Gigantic flip flop

Trump 1.0 set a deadline for extricating the US from Afghanistan.  Biden pulled it off badly when the time came, and Trump (and everybody else) complained that Trump would have done it better.

Apparently, he has given up on winning the Peace Prize.

"We're trying to get it back, by the way," Trump said of Bagram on the final day of a trip to England. "We're trying to get it back, because they need things from us. We want that base back. But one of the reasons we want the base, is, as you know, it's an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons."

  USA Today

I didn't realize the Hamburglar went.

Another what-about excuse

A Trump intel agency (led by a Trumpist, of course) recently put out a statement that China and Iran were trying to influence the 2020 election to dilute the reports that Russia is doing it again.  Now they need to dilute the Russian bounties on American troops story.

A Pentagon briefing document said a foreign government paid the Haqqani network, led by a top Taliban leader, to attack Bagram Air Base last December, CNN reported. While the government in question is classified in the memo, two sources familiar with the intelligence told the network it was in reference to Iran.

  The Hill

It's possible Russia is funding it. But maybe not. At any rate, this sounds despicable:

In March 2020, the Defense Department reportedly made the decision not to take any specific action in response to the intelligence to avoid complicating peace talks with the Taliban.

That should be a real comfort to the troops who would be sacrificed for US-Taliban relations.

National Security Council officials recommended against a strike and also said the escalating coronavirus pandemic would likely limit the Afghan government’s options for a diplomatic response, according to the network.

The briefing document stated that the Bagram attack [in which four U.S. personnel and more than 75 others were injured] likely qualified for compensation from the foreign government “based on the nature of the attack and agreed upon bounties.” Although U.S. intelligence said the Haqqani network had reason to target the base without a financial motivator, CNN noted that the document states the alleged funding "probably incentivizes future high-profile attacks on US and Coalition forces."

The US response to the attack was to kill General Qassem Soleimani. But no response to the bounty narrative behind it because we're negotiating with the terrorists.  (Mind you, I don't have a problem with negotiating with terrorists, but that's something that during Double U's time in office was a huge rallying cry for the Republican base: "We don't negotiate with terrorists!"

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Leaving Bagram

Redha al-Najar, a Tunisian who was suspected of having been one of Osama bin Laden's bodyguards, had been in U.S. custody since May 2002. A defense official said al-Najar and a second Tunisian, Lutfi al-Arbai al-Gharisi, were turned over to Afghan authorities Wednesday, just a day after the Senate report detailed what it characterized as widespread abuses of U.S. detainees since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. A Jordanian detainee was also released for repatriation, the officials said.

The Pentagon told NBC News that it "no longer operates detention facilities in Afghanistan nor maintains custody of any detainees" after the final handover. Under Washington's agreement with Kabul, the handoff to Afghanistan wasn't due to go into effect until Jan. 1. Defense officials said they couldn't explain why the U.S. was getting out three weeks early.

  NBC

Oh, really?

The spokesperson told NBC News that the transfers were due to the Jan. 1 deadline and were "not linked to the release of the Senate committee report on detention and interrogation." But, Tina Foster, al-Najar's attorney, said her client — one of the first detainees to have been subjected to the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques" — and other detainees were shuttled among various detention centers for years "to avoid scrutiny by U.S. courts." She said al-Najar was turned over less than a week before the U.S. government was to have filed a response to the Supreme Court about his treatment.

The US Defense Department announced it has closed the Bagram detention center and now has zero detainees in its custody in Afghanistan, Reuters reported.

Although the United States transferred control over Bagram to the Afghans back in 2013, the detention center became infamous due the harsh treatment some of the detainees received while in American custody. At one point, it was double the size of the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison complex in Cuba.

The facility's closure comes just one day after the Senate released its long-awaited torture report.

[...]

Two of the most infamous cases involved prisoners named Habibullah and Dilawar, whose abuse was chronicled by The New York Times in 2005. Dilawar – who was chained to the top of his cell for days by the time he died – was brutally beaten and passed away in 2002.

  RT

He “passed away.”

"At the interrogators' behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend," wrote Tim Golden in the Times.

"An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling."

[...]

Habibullah, who died just a few days before Dilawar, was also chained to the ceiling and beaten.

And the Blowback....

Two US military officers at the Afghan Ministry of Interior have been fatally shot in the Afghan capital of Kabul.

Saturday's shootings of the US colonel and major, serving with International Security Assistance Force as advisers in Afghanistan (ISAF),  brings the death toll of US forces during fives days of mass protests to four. Two other US soldiers were shot in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday.

[...]

At least four protesters have been killed and 34 wounded as Afghans held protests for the fifth straight day against the burning of the Quran at a US-led base in the country, hospital officials have told Al Jazeera.

  alJazeera

Oh, For the Love of Pete

Hundreds of protesters have clashed with police and security forces in Afghanistan in a second day of angry demonstrations over reports that copies of the Quran were burnt at an airbase used by NATO and coalition troops.

[...]

"People are marching towards Kabul. Police are trying to stop them. We have sent more reinforcements to the area," the spokesman said.

  alJazeera

I can't believe they're still resorting to Koran burning. What could possibly be the reason?  Really.  Wouldn't it be wiser to lace them with some biological like anthrax and pass them out like blankets to the American Indians?

The US embassy said on Wednesday it was locked down and had suspended all travel in Afghanistan.

[...]

Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, issued an apology for the "inappropriate treatment" of Islam's holy book at the base and backed General John Allen's call for "swift and decisive action to investigate this matter".

"These actions do not represent the views of the United States military. We honour and respect the religious practices of the Afghan people, without exception," he said.

Isn't that obvious? I mean, we're constantly saying Islam is the reason we're at war.

Carsten Jacobson, a spokesman for the NATO-led international force in Afghanistan, said an investigation had been launched into the issue and preliminary information showed that Quran copies had not been burned.

"Fortunately for all of us, local workers recognised the type of material and intervened. Actually the disposal process was stopped in time but it led to protests over the day. As far as we know, and the investigations are ongoing, they were not burned. But we have to wait for the results."

Which does not explain how the story got out (some Afghan workers found charred remains in the rubbish) or why Leon Panetta would apologize.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Detainee Abuse Heard in Court!

Oh. In Pakistan.

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- Seven men detained by Pakistan's spy agency, the ISI, appeared in court Monday in a landmark case that places one of the nation's most powerful institutions under the scrutiny of its highest court.

The men -- who appeared to be in pain and poor health -- hobbled into the courthouse, surrounded by dozens of armed police officers and family members. Several of the detainees covered their faces. At least two carried urine drainage bags in their hands.

[...]

A lawyer representing Basit and the six others detainees argues that they were arrested without due process and injured while in Inter-Services Intelligence custody since 2010.

[...]

ISI attorney Raja Muhammad Irshad offered an explanation for the detainees' condition. "You can imagine, when somebody is in custody or jail, you can't have the facilities you have at home," he told CNN after Monday's hearing.

[...]

Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered the government to give each detainee a medical exam and report the results in four days. The court also ordered the spy agency to produce all documents related to the detention of the men by the first week of March.

Monday's hearing came after the court gave the spy agency a deadline to bring the detainees to court.

[...]

The ISI has also been ordered to explain the deaths of four other detainees.

[...]

The men were initially arrested in 2007 and 2008 and accused of being suspects in militant attacks targeting army bases. They were acquitted and freed in 2010, then detained again by ISI.

The ISI's attorney has said all 11 detainees -- the seven who remain in custody and four who died -- were detained legally under the Army Act, a law that says the army can detain men on suspicions of terrorism or if they are deemed to be a danger to the state.

The Supreme Court case breaks new ground in that the ISI has long been thought untouchable. Legal proceedings in the nation's highest civilian court could expose the inner workings of the secretive agency like never before. Few people have ever challenged the ISI, Pakistan's most feared and shadowy institution. The spy agency has been accused of backing and toppling politicians, using militant groups as proxies and backing extrajudicial killings.

  

So, it looks like we could simply exchange the letters CIA for ISI in this story and still be accurate with one exception: the CIA would never have to explain itself in an American court. There will be no day in court for American detainees. 

It is virtually impossible to imagine the U.S. Supreme Court ordering the CIA to disclose documents about its treatment of detainees or, even more unrealistically, to permit the victims of CIA abuse to have their grievances heard in court. Anyone who doubts that can simply review the past decade of full-scale immunity bestowed by the Justice Department and subservient American federal courts on all executive agencies in the War on Terror. We should think about that the next time some American pundit, politician, or media figure righteously holds forth on how undemocratic and oppressive is Pakistan as opposed to the U.S.

Oh, no. Let's don't.

Speaking of American justice and Pakistan, Eric Lewis has an Op-Ed in today’s New York Times – under the headline: “Britain Shouldn’t Aid A Lawless America” — detailing the plight of two Pakistani rice merchants who were detained by British forces in Iraq 2004 when they were on a business trip to Iran, then turned over to the U.S. and shipped to Bagram, where they have been held for the last seven years without charges of any kind. Since then, the two nations have played a shell game as the men’s relatives try to secure their release, with the British government insisting to British courts that they can do nothing because they’re in American custody, while the American government argues to its courts (thus far successfully) that the men have no legal rights because they are being held “in a war zone” (which they were taken to by the U.S.). For an appreciation of the lowly depths to which American justice has sunk, that Op-Ed is worth reading.