In the eyes of the state we are ... no longer citizens with constitutional rights but enemy combatants

chris hedges...

The widening use of militarized police units effectively nullifies the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the use of the armed forces for civilian policing. City police forces have in the last few decades amassed small strike forces that employ high-powered assault rifles, armored personnel carriers, tanks, elaborate command and control centers and attack helicopters. Poor urban neighborhoods, which bear the brunt of the estimated 40,000 SWAT team assaults that take place every year, have already learned what is only dimly being understood by the rest of us—in the eyes of the state we are increasingly no longer citizens with constitutional rights but enemy combatants.

watch your step, fellow citizens...!

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 3 comments

More on Ghailani: Bush and Cheney had him acquitted

juan cole...

This is how George W. Bush and Dick Cheney got Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, suspected of involvement in the bombing of two US embassies in East Africa in 1998, off hundreds of murder charges: They had him tortured.

Ghailani was convicted Wednesday of conspiracy to damage US government property, for which he could well face life imprisonment, but was acquitted of murder charges stemming from the deaths caused by the blowing up of the embassies.

The US right wing is jumping up and down and denouncing Attorney General Eric Holder for trying Ghailani in a civilian court instead of in a military tribunal, and implying that he got off because civilian law is more lax than that of the tribunals would have been.

For instance, Rep. Peter T. King (R-NY) thundered, “This tragic verdict demonstrates the absolute insanity of the Obama administration’s decision to try Al Qaeda terrorists in civilian courts.” King, defended Bush’s commitment to torturing people, saying “Bush deserves credit for what he did.” King should be aware that advocating war crimes itself was considered a crime at the Nuremberg trials.

In fact, the government case against Ghailani was undermined precisely by Bush and Cheney and their foaming-at-the-mouth supporters on the Right, which increasingly deserves to be called simply American Fascism. The case was undermined by the use of torture.

i was just listening to npr news where the newscasters and commentators took the tack that the whole deal was the result of holding a civilian trial... when will we be able to shake off this horrendous, manipulative, constitution-undermining propaganda...?

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

The Ghailani trial outcome a la Glenn: "One either believes in the American system of justice or one does not"

i count on glenn's clear thinking and his ability to explain some of the most complex issues in terms even a legal dumbass like me can understand...

[E]ven had [Ghailani] been acquitted on all counts, the Obama administration had made clear that it would simply continue to imprison him anyway under what it claims is the President's "post-acquittal detention power" -- i.e., when an accused Terrorist is wholly acquitted in court, he can still be imprisoned indefinitely by the U.S. Government under the "law of war" even when the factual bases for the claim that he's an "enemy combatant" (i.e. that he blew up the two embassies) are the same ones underlying the crimes for which he was fully acquitted after a full trial.

[...]

But the most important point here is that one either believes in the American system of justice or one does not. When a reviled defendant is acquitted in court, and torture-obtained evidence is excluded, that isn't proof that the justice system is broken; it's proof that it works. A "justice system" which guarantees convictions -- or which allows the Government to rely on evidence extracted from torture -- isn't a justice system at all, by definition.

our justice system was set UP to work and, even with its imperfections, it DOES work...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

George Bush can do just about whatever he wants

never one to miss small ironies, i am posting this from a gate area at george bush intercontinental airport in houston, proudly named after george's "poppy"... as we were on descent and final approach, i was looking at the freeway system below, already choked with cars at 5:30 in the morning, full of people heading in to work, and thinking how thoroughly manipulated we are... to afford those cars and the insurance, maintenance and gas it takes to keep them running, we have to have jobs, and to have jobs we have to have a car, and to have a car usually means to incur debt, and aw-a-a-a-a-y we go, locking ourselves in to the credit and debt cycle that won't release its grip on most of us until death... what makes it all the worse, is that it's getting worse... we're losing even our little freedoms that, while mostly illusory anyway, were still things that could give us a little consolation... now they've taken those away too...

The government is monitoring your phone calls and can read your e-mails and open your snail mail.

The government can access records of your large financial transactions, such as buying a house.

Law enforcement officers can bust into your home when you're not there, riffle through your belongings, plant a recording device on your computer, and leave without notifying you for at least thirty days -- and maybe a lot more.

You no longer have the right to protest where the president or vice president can see you, or at major public events when they aren't even present.

Law enforcement officers can now monitor you in public if you are merely exercising your political rights.

They can infiltrate your political organizations.

And they can keep track of you at your place of worship. The government can find out from bookstores and libraries the material you've been reading, and the bookstore owner and the librarian can't talk about it, except to their lawyers, for a whole year -- or more.

The government can hold you in preventive detention for months on end as a "material witness."

If you're not a citizen the government can deport you on a technicality or for mere political association.

If you're not a citizen the government can label you an "enemy combatant" and send you to secret prisons around the world, where you may never see the light of day again -- much less a lawyer or a judge. And even if you are a citizen, the government can label you an enemy combatant and hold you in solitary confinement here in the United States.

Under George W. Bush's interpretation of the president's powers during the so-called war on terror he can do just about whatever he wants.

we are clearly at a turning point in the united states, and our choices are clear... we either continue to pretend that all is fine, that our government and our leaders couldn't possibly be up to such dastardly business, and, like the frog, stay in the water until it finally boils, or we take matters into our own hands and reclaim the country our founders bequeathed to us... time is running out...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments