It’ll be short and sporadic blogging today, since I’ll be spending significant portions of the day boarding up the house in anticipation of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Ernesto, which is supposed to start crawling up the Florida peninsula during the day today. It doesn’t look to be very serious, but since “global warning is just a myth” who knows?
Now that there is no more legitimate suspected Jon Benet Ramsey killer to hyperventilate about 24/7, it will be all-Ernesto, all the time, until late Wednesday or early Thursday, because you just can’t sell soap powder unless there is some sort of hysteria to drive the sheeple to the stores.
Those of us on the left side of Planet Earth, who breathe oxygen, are fast approaching outrage overload because of the insanity the Fascist Party is visiting upon a helpless United States. But when I saw this story on the overnight wires I couldn’t even begin to formulate an adequate response:
WASHINGTON -- Despite assuring Congress that career military lawyers are helping design new trials for accused terrorists, the Bush administration has limited their input on their key request, that any tribunals must give detainees the right to see the evidence against them, officials said.After the Supreme Court struck down the White House's military tribunals system in June, government lawyers began drafting legislation that would set new rules for trials of terrorist suspects. A central issue is whether prosecutors will be allowed to introduce secret evidence, which detainees would not be able to defend against.
You read that right. Secret evidence. Now you can be locked up, held in solitary confinement for four or five years, incommunicado, mind you – no lawyer for you, Ahmed, and then brought before a military tribunal. That’s when you’ll meet your lawyer, an overworked SJA lawyer, for the first time, as the prosecuting attorney will present secret evidence to the tribunal while you’re not even in the room to defend against it.
Most military lawyers strongly oppose allowing secret evidence, arguing that such a plan would probably violate the Geneva Conventions and create a precedent for enemies of the United States to use show-trials for captured Americans. But administration lawyers maintain that classified evidence may be crucial to a case, and revealing it would compromise national security.Members of Congress have pressured the White House to listen to the military lawyers as it drafts the legislation, and on Aug. 2, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told lawmakers that ``our deliberations have included detailed discussion" with military attorneys whose ``multiple rounds of comments . . . will be reflected in the legislative package."
But the issue of secret evidence, officials said, has been off the table for all of those discussions with the exception of one meeting between Gonzales and the top military lawyers in late July. The session ended in an impasse, and the issue has not been raised again, they said.
I’ve been having a brief discussion on another blog with an attorney who seems to feel that Abu Gonzalez is acting in good faith when he says George Bush has the authority to do any fucking thing that enters his allegedly coke and booze-damaged brain. I wonder how he’ll feel about this little gem. Since the single “discussion” ended in an impasse, you know Gonzalez has absolutely no intention whatsoever of allowing any semblance at all of fair trials.
Sometimes I wonder why they even want to bother with the façade of a trial? Just lock the poor bastards away like Eustache Dauger, and ignore him to death.
Comments
Why not summary executions? why bother with any kind of trial? there are so many ways to describe this administration in a nutshell, and many of them valid, but how about this one: always acting on impulse without regard to consequences.
There are probably better ones. In re: first names, they used to call me Ruff on some other blogs, but I don't post comments much anymore, I think I rub people the wrong way.
So, Lurch, you and your pals are all ex-military, right? I'm not, but perhaps you can explain something for me. Some months ago, perhaps March or April, there was a brief article in my local paper about a squadron of these planes, I think they are C-130s, gunships like the fabled 'Puff the Magic Dragon' of Nam fame, being deployed to the ME. I wondered about that, they don't seem suited to urban warfare, if you have any regard whatsoever for civilian casualties anyway. But I thought, well, maybe things are heating up in Anbar province or maybe they are to be used in Afghanistan. But then later I was listening to this "attack Iran" rhetoric heating up, with all of its potential pitfalls (closing of of the straits of Hormuz, oil at $220 bbl, waves of 'martyrs' streaming across the border into Iraq, etc.) and it hit me.
Jesus H., the generals are preparing for a bug out, if it comes to that. The airborne gunships are to be used to blast an escape route, and/or cover the rear in case the whole army in Iraq has to leave in a hurry. Does this make any sense?
Ruffian, it seems to me that the Bu$h malAdministration works to a specific plan; I don't see a heck of a lot of impulse or improvovisation in what they do other than of course in the case of Hurricane Katrina, when they saw a golden opportunity to turn a statistically Blue state into Red through inaction.
They also had a great chance to strip the Treasury again, and funnel even more money to their cronies and donor base.
Back in the 50s and 60s people used to ascribe a Great Plan to the Soviets, describing them as a vast, well-oiled monolith, like a slow-moving avalanch. They did have a political goal, but they were more like a group of thieves walking along a hotel corridor, trying every doorknob in case they found an unlocked room. Opportunism can work, but you need luck. Bu$hCo is a bit more organized, I think.
As for the AC-130 gunships I think we discussed their use in a retreat option, here http://www.mainandcentral.org/archives/2005/11/a_fighting_retr.html
and here http://www.mainandcentral.org/archives/2005/11/a_fighting_retr_1.html
and here http://www.mainandcentral.org/archives/2006/03/americans_in_ci.html
The writer Christopher Albritton discussed them here in his blog http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/2004/04/us_pounds_fallujah_fighting_in.php
As for therir being used in urban environments, just what have you seen in our military's actions in Iraq that brings you to the conclusion that they're careful about conserving civilian life?
Yes, I'm sure the JCS have tasked their staffs with several variations on the withdrawal option. Here's hoping it can be orderly, and not a fighting retreat.
I think there are two key words here that need to be shouted at the top of our lungs until the mainstream media picks up the story: secret evidence.
Secret-Jesus. Tap-Dancing. Christ-Evidence. Which may or may not have been obtained from torturing some yokel til he told these people what they wanted to hear- you'll never know, 'cause its a secret.
I don't know what's scarier- the fact that Americans (Bush's administration hasnt been deported, yet) are actually putting these policies into action, or that the average american, upon hearing of this, will just nod his head and mutter something about the world changing on 9/11 and fightin' em there so we dont have to fight em here.
Guys- I never served. Thank you all for your sacrifices at the altar of liberty. I'm terribly sorry it appears to have been for nothing.
Secret trials, secret evidence, secrect sentences, secret prisons and prisoners -- Jesus H P C!
I did a post not so long ago about a Prisoner With No Name and had my doubts that I had gone a bit over the top -- said doubts have now been thrown over my left shoulder.
But lets's look at the bright side!!!
Bush has shown that maybe he actually has read some of thos 65 books they were talking about -- and one of them must be Kafka -- the Trial, I guess.
You know, Chuck, you're right. The Trial is a possibility.
The Prisoner With No Name reminds me of that terrific TV series starring Patrick McGoohan.which posed such fascinating ethical and philosophical questions.
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