New Quaker Notebook

"The state is so organized that wherever a man is placed in the social scale, his irresponsibility is the same. The higher his grade the more he is under the influence of demands from below, and the less he is controlled by orders from above, and vice versa."¹

Even in the best of circumstances, tyrants emerge from their position within the state structure. Africa, a continent still unrealized in the quantity and quality of its resources (both natural and human), has been productive in turning out lethal forms of the tyrant. Gone is the evil Idi Amin, among many others, but now there is Robert Mugabe, whose fear of colonialism in Zimbabwe's past has him seeing Western influences in every legitimate challenge to his leadership, even if the challenge appears through the process of democratic elections.² Yesterday, he said: "We fought for this country, and a lot of blood was shed... We are not going to give up our country because of a mere X. How can a ballpoint fight with a gun?"³ And this despite bringing to his country an inflation rate of 1 million percent and pervasive starvation.⁴

Following in the lethal footsteps of other African tyrants, Mugabe has his thugs intimidating both his opponents and the election process through a pattern of the most obscene violence:

The wife of a Zimbabwean opposition party member has been brutally murdered in what is being labelled as one the most grotesque atrocities yet committed by Robert Mugabe?s regime.

Dadirai Chipiro, wife of Patson Chipiro who heads the Zimbabwean opposition party in Mhondoro district, had a hand cut off as well as both of her feet before a petrol bomb was thrown through her window.

The three men who pulled up outside her house were looking for her husband, who was in Harare, and left before coming back an hour later to kill her.

Her body was so badly burnt that she was not able to be properly placed in a coffin as her arm was burnt rigid.⁵

Such, then, is the state under this tyrant. If the US had not squandered its own resources in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Colombia, Mexico, and all the other places where the American Empire seeks to extends its unhappy reach, perhaps our government could have more influence than mere stern talking, enabling our peaceful citizens and fair-minded businessmen to maintain a productive, helpful relationship with this African country.

1. Or see the Dover edition, p. 283.
2. "Mugabe: 'I will not give up power'," Belfast Telegraph, June 16, 2008.
3. "Robert Mugabe warns Zimbabwe's voters: 'How can a pen fight a gun?'," The Times, June 17, 2008.
4. "Starvation strikes Zimbabwe," BBC News, May 3, 2002; "Fears NGO Crackdown May Threaten Millions," Institute for War and Peace Reporting, June 13, 2008.
5. "Wife of Mugabe rival burned alive after having feet hacked off," Daily Mail, June 12, 2008.

Habeas Corpus Gets a Re-Writ

Ever since the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, we've all been going back and forth on the issue of habeas corpus, when we really should have been going in one direction only. Habeas Corpus, around since probably 1215, is for us "the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action."¹ What the Military Commissions Act took away, the US Supreme Court has again restored. On Thursday, the SCOTUS ruled that "federal courts have jurisdiction to review habeas corpus petitions filed by Guantanamo detainees who have been classified as 'enemy combatants'," thereby overturning the major aim of the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

It has concerned me that the extraordinary claims of privilege for holding as prisoners the so-called "terrorists" in Guantánamo Bay seemed so easily to go unchallenged. Even while calling them "detainees," as if this were just a temporary thing, Donald Rumsfeld very early got away with calling them "among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth." ² Dick Cheney could repeat this charge: "These are the worst of a very bad lot." He said that in an interview with Fox News. "They are very dangerous. They are devoted to killing millions of Americans, innocent Americans, if they can, and they are perfectly prepared to die in the effort. And they need to be detained, treated very cautiously, so that our people are not at risk."³ I have also heard similar language from others, as if that alone is sufficient reason to hold these persons indefinitely, often in extreme conditions, with relentless interrogations, abuse, and torture. The upshot is that the US government has determined that these persons are guilty of what they are accused of and that should be the end of the matter.

Well, we know that this isn't the end of the matter and that the US government has dragged in many innocents in its wide net. An 8-month McClatchy investigation, covering 11 countries on three continents, discovered that perhaps hundreds of men were "wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments." Most of the innocent detainees had no connection to terrorism and their detention did not in any way aid the Global War on Terror:

McClatchy interviewed 66 released detainees, more than a dozen local officials—primarily in Afghanistan—and US officials with intimate knowledge of the detention program. The investigation also reviewed thousands of pages of US military tribunal documents and other records.

This unprecedented compilation shows that most of the 66 were low-level Taliban grunts, innocent Afghan villagers or ordinary criminals. At least seven had been working for the US-backed Afghan government and had no ties to militants, according to Afghan local officials. In effect, many of the detainees posed no danger to the United States or its allies.

The investigation also found that despite the uncertainty about whom they were holding, US soldiers beat and abused many prisoners.

Prisoner mistreatment became a regular feature in cellblocks and interrogation rooms at Bagram and Kandahar air bases, the two main way stations in Afghanistan en route to Guantanamo.⁴

1. See Harris v. Nelson, 394 U.S. 286, 290-91 (1969).
2. This was when the detainees were kept at Camp X-Ray: "Rumsfeld Visits, Thanks US Troops at Camp X-Ray in Cuba," American Forces Press Service, January 27, 2002.
3. See "The Vice President Appears on Fox News Sunday," White House Speeches, January 27, 2002, for the full transcript of the Fox News interview with Dick Cheney.
4. "America's prison for terrorists often held the wrong men," McClatchy Washington Bureau, June 15, 2008.

Cycling in Zimbabwe

Habeas Corpus Gets a Re-Writ