If interrogation, torture, and lawyers sound like fun to you, then you had no excuse for missing the lecture last Thursday by Brent Mickum, a senior partner in the Washington D.C. firm Keller and Heckman. Activities Board Political Speakers sponsored the lecture. Mickum represents three of the many detainees currently being held in the United States government's controversial establishment in Guantánamo Bay. Mickum gave his audience members an inside scoop on the history and current policies surrounding Guantánamo Bay and explained some of the hardships that he and his clients have faced in their interactions with the FBI, CIA, and Justice Department of the United States.

Mickum began his lecture by explaining a little bit about himself, mentioning his past work for the government and his experience as both a prosecution and defense lawyer. He was one of the first lawyers to represent the Guantánamo detainees. Defending detainees was a very unpopular job at the time since many people felt that he was just trying to "free terrorists" and "help the enemy." He faced hate mail, threats, and other obstacles from the general public; even his firm did not fully support him. These days, however, the problems he faces are of a completely different nature, and involve a frustrating legal battle with the United States government.

To help his audience understand the situation, Mickum explained a little bit about what happens in Guantánamo, what was meant to happen in Guantánamo, and why some people might find the situation disconcerting. According to Mickum and several members of the Bush administration, Guantánamo's initial mission was to give the government an interrogation center that went "beyond the law" in order to collect clues that might aid the U.S. efforts against terrorism. Since then, Mickum said he has watched the government take advantage of its legal immunity in Guantánamo by incorporating over 24 illegal methods of torture, including sexual humiliation, desecration of religious texts, and "water boarding," which is a process that simulates drowning by forcing detainees to inhale water.

While some might see this as justified so long as it results in obtaining valuable information from known criminals, Mickum pointed out that the FBI has admitted that "more than 90 percent of the people there are ignorant of any information we might want." He went on to explain a loophole that allows the government to hold detainees in Guantánamo for as long as it likes, regardless of whether or not they actually belong there. In addition to this, the grounds for bringing a person to the camp have grown extremely broad; some people were seized and brought there simply for having the same name as a suspected terrorist.

Once a person has been brought to Guantánamo, there is no timeline for his or her stay there, and the legal process to free a detainee is fairly convoluted because our judicial system has no jurisdiction in Guantánamo despite each prisoner's constitutional right to a fair trial. At the moment, the only way to be freed is through "Annual Review Boards," which Mickum reports are made up of military officers who treat information collected from torture as factual and do not allow any additional evidence during the reviews except for government-collected documentation. Even if the board does decide that a detainee "no longer poses a threat," there is no way to know when he or she will actually be freed.

Of his three clients, Mickum said one has been released and all have lost their faith in American justice. Bisher al-Rawi makes this clear in Mickum's published article Tortured, humiliated and crying out for some justice, which he distributed at the beginning of the lecture.

In this article, Mickum quotes al-Rawi as saying, "Do you know what disappoints me most? I am disappointed in American justice. I expected so much more. When we arrived at Guantánamo and realized we were in U.S. custody, I was confident my situation would be resolved. I assured my fellow prisoners that it was good to be out of Afghanistan and in American hands and that we would be fairly treated. After two years, I am no longer so foolish."

From the information that Mickum presented, Guantánamo seems to simply be a slight variation of our reaction to World War II, during which the U.S. government imprisoned thousands of Japanese-Americans on the West Coast in response to the widespread fear of the time. According to Mickum, even the higher-ups who run Guantánamo admit that what they are doing is illegal, and so far their response has generally been along the lines of "there isn't much you can do about it." For those interested in change, Mickum suggested that people make sure that politicians hear their complaints, as it was complaints from British constituents that freed his first client.

The AB Political Speakers program sponsors a different lecture at least once a month. Be sure to check out Andy Singer, a political cartoonist, who will be explaining some of his opinions tonight, October 20. For more information about Activities Board events, visit http://www.activitiesboard.org.

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