A presidential death warrant
By Paul Woodward on April 8, 2010
American soldiers have to be trained how to kill, but for American presidents killing comes naturally.
Anyone who aspires to become president must surely ask themselves: am I willing to end someone else’s life, be that an individual or perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands or even millions of people? After all, even though it’s not spelled out in the Constitution, it’s clear that a pacifist could never hold this office. Killing comes with the territory.
Even so, I can’t help wondering when it was the Barack Obama posed this question and decided, “yes I can.”
With candidate George W Bush we didn’t need to ask the question. He had a track record — as the Governor of Texas he presided over 152 executions. But with Obama, we may never know when he came to regard killing as a tolerable part of his job.
It’s hard to imagine that as a community organizer he ever entertained the idea that wiping people out could become a dimension of working towards the greater good, yet at some point he must have seen this coming and — from all the evidence we now see — not flinched.
But to contrast Obama and Bush as killers, here’s what’s scary and yet passes without comment: Obama’s approach is dispassionate, with no explicit moral calculation. Whereas Bush felt driven to assume an air of righteousness and moral superiority, casting his actions within a drama of good and evil, Obama presents the image of an administrative process through which, after careful analysis and legal and political deliberation, lives are terminated.
Under the morally insidious rubric of “procedures” — a notion that peels away personal responsibility by replacing it with impersonal rules-based behavior — the president, the CIA, the military, the administration, the media, and the American public are all being offered an excuse to look the other way. An unnamed official assured a Washington Post reporter: “[there are] careful procedures our government follows in these kinds of cases.”
When Anwar al-Awlaki, an American born in New Mexico is shredded and incinerated — his likely fate at the receiving end of a Hellfire missile — there will be no account of the last moments of his life. No record of who happened to be in the vicinity. Most likely nothing more than a cursory wire report quoting unnamed American officials announcing that the United States no longer faces a threat from a so-called high value target.
Representative Jane Harman, Democrat of California and chairwoman of a House subcommittee on homeland security, was out prepping the media and the public on Tuesday when she called Awlaki “probably the person, the terrorist, who would be terrorist No 1 in terms of threat against us.”
Although it was only this week that a US official announced that Awlaki is now on the CIA’s assassination list, US special forces were already authorized and had made at least one attempt to kill the Muslim cleric who now resides in Yemen.
While both the military and the CIA make use of drones for the purpose of remotely controlled assassination, the fact that Awlaki is now considered a legitimate target for “lethal CIA operations” raises questions about the methods the agency might use.
Last summer CIA Director Leon Panetta shut down a secret CIA program which would have operated assassination teams for hunting down al Qaeda leaders. The news was presented as though the new administration was again distancing itself from the questionable practices of the Bush administration, yet at the time, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C Blair told Congress that the termination of that particular program did not rule out the future use of insertion teams that could kill or capture terrorist leaders.
One of the many ironies here is that the Obama administration appears to have abandoned one of the Bush era rationales for torture in favor of its own rationale for murder.
The most frequently used justification for torturing terrorist suspects has been the claim that in the scenario of a so-called ticking time bomb, vital information might be forced out of a suspect enabling an imminent act of terrorism to be thwarted.
Anwar al-Awlaki is supposedly just such a suspect. “He’s working actively to kill Americans,” an American official told the Washington Post. But whatever vital intelligence he might be able to provide, we’ll probably never know. Once dead he won’t hatch any new plots, but as for the ones already set in motion, well, we’ll just have to wait and see what sort of surprises may yet appear.
Needless to say, I am not suggesting that torturing terrorist suspects is any more acceptable than murdering them.
Ken Gude, a human rights expert from the Center for American Progress, argues that Awlaki is a legitimate target for assassination because of his claimed role in assisting the 9/11 attackers. On that basis, his killing would appear to be an act of extra-judicial punishment rather than the removal of a potential threat. But even if the administration sticks assiduously to its focus on future threats, it should not claim a God-like power to predict the future. Nor should it assume that the threat someone poses is necessarily diminished once they are dead.
In weighing the fate of Anwar al-Awlaki, this administration would do well to remember the case of Mohammed El Fazazi, a Moroccan cleric who from a Hamburg mosque preached to Mohammed Atta, Ramzi Binalshibh and Marwan al-Shehhi, three of the men who participated in the 9/11 attacks, that it was the duty of a devout Muslim to “slit the throats of non-believers.”
Eight years later, Fazazi had a new message as he appealed to Muslims to air their grievances through peaceful demonstrations. He is helping turn young men away from violent jihad. But what would stir the hearts of such men now if rather than hearing Fazazi’s moderated message, instead they held the memory of a day he became a martyr when struck by an American Hellfire missile?
Liberal/Conservative a False Dichotomy
By Richard K. Moore | Aletho News | April 7, 2010
Between left and right there’s lots of ranting but little dialog. If only people would listen to one another they’d find there are real people on both sides.
I was raised as a liberal. I remember how pleased I was when Kennedy sent in troops to protect black students, and when the Civil Rights Bill was passed. It took me many years to realize that the net result was the centralization of power in Washington, while blacks continue to be treated as second-class citizens. I believe Kennedy was well-intentioned, but we know where good intentions can lead. I no longer identify with any political faction.
I’d like to suggest another perspective on liberalism. The fact is that the majority of the population in North America and Europe are liberal in their thinking. The dream of the liberal is a government that serves the people, balances the budget, promotes prosperity, avoids wars, and protects our rights. They think it is possible, if only the right people get in power. They don’t think too much about the fact that whenever you ask the government to do something for you, you’re giving them power to do that — plus whatever else they decide to use the power for. And liberals can’t bring themselves to see that government is basically a conspiracy against the people — they reject that along with all other ‘conspiracy theories’.
Since liberals are the majority, the mainstream propaganda is aimed at liberals, and phrased in liberal language. Conservatives are quite right to call it the ‘liberal media’. The healthcare bill, for example, was sold by the media in liberal terms — ‘helping’ people who are not currently insured. The media also told people that Obama’s attempt to ‘help’ was being thwarted by ‘heartless’ Republicans.
So we get a situation where liberals are celebrating the passage of the healthcare bill, even when most of them don’t have a clue about what the bill really means. They were seeing the whole thing as a battle between good and evil, between ‘caring’ Obama and ‘heartless’ Republicans. They’ll accept ‘defects’ in the bill because they think it was ‘the best Obama could get’.
The whole thing was theater, a scam. The healthcare bill was settled in its fundamentals many months ago, written by insurance companies, and rubber-stamped by party leaders of both sides and by Obama. Then we had months of fake debate, giving Obama an excuse to ‘back down’ on major promises, so he’d look good to liberals. Meanwhile Republicans could point out how bad the bill is, so they can look like heroes when the shit hits the fan in the healthcare system, as it will. And on both sides of the aisle, campaign accounts had been boosted by contributions from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
The point I’m making is that the healthcare bill has nothing to do with liberal or conservative. It’s theft by insurance companies, abetted by corrupt politicians, and sold as ‘liberal’ by the corporate-owned media.
It isn’t that liberals ‘want things’, and then the government ‘gives it to them’. Rather, the wealthy elites that run the country decide what they want, and then they sell it in the media using liberal language. From a conservative perspective it might look like liberals are running things, but it’s an illusion. An illusion that many liberals buy into as well.
One practical political alternative is to work toward restoring the Constitution, and I support that. However, most liberals will oppose it, if it’s proposed by Republicans. Not because liberals dislike the Constitution, but because they don’t trust Republicans. And because the media will tell them that ‘Constitutionalism’ is fake, that it’s a cover for eroding civil rights, etc. etc. Whichever lie that works — to be discovered in focus groups.
As long as liberals see conservatives as ‘the problem’, and conservatives see liberals as ‘the problem’, then we’re never going to get anywhere. We’ll be played off against one another, and nobody will get what they really want. When the government wants to sell more ‘security’, they’ll use conservative language. When they want to sell more spending, they’ll use liberal language.
I believe that we need to start talking to people on the ‘other side’, rather than circling our wagons in opposition to one another. I don’t propose this as a political strategy, but rather as a pre-condition for developing an effective strategy. We won’t convert anyone to change sides, but we’ll learn that underneath our labels we all have similar concerns and hopes.
A Constitutional republic is supposed to operate by the consent of the governed. If the governed are divided against themselves, then government is free to do what it wants. If the governed can develop mutual understanding, they can stand as one voice and demand accountability.
Christian leaders call for ‘permits’ boycott
Ma’an – 07/04/2010
Bethlehem – Leaders of the Christian community in Palestine called on church officials to begin a boycott of the Israeli permission system, requiring leaders to request permits for their faithful to access the holy city of Jerusalem.
Speaking on the radio Mawwal show Juthurna (Our Roots) on Tuesday, Fatah official of religious affairs Mike Salman said the entire Israeli system of forcing Palestinians to request permissions to access Palestinian territory illegally annexed by Israel is “an offense to human dignity.”
Under international law and conventions, he added, “Jerusalem is part of the 1967 lands and we Muslims and Christians should be able to reach it without permits,” and called on Christians to support their church leaders in a campaign to halt the permit system.
“We should have one clear and consistent position about permits, for permits offend the dignity of humanity, we must not give in to the occupation’s policy,” Salman said.
Jack Khozmo, the editor-in-chief of Jerusalem’s political magazine Al-Bayader said boycotts by Christians should be backed up by resistance from the Jerusalem community. Already, he said, popular resistance forced Israeli forces to back off restrictions rumored for the Easter celebrations at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, with tens of Palestinian Christians gaining entry to the building.
The editor agreed that Christian patriarchs should take a firm position on the permissions policy, saying “freedom of worship is a sacred right and people should not have to request this right from anyone.”
President of Global Movement for Defense of Children and coordinator of the Kairos Palestine initiative, Rif’at Qassis, further backed up the position, calling on church leaders to shut the doors of churches and forbid all pilgrims from entering if Palestinians are not granted free access to the religious sites.
“The Kairos Palestine document assures the rights of worship and freedom for all the religions in the holy places and demands that individuals should not struggle in order to pray in a church,” Qassis said of an initiative by Christian Palestinians to end the occupation of Palestine.
According to organizers of the initiative, “Palestinian Christians declare that the military occupation of our land is a sin against God and humanity, and that any theology that legitimizes the occupation is far from Christian teachings because true Christian theology is a theology of love and solidarity with the oppressed, a call to justice and equality among peoples.”
Qassis said that the world and the heads of churches should refuse the idea of permits and that everyone should go to the military checkpoints and demand for their natural right to enter Jerusalem to pray in Al-Aqsa mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Lawsuit challenges Israel’s discriminatory citizenship definition
By Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 6 April 2010
A group of Jews and Arabs are fighting in the Israeli courts to be recognized as “Israelis,” a nationality currently denied them, in a case that officials fear may threaten the country’s self-declared status as a Jewish state.
Israel refused to recognize an Israeli nationality at the country’s establishment in 1948, making an unusual distinction between “citizenship” and “nationality.” Although all Israelis qualify as “citizens of Israel,” the state is defined as belonging to the “Jewish nation,” meaning not only the 5.6 million Israeli Jews but also more than seven million Jews in the diaspora.
Critics say the special status of Jewish nationality has been a way to undermine the citizenship rights of non-Jews in Israel, especially the fifth of the population who are Arab. Some 30 laws in Israel specifically privilege Jews, including in the areas of immigration rights, naturalization, access to land and employment.
Arab leaders have also long complained that indications of “Arab” nationality on ID cards make it easy for police and government officials to target Arab citizens for harsher treatment.
The interior ministry has adopted more than 130 possible nationalities for Israeli citizens, most of them defined in religious or ethnic terms, with “Jewish” and “Arab” being the main categories.
The group’s legal case is being heard by the high court after a district judge rejected their petition two years ago, backing the state’s position that there is no Israeli nation.
The head of the campaign for Israeli nationality, Uzi Ornan, a retired linguistics professor, said: “It is absurd that Israel, which recognizes dozens of different nationalities, refuses to recognize the one nationality it is supposed to represent.”
The government opposes the case, claiming that the campaign’s real goal is to “undermine the state’s infrastructure” — a presumed reference to laws and official institutions that ensure Jewish citizens enjoy a privileged status in Israel.
Ornan, 86, said that denying a common Israeli nationality was the linchpin of state-sanctioned discrimination against the Arab population.
“There are even two laws — the Law of Return for Jews and the Citizenship Law for Arabs — that determine how you belong to the state,” he said. “What kind of democracy divides its citizens into two kinds?”
Yoel Harshefi, a lawyer supporting Ornan, said the interior ministry had resorted to creating national groups with no legal recognition outside Israel, such as “Arab” or “unknown,” to avoid recognizing an Israeli nationality.
In official documents most Israelis are classified as “Jewish” or “Arab,” but immigrants whose status as Jews is questioned by the Israeli rabbinate, including more than 300,000 arrivals from the former Soviet Union, are typically registered according to their country of origin.
“Imagine the uproar in Jewish communities in the United States, Britain or France, if the authorities there tried to classify their citizens as ‘Jewish’ or ‘Christian,'” said Ornan.
The professor, who lives close to Haifa, launched his legal action after the interior ministry refused to change his nationality to “Israeli” in 2000. An online petition declaring “I am an Israeli” has attracted several thousand signatures.
Ornan has been joined in his action by 20 other public figures, including former government minister Shulamit Aloni. Several members have been registered with unusual nationalities such as “Russian,” “Buddhist,” “Georgian” and “Burmese.”
Two Arabs are party to the case, including Adel Kadaan, who courted controversy in the 1990s by waging a lengthy legal action to be allowed to live in one of several hundred communities in Israel open only to Jews.
Uri Avnery, a peace activist and former member of the parliament, said the current nationality system gave Jews living abroad a far greater stake in Israel than its 1.3 million Arab citizens.
“The State of Israel cannot recognize an ‘Israeli’ nation because it is the state of the ‘Jewish’ nation … it belongs to the Jews of Brooklyn, Budapest and Buenos Aires, even though these consider themselves as belonging to the American, Hungarian or Argentine nations.”
International Zionist organizations representing the diaspora, such as the Jewish National Fund and the Jewish Agency, are given in Israeli law a special, quasi-governmental role, especially in relation to immigration and control over large areas of Israeli territory for the settlement of Jews only.
Ornan said the lack of a common nationality violated Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which says the state will “uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of religion, race or sex.”
Indications of nationality on ID cards carried by Israelis made it easy for officials to discriminate against Arab citizens, he added.
The government has countered that the nationality section on ID cards was phased out from 2000 — after the interior ministry, which was run by a religious party at the time, objected to a court order requiring it to identify non-Orthodox Jews as “Jewish” on the cards.
However, Ornan said any official could instantly tell if he was looking at the card of a Jew or Arab because the date of birth on the IDs of Jews was given according to the Hebrew calendar. In addition, the ID of an Arab, unlike a Jew, included the grandfather’s name.
“Flash your ID card and whatever government clerk is sitting across from you immediately knows which ‘clan’ you belong to, and can refer you to those best suited to ‘handle your kind,'” Ornan said.
The distinction between Jewish and Arab nationalities is also shown on interior ministry records used to make important decisions about personal status issues such as marriage, divorce and death, which are dealt with on entirely sectarian terms.
Only Israelis from the same religious group, for example, are allowed to marry inside Israel — otherwise they are forced to wed abroad — and cemeteries are separated according to religious belonging.
Some of those who have joined the campaign complain that it has damaged their business interests. One Druze member, Carmel Wahaba, said he had lost the chance to establish an import-export company in France because officials there refused to accept documents stating his nationality as “Druze” rather than “Israeli.”
The group also said it hoped to expose a verbal sleight of hand that intentionally mistranslates the Hebrew term “Israeli citizenship” on the country’s passports as “Israeli nationality” in English to avoid problems with foreign border officials.
B Michael, a commentator for Yedioth Aharonoth, Israel’s most popular newspaper, has observed: “We are all Israeli nationals — but only abroad.”
The campaign, however, is likely to face an uphill struggle in the courts.
A similar legal suit brought by a Tel Aviv psychologist, George Tamrin, failed in 1970. Shimon Agranat, head of the high court at the time, ruled: “There is no Israeli nation separate from the Jewish people. … The Jewish people is composed not only of those residing in Israel but also of diaspora Jewries.”
That view was echoed by the district court in 2008 when it heard Ornan’s case.
The judges in the high court, which held the first appeal hearing last month, indicated that they too were likely to be unsympathetic. Justice Uzi Fogelman said: “The question is whether or not the court is the right place to solve this problem.”
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel.
Kyrgyz protesters seize government office
Daily News with wires | April 6, 2010
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan – Angry protestors burst through police lines and storm government offices in a remote regional center in the northwest of ex-Soviet Kyrgyzstan. A series of nationwide rallies is planned for Wednesday and analysts said they believe the unrest could spread
Hundreds of protesters angry over rising heat and power prices stormed a government building Tuesday and clashed with troops after trying to seize a regional governor in the impoverished former Soviet nation of Kyrgyzstan.
A series of nationwide rallies is planned for Wednesday and analysts said they believe the unrest could spread. The government warned of “severe” repercussions and the main opposition party said U.S. and Russian diplomats should call on the government to refrain from violence.
Police reportedly fired warning shots to disperse the crowds, which overran offices in the regional center of Talas, a day after the main United People’s Movement, or UPM, opposition group promised nationwide protests.
Human rights worker Shamil Murat, speaking to AFP by telephone from inside the administration building, said the protesters had announced their own replacement to the local governor. “Opposition supporters have appointed their own regional governor, Koysun Kurmanaliyev, and are not going to accept the regional administration heads appointed by the president,” he said.
Crowds assembled in Talas early Tuesday to protest the utility tariff increases and to call for the resignation of regional governor Bolotbek Beishenbekov, town residents told The Associated Press by telephone.
The protesters encircled Beishenbekov who was outside the building, planning to take him hostage, but he was freed by elite army troops, said Shamil Murat, an activist with the rights group For Democracy and Civil Society.
Firm line vowed
A correspondent for the local affiliate of U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Talas said one person was shot with a rubber bullet fired from inside the police precinct.
The Interior Ministry said a drunken mob had entered the regional government office and later left, and police were taking measures to ensure stability and public safety.
Prime Minister Daniyar Usenov vowed to take a firm line against the people behind the troubles in Talas.
“I urge the organizers of these actions to desist from what they are doing. For those that do not listen, measures will be severe,” Usenov said.
Signs of unrest in the country will likely be closely monitored by the United States, which maintains an airfield near the Kyrgyz capital to transport troops and supplies to support coalition operations in Afghanistan.
Since coming to power on a wave of street protests in 2005, President Kurmanbek Bakiyev has ensured a measure of stability, but many observers say he has done so at the expense of democratic standards.
Over the past two years, Kyrgyz authorities have clamped down on free media, and opposition activists say they have routinely been subjected to physical intimidation and targeted by politically motivated criminal investigations. Anti-government forces have been in disarray until recently, but widespread anger over soaring utility bills has galvanized the fractious opposition.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday repeatedly criticized Kyrgyzstan for human rights problems, a strong rebuke to the country once regarded as former Soviet Central Asia’s “island of democracy.”
Kyrgyz protesters storm provincial government office
Another Orange Revolution Hits the Skids
Press TV – April 6, 2010
Protesters scuffle with police in Talas, Kyrgyzstan on April 6.
Protesters have stormed a provincial government office in Talas city, Kyrgyzstan, demanding the resignation of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.
Talas Governor Beishen Bolotbekov had been taken hostage when demonstrators seized a local government office, Reuters quoted local opposition leaders and witnesses as saying.
However, Prime Minister Daniyar Usenov told reporters in the capital Bishkek that the governor had not been captured and vowed to use force to prevent any further unrest.
Discontent in the former Soviet republic has been on the rise due to what the opposition says is growing public frustration with corruption, nepotism, and high [utility] prices.
The unrest is of particular concern to the US, which operates an important air base in Kyrgyzstan supporting operations against the Taliban in nearby Afghanistan.
The leader of the Ata-Meken opposition party stated that military bases have become more active.
“Helicopters and planes are taking off and landing all the time,” Omurbek Tekebayev said. “We do not rule out that the government may use military force against civilians,” he added.
Tekebayev said that Ata-Meken vice chairman Bolot Sherniyazov was arrested on Tuesday morning, creating a wave of protests.
The protesters demanded that Sherniyazov be released and soon the authorities were forced to acquiesce to their demands.
BISHKEK, March 17 (Reuters) – Thousands of Kyrgyz protesters threatened on Wednesday to oust President Kurmanbek Bakiyev if he failed to accede to their demands within a week, five years exactly after violent protests propelled him to power.[…]
Chanting “Down with Bakiyev!”, more than 3,000 protesters rallied in the capital Bishkek to express their discontent with his rule, in the biggest street protest in about three years.
“The authorities don’t listen to us. If they continue to ignore us … we will seize power,” opposition leader Omurbek Tekebayev told the roaring crowd, as some waved flags and shouted “We have to oust this government”.
At the rally, the opposition gave Bakiyev until March 24 to “release political prisoners”, “stop repressions”, abolish high utility fees and conform with a range of other demands.
Rounded Up: Artificial Terrorists and Muslim Entrapment after 9/11 :: Book Review ::
(Image: The Troy Book Makers)
By Mirza A. Beg | December 16, 2009
In the wake of 9/11, the Bush Justice Department arrested almost 1,200 Muslims throughout the United States. They were ordinary American immigrants, mostly of Arab origin. The evidence at best was flimsy based on someone’s vendetta or in some cases neighbor’s paranoia.
Within a week the Justice Department unveiled the infamous “USA Patriot Act”. Congress passed it in early October 2001 over the objection of many thoughtful Americans. The word USA PATRIOT is an acronym designed to pull at American heart strings. It stands for ‘Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism’
None of the arrested were ever brought to trial; although a few were summarily deported at the slightest irregularity in their immigration documents. Many were tortured. Exactly how many were tortured and how badly is a secret under the aegis of the “Patriot act”. Perhaps some day it will come out.
Overnight Muslim organizations became suspect. FBI undercover operations were taken in stride by most Muslims as a part of the job of the FBI to protect the citizens. But what unfolded in many cases was incitement and entrapment by implanted agent Muslim provocateurs with shady pasts, in trouble with the law.
On August 5, 2004, the lead national news was that two Muslims associated with the Albany Mosque were arrested in a terrorist plot. There names were Yassin Muhiddin Aref and Mohammed Mosharref Hossain.
The book, Rounded Up: Artificial Terrorists and Muslim Entrapment after 9/11, is written by Dr. Shamshad Ahmed, a professor of Physics, who established the Masjid As-Salam in 1980 and serves as its president. He knew the two victims of entrapment to be honest decent people. It is essentially a short account of Yassin Muhiddin Aref, an immigrant from the Kurdish part of Iraq and Mohammed Mosharref Hossain from Pakistan, their background and how were they entrapped by the FBI.
Why they were entrapped is best known to the government or perhaps it is not even known to them. It is just possible that because they could not convict any of the 1,200 arrested, they tried random entrapment under the “one percent Cheney doctrine”, that is if the law enforcement authorities suspected someone of having a 1% chance of supporting terrorism, America would treat him as if he were 100% a terrorist. Once the process was in motion, the Justice Department did not back down because the conviction was under the Kafkaesque “Patriot Act”.
The chapters are generally arranged chronologically from the day of the FBI raid on the Mosque (Masjid) on the 5th of April 2004, with a few flash back chapters describing the establishment of the mosque and how the author met the two victims of the FBI sting.
Dr. Shamshad in this book exposes the “Catch 22” nature of the infamous “Patriot Act”. One would expect that by planting an informer, the FBI had a clear case. No, the case lasted three years, and all the delays were by the FBI asking extensions to prepare their case. The defense was kept in the dark even about the exact charges. Every piece of information had to be pried out after lengthy court petitions. Occasionally when they succeeded, the information was so redacted to be almost useless. Even the judges ruling, why the information was classified, was classified and the defendant was denied access. In essence the “Patriot Act” renders the justice of a Kangaroo Court, so well described by Franz Kafka in his dark novel “The Trial”.
Parts of the transcribed taped evidence by the Pakistani informer that were procured after long court battles are in the Appendixes of the book. They clearly show, it was the informer who kept on badgering the victims to say and do things that could be construed as illegal. At times the victims objected to his proposals as immoral and un-Islamic. He persisted, and on occasions the victims appear to be humoring the informer. The case rested on Musharraf Hossain being induced to take a loan from the informant at very favorable terms. The fact that the informer could launder his money and perhaps buy Chinese made rockets Hussain did not condone. Though the informant wanted the loan to be unrecorded, Hossain insisted on the propriety of it being recorded .The only crime for which Yassin Aref was roped in at the time was that as a friend he acted as witness to that loan.
Aref’s command of English was not very good. It often appears that he was not quite clear about the tenor of the conversation. The conversations with Hossain were often in Urdu and the FBI’s paid translator intentionally mistranslated taxes to terrorist. In 2005, a raid on a Kurdish camps in Iraq yielded a tape recording where someone seems to refer to Aref almost ten years earlier by a word in Kurdish that translates as elder brother. But if one wanted to stretch the meaning, it could be commander. Only this nebulous translation was presented to the jury to prove that he was a militant.
Dr. Shamshad Ahmad presents a very cogent account of the atmosphere in Albany during the publicity and the trial of the two defendants. On the one side the right-wing talk radio was in overdrive demonizing the Muslim and Arab community as has become very familiar nationwide. The politicians such a Governor Pataki also took advantage of the situation. But the author also very lucidly portrays the support they got from thoughtful Americans, including some in the clergy in the best of American traditions. They not only joined the vigils in support of the defendants but gave material help and wrote petitions.
The balanced and thoughtful reporting of the Albany Times Union was exemplary. The author has included many of the incisive cartoons by John deRosier castigating the bizarre nature of the case. Those cartoons are indeed worth the proverbial thousand words.
The lawyers worked assiduously towards an impossible task of defending the accused where parts of the charges, the evidence and even the rationale judge’s rulings are reminiscent of a Kangaroo court without the clowns. Stephen Downs who voluntarily joined the case pro bono and has written the forward to this book worked especially hard in the best tradition of the American legal system.
In the introduction of the book Dr. Ahmad has described his own conservative education in a Madarsa where he learned his basic values of Islamic decency and caring. From his short narration of his background, it becomes clear that one can be conservative in the best sense of the words as well as a progressive with liberal values as well. He has dedicated this book to the peace and justice loving humanitarians, and the proceeds from this book go to help the victims of the justice system gone awry in the shadow of the unpatriotic, “Patriot Act”.
The Manufactured Menace from Michigan — Take Two
William N. Grigg | April 01, 2010
“That’s it, baby — strut! The camera loves you!” In a familiar bit of Homeland Security Theater, a law enforcement officer, his arms decorated with gangbanger-style tattoos, swaggers through a search of alleged Hutaree militia member Thomas Piatek’s home in Hammond, Indiana.
When the stranger materialized a few years ago, nobody really knew much about him. He seemed like a suitably sympathetic figure and quickly ingratiated himself by offering whatever help he could. No task was too menial for him, and he had a way of finding just what the group needed right when it was required.
Most importantly, he seemed to share the group’s antipathy toward the government. If anything, he was just a bit more emphatic than the rest in denouncing official corruption and endorsing violent “direct action” against the state. He seemed eager to shepherd the group in a more militant direction, eagerly out-bidding every expression of outrage and hostility. One of his favorite recurring themes was the idea that a criminal state could only be fought through the use of criminal means.
When the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) staged an armed raid to arrest several members of the group, the helpful stranger was nowhere to be found. He did leave a parting gift, however, in the form of detailed allegations recorded in a federal indictment alleging that the group he had infiltrated on behalf of the JTTF was involved in extensive criminal activity — most of which was either suggested or directly facilitated by him — and an ambitious plot to wage war against the United States Government.
In broad outline, this is what most likely happened within Michigan’s Hutaree militia during the past couple of years, a period during which — as federal authorities now admit — the group was infiltrated by both an undercover FBI agent and a “cooperating witness.”
One of the FBI’s plants, significantly, “posed as someone who could provide the group with custom-made explosives,” observes the Detroit News.
That revelation is critical, since it means that the alleged plot to manufacture of improvised explosive devices — referred to, with hysterical hyperbole typical of the Regime’s pronouncements, as “weapons of mass destruction” — was quite possibly instigated by the FBI’s informant/provocateur.
The “Hutaree Conspiracy” was the second installment in the FBI’s ongoing Homeland Security Theater in Michigan. The Bureau’s campaign against the Masjid Al-Haqq mosque in Dearborn followed almost exactly the same script. The final act of that earlier melodrama was an October 28, 2009 FBI raid against several of the mosque’s adherents that ended with the death of its imam, Luqman Ameen Abdullah.
Initial reports claimed that Abdullah was killed in a “shootout” or “exchange of gunfire” with the Feds in a warehouse allegedly containing stolen goods. The word “execution” might be a more appropriate description in light of the fact that Abdullah was shot at least twenty times, including an entry wound in his back and an oddly specific grouping in and around the genital region.
The imam allegedly provoked the federal fusillade by shooting one of the FBI’s “K9 agents.” Significantly, the official autopsy report — a document actively suppressed by the Dearborn Police Department for more than three months — describes a series of “lacerations” (also described by Wayne County Chief Medical Examiner Carl Schmitt as “puncture wounds”) that are consistent with being mauled by a dog.
It’s possible Abdullah shot the dog to protect himself. It’s also possible that he never fired a shot, and the dog stepped in front of one or more round intended for Abdullah. The official FBI narrative is that “Freddy,” the Belgian Malinois killed during the raid, “gave his life in the line of duty” on behalf of “his team.” The dog was buried in a solemn ritual and his name was added to the FBI’s “memorial wall.”
We’ll never know the exact circumstances of “Freddy” death. This much has been clearly established, however: Abdullah bled to death with his hands cuffed behind his back while the FBI took the time to arrange an emergency medical airlift for their attack dog.
The most favorable construction one can put on this set of facts is that the feds handcuffed a helpless man who had been perforated by at least twenty gunshots. A grimmer possibility is that he was handcuffed before he was shot. In either case, this juxtaposition — a handcuffed man bleeds to death while his assailants arrange emergency medical treatment for their dog — reeks of some malodorous combination of depraved indifference and concentrated malice.
Despite the fact that both the investigation of the mosque and the raid were conducted by the local Joint Terrorism Task Force, no terrorism-related charges were filed against any of the ten men listed in the criminal complaint. The charges include “conspiracy” counts arising from an alleged plot to receive and sell “goods that defendants believed were stolen from interstate shipments”; one count of mail fraud; three counts related to possession of firearms or body armor by a felon; and tampering with automobile VIN numbers.
Attendees of Abdullah’s mosque included many men who had served time behind bars. As a younger man, Abdullah was convicted of assault. Like many of this followers and countless thousands of others scattered across the country, Abdullah was converted to radical Islam within the world’s largest and most lavishly funded madrassa — the federal prison system. His friends and supporters insist that Abdullah, despite his criminal history, was a caring, pious, and generous man. The mosque ran a soup kitchen and was involved in other forms of charitable outreach to the economically blighted neighborhood.
Omar Regan at the funeral of Luqman Abdullah.
Abdullah was expansively hostile toward the government and deeply suspicious of the police — what rational person isn’t?– but those who knew him well insist he consistently rejected aggressive violence of any kind.
“My father was a sharp-tongued individual,” recalls Omar Reagan, a Los Angeles-based comedian and motivational speaker. “He would talk about his dislike of government — about how law enforcement wasn’t protecting and serving the people. But speaking his emotions and acting on his emotions are two different things.”
The “evidence” presented in the criminal complaint unsealed after Abdullah was killed shows that he encouraged his followers to acquire the skills to employ defensive violence to protect themselves from both private and government-employed criminals. He also explicitly and repeatedly refused to condone aggressive action against anyone.
FBI Counter-Terrorism Agent Gary Leone, the author of the affidavit, hurls speculative allegations with the exuberant glee of a caged monkey flinging feces at spectators.
In substantive terms, his criminal complaint deals with a small fencing operation. However, where “anti-government” groups are concerned, the FBI appears to suffer from an institution-wide case of Munchausen by proxy syndrome; this may be why the bureaucratic incentives under which Leone operates dictate that every molehill be described as if it were of Himalayan proportions. Accordingly, Abdullah and his followers are portrayed as nothing less than hardened, battle-ready shock troops of the global jihad:
“The investigation has shown that Luqman Ameen Adbullah, Imam of the Masjid Al-Haqq … is a highly placed leader of a nationwide fundamentalist Sunni group consisting primarily of African-Americans…. Their primary mission is to establish a separate, sovereign Islamic state (`The Ummah’) within the borders of the United States, governed by Shariah law….. [Abdullah] regularly preaches anti-government and anti-law enforcement rhetoric. Abdullah and his followers have trained regularly in the use of firearms, and continue to train in martial arts and sword fighting…. Abdullah preaches that every Muslim should have a weapon, and should not be sacred to use their weapon when needed.”
Aftermath: An FBI agent near the warehouse in which Abdullah was gunned down.
Even if every word of that summation were accurate, none of what is described above constitutes a crime — a fact Leone tacitly acknowledged by declining to file terrorism or sedition charges.
Furthermore, the inflammatory dicta in Leone’s complaint (which consumes 29 of the document’s 45 pages) artfully misrepresents Abdullah’s views regarding the legitimate use of violence, as those views were summarized by Leone’s snitches within the mosque. The most striking example of Leone’s dishonesty deals with an attempt by one of his assets to entrap Abdullah into endorsing terrorist violence.
“Confidential Source S-2,” a JTTF plant who allegedly recorded conversations with Abdullah, admits that he offered $5,000 to instigate some kind of criminal violence during the 2006 Super Bowl in Detroit. According to Leone’s own summary of the incident, “Abdullah said he would not be involved in injuring innocent people for no reason.”
“Confidential Source S-3” alleges that Abdullah described how Abdul Samoor, one of his followers, “printed out several things from the internet including Al-Qaeda training camp materials. Abdullah said he told Saboor to throw them away and cautioned him not to look at things on the internet.” This — like most of the “evidence” assembled by Leone — was hearsay, but it actually works against the FBI’s interest by underscoring Abdullah’s refusal to endorse Islamic terrorism.
“S-3” also describes a conversation during a trip to Alabama in which Abdullah commented that he “didn’t agree with bombing civilian targets such as buses, which occur in Israel and the West Bank, but said it is fine to bomb police stations.
The awkward diction here suggests that Abdullah was referring specifically to actions taken by Palestinians and drawing a distinction — for whatever it might be worth — between terrorist attacks on helpless civilians and what he perceived as defensive insurgent warfare against armed personnel carrying out a military occupation.
One of the most critical disclosures offered by “S-3” deals with a reported conversation on June 19, 2009, in which the imam told an associate that he knew someone in his mosque was “working for the FBI…. Abdullah said that he is hopeful that anyone who is working for the Feds will come to the mosque often to pray, will see the error of his ways, and admit he has been working with the Feds.”
Abdullah’s conciliatory remarks came on the same day he supposedly said that he would kill anybody “trying to gather information on him.” Leone accounts for this contradiction by claiming that the wily imam knew he was being “listened to and targeted by law enforcement so he intentionally [made] conflicting statements in order to protect himself.”
How can we tell which reported statements are sincere? Ah, this is easy, Leone would insist: We should dismiss anything that appears moderate and responsible as posturing, and assume that anything incendiary and self-incriminating represented Abdullah’s genuine intentions.
The problem here is that all of the “consensually recorded” comments that are directly quoted in the criminal complaint are entirely innocuous. It is only when one of the confidential informants is paraphrasing Abdullah that we are barraged with shockingly detailed references to alleged criminal acts and criminal plots.
Furthermore, the “direct” quotes are not complete: Nearly all of them contain strategically placed ellipses indicating the removal of potentially critical details. Presenting them as direct evidence would be tantamount to perjury through selective editing. And as we’ve seen, even the accounts provided by Leone’s pet provocateurs contain compelling evidence that Abdullah — whatever he may have planned or done — was not an aspiring terrorist.
Abdullah was infuriated by the wars of aggression being waged by the Regime in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was also convinced that the FBI was an enemy of American Muslims. Notwithstanding his passionate outrage, and despite Leone’s efforts to depict him as an exponent of aggressive jihad, Abdullah — as described in the complaint — endorsed violence only for defensive purposes.
“They [are] smashing the Muslims all over the world and then we sit here like everything is all right,” stated Abdullah in an October 10, 2008 conversation surreptitiously recorded by “S-3.” “`Just leave us alone.’ I mean, no. Everything isn’t all right. Matter of fact, you better get up from over there and leave them people alone, man. You [are] wrong. It’s no threat from the Muslims here. The Muslims here are saying, you know, `Hey, just let us live here and [unintelligible], that’s the only thing they [are] worried about…. That’s no good, man.”
For Leone, the take-away here is that Abdullah maintained “it is not all right to simply get along with kuffars,” or non-Muslims — the insinuation being that Abdullah endorsed militancy and revenge. But Abdullah’s discursive remarks actually read like a plea for Washington to desist from its aggression against Muslims abroad, and respect the wishes of American Muslims to be left alone. Those are the sentiments of someone weary of armed violence, rather than someone eagerly courting confrontation.
Abdullah’s desire to be left in peace was captured in recorded comments recorded by “S-3” on November 30, 2008. The conversation dealt with the activities of federal agents, who — according to Abdullah — were “just terrorizing the people.”
“It’s a whole organized effort,” he asserted. “Organized effort to betray you. But not just you, other people too. It’s not just, just Muslims”; it’s also people like “McVeigh and them” — meaning, apparently, non-Muslim “anti-government extremists” targeted for infiltration and manipulation by the FBI.
“It’s no question about, he [McVeigh] was involved in getting that stuff done,” Abdullah continued. “Even though they [McVeigh and “others unknown”] did what they did, they probably was irked on, and supported in everything, by the FBI.” After all, he pointed out, the “first World Trade Center bombing was the FBI.”
Bear in mind that Abdullah was describing the FBI’s documented history of orchestrating terrorist plots to an FBI informant-provocateur. I’m sufficiently cynical to suspect that this could be what got him killed.
Sure, he’s an FBI bureaucrat, but what he really wants to do is direct: Special Agent Andrew Arena, the choreographer of at least two ersatz “terrorism” plots in the Detroit area.
Within a few weeks of that conversation, FBI undercover operatives began a series of ten clandestine operations intended to entice members of Abdullah’s congregation into a plot to steal and fence stolen property.
All of those staged pseudo-crimes were instigated by the FBI’s assets, who also arranged for the “stolen” goods to be stored at a Dearborn warehouse that was rented by the FBI.
It was in that warehouse that Luqman Ameen Abdullah, a man once known as Christopher Thomas, an ex-con who understood how the FBI’s infiltration and provocation racket worked, was shot at least twenty times before bleeding to death with his hands cuffed behind his back.
Although nobody was killed when the FBI rolled up the Hutaree militia, the Bureau’s campaign against that “Christian militia” was struck from the same template used against Abdullah’s followers. Several of the Hutaree militiamen were seized at an FBI-controlled warehouse
where they had gathered — unarmed — to attend what they had been told was a “memorial service.”
The FBI’s investigative accomplishments are criminally overrated, but in arranging
ersatz terrorist plots it displays choreography skills that put the late Bob Fosse to shame. Recent events in Michigan suggest that the Bureau is staging a revival of its Hoover-era production, COINTELPRO. Don’t feel left out; the chances are pretty good that the Bureau’s touring troupe of provocateurs will visit your hometown sometime soon.
Personal Data on Nearly 1,000 British Muslim Students Given to CIA
By Jason Ditz | April 01, 2010
University College London, one of the most prestigious colleges in the world, is under fire today amid the revelation that it handed the data of nearly 1,000 Muslim students, members of the college’s Islamic Society, to British police who in turn forwarded the information to the CIA.
The Islamic Society at the school was once home to accused underbomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and he even served as the president of the organization in 2006-07. The data handed over included the names, email addresses, mailing address and telephone numbers of all the group’s members since 2005, including many who were not members at the same time as Abdulmutallab and have never even met him.
There is fear that the disclosure of the data will lead to increased persecution, and indeed some 50 students from the list have already been “visited” by police, but the largest concern is that the disclosure to the CIA could place these students on America’s terror watchlist for the sole reason that they were members of a Muslim group at a prestigious British university.
British human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce, who advised the Islamic Society during its investigation of the leak, called the disclosure “completely inappropriate” and added that the university had been given no legal reason to turn over the students’ data.
Police confirmed getting the data and insisted the decision to share it with the CIA was “an operational decision.” The CIA has yet to comment on what it plans to do with the data.
Israeli Court Decides Not To File Charges Against Soldier Who Killed Nonviolent Protestor in Bil’in
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – April 02, 2010
Despite a video clearly showing the death of Bassem Abu Rahma, who was shot in the chest by a gas bomb, an Israeli court decided Thursday that the killing that took place during a nonviolent protest against the Annexation Wall in Ni’lin near Ramallah, was not intentional.
The brother of Abu Rahma slammed the decision and said it comes to give the soldiers more chances to continue the killing of innocent, nonviolent protestors.
The soldier will not face any charges, and will be allowed to resume his military service as if nothing happened. Bassem Abu Rahma, 31, was killed in April of last year. Israeli and International peace activists were also at the scene.
The Israeli army claimed that Abu Rahma and other protestors were throwing stones at the soldiers, yet the video footage clearly shows him shouting at the soldiers asking them not to open fire. “rega, rega, catzin” the Hebrew words Abu Rahma told the soldiers… “officer… officer… wait.. listen..”.
The Israeli court disregarded the facts and decided to close all investigations in the issue, and decided that the gas bomb fired by the army was not intentionally aimed at Abu Rahma.
This decision disregarded the fact that the soldiers did not have to open fire at the protestors to start with as they were not under attack, and the nonviolent protestors were on the other side of a barbed-wire fence installed by the army.
Bil’in in the scene of weekly nonviolent protests against the illegal Israeli Annexation Wall and settlements. Israeli and International peace activists join the residents in their protests in Bil’in and in several other Palestinian villages in the West Bank.
Ashraf, the brother of Bassem, said that the court’s decision does not surprise him, and added that “Israel’s Justice System provides cover for the soldiers to continue their crimes”.
In July of 2008, Ashraf was detained by Israeli soldiers during a nonviolent protest in the nearby village of Ni’lin, and after he was cuffed and blindfolded a soldier, standing next to him, pointed his gun at his leg and shot him with a rubber-coated bullet.
The shooting of Ashraf was also caught on tape by a young Palestinian girl. Israeli soldiers kidnapped her father later on as a punishment just for exposing the crime.
Commenting on his brother’s death, Ashraf said that hundreds witnessed the attack, and heard Bassem call out to the soldier asking him to hold his fire, but the soldier shot him while he was only six meters (nearly 20 feet)away.
Ashraf stated that the family will file an appeal to the Israeli High Court of Justice, and should it also fail to achieve justice, the family would resort to the International Court.
The army insists that the soldiers did not commit any violation, and that the decision was made after examining all related details.
US ‘fabricated documents’ in pursuit of Iranian engineer
Press TV – April 2, 2010
The US authorities have been accused of presenting fabricated documents to French courts to support their demand for extradition of an Iranian engineer, as his court postpones deciding his fate for the sixth time.
Majid Kakavand, 37, was arrested in France in March 2009, at the request of US authorities, as he was returning to Iran after a short holiday in France.
The United States requested his extradition to stand trial for allegedly breaching US embargo against Iran.
He is alleged to have purchased a number of items that may have been of US origin through a Malaysian company, while residing in Iran.
In order for an extradition request to be approved, French courts must decide whether the alleged acts of Kakavand would have violated French law, had they occurred in France. This prerequisite is known as “dual criminality.”
Having detained Kakavand, the French courts have repeatedly requested further information from the US Department of Justice regarding the allegations against the Iranian.
However, since the US failed to provide sufficient evidence to prove the existence of dual criminality, the judge asked for expert advice from France’s “General Delegation for Ordnance” (DGA), which is the body responsible for weapons development and evaluations, and the country’s Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE). After evaluating the electronic components that Kakavand is alleged to have imported into Iran, both agencies declared that the goods could not be used for military purposes as dual-use technology. DGSE further advised that the case against the Iranian was weak and that he should be released.
Tehran has also highlighted Kakavand’s plight and has demanded his immediate release. On March 16, Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said: “The innocence of (Majid) Kakavand is evident and we urge France not to be trapped in American propaganda and release him.”
Now, according to Kakavand’s French lawyers, it appears that, in their enthusiasm for his extradition, the US authorities have stepped over the legal line and have used forged documents to try to sway the French court to hand him over.
Advocate Diane Francois says that some of the documents included “email copies with attachments that did not have corresponding dates,” concluding that the documents were falsified, reported Expatica.com on March 31.
“We will ask San Francisco prosecutors to open a federal investigation of the documents provided by the US authorities,” she said.
Kakavand too denies that he did anything illegal. Additionally, legal experts believe that, as the US embargos against Iran are unilateral, they have no legal force outside the territory of the US, especially when applied extraterritorially, such as has been applied to Kakavand, who is alleged to have traded in US-origin goods outside of the US.
The European Union has repeatedly rejected extraterritorial enforcement of US embargos on its territory.
Nevertheless, this is not the only time that the US has pursued Iranians across the world on similar spurious charges. In 2006, they had Jamshid Ghassemi arrested in Thailand and in 2007 Yousef Boushvash was detained in Hong Kong; both for alleged breaches of extraterritorial US embargo.
Both were released by respective authorities, once it became clear that the US demand for their extradition had no legal basis.
The Case for the Impeachment of Barack Obama
Same Crimes, Same Misdemeanors
By DAVE LINDORFF | April 2, 2010
Back in 2005-06, I wrote a book, The Case for Impeachment, in which I made the argument that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, as well as other key figures in the Bush/Cheney administration–Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales–should be impeached for war crimes, as well as crimes against the Constitution of the United States.
These days, when I mention the book’s title, people sometimes ask, half in jest, whether I’m referring to the current president, Barack Obama.
Sadly, it is time to say, just 14 months into the current term of this new president, that yes, this president, and some of his subordinates, are also guilty of impeachable crimes–including many of the same ones committed by Bush and Cheney.
Let’s start with the war in Afghanistan, which Obama has taken full ownership of with an escalation that will bring the number of US troops in that country (not counting mercenaries hired by the Pentagon and CIA) to 100,000 by this August.
The president has authorized the use of Predator drone aircraft for a program of bombing conducted against Pakistan which has illegally expanded the Afghan War into another country without any authorization from Congress. These pilotless drones are known to kill far more innocent bystanders than enemy targets, making them fundamentally illegal on principle as weapons. Furthermore, this wave of attacks in Pakistan is a war of aggression against another nation if the word “war” is to have any meaning at all, and as such it is illegal under the UN Charter. Indeed initiating a war of aggression against a country which does not pose an immediate threat to the invader is described in the Charter and in the Nuremberg Tribunal Charter as the gravest of all war crimes.
The president, as commander in chief, has also, in collusion with Attorney Eric Holder, blocked any prosecution of those who authorized and perpetrated torture against captives in the War in Iraq, the War in Afghanistan, and the so-called War on Terror–notably Federal Appeals Court Judge Jay Baybee, and Berkeley Law Professor John Yoo, who as Justice Department attorneys authored the legal briefs justifying torture– and has in fact continued to permit the application of torture against captives. All of this is in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions, which as a signed set of treaties, are part of the law of the United States. Under those treaties, failure on the part of those up the chain of command to halt or to punish those who commit torture are themselves guilty of the crime of torture.
As commander in chief, President Obama has also overseen a strategy in Afghanistan of expanded attacks on civilians in Afghanistan. As in Iraq under the Bush administration, this current phase of the war in Afghanistan is seeing more civilians killed than enemy combatants, because of the widespread use of weapons like helicopter gunships, aerial bombardment, fragmentation bombs, etc., as well as a tactic of night raids on housing compounds where insurgents are suspected of hiding–raids that frequently lead to the deaths of many women and children and innocent men. It is significant that even the recent execution-style slaying of nine students, aged 11-18, by US-led forces, has not led to an investigation or prosecution of a individual. Rather, the incident is being covered up and ignored, with the clear acquiescence of the White House and the leadership at the Pentagon.
It is also widely believed that under the command of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who is known to have directed a large-scale death-squad operation in Iraq before moving to his current position, a similar death-squad campaign of assassination is being conducted now in Afghanistan–a campaign that like the notorious Phoenix Program in the 1960s in Vietnam, is almost certainly resulting in the deaths of many innocent Afghans.
Domestically, the president has continued to allow the policy of detention without trial of hundreds of captives in Guantanamo Bay and other prisons, including Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, and his director of national security has even stated that it is the policy of this administration that American citizens deemed by the administration to be enemy combatants or terrorists may be targeted for summary execution. Such officially sanctioned state murder is a blatant violation of the Constitution’s insistence that every American has a right to a presumption of innocence and to a trial by a jury of his or her peers.
The president has also continued and in some ways even expanded the Bush/Cheney administration’s program of warrantless spying by the National Security Agency on the electronic communications of millions of Americans. A part of that program, the monitoring of communications of a now defunct Islamic charity, was just declared illegal by a federal judge in a case that was brought against the Bush/Cheney administration, but which continued to be defended by the current administration. There has not been a decision as yet by the Obama administration about whether to appeal that decision. While the case in question does not represent a crime by the Obama administration, it is clear that it only represents the very tip of the huge iceberg of domestic spying, and the administration’s vigorous efforts to shut down this case or to win it are clear evidence that the NSA is continuing to do the same thing on a vast scale. In fact, the only reason this case even got to trial is because of a government error that resulted in a memo describing the monitoring being mailed inadvertently to the victims of the spying.
While we’re at it, I would also suggest that there is ample evidence to call for the impeachment of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who appears, as head of the New York Federal Reserve, to have colluded in an effort to cover up a massive fraud at Lehman Brothers, and who has subsequently as Treasurer, participated in unprecedented giveaways of taxpayer funds to several of the country’s largest banking institutions.
The above enumeration of criminal and Constitutional transgressions makes it clear that this president, like his predecessor, has, almost since his first day in office, continued down a road of criminal and unconstitutional behavior that threatens the survival of Constitutional government in the United States.
Let me state it simply: President Barack Obama, as well as Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Treasury Secretary Geithner, should be impeached for war crimes and high crimes against the Constitution.
Of course, having watched the Democratic Congress shamelessly duck its solemn duty to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and their criminal subordinates for two years, I have no illusions about that same Democratic Congress allowing an impeachment bill to be filed against this president.
Having said that, I think it is important to at least make the point publicly that this president, like the one before, deserves to be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). He can be reached at dlindorff@mindspring.com
