THE CIRCUS OF THE ABSURD CONTINUES

Regarding the "Order on Jurisdiction" handed down by Military Judge Brownback, this email that I received from fellow Habeas counsel Muneer I. Ahmad who is an Associate Professor of Law at American University sums up the decision best:

As you have probably seen by now, the military judge in Omar Khadr's case dismissed the charges against him on the ground that the MCA gives the commissions jurisdiction only over "unlawful enemy combatants," and the CSRT established only that he was an "enemy combatant." The government has indicated its intention to appeal this ruling--it has 72 hours in which to file a notice of appeal--but the Court of Military Commission Review has not been established. So, the government will be filing its appeal with a non-existent court.

Par for the course at Guantanamo.

As an astute blogger on Salon noted: "This administration even fucks up at fascism."
Read the full text of the military judge's order HERE.

More on Soviet Torture Techniques

Yesterday, the New York Times revealed more details on how KGB interrogation techniques have been studied and reverse-engineered by the U.S. in its "war on terror." The Soviets, like the Bush administration today, denied that these methods amounted to torture. A 1956 report, "Communist Interrogation,” reads as follows:

The effects of isolation, anxiety, fatigue, lack of sleep, uncomfortable temperatures, and chronic hunger produce disturbances of mood, attitudes and behavior in nearly all prisoners. The living organism cannot entirely withstand such assaults. The Communists do not look upon these assaults as “torture.” But all of them produce great discomfort, and lead to serious disturbances of many bodily processes; there is no reason to differentiate them from any other form of torture.

Jeppesen, Making Every Mission Possible

From the BBC: GTMO-inmate, Binyam Mohamed, is suing Jeppesen Dataplan (a subsidiary of Boeing) for facilitating secret CIA flights transporting prisoners between Guantánamo and other American facilities. Our friends at the U.K.-based Reprieve filed the papers.

Check out Jeppesen's hilarious Vision and Values statement. It includes such items as "we value integrity and live it by speaking the truth with respect and doing the right thing" and "we value people by treating all with respect."

Jeppesen should start living up to its stated values and do "the right thing" by not fueling, ground-handling and paying crew fees for CIA rendition flights.