British Soldiers in Iran Expose Guantanamo Sham

After they were released from Iranian custody, 15 British soldiers contradicted their earlier televised confessions of having entered Iranian territory. The Los Angeles Times reports that the soldiers claim to have been forced to make false confessions by the Iranians because they were “blindfolded and threatened” while held prisoner over a two-week period.

Keep in mind that the British prisoners are professional soldiers who are trained to be tough. If these professionals were forced so easily to make false confessions just by being blindfolded and talked to roughly in a brief period of imprisonment, how warped and twisted must the confessions be of prisoners who are subjected to even harsher treatment, over years of imprisonment?

The experience of the 15 British soldiers in Iran exposes the brutal folly of the American system of secret torture prisons at Guantanamo Bay and around the world. These prisons, and the testimony coerced by torture that they produce, have been made legal by the Military Commissions Act, which strips away habeas corpus, the right to a fair and speedy trial, repeals enforcement of the Geneva Conventions, and makes torture legal.

Because of the Military Commissions Act, we now are seeing people put through show trials in kangaroo courts where the proceedings are secret and confessions forced through torture are allowed as testimony. The sham trials allowed under the Military Commissions Act are really no better than the Salem Witch Trials.

The twisting of 15 British soldiers under coercive treatment much milder than the techniques used by the American government at places like Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib exposes the depravity of the military tribunals being conducted by the Bush Administration. Progressive recognize the disturbing connection. Right wingers pretend that it doesn’t exist and continue to insist on one set of legal standards for the United States and its allies, and another legal standard for everyone else.

Please, contact your U.S. senators and your representative in the U.S. House. Urge them to co-sponsor and vote for S. 576 and H.R. 1415, the Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007, which repeals most of the worst aspects of the Military Commissions Act.

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