Matias Koch - Entry No. 7 (Khalili)

The text starts talking about the invisible prisoners and how the different developed countries used their proxy alliances to manage their dirty work in the “Shadow of the law”. Lots of documents from the US military operations were lost or simply disappear, and are quite suspicious. The process in which these suspected criminals are held shows us that in reality no legal process in followed, and they prefer to keep it in the shadows. They destroy the documents and do blind eye to the situation, such as what happened with Yaser Esam Hamdi.   Many cases like this followed, when the situations aren’t explained so they have more time to interrogate them. The deployment of colonial armies has been a notably effective method not only for defraying costs, but also for spreading any blame that is to be apportioned in the aftermath of asymmetric wars. Imperialism was less about conquest than about the training of local armies, and the relationship established between American officers and their Third World countries.

The US was in charge of the creation of many zones of invisibility for their detentions in the shadows. During the texts lots of example and cases of violence and illegal arrests are explained, that can easily show how the US is in charge of many illegal activities and humanitarian catastrophes around the world. Then it talks about how the Israeli military do the same as the US with Lebanon. The importance about the proxies is that they aren’t defined at all. They don’t really know who are they working for, or where do they belong.  They get used to not asking questions or demanding explanations. But compared to the Israeli intervention in other countries, the US is much worse.

The War on terror provided the broadest display of the use of proxies anywhere. The most important cases were held in the US territory, but the others were held by their proxies, as a way of cleaning their hands. Lots of reports had showed us how the US has committed atrocities and then had covered them up with money or inexistent legal references.

The use of proxies by the United States was very useful because of its legal ambiguities of jurisdiction and because it also reinforce their power all over the world. The proxies also tend to became emotionally attached to their commanders, so they are willing to sacrifice their lives or cover up for them. It is funny how the US use the idea of promoting democracy and human rights as a justification of its invasions, when is indeed him who breaks all of the rules.  The use of proxies as I said before is also used us a mean to exposed their superiority. So in order to achieve this, the imperial officers tend to create hierarchies by humiliating their proxies. The issue of Gender is the most important weapon; they manage to make their proxies feel like little scared girls under their power (“Bunch of women”; “pussies”). This implies that conquered populations in this asymmetrical dyad became owned, penetrated, and feminine.

The use of proxies also helps to create a net of connections between different countries in order to help the US with their interrogations and manipulation of prisoners. The text quoted: “If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria.” Here the undercover network of the US is exposed, showing us how illegal all this was. The case of Toscanino is useful to understand how the US has used an illegal policeman from Montevideo to kidnap him, and then take him under custody to Brazil where he was brutally tortured and interrogated. Throughout the whole process the United States was aware of the interrogations and did in fact receive reports as to its progress.  Then Toscanino was taken to the US an prosecuted there as a high drug mafia.

What is important here is that Toscanino abduction is not in any way legal, you simply cannot take a person out of a country without having the permission from the country he is at. This is why the US invented a “legal” name for this, and labels it as “informal or irregular” rendition.  This has become a significant weapon in the arsenal of various US presidents, such us Bush. The legal counsel of the US established a new policy, by which the US law enforcement can kidnap fugitives from US law without the consent of the countries in which the abduction occurs. Of course, this is very legit because the US has the power to break all the rules of the international treaties around the world that he doesn’t like. The examples about their transgressions goes on and on in the text, giving more and more examples about how the US is in fact a hypocritical country that goes against of what he preaches around the world.

The advantages about this proxies is that they have more liberties to do what the US cant, because of their more flexible laws. But ordering and giving orders is the same us doing it by yourself, or worst. And this is why the title of the text is “time in the shadows”. Quote: “We don’t kick the shit out of them; we send them to other countries so they can kick the shit out of them”.  The combination of all this invisibility is priceless for the US because they can do whatever they like without being punished or prosecuted. They count with a huge legal management to make this look like legal, and until now it is working. But in reality, we all know how illegal all this is.