"The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism"

conquistador#11 · Jan 26, 2007

This thread makes me sick,Only because I have to read about ALBERTO GONZALES.You would think that someone,with the last name Gonzales,would appreciate the EEUU!!For him to think that, he knows more than Franklin,jefferson,and the rest of the great forefathers is complete B.S.

jo mama · Jan 26, 2007

andy griffith sums it all up perfectly.

as one of the comments from the link said "If you replace Opie with Alberto Gonzales, & Andy with the judicial branch...it plays out perfectly..."

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mc mark · Jun 7, 2007

Some sanity returns --

Senate Begins Real Push on Habeas Corpus

Today the Senate Judiciary Committee passed an important bill to restore habeas corpus, the sacrosanct Constitutional right to challenge government detention in court, by a vote of eleven to eight.

Habeas corpus was revoked by last year's Military Commissions Act, which has been assailed as unconstitutional and un-American by leaders across the political spectrum. Today's habeas bill was backed by the Judiciary Committee's Democratic Chairman, Patrick Leahy, and its Republican Ranking Member, Arlen Specter. "The drive to restore this fundamental right has come from both sides of the aisle," said Sharon Bradford, an attorney at the bipartisan Constitution Project, in response to today's vote. "Restoring America's commitment to the rule of law is not a partisan cause; it is a patriotic one," she added.

Today's vote means the habeas bill can now be brought to the Senate floor at any time. One source with knowledge of the legislative plan said Majority Leader Harry Reid has committed to bringing the bill to a vote within the month.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=203303

mc mark · Jun 11, 2007

Courts slaps down Chimpy McFlysuit once again. --

Man Labeled "Enemy Combatant" Wins Court Case

By REUTERS
Filed at 12:43 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush cannot order the military to seize and indefinitely detain a Qatari national and suspected al Qaeda operative, the only person being held in the United States as an "enemy combatant," an appeals court ruled on Monday.

In a major setback for Bush's policies in the war on terrorism adopted after the September 11 attacks, the appellate panel ruled 2-1 the U.S. government had no evidence to treat Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri as an "enemy combatant." The court ordered him released from military custody.

"The government cannot subject al-Marri to indefinite military detention. For in the United States, the military cannot seize and imprison civilians -- let alone imprison them indefinitely," Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote.

Al-Marri has been held in a U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, South Carolina, for about four years without any charges.

The ruling sent the case back to a federal judge in South Carolina with instructions to direct the secretary of defense to release al-Marri from military custody within a reasonable period of time.

The government can transfer al-Marri to civilian authorities to face criminal charges, initiate deportation proceedings, hold him as a witness in a grand jury proceeding or detain him for a limited period of time under the Patriot Act, an anti-terrorism law.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news...batant.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

glynch · Jun 12, 2007

conquistador#11 said:

This thread makes me sick,Only because I have to read about ALBERTO GONZALES.You would think that someone,with the last name Gonzales,would appreciate the EEUU!!For him to think that, he knows more than Franklin,jefferson,and the rest of the great forefathers is complete B.S.
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Alberto is sort of like Condi and Colin, they have played along to get along their whole lives. Who knows what they actually believe in.

A friend of mine knows Condi's middle school teacher. Said she was a good person before falling in with the wrong crowd.

EEUU. Nice touch.

mc mark · Jun 21, 2007

Order nixing habeas rights goes into effect.

“The D.C. Circuit Court on Wednesday, after pondering the issue for more than two months, on Wednesday refused to delay any longer putting into effect its decision that Guantanamo Bay detainees have lost all rights to pursue habeas challenges to their prolonged imprisonment. In a brief order, the panel that ruled against the detainees on Feb. 20 formally denied a request filed in April by detainees’ lawyers not to issue the mandate and to hold the cases on its docket for several more months.”

[T]he Justice Department appears likely to act quickly to get 12 District Court judges in Washington to dismiss habeas challenges by scores of detainees, and also to wipe out so-called “protective orders” that assure the detainees’ lawyers access to their clients at Guantanamo and access to information the military may use to justify continuing to hold them.
Click to expand...

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/20/order-nixing-habeas-rights-goes-into-effect/#comment-3872496

This is a dark, shameful age in America.

rhadamanthus · Jun 21, 2007

mc mark said:

Order nixing habeas rights goes into effect.

“The D.C. Circuit Court on Wednesday, after pondering the issue for more than two months, on Wednesday refused to delay any longer putting into effect its decision that Guantanamo Bay detainees have lost all rights to pursue habeas challenges to their prolonged imprisonment. In a brief order, the panel that ruled against the detainees on Feb. 20 formally denied a request filed in April by detainees’ lawyers not to issue the mandate and to hold the cases on its docket for several more months.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/20/order-nixing-habeas-rights-goes-into-effect/#comment-3872496

This is a dark, shameful age in America.
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As I get older, I find that more and more of what one is taught as a child is really just thinly-veiled propoganda with little or no relevance to the actual state of the world.

rhadamanthus · Nov 4, 2009

Who would have thought the freeking italians would stand up for civil rights....

November 4, 2009

Judges in Italy are expected to hand down a verdict Wednesday in the first-ever trial examining the practice known as extraordinary rendition.
Twenty-six Americans, mostly CIA agents, are being tried in absentia. Together with seven Italians, they are charged with kidnapping a Muslim cleric who was taken to Egypt, where he says he was tortured.
Human rights activists say that during the Bush administration, extraordinary rendition was the CIA's way of outsourcing the torture of prisoners to countries where it is practiced.

The prosecution says that in February 2003, CIA agents, with the help of Italian intelligence officials, grabbed Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr on a street in Milan. The cleric, also known as Abu Omar, was under investigation in Italy for terrorism. After spending nearly four years in a Cairo prison, he was released under house arrest.
In a 2007 interview with Italian TV, he described being abducted by men he said looked and sounded American. He said he was blindfolded and put on a plane to Cairo.
In prison, he said, "they beat me with nightsticks. They walked over my body. They tied me up and hung me from my feet. They tortured me with an electric current. The worst was the genital torture. I was handcuffed for 14 months."

State Secrets
Court documents showed that the Abu Omar kidnapping was expensive and sloppy. The CIA suspects were tracked down thanks to cell phone calls made near the abduction site, and credit card payments showing car rental and hotel bills totaling more than $150,000.
Prosecutors allege that the agents' carelessness derived from their sense of impunity.
Italy is a loyal ally of the United States, and successive governments — both on the right and the left — tried to obstruct the investigation, citing state secrecy. No effort was made to extradite the Americans, and no comment has come from the CIA.

Last March, the constitutional court ruled that a portion of the prosecution's evidence could not be used because it is classified. But Leo Sisti, a terrorism analyst who has followed the trial, says the prosecution was able to show that the CIA was behind the extraordinary rendition.
"There are other documents that proved the connection between those agents and the kidnapping of Abu Omar," he says.

A Prosecutor's Conviction
The lead prosecutor is Armando Spataro, who made his name with a series of big trials against the Mafia and leftist terrorists. He patiently put together the Abu Omar kidnapping case piece by piece. He believes that democratic societies can combat terrorism only through rule of law.
"Illegal actions, such as capturing a person without judicial authorization and secret prisons, do not increase faith in our system. Rather, they give extremists more reasons to proselytize against us and lead them to believe ours is only a so-called democracy," he says.
Spataro is seeking a 13-year jail term for the former CIA chief in Rome, Jeff Castelli, and 12 years for the former CIA chief in Milan, Robert Seldon Lady. He has asked for 10 to 11 years for the other defendants.
Most of the Americans were represented by court-appointed counselors who never met their clients. Defense lawyers said their clients either enjoyed diplomatic immunity at the time of Abu Omar's disappearance or — if there was indeed a CIA order for his kidnapping — they should be found innocent because they were following orders.
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Bush's version of America makes me sick.

B-Bob · Nov 4, 2009

rhadamanthus said:

Bush's version of America makes me sick.
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That is some tough, tough reading. Bush turned the volume knob a little bit in this sort of work, but as you know, there's more of a history, and Obama hasn't completely decided to halt that tradition as far as I can tell either.

rhadamanthus · Nov 4, 2009

B-Bob said:

That is some tough, tough reading. Bush turned the volume knob a little bit in this sort of work, but as you know, there's more of a history, and Obama hasn't completely decided to halt that tradition as far as I can tell either.
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Yes, I am aware. But nowhere was it so brazen as in Bush's administration. I mean, there was not even an intent to hide it, and the lies associated therein were so ridiculously unbelievable that, IMO, it shows outright contempt for rule of law.

Inasmuch as Obama has utterly failed (so far) to stop or even limit these policies, I'm outraged and bitter.

DonnyMost · Nov 4, 2009

I guess it is easy to doubt someone's fight against terrorism if you're scared to death of them.

rhadamanthus · Nov 5, 2009

Update: They were all convicted .

US is "dissapointed" by the ruling.

Real bummer that torturing people is a crime, I know.

rhadamanthus · Jun 24, 2010

Pakistan convicts 5 americans on terror charges.

Think about this. So while the US holds known innocents without charge at a military concentration camp because it is "politically impossible to release them”, Pakistan provides due process.

The world has turned upside down.

rhadamanthus · Dec 16, 2010

rhadamanthus said:

Update: They were all convicted .
Click to expand...

Italian court increases sentences for 23 CIA agents

ROME (AFP) – An Italian court upped the sentences for 23 CIA agents convicted in absentia of abducting an Egyptian imam in one of the biggest cases against the US "extraordinary rendition" programme.

The 23 CIA agents, originally sentenced in November 2009 to five to eight years in prison, had their sentences increased to seven to nine years on appeal in what one of the defence lawyers described as a "shocking blow" for the US.

They were also ordered to pay 1.5 million euros (two million dollars) in damages to the imam and his wife for the 2003 abduction.

Washington has refused to extradite the agents, who all remain at liberty but now risk arrest if they travel to Europe.

Osama Mustafa Hassan, a radical Islamist opposition figure better known as Abu Omar, was snatched from a street in Milan in 2003 in an operation coordinated by the CIA and the Italian military intelligence agency SISMI.

Abu Omar, who enjoyed political asylum in Italy, was then allegedly taken to the Aviano US air base in northeastern Italy, then flown to a US base in Germany, and on to Cairo, where he says he was tortured.

Among the defendants sentenced on Wednesday was Bob Seldon Lady, former head of the CIA station in Milan, whose sentence was increased to nine years from eight. The other 22 agents had their sentences upped from five to seven years.

Guido Meroni, a defence lawyer for six of the 23 agents, said he believed the sentences had been increased because the court had rejected the mitigating circumstances that had led to the original judgement.

"The judges had originally ruled they had just been following orders, but it seems the court of appeals didn't agree," he told AFP.

"I am surprised. I didn't think the sentences would be increased. Of course we will take it to the supreme court," he added.

The court also acquitted the then head of Italian military intelligence, Nicolo Pollari, and his assistant Marco Mancini, because producing evidence against them would have violated state secrecy rules. (rhad note: Don't you love the irony here - hypocritical asshats)

In an earlier hearing on Wednesday, the court ordered a re-trial for three other CIA officers, including the then CIA chief for Italy Jeffrey Castelli, because of irregularities in the appeal procedures.

In the first trial they had benefited from diplomatic immunity and had been acquitted.

Their lawyer, Alessia Sorgato, said the court had taken a hard line against the other agents.

"It's a shocking blow for the Americans," she said.

Amnesty International welcomed the judgement, but said that Italy's role in the affair should also be examined.

"The Italian government and its officials should not be able to use 'state secrecy' as a shield to cover up human rights abuse," said Amnesty's counter-terrorism specialist Julia Hall.

"The government must engage in a full and fair accountability process even if its official are embarrassed or even vulnerable to criminal charges for their actions," she added.

"Kidnapping is a crime, not a 'state secret'."

The "extraordinary rendition" programme was launched in 2003 by then US president George W. Bush and saw scores of suspects returned to their home countries, some of which were known to use torture.

Abu Omar's US captors failed to take many standard precautions, notably speaking openly on cell phones, leaving investigators to suspect they had cleared their intentions with Italian intelligence.
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rhadamanthus · Feb 9, 2011

CIA analyst responsible for the kidnapping and subsequent torture of innocent German citizen Khaled El Masri promoted within Obama CIA.

glynch · Feb 10, 2011

rhadamanthus said:

CIA analyst responsible for the kidnapping and subsequent torture of innocent German citizen Khaled El Masri promoted within Obama CIA.
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Obama supported the overthrow of the democratically elected president in Honduras and he is only fooling the naive by pretending not to be sad Mubarak is in trouble. Obama hopes to have the torturer put in as VP become president. He fools only the naive in the US and will make a generaton of Muslims hate us even more.

Poor Obama he can't split the baby on the well-known torturer/ dictators hard as he tries.

rhadamanthus · Apr 19, 2012

US Muslim: I was tortured at FBI's behest in UAE

link

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — His interrogators usually came in the morning. Peeking under a blindfold in a cold concrete cell, Yonas Fikre says he caught only glimpses of their shoes.
They beat the soles of his feet with hoses and sticks, asking him about his Portland, Ore., mosque and its imam. Each day, the men questioning him in a United Arab Emirates prison told the 33-year-old Fikre he would be released "tomorrow," according to an account he gave on Wednesday at a press conference in Sweden, where he has been since September.
"It was very hard, because you don't know why you are in there and the only person you speak to is either yourself, or the wall, or when you go to the restroom or when you go to the torture place," said Fikre, who was held for 106 days. "I have never been that isolated from human beings in my entire life."
An advocacy group alleges that over the past two years the FBI has been using aggressive tactics against Muslim-Americans travelling abroad to try to pressure them to become informants when they got home. Gadeir Abbas, staff attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says there have been several instances of FBI agents calling travelers into embassies or consulates for questioning.
The FBI is not commenting other than to say its agents follow the law.
Fikre, who converted to Islam in 2003, is the third Muslim man from Portland to publicly say he was detained while traveling abroad and questioned about Portland's Masjid as-Sabr mosque.
The mosque, the largest in Oregon, has been in the news on several occasions. Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a Somali American charged with plotting to set off a bomb in downtown Portland in 2010, occasionally worshipped there. A decade ago, seven Muslims with ties to the mosque were arrested following a failed effort to enter Afghanistan and fight U.S. forces.
Fikre says he met Mohamud a handful of times, but wouldn't call him a friend or even an acquaintance.
U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner confirmed Wednesday that Fikre was held in Abu Dhabi "on unspecified charges." Toner said when State Department officials met with him in July 2011, he showed no signs of mistreatment.
Fikre, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was born in Eritrea, a country east of Sudan. He moved to Sudan when he was a boy, then moved with his family to San Diego in 1991, then later to Portland.
He married in 2008, and says he traveled to Sudan in December of the following year to pursue business opportunities.
Fikre says that in April 2009 he was asked to go to the U.S. Embassy to discuss concerns about "safety and security" for U.S. citizens.
Instead, he claims, two FBI agents told him he was on the U.S. government no-fly list, and they could help get him off it if he gave them information about the Portland mosque and helped them with a "case" they were working on. Fikre says he declined.
Fikre says he traveled to Scandinavia to visit relatives, and then to the United Arab Emirates to pursue business possibilities with a friend who had moved there from Portland.
According to Fikre, non-uniformed police pulled him out of his Abu Dhabi neighborhood on June 1, 2011, and took him to a prison.
Fikre says he was held there for more than three months, with his captors asking him questions like those he was asked at the U.S. Embassy in Sudan — details about the Portland mosque.
He says one of the worst moments was when a U.S. Embassy representative visited him in the prison on July 28. He says he was warned by his interrogators not to tell the representative he was being beaten, or "hell would break loose."
He said he tried to wink and signal to her that he was under duress, but she didn't notice.
"She was the only person that I felt could get me out of that position at the moment because she is my representative to the outside world, she's my representative to my embassy and she just left me there and she walked away," Fikre said.
Toner confirmed State Department officials were granted access to meet with him on July 28.
"According to our records, during the July 28 visit, Mr. Fikre showed no signs of mistreatment and was in good spirits," Toner said. "He reported that he had been treated professionally and was being well-fed, and did not have any medical conditions or concerns."
Fikre says the beatings and interrogations continued, and that during the last days of his confinement an interrogator acknowledged the FBI had requested that he be detained.
State Department officials requested to visit Fikre again in September, but learned days later that he had been deported to Sweden, Toner said.
Beth Anne Steele, a spokeswoman for the FBI office in Portland, said she could not discuss specifics of the case.
"I can tell you that the FBI trains its agents very specifically and very thoroughly about what is acceptable under U.S. law," she said. "To do anything counter to that training is counterproductive — we risk legal liability and potentially losing a criminal case in court."
When Fikre was released on Sept. 14, he had lost nearly 30 pounds. He has applied for asylum in Sweden.
He, his attorney and the Council on American-Islamic Relations are demanding the U.S. Justice Department investigate his treatment.
Click to expand...

Note that this is during Obama's tenure.

HorryForThree · Apr 19, 2012

rhadamanthus said: ↑

US Muslim: I was tortured at FBI's behest in UAE

link

Note that this is during Obama's tenure.
Click to expand...

Another article on this:

Fikre had been visiting family in Khartoum, Sudan, when, in April 2010, the officials got in touch with him. He agreed to meet with them, but ultimately balked at cooperating with FBI questioning without a lawyer present and he rebuffed a request to become an informant. Pressing him to cooperate, the agents told him he was on the no-fly list and could not return home unless he aided the bureau, Fikre says. The following week he received an email from one of the US officials; it arrived from a State Department address: "Thanks for meeting with us last week in Sudan. While we hope to get your side of the issues we keep hearing about, the choice is yours to make. The time to help yourself is now."

Fikre made his way to the UAE the following year, where, he and his lawyer allege, he was detained at the request of the US government. They say his treatment is part of a pattern of "proxy" detentions of US Muslims orchestrated by the the US government. Now, Fikre's Portland-based lawyer, Thomas Nelson, plans to file suit against the Obama administration for its alleged complicity in Fikre's torture.
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A number of other cases mirror this (foreign detention when trying to return to the US, torture, etc.) including Naji Hamdan, Amir Meshal, Gulet Mohamed, and Yusuf and Yahya Wehelie.

AroundTheWorld · Apr 19, 2012

I somewhat doubt some of these stories (e.g., El Masri is a crazy guy who has a history of violence and lies, I am not sure how much to believe). I think they are part of a propaganda war financed by the Saudi side of this. However, if there were actual transgressions (like what some of those idiot soldiers did who posed for these pictures), that would be very bad.

rhadamanthus · Apr 19, 2012

AroundTheWorld said: ↑

I somewhat doubt some of these stories (e.g., El Masri is a crazy guy who has a history of violence and lies, I am not sure how much to believe). I think they are part of a propaganda war financed by the Saudi side of this. However, if there were actual transgressions (like what some of those idiot soldiers did who posed for these pictures), that would be very bad.
Click to expand...

There are too many stories about CIA/FBI extra-judicial "facilities" for it to be all made up, in my opinion. Certainly, it's reasonable to have some doubts - but I don't think the basics are deniable anymore.

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