Wednesday, August 6 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

Wednesday, August 6, 2008
GeorgeWashington.blogspot.com

In a dramatic confluence of events today, two kangaroo courts announced their pre-determined guilty verdicts.

In the first, 6 "military jurors" hand-picked by the Pentagon for their loyalty to the U.S. government and its views, convicted Bin Laden's alleged driver, Salim Hamdan, even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to try Gitmo detainees before a military tribunal, the former chief Gitmo prosecutor said the trials were unfair and rigged, and even though Hamdan was unlawfully tortured.

The entire case for the "war on terror" has fallen apart, with a top advisor to the U.S. military confirming that the war on terror is a hoax because there is no battlefield solution to terrorism" and the case for the Iraq war being laid bare as a forgery and a sham (and the government's whitewash of 9/11 being understood by many Americans). The government needed a conviction against someone in Arab clothing so that it could pretend that the multi-trillion dollar, economy-busting, war crime-based war in the Middle East was justified.

 

Tuesday, August 5 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

By Paul Craig Roberts
August 5, 2008

In last weekend's edition of CounterPunch, Alexander Cockburn updates the ongoing persecution of Sami Al-Arian by federal prosecutors. Al-Arian was a Florida university professor of computer science who was ensnared by the Bush Regime's need to produce "terrorists" in order to keep Americans fearful and, thereby, amenable to the Bush Regime's assault on US civil liberties.

The charges against Al-Arian were rejected by a jury, but the Bush Regime could not accept the obvious defeat. If Al-Arian was not a terrorist, then other of the Bush Regime's fabricated cases might fall apart, too.

In open view, the US Department of Justice (sic) proceeded to trash every known ethical rule of prosecution. I don't need to repeat the facts, as they are covered by Cockburn's articles and in The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

 

Tuesday, August 5 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

By Naomi Wolf
August 1, 2008

Is it possible to fall out of love with your own country? For two years, I, like many Americans, have been focused intently on documenting, exposing, and alerting the nation to the Bush administration’s criminality and its assault on the Constitution and the rule of law — a story often marginalized at home. I was certain that when Americans knew what was being done in their name, they would react with horror and outrage.

Three months ago, the Bush administration still clung to its devil’s sound bite, “We don’t torture.” Now, Doctors Without Borders has issued its report documenting American-held detainees’ traumas, and even lie detector tests confirm they have been tortured. The Red Cross report has leaked: torture and war crimes. Jane Mayer’s impeccably researched exposé “The Dark Side” just hit the stores: torture, crafted and directed from the top.

The Washington Post gave readers actual video footage of the abusive interrogation of a Canadian minor, Omar Khadr, who was seen showing his still-bleeding abdominal wounds, weeping and pleading with his captors.

 

Wednesday, July 23 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

Associated Press
Tuesday July 22, 2008

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - The judge in the first American war crimes trial since World War II barred evidence on Monday that interrogators obtained from Osama bin Laden's driver following his capture in Afghanistan.

Prosecutors are considering whether to appeal the judge's ruling — a development that could halt the trial of Salim Hamdan that began earlier Monday after years of delays and legal setbacks.

"We need to evaluate ... to what extent it has an impact on our ability to fully portray his criminality in this case, but also what it might set out for future cases," said Army Col. Lawrence Morris, the tribunals' chief prosecutor.

Hamdan, who was captured at a roadblock in Afghanistan in November 2001, pleaded not guilty at the start of a trial that will be closely watched as the first full test of the Pentagon's system for prosecuting alleged terrorists. He faces a maximum life sentence if convicted of conspiracy and aiding terrorism.

 

Saturday, July 19 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

Israel Planning a September/October Surprise?

By Ray McGovern

17/07/08 International Clearing House -- You say you expected more rhetoric than reality from Senators Obama and McCain yesterday in their speeches on Iraq and Afghanistan? Well, that's certainly what you got.

What I find nonetheless amazing is how they, and the pundits, have taken such little notice of the dramatic change in the political landscape occasioned by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's bombshell on July 7 -- his insistence on a "timetable" for withdrawal of US troops before any accord is reached on their staying past the turn of the year.

Responding to a question at his press conference yesterday, President George W. Bush showed that he was vaguely aware that the timetable is, as Robert Dreyfuss says (in Truthout, July 7), a "big deal." Bush even alluded haltingly to the possibility of extending the UN mandate still further.

 

Thursday, July 17 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

... Jonathan L. Hafetz, a lawyer for Mr. Marri with the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, called the Fourth Circuit’s decision deeply disturbing.

"This decision means the president can pick up any person in the country — citizen or legal resident — and lock them up for years without the most basic safeguard in the Constitution, the right to a criminal trial," Mr. Hafetz said.

...In the conclusion of his long opinion, Judge Wilkinson said terrorism cases presented courts with special challenges.

"We may never know,” he said, “whether we have struck the proper balance between liberty and security, because we do not know every action the executive is taking and we do not know every threat global terror networks have in store."

 

Saturday, July 12 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

FISA "Compromise" Completes Transformation of US into Full Police State

by Larry Chin

Global Research, July 11, 2008

On July 9, 2008, the US Congress overwhelmingly passed legislation permitting government spying, including immunity to telecommunications companies involved in secret domestic surveillance programs. With the stroke of George W. Bush’s pen, the US is now a police state by definition.

The extent of the spying program, and its larger implications, have been revealed by Mark Klein, who blew the whistle on secret domestic spying program of Bush/Cheney’s National Security Agency (NSA) and AT&T:

AT&T whistleblower: spy bill creates infrastructure for police state

 

Thursday, July 10 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

By SHAUN WATERMAN
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
June 30, 2008

WASHINGTON, June 30 (UPI) -- The U.S. military is looking for a contractor to patrol cyberspace, watching for warning signs of forthcoming terrorist attacks or other hostile activity on the Web.

... In a solicitation posted on the Web last week, the command said it was looking for a contractor to provide "Internet awareness services" to support "force protection" -- the term of art for the security of U.S. military installations and personnel.

... "The purpose of the services will be to identify and assess stated and implied threat, antipathy, unrest and other contextual data relating to selected Internet domains," says the solicitation. (emphasis added)

 

Wednesday, July 9 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

By Jeffrey Denning
July 2, 1008
Washington Post, Aviation Security

Just when you thought you’ve heard it all...

A senior government official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expressed great interest in a so-called safety bracelet that would serve as a stun device, similar to that of a police Taser®. According to this promotional video found at the Lamperd Less Lethal, Inc. website, the bracelet would be worn by all airline passengers (video also shown below).

This bracelet would:

• take the place of an airline boarding pass

• contain personal information about the traveler

• be able to monitor the whereabouts of each passenger and his/her luggage

• shock the wearer on command, completely immobilizing him/her for several minutes

The Electronic ID Bracelet, as it’s referred to, would be worn by every traveler “until they disembark the flight at their destination.” Yes, you read that correctly. Every airline passenger would be tracked by a government-funded GPS, containing personal, private and confidential information, and would shock the customer worse than an electronic dog collar if the passenger got out of line.

 

Friday, June 27 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

by Jeffrey St. Clair
June 26th, 2008

Oklahoma to feds: Don’t tread on me
State House defends its sovereignty from D.C. intrusion

Steamed over a perceived increase in federal usurping of states’ rights, Oklahoma’s House of Representatives told Washington, D.C., to back off.

Joint House Resolution 1089, passed by an overwhelming 92-3 margin, reasserts Oklahoma’s sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and, according to the resolution’s own language, is “serving notice to the federal government to cease and desist certain mandates.”

The Tenth Amendment states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

Traditionally, this language has meant that the federal government is limited in its scope and cannot usurp the sovereign powers of states. In recent decades, however, as the size and reach of the federal government has expanded, many have come to question whether Washington has stepped on states’ rights and gotten too big for its breeches.

 

Wednesday, June 18 2008   -   9/11 Consequences

By Tom Burghardt
June 16, 2008
from Antifascist Calling, Reprinted at Global Research

Proving the old axiom that Congress "is the best that money can buy," congressional Democrats are preparing to gut the Constitution by granting giant telecom companies retroactive immunity and liability protection on warrantless wiretapping by the Bush regime.

According to Congressional Quarterly, "Congressional leaders and the Bush administration have reached an agreement in principle on an overhaul of surveillance rules."