October 24, 2003- What Can be Expected

As we go into the third year of the War On Terror, moves are being made to start to try some of the prisoners of war that America has captured thus far, specifically, the prisoners being held at the American Naval base at Guantanamo Bay Cuba. If you recall, these are the dudes that America captured during the early phases of the war over on Afghanistan and decided that they were either dangerous or that they possessed valuable information, so they had to be detained at this base and questioned prior to trial. They arrived with much fanfare and media coverage, there were endless pictures of them shuffling along in chains, all bald and clean-shaven with blindfolds and earmuffs on and the like. We Were told stories about how these men needed to be held like this for whatever reason, and nothing ever came to light that truly justified it. As time went on, all that was heard was how these prisoners were being treated in questionable fashion by the Americans, and how there were twelve year old boys being held there along with the adults, and, as of late, how the Muslim Holy Men that America has working there are spying and aiding and abetting the enemy cause and the like. But even with all of this, not one single dude there has stood trial yet for anything. Now, there are moves afoot to start to change all of that. Those secret military tribunals that President Bush talked about a while ago are getting set to move into motion. Plans are starting to be made to try these detainees with these tribunals soon. To many Americans, these tribunals are a totally foreign concept, because they have never heard of them being used before. However, that is an incorrect assumption to make, because these tribunals have been used in the past, and the recent past at that. Back about twenty years ago, there was a little problem in an island nation by the name of Grenada. What happened was that there was a violent coup d' etat against the prime Minister of that country, and he was assassinated during it. Nine other people. Mostly government officials, were assassinated as well during this coup. Normally, this would have gone totally unnoticed outside of Grenada, because shit like that happens all the time in these nothing-happening island nations. But the problem was that the insurgents in Grenada said that they supported Soviet Communism, and that was their motivation for doing al of this. Well, that word reached the White House, which at the time was the residence of one Ronald Reagan, and he was outraged and horrified by this. He saw it all as another attempt by those evil Commies to set up shop in the Western Hemisphere and he was not about to allow that to happen. So he decided that American troops had to be sent to this island to take out the insurgents and restore freedom and democracy in Grenada. So the American military went blasting into Grenada and went after these rebels, and, as you would expect, had very little trouble subduing them and installing an American puppet government on the island. In the process, 17 dudes were arrested and detained by America. It was decided that they should stand trial, but not trial by normal American law, but trial by secret military tribunal. So a secret tribunal was set up exactly like the ones that they are going to use for the Guantanamo Bay prisoners. Needless to say, the Grenada detainees had like zero chance of acquittal by these tribunals. The circumstances surrounding these cases is strikingly similar to the circumstances that the Guantanamo Bay prisoners have faced already and are going to face in the future. They were held without any formal charges being filed against them and they were incarcerated in cages like the current prisoners, and they were also denied any contact with any sort of lawyers that could help them at all, as the current prisoners are. Once these Grenadaians were sentenced ( most of them sentenced to death), they were held in tiny cells that always had the lights on and isolated and ignored. The only concessions that America made were rescinding the death sentences of those that got them, but still keeping them incarcerated as well. That would be the end of the story, except for one little thing. These detainees are still being incarcerated by America now, over 20 years later. These 167 dudes from Grenada are still being held, long after everyone in America has forgotten all about the military operation that arrested them. In fact, the American public forgot all about Grenada right after it was over, as the puppet government that America installed just took over and has continued to run things to America's satisfaction ever since. So these dudes are still being held over some stupid fuckin' military excursion that cost zero American lives and made absolutely no difference to anything at all. Ah, but wait. There was a real reason to do this in the mind of Ronnie Reagan and the Pentagon, and stopping the flow of Communism to the western Hemisphere was not it, Grenada was (and is) such an insignificant island nation that it would not have really mattered to America who was running the place. The assassinated Prime Minister was not some close personal friend of either America or Reagan. So he had zero to do with anything, his assassination was just a mere pretext. The real reason the Reagan wanted to invade Grenada was to kick-start the American military into a new era. They had done nothing from the time of the end of the Vietnam War to this time, and after Vietnam, the military had a less than wonderful reputation amongst the American public, in fact, many of them either hated or just did not care about the military at all. Reagan wanted to change that, he wanted the American military to regain its prominent place and fine reputation in American society. To do that, he had to send them on a mission that they could do with ease and suffer virtually no casualties. Being the master media manipulator that reagan was, he knew that the American news media would fawn sycophantically over such a story and therefore give the military the proper support that he felt that they needed in order to rehabilitate themselves after Vietnam. The idea worked like a charm, once again the American military were seen as conquering heroes instead of bumbling invaders, and much of the American populace once again stood behind the military in a way that they had not in years. All of this did send a message to the Soviets, a message that America was once again united behind its n=military and that the Commies better beware So, to accomplish this fully, there had to be prisoners taken, and these 17 dudes were the lucky ones picked. They had their secret trials and were sentenced accordingly, and then sent to rot away in prison like all criminals should. They were merely another one of Reagan' s many propaganda tools. So that made them useful in 1983, but what is their continued use in 2003? You would be hard pressed to find any mention of Grenada whatsoever in American history books of today, so why keep them locked up? I think that we are about to find out the answer to that.

Now, if America is going to keep a bunch of prisoners taken during a long forgotten, meaningless military excursion from two decades ago, what can the Guantanamo Bay detainees expect? It is now obvious that these Grenada prisoners have been kept locked up all these years so that they can continue to be used as examples in case another similar situation ever came up, and it surely has now. I am sure that there has been discussion over the years about the wisdom of keeping these dudes prisoner, and the Pentagon has always insisted that they continue to be incarcerated because if they were to be released, then America would look soft, look as if they are not serious about punishing those that commit "crimes" against their society and military. Even though the public has totally forgotten about these dudes (if they ever knew about them at all), and completely forgotten the whole Grenada story, these prisoners continue to hold great propaganda value to the Americans. Holding them forever shows anyone that might get a similar idea to what they had that America will come and bust your ass and you will not gain anything from it all, at least that is what The Pentagon thinks. The fact that no one paid any attention to it all is forgotten here. In the last 20 years, there have been all sorts of terrorist and Communist attacks against American interests, and the continuing incarceration of these Grenada dudes has not stopped a single dude, it certainly did not stop Osama bin Laden. The only ones that are going to remember the treatment that America gave the Grenada dudes are the current prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, as they are sure to suffer a similar fate. After all, these cats have much more value than the Grenada dudes do. It was just that America did not have any prisoners left over from Vietnam or Korea or any other war that they had fought, and needed to have some to show that they would seriously bust you if they caught you, And these Grenada dudes were young enough to fit the bill so that they could be locked up for a very long time. The detainees now in Cuba are prisoners of a war that is far more important in American history than that Grenada shit ever was. The war that they were a part of was not just a war fought for propaganda purposes, but a war launched on an unsuspecting America by hostile foreign forces. The events of September 11th, 2001 that launched this war will always be chronicled in American history books, not forgotten like Grenada. So these prisoners are going to always be remembered by the American people and media and history does not show that they will get a fair shake here. The fact is that most of these current prisoners are about as guilty of anything major as the dudes in Grenada were. There, the dude that planned the whole operation was killed by the American troops during the takeover, so he was not even one of the prisoners to begin with, they were all underlings of his or mere soldiers and pawns in all of it. Today, the dudes that planned everything, like bin Laden, are still at large, they have not even been killed by the Americans because unlike the head dude in Grenada, they are real players, not just some zealot on his own. So once again al that America has are underlings and stooges, which suits them just fine, because if they did have the main dudes in custody, they would be risking further terrorist attacks by those that wanted to free them. They are not about to risk themselves for the cats that America has in custody now. So that means that America has free rein to do what they wish to these dudes. The Islamic Holy Men will not go too wild defending the honor of the current prisoners, so no one will be moved to try and free them. That will leave them at America's mercy,and it has already been shown that America has no mercy for them. So the tribunal proceedings will probably end up much like the proceedings for the Grenada dudes did, with everyone being found guilty of everything, and most getting death sentences that will be commuted after a few years when America wants to look "humane" about it all to the rest of the world. If they have kept the Grenada dudes for 20 years, the current prisoners have no real chance of ever getting out of prison again. Ironically, this situation offers the Grenada dudes the best opportunity to be released that they have ever had. Now that there are hundreds of prisoners of the current war, these 17 dues from long ago no longer have any real value to America. Holding them any longer now look cruel, and since all that these cats have ever been to America are propaganda pieces ever since Day One, America will now try to look benevolent and humane in the eyes of the world and let these poor, broken men go back to what would be left of the shattered lives. America now has hundreds of these poor wretches from Afghanistan that can be the propaganda pieces that the Grenada dudes have been, as they are also young enough to be incarcerated for decades to come to show the world that America does not fuck around with its enemies. That is about all that these dudes from Afghanistan have to look forward to in life, as they have been tried and convicted a long time ago, and the secret military tribunals will be mere formalities. Now these guys will take over from the Grenada dudes and be propaganda for the Pentagon and White House to use for years to come. Their fates will be no different from those that the dudes suffered 20 years ago, and the justice in those fates will be as unclear now as it was 20 years ago. Just like then, these Afghan dudes got themselves caught up in the wrong things and wrong people, and while those people that are truly responsible either lie in a comfortable grave or live a life as a fugitive, these guys shall rot in prison forever just because they supported something that was grossly misrepresented to them by evil hearted men.