[Marxism] The persecution of Mohammed Jawad

[Aaron Aarons]

>Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:32:13 -0400
>From: "Fred Feldman" <ffeldman at bellatlantic.net>
>
>Aaron Aarons wrote:
>The question of whether Mohammed Jawad threw a grenade or not, and of
>whether the chief prosecutor hid evidence to the contrary, should be
>irrelevant. The real issue is that killing invading imperialist soldiers is
>not a crime, but a legitimate act of resistance.
>
>Fred comments:
>Is this a denunciation of this lawyer for thinking that it mattered to
>reveal that the chief prosecutor in this case was suppressing legally
>relevant evidence in a Guantanamo case? Should we oppose revealing the chief
>prosecutor's action because resistance is justified?

We shouldn't oppose revealing such hanky-panky by the chief prosecutor but we -- I'm talking about we alleged anti-imperialists -- should *never*, in doing so, give credence to the presupposition that, if the defendant actually did what they accuse him of having done, he would be guilty of a crime.

Here's an analogy: A white mob attacks a black neighborhood, injuring and killing black people. One of the attackers is killed and a black man is arrested and charged with murder. Even if it could be shown that the prosecution was using dubious evidence to try to convict that particular man, wouldn't it be more to the point that, whether he did it or not, no crime was committed by him?

>Regardless of what "should be irrelevant" (apparently in some better world),
>your comment strikes me as completely irrelevant to what happened here And
>especially irrelevant to the fight to expose and thus contribute to stopping
>the crime of what the US is doing in Guantanamo.

Isn't the crime of what the US is doing in Guantanamo primarily that (1) it is a case of an imperialist aggressor presuming to charge those who resist its agression as "war criminals" for doing so and (2) they are using torture to extract information in furtherance of their aggression and to terrify others who might resist. The question of whether they are following proper procedure in doing so is a side issue which it is fine to mention, *provided that* we don't let the notion that the acts charged are crimes slip in as a presuppositon. It is, after all, what is *presupposed* in what we read and hear, rather than what is *asserted*, that is most effective in brainwashing people.