1
POPSAnother Terrorist Kangaroo Trial With alot at Stake So the government caught bin Laden's driver, we are told to believe, but yet they lost bin Laden? Right! It's all a lie and another show trial for a fictitious account to justify a fake war for regime changes. It is not only Mr Hamdan's future that will be determined by the trial. There is great concern among members of the Bush administration that they too could find themselves before foreign or international courts for the role they played in facilitating and encouraging the torture of detainees. The infamous "torture memos" circulated by Vice-President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Charles Addington, and two former administration figures, Douglas Feith and Alberto Gonzales, covertly approved the abuse of prisoners by the CIA. These men were publicly warned recently by Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Colin Powell when Mr Powell was Secretary of State, to "never travel outside the US
1
POPSGTMO- Neither Military nor Justice When men like this have to distance themselves from the purely political of the Kangaroo Trials in Cuba, what other evidence does one need to shut the s..it down and begin the real work.
1
POPSGTMO Trials= Kangeroo Trials- Rapidly, Irratic Moving Target This is not happening in China, Zimbabwe or the former Soviet Union; Our government wants to put on a show of democracy at work. Circus would be more like it. A circus of caged, tortured and worse.This government, if one can call it that, must be very afraid. I am afraid of this kind of " institution ". Sooner, rather than later, we who oppose this sham, might also get into the " show ". Patriotism is what they call that! No wonder the Arabs, and many others, have trouble believing in American Democracy. Are you having trouble yet? Or do you need more?
3
POPSGitmo Trial Defendants Face Absurd Obstacles Another problem is that what the defendants tell their lawyers is classified. As a result, they can't even discuss their conversations among themselves. "When we leave the room and we're not with him (Mohammed) any more, we can't turn to each other and say 'What do you think of what he just said?'" said Nevin, who has called the commission process "very, very unfair." "And at the end of this, the government's desire is to execute Mr. Mohammed," said Capt. Prescott Prince, another of Mohammed's legal advisers. "I find that just insane." Calling this "justice" is a joke.
7
POPSWhite House Ignored Detainee Innocence As far as I can figure out, this is the Bush admin. worrying that it might be embarrassed by the ham-handedness of their wide net approach to collecting detainees. Instead of admitting that they may have gone a little overboard, they kept innocent people in prison. This creates a new class of political prisoner -- the inconvenient and unrectified mistake.
10
POPSGovt blocks payment of Gitmo defense attorneys "government argues is required under U.S. law because the beneficiaries of the lawyers' services are foreign terrorists" - of course, these being "fair" trials, we wouldn't assume they were "terrorists," before their conviction, now would we? Justice means nothing in this political theater.
11
POPSBush: those who disagree with him "slander America" How very, very cheap - taking those who disagree with HIM and labeling them slanderers of AMERICA. He attempts to manipulate people who want to be patriotic into sitting down, shutting up, and asking no questions about his abuse of power, so he can do whatever he wants with their money.
2
POPSChina Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo Swell, just swell, borrowing techniques from communist dictatorships. Well done! Plus: "In 2002, the training program, known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, became a source of interrogation methods both for the C.I.A. and the military. In what critics describe as a remarkable case of historical amnesia, officials who drew on the SERE program appear to have been unaware that it had been created as a result of concern about false confessions by American prisoners." Brilliant!
2
POPSMcCain vs. Obama On National Security
that espouses the destruction of the State of Israel as its fondest wish and pledges undying enmity to the United States to possess the weapons to advance their malevolent ambitions." He also rejects "unconditional dialogues" with Iran. Obama has delivered messages on Iran that were more mixed. But that only makes diplomacy more important. If we must use military force, we are more likely to succeed, and will have far greater support at home and abroad, if we have exhausted our diplomatic efforts." In the same speech, however, Obama promised: "aggressive, principled diplomacy without self-defeating preconditions....Obama missed a vote on a controversial amendment offered by Sen. Jon Kyl and Lieberman that proposed labeling Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization . Obama called the amendment a repeat of the mistakes that led to war in Iraq; however, he had cosponsored an earlier bill declaring the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization
13
POPSMoral Depravity in the Highest Places
After 7 1/2 years of George W. Bush, much of the media and political establishment — which have never shown much interest in holding Bush to account — now appear anxious to simply move on. They seem determined to leave unexamined the full cruelty and mendacity of the Bush administration, with its unlawful wars and blatant violations of the Geneva Conventions. Moving on is a great idea - once there’s been some accountability, with a full public recognition of wrongdoing, and a commitment to bring about change. Otherwise, nothing will have been learned. The comments of Yoo, who authored top-level internal memos justifying torture and virtually unlimited presidential power, suggest a moral depravity in very high places. That depravity led to the horrific abuses at Abu Ghraib and at other U.S. prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and “black sites” around the world. The dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, Lawrence Velvel, argues that Bush and top administration offi
5
POPSWe Won't Need The Expense Of A Supreme Court If McCain wins in November, we won't need a Supreme Court any longer. When he throws in a few more conservative ideologues to further unbalance this court, we will all know their rulings on EVERYTHING even before they cast their vote. It's almost that way now except for the conservative Kennedy who in his declining years of life has turned into a philosopher, that is a person who seeks truth by thinking! But he is the exception, not the rule. The other justices vote along the lines of WHATEVER THE HELL THEIR KING TELLS THEM TO VOTE. Now is this fair to the people in a democracy... HELL NO! Believe me, not only will progressives suffer many conservatives will suffer too! Left or Right we all feel the pain of injustice!
10
POPSSome Iraqi News Not Reported By "The Media" Meanwhile Bill Roggio reports that a released Gitmo detainee is back to the front and is responsible for attacks inside Iraq : The detainee, Abdullah Salih al Ajmi, drove a armored truck packed with explosives into a Iraqi army base and detonated it, killing 13 Iraqi army soldiers and wounding 42. http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/06/released_guantanamo.php Just the tip of the iceberg I’m afraid after our courts release a large chunk of these guys. Al Qaeda in Iraq, through its puppet organization the Islamic State of Iraq, released its latest propaganda video on June 23. The video contains a montage of attacks throughout Iraq, and features two Kuwaiti al Qaeda operatives who conducted strikes in Mosul. One of the operatives was released from the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Islamic State of Iraq used footage taken at Combat Outpost Inman by this reporter in Mosul in March of this year.
1
POPSDEATHS: THE VERY REAL EFFECT OF Boumediene v Bush Try to find a reference to the case name/style in an AP story (I cannot remember when a story on a USSC decision did not carry the case name/style.): http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080612/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_guantanamo or http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/12/america/gitmoruling.php