Learning of Abdul Razzaq Hekmati's death on SuperDuper Tuesday

[Peace Patriot]

DUer Demeter asked me to re-post this comment in Editorials. My comment was in response to the posting of a NYT news article by RamboLiberal, about the death from natural causes of Abdul Razzaq Hekmati, at Guantanamo Bay Prison, at the turn of the year, after 5 years of incarceration without proper trial. This man's heartbreaking, and profoundly disturbing, story was apparently just noticed by the NYT, on "SuperTuesday." Portions of the NYT article are below. The original post can be found at
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3169372

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Peace Patriot Tue Feb-05-08 10:38 PM
Response to Original message

16. While our political establishment plays its hideously rigged political games...

...in which the voices against unjust war, torture, detention without trial, the shredding of our Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, international law and all human decency, and against the looting of our treasury, and all manner of crimes, go unheard-- excluded from debates, marginalized by diminishing news coverage, unable to raise funds, criticized for being too short or for the cost of their haircuts, a life passes away in Guantanamo Bay, and we hardly have time to think, "why was he there?," and we have never heard his name before, or anything of the substanceless charges against him, or what his compadres in his faraway home, or his own government, had to say about him, that he was innocent.

A blip of news in the New York Times. Like the "Count of Monte Cristo," his beard grew long, he suffered in his cell, he no doubt nearly went mad at times, perhaps he was tortured, perhaps not, and who knows what he really died of (do they experiment on those prisoners?), but if the U.S. military is not lying this time, he died of time itself, an immensely sad death isolated from all he knew, and, unlike that western hero and ikon of rebirth, the "Count" of the mythical land of "Monte Cristo," he never had a chance to put things right, he never saw the sun again, could not escape, never found hidden treasure, never was able to confront his false accusers, never had a chance. This U.S. fascist junta gave him no chance. They are murderers and criminals in the highest degree. And all our glory and all our royalist pomp and all the honor that we can bestow, and all the tooting military bands, and all the stern, focused Secret Service folk, and all the war profiteering corporate news monopoly obeisance, are lauded upon the persons who have committed these awful crimes, and they call them "President of the United States," or "Vice President of the United States," or "United States Secretary of Defense," and they are treated like kings, like gods--the greedy, nasty little men who have destroyed everything we hold dear.

And our "candidates" are all smiles tonight, those who won the "trade secret" vote counting contest, and get a shot at being crowned emperor, and having all that power over others--the power to imprison and torture, the power to slaughter a million people to get their oil, the deadly power to wipe out entire countries, and all life on earth, by lifting a finger. Abdul Razzaq Hekmati is no one to them. A meaningless drop in the bloody bucket.

Ah, it is all so immensely saddening. I feel Abdul Razzaq Hekmati's sadness, as he thought of some little mountain flower back in Afghanistan and took his last breath. They never gave him a chance.

I'm glad that I read of him, though, and at least know his name. It puts everything into perspective.

"...the enduring problems of the tribunals at Guantánamo"..."say Afghan officials." How antiseptically the NYT puts it. And where are those "enduring problems" anywhere mentioned in the Democratic or Republican campaigns for emperor?

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RamboLiberal
Original message

Time Runs Out for an Afghan Held by the U.S.(Dies at Gitmo)

Source: NY Times 2/5/08

Abdul Razzaq Hekmati was regarded here as a war hero, famous for his resistance to the Russian occupation in the 1980s and later for a daring prison break he organized for three opponents of the Taliban government in 1999.

But in 2003, Mr. Hekmati was arrested by American forces in southern Afghanistan when, senior Afghan officials here contend, he was falsely accused by his enemies of being a Taliban commander himself. For the next five years he was held at the American military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where he died of cancer on Dec. 30.

The fate of Mr. Hekmati, the first detainee to die of natural causes at Guantánamo, who fruitlessly recounted his story several times to American officials, demonstrates the enduring problems of the tribunals at Guantánamo, say Afghan officials and others who knew him.

Afghan officials, and some Americans, complain that detainees are effectively thwarted from calling witnesses in their defense, and that the Afghan government is never consulted on the detention cases, even when it may be able to help. Mr. Hekmati’s case, officials who knew him said, shows that sometimes the Americans do not seem to know whom they are holding. Meanwhile, detainees wait for years with no resolution to their cases. (MORE)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3169372

[Demeter]

1. K&R!

Good job!