I've Heard This Song Before
There's this minor trend on TikTok in which a Millennial parent listens to a pop song their kids are enjoying and notices the music is from a pop song they enjoyed as an adolescent; with a twist that their parents also enjoyed that music from a different song when they were teenagers.
We're seeing something similar, and far less heartwarming, in the "detaining" of Green Card holders and US Permanent Residents like Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Columbia University Graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, doctoral research student at Georgetown University student Khan Suri, Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk, and Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi who was detained by ICE during his naturalization interview, one of the last steps before becoming a US citizen.
When I was a teenager we called it "rendition," and people were "rendered."
This was during the 2 presidential terms of George W. Bush. 9/11 had just blown huge holes in the sense of well being and security Americans enjoyed, but provided the President with enough justification to launch armed responses against Afghanistan, and, strangely, Iraq. Carrying a digital camera everywhere, along with the ability to instantly upload what was happening in real time via smart phone and social media just wasn't a thing. We were still relying on legacy news stories like CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times. Because these companies were paralyzed in fear of being labeled "unpatriotic" they were in absolute denial of any dissent or protest happening in response to these military actions. I guess they had a point: congress literally renamed french fries to freedom fries in outrage to France's refusal to join in the effort against the so-called "axis of evil," and The Chicks, then called The Dixie Chicks, were one of the first pop groups to experience being canceled after criticising Bush on stage.
Under the Bush presidency there was a sense of desperation to do anything, regardless of the ethics, to prevent another 9/11. This permitted court hearings that were completely closed to not only the public, but any other observer. In this hearing a law enforcement organization would present a case for surveilling a target, but the only people who knew what the evidence provided to justify seeking a warrant were: the law enforcement agency, and the judge granting the warrant. Neither of them were permitted to speak about who the target was, what the threat of danger was, what the evidence was because that might tip off the target. They wanted us to just trust and believe.
In 2002, the US military base in Cuba, known as Guantanamo Bay, was established to be a US military prison for terrorism suspects and illegal enemy combatants. But the issue with Gitmo, as it was called, was that a suspect is not a person charged with any law-breaking. Most of the detainees were being held without charge, in cruel conditions with the hope that breaking their mind and spirit would coerce them into confessing whatever crime was imagined of them. It was a Catch-22 of mind-melting dynamics for any legal minded people who had a semblance of ethics: how do you provide a defense for your client when the state won't even provide the crime they're charged with?
I'm happy to say that this was a bridge too far for some Americans, including this writer, who called her morning radio dj on the classic rock station she listened to at the time. She was only around 19 years old, and stuttered some, but was very clear that Habeas Corpus is a concept that extends to us all, and if it doesn't protect prisoners of Guantanamo Bay, how could it protect the rest of us? The DJ responded that these guys were obviously terrorists, what more could be said? And then proceeded to play, ironically, Pink Floyd (okay, I made that part up, but that's how I'm writing it in the screenplay).
President Bush, and Kamala Harris voter, Vice President Dick Cheney, were getting wise to the fact that flagrantly flouting established legal precedent a little too close to home wasn't going to help their cause. So, using the CIA, they turned to other countries, like Poland, and our old despotic buddy, Russia, to help with the war on terror. That's right, back in the day Vova (a nickname for people named Vladimir), was a helpful friend to the US, because fighting the war on terror meant he got to brutally subdue Chechen rebels. All in the name of safety, comrades. If we couldn't imprison suspected enemy combatants in Cuba, we needed another place for them, say, an established structure previously used for interrogation; a site perfect for people who might or might not be plotting further acts of terror; a black hole for them to vanish into; a Black Site, if you will.
What I heard in the news is that people were literally vanishing, most of them with a vaguely Middle Eastern last name. They were Australian, German, living in Italy, a Syrian-Canadian citizen, a student in London, a man living in Caracas. They were about to board a flight to begin their travels, or a connecting flight, one was just walking to prayer service, when they'd be diverted by law enforcement in whichever country (Macedonia, Venezuela, Italy). Their families would not be told a single thing about where they were without pushing, shoving, and generally making a scene. Canadian-Syrian citizen Maher Arar was detained in JFK airport as he attempted to return his home in Canada from a holiday in Tunisia, and rendered to Syria. His release was secured by the Canadian government after 10 months of imprisonment without charge. Many others were detained for over a year in whatever site they were dumped in.
They were rendered. In about 4 years, the US government, with the cooperation of the UK and other European allies, had captured 150 individuals and transported them around the world.
And rendering, detaining, deporting, whatever you want to call it, is the first snarled knot to undo in the journey for fairness and justice. It means while we're busy searching for the person, other bodies can get quietly shipped off and out, just be erased from their everyday life, and community, from us.
I don't know how to stop it, I don't know what laws, or tricks there are to protect men and women from being bodily removed from their existence. I just know I didn't like this song the first time I heard it.
Comments
Post a Comment