Saturday 23rd of November 2024
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cutting to the chase .....

cutting to the chase .....

On March 4th, Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman introduced a bill called the "Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010" that, if passed, would set this country on a course to become a military dictatorship.

The bill is only 12 pages long, but that is plenty of room to grant the president the power to order the arrest, interrogation, and imprisonment of anyone -- including a U.S. citizen -- indefinitely, on the sole suspicion that he or she is affiliated with terrorism, and on the president's sole authority as commander in chief.

The Act begins with the following (convoluted) requirement:

'Whenever within the United States, its territories, and possessions, or outside the territorial limits of the United States, an individual is captured or otherwise comes into the custody or under the effective control of the United States who is suspected of engaging in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners through an act of terrorism, or by other means in violation of the laws of war, or of purposely and materially supporting such hostilities, and who may be an unprivileged enemy belligerent, the individual shall be placed in military custody for purposes of initial interrogation and determination of status in accordance with the provisions of this Act.'

In other words, if at any point, anywhere in the world, a person is caught who might have done something to suggest that he or she is a terrorist or somehow supporting a terrorist organization against the U.S. or its allies, that person must be imprisoned by the military.

For how long?

As long as U.S. officials want. A subsequent section, titled "Detention Without Trial of Unprivileged Enemy Belligerents," states that suspects "may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners." In a press conference introducing the bill earlier this month, Sen. Joe Lieberman said, "I know that will be -- that may be -- a long time, but that's the nature of this war."

http://www.alternet.org/story/146081/mccain_and_lieberman%27s_%22enemy_belligerent%22_act_could_set_u.s._on_path_to_military_dictatorship?page=entire

Which religions of the world make them "easy meat?"

I have noted that most religions in this world of ours have, over the centuries, advocated the basic decensies of mutual respect while the most successful were prosecuting the most heinous of punishments for not accepting that respect is for the church alone.

My take on the overall attitudes of the advanced civilizations with respect to religion is that only two have proved to be dictatorial and brutal in there advocasy.  Roman Catholics and Hebrews.

My opinion of the Roman Catholic world domination of the hearts and minds of people who were, generally afraid of life itself, is still a genuine conviction but, while their advocates live in harmony with the majority of people in their chosen societies, the Hebrews find themselves unable to accept even a modicum of agreement with the laws; customs and beliefs of their "host" nations.

I have personal reasons for believing in the ancient history of Solomon and David but, I do not accept that the object, nor the intentions, of the Zionists have anything to do with right or wrong.

Are we prepared to dislocate any people on this ever dimishing Earth of ours for the benefit of a system of total control, then we should never have opposed the Nazis.

God Bless Australia.  NE OUBLIE.

pinky and brain...

For two detainees who told what they knew, Guantanamo becomes a gilded cage

By the time Tariq al-Sawah, a veteran of the wars in Bosnia and Afghanistan, reached Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in May 2002, there was no fight left in him. Injured by a cluster bomb in the mountains of Afghanistan, the middle-aged Egyptian was still recovering from wounds to his hands, back, thighs and buttocks when the Americans grabbed him.

Three months later, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who had moved in radical circles in Germany, turned up at the U.S. military prison. There, a masked interrogator threatened the Mauritanian with death while others deprived him of sleep and bombarded him with sound and light, pushing him to the brink of a mental breakdown.

When it came to their initial treatment at Guantanamo, Sawah and Slahi had little in common, according to military officials. Their paths would intersect only later, when they both made the same choice: to cooperate with the United States.

Sawah, now 52, and Slahi, now 39, have become two of the most significant informants ever to be held at Guantanamo. Today, they are housed in a little fenced-in compound at the military prison, where they live a life of relative privilege -- gardening, writing and painting -- separated from other detainees in a cocoon designed to reward and protect.

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Gus: Pinky and Brain...

assassination with abandon...

from Robert wright at the NYT

I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d told me 20 years ago that America would someday be routinely firing missiles into countries it’s not at war with. For that matter, I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d told me a few months ago that America would soon be plotting the assassination of an American citizen who lives abroad.

Shows you how much I know. President Obama, who during his first year in office oversaw more drone strikes in Pakistan than occurred during the entire Bush presidency, last week surpassed his predecessor in a second respect: he authorized the assassination of an American — Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical Imam who after 9/11 moved from Virginia to Yemen, a base from which he inspires such people as the Fort Hood shooter and the would-be underwear bomber.

Students of the law might raise a couple of questions: 1) Doesn’t it violate international law to fire missiles into Pakistan (especially on a roughly weekly basis) when the Pakistani government has given no formal authorization? 2) Wouldn’t firing a missile at al-Awlaki in Yemen compound the international-law question with a constitutional question — namely whether giving the death penalty to an American without judicially establishing his guilt deprives him of due process?

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