Judge Leon Rules....

Two important rulings from Judge Leon today (Judge Leon was the Judge in the case of the Algerian prisoners, five of the six were found not to be enemy combatants after their habeas trial...)
He ruled that the president (and others) are proper parties..
and that the government does not get a rebuttable presumption of accuracy and authenticity...etc.
click on the title to view the actual orders.

Three on their way back to Bosnia? UPDATED

The Washington Post is reporting that three of the five prisoners who were found not to be enemy combatants by Judge Leon are on their way back home to Bosnia. These were men who had settled in Bosnia from Algeria. Click on the title for the story.
Messrs. Nechla, Ait Idir and Boudells arrived in Sarajevo this morning.These are the first men to actually be freed because of a court order but in keeping with our general nastiness they were shackled for the plane trip home. Word just in that they are home with their families now.

FROM ROGER FITCH AND OUR FRIENDS DOWN UNDER

As always our friend from down under alerts us to the crimes of the Bush Administration....
I am not exactly sure why... (ok I do know why...) we in the US have to get the news about the US from places like Australia, Canada, Germany, Peru, etc.... but I guess until we have a real media in the US once again... or even what passes for one... I am forever grateful for the assistance of so many of you.
CLICK ON THE TITLE FOR MORE....

War Crimes- correction

I always thought it was Moazamm who was videoconferenced in but I stand corrected. It was one of the tipton three: Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal or Rhuhal Ahmed. Their detailed accounts are in the public domain which you can access on the CCR website: http://ccrjustice.org/tipton-three.
For me, one of the most distressing accounts of our war crimes came in a training session I attended in the fall of 2005. One of the tipton three had just been released from Guantanamo a few months earlier and he was video conferenced into our training session. He spoke about how he and hundreds of men were rounded up and placed in metal shipping containers on an airport runway in Afghanistan. The men who were crammed into these containers and left to boil under the hot sun were screaming for air... they were screaming for their lives. What they got in return were bullets fired into the metal containers and the military personnel yelled "here we will give you some air holes." The man was a British citizen, he saw both American and Afghan forces at the base and knew from the voices that that Americans forces were involved in the massacre. When he was finally released from the metal container that he had been held in most of the almost 100 men were dead. The conditions were the same for the men held in the other containers, most were dead. Now the evidence of those war crimes is being destroyed.


Click on the title for more.

new website

100 days to close guantanamo and end torture.
Click on the title and learn what you can do.

Senate Committee Inquiry into the treatment of Detainees in US custody

Bottom line:
Chairman Levin said: "The abuses at Abu Ghraib, GTMO and elsewhere cannot be chalked up to the actions of a few bad apples. Attempts by senior officials to pass the buck to low ranking soldiers while avoiding any responsibility for abuses are unconscionable. The message from top officials was clear; it was acceptable to use degrading and abusive techniques against detainees. Our investigation is an effort to set the record straight on this chapter in our history that has so damaged both America's standing and our security. America needs to own up to its mistakes so that we can rebuild some of the good will that we have lost."

Click on the title for more... or on the links below.
Executive Summary and Conclusions [PDF]
Statement of Senator Levin
Part I of the Committee's Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody - June 17, 2008
Part II of the Committee's Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody - September 25, 2008

THANK YOU PORTUGAL

I hope this is just the beginning! Click on the title for more.

Today's hearing before the Coordination judge

Click on the title for a summary From Scotusblog. Suffice it to say I was there and I have no clue how the court will rule... but a big applause goes to David Cynamon who presented the side of the Guantanamo attorneys. And now we wait to see how much longer we wait.

The Plea agreements

Contrary to earlier reports in the media yesterday, and based upon information I received later yesterday evening all of the defendants accused of crimes related to 9/11 have withdrawn any attempt to plead guilty. As far as I know, as of now, any effort to plead guilty has been delayed until at least after the competency hearings of two of the defendants. Motions concerning challenges to the Military Commission proceedings are also still proceeding. What most of you probably recognize is that these men have been tortured and abused for several years and even under the kangaroo military commissions plea agreements under these circumstances must proceed carefully.

John Lennon

No I didn't forget yesterdays anniversary (28 years ago) but I was on the road. Click on the title.

FIRE JOHN YOO

This week the Berkeley City council (thanks talking dog) will take up the issue of whether or not to ask the Justice Department to file charges against John Yoo. Maybe it is just me but the timing seems off a bit.... Maybe January 21st might be a better day.... (just thinking out loud).
John Yoo deserves to be tried and (hopefully) convicted of his war crimes and crimes against humanity and if you want to learn how you can do more to get the man behind the torture policies out of a job click on the title.

Supreme Court Grants Cert in Al-Marri case

Click on the title to go to Scotusblog and read more. The question presented to the Court:

Whether Congress, in passing the Authorization for Use of Military Force after September 11, authorized the indefinite military detention of a legal immigrant seized on domestic soil whom the government alleged to have conspired with al Qaeda to carry out attacks against the United States.

Al-Marri came to the US on a student visa with his wife and children. He was picked up and first held as a material witness then moved to solitary confinement in one of our military prisons where he has never been charged with anything. He has been held in Guantanamo like surroundings for more than six years. It is almost like the government is testing how far they could go: first with Padilla, a US citizen held without charge and then Al-Marri who was in the US on a valid visa.... next question is whether they will try to move him out of military detention and into state charges like they did with Padilla when the judicial heat was on.

The talking dog has more....

Makes you want to visit the US doesn't it?

A Nod to our Friends up North...

For those of you who have not been paying attention there has been a bit of real political life going on up in Canada. Harper, the Bush clone of the northland, thought he and Canada could sleep through the current economic crisis... seems the other political parties thought that was just a tad stupid so they formed a new coalition government to oust Harper and start taking care of the country.... in a desperate move Harper had parliament put to sleep for seven weeks and as I was reading a Canadian website peace, order and good government, eh? I was envious that we can't do the same ...but a piece of advice in one of the blog/comments... basically telling parliament to meet and prepare all the bills and have them ready to shove through when the door swings open... just seemed abit poignant...and I thought hmmmm, good advice for a certain incoming president too.
Good luck to our progressive friends up north.

Signing on to the International Criminal Court (ICC)

Click on the title to read an op-ed by Richard Cohen on why Obama should "re sign" the US as a member of the ICC.
A while back a commenter here asked why we couldn't send our Guantanamo prisoners to that court and it raises an interesting issue that I have been thinking about. If we signed on to the Court could we ask them to take the few (and yes very few) men at guantanamo who may actually be war criminals?

Obama should prosecute Bush officials who designed torture policy

Michael Ratner is the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights... the umbrella organization for all of the guantanamo habeas counsel... Click on the title to read his very insightful opinion piece on why we need to prosecute war criminals not just learn "the truth".

I have to say there is a certain joy in thinking that Bush may pardon all of these war criminals... that would leave the prosecution to the rest of the world... and there are some countries that just might do it.