Read Lynn Feinerman’s new piece for Tikkun, “Torture Continues And Comes Home To Roost.”

Contrary to the claims of President Obama in his recent state of the union address, news reports assert that the US is still torturing. Anand Gopal’s recent article in the Nation magazine reveals the existence of many secret field sites in Afghanistan where torture is continuing apace, while the US maintains a somewhat cleaner game in Bagram Air Base.

And while the US courts have blocked torture survivors like Maher Arar in their efforts to sue the US government for damages, and the Obama justice department has swept all the crimes against humanity of the Bush years under the rug, a sinister blowback of this “war on terror” is creeping into the US itself.

Nov 25 2009: Brooklyn College Professor Jeanne Theoharris speaking at the weekly vigil for Fahad Hashmi, a former Brooklyn College student who has been in solitary confinement for three years without a trial

One of the worst cases is that of Fahad Hashmi, suspected of al Qaeda involvement. He has been kept in solitary confinement for three years without trial.

Recently on DEMOCRACY NOW!, Dr. Atul Gawande, a physician and surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and a teacher at Harvard University, spoke about medical research into the effects of solitary confinement on prisoners, hostages and detainees. Researchers did brain scans and found that people who have sustained head injuries have the same scan indications as people in solitary confinement for long periods. Said Dr. Gawande on air, “…The science of what happens to people deprived of social contact is they have to fight for their sanity. And many lose their sanity. That…. led me to ask the question, is solitary confinement, the way we’re practicing it now, torture?”

… It is unclear whether Fahad Hashmi was connected to Al Qaeda at all. But significantly, during his studies for his bachelor’s degree in the US, Fahad Hashmi was outspoken against US foreign policy, and belonged to a New York activist group called Al Muhajiroun. That group is not designated a terrorist group. However, Fahad was quoted by CNN at a 2002 meeting, calling the US the “biggest terrorist in the world.” Could it be that Fahad has been placed in the torture conditions of solitary confinement in Manhattan because he expressed his opinions of US policy, publicly? Is the US imprisoning Hashmi for his political views, and trying to brainwash him? If so, then the government is also assaulting our Constitutionally protected free speech.

Perhaps the only thing that can be concluded with certainty about the Fahad Hashmi case, at this time, is that Fahad Hashmi is correct, the US is squarely among the most prominent state sponsors of torture. And as torture is a form of terrorism, the US is at least one of the biggest terrorists in the world.

Read the rest here.