We will take whatever good news we can....

yesterday a once accused Al Queda Sympathizer was released after 17 years in prison. His conviction was thrown out and he has agreed to leave the country and head back to Pakistan. The short version is that he was granted a new trial when evidence came forward questioning the government's case. The government was ordered to go through all of the potential new evidence and provide his attorney's with any and all potentially exculpatory information. Seems that the DOJ couldn't quite get around to going through all of the evidence and with a trial set for next week the government agreed not to retry him.  The man's father is being held at Guantanamo and I am just betting that the father is being held based on the same flimsy evidence and that the father also had this exculpatory evidence withheld. Of course the whole system of disclosures is different in the Guantanamo context... where the rules on what needs to be disclosed are loose to say the least.
Anyway you can read the story here.
H/O to Mr. Paracha's great attorneys - Ramzi Kassem and Josh Dratel. 

Happy St. Pat's Day!

Speaking of the talking dog....(ie the author of Donald J Putin)

The Dog family arrived back from Spain shortly before the latest clusterfuck our criminal president started at airports--- causing crowds of people to wait in close quarters for hours on end so that they could be asked if they were in contact with any one that had the virus. Of course now they are all potentially infected.
And it has only been discussed below the radar but the reason that there has been no testing here is because our criminal president was trying to get his friends to develop a test (instead of using the WHO test) that could then be patented and they could of course make money. Of course his friends are as incompetent as he is and they couldn't get it together. Complete with actually contaminating the tests. (I'll provide the link later).
And our criminal president also tried to buy off a german company that is working on a vacine -- so that he could grab the vacine- use it only for the US and make big money.
So I leave you with some observations from the dog that he wrote yesterday -- yes, beware the ides of march.... or where is brutus when we need him? (I of course say that in jest but I do not say in jest that this criminal president should be tried for his crimes against all of us.)

DONALD J PUTIN

As we hunker down and wait out the virus, those of us in the US can read this book that shows just how awful our health system (and other aspects of American life) are and have been for quite awhile. Those of you outside the US have probably been watching our demise more critically than the general population here but there are still some facts in this book that might startle you!

Donald J. Putin on American Exceptionalism : It's Not You, It's Just America Being America

Get the book here.

From Roger Fitch and our Friends Down Under at Justinian....

The rogue state

ROGER FITCH ESQ • FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 2020

•   •   •

Trump at another Taj Mahal 

Trump has dialed-up his shameful and unprecedented ad hominem attacks against courts and prosecutors: in his assault on justice he may have outdone Nixon. It's not just lower court judges like Amy Berman Jackson, who presided over the Roger Stone case, but individual supreme court justices, and even jurors. 

While in India (and visiting the real Taj Mahal, quite different from his eponymous twice-bankrupt casino), Mr Trump glimpsed a misleading "chyron" on Fox News, and instanter decided Justice Sotomayor would henceforth have to recuse herself from cases involving him - Justice Ginsburg, too. 

Alarmed, the federal judges' association called an emergency meeting to discuss how to deal with America's rogue president, a man who attacks the judiciary and whose attorney-general flouts court orders and disregards bedrock American law.

READ THE REST HERE.

International Women's Day part 3

On this day we should also remember the mothers. Mothers who have lost their children to war, to the powerhungry and to drugs.

International Women's Day part 2

Happy International Women's Day ( a day early)

THE ICC and the TRUMP TORTURE MACHINE ROLLS ON.....

It is ironic but on March 4th two things happened. First, and must to my glee the International Criminal Court has agreed to investigate the war crimes from the Afghanistan war. The time frame starts with May of 2003. I am not sure how that date was picked as it leaves out some important evidence. However, the important thing is that there will be an investigation. I spent time as a visiting professional at the court in 2008. In my own way I have been pushing for an investigation since that time. And I have at the ready my own investigative documents. I know this will be a battle but since things tend to drag on at the ICC there is a good chance that Afghanistan will still be under investigation when (or if) we finally get a president and congress that believes in the rule of law. You can read more about the ICC's decision here.

The second thing that happened on March 4th is that Trump appointed one of the facilitators of the torture program to be his "nuclear envoy."  Keeping to the Trump playbook the man has a long record as a hawk on nuclear issues.

 "The proposed special negotiator, Marshall Billingslea, is currently the under-secretary for terrorist financing at the US Treasury. His nomination last year for a top human rights job at the state department was stalled by controversy over the extent of his involvement in the torture programme established by the George W Bush administration, in which he oversaw the conditions of detainees in Guantánamo Bay."

Sigh. You can read more here if you dare....

Torture interrogation by trial and error

Carol Rosenberg at the New York Times did an article putting together the recent testimony by the torture psychiatrists... the architects of the torture plan my country used on the men at Guantanamo and other places.
What the testimony (and article) shows is  "that C.I.A. black sites, where some detainees were tortured, amounted to test labs for unproven techniques, with shifting rules shaping operations."

You can read the whole story here.

musical interlude

Sometimes you just need to dream.

And if you are in NYC next week...

Guantánamo [Un]Censored: Art from Inside the Prison

Marking the 18th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo Bay prison, a new art installation features works created by men incarcerated without charge or fair process at the infamous facility. Exhibition Opening Reception Wednesday, February 19, 2020, 6:00 pm City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law The exhibit showcases artworks — the majority of which have never before been displayed — of eleven current and former Guantánamo prisoners, and includes a range of artistic styles and mediums. From acrylic landscapes on canvas to model ships made from scavenged materials such as plastic bottle caps and threads from prayer rugs, Guantánamo [Un]Censored celebrates the creativity of the artists and their resilience. Regarding his artwork, Moath al-Alwi, a Yemeni national and client of CUNY Law School’s Immigrant and Non-Citizen Rights Clinic (INRC), said “Despite being in prison, I try as much as I can to get my soul out of prison. I live a different life when I am making art.” Guantánamo Bay has become a symbol of injustice, abuse, and flagrant disregard for the rule of law. Since the prison camp opened in 2002, 780 men have been unlawfully imprisoned. Many were subjected to torture and other brutal treatment. Today, 40 men remain, nearly all held without charge or trial. While some have already been cleared for release by the U.S. military and national security agencies, they continue to languish in prison. Special thanks to the artists at Guantánamo for sharing their works — and to their lawyers who provide hope. Featured Artists: Mansoor Adayfi, Moath al-Alwi, Djamel Ameziane, Mohammed al-Ansi, Ghaleb al-Bihani, Towfiq al-Bihani, Assadulah Haroon Gul, Khalid Qasim, Sabry Mohammed al-Qurashi, Ahmed Badr Rabbani, Abdulmalik al-Rahabi, Mohamedou Salahi

RSVP NOW

More torture drawings by Abu Zubaydah

Abu Zubaydah has been drawing pictures of the torture techniques used on him by my government. I tried in the past to copy and paste the drawings but that did not work out so well. So click here and view his drawings yourself.

From Roger Fitch and our Friends down under...at Justinian

I am just pasting below the important part of Fitch's latest as it relates to the notorious Patrick Philbin...aka torture enabler. But please click here and read the entire post on the sham impeachment trial.

*   *   *

During the trial's often diversionary question-and-answer phase, the supercilious Patrick Philbin - a product of Boston's Roxbury Latin School (est.1645), Yale, Harvard Law and Cambridge - glibly fielded Dorothy Dixers from Republican senators. He later added his irritating voice to the closing arguments. 

But there is more to Patrick Philbin's CV: a history of meretricious and tainted legal advice for Republican administrations. While a few journalists noted Philbin's former work for the Office of Legal Counsel, no one seemed to recall that he left his unclean handprints all over the infamous OLC "torture memos" and George Bush's Guantánamo policies. 

Apparently no one remembered the opportune "legal" opinions that Philbin concocted for the "war on terror", nor his support for torture in meetings of the National Security Adviser's "Principals Committee". 

Before the first prisoners arrived at Guantánamo Bay, Philbin (with OLC lawyer John Yoo) advised that the Naval Base lay beyond US federal court jurisdiction, and he also made a baseless finding that the Bush-fabricated military commissions, later struck down by the supreme court, were valid. 

Philbin: flawed legal advice

Worst of all, Philbin joined OLC head Jay Bybee in the first Justice Department memo endorsing the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques", practices which no lawyer acting in good faith could regard as other than torture, or "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment", clear violations of US statutes, caselaw, and/or international law. 

*   *   *

About that Donald J Putin

It seems like a good time to remind all of you about this EXCEPTIONAL book about
American exceptionalism... you can order it here.