Endless War

From Reject Endless War & Torture Cover-Up:

After years of litigation, the Supreme Court recently ruled in Boumediene v. Bush that detainees held at Guantánamo have a right to challenge their detention through habeas corpus -- the ancient freedom that protects people from being thrown in prison illegally, with no help, no end in sight and no due process.

Habeas proceedings could allow detainees to bring up the fact that the evidence that the government has against them came from hearsay, or even torture and abuse. Courts could also release people who are detained indefinitely without charge. Attorney General Michael Mukasey wants to make sure neither of these things happen.

Read the rest here.

Glenn Beck Has Made Me Feel Better

As I’ve previously written, it concerns me when I agree with Glenn Beck.

Glenn Beck usually writes and says the most vile, hateful things you can imagine. Every once in awhile he lets out a curve ball that I find myself agreeing with. I find this unsettling.

Now I feel as if the world has come back into some form of correct balance and alignment. Glenn Beck is back to his usual moronic self.

He’s imagining himself as president. Someone please get that image out of my head! As president he would line up all those imprisoned at Guantanamo and shoot them in the head. He is another Santa Claus. John McCain is the other Santa. Is it possible to have more than one? Like the jolly one, Beck must just KNOW when someone has been naughty and not nice and deserving of being shot in the head. Beck must think that Habeas Corpus, the Magna Carta, trials before a jury of one’s peers, and civilization itself are quaint, insignificant remnants from some bygone time. Not to mention the concept of murder as a crime.

Beck has a “shoot them in the head” fetish:

• "Beck has a warning for Muslims 'who have sat on [their] frickin' hands' and have not 'lin[ed] up to shoot the bad Muslims in the head'," Media Matters for America, August 10, 2006.


• “I wonder, do we have a guy who will tell me the truth who is well spoken, who has the fire in the belly to do a couple of things: one, shoot the bad guys in the head, and, two, shrink the size of government?” Glenn Beck, September 6, 2007.


• “I say Rudy Giuliani is the candidate who will stand up to our enemies, tell them to get the hell out or we`ll shoot them in the head.” Glenn Beck, September 6, 2007.

From Glenn Beck on how the US should treat Gitmo detainees: We’re going to shoot them all in the head by John Amato:

Listen to this rant about the Supreme Court decision on Gitmo detainees and you’ll know the state of conservatism in this country He’s like so many of them.

Beck: This court has done some frightening. frightening things….If I’m president of the US, I would go on National television and say—’ladies and gentlemen, the Supreme Court said that we don’t have Gitmo so that is over. We’re going to release all of them, but I want you to know from here on out our policy is to not have prisoners. We’re going to shoot them all in the head.’

If we think they are against us, we’re going to shoot them and kill them—period because that’s the only thing we’ve got going for us—cause we can put them away and get information. If we can’t put them away and they’re going to use our court system—kill them.

The Court never said we didn’t have Gitmo or couldn’t arrest or prosecute them. Maybe Beck could ask Bush why he can’t get guilty verdicts with all the resources we spend on the war on Terror. What an example of American thought he represents. Mass killings are only predicated on what we (US Govt) think about them. How nice. It doesn’t matter if he said this on TV or on the radio, he should be immediately fired by CNN to start with. What an embarrassment for them.

I wish to emphasize this sentence by Mr. Amato: “Maybe Beck could ask Bush why he can’t get guilty verdicts with all the resources we spend on the war on Terror.”

Bush Screws Up Again

So what else is new? Yet more incompetence by the United States. Some would call this criminal, but no, it seems only the innocent get punished. Impeachment, before it’s too late.

From America's prison for terrorists often held the wrong men by Tom Lasseter:

"He was not an enemy of the government, he was a friend of the government," a senior Afghan intelligence officer told McClatchy. Akhtiar was imprisoned at Guantanamo on the basis of false information that local anti-government insurgents fed to U.S. troops, he said.

An eight-month McClatchy investigation in 11 countries on three continents has found that Akhtiar was one of dozens of men — and, according to several officials, perhaps hundreds — whom the U.S. has wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments.

If you were one of these men would you have any resentment towards the United States?

Bush Loses, Justice Wins

And Bush is pouting like a two year old. "We'll abide by the court's decision, that doesn't mean I have to agree with it."

From Guantanamo ruling - the fallout by Kevin Connolly:

Whatever you think about the morality and legitimacy of the Guantanamo detention facility, there can be no doubting the determination of the Bush administration to stick to its policy, regardless of judicial attempts to undermine it.

The legal implications of Thursday's judgement are huge - after all, it is at least possible that it might end with American judges ordering the American government to release foreign detainees.

It means that even though the US government deliberately built this camp in an American base on the island of Cuba - so that it is not on American soil - and even though the detainees are not US citizens, they are deemed to have rights under the constitution.

The Bush argument that those rights are forfeit because America is fighting a "war on terror" was dismissed.

Read more here.

Can We Make Bush Disappear?

From A Tale of Three Lawyers by Scott Horton:

Before the arrival of the Bush Administration, the United States had taken the axiomatic position that holding persons in secret detention for prolonged periods outside the rule of law (a practice known as “disappearing”) was not merely unlawful, but in fact a rarified “crime against humanity.” Now the United States was engaged in the active practice of this crime.