planet earth looks blue

 The door has slammed shut on the 600 prisoners being held at the detention center at Bagram Air Base in Bagram, Afghanistan.  Although the other CIA secret torture centers around the world, and the prison at Guantanamo Bay were ordered to be closed, somehow Bagram is under a different law.  The Justice Department declared yesterday that the detainees being held in Afghanistan have no claim on constitutional rights.  Their justification for this move is that Bagram is in a war zone and consequently the prisoners are an integral part of the war.  And what about those that are being held unjustly?  With no right to a hearing, the men being held there have no voice, and at this point, history will never hear their stories.  What made the Obama administration stop at Bagram?

Even those that are deemed “real terrorists”, torture isn’t exactly the path of a civilized nation.  There have been deaths at Bagram in the past, two that the US military admitted to.  In 2002 Habibullah and Dilawar were killed at Bagram - the military coroners declared both of their deaths to be due to homicide.  Habibullah was chained to a ceiling in an isolation cell.  He was repeatedly beaten to the point of death.  The reason he was singled out was his defiant attitude.  Dilawar’s life ended in the same way.  His body was held up by chains, while guards beat him until his legs couldn’t even bend.  Army investigators later learned that Dilawar’s interrogators/murderers knew that he was an innocent man.  The story goes that Dilawar drove through militia territory, so the militia told the US army that he was a terrorist.  The army paid the militia, and took Dilawar to the prison where the 22 year old lived out the last days of his life.  There have also been horror stories released of men who were held at the former Soviet aircraft machine shop and then later released.  

$60 million US tax dollars will go towards building a new prison to hold another 1,100 men.