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bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
Our Own Nuremberg Trials
In 2007, the 'reality show' of the American rule of law, for the world
to see.
By Nat Hentoff
12/19/06 "Village Voice" -- -- During the mutual-admiration hearing
before the Senate Committee on Armed Services—which led to the unanimous
confirmation of former CIA chief Robert Gates to be Donald Rumsfeld's
successor—no senator asked Gates if he approves of the Pentagon's
"extreme . . . emergency" insistence on a $125 million appropriation to
construct a permanent compound for a war-crimes court at Guantánamo.
There, in 2007, war-crimes trials will be held for dozens of Guantánamo
"detainees." The facilities will accommodate simultaneous proceedings.
Unlike the Nuremberg war-crimes trials of the Nazis, there will be no
government officials in the dock, but rather—as detailed in my last
column—prisoners against whom the United States has itself committed war
crimes under the Geneva Conventions and our own War Crimes act. These
crimes include their conditions of confinement and a total lack of the
due process that the Supreme Court ordered in Rasul v. Bush (2004) and
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006).
Each of the defendants will have already been designated as an "enemy
combatant" by previous "administrative" Combatant Status Review
Tribunals at Guantánamo. At these sham hearings they were presumed
guilty before any of the "evidence" against them (which they were not
permitted to see) was aired. That means the presumption of guilt will
continue at the war-crimes trials.
The world will watch the total transmogrification of America's much
self-praised "rule of law." There are objections to this rush for funds
to house the American Nuremberg trials. On December 3, Republican
congressman James Walsh, chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee
on Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies—
which is in charge of military construction projects—refused to
authorize the Pentagon's "national security" appropriation.
Walsh is angry at the absence of any public debate on this expenditure
and, he cogently adds, "The issue of the tribunals is very
controversial. For them to move this fast makes me wonder why."
Congressman Walsh will no longer chair that crucial committee in
January. But in view of the Democratic congressional leadership's
enveloping embrace of the new defense secretary, Robert Gates, will
lawmakers prevent him from going ahead with the compound at Guantánamo?
And if the Democrats hold up the appropriation, will Gates proceed with
the trials in more cramped quarters? (On December 10, the Pentagon
suddenly postponed its proposal—leaving it to be decided by the next
Congress.)
Our rampant lawlessness during the past four years at Guantánamo has
long been "controversial" in the international press and among human
rights groups. But the extent and depth of our abuse of these prisoners—
resulting in a number of desperation suicides—have been illuminated with
damning clarity in a series of reports by New Jersey's Seton Hall
University School of Law, the most recent of which, "No-Hearing
Hearings," [PDF] I reported on last week.
The Seton Hall revelations have reached beyond the metropolitan press
to, for example, the Anniston Star in Alabama. A December 1 editorial,
"The Gitmo Games," quotes from the Seton Hall findings, and concludes:
"The military is holding something less than a kangaroo court that
results in putting people away—without charging them with any specific
wrongdoing—for an indefinite period of time . . . History will be very
unkind to the rulers who constructed this very unjust, un-American
system.
"Those un-American rulers, of course, include George W. Bush, Dick
Cheney, John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales, a coven of lawyers at the
Defense Department and the White House, and Donald Rumsfeld. Will Robert
Gates take his place among them?"
The Anniston Star's indictment-editorial ends: "[History] also will be
unkind to people who tolerated [this un-American system.]" That means
us.
A Seton Hall Law School report from February 8, which I did not cite
last week, by professor Mark Denbeaux and Joshua Denbeaux and law
students at this exemplary school, presents the case against the United
States in anticipation of the war-crimes trials at Guantánamo next year.
"A Profile of 517 Detainees Through Analysis of Department of Defense
Data" provides "a window into the Government's detaining only those the
President has called 'the worst of the worst.' " You can now determine
for yourself how dangerous the great majority of the defendants are in
the forthcoming American Nuremberg trials:
"Only 8 percent of the detainees were characterized as al Qaeda
fighters. Of the remaining detainees, 40 percent have no definitive
connection with al Qaeda at all and 18 percent have no definitive
affiliation with either al Qaeda or the Taliban."
The report continues: "The Government has detained numerous persons
based on mere affiliations with a large number of groups that are, in
fact, not on the Department of Homeland Security terrorist
watchlist . . . A large majority—60 percent—are detained merely because
they are 'associated with' a group or groups the Government asserts are
terrorist organizations. (And members of almost 72 percent of those
groups are allowed into the U.S.)"
Remember, these findings are based entirely on Department of Defense
records. (Robert Gates can fact-check them.) Also, among "the worst of
the worst":
"Only 5 percent of the detainees were captured by United States forces.
Eighty-six percent of the detainees were arrested by either Pakistan or
the Northern Alliance and turned over to United States custody. This 86
percent of the detainees captured by Pakistan or the Northern Alliance
were handed over to the United States at a time when the United States
offered large bounties for capture of suspected enemies." No questions
asked.
Remember, too, that in the 2006 Military Commissions Act, Congress
stripped from all these prisoners any meaningful right to utilize our
federal courts, thereby defying our own Supreme Court.
Co-author Joshua Denbeaux tells me: "The government's own documents
proved that the government's claims that the prisoners were the 'worst
of the worst' was a false and shameful public relations ploy . . . We
hope that our reports will convince Congress to amend the Military
Commissions Act and restore federal jurisdiction." If that happens, the
prisoners could contest their conditions of confinement, their
imprisonment, and their sentences.
Should the new Democrat-controlled Congress not do that, the American
Nuremberg trials could begin—and later, the defendants' last resort may
be the John Roberts Supreme Court. But however Congress or the high
court eventually decides, we will again be disgraced around the world.
source:
http://villagevoice.com/news/0651,hentoff,75320,2.html
===
-muslim voice-
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