligence that was obtained via torture. So while they were torturing long before the CIA entered the picture, the CIA and USA are creating a demand for this (bad) intelligence, and hence keeping the torturous cycle in Uzbekistan going.
Poor Uzbeks. Uzbekistan, Murray said, is the world's second largest exported of cotton, and a huge fraction of Uzbeks work on cotton plantations. They can't leave, they make 7 cents a day and they work 12 hours a week, six hours a day.
Secret police, forced labor, torture, citizen spies...sounds like a lovely place, no? And these are our allies. It's quite disgusting.
I bought a black T-shirt at the event that says "WANTED FOR MASS MURDER" then has photos of Tweedledee (Cheney) and Tweedledum (Bush), Condi Rice, and Mike Chertoff. I wore it home and kept it on when I went to this little Italian deli in Emerson. Got many looks, but no one said anything. I also bought a button that says "Fascism Happens," and took a roll of stickers from the World Can't Wait folks, who are buzzing about organizing for their State of the Union events and subsequent rally in D.C. Bush - you's outta here!!!
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