NEW ORLEANS -- Every time I've written a post here on the subject of the secret U.S. prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan -- a prison where, according to reports, at least one detainee has died as a result of harsh treatment -- commenters here have pooh-poohed the notion. Today, they have to argue with the Red Cross and the BBC.
In this report, the Red Cross, responding to a BBC inquiry, confirms that there's a second, secret detainment facility on the grounds of the base in addition to a publicly acknowledged prison. And of course the US continues to deny the existence of the facility.
I've been writing about Bagram because it stands as a rebuke to the president's pledge to close Gitmo. What's happened at Bagram -- and you can Google it -- is perhaps worse than our history at Guantanamo, and Bagram detainees are not covered by the Supreme Court's habeas corpus decision re: Gitmo detainees. In other words, they remain in a lawless black hole where their captors can do literally anything.
And their captors are us.
UPDATE (FRIDAY): Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic has new reporting on the secret detention facility at Bagram. Note that the category of those chosen by DIA to be taken there--"high value detainees"--is a distinction unknown in law.