The Day of the Dead May 26, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Civil Liberties, Criminal Justice, Democracy, Iraq and Afghanistan, War.Tags: Afghanistan War, bill of rights, Casey Sheehan, Cindy Sheehan, free speech, free speech zones, freedom, Iraq, Iraq war, iraqi dead, memorial day, military industrial complex, obama war crimes, patriotism, roger hollander, U.S. imperialism, War Crimes, warrantless wiretapping
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Monday 25 May 2009, www.truthout.org
by: Cindy Sheehan, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
I was on an airplane flying to Orange County from Sacramento to attend the al-Awda Conference, which is a Palestinian Right’s Conference (al-Awda translates to “The Returning”), when the pilot’s voice filled the cabin to make an announcement that I think went unnoticed by most of my fellow passengers, but I heard it.
As the plane was on the approach to John Wayne airport, the Captain came on the intercom to remind us all to “remember our brave troops who have died for our freedom.” Even in this post 9-11 paranoid paradigm, if I wasn’t belted in for landing, I would have popped out of my seat at 13D and charged up to the cockpit to let the pilot know that my son was killed in Iraq and not one person anywhere in this world is one iota more free because he is dead.
As a matter of fact, the people of Iraq, the foreign country thousands of miles away where my oldest child’s brains, blood and life seeped into the soil, are not freer, unless one counts being liberated from life, liberty and property being free. If you consider torture and indefinite detention freedom, then the pilot may have been right, but then again, even if you do consider those crimes freedom, it does not make it so.
Here in America we are definitely not freer because my son died, as a matter of fact, our nation can spy on us and our communications without a warrant or just cause, and we can’t even bring a 3.6 ounce bottle of hand cream into an airport, or walk through a metal detector with our shoes on. Even if we do want to exercise our Bill of Rights, we are shoved into pre-designated “free speech” zones (NewSpeak for; STFU, unless you are well out of the way of what you want to protest and shoved into pens like cattle being led to slaughter), and oftentimes brutally treated if we decide we are entitled to “free speech” on every inch of American soil.
If you watch any one of the cable news networks this weekend between doing holiday weekend things, you will be subjected to images of row upon row of white headstones of dead US military lined up in perfect formation in the afterlife as they were in life. Patriotic music will swell and we will be reminded in script font to “Remember our heroes,” or some such BS as that.
Before Casey was killed, a message like that would barely register in my consciousness as I rushed around preparing for Casey’s birthday bar-be-que that became a family tradition since he was born on Memorial Day in 1979. If I had a vision of how Memorial Day and Casey’s birthday would change for my family, I would have fled these violent shores to protect what was mine, not this murderous country’s. Be my guest; look at those headstones with pride or indifference. I look at them now with horror, regret, pain and a longing for justice.
I can guarantee what you won’t see this holiday weekend are images of the over one million Iraqi dead. Say we assign, in an arbitrary way for purely illustrative purposes, an average height of five feet for every person killed in Iraq and then line those people up from head to toe. That gruesome line would stretch from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon… 950 driving miles up Interstate 5. If we count the Iraqis who have been forced to flee, we would have to go back and forth between Los Angeles and Portland another four times.
There are obscene amounts of people who have been slaughtered for the US Profit Driven Military Empire who do not count here in America on any day. People in Vietnam are still dying from the toxins dumped on their country by the US, not to mention the millions who died during that war. Let the carnage escalate in Afghanistan while we protect our personal images by turning a blind eye to Obama’s war crimes. Are you going to feel a lump of pride in your bosom when the coffins start to be photographed at Dover for this imperial crime of aggression? Will you look at those flag-draped boxes of the lifeless body of some mother’s child and think: “Now, I am free.” Is it better to be dead when Obama is president?
A tough, but real, aspect of this all to consider is, how many of the soldiers buried in coffins in military cemeteries killed or tortured innocent people as paid goons for the Empire? To me, it is deeply and profoundly sad on so many levels. If I have any consolation through all of this, I learned that my son bravely refused to go on the mission that killed him, but he was literally dragged into the vehicle and was dead minutes later – before he was forced to do something that was against his nature and nurture.
Casey will always be my hero, but he was a victim of US Imperialism and his death should bring shame, not pride, as it did not bring freedom to anyone. I will, of course, mourn his senseless death on Memorial Day as I do every day.
However, we do not need another day here in America to glorify war that enables the Military Industrial Complex to commit its crimes under the black cloak of “Patriotism.”
From Palestine to Africa to South America, our quest for global economic domination kills, sickens, maims or oppresses people on a daily basis, and about 25,000 children per day die of starvation. I am not okay with these facts and I am not proud of my country.
I will spend my reflective time on Memorial Day to mourn not only the deaths of so many people all over the world due to war, but mourn the fact that they are the unseen and uncared for victims of US Empire.
Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Sheehan, who was killed in Bush’s war of terror on 04/04/04. She is the co-founder and president of Gold Star Families for Peace and the Camp Casey Peace Institute. She is the author of three books; the most recent is “Peace Mom: A Mother’s Journey Through Heartache to Activism.” Following an unsuccessful challenge to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sheehan launched a radio show on 960AM in the San Fransisco Bay Area that can also be heard on Soapbox.com.
As Senate Blocks Guantanamo Closing Funding, Habeus Hating Judge Allows Indefinite Imprisonment There May 20, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Civil Liberties, Criminal Justice, Human Rights, Torture.Tags: aclu, al-Qaeda, detainees, Guantanamo, guantanamo prisoners, habeus corpus, john bates, judge bates, rob kall, robert gibbs, Robert Mueller, roger hollander, senate, senators, Taliban, valerie plame
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Rob Kall
www.opednews.com, May 20, 2009
90 senators who are afraid of being accused of allowing Guantanamo prisoners into their states opposed funding the costs for closing Guantanamo.
and
Judge Who’s Allowing Unlimited Imprisonment of Guantanamo Prisoners Also Scuttled Plame Lawsuits and Opposes Habeus Corpus
Late Tuesday, District Judge Bates ruled that the President of the United States may indefinitely detain, without charges, al-Qaida and Taliban members and terrorist suspects held at Guantánamo Judge Bates added a few caveats which may help some of the prisoners, as the Guardian reported he stated that,
“Detention based on substantial or direct support of the Taliban, al-Qaida or associated forces, without more, is simply not warranted by domestic law or the law of war,” Bates wrote. “The court can find no authority in domestic law or the law of war, nor can the government point to any, to justify the concept of ’support’ as a valid ground for detention,” he wrote. It is unclear whether the distinction will allow some prisoners to go free, however. “If the evidence demonstrates that an individual did not identify himself as a member, but undertook certain tasks within the command structure or rendered frequent substantive assistance to al-Qaida … then a court might conclude that he was a ‘part of’ the organisation,” Bates wrote. The case was brought by six Guantánamo prisoners who challenged their detention. American Civil Liberties Union attorney Jonathan Hafetz said the opinion defies a ban in the US Constitution on indefinite detention. “The decision wrongly concludes that terrorism suspects at Guantánamo may continue to languish in military detention rather than being prosecuted in our civilian courts,” Hafetz said. “Like the president’s recent decision to revive military commissions, this ruling perpetuates rather than ends the failed experiment in lawlessness that is Guantánamo.”
District Judge John D. Bates, appointed by George W. Bush in 1991. He.was appointed to serve as a FISA judge on the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court by SCOTUS Chief Justice John Roberts. The judge was also involved in decisions rejecting efforts by Valerie Plame to bring Dick Cheney to trial. Wikipedia reports that the judge is an avid opponent to habeus corpus. This was a win for the Obama administration, which claims to be seeking to close the Guantanamo facility, especially since, today, the senate refused to provide the funds Obama requested, which were to cover the cost of closing the facility. The 90 to 6 vote against funding sent a resounding message that both Dems and Republicans insist upon a more well defined plan before they will fund the closing. FBI Director Robert Mueller, appointed by George W. Bush in June 2001, warned congress that there could be risked associated with moving Guantanamo prisoners to the US, apparently sabotaging Obama administration efforts to fulfill Obama’s promise to close the facility,or giving him cover to not follow through on the promise. The New York Times reports
Administration officials have indicated that if the Guantánamo camp closes as scheduled more than 100 prisoners may need to be moved to the United States, including 50 to 100 who have been described as too dangerous to release. Of the 240 detainees, 30 have been cleared for release. Some are likely to be transferred to foreign countries, though other governments have been reluctant to take them. Britain and France have each accepted one former detainee. And while as many as 80 of the detainees will be prosecuted, it remains unclear what will happen to those who are convicted and sentenced to prison. At the White House on Tuesday, the press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said the administration expected that Congress would eventually release the money to close the camp, and he suggested that the concerns of lawmakers would start to be addressed on Thursday, when Mr. Obama will present a “hefty part” of his plan. At the Pentagon, a spokesman, Geoff Morrell, said Tuesday that he believed that the administration remained on track to meet the deadline for closing the prison. “I see nothing to indicate that that date is at all in jeopardy,” Mr. Morrell said.
In both houses of congress, both parties are calling for a clearer plan. And so, we wait, as have the prisoners at Guantanamo, 80-90% of whom were arrested based on bounties of $5000 to $20,000 paid to Afghans earning, in many cases, less than $1000 a year.
Rob Kall is executive editor, publisher and site architect of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, more…)
The NYT Sums up Obama’s Civil Liberties Record in One Paragraph May 16, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Civil Liberties.Tags: John McCain, Karl Rove, War Crimes, roger hollander, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, torture, civil liberties, George Bush, national security, bush administration, aclu, nuremberg, constitution, geneva conventions, rule of law, cia prisons, cia interrogation, military commissions, detainee abuse, glenn greenwald, binyam mohamed, state secrets, torture memos, bagram, torture videos, obama civil liberties, obama promises, anti-terrorism, intelligence-sharing, stanley mcchyrstal, torture tapes
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Among progressives, Democrats, liberals, Obama supporters and the like, there seems to be some debate about the extent to which Obama deserves criticisms for what he has done thus far in the realm of civil liberties, restoration of Constitutional principles, and reversing the severe imbalance between “security” and liberties — major planks of his two-year-long campaign and among the most frequent weapons used to criticize the Bush presidency. On that topic, here is the first paragraph of this New York Times article this morning by David Sanger, summing everything up:
President Obama’s decisions this week to retain important elements of the Bush-era system for trying terrorism suspects and to block the release of pictures showing abuse of American-held prisoners abroad are the most graphic examples yet of how he has backtracked, in substantial if often nuanced ways, from the approach to national security that he preached as a candidate, and even from his first days in the Oval Office.
Here’s how the NYT describes the article on its front page:
The opening paragraph of this Washington Post article today says much the same thing:
As a candidate for president, Barack Obama offered himself as a clear alternative to Bush-era anti-terrorism policies. Governing has proven muddier.
Both articles quote the hardest-core Bush supporters as heaping praise on Obama for what he has done in the area of “national security,” terrorism and civil liberties (“Pete Wehner, a member of Karl Rove’s staff in the Bush White House [and a current National Review writer] applauded several of Mr. Obama’s decisions this week”). Indeed, all week long, and even before that, the greatest enthusiasm for Obama’s decisions on so-called “terrorism policies” and civil liberties (with some important exceptions) has been found in the pages of The Weekly Standard and National Review.
Can anyone deny what the NYT and Post are pointing out today? This is what happened this week alone in the realm of Obama’s approach to “national security” and civil liberties:
Monday – Obama administration’s letter to Britian threatening to cut off intelligence-sharing if British courts reveal the details of how we tortured British resident Binyam Mohamed;
Tuesday – Promoted to military commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChyrstal, who was deeply involved in some of the worst abuses of the Bush era;
Wednesday – Announced he was reversing himself and would try to conceal photographic evidence showing widespread detainee abuse — despite the rulings from two separate courts (four federal judges unanimously) that the law compels their disclosure;
Friday - Unveiled his plan to preserve a modified system of military commissions for trying Guantanamo detainees, rather than using our extant-judicial processes for doing so.
It’s not the fault of civil libertarians that Obama did all of those things, just in this week alone. These are the very policies — along with things like the claimed power to abduct and imprison people indefinitely with no charges of any kind and the use of the “state secrets privilege” to deny torture and spying victims a day in court — that caused such extreme anger and criticisms toward the Bush presidency.
What would it say about a person who spent the last seven years vehemently criticizing those policies to suddenly decide that the same policies were perfectly fine or not particularly bothersome when Obama adopts them? How could that be justified? What should one say about a person who vehemently objected to X when Bush did it, but then suddenly found ways to defend or mitigate X when Obama does it? Just re-read that first paragraph from the NYT article today. What should a rational person say in response to what it describes?
It is absolutely true that there have been some important steps Obama has taken in the right direction that George Bush and John McCain would never have entertained, including banning interrogation techniques outside of the Army Field Manual, barring CIA secret prisons, guaranteeing International Red Cross access to all detainees, and releasing numerous Bush era OLC memos. He deserves praise for those decisions and has received it here. But other than the OLC memos, those steps all came in the very first week of his presidency in largely symbolic form. At the time, in the first week, I wrote that Obama’s first-week executive orders ”meet or actually exceed even the most optimistic expectations of civil libertarians for what he could or would do quickly,” but:
This is why the understandable enthusiasm (which I definitely share) over Obama’s pleasantly unexpected commitment in the first few hours of his presidency to take politically difficult steps in the civil liberties and accountability realms should be tempered somewhat. There is going to be very concerted pressure exerted on him by establishment guardians such as Hiatt (and the Brookings Institution, Jack Goldsmith and friends), to say nothing of hard-line factions within the intelligence community and its various allies, for Obama to take subsequent steps that would eviscerate much of this progress, that render these initial rollbacks largely empty, symbolic gestures. Whether these steps, impressive as they are, will be symbolic measures designed to placate certain factions, or whether they represent a genuine commitment on Obama’s part, remains to be seen. Much of it will depend on how much political pressure is exerted and from what sides.
Obama deserves real praise for devoting the first few days of his presidency to these vital steps — and doing so without there being much of a political benefit and with some real political risk. That’s genuinely encouraging. But ongoing vigilance is necessary, to counter-balance the Fred Hiatts, Brookings Institutions and other national security state fanatics, to ensure that these initial steps aren’t undermined.
Since that first week, Obama has engaged in one action after the next to preserve many of the key prongs, and the essential architecture, of the Bush/Cheney abuses of executive power and civil liberties. That’s just factually true. What’s the point of closing Guantanamo if we’re going to continue to keep people indefinitely in cages with no trial in Bagram, or if we simply transport a modified version of Guantanamo justice to the U.S.? How can a President who repeatedly promised vast transparency embrace the most extremist Bush/Cheney secrecy powers? How can a person who campaigned on the vow to end “Scooter Libby justice” and restore the rule of law take one extreme step after the next to shield from judicial scrutiny some of the most serious, brutal and highest-level crimes of the last eight years?
It’s certainly true that there are other issues besides civil liberties and national security policies that are important. The fact that he’s been horrible in these areas doesn’t mean he hasn’t been good in others. One can argue, if one likes, that these civil liberties issues don’t really matter (a representative of Center for American Progress joined with two conservatives to claim exactly that yesterday on CNN), or one can argue that all that matters is that we fix the banking crisis and implement a new health care policy. But I never heard any Bush critics — not one — say anything like that when these issues were front and center in the case against the Bush presidency.
Nobody who spent the last many years devoting themselves to opposing Bush/Cheney abuses of executive power and civil liberties wanted to have to do the same in an Obama presidency. If you doubt that, just look at how intense was the celebratory praise directed at Obama from those factions in the first week. But unless the opposition of the last eight years was really just a cynical means for opportunistically weakening and demonizing Republican opponents rather than opposing policies that one genuinely found dangerous and wrong, then the actions of Obama are leaving no other choice but to object and object strenuously. As the first paragraph of today’s NYT article put it, this week alone provided “the most graphic examples yet of how [Obama] has backtracked, in substantial if often nuanced ways, from the approach to national security that he preached as a candidate, and even from his first days in the Oval Office.” If nothing else, refraining from objecting will ensure that this continues further and further.
* * * * *
Yesterday morning, I was on WNYC’s The Takeway discussing (briefly) the issue of Obama’s military commissions and, more extensively, drug policy and decriminalization in Portugal. That can be heard here.
UPDATE: The Wall St. Journal Editorial Page today:
President Obama’s endorsements of Bush-Cheney antiterror policies are by now routine . . . . Mr. Obama deserves credit for accepting that the civilian courts are largely unsuited for the realities of the war on terror. He has now decided to preserve a tribunal process that will be identical in every material way to the one favored by Dick Cheney . . . Meanwhile, friends should keep certain newspaper editors away from sharp objects. Their champion has repudiated them once again.
Meanwhile, Law Professor Julian Ku notes that Obama Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal spent years arguing that military commissions generally (not merely Bush’s specific version) were oppressive and un-American (h/t). But now, thanks to Obama’s embrace of them, Katyal is going to have to defend Obama’s military commissions in court from challenge by the ACLU and other groups. At least Katyal has the excuse that defending exactly that which he spent years excoriating is his job. Obama supporters who are doing the same don’t have that excuse.
UPDATE II: Illustrating the irrationality that is used, Obama defenders are making the following two arguments to justify what he did on military commissions:
(1) Obama had no choice because he can’t obtain convictions of accused terrorists in civilian courts because so much of the evidence was obtained by Bush’s torture and thus can’t be used;
(2) Obama’s military commissions are better than Bush’s because Obama’s commissions won’t allow evidence obtained by torture.
Aren’t those two propositions completely contradictory? If Obama’s military commissions (like civilian courts and courts-martial) won’t allow evidence obtained via torture, then why can’t he use our normal court system to try accused terrorists?
Walkom: Omar Khadr heading for a kangaroo court November 14, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Canada, Civil Liberties, Criminal Justice, Iraq and Afghanistan, War.Tags: Afghanistan War, canada justice, canada politics, canadian justice, child soldier, civil liberties, eric holder, Guantanamo, kangaroo court, military commissions, Omar Khadr, roger hollander, shiekh mohammed, thomas walkom, torture, u.s. justice
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Let me get this straight. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks, gets a fair trial with all the constitutional trimmings. But Omar Khadr, the Canadian child-soldier accused of killing an American sergeant during battle, will still be tried before a kangaroo court. Incidentally, the kangaroo court label isn’t mine. That’s how U.S. military lawyers describe the commission that is supposed to try the 23-year-old Toronto man. As Lt.-Col. Darrel Vandeveld, a former military commission prosecutor, wrote last month in a letter to the Washington Post, these bodies were designed “to secure convictions where prisoner mistreatment … would otherwise preclude them.” True, President Barack Obama has eliminated some of their worst elements. Under amendments passed into law last month, the military commission that tries Khadr will no longer be able to use information gained under torture. So that’s something. But as the American Civil Liberties Union has pointed out, the law still permits evidence obtained through both hearsay and coercion, as long as this coercion does not involve “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.” Neither hearsay nor coercion will be permissible in the civilian trial of alleged mass murderer Mohammed. Neither is permissible in a military court martial. But both may be allowed in the trial of Khadr, who at the age of 15 was sent off by his father to aid pro-Taliban forces resisting the American-led invasion of Afghanistan. Why the difference? U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder insists he merely wants to differentiate between those accused of attacking civilians and those charged with crimes against the military. He says that’s why Mohammed, accused of bringing down the twin towers, will be tried by a civilian court in Manhattan. And he says that’s why Khadr and four others charged with attacking U.S. soldiers will be tried by military commissions. This is the excuse. The real reason, I suspect, is that Washington knows that 9/11 ringleaders like Mohammed will be happy to publicly acknowledge their crimes, thus making their convictions a near certainty. But Khadr is not angling for martyrdom. And in a real court of law, the case against him would almost certainly fail. First there is his age. Fifteen at the time of his capture, he would be considered a child soldier under United Nations conventions (military commissions are specifically entitled to disregard this). Second, as my colleague Michelle Shephard writes in her book, Guantanamo’s Child, Khadr – seriously wounded in the Afghan firefight – was in such bad shape during questioning that even his U.S. interrogator feared he might die. In civilian court, statements obtained under such circumstances would be dismissed as coerced. Lurking behind all of this is the Canadian government’s obdurate refusal, in Parliament and the courts, to request his repatriation. It’s not clear that the U.S. would agree to such a request if one were made. Holder was deliberately opaque when asked yesterday, saying only “we will, as that case proceeds, see how it should be ultimately treated.” What we do know, however, is that after seven years in custody in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, this particular Canadian citizen is heading for a low-level show trial. Shame on Obama for keeping the military commission farce alive. Shame on Canada for failing to object. Thomas Walkom’s column appears Wednesday and Saturday.