Bagram Eats

Background:

The Bagram Theater Internment Facility was first constructed during the Soviet-Afghan war as part of a large airfield outside of Bagram, Afghanistan. The airbase was taken by Northern Alliance Forces, with the help of US Special Forces, in October 2001 (Worthington, 170). By the end of March 2002, it became the main US prison in Afghanistan; the massive Soviet hangars providing plenty of space for housing both prisoners and soldiers alike. At the height of the previous occupation of Afghanistan, over 100,000 Soviet troops were deployed in an attempt to maintain control over Taliban territories. Serving the more recent Operation Enduring Freedom, President Obama has approved an increase of 34,000 troops; according to this will bring the total number of American military personnel serving in Afghanistan to 68,000 by the end of 2009 (Tyson).

In April 2009, District Court Judge John D. Bates ruled that habeas rights (protection from unlawful detention) do in fact extend to three prisoners, Fadi Al Maqaleh, Amin Al Bakri, and Redha Al-Najar, detained at Bagram; all three are non-Afghan citizens. In the ruling, the Judge reviewed the earlier case of Boumediene v. Bush, stating “[u]nder Boumediene, Bagram detainees who are not Afghan citizens, who were not captured in Afghanistan, and who have been held for an unreasonable amount of time -- here, over six years -- without adequate process may invoke…the privilege of habeas corpus, based on an application of the Boumediene factors”. In response, the Obama administration appealed the ruling, claiming that “the habeas claims of detainees alone will likely intrude into the military’s operations at Bagram”.

In September 2009; both the New York Times (Schmitt) and the Washington Post (DeYoung, Finn) report that the Obama administration is planning to introduce military tribunals for the prisoners held in the US prison at Bagram airbase, assigning each prisoners a military official to gather evidence, including classified material. Only a few days later, the administration reiterated their position in a statement released by government lawyers. “Habeas rights under the United States Constitution,” they argued in a 64-page legal brief,  “do not extend to enemy aliens detained in the active war zone at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.”

02.01.10 - Artist Statement:
“Historical Amnesia is a dangerous phenomenon, not only because it undermines moral and intellectual integrity, but also because it lays the ground work for crimes that lay ahead” (Chomsky, 25). In stark contrast to Obama’s campaign promises and earlier stands, the current Department of Justice position, in regards to the prisoners at Bagram, permits the President to resist any effort at judicial oversight. Our Nobel Peace Prize winning executive who prides himself on being empathetic with others “has a constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws and, thus, all are on notice that it would be clearly inappropriate to violate them” (Paust, 92). The Geneva Conventions is a treaty of international law that is binding on the United States and Afghanistan. President Obama should extend the protections granted under the Geneva Conventions common Article 3 to all those imprisoned at Bagram and US prisons abroad, including the right to be “treated humanely”; freedom from “cruel treatment and torture”; and minimum human rights to due process in case of trial. The Obama administration may have ordered the military prison at Guantánamo closed, but Bagram’s doors remain open to all those deemed to have “intelligence value”, including many innocent prisoners of this war.

Sources:

1) Chomsky, Noam. “The Torture Memos.” Z Magazine June 2009.
2) DeYoung, Karen and Peter Finn. “U.S. Gives New Rights To Afghan Prisoners.” The Washington Post 13 Sept. 2009.
3) Paust, Jordan J. Beyond The Law. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
4) Schmitt, Eric. “U.S. to Expand Detainee Review in Afghan Prison.” The New York Times 12 Sept. 2009.
5) Tyson, Ann Scott. “Support Troops Swelling U.S. Force in Afghanistan.” The Washington Post 13 Oct. 2009.
6) Worthington, Andy. The Guantanamo Files. Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press, 2007.
7) 04.02.09 - Justice Bates’ ruling
8) 04.10.09 - Deparment Of Justice Appeal
9) 09.15.09 - Obama Administration Brief


title sequence inspired by the Pentagon's list of the names of the 645 prisoners held at Bagram on September 22, 2009

The US Court of Appeals has reversed the ruling by District Judge John D. Bates last March
5.21.10 - Court of Appeals ruling
"The Bush administration, from beyond the electoral grave, will have won its most significant battle, which was supposedly lost;
namely, maintaining that people can, in fact, be seized anywhere in the world and held without any means of judicial review, and without
the obligation to face either a criminal trial or detention as a prisoner of war according to the Geneva Conventions." - Andy Worthington