Posts with the tag guantanamo

Obama Is Quickly Losing His Base And Noone Cares

Leo — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:32:46 EDT

There are mocking calls of 'Obushma' and the like, as more and more Obama decisions become less and less distinguishable from his predecessor.

http://www.truthout.org/062709A?n

Torture Prosecution Must Not Be Feared

Leo — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:12:06 EDT

Regarding the friendly disagreement between the Bard and myself, Bush and Cheney already enjoy undeserved folk hero status, and within the far right realms, they will always enjoy such status regardless of outcome.

I appreciate the debate.

The American Taxpayer Should Never Be Censored Period

Leo — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:01:07 EDT

http://www.truthout.org/061009A

I understand the arguments and how our troops in additional harm's way and additional stain to our national image at a time when we are just starting to recover face in the world's eyes does us no justice.

At the same time, this has to be addressed-

The American taxpayer paid for and is still paying for Iraq...

Why Support Obama's Betrayal?

Jerry — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:57:52 EDT

I am ashamed for believing that Barack Obama would actually keep his word. I am too old to plead naivety. I have too much experience in the real world to say I didn't know the game was played that way.

Obama promised to close GITMO, now we must pospone it!

Obama promised to end Military Tribunals, now he will revitalize them!

Obama promised he would end "Don't ask, Don't tell. Instead we are loosing top heros without any intervention by the Obama administration! An 18 year Lt. Colonel in the Air force, highly decorated hero, with a perfect record, will be kicked aside because Obama is not keeping his promise.

The press still loves him, but I for one will not spend money and effort to support "Politics as usual"

This is not the change I voted for!

I Agree With You About “Abuse Photos”

Andrew Bairnsfather — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:54:02 EDT

I have not read extensively about this issue or heard your comments.

But my first thought about people who want to see more photographs of prisoners being abused is, surely we've seen a representative sample of the awful things that happened. Aren't those who did it punished or in the process of?

I would say to those who want to see the unreleased photos, "use your imaginations sickos. Let those sitting in judgment (official judgment) have access to all of them, but let there be closure, and justice, to this episode."

By the way, how's progress on my list of suggestions going?

OPEN LETTER TO THE ATTENTION OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

SILVA Marc — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:46:40 EDT

Mr Marc SILVA Courbevoie, on April 15th, 2006. 92400 COURBEVOIE - FRANCE - Tél. : 06.XX.XX.XX.XX OPEN LETTER To the attention of the French and foreign Authorities

Subject : - Denunciation of STATE CRIME against the three members of the SILVA-MARQUEZ family: Mrs Marie-José MARQUEZ - Miss Elisabeth SILVA and Mr Marc SILVA.

- Demands of the opening of National and international inquiries and the revelation of the Secret Defence on the Leo BALLEY affair.

Dear Sir, Dear Madam, In the course of March 2005, I allowed to recommend you by offering to you, the reading of the book “LES PILIERS DE LA TRAITRISE” written by my sister Elisabeth SILVA, published by Les Editions La Lanterne, in Paris, real exhibit, which establishes the evident and indubitable proof of the attempt of crime against my family, in relation, with for backdrop, a classified SECRET DEFENCE affair, by the French authorities, which revelation is not apparently topical. Because of the obvious denial of justice, which continues, my present open letter has for end the demonstration of the truth on what it should be advisable to call now a separate State Crime. Refusing to give in to the fate and in the perspective of an inquiry led loyally and in any independence, I tried hard to collect new data, by the administration of material evidences, which come as a supplement to the book above mentioned. The check of the collected data should end to the identification of responsible persons, till this day, remained unpunished. I commit to it. I - SITUATION OF THE FAMILY SILVA - SINCE OUR RETURN TO FRANCE ON 11/02/2004 –

After a forced expatriation of my family, during almost four and a half months in England followed by an arbitrary detention in U.S.A., splendidly immortalized with courage by my dear sister Elisabeth SILVA, in a book which crossed the borders, the Calvary of my family thrown to the vindication of maffioso continued, from our return to France on 11/02/2004.

PART- PRACTICES RELATING TO MORAL HARASSMENT: Despite the work of undermining and the concentration camp practices of heroic American executioners from the prison of of York in PENNSYLVANIA and the state of extreme tiredness in which one, we come back to France, we had to undertook our fate. Very fast, the family grouping in the apartment of Courbevoie (92) was imperative in reason of the bankruptcy caused by contemptible persons.

At once, my sister and myself were gained by the consternation, when we notice the state of the mailboxes of our respective apartments, nevertheless distant around 700 kilometres, one of the other one. Both locks had been forced with the same savagery. Only the mailbox of my mother’s house located in Saubusse (40) had escaped any act of vandalism. For a very good reason, the owner of the house, without even waiting for the end of the lease had taken the decision, after the worrying missing of her tenant, to forward the mail to the local post office.

Armed with her only courage and strong of the only arms, my ruined family had to resolve to begin both moves of residence to settle down at home. The first pause intervened very fast.

And so by way of welcome, I acknowledged receipt of bailiff's act of command to pay five rents not settled. This act, beforehand drown up on 06/02/2004 at the request of the O.P.H.L.M. of the city of Courbevoie (Public House service Moderate Rents), will not miss to draw my attention.This date corresponds exactly with the day of our release from the prison of York in Pennsylvania in the United States by the American Judge of the Immigration Office of the Department of Justice (cf. my logbook of 06/02/2004) and with my return to England, according to the procedure of voluntary departure after the request of cancellation of political asylum.

With a single game of writing, the Bailiff crossed off boorishly the first date of the act to replace it by, that of the 10/02/2004, that is to say, the day of our booking of the plane ticket London / Paris. I clarify that this date also coincides with my last phone contact, from the British ground with the secretariat of the Prefect Mr. Roger Marion in Marseille (13), which I informed about our repatriation in France foreseen the next day and that, by our own means.

The Bailiff summoned me, by the aforementioned act, to pay the 2330,41-euro sum, within the delay of two months, as from 10/02/2004, and added that for lack of satisfying the present command, I could be there forced by any ways and means of law, in particular by the sequester of property of my active furniture. Besides, he reminded me the cancellation of the lease, which would be cancelled by rights for lack of payment of a single term of rent.- Cf. File OPHLM –Command of the rents - Page 17 - 19. Without even granting me respite, the 18/02/2004, the same member of legal profession diligently appointed by the O.P.H.L.M. of the municipality of Courbevoie (92), moved in my place of residence, supervised by two witnesses and by a locksmith, to proceed to the sequester of property of my personal properties to guarantee the payment of my debt. A report of sequester of property of furniture will be drawn up to me, wearing the sum to 2458 Euros, cost of the inclusive act. Despite the importance of the difficulties met and a non-existent level of resource, known by the General Finance, the administrator of the O.P.H.L.M, I shall be likely to pay the S.L.S. (Supplement of Housing Solidarity) for January and February, 2004, either, 179 euros supplementary monthly. From 24/02/2004, the Treasury of Courbevoie, will establish me a first schedule of due dates over six months, to settle the renting debt. I want, hereby, to return a supported tribute to my mother, Madam Marie-José MARQUEZ, who took from the beginning the control of the financial operations and set up a strategy of recovery. Moved by the energy of despair, my dear mother, recently retired, was going to push away the numerous assaults of the creditors, which demanded their part.In hardly one month, I settle to pay off, 61 % of this debt, namely, 1352 Euro. After, various initiatives of my own with C.A.F (Social Security Office) of the “HAUTS DE SEINE”, this welfare organization will eventually pay directly to the O.P.H.L.M. the 1347-euro sum, which will serve for discharging a part of my debts as well as the current rents. From April, I see myself reduced to the R.M.I. (Minimal income Insertion). It is in the same period that CAF will pay me an A.P.L. (Housing subsidy) and the 30/09/2004, my current rents will be up to date.From his part, the local commission of the “Hauts de Seine”(92) will examine with the biggest attention my file concerning the demand of Housing Solidarity fund. In support of the social inquiry, the members of the aforementioned commission will put the veto and that, despite the alarming precariousness and of the strictly observation of the law. Now, the article 6, the first paragraph modified by the law N ° 90-449 of the 31/05/1990 defines the criteria of eligibility in the helps of capital, which can only be based on elements such as the level of resources of the persons, the importance and the nature of the difficulties which they meet. The Commission of Excessive debt of the “Hauts de Seine” will conclude in view of the examination of my file deposited on 21/04/2004 to the Bank of France of Nanterre ( 92 ) in a " BAD FAITH " 29/07 of the same year. For the prescribed delay, I shall thus exercise an appeal against this inequitable decision with the T.G.I. (High Court Authority) of Nanterre ( 92 ).

To exploit my honesty, not possessing either very personal, or even motor vehicle, given up for lack of being able to maintain it, nor a bank account placed in a tax haven, I shall produce to the Judge of Execution, not the simple paragraphs appeared in the French media, but the long cuts putting in light the blatant abuses of a certain press at the mercy of the organized crime.

In view of following slanderous articles, inspired by a led astray police source, " Le Parisien” from 17/10/2003 titling " A runaway policeman " - ( 1 page); " Le Nouveau Détective " N°1101 of 22/10/2003 entitled " The strange missing of a policeman " - ( 3 pages), and to end the article "Le Monde" (2 pages), poured to the Judge of the Execution, Mr. Pascal LE LUONG, this one will declare "ACCEPTABLE AND VERY FOUNDED" my appeal exercised against the decision of the Local Commission of Excessive debt of the Private individuals of the Hauts de Seine, committee chaired by the Prefect of the “Hauts de Seine”. In any independence, the Judge of Execution, Mr. Pascal LELUONG will motivate his decision returned on 24/02/2005, in those terms: " … Mister SILVA seems convinced however to be the victim of neglects of his hierarchy which would not have insured his protection while he felt threatened. He reports moreover the proof that his name was quoted in the press, while during this period, he was up to the Central Bureau for repression of Banditism.In this respect, both articles, which he produces, evoke his participation in the arrest of dangerous delinquents. In any case, that his suspicions are based or that they result from his imagination, Mister Marc SILVA does not appear as a debtor of bad faith. In both hypotheses, this last one believed that he had to put his family safe from danger, by leaving the national territory, what entailed his revocation and consequently, the loss of his treatment. Mister Marc SILVA perceives a monthly payment constituted by 367,73-euro RMI.His monthly loads are estimated at a 634,28-euro amount, His debt amounts to a global 51.797,65-euro amount. He is in situation of obvious excessive debt. As a consequence, it will be advisable, to declare acceptable Mister SILVA, of his demand.” - Cf. File Excessive debt - Page 25 - 29. Nevertheless, during its session of 19/08/2004, the Housing Solidarity fund had required the admissibility of the excessive debt plan of the Bank of France before satisfying my demand. The members of the local commission considered, that I had to pursue the plan of discharge with my landlord and waited for the admissibility of the excessive debt Plan of the Bank of France. Now, my thin wages reached difficulty 367 Euro.Continuously, on 27/09/2004, the O.P.H.L.M. had seized the “Departemental Section” of the A.P.L. (Of the Local Management Equipment) for my back rent bordering only 30 % of the initial debt, with the aim of questioning my right for the A.P.L. As paradoxical as it can appear, the O.P.H.L.M. would logically have had interest in the fact that the A.P.L. continues to be paid so that my current rents should be settled. The O.P.H.L.M. of Courbevoie refused to wait for the decision of the admissibility of the Excessive debt plan of the Bank of France and for the help of the F.S.L. Unmistakably, the O.P.H.L.M. of Courbevoie, following the example of the Commission of Excessive debt and the F.S.L. both beaten by the General Council of the Hauts de Seine, chaired by Nicolas SARKOZY, will both have, adopted an attitude of systematic negation in defiance of the texts of law and the criteria of resource and that in resentment, of all the personal efforts harshly granted to adjust my delays. Height of ignominy, during this period riddled with pitfalls, Mr. Claude KUNTZ, first mayor deputy of Courbevoie and President of the O.P.H.L.M. of Courbevoie ( 92 ), had sent very quickly to my place of residence, for the second time, a Bailiff to come to notice the presence of two new tenants under my roof, namely my very dear mother and sister who did not still appear on my rental agreement.On the occasion of this fortuitous meeting, I invited this member of legal profession to follow myself up to the technical premises implanted on the landing, so that he notices by himself the state of the boiler room. On the spot, we realize together that a muff of a dozen centimeters connecting two tubes, was removed at the level of my installation. Furthermore, we shall observe with bewilderment the good connecting of the nearby columns and their normal functioning.The Bailiff having indicated me that he would draw up later a report on the subject of his initial movement, I suggest to him to tell there, at the same opportunity the report of hardship of heating.

During the next two rigorous winters, despite the payment of provisions of heating, a single apartment on eighty one, that holds the building, where I live, will be sporadically deprived of heating over long periods. Because of the fall of the temperatures, I was obliged to seek repeatedly technicians' intervention heating engineers with the guard of the building, Mrs D. (Phone. / 06. XX.XX.XX.XX), who, will scrupulously note on a register, according to her statements, each of my complaints.

Despite the numerous movements of technicians qualified from the DALKIA Company (located in - 13 rue de l’Abreuvoir in Courbevoie (92) – Sector Responsible: Mr H. - Phone: 06. XX.XX.XX.XX - Leader of operation: Mr L.), the interruptions of heating will multiply throughout both wintry seasons. It is to notice that, since my installation in this apartment since 1998, I had never had to regret a single incident. No rational explanation or report of intervention will be given to me by the aforementioned specialists, who won’t be sent by the O.P.H.L.M. anymore, at the beginning of the year on 2006, to insure this kind of repair. Information taken with the caretaker, no tenant of the building will have been entitled to such disappointments stretching over so long periods. New acts of vandalism, sabotages or simple misfortune ? Apparently, whenever the questions of interest arise, the lowness sublimates and marries all the forms, even the most degrading. Therefore, our family entry and settlement in the municipality of Courbevoie (92), will not be a simple sinecure. II – ACTIONS LED WITH THE PUBLIC AND JUDICIAL, FRENCH AND FOREIGN AUTHORITIES: Although the press plays an eminent role in any democratic society, it has to be careful not to exceed certain limits, notably aiming at the protection of reputation and at the rights of others as well as to the necessity of preventing the disclosure of confidential information. The grave negligence in the check of information, translates a blatant contempt for the research of truth and a hostile intention.This intention to strike a blow at honour and at consideration in these publications, more than litigious, constitutes an abuse of the freedom of expression characterized by a denaturation, a deformation of fundamental facts and an infringement of the rights of the person. No doubt that to serve the superior interest of the Nation, the control of the whole press at the top, give the measure of the importance of a sulphurous affair, classified in the National defence.- - Cf. articles: " Le Parisien", " Le Nouveau Détective " and "Le Monde" - Page 30 - 35. So, I attached the highest importance for the answers and others, sometimes edifying silences, which followed the sending, by registered mail, of the report drown up by myself, which drew the attention of the people concerned about grave police dysfunctions and quite particularly to the wide severely reprehensible contribution of French organs of press on international broadcasting. - To Sir, Person in charge of the High commission of the rights of the Man of The United Nations, Answer: " having examined carefully the contents of your complaint, I regret to inform you that the H.C.D.H. is not able to assist you within the framework of the affair which you evoked, for the indicated reason: - the internal, judicial or administrative appeals, were not apparently exhausted, and it was not demonstrated that these would exceed reasonable periods, or would be out of reach or ineffective. " - To the European Court of Human Rights, Answer: " I inform you that the European Court of Human Rights, sitting on 07/01/2005 in a committee of three judges (N. Vajic, president, E. Steiner and S.E. Jebens) in application of the article 27 of the Agreement to declare unacceptable the aforesaid request, the conditions put by articles 34 or 35 of the Agreement not being filled. Considering all the elements in my ownership, and as far as it was competent to know the formulated assertions, the Court raised no appearance of violation of the guaranteed rights and the liberties by the Agreement or its Protocols.This decision is definitive and can be the object of no appeal in front of the Court including the High Chamber, or another organ. You will understand that the Clerk's Office will not be able to supply you with the other precision on the considerations of the committee nor to answer the letters that you would send to it about the decision returned in the present affair. " - Clerk's Office Assistant of Section, Mr. Santiago QUESADA. - To Mister Jacques Chirac, President of the French Republic, Answer: " the President of the Republic asked me to answer the mail that you sent him on the 17/05/2004. I have to indicate to you that the constitutional principle of the separation of powers does not allow the Head of State to intervene in the cases recovering from the justice. " - leader Assistant of Cabinet, Mr. Gérard MARCHAND. - To Mister Jean Louis DEBRE, President of the National Assembly, Answer: " The President of the National Assembly asked me to inform you that he would not know how to interfere in a disciplinary procedure with which the administrative jurisdiction is at present seized considering the principle of separation of powers. " - director of Cabinet, Mr. Jean Louis Valentin. - - To Mister Christian PONCELET, President of the Senate, Answer: " I have to inform you that a procedure were in progress in front of the Administrative Court of Paris, the principle of the separation of powers forbidden the President of the Senate to interfere in this file. " - principal private secretary, Mr. Pierre ALLEAUME. - To Mister Joël THORAVAL, President of the Consultative National Committee (of the rights of the Man, Answer: " I received your mail of 19/05/2004 which quite held attention. Allow me nevertheless to remind you that the statutes of the C.N.C.D.H. do not give its competence to intervene in favour of the individual requests. The first mission of the Commission is to assist of its notices the Prime Minister and the Ministers concerned on all the questions of general reach which, concern human rights and humanitarian action. Accompanying document: list of associations. " - in charge of Mission, Madam Stéphanie DJIAN. - To Mister Pierre TRUCHE, President of the National Committee on Deontology and Security, Answer: " we cannot answer it on the bottom because the problems which you evoke do not recover from the competence of the C.N.D.S. " - general Secretary, Mrs Nathalie DUHAMEL. - To Mister Dominique DE VILLEPIN and Nicolas SARKOZY, successively Secretaries of The Home Office and the Local Liberties.- To Mister Dominique PERBEN, Minister of Justice. –- To Mister Roger MARION, Prefect delegated to the Security and to the Defence. Henceforth, physically present on the French ground, on 18/02/2004, I called the secretary of the Prefect, Mr. Roger MARION, to seek an audience from his high benevolence. (Reminder of the extract of my Log book of 22/10/2003 held in London: " initiate negotiations by phone with Mr. Roger MARION, prefect delegated to the Safety and to the Defence, which eventually invites me for an interview, on the French territory in MARSEILLE (13) or in the Pas de Calais (Dover) (59). ", the secretary of cabinet will inform me, by any means, about suites given to my request by this high authority. The propositions of negotiations with this high-ranking servant are not apparently any more topical. - To Mister Jacques KOSSOWSKI, Mayor Representative - (U.M.P). Of Courbevoie (Hauts de Seine) My transmission of report with the aim of the referral to the National Deontology Security Committee (C.N.D.S). In his quality of member of the parliament, he will pull no answer as an elected member. - To Mister Jean Luc GARNIER, General Secretary of the trade union ALLIANCE NATIONAL POLICE FORCE. In each of my phone calls remained fruitless, the switchboard operator of permanency would invariably announce me that Mr. Jean Luc GARNIER, regrettably inalienable at the moment, had received my voluminous file, on which my personal coordinates were heading represented. The civil servant regretted to announce me successively that the very media union activist, Mr. Jean Luc GARNIER was either in holidays, online or still in working meeting, but that he would have very certainly the courtesy to call me back.Despite my suggestions, it will not come at the idea of this majority trade union within the National police force, to seize the legal service to ask their lawyer to examine my situation and to bend over the reprehensible drift of my former police hierarchy. III - TASKS MADE WITH THE MEN OF JUSTICE: A/ SECTION - CONCERNING THE PRESIDENT OF THE BAR OF THE ORDER OF LAWYERS B/SECTION CONCERNING THE PARQUET C/SECTION / DECISION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT: Back from exile, on 11/02/2004, being neither lawyer, nor a jurist, I quite naturally turned to the justice of my country to ask to the jurists to undo the hank of this complex affair and to make stop the grave dysfunctions from which, my family suffers from now on more than two and a half years, in reason of a classified Secret Defence. I intend to obtain repair of the numerous undergone damages, which origin dates, as everything indicates it, to the classified rogatory commission Secret Defence of 26/02/2002 concerning the Léo BALLEY affair, for which my sister Elisabeth and myself had been heard by the Warrant officer OMER of the Brigade of Research of the Gendarmerie of Grenoble (Isère). Within any democracy, which respects itself, every person is entitled to the fact that her cause might be settled fairly, publicly and for a reasonable delay, by an independent and impartial court, established by the law, which will decide either on contestings on her rights and obligations of civil character, or on the soundness of any charge in penal case. On top, the law foresees that the customer has the possibility of being assisted by a lawyer, likely to operate everything to insure his defence. Being understood that this last one has no obligation of result but only best effort undertaking. A/ SECTION - CONCERNING THE PRESIDENT OF THE BAR OF THE ORDER OF LAWYERSFar from being at the end of my efforts, having suffered the refusal to insure the defence of my interests on behalf of a ballet of a dozen lawyers, according to the law and in view of my thin financial resources, the president of the bar was forced to appoint Mister Guy PECHEU to represent me in front of the Administrative Court of Paris in the affair, which sets me to the Home Office represented by Nicolas SARKOZY. Going against the rules, which, governs his profession, Mr Guy PECHEU refrained voluntarily to postulate for pleadings, forgetting the honesty, the loyalty and the diligence, which he was obliged to bring to my file. What led me naturally to exercise an appeal for neglect to his obligation of means in front of the same president of the bar of the order of the lawyers of Paris on 23/03/2006. - Cf. File President of the bar Page 36 - 65 B/ SECTION - CONCERNING THE PARQUET (PUBLIC PROSECUTOR'S DEPARTMENT) Naturally, afterward, every complaint will conscientiously, be classified without suites, by the persons, who due to their function are called to contribute to the truth. - Deposit of complaint to the public prosecutor near the T.G.I. of Nanterre ( 92 ) of 18/12/2003, for non assistance to person in danger and put in danger of the life of others.

- Deposit of complaint to the public prosecutor near the T.G.I. of Paris of 28/07/2004 for Violation of professional secret and defamation by one or several police officers who supplied the media with confidential character informations.

- Deposit of complaint with the public prosecutor near the T.G.I. of the Seine Saint Denis (93) of 14/10/2004 for Complicity by supply of means on behalf of journalists of an obvious violation of a professional secret by a police source against the director of publication of the daily paper "Le Parisien", Mr. Philippe AMAURY and the journalists Frédéric VEZARD and F. VIG. - Deposit of complaint to the public prosecutor near the T.G.I. of Paris of 14/10/2004 for Complicity by supply of means on behalf of journalists of an obvious violation of a professional secret by a police source against the director of publication of the weekly " Le Nouveau Détective ", Mrs Catherine NEMO and the reporter Michel Mary. The ex-Minister of Justice and Lord Chancellor, Mr. Dominique PERBEN, addressee of all the copies, will not show the slightest bewilderment on the differences between the Public prosecutor's department and the Judge of the Execution of Nanterre, Mr. Pascal LE LUONG. Concerning the works of press in cause. - Cf. File complaints - Page 66 - 81. - Cf. Notification of 24/02/2005 by the Judge of the Execution, near the Hight Court Authority of Nanterre ( 92 ) - Page 25 in 29. C/ SECTION - DECISION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT: Finally, despite the voluntary obstacle to the justice caused by the officially lawyer appointed by the court by the president of the bar, the examination of my report drown up in two parts (namely, 171 pages), as well as the numerous enclosed documents in the present Open letter, all sent to the president of the Administrative Court of Paris, with the aim of a reinstatement in the body of the National police force and especially of the seizure of the General Inspection of the Administration had to result, as a rule in a lawsuit to the penal, considering: - The material existence of the malpractices and cause-effect relations, between suspected persons and facts constituting the malpractices recovering from the obvious denial of justice and from the abuse of power characterized. (Cf. Complaints deposited in Public prosecutor's departments and decision of the Judge of the Execution of Nanterre - page 66 - 81 and page 25 in 29) The 30/03/2006, the Judge of the T.A of Paris will pronounce the REFUSAL of my formed appeal aiming at the cancellation of the order of 20/01/2004, by which the Home Office crossed me off with the National police force executives, for post desertion. - Cf. State progress file Administrative Court of Paris N ° 0408659 - Page 39 - 40. - Cf. Decision of the President of the T.A. of Paris, M.J. KRULIC - Page 167 in 171. IV - ANALYSIS AND REFLECTION UPON THE CONCLUSIONS OF the HOME OFFICE: - Cf. File conclusions of the Home Office - Page 82 in 96. " The guarantee of the Human rights and of the Citizen requires the police force. This force has been established for the advantage of all and not for the particular utility of those to whom, it is entrusted. " The article 12 of the Declaration of the rights of the Man and the Citizen who appears in foreword of the code of ethics of the National police force, always stays present in my spirit. The following observations have for purpose, to answer, in any transparency, the justifiable questions that each, can arise and will so allow to discover facts, which maybe had not held all their attention. At first, I attach a lot of price to indicate that in 02/03/2006, hearing date of the affair, which sets me to the Home Office in front of Administrative Court of Paris, Mister Guy PECHEU, the automatically appointed lawyer entitled to represent my interests, has made the choice not to appear and neither be replaced in the hypothesis of a hindrance.So surprising and grave as it can appear, Mr Guy PECHEU, especially refrained from applying in acts of procedure of which he was load, regarding his representative role. Not only, He hasn’t indicated me at any time the steps and the conclusions of the Home Office, but also, Mister Guy PECHEU refrained from drawing up any conclusion, in answer to those of 23/08/2004 defended by the Home Office. Consequently, I only notice these last ones on the hearing date further to the reading made by Government Commissioner. Deliberately, to the beginning at the end, Mister Guy PECHEU will strictly refrain from operating anything to insure my defence with the honesty, the loyalty and the diligence, which he was entitled to bring to my affair.On my demand, the President of the T.A. of Paris, M.J. KRULIC insured me to have noted my report and, in particular three newspaper articles, and invited me from the end of the audience to consult personally my file with the present Secretary in the audience, to take note of the conclusions of my lawyer, Mister Guy PECHEU. To my big bewilderment, the Secretary did not find track of the slightest conclusion of Mister Guy PECHEU. Everybody can agree, in any objectivity, that this unspeakable neglect in a written procedure, on behalf of a lawyer is inadmissible in a State so-called State under the rule of law. Obviously, this professional misconduct harms seriously my interests, and joins, once more, in the weft of the previous violations of the rights of my defence. - Cf. - extracted from my Report in two parts registered under N ° of file 0408659 - Page 97 - 104. At least, grotesque conclusions developed by the Home Office, brings out, that the opposition, instead of making amends and repent openly, persists and signs in its abuses of authority. Ministry of Interior will resolutely oppose to the fact that the consequent damages that I underwent, open straight ahead to no repair. Besides, the financial asphyxiation will become a reality by the complaint of my former administration of the received salaries, from September, 2003 till January, 2004.It is also advisable to raise, that during the statement of the facts, the demand of application of an administrative procedure of D.C.P.J., for post desertion, intervenes exactly on 16/01/2004.Indeed, this demand was fortunately passed on by the Central Director of the Criminal Investigation Department in the Management of the Administration of the National police force, in the daytime of my demand of protection and political asylum in the U.S.A, either on the 16/01/2004.The facts being enough eloquent, I shall refrain from adding it a comment. Without discussing, the Home Office declares unacceptable my request despite plethora of characterized malpractices recovering certainly from the PENAL, committed against me with complete impunity by a led astray police hierarchy, even when I was still in service. By supporting it in the report, I raised a non-exhaustive list of the acts of terrorism of State conscientiously hidden by the Home Office, namely:- A non assistance to person in danger, obstacles in the measures of assistance (criminal intention opposed twice, by the disobedience to manifestly, illegal orders on behalf of my former leader of group, very honourable Lieutenant Jean Maurice Bernard), perjury and false index cards of the D.C.P.J. and the General Information, defamations, affected the honour and the violation of professional secrecy on behalf of policemen with the approval of their direction, so stressing the put in danger of the life of a police officer and his sister Elisabeth SILVA with the complicity of newspaper journalists at their order by revealing, in the same time, my complete identity and those of two figures of the organized crime (Mr. Antonio FERRARA and Mr. Joseph MENCONI), So many unambiguous preparatory acts convenient to the realization of a well stopped criminal project. Seen what precedes, I have all the reasons to think that there is a correlation between the multiple aforesaid malpractices aiming at the preparation of the physical elimination and\or the excessive internment and the classified Leo BALLEY SECRET DEFENCE affair, for which my sister, Miss Elisabeth SILVA and myself were heard on rogatory commission, motive connected to the National Security. It is obvious, that the Home Office prefers “to open the umbrella” and to shelter behind the respect on behalf of D.C.P.J., of the formalities of the administrative procedure, by registered mail, at my last address, of formal demands to take back my service and of non-presentation to the summons, at the risk of radiation from the executives of the National police force for post desertion. To assume no responsibility in this State affair, the Home Office has the presumptuousness to call upon, one claimed turpitude, as for me. The small narrow-minded sentence is released, supposed to produce its effect the hearing date and to divert the attention on its own disorders, which ignore with balance the principles of morals and graver still violate those of the security. The Home Office, which cannot underestimate the rules of caution and security, chooses voluntarily to keep silent about the publishing of three noxious newspaper articles of nevertheless police source, protecting by no means the anonymity of a policeman appointed to an operational group of the Central Bureau for Repression of Banditism, until then irreproachable if we judge the notations and the successive and invariable appreciations from the beginning of my career until its term. - Cf. States of the services accomplished in the National police force - Page 105 - 121. Despite the settlements and the texts of law, this representative of Home secretary distorted the facts everywhere, soiling the honour of the National police force and consequently the image of the French Republic. This resolution planned to compromise me as well on a professional plan as to expose me to possible reprisals, engages the whole responsibility of the high-ranking servant responsible for the communication with the press both on an administrative and penal plan. On this matter, it is not useless to remind, that the specificity of policeman's profession led the legislator to introduce the capacities of strengthened protection, in the law of July 29th, 1881 on the freedom of the media, notably in respect for the anonymity. This Institution, even goes as far as blaming me for having leading a parallel inquiry on a missing little girl. On this matter, I allow to underline that the further inquiry asked by the Warrant officer of the Brigade of Local Research in Grenoble (Isère) on the Léo BALLEY affair, classified Secret Defence with the precious help of my sister Elisabeth, had not aroused on behalf of the Committing magistrate such a uprising of shield. As always, the simplistic arguments of the Home Office resist to no logic. In which measure, a possible headway in an inquiry stayed in the break-even point for several months, can be harmful? Finally, how not underlining the enormous contradictions raised in the strategy argument of the Home Office which, speaks about different informal contacts remained fruitless "to restore normal professional relations as from September 1st, 2003 " with an answer by fax to my mail of 04/09/2003 from Roger Marion, in his quality of prefect delegated for the Security and the Defence in Marseille. In the body of my letter, I expressly explain the case of major force, which urged me to put my family safe from danger from August 2003 and consequently the reasons which opposed the resumption of my normal professional activities at the conclusion of my annual holidays. - Cf. My report of 18/08/2003 of demand of moved closer protection sent to the Main Police captain of Police (Main superintendent), Mr. Christophe MOLMY - Page 122 - 125. - Cf. My Mail of 04/09/2003 sent to the Prefect - Page 126 in 129. - Cf. My report of transmission to the Prefect, Mr. Roger MARION - Page 135By the present document, I also want to evoke another crucial point, raised in my log book of 08/01/2004: - in his report dated 03/10/2003, the Central Director of the Criminal Investigation Department at the time of the facts, Mr. Gérard GIREL speaks about supposedly reasons, which led his direction, to open a file of missing case, concerning myself, with the Central Office of Worrying Missing Persons (O.C.D.I.P). From 20/08/2003, by adding, that I was the object of a registration in the File of the researched Persons (F.P.R). As " depressive person, likely to attempt to his life”. On the other hand, Mr. Gérard GIREL is well careful, not to mention the false index card of the R.G. (General Information) which, was delivered against me. From reliable police source, I shall learn that I became suddenly " a suicidal individual likely to go to the United-Kingdom, accompanied with his sister Elisabeth. ". Now, the establishment of this kind of index card from R.G. brings, as far as I am concerned, the following observation: - by leaving the postulate, that the files of the services of the General Information contains information on the major persons who can, because of their individual or collective activity, strike a blow at the security of the State or at the law and order, by the appeal or the active support brought to the violence as well as on persons who maintain or who maintained direct and not fortuitous relations with these and what of more these files contain the description of the persons quoted as well as the information on the political, philosophic, religious or trade-union activities of these last ones. In Which scenario enters Marc SILVA to have the honour and the advantage to appear on an index card of the R.G. established credibly in the days which followed my official demand of moved closer protection for my family and in particular for my sister Elisabeth SILVA whose mention " accompanied with his sister " is far from being a coincidence. The lies being added some to the others, in the paragraph which follows by the same report, D.C.P.J., Mr. Gérard GIREL does not hesitate to adduce: " since this date, his behaviour put in evidence the character very disturbed of this civil servant who during the next days attempted, but without succeeding there, to contact the people in charge of the television channel " LCI ", then to seek the protection of the embassy of the United States. "To restore the truth, so awkward, it is for my former hierarchy duly informed by official way, I must underline that the Main superintendent, Mr. Christophe MOLMY, person in charge in second of the O.C.R.B, at the time of the facts, despite multiplication of tracking, aiming to me as well in Toulouse region as in Paris region, escaped from his obligations by refusing to take the drastic measures of security which were imperative in the same circumstances, only because of the principle of precaution. Apparently not very worried about his staff, since the beginning, this department head will not alert the Regional Criminal Investigation Department service of Toulouse (31), about the potential danger incurred by a police officer confronted daily with the organized crime, and with the risks of reprisals inherent to the specificity of certain antiterrorist missions in support of the D.N.A.T. ( Antiterrorist National Division).For lack of police assistance and regarding the state of necessity, the 19/08/2003, I went to the office of T.F.1 where I was able to get in touch with a person in charge of the channel T.F.1, at the end of morning. It is in any transparency, that I evoked the interview granted by Mr. Antoine GUELAUD, who kindly handed me his visiting card. - Cf. log-book of 19/08/2003: " Mr. Antoine GUELAUD, journalist to T.F.1 (leader of the health / company department) receives us together with three co-workers. Documents in the support, submit him the result of our steps, begun about the missing child, Estelle MOUZIN and the form of the events because of the reference to the file of the child Léo BALLEY, classified SECRET DEFENCE. " - Cf. - photocopy Mr. Antoine GUELAUD's visiting card / T.F.1 - Page 133. V - RESULT AND EXPECTATIONS: In the management of this scandalous affair of state, everything indicates that the successive waiting-game of Mr. Jean Pierre RAFFARIN and Mr Dominique DE VILLEPIN at the post of Prime Minister, the dumbness of The Minister of Defence, Mrs Michele ALLIOT-MARIE, the guilty laxness of The Minister of Justice, Mr. Dominique PERBEN and the dominating role held by the Secretary of The Interior, Internal Security and local liberties, Nicolas SARKOZY, who seems to make it, a quite personal affair from the beginning of August 2003 till now, translate a will to damage remained intact. Let us note once more, that this illegal hardship of my freedom and those of my two relatives parents, also of French nationality and irreproachable, in the American prison, will not arouse the slightest hostile reaction of the duly informed French diplomatic authorities. As well the French diplomat, Mrs GREZE as the Minister for Foreign Affairs at the time of the facts, Mr. Dominique DE VILLEPIN, the bard of human rights if there is, known for his ardent diatribes, pronounced at the table of the O.N.U. against regimes little worried about humanist values, will not condemn the American criminal behaviour held towards my family and that nothing can legitimize.The free, independent and rightly, so-called, French press, defendant of injustices striking the French citizens illegally and arbitrarily, worldwide imprisoned, will be careful not to thunder against abuses of the American services, before and after the publishing of the book " LES PILIERS DE LA TRAITRISE " written by Miss Elisabeth SILVA and published by Les Editions la Lanterne. More annoying and more irritable, this sudden allegiance of circumstance, on behalf of a French government not denouncing the degrading and barbaric treatments of the services of the Immigration of the all powerful United States of America, violating as usual the international legal rules to the detriment of three French citizens, to the virgin police record, entered nevertheless regularly on their ground with valid passport, plane tickets, there and back U.S.A. / ENGLAND, documentary evidences of means of existence. This French pusillanimity will not miss to surprise, I am convinced, all the countries worried about the fate of their fellow countrymen manhandled outside the limits of their border. - Cf. Decisions of the American Judge of the department of Justice of the Immigration Service- Mrs Marie-José MARQUEZ, Miss Elisabeth SILVA and Mr. Marc SILVA - Page 134 - 136. Besides, being deprived since the beginning of the informed advices of a lawyer, worthy of this name, I wonder in which measure, Home secretary, Nicolas SARKOZY, in his defendant's quality in the affair which sets me to the Home Office since 24/03/2004 in front of the Administrative Court of Paris, concerning the double contesting of: - my radiation from the National police force executives, - and of the refund of the received salaries, from 01/09/2003 till 31/01/2004, has the right, and it at the same time, to make insure the defence of the interests of the company AXA BANQUE FINANCING (applicant), which assigned me on 07/03/2005 in front of the Magistrates' court of Courbevoie, for a quite other affair of excessive debt, by the Company of lawyers ARNAUD CLAUDE - NICOLAS SARKOZY, namely the SELAS (Company of liberal exercise by simplified shares, created on 02/05/2002 by NICOLAS SARKOZY with ARNAUD CLAUDE). Is not there confusion of powers between the public service exercised by Nicolas SARKOZY and his private interests? Cf. Mail of 03/03/2005 of the S.E.L.A.S. Arnaud Claude and Nicolas SARKOZY - page 65.

These pernicious, despicable schemes at least of a candidate likely to preside over the highest fates of FRANCE, are rather revealing of the perversity and the determination of this former employer, author of moral harassment. Demonstration is so made, that this new exaction does not manifestly ensue from a frenzy or from a wrong interpretation or still a syndrome of persecution, as for me, as tends to demonstrate it, by the most despicable means the Home Office.

High-ranking French Servants not only exceeded the stage of preparatory acts and realized an attempt aiming to the execution of what we can call a State crime. These same civil servants did not withdraw voluntarily, however their black intention didn’t come to its term because of the evacuation of my family, at the last minute, forced consequently to a long exile outside France. The attempt of crime always liable to penalty, the abuses of power in any kind and the moral harassment, which preceded, accompanied and followed our exile, quite as the quite particular doggedness to deny, to repay justice to an honourable family, demonstrate the guilty intention to the end, of their inspirer.The political responsibility is exclusive, neither of the civil and administrative liability of the State, nor of the penal responsibility of their authors. Force has to remain to the law. I make the solemn oath never let subsidize a State Reason on the equity towards my family. Considering all the elements in his ownership, it henceforth falls to the President of the French Republic, Leader of the Armies, Mr. Jacques Chirac to assume his responsibilities and to condemn without concession crimes committed by his own camp. Nobody is supposed to ignore the law and the obligations promulgated by articles 434-1 (non denunciation of crime) and following ones of the Penal code who are connected with it. - article 434-1 of the Penal code: " the fact, for whoever having knowledge of a crime of which it is still possible to prevent or to limit the effects, or whose authors may commit new crimes which could be prevented, not to inform the judicial or administrative authorities about it, is punished for three years of detention and for 45000 euro of fine. " Nevertheless, presently, I can only obviously emphasize and notice the absence of administrative or penal penalty against the culprits, as well as the deep autism of the current French government. It is finally without real surprise that the 30/03/2006, the Judge of the Administrative Court of Paris will pronounce the REFUSAL of my formed appeal, aiming at the cancellation of the order of 20/01/2004, by which the Home Office crossed me off, with the National police force executives, for post desertion, decision, which will go to the same direction as the political interest.All the combined elements of proofs leads me to assert, in a irrefutable way, that the constitutional principle of separation of powers, which does not in theory allow the high public Authorities to intervene in the cases of Justice, appears as a real cheating. The force of the weak will have had no respite to display the range of all its low knocks and to concentrate its offensives against two women and a man. These abuses of authority always directed at a retired person from the Ministry of Education, at a young lady heard on rogatory commission in a criminal classified Secret Defence affair, which lent gracefully her help for a further information at the request of a director of inquiry, and at the former civil servant of the National police force, also auditioned in the same frame. So many elements, which will allow you, Sir or Madam, to better understand the inextricable situation, into which my family had been plundged, since August 2003, in defiance of all the national and international legal rules, abused in a shameless way, by high despicable State Representatives, who show all the arrogance of their impunity, soiling by their contemptible schemes, the honour of two superpowers, namely France and the United States of America. It would be an error of judgment to consider my step, as subversive. I intend to denounce the pervading hypocrisy, which consists in believing, that propaganda and manipulation do not exist within both aforesaid countries, which arise, shamelessly in champions of Democracy. Naturally, you will understand that I call, in no way, for charity or still for solidarity, but for the application strictly speaking of the law, both on the national stage and international.Numerous texts of law arrange, that the citizens of the world are held multiple obligations in which they cannot escape at the risk of being punished. The same texts of law also impose on the public authorities to guarantee the fundamental rights of every individual placed under their responsibility. Consequently, the grave neglects in their duty, notably on behalf of the political authorities supposed to show the example on the base and specially appointed by the people for that purpose, must also be punished and not only during the elections. So, in the name of my family, in the name of the law for a fair justice, I consider necessary to remind to, both culprits States, so on one hand, the real courage consists in looking for the truth then in crying it out loud and clear, and on the other hand, that they have the duty to condemn resolutely, not only crimes committed by their own camp, but also those committed by the other countries, as well as acts of terrorism of State, in the same way as crimes of hurts humanity, instead of adopting the little glorious strategies to disregard the reality, by cowardice, accommodation even calculation, or still to devilish systematically the opponent. Despite the quasi-general renunciation, I still have the weakness or the naivety to believe that an inquiry led in any independence in France and\or still by O.N.U., will raise the lead screed which always presses on this taboo subject, for which we look by all the means to cover up. Otherwise, it would mean for me, that France under Mr. Jacques Chirac presidency, as U.S.A. chaired by Mr. George W. Bush reached the zero degree of Democracy, and that, with complete impunity, in defiance of the national, international law and the other rights of The Man and of The Citizen about whom, we speak so much, quite rightly. It is true, that the value of an individual or of a State, confronts in his righteousness and in his courage, and that in all respects. Finally, I indeed want to express all my gratitude to the politics and others, French and foreign personalities, who had the courage to reply to my sister Elisabeth SILVA, further to the sending of her book “LES PILIERS DE LA TRAITRISE” published by les Editions La Lanterne.- Cf. Book cover and distribution - Page 137 – 141: - to the various French political representatives, - to the French and foreign personalities, - to the foreign embassies in France,- To the French and foreign media. - Cf. Answers V.I.P. - page 142 in 163. In the name of the demonstration of the truth and of an impartial justice, I exhort you to make circulate this present Open letter, to make the light on the deliberated censorship Law. In your quality of spokesperson, it is up to you to assail the guilty silence, to denounce, according to the law this Crime and to attend to protect the right to life, in dignity and security. So that nobody ignores the unacceptable bottoms of this scandalous French-American affair. Yours faithfully, The French citizen, Mr. Marc SILVA

Atas Nama HAM, Salah Alamat Jika Obama Disalahkan Soal Teknik Integorasi Tangani Terorisme Yang Membuat Nilai Hukum & HAM Seakan “Tetanus” Di Era Bush

Mega Simarmata — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 07:41:10 EDT

DIMUAT DI WWW.KATAKAMI.COM & WWW.REDAKSIKATAKAMI.WORDPRESS.COM

Jakarta 18 April 2009 (KATAKAMI) Kadang-kadang, ada manusia yang sulit untuk membaca tanda-tanda perubahan zaman yang arahnya sudah begitu positif dan sangat pantas dihargai.

Radio BBC London memberitakan tentang diumbarnya rasa kecewa kelompok HAM tertentu kepada Presiden AS Barack Obama yang dinilai enggan mengadili agen-agen rahasia Dinas Intelijen AS (CIA) karena menggunakan teknik integorasi yang kejam sepanjang era kepemimpinan Presiden BUSH.

Kita simak dulu berita selengkapnya dari Radio BBC London :

16 April, 2009 - Published 20:58 GMT

Obama membuat kecewa

Kelompok hak asasi manusia di Amerika Serikat menyatakan kecewa bahwa agen CIA tidak akan diadili dalam soal teknik interogasi di masa Bush.

Para pegiat menyambut baik keputusan Gedung Putih menerbitkan rincian teknik interogasi yang sekarang sudah dilarang oleh Presiden Barack Obama.

Namun kelompok hak asasi mengatakan keputusan untuk tidak mengadili para agen itu merupakan kegagalan menegakkan hukum di negara tersebut.

Yang lainnya membela dengan mengatakan integorasi itu telah membuat Amerika Serikat lebih aman.

Mantan ketua CIA, Michael Hayden, yang menjalankan badan tersebut di bawah kepemimpinan Bush mengatakan langkah Gedung Putih ini akan mengganggu tugas-tugas intelejen, dan membuat badan asing enggan berbagi informasi dengan CIA.

Penerbitan laporan

Sebelumnya, Amerika Serikat menerbitkan empat memo rahasia yang merinci alasan hukum untuk cara interogasi CIA yang dilakukan pada masa Bush.

Para pengkritik program interogasi itu mengatakan cara yang digunakan itu sama dengan penyiksaan.

Presiden Barack Obama juga menerbitkan satu pernyataan yang menjamin bahwa tidak ada staf CIA yang akan dihukum karena perbuatan mereka dalam program interogasi itu.

Sebagian orang di CIA menghendaki agar sejumlah bagian memo itu tidak dipublikasikan, khawatir kalau-kalau penerbitan secara penuh akan memicu gugatan hukum terhadap para agen rahasia, kata laporan itu.

Penerbitan memo-memo itu berasal dari permintaan kelompok pembela hak sipil American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Teknik kejam

Tiga di antara dokumen tersebut dtulis pada bulan Mei 2005 oleh orang yang waktu itu menjabat kepala Kantor Penasihat Hukum Departemen Kehakiman, Stephen G. Bradbury.

Mereka memberikan dukungan legal untuk penggunaan kombinasi berbagai teknik pemaksaan, dan menyimpulkan bahwa cara yang dipakai CIA tidak “kejam, tak manusiawi, atau melecehkan” berdasarkan hukum internasional.

Obama, adalah pemimpin yang konsisten pada janjinya. Ini yang harusnya sangat cepat disadari, dikenali, dirasakan dan diakui oleh rakyat AS sendiri. Walaupun bergabung dalam sebuah wadah kelompok pembela hak sipil sekalipun, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) harus adil dan cerdas dalam “membaca” bagaimana karakter kepemimpinan yang membanggakan dari Obama.

Memang betul bahwa berbagai tindak penyiksaan yang terjadi sepanjang masa pemerintahan Presiden Bush terkait penanganan terorisme, sangat amat memalukan bagi AS.

Itulah sebabnya, Obama menjanjikan bahwa jika ia terpilih sebagai Presiden AS maka yang pertama akan dilakukannya adalah menutup kamp tahanan Guantanamo di Kuba.

Dan apa yang terjadi ?

Persis di hari pertama Obama bekerja secara resmi di Gedung Putih sebagai Presiden AS yang ke-44, memo pertama yang ditanda-tanganinya adalah keputusan untuk menutup Penjara Guantanamo dengan kebijakan bahwa penutupan itu secara resmi akan dilakukan paling lambat satu tahun setelah keputusan itu ditanda-tangani. Artinya, Penjara Guantanamo akan ditutup pada bulan Januari 2010.

Kami menuliskan hal ini secara khusus lewat tulisan berjudul “Misteri Angka Satu Presiden Obama Yang Antiklimaks”.

Mengapa kami sebut antiklimaks ?

Ya sebab masa satu tahun itu termasuk sangat lama untuk dinantikan oleh para tahanan yang ada di Penjara Guantanamo, jika patut dapat diduga penjara itu hanyalah kedok untuk melakukan berbagai tindakan penyiksaan kepada warga negara asing yang ditangkapi seenaknya saja dan ditahan disana hanya untuk disiksa. Tidak ada proses hukum yang diberikan dan tidak ada juga akses apapun yang diberikan kepada negara yang menjadi tanah kelahiran atau tempat asal para tahanan disana.

Sehingga, keputusan untuk menutup setahun ke depan rasanya terlalu lama. Mengapa bukan menutupnya sebulan setelah Presiden Obama menanda-tangani keputusan itu ?

Bayangkan kalau dalam sehari saja, semua tahanan disana tetap mendapatkan penyiksaan fisik. Maka, mereka harus sangat tabah dan kuat sekuat-kuatnya untuk tetap disiksa selama 364 hari berturut-turut. Alangkah lamanya penderitaan itu.

Iya kalau misalnya mereka memang bersalah. Tapi bagaimana kalau mereka samasekali tidak bersalah ? Hak apa yang mau dikedepankan untuk menjadi pembenaran bahwa agen-agen rahasia CIA dan seluruh petugas disana bisa menyiksa warga negara orang lain “seenak udel-nya sendiri” ?

Tetapi, fokus utama yang harus dicermati disini adalah Presiden Obama menepati janjinya untuk menutup penjara itu.

Entah itu sebulan atau setahun kemudian, tetapi state policy atau kebijakan negara (AS) sudah dikeluarkan dan tak bisa ditarik lagi.

Presiden Obama tak berhenti sampai disitu. Ia membuka kepada publik tentang adanya memo-memo rahasia yang membenarkan dan menjadi landasan bagi agen-agen rahasia CIA melakukan teknik integorasi dengan cara penyiksaan fisik yang begitu kejam.

Secara politik, patut dapat diduga kebijakan pemerintahan Presiden Obama membuka rahasia era Bush kepada publik terkait kekejaman teknik interogasi itu bisa dipandang sebagai sebuah sign atau tanda kepada Bush dan jajarannya bahwa mereka punya banya kelemahan dan kekurangan yang bersifat fatal sekali.

Secara politik, patut dapat diduga Presiden Obama bermaksud untuk meminta perhatian dari seluruh perangkat yang bertugas dibawah pemerintahan Bush agar jangan coba-coba untuk membuat lebih banyak permasalahan yang merepotkan AS (terutama pemerintahan Obama sendiri).

Lalu, kalau sekarang Presiden Obama yang dinilai mengecewakan karena “state policy” yang dikeluarkan tidak mencakup proses hukum terhadap seluruh agen rahasia CIA yang melakukan penyiksaan itu, hal ini justru menjadi tanda tanya besar.

Lho, mengapa Obama yang dipersalahkan ?

Dengan menilai bahwa Obama mengecewakan karena tidak memerintahkan agar para agen rahasia CIA diadili, maka penilaian ini yang justru keliru dan perlu diluruskan.

Obama tidak mengecewakan siapapun, entah itu rakyat AS atau publik dunia.

Pasti ada sesuatu yang sifatnya sangat mendasar sehingga ditempuh kebijakan yang formatnya memberikan nuansa yang sangat “win-win solution”.

Proses peradilan yang dituntutkan kepada para agen rahasia CIA itu, tak mungkin hanya dilakukan kepada para agen rahasia tersebut. Tetapi harus terus bergulir sampai ke tingkat atas.

Bahkan, sampai kepada orang per orang yang menuliskan memo-memo rahasia berisi landasan atau menjadi pegangan bagi “aparat dibawah” untuk melaksanakan apa yang diperintahkan oleh atasan.

Bukan tak mungkin, proses peradilan itu bisa menembus ke Pejabat Gedung Putih semasa pemerintahan Presiden Bush.

Hingga puncaknya, justru patut dapat diduga bisa menjadi bumerang yang menempatkan Mantan Presiden Bush sebagai tersangka (juga).

Yang menjadi akar permasalahan terkait penyiksaan-penyiksaan kepada para tahanan di Penjara Guantanamo itu, sekarang sudah diredam, dikendalikan, ditekan dan dihilangkan oleh Presiden Obama.

Pelan-pelan, penjara Guantanamo akan ditutup.

Pelan-pelan, sambil menunggu proses penutupan itu maka seluruh landasan atau pegangan tertulis yang menjadi alat pembenaran terjadinya penyiksaan-penyiksaan kepada para tahanan sudah dicabut oleh Presiden Obama.

Para tahanan yang memang bisa dikembalikan ke negara asalnya masing-masing, sudah mulai dkembalikan. Lalu sisanya, dialihkan ke beberapa negara yang memang bersedia menampung para tahanan Guantanamo.

Kadang-kadang, tudingan yang asbun atau asal bunyi saja tetapi mengatas-namakan Hak Azasi Manusia (HAM), justru mengundang rasa prihatin dari publik dunia.

Apakah terlalu sulit untuk kelompok HAM tersebut untuk memberikan waktu dan kesempatan kepada Presiden mereka sendiri untuk membenahi betapa morat-maritnya penanganan terorisme sepanjang masa pemerintahan Presiden Bush ?

Jangan karena membawa isu HAM, maka dianggap sah-sah saja menuding Presiden Obama begini dan begitu dalam konotasi negatif.

Apa yang telah dilakukan oleh Presiden Obama selama 3 bulan pertama masa kekuasaannya ini terkait penanganan terorisme, sudah sangat baik sekali dan patut dihargai oleh siapapun.

Obama memberikan atmosfir yang kondusif dalam hal penanganan terorisme. Ia tak mau lagi secara bombastis mengumbang motto PERANG MELAWAN TEROR.

Obama tak mau lagi, atas nama PERANG MELAWAN TEROR maka AS memamerkan arogansi kekuasaan dan terus bertindak sewenang-wenang. Dan tindakan sewenang-wenang itu, patut dapat diduga ditiru juga oleh segelintir orang yang selama ini dilatih dan diberi kemudahan dalam segala peningkatan kemampuan diri masing-masing dalam hal penanganan terorisme di di negara-negara tertentu.

Ya bayangkan saja, sepanjang Bush berkuasa (pasca serangan teroris 11 September 2001 di AS), begitu atraktif dan agresif sekali terjadi peledakan-peledakan bom di beberapa negara.

Termasuk di Indonesia.

Waduh, seperti langganan saja. Periode 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 dan 2005 Indonesia terus mendapatkan serangan peledakan bom dalam kategori HIGH EXPLOSIVE.

Katanya sudah pada dilatih oleh AS dalam menangani terorisme, yang terjadi masalah semakin merajalelanya tindak pidana terorisme itu di Indonesia.

Yang mau dikatakan disini adalah Presiden Obama bukan cuma sekedar wacana dalam kaitan pemulihan metode penanganan teror yang sempat menjadi sangat menyimpang pada era pemerintahan Presiden Bush.

Ada “action” atau tindakan nyata dari Presiden Obama yang benar-benar sangat mengagumkan. Dia lakukan sesuatu sesuai dengan otoritas dan kewenangan yang dapat digunakannya sebagai seorang Kepala Negara.

Bagaimana mungkin, agen-agen rahasia CIA itu dapat diseret ke muka hukum jika ternyata pada kenyataannya ada surat tertulis yang keluar dari GEDUNG PUTIH berisi perintah resmi untuk menginterogasi para tahanan terorisme lewat metode yang kejam tadi ?

Para agen rahasia CIA itu tidak melakukan perbuatan yang menyimpang dari perintah atasan. Ya, mereka tidak melakukan yang disebut sebagai in sub ordiansi.

Kalau para agen rahasia CIA itu dituntut dan diseret misalnya ke muka hukum, maka patut dapat diduga para agen rahasia ini bisa berbalik menuntut jika ternyata tugas-tugas yang sudah mereka laksanakan dianggap sebagai perbuatan melawan hukum.

Lain halnya, kalau misalnya ada petugas yang berinisatif menyiksa sendiri para tahanan itu. Tetapi yang terjadi disini adalah kebalikannya. Ada perintah resmi dari Gedung Putih, lewat memo-memo rahasia yang dibongkar dan dibuka oleh Pemerintahan Presiden Obama.

Jadi, salah besar kalau dikatakan bahwa Presiden Obama sangat mengecewakan kelompok pembela hal sipil (ACLU) tadi.

Kami tidak sependapat.

Presiden Obama sudah melakukan hal yang benar dan terpuji. Ia justru harus didukung untuk terus melakukan PERBUAHAN atau CHANGE sehingga AS dapat menjadi negara adidaya yang sangat mengagumkan.

Jadi, janganlah ada yang asbun menuding bahwa seolah-olah Obama mengecewakan dan tidak memahami duduk persoalan.

Pahami dong duduk persoalannya. Sadari apa yang menjadi esensi dari kebijakan-kebijakan AS.

Presiden Obama , kini seakan menjadi sebuah alunan melodi yang terdengar indah di telinga siapa saja di belahan dunia ini, saat dengan kesungguhannya Obama membenahi apapun juga yang selama ini memang kurang baik atau tidak pantas untuk menjadi bagian dari sistem pemerintahan sebuah bangsa yang terhormat bernama AMERIKA SERIKAT.

Meredam dan memerangi terorisme, bukan dengan cara mengobarkan secara lebih parah mata api perlawanan dari pelaku-pelaku terorisme itu sendiri atau orang-orang tertentu yang berkedok sebagai “teroris” padahal justru berniat untuk “cari makan” atau menggali harta karun yang bisa dikeruh dari rusaknya nilai-nilai peradaban manusia akibat dihajar oleh kekejaman terorisme.

Tak benar jika disebut Obama mengecewakan.

Yang benar adalah Presiden Obama sudah melakukan sesuatu yang benar seturut dengan kebijakan negara yang kini dipimpinnya, agar kebijakan itu tidak menimbulkan guncangan stabilitas (terutama didalam negara mereka sendiri).

Ke depan diharapkan, Presiden Obama sungguh serius untuk mengendalikan sebuah perangkat didalam sistem pemerintahannya agar jangan lagi ada keputusan, kebijakan atau tindakan yang menyalahi ketentuan hukum atau aturan yang berlaku dalam hal penanganan terorisme.

Juga diharapkan, agar Presiden Obama sungguh serius untuk menggunting secara cepat kesengajaan pihak tertentu di berbagai negara asing yang sengaja mengeruk keuntungan dari kocek anggaran AS selama bertahun-tahun terakhir ini atas nama penanganan terorisme.

Singkirkan dan hindari semua benalu-benalu yang cara hidupnya sudah menggerogoti AS dan negara yang menjadi basis gerakan oknum aparat di INDONESIA misalnya, yang patut dapat diduga menjadikan isu terorisme sebagai komoditi dagangan dan ladang emas yang mendapatkan seribu satu macam keuntungan.

Dukung Obama dalam membenahi semua penyimpangan dan ketimpangan terkait penanganan terorisme.

Dengan semua respek yang kita punya maka ketegasan dan keberanian Presiden Obama untuk melakukan pembenahan yang bersifat menyeluruh itu sangat pantas untuk dihargai dan didukung sepanjang masa pemerintahan Obama.

You are the best, Mr President !

(MS)

MEGA SIMARMATA

Editor In Chief Of WWW.KATAKAMI.COM

http://www.redaksikatakami.wordpress.com

http://www.theblogkatakami.wordpress.com

Ode Untuk Presiden Barack Obama Yang Menghapuskan Motto Kalimat PERANG MELAWAN TEROR

Mega Simarmata — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 07:25:19 EDT

Presiden Barack Obama (Foto : Whitehouse.Gov)

Jakarta, 3 April 2009 (KATAKAMI) Selalu ada kejutan dari seorang Barack Hussein Obama. Ia sangat tak terduga. Benar-benar tak terduga. Bahkan dalam menjajaki tangga karier politiknya, Obama tak mau jadi politisi kejutan yang baru sibuk kampanye dan “teriak-teriak” berorasi secara dadakan hanya untuk untuk meraih kemenangan.

Semua direncanakan, dilaksanakan dan diupayakan secara cerdas Oleh Obama.Dan kali ini, ia mengambil sebuah keputusan yang bijaksana. Motto utama dari KABINET BUSH selama bertahun-tahun yaitu kalimat “PERANG MELAWAN TEROR” dihapuskan secara total oleh Obama.

Tapi, bukan berarti Obama menghapuskan konsistensi AS dalam menangani dan memberantas masalah terorisme. Yakinlah bahwa penanganan dan pemberantasan terorisme akan tetap dilanjutkan oleh Pemerintah AS tetapi sedapat mungkin harus sesuai dengan kaidah hukum yang berlaku. Tak bisa lagi semena-mena atau menghalalkan semua cara.

Dan penghapusan kalimat PERANG MELAWAN TEROR itu adalah kabar baru yang mengejutkan. Itu juga menjadi angin segar yang akan membawa dunia ke arah lebih manusiawi dan kondusif. Pasti, tidak mudah bagi Presiden OBAMA untuk mengumumkan kebijakan seperti ini karena bisa disalah-artikan. Tetapi ayah dari 2 anak ini berani mengambil keputusan. Semuanya itu, pasti demi bersinarnya lagi kemilau kedigdayaan bangsa AMERIKA SERIKAT yang sepenuhnya menghormati, mentaati dan konsisten menjalankan nilai-nilai Kemanusiaan, Hukum dan HAM.

Bayangkan, atas nama PERANG MELAWAN TEROR, Bush menghalalkan semua cara untuk melakukan invasi militer ke sejumlah negara yaitu Afghanistan dan Irak. Atas nama PERANG MELAWAN TEROR, Bush memerintahkan dibukanya Penjara yang patut dapat diduga menjadi ladang penyiksaan bagi siapa saja yang dicurigai AS sebagai TERORIS yaitu Penjara Guantanamo.

Tanpa ada proses hukum dan tanpa perlu mengikuti kaidah-kaidah hukum, ratusan orang diseret untuk dibantai disana. Betapa malunya AS, foto-foto penyiksaan itu bocor melalui kecanggihan teknologi. Dan tanpa disadari, kegarangan dan keganasan itu menimbulkan kebencian, antipati dan jungkir baliknya respek semua bangsa bangsa serta umat manusia di seluruh dunia terhadap AS.

Atas nama PERANG MELAWAN TEROR, Bush menghamburkan uang negara untuk membantu siapa saja dan negara mana saja yang dianggap bisa mengadopsi motto “PERANG MELAWAN TEROR” sehingga BUSH tidak “kesepian” dengan mimpi buruknya yang sangat berkepanjangan. AS seakan tersentak disaat menyadari bahwa negara mereka mengalami krisis keuangan yang sangat parah pada era kekinian.

Padahal jika BUSH mau atau bisa sedikit saja mengendalikan amukan dan gejolak emosi yang meletup-letup dalam penanganan terorisme, AS bisa berhemat secara luar biasa dalam anggaran negara.

Satu contoh kecil saja, saat teroris Hambali ditangkap di Thailand tgl 11 Agustus 2003. Kabarnya Pemerintah AS memberikan bonus uang USD 4 Juta untuk Pemerintah Thailand. Untuk apa ? Ya, untuk menjadi tanda terimakasih atas “keluguan” Thailand mau menyerahkan ke AS teroris yang berutang sangat banyak kasus tindak pidana terorisme di INDONESIA yaitu Hambali

Kenapa tidak diserahkan ke Indonesia, tetapi malah ke AS ?

Dan beberapa waktu lalu, kami coba untuk mempelajari data dan catatan di berbagai media massa. Proses penyerahan Hambali kepada Pihak AS menjelang akhir bulan Agustus 2003, terpaut sekitar 6 hari sesudah peledakan bom di Hotel JW Marriot Jakarta (Agustus 2003).

Kita tentu masih ingat kontroversi yang terjadi pada saat itu bahwa patut dapat diduga rencana peledakan itu sudah “bocor” duluan ke telinga Pihak AS sehingga pemesanan kamar dari rombongan AS dibatalkan menjelang hari naas.

Seandainya boleh ditarik benang merah dan dipertanyakan (walau sangat terlambat mempertanyakan hal ini), mengapa petinggi Anti Teror yang memang tahu bahwa Hambali adalah otak pelaku dan termasuk dalang utama semua aksi peledakan bom di Indonesia sejak peristiwa bom malam natal bisa “santai-santai saja” saat termonitor Hambali ditangkap ?

Padahal biasanya apa saja bisa langsung cepat tahu ? Mengapa bisa sangat kebetulan sekali, yaitu 2 minggu sebelum Hambali “dihadiahkan” Pemerintah Thailand kepada Pemerintah Bush, terjadi “lagi” peledakan bom di Indonesia ?

Yurisdiksi hukum dari penindakan hukum bagi seorang Hambali adalah di Indonesia dan agak aneh sebenarnya mengapa Thailand bisa dengan sangat aman sentosa menyenangkan hati Bush (tanpa ada sedikitpun berkoordinasi dengan Tim Anti Teror ?).

Sampai langit ini runtuh, Indonesia tak akan bisa memaafkan jika patut dapat diduga ada sesuatu yang memang sangat misterius dibalik peristiwa itu.

Dalam artian, jika patut dapat diduga ada OKNUM-OKNUM yang belagak tidak tahu bahwa “mangsa utama” penanganan terorisme di Indonesia sudah diciduk oleh kolega mereka tetapi belagak pilon saja agar berjalan lancar proses penyerahan itu kepada AS.

Jika Pemerintah Thailand saja dikabarkan mendapat dana sekitar USD 4 juta, patutkah dapat diduga ada OKNUM-OKNUM tertentu yang mendapat “angpao” juga agar seolah-olah memang tidak tahu samasekali proses tertangkapnya Hambali di Thailand karena memang sangat sibuk terhadap penanganan aksi peledakan bom di Marriot ?

Tidak ada yang tahu apa sebenarnya yang terjadi, kecuali … ?

Agustus 2003, setelah Pemerintah Thailand menyerahkan Hambali maka tidak lama setelah itu dengan bangganya BUSH mengumumkan kepada dunia internasional bahwa seorang teroris paling berbahaya sudah berhasil ditangkap.

Sejak itu, HAMBALI seakan menjadi “executive member” atau anggota istimewa di Penjara Guantanamo.

Dan setelah hampir 6 tahun mendekam disana, kabar terakhir yang beredar adalah pria kelahiran Cianjur ini sudah memegang paspor sebagai warga negara Spanyol. Selama berada di Guantanamo, tidak ada satupun proses hukum yang dilakukan terhadap Hambali.

Bahkan POLRI tidak pernah diizinkan mendapatkan akses untuk bertemu Hambali di Guantamo. Padahal Hambali adalah otak pelaku alias dalang dari sejumlah aksi peledakan bom di Indonesia.

Kabar tentang diberikannya paspor Spanyol kepada HAMBALI memberikan indikasi bahwa dalam rangka penutupan Penjara Guantanamo per bulan Januari 2010 mendatang, maka besar kemungkinan HAMBALI akan ditransfer ke Spanyol untuk menjadi tahanan di negara itu.

Saat ini, AS memang gencar melobi sejumlah negara untuk mau menampung sisa dari tahanan-tahanan Guantanamo. Sebab, sebagian besar memang dipulangkan ke negaranya masing-masing.

Patut dapat diduga, fakta bahwa HAMBALI adalah petinggi Al Qaeda Asia dan Hambali jugalah yang berada dibalik sebagian besar aksi peledakan bom (terutama di Indonesia yaitu sejak peledakan bom malam Natal tanggal 24 Desember 2000), tampaknya benar-benar menjadi faktor pertimbangan AS untuk tetap “menunda” mudiknya HAMBALI ke Indonesia.

Jika HAMBALI diekstradisi ke Indonesia, ia juga tak akan pernah bisa luput dari proses penegakan hukum di Indonesia.

Sebab, Hambali berutang sangat banyak kepada bangsa, negara dan rakyat Indonesia karena sudah meluluh-lantakkan nilai-nilai peradaban di negara ini lewat serangkaian aksi peledakan bom.

Kembali pada kebijakan Presiden OBAMA untuk menghapus kalimat “PERANG MELAWAN TEROR” dalam agenda resmi pemerintahan mereka dalam menangani sektor keamanan nasional atau National Security”, sekali lagi kebijakan Presiden Obama ini jangan diartikan bahwa AS akan berhenti memerangi terorisme.

AS pasti akan tetap konsisten untuk menangani tindak pidana terorisme !

Namun, konsistensi itu akan disesuaikan dan dikembalikan kepada “rel” yang sebenarnya yaitu melakukan proses penegakan hukum tetapi bukan dengan melanggar hukum itu sendiri.

Metode interogasi ala WATER BOARDING yang diadopsi PEMERINTAHAN BUSH

Contoh yang bisa diambil bahwa Presiden Obama tidak ingin ada tindakan yang melawan hukum dari aparatnya sendiri dalam proses hukum kasus terorisme adalah dengan dihapuskannya juga metode interogasi lewat cara WATER BOARDING yaitu menyiramkan air sebanyak-banyaknya ke arah muka (kepala) si “teroris” ke dalam air sampai benar-benar nyaris kehabisan nafas agar mau mengakui.

Cara penyiksaan yang tidak manusiawi seperti itulah yang dipakai oleh aparat PEMERINTAH BUSH selama ini dalam menangani orang yang dituduh sebagai teroris.

Hukum adalah hukum. Law is law.

Dan Presiden OBAMA menyadari bahwa penegakan hukum yang semurni-murninya adalah sesuatu yang mutlak harus dilakukan oleh kabinetnya saat ini.

Ambruknya derajat dan martabat AS karena beberapa tahun terakhir ini dituding sebagai negara yang paling keji dalam memperlakukan para tahanannya adalah buah dari motto kalimat “PERANG MELAWAN TEROR” tadi.

Contoh lain yang bisa diambil tentang kebrutalan terkait penanganan terhadap para tahanan (bukan tawanan tetapi tahanan !), adalah oknum Sersan yang akhirnya divonis pidana kurungan selama 35 tahun oleh Mahkamah Militer AS pada awal pekan ini. Sersan itu dengan “enaknya” menembak mati 4 orang tahanan di Irak dengan cara menembak para tahanan itu dari bagian belakang batok kepala.

Dan dalam kaitan misi pengembalian penanganan tindak pidana terorisme pada proses hukum yang “murni” di AS, maka kebijakan Presiden Obama menghapuskan kalimat “PERANG MELAWAN TEROR” itu menjadi sebuah tanda dan pemberitahuan bagi negara-negara lain atau pihak manapun (OKNUM orang-perorang) yang selama ini “tidak sadar” bahwa perilaku mereka jauh lebih buruk dari AS dalam menangani masalah terorisme.

Misalnya saja, ikut-ikutan juga menangkapi siapa saja yang dicurigai sebagai teroris. Main ciduk saja dan mengumumkan bahwa ia sudah menangkap teroris sekian ratus orang. Padahal belum tentu yang ditangkapi itu adalah teroris atau terbukti bersalah melakukan tindak pidana terorisme.

Tapi supaya kelihatan keren dan hebat dimata Pimpinan, Pemerintah Indonesia dan bahkan dimata Pemerintah AS serta dunia internasional, maka diseret saja siapapun yang bisa diseret atas nama penanganan terorisme. Lalu, langsung diumumkan kepada media massa bahwa orang yang ditangkap dengan nama si A, si B dan si C adalah teroris jaringan tertentu.

Padahal belum tentu demikian. Tapi tidak ada yang bisa memprotes selama ini karena seolah-olah OKNUM Petinggi tertentu dalam penanganan terorisme di Indonesia ini, yang paling berhak tahu dan menangani masalah terorisme tersebut.

Ingat, pembuktian tentang bersalah atau tidaknya seseorang yang bermasalah dengan “hukum” adalah saat majelis hakim mengetuk palu dengan memberikan vonis kepada masing-masing terdakwa (apakah terdakwa itu terbukti bersalah atau justru sebaliknya).

Jadi sebelum ada vonis dari majelis hakim, maka prinsip hukum tentang asas praduga tak bersalah atau presumption of innocent wajib dihormati dan dilaksanakan.

Bukan tidak mungkin, Presiden Obama saat ini akhirnya tahu bahwa akibat gembar-gembor dan perilaku yang “over acting” (berlebihan) akibat motto “PERANG MELAWAN TEROR” tadi, sejumlah OKNUM yang selama bertahun-tahun mendapatkan berbagai pelatihan atau bantuan teknis untuk meningkatkan kemampuan dalam menangani terorisme di negaranya masing-masing, justru menyalah-gunakan semua atensi, ilmu dan kemampuan yang didapatkan berdasarkan kebaikan hati AS.

Bayangkan saja, maksud AS sebenarnya memberikan semua bantuan itu agar dalam upaya penanganan terorisme itu bisa lebih tajam dan membuahkan hasil yang nyata.

Tetapi patut dapat diduga, ada dampak yang sangat fatal yaitu semua “ilmu” itu ada yang justru disalah-gunakan atau dipraktekkan kepada pihak lain yang tidak bersalah samasekali.

Entah itu jenis ilmu dan kemampuan teknis apapun yang serba canggih dari Penyidik-Penyidik AS Dinas Intelijen Rahasia AS (CIA) atau Biro Investigasi Federal (FBI).

Siapa bilang, semua ilmu dan kemampuan teknis itu tidak mungkin disalah-gunakan ?

Segala sesuatu mungkin saja dilakukan dan patut dapat diduga di Indonesia inipun penyalah-gunakan itu ada dilakukan oleh OKNUM orang per orang (sekali lagi, yang patut dapat diduga menyalah-gunakan itu adalah OKNUM yang merasa paling jago dalam hal penanganan terorisme di Indonesia selama ini).

Dilatih dan diajari untuk melacak keberadaan teroris menggunakan kecanggihan teknologi misalnya, entah itu dari alat penyadap telepon (intercept) dan teknologi pada dunia maya (cyber media) ternyata ilmu yang sangat “rahasia” ini malah digunakan untuk merugikan pihak lain yang nyata-nyata bukan teroris.

Privacy atau wilayah pribadi orang lain, serta hak-hak yang sangat mendasar dari warga sipil tak bersenjata, menjadi diobrak-abrik kalau misalnya patut dapat diduga ada OKNUM yang asyik saja menyalah-gunakan semua “ilmu, alat dan kemampuan teknisnya” selama ini yang diperoleh dari Pihak AS.

Apalagi karena pembuktian dari semua “kejahatan siluman” bersifat sangat absurd dan memang sulit pembuktiannya di lapangan, maka patut dapat diduga merajalela semua penyalah-gunaan itu dalam aplikasinya pada kehidupan sehari-hari.

Yang repotnya lagi, atas nama penanganan terorisme dan predikat sebagai pelaku-pelaku gerakan intelijen maka patut dapat diduga OKNUM-OKNUM yang memang memiliki akses penyadapan dan kecanggihan teknologi untuk sektor keamanan nasional akan saling menjegal dan saling meniru dalam hal melakukan perbuatan melawan hukum karena didorong rasa rivalitas yang sangat tinggi.

Tidak ada yang menjamin bahwa semua perangkat penyadapan dan kecanggihan teknologi itu digunakan secara baik dan benar !

Tidak ada pengawasan yang bisa dipertanggung-jawabkan secara hukum karena masing-masing kubu tak akan pernah bisa diakses oleh pihak luar yang punya otoritas hukum melakukan penindakan jika itu menyalahi aturan perundang-undangan !

Sehingga, patut dapat diduga dibebaskannya OKNUM-OKNUM menggunakan semua itu seenaknya sendiri tanpa ada pengawasan yang ketat, bisa membuka peluang bagi terciptanya proses kudeta atau perbuatan melawan hukum lainnya dengan dibantu peralatan penyadapan dan kecanggihan teknologi yang dibeli sangat mahal oleh negara untuk penanganan terorisme.

AS, terutama Presiden OBAMA, tentu sekarang merasa bersalah jika patut dapat diduga ada penyalah-gunaan ilmu dan peralatan penanganan anti teror di negara-negara lain yang dalam masa keemasan prinsip PERANG MELAWAN TEROR, diberi keutamaan dan fasilitas dalam menyerap ilmu dan bergelimpangannya “dolar” dari kabinet BUSH dalam upaya memberantas tindak pidana terorisme.

AS, terutama Presiden OBAMA, tentu merasa bersalah juga jika akhirnya bangsanya sendiri yang bangkrut karena selama bertahun-tahun lamanya memposisikan diri seperti “sinterklas” yang mudah memberikan dan membantu apa saja tanpa ada batasan limit.

Padahal patut dapat diduga, ada juga bantuan keuangan itu yang masuk ke kantong pribadi orang per orang yang terlibat langsung di lapangan dalam penanganan terorisme di berbagai negara.

Satu hal yang perlu dibuka misterinya kepada seluruh rakyat Indonesia adalah berapa dan mana pertanggung-jawaban dari semua dana bantuan dalam penanganan terorisme di Indonesia dari negara asing ?

Jika selama ini ada Petinggi-Petinggi Anti Teror atau Perwira Menengah yang mendapatkan pelatihan demi pelatihan, perjalanan dinas dalam rangka pendidikan anti teror atau hal ihwal apapun yang terjalin atas nama kerjasama penanganan terorisme (terutama dari Pihak AS), berapa nilai total dari semuanya itu selama kurun waktu 6 tahun terakhir ?

Rakyat Indonesia berhak tahu karena kebaikan hati Pemerintah AS itu diberikan dalam rangka kerjasama penanganan terorisme antara AMERIKA SERIKAT DAN INDONESIA, bukan dengan orang per orang.

Ini harus dicamkan baik-baik !

Sehingga, siapa saja yang selama ini menikmati dan mendapatkan semua fasilitas, uang, alat, pendidikan, pelatihan dan semua jenis bantuan dari Pemerintah AS selama kurun waktu 6 tahun terakhir harus bisa (dan wajib hukumnya) bisa mempertanggung-jawabkan semua itu kepada rakyat Indonesia.

Dan kalau mau kejam sedikit dan sangat tajam mengupas tuntas misteri aksi terorisme ini, patut dapat diduga ada juga aksi peledakan bom itu yang bukan dilakukan oleh kalangan teroris itu sendiri alias direkayasa.

Ini bukan mustahil sebab semua hasil penyidikan dan setumpuk barang bukti yang diserahkan misalnya, memungkinan oknum-oknum tertentu meniru gerak, langkah dan strategi kalangan teroris itu sendiri.

Hanya Tuhan yang tahu dan biarlah itu menjadi tanggung-jawab dari oknum masing-masing antara diri mereka kepada Sang Pencipta jika ternyata hal semacam ini ada terjadi di belahan dunia ini.

Sketsa wajah oknum perwira tinggi yang patut dapat diduga meloloskan ALI IMRON agar tidak terkena mati, lalu pura-pura dipinjam dari LP Krobokan Bali dari mulai tahun 2003 sampai saat ini. Bahkan, patut dapat diduga mendanai ALI IMRON hidup berkemewahan dari hotel ke hotel dan apartemen mewah, serta membuatkan buku memoar serba luks untuk ALI IMRON. Ada apa sebenarnya antara oknum perwira tinggi ini dengan JARINGAN TERORISME ?

Lalu, satu hal yang perlu disampaikan kepada Presiden OBAMA, apakah AS bisa memahami dan menerima dengan lapang dada bahwa anggaran keuangan negara mereka yang selama ini diberikan kepada INDONESIA dalam penanganan terorisme, berjalan dengan timpang dalam kasus peminjaman terpidana ALI IMRON ?

Terpidana kasus Bom Bali I ini, bisa luput dari vonis mati hanya karena dianggap bisa bekerjasama. Lalu, ia mendapatkan vonis pidana kurungan (penjara) seumur hidup. Tapi apa yang terjadi ?

Ali Imron, dipinjam dari LP Krobokan sejak ia menerima vonis dari majelis hakim tahun 2003 dan tidak pernah lagi dikembalikan ke penjara. Teroris yang merupakan pelaku utama dari Bom Bali I ini justru dibiayai oleh OKNUM Petinggi Anti Teror untuk hidup serba mewah dan dibuatkan buku otobigrafi yang sangat lux.

Apa yang bisa dibanggakan dari tindakan OKNUM Petinggi Anti Teror yang seperti ini ? Sangat memalukan ! Benar-benar memalukan dan keterlaluan.

Kalau misalnya sekarang, rakyat AS tahu bahwa dana yang digelontorkan oleh negara mereka untuk penanganan terorisme di Indonesia ini, justru dinikmati juga oleh seorang teroris paling “berbahaya” yaitu hidup berkemewahan dengan fasilitas penuh yang sempurna ?

Dimana konsistensi dari penegakan hukum karena korban yang masih hidup dari peledakan BOM BALI I saja, sampai saat ini banyak yang harus hidup menderita dalam keadaan cacat permanen ?

Sementara Ali Imron, ia berleha-leha bagaikan konglomerat muda yang serba bergelimpangan harta.

Tahukah Presiden OBAMA bahwa tindakan semacam ini yaitu kesewenang-wenangan dengan memberikan kemewahan dan kebebasan yang absolut kepada teroris sekotor Ali Imron ini adalah sebuah bentuk pengingkaran dan pengkhianatan terhadap misi penanganan terorisme ?

Ali Imron harus dikembalikan ke dalam penjara, tidak bisa tidak !

Kalau perlu, Petinggi Anti Teror yang selama ini seenaknya saja menggunakan keuangan negara atau bantuan dari negara lain untuk membiayai teroris Ali Imron hidup berkemewahan harus diseret ke muka hukum untuk mempertanggung-jawabkan tindakannya yang sangat memalukan Indonesia. Jangan bicara soal keberhasilan penanganan terorisme kalau teroris yang harusnya bertanggung-jawab terhadap kasus Bom Bali I saja, justru dibiayai hidup berkemewahan.

Ada apa dibalik semuanya itu ?

Bahkan sudah saatnya, KABINET OBAMA menelusuri hal ini, yaitu apakah ada dana bantuan dari AS yang disalah-gunakan untuk membiayai hidup Ali Imron secara berkemewahan !

Dan Presiden OBAMA perlu “memasang mata dan telinga” dari Pemerintahan yang dipimpinnya saat ini apakah patut dapat ddiuga ada OKNUM tertentu yang selama bertahun-tahun ini mendapatkan bantuan dari AS dalam menangani terorisme, menjadi milyuner atau bahkan triyuner dari hasil komiditi dagang di bidang penanganan terorisme ?

Semua mungkin saja terjadi ! Dan karena belum terbongkar maka rakyat Indonesia belum tahu apa sebenarnya yang terjadi

Tragedi serangan 11 September 2001 di AS, sebuah tragedi kemanusiaan yang sangat memilukan hati dan memprihatinkan. Tak cuma bagi AS, tapi bagi bangsa-bangsa didunia

Dibalik keputusan Presiden Obama untuk menutup Penjara Guantanamo dan meluruskan penanganan terorisme itu sendiri agar sesuai dengan kaidah hukum, maka tampaklah keseriusan KABINET OBAMA untuk melakukan hal-hal yang memang semestinya dilakukan selama ini.

Dan semua pihak harus menghargai niat baik dari Presiden OBAMA.

AS tak akan pernah mungkin menghapuskan sejarah kelam terkait Tragedi Serangan 11 September 2001. Serangan itu adalah aksi teror yang paling biadab dan sangat “tak termaafkan” sebenarnya. Tetapi tak ada negara manapun di dunia ini yang bisa dibiarkan main hakim sendiri atau menerapkan hukum rimba di negara mereka.

Hukum adalah hukum. Law is Law.

Penanganan terhadap tindak pidana terorisme memang harus tetap dilanjutkan dan diteruskan.

Ini tidak boleh berhenti hanya sampai disini. Kewaspadaan tetap harus dilakukan karena sedikit saja lengah maka kalangan teroris yang sedang “tiarap” itu bisa kumat sakit moralnya.

Kerjasama antara AS dan negara-negara manapun di dunia ini dalam penanganan terorisme juga harus tetap dilanjutkan dan diteruskan. Tetapi, jangan lagi dibuat sangat absolut atau tidak terbatas. Semua harus terukur, terarah dan bisa dipertanggung-jawabkan.

AS, khususnya Presiden OBAMA, juga harus menertibkan berbagai ilmu atau produk apapun yang selama bertahun-tahun lamanya disebar atau diberikan ke sejumlah pihak dalam misi PERANG MELAWAN TEROR tadi, tetapi terindikasi telah disalah-gunakan.

Harus ada terobosan yang sifatnya tertib hukum dalam penggunaan ilmu atau produk apapun yang berasal dari AS untuk penanganan terorisme yang disalah-gunakan tadi.

Sebab, jika patut dapat diduga ada pihak tertentu atau OKNUM tertentu orang perorang yang menyalah-gunakannya kepada warga sipil tak bersenjata (padahal AS mentransfer ilmu dan memberikan bantuan material apapun juga untuk penanganan terorisme), maka penyimpangan ini sangat layak dikategorikan sebagai kejahatan terhadap kemanusiaan.

Dalam hal itulah, AS harus mulai melacak secara cermat dan seksama, apakah memang ada hal-hal semacam ini terjadi di mana saja !

Harus Presiden OBAMA yang memberikan perintah langsung tentang penertiban semua itu agar seluruh perangkat dibawahnya tunduk dan patuh kepada perintah kepala negara negara.

Dengan demikian, akan mudah melakukan penelusuran dan pembuktian terhadap semua penyimpangan atau penyalah-gunaan itu.

Menteri Luar Negeri Hillary Clinton

Berbicara di Den Haag (Belanda), pengumuman tentang penghapuskan kalimat atau motto “PERANG MELAWAN TEROR” tadi disampaikan Menteri Luar Negeri AS Hillary Clinton.

Peran Hillary juga pasti ada dalam misi pelurusan kembali penanganan terhadap terorisme ini.

Menurutnya, Pemerintahan Bush yang telah digantikan oleh Presiden Obama memutuskan penghapusan frasa penggunaan kalimat “PERANG MELAWAN TEROR” antara lain karena dijadikan alat pembenaran untuk melakukan intervensi ke Irak dan pemenjaraan tahanan tersangka pelaku teror di Guantanamo, Kuba, dan banyak penjara rahasia CIA di luar negeri.

Tentu Indonesia juga harus menyambut baik kebijakan ini. Semoga saja, ini akan membawa dunia ke arah yang lebih baik.

Tetapi, pasca diberlakukannya kebijakan ini maka yang perlu diwaspadai bersama adalah dampaknya. Entah dari kalangan teroris itu sendiri, atau dari OKNUMtertentu yang merasa kehilangan “lahan rezeki nomplok” karena patut dapat diduga sudah terlanjur menjadikan isu terorisme menjadi “komoditi dagang”.

Jangan diberi ampun kepada siapa saja yang mencoba untuk bermain-main dengan keselamatan, keamanan dan ketentraman dunia. Tapi jangan dibiarkan ada yang bermain-main dengan segala arogansi penuh rekayasa.

Presiden Obama sekeluarga

Ode adalah sebuah nyanyian tentang penghargaan dan pujian kepada seseorang yang telah melakukan sesuatu yang baik.

Dalam hal ini, Presiden Obama dengan sangat bijaksana telah melakukan terobosan yang niscaya akan membantu secara sungguh-sungguh membawa dunia ke arah yang jauh lebih baik.

Thank you very much, Mr President !

(MS)

MEGA SIMARMATA

Editor In Chief Of KATAKAMI.COM (Indonesia)

Misteri Angka Satu Dari Presiden Barack Obama Yang Anti Klimaks

Mega Simarmata — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 07:07:33 EDT

JAKARTA 27 JANUARI 2009 (KATAKAMI) Kalau dalam budaya di Indonesia, ada sebagian masyarakat yang sungguh menghargai penting atau makna “ANGKA” dalam menentukan segala sesuatu.

Sebutlah misalnya dalam menentukan tanggal pelaksanaan sebuah kegiatan penting. Itu sebabnya dikenal istilah, “Hari Baik, Bulan Baik”.

Masih berkaitan dengan angka juga, kadang ada yang merasa penasaran dan percaya tentang adanya angka keberuntungan. Akibatnya, muncul tudingan bahwa pihak yang seperti itu mempercayai klenik. Padahal tidak tepat jika disebut demikian.

Lalu, apa hubungannya topik soal angka ini dengan Presiden AS ke-4 Barack Hussein Obama ?

Dan dalam konteks apa, ada misteri angka satu pada Obama menyangkut GUANTANAMO ?

Pasti anda penasaran, ya ?

Kalau anda tidak penasaran, tidak akan mungkin timbul dorongan untuk membaca tulisan ini saat pertama kali membaca bagian judul. Barack Obama, punya 2 angka 1 yang penuh MISTERI terkait kamp tahanan GUANTANAMO.

Angka satu yang pertama cukup istimewa untuk Obama adalah ketika ia sudah langsung mengeluarkan kebijakan strategis di hari pertama dirinya menjalani tugas sebagai orang nomor satu di AS. Kebijakan yang memang dijanjikannya saat berkampanye.

Ia memerintahkan agar dilakukan penangguhan pemeriksaan penyidik terhadap para “penghuni” GUANTANAMO.

Luar biasa !

Walau Obama pernah mampir di Indonesia untuk bersekolah, namun kebiasaan buruk dari sebagian politisi tanah air kita yang cenderung “JUALAN KECAP NOMOR SATU”, ternyata tidak menulari Barry, nama kesayangan Barack Obama.

Coba saja kita perhatikan politisi-politisi Indonesia yang memilik agenda khusus untuk memperoleh suara dari masyarakatnya. Tak jarang, menggunakan metode kampanye ala “JUALAN KECAP NOMOR SATU.

Apa saja yang kira-kira gombal dan bombastis, pasti diucapkan. Yang penting, suara bisa masuk bagi dirinya. Akibat adanya kebijakan “One Man, One Vote” dalam perpolitikan nasional Indonesia maka godaan tentang “JUALAN KECAP NOMOR SATU” tadi dihalalkan saja. Tapi saat menang dan berkuasa, hanya lagu lama yang didendangkan penyanyi cantik Iis Sugianto yang berkumandang di hati rakyat yaitu “Janji-Janji Tinggal Janji !”.

Alias, kau yang berjanji, kau yang mengingkari !

Tidak demikian halnya dengan Barry, Presiden keturunan Afrika pertama yang berhasil menjadi penguasa nomor SATU di negeri adidaya bernama AMERIKA.

Inagurasi (pelantikan) Presiden Barack Obama

Detik pertama ia bekerja sebagai Presiden, yang menjadi prioritas adalah menginventarisir janji-janji apa saja yang sudah disampaikan kepada rakyat AS saat berkampanye. Dan, pendokumentasian seputar stok JANJI dalam kampanye itu memang cukup baik. Secara cepat, sudah bisa langsung didata daftar janji utama yang wajib dipenuhi kepada rakyat AS.

Salah satunya adalah janji untuk menutup kamp tahanan GUANTANAMO.

Tampaknya Obama menyadari bahwa GUANTANAMO akan terus menjadi benalu bagi kedigdayaan AMERIKA SERIKAT. Dan tampaknya OBAMA juga menyadari akan sia-sianya ia berjuang memenangkan kursi kepresidenan, jika tak mampu melakukan perubahan bagi bangsa yang sebesar dan sekuat AMERIKA SERIKAT. Pahadal CHANGE, janji tentang perubahan, dengan slogan YES, WE CAN adalah motto utama Obama.

Keruntuhan martabat dan wibawa kedigdayaan AS begitu drastis terjadi akibat kebijakan-kebijakan yang sangat tidak tepat dari Presiden George W. Bush. Kekejaman dan kesadisan militer AS dalam melakukan penyiksaan di Kamp Guantanamo membuat dunia menjadi “marah” sekali atas perilaku-perilaku yang tidak manusiawi itu.

Walaupun memang, harus dipahami mengapa Bush begitu “kencang” menghajar apa saja yang kira-kira membahayakan keselamatan AS dan pantas dijadikan sebagai musuh AS. Pasti, ada luka yang sedemikian menyakitkan didalam diri Bush sebagai seorang kepala negara ketika ia dipaksa untuk melihat bangsanya digilas dan dihajar sedemikian hebat sehingga menewaskan ribuan orang rakyatnya pada peristiwa Serangan 11 September.

Presiden George W. Bush

Bush, adalah Panglima Tertinggi Militer AMERIKA SERIKAT.

Bagi Kepala Pemerintahan manapun didunia ini, yang pernah merasakan dalam era kekuasaannya terdapat serangan terorisme (terutama dalam skala besar), pasti akan dapat merasakan betapa hebatnya rasa sakit yang menikam harga diri dan tanggung-jawab sebagai seorang pemimpin. Ribuan rakyatnya mati sia-sia. Dan Bush, pasti tidak akan pernah bisa melupakan sampai kapanpun juga setiap detail menyangkut peristiwa Serangan 11 September.

Bagaimana mungkin bisa terjadi, 4 pesawat dibajak di sebuah negara yang sebegitu ketat pengamanannya ?

American Airlines Penerbangan 11 yang menabrak Menara World Trade Center bagian utara. United Airlines Penerbangan 175 yang menabrak World Trade Center bagian selatan. American Airlines Penerbangan 77 yang menabrak The Pentagon. Lalu, United Airlines Penerbangan 93 yang menabrak tanah akibat perlawan dari penumpang untuk “membela” kewibawaan simbol pemerintahan mereka. Sebab, pesawat yang terakhir ini rencananya akan menarak The US Capitol Hill.

Paling tidak 3000 orang mati akibat kekejaman teroris pada Serangan 11 September.

Dan yang sangat menyedihkan, ketika satu persatu kesaksian yang pilu dibuka dan diungkap. Termasuk yang dibuka rekaman pembicaraan di kokpit pesawat United Airlines Penerbangan 93 yang jatuh di Pennsylvania, AS, sekitar 20 menit sebelum mencapai sasaran yaitu The US Capitol yang menjadi kantornya para anggota kongres dan senator. Tahun 2006 lalu, rrekaman pembicaraan dari kokpit pesawat yang membawa 33 orang penumpang dan 7 awak pesawat dari United Airline 93 diperdengarkan kepada publik AS dan dunia.

Sehingga, apa yang terjadi didalam pesawat Boeing 757 yang berangkat dari Newark, New Jersey, menuju San Francisco itu pun jatuh di Pennsylvania. Terutama, bagaimana usaha yang gigih dari para penumpang untuk merebut ruang kokpit dari pembajak terekam dalam kotak hitam. Sedangkan pembicaraan para penumpang United 93 ketika menelepon keluarga maupun kerabat disampaikan oleh keluarga dan kerabat itu sendiri.

Beda dengan di Indonesia ini, rekaman pembicaraan di kokpit pesawat Adam Air yang jatuh di Perairan Majene tgl 1 Januari 2007 saja bisa “beredar” kemana-mana, termasuk mengudara di You Tube.

Dan soal rekaman pembicaraan dari penumpang United Airline Flight 93, terungkaplah bagaimana detail kisah pembajakan dalam pesawat hingga rencana akan mengambil alih pesawat. Dan yang menyentuh hati saat para penumpang mengucapkan selamat tinggal dan menyampaikan atau menitipkan rasa cinta kepada keluarga dan kerabat karena menyadari akan segera kehilangan nyawa.

Pemutaran rekaman pembicaraan di kokpit pesawat pada detik-detik terakhir sebelum jatuh dibuka saat persidangan tersangka teroris Zacarias Moussaoui setelah 5 tahun tragedi itu terjadi. Antara lain isinya :

Tragedi serangan 11 September 2001 di AS, sebuah tragedi kemanusiaan yang sangat memilukan hati dan para pelaku serangan ini patut dikutuk secara keras

“Ke kokpit. Kalau tidak, kita akan mati,” kata suara yang terdengar dalam bahasa Inggris.

Lalu terdengar teriakan dan jeritan penumpang. Kemudian terdengar pintu kokpit digebrak dan dibuka paksa.

“Allah maha besar!” suara dalam bahasa Arab terdengar dari dalam kokpit. Lalu terdengar jeritan “No, No, No” dalam bahasa Inggris.

Beberapa detik kemudian… tak terdengar lagi suara dari rekaman tersebut.

Yang mau dikatakan disini, kondisi psikologis Presiden Bush yang sangat traumatik dan terkungkung dalam kemarahan abadi atas peristiwa Serangan 11 September itu. Tanpa disadari Bush, trauma dan kungkungan dendam abadi tadi sangat dominan mempengaruhi setiap kebijakan pemerintahan yang dipimpinnya.

Hingga akhirnya, pengaruh itu mayoritas berbau apriori, arogansi dan penuh kecenderungan membalas dendam.

Sebuah bangsa yang besar seperti AS dipermalukan sedemikian hebat dan dibuat hancur sampai ke titik nadir terbawah dalam hal moral.

Salah satu warisan yang ditinggalkan Bush dan Pemerintahannya akibat remuknya moral mereka adalah KAMP TAHANAN GUANTANAMO. Trauma dan dendam dilampiaskan di penjara paling menakutkan ini. Bush dan Pemerintahannya pasti tahu dan hapal teori-teori tentang luhung dan agungnya nilai-nilai HAM, moralitas dan hukum harus ditegakkan di muka bumi ini.

AS adalah negara yang selama ini merasa paling berhak menjadi POLISI DUNIA bagi negara manapun yang dianggap sebagai pelanggar HAM tak bemoral dan sulit mentaati nilai-nilai hukum.

Jika ketahuan ada negara yang seperti itu, dengan semua cara akan dicari dan diupayakan momen terbaik untuk menjatuhkan pemimpin dari negara yang modelnya “mbabelo” seperti tadi. Dan, Indonesia, termasuk korban dari atribut AS sebagai “POLISI DUNIA”.

Kalau sudah bicara HAM, AS merasa menjadi pabrik pembuatan KECAP NOMOR SATU DIDUNIA.

Dan siapa yang tak malu jika dirinya menyandang predikat sebagai warga negara AS, jika dalam beberapa tahun terakhir ini kecaman, tudingan, cibiran dan caci maki yang hebat dari seluruh penjuru dunia akibat parahnya penyiksaan di KAMP GUANTANAMO. Menunjuk muka negara lain dengan sangat garang sebagai pelanggar HAM, tetapi di muka sendiri terdampar kubangan bisul berisi pelanggaran HAM yang begitu sadis, tak bermoral dan penuh pelanggaran terhadap nilai-nilai HAM - hukum humaniter.

Sehingga, ketika Barack Obama menjadikan isu GUANTANAMO sebagai salah satu agenda terpenting yang dijanjikannya dalam kampanye Pilpres selama ini, pasti janji itu bukan untuk komoditas politik agar ia menang.

Obama, bisa jadi merasa malu atas remuknya kewibawaan, martabat dan moralitas dari bangsa Amerika akibat kebijakan yang salah terkait keberadaan Kamp GUANTANAMO.

Sehingga tak heran, kalau di hari pertama menjabat sebagai Presiden, Obama sudah secara cepat menetapi janjinya untuk “mengurus” masalah GUANTANAMO ini.

Lalu, apa misteri sangka satu lainnya dari Obama mengenai GUANTANAMO ?

Apakah ada yang tahu dan bisa menebaknya ?

Misteri angka satu pertama tadi - yang sudah dijelaskan di awal tulisan ini - adalah di hari pertama menjabat sebagai Presiden, Obama sudah langsung mengeluarkan kebijakan penting terkait GUANTANAMO. Ia memerintah penundaan penyidikan selama 120 hari bagi semua kasus hukum yang sedang di proses di GUANTANAMO.

Lalu, angka satu lainnya adalah, Obama memerintahkan agar dalam kurun waktu 1 tahun, Kamp GUANTANAMO ditutup secara resmi. Dengan tangan kidal, OBAMA menanda-tangani KEPPRES alias Keputusan Presiden untuk menuntup PENJARA GUANTANAMO efektif pada Januari 2010. Satu tahun lagi, barulah GUANTANAMO akan almarhum.

Yang bisa dikomentari disini adalah, untuk misteri angka satu yang pertama tadi, Obama sangat sukses memukau setiap orang bahwa ia adalah pemimpin yang menepati janji secara hebat, cepat, tepat dan akurat.

Namun sayang, keputusannya untuk memerintahkan penutupan Kamp Guantanamo satu tahun lagi, adalah kebijakan yang buruk dan sangat tidak manusiawi.

Tahukah Obama, berapa hari yang akan mengisi dalam perjalanan waktu satu tahun itu ?

Aksi unjuk rasa terus mengalir untuk menutup PENJARA GUANTANAMO yang dikabarkan melakukan kekerasan kepada para TAHANAN

Tahukah Obama, berapa jam dalam putaran waktu 1 hari ?

Sambil ia menikmati sarapan pagi di Gedung Putih dalam masa “bulan madu” sebagai Presiden yang baru, ada baiknya Obama meluangkan waktu untuk membayangkan bagaimana jika ia yang menjadi tahanan di GUANTANAMO sana. Ditahan seenaknya, tanpa ada tuduhan atau indikasi kesalahan. Disiksa seperti binatang, tanpa ada penindakan dan penegakan hukum bagi para penyiksa. Dihajar, dibuat menjadi “berdarah-darah” dan bahkan ada yang ke hadapannya disorongkan moncong anjing pelacak piaraan militer AS.

Lalu, apa jaminan bahwa perintah Obama agar seluruh penyiksaan dituruti dengan cepat di GUANTANAMO ?

Petugas dan Pejabat yang secara teknis ada di tahanan itu, pasti masih dikuasai oleh orang-orang yang sudah bercokol sejak era Pemerintahan Bush. OBAMA hanya “bersuara” dari Gedung Putih. Walau media massa di seluruh dunia menyiarkan kebijakan OBAMA soal Guantanamo, belum tentu penyiksaan terhadap seluruh tahanan di GUANTANAMO dihentikan seketika ini juga.

Itu makanya, Obama perlu membayangkan bahwa sakit dan mengerikan rasanya jika disiksa secara fisik dan non fisik selama satu jam saja. Tidak usah dibayangkan seandainya penyiksaan itu berlangsung satu tahun, bayangkan dulu jika terjadi secara non stop selama satu jam. Pasti, dapat dirasakan penyiksaan itu sangat mengerikan. Lalu, bayangkanlah lagi bagaimana kalau harus terus disiksa harus selama satu tahun ?

Ada baiknya juga, Obama membayangkan jika ia yang menjadi orangtua, atau saudara sekandung, atau orang terdekat dari tahanan yang ditahan di GUANTANAMO sana, tanpa ada bukti hukum atau indikasi perbuatan melawan hukum. Seperti apa perasaannya jika dipaksa untuk menunggu 1 tahun lagi jika memang ingin bertemu dengan orang yang mereka cintai ?

Apalagi, jika anggota keluarga mereka itu sebenarnya tidak bersalah tetapi dasar AS sedang “sakit parah” pada era Pemerintahan Bush, yang tak bersalah dianggap saja bersalah. Yang penting ada korban yang bisa dijadian pelampiasaan kebencian. Persetan dan masa bodo dengan semua nilai-nilai HAM dan hukum.

Tahanan Di Penjara GUANTANAMO. KUBA

Jadi, keputusan OBAMA menutup GUANTANAMO setahun lagi, terasa menjadi ANTI KLIMAKS. Tidak ada yang istimewa dari kebijakan model begini.

Kalau Obama berdalih, sulit menutup GUANTANAMO secepat-cepatnya. Omong kosong. Tidak ada yang tidak mungkin didunia ini, jika memang misinya adalah misi kebaikan dan kemanusiaan. Apalagi untuk negara sebesar AS.

Kalau Obama berdalih, sulit menutup GUANTANAMO dengan menukar angka satu tahun menjadi satu bulan untuk menutup GUANTANAMO. Omong kosong. Dengan kehebatan militer AS, termasuk kecanggihan dinas intelijen mereka yang selama ini terkesan paling canggih dalam menyusup dan ikut campur dalam masalah dalam negeri negara manapun di dunia ini, masak tidak bisa mengatasi kurang dari 300 orang penghuni GUANTANAMO ?

Harusnya, bukan satu tahun, tetapi satu bulan setelah Obama menjadi Presiden, Kamp Tahanan GUANTANAMO itu sudah harus ditutup.

Itu yang sebenarnya lebih tepat dilakukan Obama jika ia memang ingin membuktikan bahwa dirinya menepati janji untuk “mengurus” masalah GUANTANAMO.

Di GUANTANAMO ada lautan kekejaman dan kesadisan, dimana nilai-nilai HAM dan hukum tenggelam didasar lautan tadi.

Salah seorang tahanan di GUANTANAMO, Kuba

Seandainya saja, Obama ada dihadapan kami, maka kami hendak mengatakan kepada Si Barry ini, “Hei Barry, untuk apa alogan YES, WE CAN yang engkau dengungkan selama ini ? Buktikan dong, bahwa Amerika memang bisa melakukan perubahan yang dasyhat menyangkut HAM dan kemanusiaan. Menyelamatkan martabat dan moral AMERIKA sebagai sebuah bangsa, harusnya jangan tanggung-tanggung !”

Sehingga, semua orang yang memang sudah terlanjur penuh respek dan kekaguman pada Barack Obama, akan memuji kebijakan Obama menutup GUANTANAMO dengan satu pujian yang tulus yaitu, “Its Amazing, Barry ! Its Amazing, Man ! Its Amazing, MR PRESIDENT !”

Tapi, karena kebijakan Obama cenderung anti klimaks, … terus terang belum ada kata-kata yang pas untuk mengecam Obama. Sebab, baru beberapa hari yang lalu ia dilantik dan diambil sumpahnya dengan sangat spektakuler di The US Capitol Hill. Paling-paling, yang bisa dikatakan oleh dunia internasional, juga oleh rakyat AS yang sangat konsisten tentang perlunya menutup LADANG PEMBANTAIAN GUANTANAMO itu dengan satu kalimat pendek untuk mengungkapkan kekecewaan.

“Ternyata anda ini, PAYAH juga, Tuan Presiden OBAMA !”

(MS)

MEGA SIMARMATA

Editor In Chief Of WWW.KATAKAMI.COM

http://www.redaksikatakami.wordpress.com

http://www.theblogkatakami.wordpress.com

Synopsis of the real story of the SILVA/MARQUEZ family : Book available online on www.scandale-france.org : "Les Piliers de la Traîtrise" from Elisabeth SILVA published in 2005 - Editions La Lanterne Paris - FRANCE

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:04:33 EDT

From : Elisabeth SILVA Date : February, 2007

Subject :

“Demand of translation into English and publishing of the Book “LES PILIERS DE LA TRAITRISE” published on March, 2005 in FRANCE.

TRUE STORY Autobiography : Les Piliers de la TraîtriseFrench Author : Elisabeth SILVA320 P., 20 €Date of publishing : 04th march 2005 ISBN 295220941-3 Editions La Lanterne28, rue de la Seine 95100 ARGENTEUILFRANCE Tel.: 01.30.76.06.22 È06.11.10.35.00 Fax : 01.30.76.90.28info@la-lanterne.net THE WORD OF THE AUTHOR Dear Sir, I am pleased to send you hereby, a copy of my book titled “Les Piliers de la Traîtrise” published in France by Les Editions La Lanterne Paris. Part of this TRUE STORY told in this book took place in England.This autobiographical work is a poignant testimony given birth in the pain, which describes the tragic story of a French family forced to go into exile on August 31st, 2003.This true story depicts above all the inmost depths of the soul of the French author, who, will learn in this chaotic road, with her companions of galley to surpass trials, affronts, sufferings and traumas.Behind this paradoxical title, with a whiff of scandal, which enlightens upon the illusion of justice and the spirit of laws, the writer brings out some humanist connotations, the apology of self-sacrifice, the defence of a noble cause, that of the missing children.This book, which crossed the borders was approved by a large majority of French and foreign political personalities as well as sovereigns.Nevertheless, the French government still puts the veto over this shameful political and judicial scandal.Three years later, back from exile, we still fight alone injustice in France, our country of residence and danger is still topical. That’s an understatement.Therefore, I would be very happy to discuss with you the possibility of having my real terrifying story translated into English and would be grateful if you published it in your country, where I will remain, until we might meet. For a better understanding, please find herewith a synopsis of the story entitled “Forced exile within the XXI century”.I would really appreciate your opinion upon this real story.Please find enclosed my Press book, which includes various files certifying our story. All these information, as well as the reporting relevant declaration corroborating evidence about both, French State crime, as well as the denunciation of violation of our Human rights committed by the I.N.S. (Immigration and Naturalization Service) and the executioners of the prison of York in the U.S.A., against a whole honest French family, innocent of any offence or crime, nevertheless, illegally and arbitrarily imprisoned in January 2004, while applying for political asylum, should interest a publisher willing to raise public consciousness, and enlighten him upon stages of our endless fight for survival in dignity from 2003 till now.Please find herewith the up-to-date letter of HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN, who takes a stand in favour of our French family following my request entitled “ News Bulletin upon The necessity of the duty of interference against the state of exception ” imposed by French high officials affected by political smallness. This courageous and hopeful reply from Her Majesty The Queen, that sounds like a shining light in darkness, fortunately help us to stand fast. Besides, the enclosed reply from Prime Minister, Tony BLAIR should also be of great interest for you.I hope you will pay attention, at your turn, to this shameful and terrible scandal so that the truth should finally bursts in broad daylight. If you still require information we could easily arrange for an appointment at your headquarters if this would help. Waiting forward to hearing from you in the near future, Yours faithfully, The Author, Elisabeth SILVA
SYNOPSIS OF THE TRUE STORY “Forced exile within the XXI century” Extracts from the book “Les Piliers de la Traîtrise” page 7- 9.(Translated into English by the Author.) THE WORD OF THE AUTHOR Does a contract matched by a licence to kill innocent targets introduced into the vicious circle of a secret defence exist except literature? “By handling the strange disappearance of the child Leo Balley, which occurred on July 19th, 1996 in Grenoble, I deciphered a Secret Defence. Involuntarily, I put in broad daylight a mystery of the French political scene and Marc, the only official of the family became at this beginning of the summer, 2003, a pursued policeman … in August, 2003, a convoy of five persons was going to get organized in the urgency to thwart a devilish machination. Three women and a man will leave to the forehead and will learn the rules of survival, under the leadership of an elite policeman steering with address operations of paramilitary camouflage, hidden in the scrub of London, carrying the torch of bravery, honour and loyalty. His mother, his sister and my boyfriend came good will, bad will with his mother will be immerse into this merciless universe of the State plot, confronted with incredible but real events, hostile pursuits and tracking, which will lead them in a crazy escalation. Besides the rescue of his family, in perilous conditions exceeding understanding, the Sergeant of Criminal Investigation Department, (O.C.R.B) Marc SILVA, will hold up to date a Logbook. These alive and handwritten memories redraw in a linear chronology the thread of the tragic events, which led our family to the borders of extreme, from August 04th, 2003 till February 11th, 2004, since France, in passing in transit by England to the hell, in the United States. Entered into this logical war, plethora of reports and correspondences were sent to the politico-judicial Authorities and world organizations, to the global scale. For these six months of exile abroad, this highly skilled policeman was going to deliver battle, without rifle, to a troop of destroying commando groups. A colossal reporter’s work without borders and without flag, patriotic soldier attached to the values of a citizen democracy … They will set the numerical superiority of their armed troops in our defenseless, numerus clausus supposed to make us sound the retreat. This picture sounding like Guernica’s war tarnishes their reputation and makes them unpopular. They are not soldiers, should have doubtless thought the General de Gaulle, because those who do not fulfil their duty dishonour the homeland.Without respite and mercilessly, they will lead us to exile, throw us to the lions, the mediocre journalists, exposing us to misery and ruin.The shell of indifference will protect us forever of the cowardice shown by a majority of people. A scene, which will remind me how much, THE RACE OF JUDAS IS FERTILE.We lost a battle but not the war, My General. My deepest respect, for great men, the grateful Nation. Marc will defend the side of our troop up to the cessation of hostilities. We shall have victory, it is inscribed into tables of stone of the divine law, triumph waits for us, but it will be necessary to go up on the cross to Calvary, to break the neck to the enemy.The remembrance of our noble fight will be engraved forever in the public consciousness, the fatal weapon of Internet will shoot the polymorphic perverses, on their own ground. In front of their long time maintained opaqueness, we would set the transparency. But the road, which will lead to the freedom and to the justice will be long and we shall carry the cross up to the mountain of Golgotha, in the prison of Pennsylvania in U.S.A., to obtain immunity and protection across the Atlantic.Vain illusion, the saviour of Humanity is no more than a mirage. This barbaric America of George W. Bush, without, faith, nor law inhabited by uneducated cowboys of the Immigration and naturalization Service, executioners of Humanity, and losers, sinks into a dying civilization. American hegemony will not reborn for a long time, from its ashes. Humanists could not tolerate acts of torture imposed on prisoners of ABOU-GHRAÏB, GUANTANAMO or still of YORKThis apocalyptic vision of the American executioners was useful, while I was prisoner in their cell, I read again the bible predictions, which calmed my moral sufferings and pointed me that God had not abandoned us, that He was a lamp in our feet and a light on our path. His omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence would release us from their chains coming from another age and soon, I knew that God, the Almighty would open us the door of the penitentiary. " I hope now that the nib of a skilful journalist will break the “omerta”, the guilty silence, and the voice of a subtle speaker will thunder here and there the chronic of an announced psychic murder, the denial of justice, the sacrifice of a family and her rights always and still abused, in the name of the not very glorious State Reason. I wish that the truth burst upon Marion WAGON, Leo BALLEY and Estelle MOUZIN, the missing angels.To willing people, I call out for a general mobilization, and shout a solemn message, a cry from the heart, at this time from London, to Mr President Jacques Chirac inspired by his own words," It's high time to find the road of Humanism ". Yours faithfully, The Author,Elisabeth SILVA

Biography of the Author(English version)

Author of French nationality, Elisabeth SILVA was born on April 30th, 1968 in Casablanca.

Already, at the age to play with dolls, she has her first premonitory dreams. Later, she discovers that she has " a sixth developed sense ". This oddity will become in the course of time a hobby. The paradise of her cherished childhood darkens, at the age of adolescence, when her parents divorce. After this painful experience, she writes her first collection of poems titled "Migrations Intérieures". Later, at the secondary school, she shows a passion for philosophy. She gets her high school degree, in literary section, and obtains the most praiseworthy note for her philosophy test, which one is published in the annals of the " Bonnes copies du Baccalauréat " by HATIER Editions. This stylistic composition will give her later some zeal and wings for writing. She persues, postgraduate studies, in foreign languages. Afterwards, she obtains engineer's diploma in a Business School, specialized in International Marketing, and enters directly the world of work. In the course of the years, she weaves a deep relationship with Marc, her elder brother and her tender and pious mother near whom, she will spent her " thirty glorious " years mainly in the Southwest of France. In 2001, she successfully passes the nursing examination, but unfortunately she renounces to her late vocation after a delicate surgical operation of slipped disc. Fate does not exist, she discovers the benefits of hypnosis, achieves the creation of a CD Rom titled "Les Pouvoirs de l’Hypnose " before becoming hypnotherapist. Elisabeth has above all a sensitive soul. She defends a noble cause, that of the childhood in danger. Since 2000, encouraged by her brother, Marc, who is a Police officer, Elisabeth gracefully proposes her faculties, namely, Extra Sensorial Perceptions (E.S.P.) to the missing children cells. So, they unify their efforts and respective skill and try to lead informal inquiries upon missing children cases, yet unresolved, such as the tragic disappearance of the girl, Marion WAGON, occured on November 14th, 1996. Afterwards, in 2002, they undertake to investigate upon the Leo Balley missing child case occurred in July 19th, 1996 in Grenoble. After a detailed examination of the E.S.P.’s folder, beforehand sent to the Brigade of Local Research located in Grenoble, the Warrant officer OMER, convinced of the relevance of her revelations, hurries to reopen the Léo Balley’s file, namely, six years after his disappearance. On February 26th 2002, the aforesaid warrant officer hears officially Elisabeth and her brother upon rogatory commission. Curiously, the investigator seems to mainly focus on Elisabeth's fragmentary discoveries upon the existence of a military base, a nuclear rocket, and on Mister Lionel Jospin's ministerial coming within a given date, revealed in her E.S.P folder, rather than by details concerning the tragic disappearance of the child. The audition takes a new form, the affair gets more complicated and slides on another ground …Nuclear. Hence, the case is classified TOP SECRET DEFENCE. At the request of this last one, Elisabeth commits herself not to reveal anything to the media, otherwise she would expose her life to danger. The warning is without ambiguity. Time passes slowly, the enigma Léo BALLEY remains complete and the undertaking of new excavations, on the site is postponed. In the course of the month of June 2003, they try again to clear up the mystery of Estelle Mouzin, a tragical case of missing child, which has stayed at a standstill, since six months. At that moment, they are far from to imagine, that they entered into an infernal gear, till August 4th 2003, fateful day, if it is there, in the tragic story that is going to live this family. Doubtless, the simple reference to the Léo Balley’s file classified Secret Defence, supposed to accredit their steps with competent authorities, in the statement of this new affair, opens Pandora’s box and all the troubles of the earth spread on them. At this turning point, their life is turning into an endless nightmare. Elisabeth becomes a target and Marc, the only official of the family is becoming, at this beginning of the summer 2003, a pursued policeman. To escape from hostile pursuits and tracking, Elisabeth accompanied by her mother and her brother, Marc SILVA, Police Sergeant appointed to the Central Bureau for Repression of Banditism, go into a forced exile and live hidden in England, during nearly five months. Snubbed by the French chancellery and as a last resort, the SILVA-MARQUEZ family apply for political asylum in the U.S.A, on January16th, 2004. There, they are illegally detained by the I.N.S (Immigration and Naturalization Service) at New-York JFK Airport, as well as, illegally and arbitrarily imprisoned, at York, in Pennsylvania. Such barbaric images have dominated her life over the last three years and those painful memories of torture will never leave her. On 11th February, 2004, when she gets back from exile, she writes of a sharpened nib, her life story, titled “LES PILIERS DE LA TRAITRISE” namely “Pillars of treason” a poignant testimony, which mainly tells this descent into the Hells, published on march 2005, by Les Editions La Lanterne Paris, in France. In 2007, as injustice is still topical in France, future uncertain, the rehabilitation of the rights of her family, which are still abused, is and will remain her main fight, until the truth on this STATE CRIME will burst finally in broad daylight.

The Blinds of Justice are Lifting

Tom Awtry — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 23:27:18 EDT

A couple of months ago (February 2nd to be precise), I authored a posting entitled, “John Yoo A Tough Decision to Defend for the President” regarding the redemption of America’s justice system in wake of all the miscarriages of justice which occurred during the Bush Administration and in particular those pertaining to John Yoo. Yoo was Bush’s lead legal adviser authoring legal memos concerning the treatment, incarceration and trial (hearings) proceedings of Iraqi and Afghan detainees.

Following up on my past posting I’ve learned others share equally in my interest of Mr. Yoo’s all encompassing ability of embarrassing our country in the eyes of the international community. In an article posted within Hoffington Post, Mr. Martin Garbus, a Trial lawyer, authored an article entitled: “The Times May Be Changing” where he states some of the following excerpts:

Now six years after Iraq started, nearly one hundred days into the new presidency, more and more information is coming out about the involvement of the Bush people in Iraq-related criminal acts. The legal memos and the statements of tortured detainees are only the beginning of what will soon be a flood of information.

The legal machinery is starting to build, case by case, a rejection of Bush’s legal theories.
Today’s decision from Federal Judge John Bates of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia that those detained in Afghanistan will have access to American courts builds on the recent cases that allow Guantanamo detainees access to the federal court. Judge Bates rejected both the Bush administration’s view and the recently articulated view of President Barack Obama that habeas corpus is not available to imprisoned non-Afghans who are arrested beyond Afghanistan.

We are seeing a pattern in the Washington federal courts. The judges are not shying away from tacking tough issues. The concept that a man sitting in Baghram has a right he can enforce in an American court seemed impossible a few years ago. The constant rat-a-tat of the media, with pictures of the tortured prisoners clearly influences judges along with the rest of the population. Judges respond also when the president too set a higher standard.

Attorney General Eric Holder is the one who must start the criminal process against Cheney, Gonzales, Yoo and the others. He does not shy away from difficult choices, given backing that lets him know he is not alone. He can, and has, taken positions that are ahead of Obama.

Attorney General Holder’s decision today is easier than it was yesterday, and as more and more stories of brutalized prisoners come out, it will get even easier, especially with our President’s recent executive order of allowing wider windows to be opened to the public through the “Freedom of Information Act.

Judge Bates, and the judges before him, including the Supreme Court, have rejected the rationale of Bush’s Attorney General and supporting lawyers that gave the President “unitary powers.”

The public should let Eric Holder and the president know they support criminal prosecution of the Bush people. This may be accomplished by contacting the Department of Justice here.

Additional postings regarding this topic and others may be found here:

Homeless, Due To A Conspiracy To Violate Civil Rights, Obstruct Justice And Harass

VERNON BALMER JR. — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:28:35 EST

I am submitting this to various individuals, agencies, and institutions, in hopes that it will get to someone that can and will do something to bring justice to this matter.

Grok

James — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 22:08:47 EST

A few days ago one of those military judges down in Guantanamo decided that he would not delay a case simply because the President of the United States had requested a delay to analyze what was going on. This situation reminds me of the executives who run these financial institutions. That judge, and those executives, forgot who the hell they were working for. Today President Barack Obama stopped all military tribunal (trials) down in Guantanamo, and everywhere else they might be held. His next move should be to quietly inform the Judge Advocate General that that judge's tenure is over, as well as his military career. You see, when you work at the pleasure of the President, then his merest suggestion you might just as well take as an order....else you will experience some 'displeasure.' The banking and financial executives have not come to their senses either. Of course, that is a murkier world. We have pea-brained Republicans still wandering the halls of the both Houses of Congress mouthing idiotic platitudes like: "the bonus packages for the executives of the financial houses are a stimulus to the economy." Yes, that is right. We are still dealing with the Reagan 'slave and master' mentality. It is not gone. It needs to be stamped out. You cannot give more money to the rich and then wait for them to spend it so it will 'trickle down' to regular folk. That is not what they do. They keep it and dole it out in little bitty portions. Those portions grow ever smaller as they get more money. I repeat from an old blog: If you are hungry do not go to a wealthy neighborhood and expect to eat or get work or get help of any kind. Go to a poor neighborhood. There you will find people willing to feed and care for you. That is simply endemic to the nature of this culture. If you do go to that wealthy neighborhood for help you will get help from the police, however. You will get fed all right...in a jail cell, where you will also get shelter and plenty of questionable companions. Oh, and you will also get a record. Those financial executives I am writing about, who live in those wealthy neighborhoods, by the way, work at the 'pleasure' of the American public (their investors) and it is about time that they experienced a good measure of their employer's displeasure. As that judge should be sent packing, so should all of those executives, and I mean all!

I wanted to take a moment to reflect on Cheney in his wheelchair at the inauguration. Just what was he doing? I mean, besides attempting to resemble Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life? For eight years he never sat in a wheelchair that we saw. Not even after a couple of heart procedures. So what was he doing on his last day? What was that act? I think he was afraid. I think the shoe incident in Iraq shook the hell out of the Whitehouse. It was an indication, the event and the worldwide praise of the event after, that shook them up. The prestige and powerful magnetosphere of the Presidential mystique had been penetrated. I believe that Cheney was vitally afraid for his life. Secondarily, I think he was trying to garner any sympathy he could from the masses across the country. Poor old man in a wheel chair. On his last legs. Not worth going after. That sort of thing. There is no chance that that low cur of a man would ever have allowed himself to be presented in any other way than completely vertical during the eight years before. The doddering idiot of man, George Bush, was just too dumb to understand. Like Howdy Dowdy, he went off the world stage with is head bobbing like one of those dolls we still see in the back windows of old cars. That man was, and remains, merely stupid. It was an interesting moment to view. And what was Cheney's cain for? The one he held in his hand while he was being wheeled around? To strike subalterns? What does a man in a wheelchair need with a cain? Of course, Mr. Potter carried one too. Maybe Cheney was more influenced by Hollywood than I thought.

Robert Heinlein wrote a book called "A Stranger in a Strange Land." It was a wonderful piece of science fiction in it's time. In any time. It was a predictor of the future (as all good science fiction is) in many ways. But it is the expression of the title itself that has stuck with me more than even the substance of what's inside the book's covers.

There was a birthday party tonight over by the lake. It is the birthday of a man I call a friend. I did not get invited to that party. Admittedly, the party is being given by another couple, who I also thought of as pretty close, although I have only ever met them twice. God knows that I have enough work to do, what with the mystery writer's convention starting next Friday, my website set to come up, artwork for the novel....and on and on. So I am immersed in all that. But the simple silly fact that I did not get invited to this party sits here, on my table next to Harvey, under the big monitor as I type this. I can't see that fact, but I feel it's presence. And I do not understand it. I don't know why I didn't get invited, and more than that, I don't know why I care, but I must or I would not be writing this in today's blog. Harvey is not hurt. If I went to a party then I would be abandoning him anyway. Oh, he would love to go to any old party with me, mind you. He is a party maven. But he is too rough. He likes to look like a meek mild lap cat and then scratch people when they lean down to pet him, which would not be so bad if he did not sit right there afterwards with such a look of glee all across his snobby gray muzzle. A more well-mannered cat would have the decency to run off and hide, or at least make believe that there was some ununderstandable violation of cat ethics involved. Not Harvey. No, he lets people know he did it for fun. For the pure pleasure of seeing them in pain, and hopefully bleeding. Maybe Cheney will become a 'Harvey-like' cat in his next life. He will then have real courage instead of phony tough bravado. Maybe God will be kind to that shameful cretin of a homo sapien.

I do not forget I am out here in the country. I am far away from most things I commonly accepted as social life when I lived in metropolitan centers. But I am no weak cream-puffed creature either, of little travel or life experience. I have, as one ATF agent once said upon seeing the many scars that criss-cross my torso, "I do believe he has been around the Horn a few times." It is not that I cannot handle the mild event of not being invited to the birthday party of a relatively new friend. I can. I just feel, well, diminished. I wonder if you, my readers, identify with that or whether you think I am way too much of an adolescent at heart. I will never know. But, I can also never forget, or life will remind me harshly, that I am indeed, no matter how I came to be that way, a stranger in a strange land.

http://from-the-chateau-dif.blogspot.com

It Ain't Over

Henry M — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:20:32 EST

It ain't over until we've won the hearts and minds of a greater number of the haters such as those passing around emails like the following:

Family members of people killed on September 11, 2001, and in other terror attacks say they are outraged by President Obama's draft order calling for the suspension of war crimes trials of prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay.

"To me it's beyond comprehension that they would take the side of the terrorists," said Peter Gadiel, whose son, James, was killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11. "Many of these people have been released and been right back killing, right back at their terrorist work again."

Obama's request on the first full day of his presidency came as a draft order was being prepared ordering the closing of the Guantanamo prison within a year. A judge responded by halting the case against a Canadian detainee accused of killing an American soldier in Afghanistan, issuing a 120-day continuance in the case.

Click here for photos.

"I see no reason why we should delay these proceedings. Let justice be served," said Jefferson Crowther, whose 24-year-old son, Welles, was killed in the Twin Towers after he saved the lives of several others.

Critics blasted Obama's decision, which they said would delay justice in cases that have already been waiting for the better part of a decade.

"There is no need to suspend [the military tribunals]. There is no reason why [Obama] can't conduct a concurrent review at the same time that the military commission process is moving forward to render justice for the terrorists that have murdered thousands of people," said former Cmdr. Kirk Lippold, who lost 17 sailors during a suicide bombing attack on the USS Cole in 2000. A suspect in the case is being held at Guantanamo.

"It demeans their deaths because we seem to be more concerned with the rights of detainees than we are with the justice that is being denied to my sailors that were killed," Lippold told FOXNews.com.

Obama's request may mark the end of the system used by the Bush administration to try terror suspects. War crimes charges against 21 men are pending at Guantanamo, though the detainees may have to be moved to America or extradited, depending on the administration's plans for them.

The Obama administration is calling for a systematic review of each detainee's case to determine who can be released and who cannot. "It is in the interests of the United States to review whether and how such individuals can and should be prosecuted," says the draft order released on Wednesday.

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said he would take the detainees in his own district, which lies just a few miles from the field near Shanksville, Pa., where United Flight 93 crashed after it was hijacked by terrorists on Sept.
11, killing all 44 people aboard.

"Sure, I'd take them. They're no more dangerous in my district than in Guantanamo," Murtha said, calling the Guantanamo prison a "sore in the United States' moral standards."

"There's no reason not to put them in prisons in the United States and handle them the way they would handle any other prisoners."

But some 9/11 families said they were concerned that if the trials were moved to criminal courts in the U.S., the proceedings would put civilians at risk.

"The safest place to have these trials is Guantanamo Bay. If they were to move to the homeland it would endanger all of us," said Lorraine Arias Believeau of New Jersey, whose brother, Adam, was killed on 9/11.

But human rights groups welcomed the president's draft order, calling it an important first step for his administration.

"It is a major positive step in the right direction," said Jamil Dakwar, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union who observed pretrial hearings at Guantanamo this week.

If transferred to U.S. courts, some of the detainees might be freed because of the aggressive interrogation techniques used against them. Mohammed al-Qahtani, the alleged "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11 plot, was interrogated so severely at Guantanamo Bay that Bush administration officials said he was tortured and did not refer his case for prosecution.

Some of the accused terrorists, meanwhile, were impatient to have their trials proceed.

"We should continue so we don't go backward, we go forward," Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks told the judge in their case. He is among five detainees accused in the attacks who have asked to be given the death penalty, believing they will become martyrs if they are executed.

Lippold, who helped determine detainee policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a strategic planner, said he feels he has a large investment "in making sure that these guys do not return to the fight, that they do not kill again."

He said moving the cases to civilian courts was primarily a political act and could make it difficult to proceed with cases without compromising vital intelligence sources and methods.

"The whole issue of detainees has become so politically charged that people forget that Americans lives are at stake," he told FOXNews.com.

Crowther, a volunteer fireman for decades, said he does not care where the trials take place, but he wants to see more action from his government.

"I'm constantly doing my part -- I want my government to do its part for me.
I want those people who participated in my son's death and the death of some 3,000 others, I want to see them punished, if found guilty, in a court of law," he said.

If the cases don't go to trial, Crowther said, "many, many families are going to be very upset."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Henry M

KCUF, Still the Most Eclectic Music on the WWW, Now at 128 Kb/s on Shoutcast Unlimited: http://tinyurl.com/kcuf-on-shoutcast-limited to play and http://www.urdomain.us/kcuf.htm to see what's playing

Torture, Slaughter and Lies

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 13:31:56 EST

War With Contempt for Civilians

Torture, Slaughter and Lies

By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY

In September an Afghan journalist, Jawed Ahmad, was released from a US military prison in Afghanistan where his jailers " broke two of my ribs during the beatings." He worked for Canadian TV and the BBC, among other media outlets, and he had done nothing wrong. That is obvious, because he was freed without charge after a year of hellish treatment at the hands of uniformed filth whose claim to being human is at best feeble. If there had been the slightest genuine suspicion that he had committed a crime he should have been put on trial, but that is not the way the US system works, in these horrible days. Bush policy in Iraq and Afghanistan is never to admit that anyone can be innocent because everyone arrested is automatically guilty. But will it get any better under Obama? Can he alter what has become normal behavior on the part of the robotic minions of the commander-in-chief?

In February Jawed Ahmad was declared an "enemy combatant," which is a glib catch-all description used by Washington's foulest to describe any foreigner who, in shades of the horrible McCarthy years, they suspect of possibly being involved in what they term anti-American activities. These victims of hysteria, of whom there are countless thousands around the world, are locked up in prisons where their treatment varies from casual brutality to hideous torture. From the British-owned, US-leased island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to the US colonial enclave at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, by way of Bagram and Kandahar in Afghanistan and equally horrible prisons in Iraq, the misery of innocent – or even guilty – detainees casts a dreadful blot on what the world used to think was a fair and free democracy............

ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.counterpunch.org/cloughley12242008.html

Guantanamo lawyer says Gates may have committed perjury

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:51:15 EST

Guantanamo lawyer says Gates may have committed perjury

Andy Worthington @ rawstory.com
Published: Monday December 22, 2008

US appears to ignore findings of British court on detainee's torture

LONDON -- The announcement Dec. 1 that Barack Obama had retained Bush Defense Secretary Robert Gates was intended to demonstrate the President-elect’s desire for a “big-tent” administration that transcended partisan politics. Gates had voiced his desire to close the Pentagon's notorious Guantánamo Bay prison almost as soon as he took over from Donald Rumsfeld in December 2006, and this and his subsequent stewardship of the Iraq War earned him a place as a trustworthy figure who might bridge the Bush and Obama divide.

However, a declaration the defense secretary made in a Washington, D.C. District Court filing Dec. 12 during the habeas review of Guantánamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed might make some rethink the trustworthy label. Mohamed’s lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, says that unless Gates retracts his statement, he could find himself accused of perjury.......

ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Guantanamo_lawyer_says_Gates_may_have_1222.html

Why Not Treat the Shoe-Thrower As an Unlawful Enemy Combatant?

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:00:33 EST

Why Not Treat the Shoe-Thrower As an Enemy Combatant?

by Jacob G. Hornberger @ fff.org - Wednesday, December 18, 2008

After being severely beaten by government officials in the free nation of Iraq, Iraqi journalist Muntader al-Zaidi, the Iraqi man who threw his shoes at President Bush, is being charged with the crime of attacking a head of state, a crime that entails a possible prison sentence of 7 to 15 years.

Some people might consider the beating, which allegedly left al-Zaidi with a broken arm and ribs and injuries to an eye and leg, and the possibility of 15 years in jail, to be too light a punishment for someone who assaults the president of the United States.

But, hey, there’s another option: convert al-Zaidi from a criminal defendant to an enemy combatant in the war on terrorism, thereby entitling the U.S. military to subject him to the full panoply of Abu Ghraib/Gitmo torture-and-sex abuse techniques, and even better, keep him incarcerated for the rest of his life............

ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2008-12-18.asp

Chaos in The 9/11 Courtroom

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:05:08 EST

Chaos in The 9/11 Courtroom

by Jennifer Daskal @ salon.com

When alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants entered the Guantánamo Bay courtroom Monday, they came armed with a plan to martyr themselves at the hands of a tainted legal system. By the afternoon, the plan was in disarray.

The five defendants wanted to plead guilty, but only if it brought them their desired outcome. "If we plead guilty, can we still be sentenced to death?" Mohammed asked U.S. Army Col. Stephen Henley, the military commission judge responsible for trying the men.

No one in the courtroom knew the answer, including Col. Henley. In perhaps the most important terrorism trial in American history, the rules of the game are still being made up along the way.

This was the fourth hearing in the military commission case against Mohammed and his four co-defendants -- Ali Abdul-Aziz Ali, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, and Walid bin Attash . They are accused of planning and organizing the 9/11 attacks. Forty-nine journalists from 15 countries came to the U.S. Naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba for the show. For the first time in the six-plus-year history of the commissions, the government also brought down a group of five 9/11 family members and their guests.......

ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/12/11/guantanamo/index.html

Potemkin Justice: BushCo Stage-Managing Gitmo To Tie Obama’s Hands?

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:33:42 EST

Potemkin Justice: BushCo Stage-Managing Gitmo To Tie Obama’s Hands?

By: Christy Hardin Smith @ firedoglake.com - Wednesday December 10, 2008 7:30 pm 9

Some odd doings at Gitmo yesterday. Potential guilty pleas, then orders for two mental competency exams, then no pleas at all. So what's up? Plenty.

Last night, I spoke with Anthony Romero of ACLU, who spent the day in Gitmo observing proceedings. When asked whether the incoming Obama administration will finally close Gitmo, the answer is no one knows for certain -- but public pressure is essential to making it happen.

Watch as former Gitmo prosecutors, in this new documentary from ACLU and Brave New Films speak plainly about inherent flaws in a tribunal system adverse to rule of law fairness.

There are open questions on whether guilty pleas can be accepted from some pro se defendants -- especially those previously subjected to torture, and if plea acceptance could mean potential death penalty sentence due to mental competency concerns. So do trial proceedings go forward -- or not?

There is a political undercurrent as well.......

ARTICLE/VIDEOS - http://firedoglake.com/2008/12/10/potemkin-justice-bushco-stage-managing-gitmo-to-tie-obamas-hands/

Musicians Don’t Want Tunes Used for Torture

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 22:56:23 EST

Musicians Don’t Want Tunes Used for Torture

Nine Inch Nails, even ‘Sesame Street’ theme used for interrogations

from commondreams.org

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Blaring from a speaker behind a metal grate in his tiny cell in Iraq, the blistering rock from Nine Inch Nails hit Prisoner No. 200343 like a sonic bludgeon.

Rage Against the Machine ... protesting against Guantanamo Bay at the Reading festival. (Chiaki Nozu/Filmmagic.com/Getty Images)"

Stains like the blood on your teeth," Trent Reznor snarled over distorted guitars. "Bite. Chew."

The auditory assault went on for days, then weeks, then months at the U.S. military detention center in Iraq. Twenty hours a day. AC/DC. Queen. Pantera. The prisoner, military contractor Donald Vance of Chicago, told The Associated Press he was soon suicidal.

The tactic has been common in the U.S. war on terror, with forces systematically using loud music on hundreds of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, then the U.S. military commander in Iraq, authorized it on Sept. 14, 2003, "to create fear, disorient ... and prolong capture shock."

Now the detainees aren't the only ones complaining. Musicians are banding together to demand the U.S. military stop using their songs as weapons........

ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/12/10

Musicians protest use of songs by US jailers

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:30:58 EST

Musicians protest use of songs by US jailers

By ANDREW O. SELSKY

(12-09) 20:58 PST GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) --

Blaring from a speaker behind a metal grate in his tiny cell in Iraq, the blistering rock from Nine Inch Nails hit Prisoner No. 200343 like a sonic bludgeon.

View Larger Images

"Stains like the blood on your teeth," Trent Reznor snarled over distorted guitars. "Bite. Chew."

Now the detainees aren't the only ones complaining. Musicians are banding together to demand the U.S. military stop using their songs as weapons.....

ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/12/09/international/i124113S93.DTL

Don't replace the old Guantánamo with a new one

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:25:12 EST

Don't replace the old Guantánamo with a new one

President-elect Obama has pledged to close the infamous military prison in Cuba. So why are people trying to give him the right to start all over again?

By Jameel Jaffer and Ben Wizner @ salon.com

A courtroom drawing by artist Janet Hamlin, reviewed by the U.S. military, shows Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (top) and co-defendants Walid bin Attash (2nd from top) and Ramzi Binalshibh (left) attending a pretrial session in Guantánamo Bay, Dec. 8, 2008.

Dec. 9, 2008 | On Monday, the circus known as "Guantánamo justice" devolved once again into chaos, with alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed raising the possibility that he and other prisoners once held by the CIA would plead guilty to involvement in the 9/11 attacks. The anarchic proceedings only served to underscore the makeshift nature of the military tribunals, and to remind the world of the reasons the prison should be closed.

But even as President-elect Obama repeats his oft-made promise to shutter the prison that has so besmirched the nation's reputation, some legal experts, and not just those on the right, are talking about giving him the right to open a new Gitmo here at home. An extraordinary debate is under way about whether Congress should expressly authorize the new president to do what the outgoing president did on his own claimed authority: imprison alleged terrorists without charge or trial........

ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/12/09/guantanamo/

FEIN: Prosecute or free

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:12:24 EST

FEIN: Prosecute or free

Bruce Fein @ washingtontimes.com - Tuesday, December 9, 2008

A guard in a tower overlooks the detention facility on the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, ...

COMMENTARY:

The 250 alleged "enemy combatant" detainees at Guantanamo Bay suffering lifetime detentions without accusation or trial should either be criminally prosecuted in civilian courts or released.

No plausible post-Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist danger justifies abandoning the crown jewel of the United States that wins both the cooperation and admiration of foreign countries: the rule of law administered by independent judges to prevent arbitrary deprivations of liberty.

Monday the self-confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - and four other accused appeared in a military court as formal proceedings against them began......

ENTIRE COMMENTARY - http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/09/prosecute-or-free/

Don't Replace The Old Guantánamo with a New One

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 12:38:03 EST

Don't Replace The Old Guantánamo with a New One

by Jameel Jaffer and Ben Wizner @ commondreams.org

On Monday, the circus known as "Guantánamo justice" devolved once again into chaos, with alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed raising the possibility that he and other prisoners once held by the CIA would plead guilty to involvement in the 9/11 attacks. The anarchic proceedings only served to underscore the makeshift nature of the military tribunals, and to remind the world of the reasons the prison should be closed.

ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/09-3

The Tribune Broken, The Governor Busted....

James — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 10:48:44 EST

What is this? The governor of Illinois is in 'Federal Custody.' What is going on. The Tribune bites the dust, although it was out there anyway, under a couple of inches of ice and snow. The guy (I think he is a guy) came all the way up to toss the papers near the steps, which normally he does not do. I slipped, even at that, but did not go down. I swear I am going to start putting on long-johns under my robe, however. The only thing saving me from a place on the Megan's Law Sexual Predator List is the fact that my neighborhood is devoid of humanity at this time of year. Well, just take a look out there! It is coming down all over the place. Maybe, just maybe, I can try out those new stainless steel chains I bought for the Rover. I looked at the directions to put them on last night, however. I am a bit daunted. I turned the photo brochure this way and that but received no better clues as to how to do the job. So, I'll leave them in the back seat, just in case.

The governor got caught in a sting. They recorded him. His best friend being the 'rat,' quite naturally. We all watch television and that is the preferred method of getting people into the Federal 'justice' system. I pity the poor bastard. Once the Feds get their tongs into you, that's it. And it does not matter what you might have or have not done. The Federal conviction rate is nearly ninety-nine percent. Which should be a joke except that they have this great explanation: we wouldn't prosecute in the first place if our victim's weren't all guilty. It is like Harvard's argument that they give seventy percent 'A's' to their students because they get only really bright people as students (ah, they neglect to mention that sixty percent of their students are there by legacy. Their parents went there so they get to go there). More phenomenal world stuff that is thrown at us (lies) rather than reality (systems tend to do whatever they want when they are powerful enough, without respect to honesty, integrity or honor). So, the governor is going down. Pre-ordained. See ya, Rod. That will leave the selection of the Senator to replace Obama to the Lieutenant Governor. I know nothing about that person, but I really don't need to. I think the seat will go to Jesse Jackson Jr., just as soon as he is declared not to be really black, like Tiger and Barack. Special dispensation. My parents provide that, but you not only have to be a shade lighter than truly African in color, you have to be rich or powerful, or better still, both.

My friend, the professor emeritus (the smartest man in Walworth County...which title I am not a competitor for because I am in Linn County!) just called and his wife will not let him take the Mercedes out in this mess of a day. So I am to pick him up and take him to the coffee shop where we will attempt to impress the counter women there with our combined erudite brilliance. If the Rover makes it. It is really bad out there. Hmmmm. I can have the professor pour over the diagram provided to me by the truck chain company as we proceed in the Rover. I shall make sure he brings gloves, just in case. I have my special Christmas disk I made that I can listen to while he gets the chains on. You may order the disk here, if you comment with your address. I will send the disk for free, just for fun, and for Christmas cheer. The weather is terrible, the paper is a tattered wreck, the governor is going to Guantanamo, and I am out there in my aging Rover with the professor. Life is good. Merry Christmas!

In Guantánamo case, a judge is insisting that the government disclose any evidence that points to a detainee's innocence.

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:58:28 EST

In Guantánamo case, a judge tightens the screws on the USHe is insisting that the government disclose any evidence that points to a detainee's innocence in a 'dirty bomb' plot.

By Warren Richey | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the December 3, 2008 edition

Washington - A major battle is brewing in federal court here over the well-established legal requirement that the government must turn over any exculpatory evidence it has uncovered to an accused criminal it is seeking to imprison.

But what if that person is a suspected terrorist being held as an enemy combatant at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba?

That's the issue before US District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who is presiding over a high-stakes legal dispute involving allegations that US intelligence agents secretly sent a man to Morocco for 18 months of torture before transferring him to prisons in Afghanistan and then Guantánamo..........

ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1203/p03s04-usju.html

After 7 Years, Judge Orders Release of Guantánamo Kidnap Victims

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 14:00:07 EST

After 7 Years, Judge Orders Release of Guantánamo Kidnap Victims

by Andy Worthington @ The Future of Freedom Foundation

On Thursday, in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush, delivered a major blow to the outgoing administration’s “war on terror” detention policies by ordering the immediate release of five Algerian-born Bosnian prisoners at Guantánamo, after concluding that the government had provided no credible evidence that, as was alleged, the men intended to travel to Afghanistan to take up arms against U.S. forces.

The case of the Bosnian Algerians has long been one of the more surreal episodes in Guantánamo’s long and undistinguished history of wanton cruelty and intelligence failures. The story began (PDF) in October 2001, when the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo asked the Bosnian government to arrest six men — Lakhdar Boumediene, Mohammed Nechla, Hadj Boudella, Mustafa Ait Idr, Sabir Lahmar and Belkacem Bensayah (all aged between 32 and 40) — because of a suspicion that they were involved in a plot to bomb the U.S. embassy. The Americans' request took the form of a diplomatic note, which contained no evidence to support the allegation, and the Bosnians refused to comply until the Americans threatened to close their embassy and withdraw peacekeeping forces unless the men were arrested. Human-rights activist Srdjan Dizdarevic noted that “the threats from the Americans were enormous. There was a hysteria in their behavior.”

ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.fff.org/comment/com0811o.asp

Self-evident truths

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:35:16 EST

Self-evident truths

from "The Guardian"

Editorial
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday November 12 2008 00.01 GMT

If there is a truth which the world now holds to be self-evident, it is that the US prison camp in Guantánamo Bay should close. Four prosecutors at the camp have resigned, and the last one to do so, Darrel Vandeveld, could become a defence witness. He claimed the US government was not providing lawyers with material that might be important in mounting a defence, and he is in a position to substantiate that grave charge. The camp, an international symbol of abuse and bungling, has become an open wound which continues to bleed........

ENTIRE EDITORIAL - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/12/leaders-guantanamo-united-states-rights

It's Been 10 Days

Deirdre — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:20:39 EST

Well, it's been ten days since Barack Hussein Obama was elected President of the US of A.

Barack Obama is MY President-elect.

As I walk past the press kiosks I see enlarged magazine covers with My New President-elect smiling. I sillily smile back like a baby.

I have recieved acknowledgements from everyone I know --from the veteran of a war for independance, to the doctoral candidate, to the supermarket cashier. None of them American but all of them hopeful that change in America will also mean change in the world.

Already the transition team has stated that there will be criminal trials for Guantanamo POWs/criminals/ detainees. Other priorities include unblocking research on stem cells, stopping the drilling for oil in some environmentally sensitive areas, and allowing the state of California to tighten vehicle emission regulations.

....And it's only been ten days.

REAL SOLUTIONS for REAL PROBLEMS

Karma1 — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 22:44:55 EDT

REAL SOLUTIONS for REAL PROBLEMS!!!

I)      Let’s make both parties responsible on abortion.
   As a democrat, I am pulled viciously by the Abortion Issue in this country, and have finally come to the following conclusion: Leave Roe V Wade intact, and work to reduce unwanted pregnancies, thereby reducing abortions, and the stress and psychologigal issues encountered by women. Our paternal society has lived high on the hog and needs reeled in. You see, that life at question, is the direct response of activity between two people. But we prefer to punish the women, and continue to allow the “men” to bear no responsibility.   We see this exact same scenario 2000 years ago in the gospels, when the church leaders brought a woman to Jesus caught in the act of adultery. If I am not mistaken, it requires two to commit adultery, but they only charged the woman.
   Well in the same way, it requires two to create an unwanted pregnancy. And it’s time to force the man to cover up, or be held responsible. You see, women today have a great tool available, genetic and DNA testing. It is this lame excuse, “if I use a condom, it won’t feel as good, Baby,” which so many times leads to those little accidental pregnancies. Well, here’s my suggestion, after a man has fathered two or more aborted fetuses, snip him!!!! He may learn he actually prefers a condom, knowing his seed could be otherwise excluded from the gene pool...., or it may be a great fix for many societal ills.

II)     Re: Guantanamo, give George Bush the following ultimatum:
This time around, the term "lame duck" is an insult to our web footed friends. Well, his utter refusal to clean up his mess in Guantanamo is unacceptable, and leads me to suggest to Barack Obama, that if W is going to lazily sit through the final days of his misadministration, then the only recourse is to give him the following ultimatum, in the first 100 days, set up minimum security refugee camps for the “Guantanamo detainees” in Crawford, Texas, and Casper, Wyoming.

III) Re: Financial Crisis, Sunset the tax act, JAGTRRA in the first 100 days.
   In a nutshell, JAGTRRA forced the bulk of the responsibility of financing this country to the working class, for example, even today, the top wage earners can pay up to 35% of their income to taxes. Where literally, those who do not earn wages, but live solely off of dividend and cap gain income, at the highest rates pay only 15% on that type of income. Let’s simply admit, that income is income, whether earned as wages, or earned on investments, and should bear the tax burden equally. It was originally to sunset in 2008 anyway. I vehemently suggest SUNSET JAGTRRA!!!

Prisoner of War

Rick — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 12:10:46 EDT

Dear Sarah:

In your speech the other day, you said: "Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America ... he's worried that someone won't read them their rights?"

It sounds like you don't agree with the recent decision of the Supreme Court to grant Guantamano and other detainees the ability to challenge their detention?

I'm curious...

Beyond The Forgery: The Real Message Of Ron Suskind’s Book

Charley James — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:00:59 EDT

Most of the discussion of Ron Suskind’s The Way of the World has focused on a single anecdote: The White House ordered the production of a rather clumsy forgery of a letter from the head of the Iraqi intelligence service to Saddam purporting to prove that Muhammad Atta trained in Iraq and that Iraq was attempting to buy uranium from Niger. The forgery was leaked to a sympathetic British hack journalist in 2003 with little impact. The content was immediately seen to be implausible. Though the anecdote is juicy and apparently true – the letter exists, after all – it is somewhat beside the point, confirming my suspicion that those who discuss such books read only the first and last chapters. Over the last few days, I read the entire book. There is much more than the not-wholly-surprising news that someone at the White House panicked when no WMDs were found and tried to cover himself politically by forging a document. In fact, Suskind’s work is a book of singular beauty and importance.

First, the forgery anecdote is part of a larger story about the failure and misuse of American intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war, especially in human intelligence. Suskind reveals that skillful British agents had managed to develop two highly placed sources within the Iraqi government prior to the start of the war: The head of intelligence who supposedly wrote the incriminating letter, and the foreign minister. Both told the British that there were no weapons of mass destruction and explained why. This was passed to the White House through Dick Cheney’s office, which ignored it and never passed the information along to either the president or the CIA. Suskind also points out that the CIA was completely unable to develop such sources inside Iraq. He also tells an even more alarming tale about how George Bush deliberately blew the British operation that was watching the development of the plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic. Despite American urgings to shut the plot down immediately, the British were waiting until the plotters revealed their plans and contacts. They were forced to act prematurely when the US had Pakistan arrest a key intermediary between the plotters in Britain and al-Qaeda. The purpose was apparently to allow Bush to claim progress in preventing terrorism in the run-up to the 2006 congressional elections.

But even more important is the main theme of the book: The role of moral authority in the struggle against terrorism. Suskind argues that American democratic ideals retain a powerful appeal throughout the world. He makes this point by telling the stories of a number of individuals: An American official desperate to prevent terrorists from getting enriched uranium, an Afghan teenager in America on an exchange program, a lawyer from Illinois and her client in Guantanamo, a young Pakistani man educated in the US and living and working in Washington who is arrested by the Secret Service one day when walking to work past the White House, a former US ambassador to Pakistan who wants to see something like the Peace Corps to express what is best about America, Benazir Bhutto, who despite herself finds herself at the head of genuine democratic movement but went to her death believing that America had been unwilling to protect her, and others. Their stories are often touching and beautiful; Suskind can really write. A few examples:

- The Illinois lawyer convinces her new client in Guantanamo that she is genuine by laying 26 annual bar association membership cards on the table between them.

- The young Pakistani who emerges from hours in the interrogation cell beneath the White House – God help us, there is such a thing – to find his co-workers waiting with a cake to welcome him back. Later, when Musharraf declares martial law and shuts down the Pakistani media, he and his Pakistani-American fiancée set up an impromptu news service funneling information back to the leaders of the democratic lawyers’ movement in Pakistan.

- The young Afghan exchange student is asked for the first time in his life what he thinks is right.

- A former military judge remembers seeing the key to the Bastille at Mount Vernon and writes a memo exposing the trials at Guantanamo as farces.

Contrasted with these people, their hopes and ideals are the lies, cruelty, ruthlessness and the sheer injustice that characterize America's prosecution of the putative "Global War on Terror.” We're told these abuses are necessary to fight a new kind of enemy. Suskind does not dwell on these abuses; because they are summarised with white-hot anger in Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side, a book that should be read with this one. Instead, Suskind argues that the abuses have undermined the struggle against terrorism.

Suskind points out that Bin Laden and al-Qaeda tapped an old folk tale theme: The prince who leaves the palace behind to live with the people and defend justice. He argues that Ayman al-Zawahiri skillfully deployed this myth to make Osama Bin Laden a champion of justice and Islam. Suskind argues that the ethical corner-cutting of the War on Terror has simply confirmed the jihadist portait of a hypocritical America whose real interest is the colonization of the Islamic world. Guantanamo stands as proof that American pretensions are hollow.

But there were not only torturers at Guantanamo; there were also American lawyers – even American military lawyers, some of whom were booted out of the service as a result of their commitment – who chose to defend the detainees out of a stubborn commitment to law and justice. Suskind argues passionately that it is not too late to redeem the situation, that there is a counter-narrative in which American democratic ideals do prevail, in which America does the right thing, not because it is good public diplomacy and will advance America's interests, but simply because it is moral and ethical and the right thing to do. The world needs and desperately wants America to lead with its moral ideals.

Suskind is right about this. For example, one year ago public opinion polls showed that only 9% of Turks had a favorable impression of America, a country Turkish citizens once idolised. That has risen somewhat, partly due to simple relief that George Bush's term would soon be over but also out of astonishment that America might elect a Black man with a Muslim name as President. The corresponding event in Turkey, electing a Greek or Armenian as prime minister of Turkey, is inconceivable but people want America to be different. They are beginning – very cautiously – to let themselves believe that the old America, Lincoln's "last best hope of mankind," might return. Suskind's goal is to urge Americans to let this happen, both through new government policies and through the actions of individual Americans. May it be so, al-Shallah.

Verdict: "Dark Side" Of The Bush Administration

Mikeystyle — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:59:05 EDT

New book says the White House knew that half of the detainees at Guantanamo were innocent but did nothing about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqSRgHZBHQY

Lindsey Graham and John Kerry on Face the Nation Yesterday

Inspired in Florida - a Recovering Republican — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:30:53 EDT

The Obama and McCain positions on Iraq and Guantanamo clearly laid out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOxNDo7P_hI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4hhmpWZN2M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSzdLBvkpW8

The Bush Administration Bombs Again

Rick Adis — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:18:39 EDT

Ran Across the article. Once again the Bush Administration is proven to have no legal grounds to charge detainees. Thought you all might like to read it. These Bush people have no sence of legality. Bush, as I said in an earlier article, thinks he was elected king and not president. This thought somehow puts him and his cronies above the law. Story Updated. Appeals Court mocks Gitmo 'evidence' as nonsense by smintheus Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 07:15:10 PM PDT

A panel of the Appeals Court in the DC Circuit on Monday released the first ever ruling on a habeas habeas-like review for a Guantanamo prisoner under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (PDF). It's devastating to the Bush administration. The unanimous opinion even mocks Bush & Co.'s argument, comparing it to a nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll.

Nearly all the procedings at Combatant Status Review Tribunals have relied heavily on hearsay allegations whose reliability the Tribunals have admitted they can't assess adequately because of government assertions of secrecy. The Appeals Court found that the Tribunal was wrong to depend on unvetted secret 'evidence' to classify the prisoner, Huzaifa Parhat, as an 'enemy combatant'. It also rejected the administration's preposterous and tortured argument that tried to link Parhat to al Qaeda. From the opinion:

"The documents repeatedly describe those activities and relationships as having "reportedly" occurred, as being "said to" or "reported to" have happened, and as things that "may" be true or are "suspected of" having taken place. But in virtually every instance, the documents do not say who "reported" or "said" or "suspected" those things. Nor do they provide any of the underlying reporting upon which the documents' bottom-line assertions are founded, nor any assessment of the reliability of the reporting. Because of those omissions, the Tribunal could not and this court cannot assess the reliability of the assertions in the documents."
[...]
We merely reject the government's contention that it can prevail by submitting documents that read as if they were indictments or civil complaints, and that simply assert as facts the elements required to prove that a detainee falls within the definition of enemy combatant. To do otherwise would require the courts to rubber-stamp the government's charges...

The opinion also declared, "To affirm the Tribunal's determination under such circumstances would be to place a judicial imprimatur on an act of essentially unreviewable executive discretion." The Court bristled at the Bush administration's argument that the accusations against Parhat had credibility just because they'd been repeated in at least three secret documents.

"The government insists that the statements made in the documents are reliable because the State and Defense Departments would not have put them in intelligence documents were that not the case. This comes perilously close to suggesting that whatever the government says must be treated as true, thus rendering superfluous both the role of the Tribunal and the role that Congress assigned to this Court."

It mocked the administration by referring to Lewis Carroll's poem "The Hunting of the Snark". Here is Carroll's lead buffoon exhorting his followers onward in a farcical search for a non-existant prey:

"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.
"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true."

"Lewis Carroll notwithstanding, the fact the government has 'said it thrice' does not make an allegation true," said the ruling (quoting the final sentence above).

The Court ordered the administration either to release Parhat or hold another tribunal in which the reliability of the evidence was assessed rather than simply assumed.

It was the first time a court has reviewed the military's decision-making and considered whether a detainee should be held. The ruling provides guidance to federal district judges, who are about to begin reviewing dozens of such cases now that the Supreme Court says detainees can challenge their detention in federal court...
"The big issue now is, can any CSRT decision survive this kind of scrutiny?" Parhat's lawyer, Susan Baker Manning said.

Bush's system of kangaroo courts could implode.

A lawyer representing other detainees, Marc D. Falkoff, said the evidence against many of the 270 men now at Guantánamo was similar to that in the Parhat case.
“This opinion shows that the government is going to have a hard time defending the military’s decision to detain many of these men,” said Mr. Falkoff, a professor at Northern Illinois University College of Law.

The administration's maltreatment of the Uighur prisoners is notorious. They fled to Afghanistan in 2001 to escape Chinese oppression. Though nobody disputes that they've never taken up arms against the US, Bush agreed to salt the Uighurs away at Gitmo as a favor to China at a time he was seeking Chinese support for the invasion of Iraq. Secret (very likely Chinese) allegations that the Uighurs support al Qaeda served as the basis for imprisoning them. So it's highly fitting that the first, devastating habeas habeas-like challenge to Bush's CSRTs should come from a Uighur prisoner.

(Update): As kenm points out, the DTA created an ambiguous habeas-substitute review in the US Court of Appeals in DC in lieu of a standard habeas review. That provision was struck down recently by SCOTUS in Boumediene. I've changed the wording from "habeas" to "habeas-like" to reflect that ambiguity.

+++

China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo

Mikeystyle — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:41:28 EDT

By SCOTT SHANE, the New York Times

WASHINGTON — The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Some methods were used against a small number of prisoners at Guantánamo before 2005, when Congress banned the use of coercion by the military. The C.I.A. is still authorized by President Bush to use a number of secret “alternative” interrogation methods.

Several Guantánamo documents, including the chart outlining coercive methods, were made public at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing June 17 that examined how such tactics came to be employed.

Since Wesley Clark Is Reading My Blog Here's The Whole Thing

Marc — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:11:21 EDT

Note: I wrote the following on my personal blog on 22 June. I had no intention of putting it up on the Obama site. But since it has now been brought up as a sideshow, I thought I would put up all of the essay which may or not be relevant to the presidential campaign of 2008. I believe what happened so long, long, ago is important only from an historical event seen through the lens of memory, perception and time. So it is here for that reason and that reason alone. I made a minor change to ee cummings poem. My apologies, ee. Marc

Sunday, June 22, 2008 A True American "Hero"? John McCain as Jet Pilot, as POW, and Guantanamo.

There is now a widely unchallenged notion that John McCain is an "American Hero", that he demonstrated his courage as a US Navy jet pilot, and, especially, as a POW during his five years of imprisonment in Hanoi. 1.] What is the definition of 'hero'? 2.] I don't think there is one except in mythology, comic books, or the movies. It’s a false construct when applied to mere mortals. The term hero or heroic is reserved for the gods, and mythology. Any brief research on the topic demonstrates that as fact. During the 20th century the notion of 'hero' first became applied to human beings as a literary device or more recently as propaganda. Heroes, by definition, are god-like or mythical figures such as Achilles, Perseus, Sir Galahad, or even Gandalf the Gray, gods who take on the human figure and who possess the super-human power of the gods. Using 'hero' to describe someone is meaningless. How is a person a hero? What does one do to become a hero? 3.] The human hero as representative of the heroic myth or cult was cultivated in the 20th century by totalitarian regimes, e.g., Hitler, Mao, Stalin, etc. to represent the super-human attributes of the collective state, national and/or racial superiority of the motherland are examples of the pernicious use of the word.

I wouldn't toss around words like 'hero' about human beings as it has no meaning and is a product of the refinement of propaganda during the 20th century, the most murderous and barbaric century of world's history.

Has McCain’s courage as a jet pilot or as a POW been demonstrated? It may be true, but I haven't seen any verified examples of that notion, at all. McCain was the classic 'jet jockey' who had no clue what war looked like or what his bombs did to people on the ground [civilian, innocent, enemies or water buffalo] although he may have gotten a glimpse of it during the USS Forrestal tragedy at which he was the center, click here and here and here [a more detailed description of McCain’s role in the calamity]. There were numerous allegations made against McCain: that he caused the Forrestal fire that killed about 140 sailors, and seriously wounded about 160; allegations that he was gunning his jet engines or 'wet-starting' (which is jet jockey jargon for 'hot-rodding' or 'showing off') on the flight deck, which caused one of his missiles to "cook off" and fire right into the flight deck jam packed with jets ready to take off on combat missions over Vietnam.

I personally was a good friend of a decorated sailor who was on the flight deck that day on the Forrestal. His name was Frank West and he told me about it in 1974, long before I had ever heard of McCain. He named McCain as the 'stupid bastard' who caused the tragedy. McCain was the only uninjured member of the entire crew to be airlifted off the Forrestal [all the others were wounded or dying]. Why? Some crew members thought it was because of his dad, Admiral McCain, but most, including Frank West, thought it was because sailors believed it was McCain’s dangerous stunt that set the whole thing off, and he was airlifted off because of threats on his life. It is interesting to note that McCain was the only person on the flight deck who received no decoration for valor for the events that took place on that day [he was gone the next 3 days while the fires still burned, the ship came within minutes of being abandoned 4 times, and more men died].

POW McCain. Getting shot down in a fighter jet is not an example of courage; it's either bad luck, an error of the pilot, or running into a more skilled fighter pilot. It has never been clear whether he was shot down by a ground to air missile or air to air [a North Vietnamese jet fighter]. Or as McCain once said, "It doesn't take a lot of talent to get shot down." What are we left with? Being a prisoner of the North Vietnamese, being beaten, starved and tortured on and off for 5 years. That’s not courage, that's a bad consequence of being taken prisoner. If that's courage then all the prisoners at Guantanamo are courageous. Except they've been there 6 years.

Now what's left? The offer of the North Vietnamese to let McCain go before any other prisoner of war because his father was an admiral. McCain has been the only person to state this. His father, the US Navy, the Red Cross, his fellow POWs -- no one heard about or can confirm this except McCain. John Hubbell, who wrote a book about American POWs in Vietnam, first published the account of McCain’s POW experience after an interview with John McCain. It comes down to this: McCain’s uncorroborated word. If true, that was an act of courage. But I tell you this: it is entirely out of character of McCain either before or after Vietnam. He has always been very self-centered and ethically shaky his entire life, whether at the Naval Academy, in the Navy, his marriages, his Senate career.

All the available documentation regarding his POW years indicates nothing about an early release that was offered by the North Vietnamese or refused by McCain. Col. George Day, McCain’s cellmate for the time McCain was not in solitary confinement [2 years] never mentioned McCain’s refusal to be released early. He said he didn't know about it until after he and all the other POWs were released. Col. Day, John Stockdale, and several other Americans imprisoned at Hanoi were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, yet McCain was not. Why? I don't know, but he was not even recommended for the award.

Unfortunately 'hero' has become part of our everyday 'toss off' vocabulary, e.g., our 'heroic soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan,' McCain 'a genuine American hero', etc. The only question in my mind is involuntary suffering for a very questionable act courageous? McCain’s story, once it's deconstructed, reminds of ee cummings poem,

"Buffalo Bill":

Buffalo Bill's

defunct who used to

ride a watersmooth-silver

stallion

and break onetwothreefourfive pigeons justlikethat

Jesus

he was a handsome man

and what I want to know is

how do you like your blue-eyed boy

now?

I hope this information sheds some light on the issue of 'the American hero', McCain’s status as an 'American Hero', his experience as a POW, and what my opinion is regarding the important issues about the Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States.

Guantanamo Bay and the Problem of Forgiveness

PrayersForAmerica — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:18:10 EDT

The June, 12, 2008 Supreme Court ruling gave Guantanamo detainees the right to a hearing within a federal court of law. It also raised the issue of forgiveness, justice, and mercy and how to view these.

___________________

The Supreme Court on June 12, 2008 invalidated a 2006 law which stripped Guantanamo Bay inmates of the right to file 'habeas corpus' petitions in U.S. courts. The court's majority opinion (5-4) in a rebuke to the Bush administration and Congress, held that inmates at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay are protected by the Constitution and may seek release in federal court.

Our view of the treatment of Guantanamo detainees and the attitude we hold toward those who wish to do us harm, rests on an inner balance that each of us carries concerning justice and mercy. This balance, which also applies to those who have committed crimes and may be incarcerated elsewhere, is of Divine origin, and contains two currents of Divine will – that which meets out justice along the lines of reciprocity, namely, "what ye sow ye shall reap;" and that which distributes mercy along the lines of "forgive them, Father, they know not what they do."

The balance between the desire for justice and the desire for mercy determines, in large measure, what we will think of the Supreme Court ruling and of similar rulings that pertain to the incarcerated or to those awaiting justice within our criminal justice system.

Both justice and mercy must exist within a society of law, yet one that cares about human rights. This is not only true because such a balance is the way of preserving order and harmony within such a society, but also because the social matrix in which we live - the criminal and the non-criminal alike - is meant to reflect a Divine prototype which brings to bear upon our view of human action, a higher consciousness of what human beings are, and are meant to be.

Justice is necessary within any stable society to insure the rights of all and to prevent those who would trespass against these rights from doing so. It is a necessary deterrent, establishing a barrier which says about certain behaviors: this cannot be allowed. Justice makes necessary whatever arrangements are deemed appropriate to contain behavior that is harmful to others, and to prevent such behavior from occurring in the future.

Mercy, on the other hand, is rooted in the understanding that even criminals are souls, and as such have certain inalienable rights bequeathed to them because of their essential humanity, not because of their actions. These rights derive from the common essence that we share with others, and cannot be suspended on the basis of behavior because 'behavior' and 'essence' are two different things. Mercy contains within itself the 'principle of forgiveness',

Whereas justice is based on reciprocity, mercy is based on the need to separate the person from the action, and to accord to that person dignity, selfhood, and the right to be held as innocent until proven guilty. Mercy derives from the capacity to see all human beings as souls, guided by lower instincts in cases where there is a violation of the rights of others, but, nevertheless, still more than any individual behavior.

The Supreme Court ruling of June, 2008, shifts the balance of judgment regarding Guantanamo detainees from one that is more heavily weighted in the direction of strict justice, toward one that retains a greater balance with the current of mercy. This allows for the maintenance of individual legal rights for detainees, irrespective of their past actions. It also reaffirms the principle of American civil versus military jurisdiction, namely, that despite the fact that such detainees are not U.S. citizens, they exist within the authority and convention of the U.S. legal system and are therefore subject to the laws and regulations derived from the Constitution. Such laws apply to the handling of all criminal cases.

The Supreme Court decision is a hard one to grasp for some who may find it difficult to show mercy to those who have caused death and disruption to countless lives, and who, in the present, may go so far as to declare that they wish to continue doing so. Such declarations, especially, create the 'problem of forgiveness' for a great many people.

Forgiveness, to be real, must rest on the principle "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." But when individuals declare that they know what they are doing and would keep doing it if they had a chance, it is difficult to say that they "know not what they do." The 'problem of forgiveness' therefore resides in this question: Under what conditions shall those who have committed crimes be forgiven and shall mercy be shown?

The answer to this question must rest, first, on an understanding that forgiveness applies to the person, not to the action they commit. An unrepentant convicted felon may be dangerous in an ongoing way and therefore need to remain in custody with future potential actions curtailed. However, treatment of the person, as opposed to the action, is a different matter.

The 'problem of forgiveness' ultimately has two answers, the answer of the human heart and the answer of the Divine heart. The human heart that is wounded or that has suffered real loss often does not want to forgive those who have been the agents of such loss, even when they are repentant. The Divine heart, on the other hand, says even about those who are unrepentant – "they know not what they do." It seeks to hold a circle of love around the soul-essence of each one, no matter what they have done. This heart understands that souls who are separated from the light of truth and from their own hearts can grow up to feel hardened and cut off from their essential humanity. This may make of them criminals on the outer level, but on the inner level, it makes of them souls who have lost their way. Pure justice might, according to certain perspectives, legitimize the deprivation of legal and human rights as a fit act of retribution. Yet, justice balanced with mercy would support the Supreme Court decision and the light that it carries, for this light has not only returned to the detainees the right to be heard in a court of law, but has also reaffirmed our relationship to the Divine prototype of justice balanced with mercy, upon which a true democratic society must stand.

* * *

By Julie Redstone from the June 23, 2008 Light Omega Newsletter

No More Blank Checks in US for Human Rights Violation

YesWeCan2008 — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:53:54 EDT

Appeals Court Invalidates Detainee's 'Enemy' Status
Challenge Is First of Its Kind to Succeed

By Josh White and Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, June 24, 2008; A14

A federal appeals court in Washington has invalidated the Bush administration's finding that a detainee held for more than six years in the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba is an "enemy combatant," and has ordered the government to release him, transfer him or offer him a new hearing.

In a ruling decided Friday but released yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that Huzaifa Parhat, an ethnic Chinese Uighur captured during the early stages of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, was inappropriately designated an enemy combatant at a hearing before a Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

The case is the first successful appeal of a detainee's designation as an enemy combatant at Guantanamo. The review by the court was part of a process established by Congress in the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which allows the appeal of tribunal decisions.

Parhat and 16 other Uighurs currently held at Guantanamo have long maintained their innocence. The Uighurs were accused of joining a Muslim separatist group in western China that the U.S. government has designated as a terrorist organization, though the group has not engaged in any conflict with the United States.

Parhat, 37, petitioned the court to review the evidence in his case. U.S. government officials have argued that he trained at a camp in Afghanistan and worked with al-Qaeda terrorists, but Defense Department officials have long agreed that Parhat and other Uighurs should not be detained....

Susan Baker Manning, a lawyer who represents Parhat, said the court's decision repudiates the "rubber-stamp" system that Congress created to hold detainees indefinitely. She said there is a "moral imperative" for the United States to free Parhat and the other Uighurs soon, and that the best option is to release them to the United States.

"The U.S. government created this problem by bringing the Uighurs to Guantanamo when there was no justification for doing so," Manning said. "The message here is that Parhat is not who the government has alleged him to be for years now. He's not an enemy combatant."

About 180 detainees have filed challenges to their combatant status with the appeals court, and about 200 have filed habeas corpus claims in U.S. District Court. The habeas cases will be allowed to proceed, following a Supreme Court ruling this month that detainees can file such challenges. Yesterday's decision could have implications for those cases, as one of the first questions judges will have to consider is whether the detainees are enemy combatants....

BARACK OBAMA’S PLAN TO SECURE AMERICA AND RESTORE OUR STANDING

“When I am this party's nominee, my opponent will not be able to say that ... I wavered on something as fundamental as whether or not it is ok for America to torture — because it is never ok… I will end the war in Iraq… I will close Guantanamo. I will restore habeas corpus. I will finish the fight against Al Qaeda...."

Why the 'War on Terror' is a mistake

Michael J. O'Connell - Sammamish, WA — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:34:05 EDT

When President Bush declared a War on Terror, he unwittingly walked into the trap of legitimizing the criminal actions taken against America. By declaring war, he allowed the criminals to take on the role of the enemy. The inverse of this is that the criminals, rather than being marginalized by their communities, have become 'soldiers and martyrs' for their cause. In Egypt and Iran you will see posters recruiting soldiers for this 'war'.

Of course, George "Bring 'em on" Bush could have learned something from our closest ally, the British in their fight against the IRA. They learned a lesson that portraying criminals (the IRA) as enemy combatants poured jet fuel on the fire.Coupled with torture tactics, thisbecame a great recruiting tool for the IRA.

Think where we would be today if we focused on the crime and the criminals, rather than the fictituous 'Axis of Evil'. What if we had used diplomatic and precise military methods to extradite or capture the criminals responsible for 911 attacks? Of course, we DID capture the "20th hijacker", Mohamed al-Kahtani and tortured him senseless in Gitmo, using methods that the British had long since found to be highly counterproductive in gleaning accurate, useful information.

When Barack Obama takes office in January, I believe that one of his first acts should be to recast the War on Terror into what it actually is -- a program of defense to protect the United States against criminal attack. It will take years to correct the problems that President Bush will be leaving us with, but I believe that Barack Obama is the candidate who understands the magnitude of the problem, and who has the intelligence and stamina to solve it.

Visit http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/06/very_much_off_the_record.php for an interesting comparison between Obama’s and McCains views on the subject.

Michael J. O'Connell

Why Barack must prosecute the Bush Administration

Michael J. O'Connell - Sammamish, WA — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:11:59 EDT

The United States has traditionally stood for human rights and fairness, even in the face of war. The Bush administration, with its approval of torture has made a mockery of this long-standing tradition. Not only have our leaders stained our record on human rights, but they have opened the door for our enemies, and all countries to legitimize torture.

We have prosecuted criminal actions committed by our citizens during time of war. The My Lai Massacre is a notorious example of this.

In order to clean the stain, President Obama must prosecute individuals in the Bush administration who authored, orchestrated or explicitly or implicitly approved the torture in Guantanamo. As a nation, we must regain the respect of the world and once again earn the human rights high moral ground.

Of course, there is another solution. In 2001, Spain extradited from Mexico a former Argentinean naval officer, Ricardo Cavallo who helped run a torture chamber under Argentina's military junt, between 1976 and 1983. This was an amazing precedent in that it opened all human rights crimes to prosecution by any nation regardless of where the crime was committed and the nationality of the perpetrator or victims. Should this occur instead of the US prosecuting these criminals, it will indicate to the world that our country is not serious about human rights and is willing to abrogate that role to others.

This is an extremely serious issue, and one that McCain is likely to sweep under the rug. This is just one more reason why we must help Barack become the next President of the United States.

Michael J. O'Connell

McClatchy series on Guantanamo

James Costello — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:37:33 EDT

I urge all bloggers to read the McClatchy series on Guantanamo and the Bush administration's systematic creation the torture apparatus it set up. Find it at http://www.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/

Mr. Obama needs to tell us how he is going to reform all of this as well as how he views the powers Bush has abrogated to himself as president.

Freedom Fighters

Henry M — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:32:15 EDT

Yes! Discuss FISA here and with your current representatives. Asking Obama to make further statements that will be used as sound-bites against him works against us! I received the following in a message today:

"The patriotic party says we are at war, and the Guantanamo detainees are enemy combatants. Approximately 10,000 prisoners were taken on the battlefield in Afghanistan. Of those, only about 800 ended up in Guantanamo, where their cases have been reviewed by military tribunals and hundreds have been released.

"The detainees are not held because they are guilty; they're held to prevent them from returning to the battlefield against the U.S. Since being released, at least 30 Guantanamo detainees have returned to the battlefield, despite their promise to try not to kill any more Americans. I guess you can't trust anybody these days. "

"The treason party says the detainees are mostly charity workers who happened to be distributing cheese to the poor in Afghanistan when the war broke out, and it was their bad luck to be caught near the fighting. They consider it self-evident that enemy combatants should have access to the same U.S. courts that recently acquitted R. Kelly of statutory rape despite the existence of a videotape. Good plan, liberals."

"The New York Times article on the decision in Boumediene notes that some people 'have asserted that those held at Guantanamo have fewer rights than people accused of crimes under American civilian and military law.'"

"In the universal language of children: Duh."

The right-wing is positioning the Republican right-wing against Demococratic (Civil) Freedom Fighters as "The Patriotic Party" vs. "The Treason Party"

Talk to people! Tell them that branding all disagreement with the McBush right-wingers as "treason" is fascism.

Be a Freedom Fighter!

A McCain Supreme Court is likely to not even recognize asking for redress on Civil Liberties issues as a Constitutional right. Don't let them in! Don't let them win! Please help give Obama the opportunity to help us as our next president.

Henry M

http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/PListe4Obama

It’s the Constitution, Stupid!

Karoli — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:47:03 EDT

I caught a few minutes of Dan Abrams’ broadcast on MSNBC where the heads were flapping about the differences in attitude between Barack Obama and John McCain on the recent US Supreme Court decision to restore habeas corpus to detainees held at Guantanamo. McCain even trotted out Rudy Guiliani, Mr. 9-1-1, to underscore his point.

The way they framed it was like this: “Obama would allow Bin Laden to appeal to the US Courts.”

McBlame as McCourt and his spin on Guantanamo

Nick Danger — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:47:19 EDT

Rewind and repent on decisions made that cost political capitol misspent...Ah, the McCain position to become McCourt and to initially McDistort with regard to Guantanamo. His handlers have plans, to plant Mcblame in the desert sands. To give him an evolving position advised on by advisors that he'll part the waters for conservative activists if he calls us on the court's decision re the prison on Guantanamo. McCain's chatter on the ruling is not based on legality, but emotional rankor to rally his troops, that the court is, as we speak, giving rights to "enemy combatants . . . ardently seeking to destroy the United States of America and all that we stand for and believe in." The original case in point of stashing the detainees at Guantanamo was to avoid giving them the rights at all. Those same rights that everyone seemed to acknowledge they'd have on American soil. In reality the five justice majority did not order that any detainees be freed. The ruling also did not give al-Qaeda fighters a rocket ride to federal court. In fact the ruling stated that "except in cases of undue delay," courts should stay out until the military makes the first judgment about whether prisoners should be held or released. The conservative zealot battle cry "legislation from the bench" which the masses have been spoon fed since King George has worn the White House scent. . Americans I thought, held a belief, in the rule of law and the notion that people can't be held indefinitely without a fair hearing. But the salicious words of McCourt on the issue ever evolving is based on whom will bring him the most votes, most attention and the most heat for his roast, that high fire pit where they're hoping our man will lay down and become toast. And if McCain turns this decision into a campaign position to rally the right, we must stand up strong and fight for this issue alone, the make-up of our court, may be the most important call to arms in need of our support!

Chicken littles

Mikeystyle — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:30:13 EDT

Justice Kennedy is all that stands between us and tyranny

Big Z in Rogers Park — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:07:57 EDT

My biggest concern with the Bush Administration has been the constellation of policies which add up to the claim that because of the War on Terror, the government has the right to kidnap you off the street, detain you indefinitely without formal charges, not needing to present any evidence to any judge or court of law, and torture you - all on their say so that you are a threat to national security. It is obvious that such a claim, if allowed to stand, would result in a system easily abused and turned against political opponents, and would signal the end of democracy as we know it.

Fortunately, in Boumediene vs. Bush, these claims were turned back, for the fourth time. Unfortunately, the vote was 5-4, and the 4 are pretty scary. Again, the supreme court is one vote shy of ruling that the government has the right to kidnap you off the street or from your home, hold you without charge for years, and torture you, without presenting any evidence to any judicial authority, on its own say so.

That kind of abuse of power was a big reason whe had a Revolution and wrote a Constitution in the first place. Adopting the amendments that forbid it explicitly were part of the deal that convinced holdout states to sign on with the Constitution. They were concerned that the Executive Branch and the new office of President would otherwise have too much power. They were right. The appointment of judges who will defend and enforce the Constitution is probably the single biggest thing at stake in this election, more important in the long run than either Iraq or the economy.

These far reaching claims of executive power should be deeply disturbing to all Americans who value our freedom and our democracy, regardless of our differences over issues of government spending or social policy. It is a great disappointment to me that John McCain seems to have caved in completely on these issues and now seems willing to endorse the ludicrously unconstitutional claims of the Bush Administration. It is my hope that if we make an issue of this and do a good job of explaining to people what is at stake, American voters, liberal, conservative, and moderate, will stand up and defend their democracy by electing a President who will defend and preserve the Constitution.

habeas corpus

Mikeystyle — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 21:30:05 EDT

Reason Number 1 Why Barack Obama Has to Win in November

Robin Lee — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 09:06:08 EDT

I really cannot get over how close we came to losing the Constitution last week. In a 5-4 decision I wrote about when it was announced, the Supreme Court upheld the right of military detainees in Guantanamo to seek a Writ of Habeas Corpus. I’m not a lawyer, nor a specialist on the US Constitution; I have however paid very close attention to the three Supreme Court cases bearing on Guantanamo prisoners. All three have been stunning and categorical defeats for the Bush administration. In 2004 the court in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld held that U.S. citizens designated as enemy combatants by the Executive Branch have a right to challenge their detainment under the Due Process Clause. In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006) by a 5-3 majority (Chief Justice Robert recused himself) the court held that the proposed military tribunals against detainees at Guantanamo were unlawful because they were contary to the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice. On this past Thursday in Boumediene et. al. v. Bush the court held that Foreign terrorism suspects held at the Guantánamo U.S. Naval Station in Cuba have constitutional rights to challenge their detention there in United States courts.

In this series of decisions the Supreme Court has held that the processes the Bush administration has used to indefinitely detain and try unlawful enemy combatants and terrorism suspects at Guantanamo is contrary to U.S. laws. After Hamdi the Bush administration and its congressional allies tried to retroactively make the detainment process in Guantanamo legal by passing the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA) of 2005. The Hamdan case is interesting because the Republican-controlled congress attempted to make the military tribunals acceptable by passing the Military Commissions Act of 2006. In their latest ruling the court held that because the:

“[t]he privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it (U.S. Const., Art I, sec. 9, cl. 2)”; [and] it was therefore unnecessary to consider whether the DTA provided an adequate and effective substitute for habeas.

This is important because it means that the Supreme Court, citing the Article I of the U.S. Constitution invalidated the Detainee Treatment Act and the methods the Administration is using by holding and trying terrorism suspects and "unlawful combatants" at Guantanamo. Everyone needs to understand that with one more Republican-appointed Justice on their side the case would have gone the other way and by extention the Constitution would be immeasurably diminished in the face of claims of Executive Branch supremacy.

Thank goodness this didn't happen. But realize that of Boumediene's five-member majority, John Paul Stevens is 88 years old, Ruth Ginsburg is 75 and Anthony Kennedy is 71. The next President will probably appoint two or three Justices. If McCain is President then the next time a case like Boumediene is heard the court will probably produce a 5-4 (of 6-3, or 7-2) decision the other way!

GUANTANAMO BAY PRISONERS

Thomas Streda — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:46:17 EDT

How do you feel about the legal status of the persons held in Guantanamo Bay without rights, on leased land from Cuba, without any U.S. Court juristiction. How do we prosecute the military or non-military combatants there without a court having no juristiction overe them?

Barack Will End America's Torture Policies

John from Sonoma, CA — Mon, 19 May 2008 18:43:18 EDT

The other day I was listening to Flashpoints on KPFA. Host Dennis Burnstein interviewed international law scholar Francis Boyle, who notes that a number of legal organizations have demanded that "torture professor" John Yoo be removed from UC Berkeley's Boalt Law School.

Legal experts assert that Yoo, along with Bybee, Addington, Haynes, Goldsmith, Gonzales et al. have broken the law by enabling the torture policies of the Bush Administration. This is not a new issue (see David Luban's well-articulated arguments in Slate, Feb. 2005) nor is it one that will go away before 1/20/09.

As President, Barack Obama will have to deal with the issue of torture as American policy.

Let's get started

Dwight Burdick — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 04:50:44 EDT

I am an American living and working in Saudi Arabia for the past 13 years. I have watched with dismay as the reputation of my home country has plummeted among my friends and neighbors in my adopted home. When I first arrived in Riyadh in 1995....

Dear Mr. Future President Obama,

Rebecca from Naples, NY — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 03:22:30 EST

I’m sure you’ve heard it all before. I’m really excited about your campaign and its possibilities for the future. I’m one of the hundreds of thousands who have contributed to a political campaign for the first time because of you. I’ve searched for your name on YouTube, I’ve read every NYTimes editorial and listened to every public radio podcast about your campaign, I’ve counted delegates and pondered superdelegates, I daydream about who you might choose as running mate, secretary of state, attorney general… I’m amazed that there are still people in this country who aren’t yet convinced you’re the best candidate, by far.

But imagine a typical someone: mid-thirties, unmarried, in relationships time after time only to be disappointed by each one in turn. One lover cheats, one can’t let go of earlier commitments, another is completely self-absorbed. And all of them eventually lie. So when a new flirtation comes along, it’s perfectly natural to feel some apprehension along with the attraction.

That’s just how I’m feeling now. And I imagine a lot of people, of both genders, feel similarly. I’m hoping with all my heart that you become the Democratic presidential nominee, and that you subsequently kick major Republican backside in the general election. But here’s some advice for afterwards, to help keep the tarnish off the delicate relationship you will have started with the American people.

Don’t be a politician, be a government representative. Of course the Democratic Party and a lot of other factions will have helped you achieve your goal of the presidency, but never forget that your post-election responsibility is to ALL the people of the country. When you make decisions, make them for civic, moral, and honorable reasons, not political ones. In a recent New Yorker article about New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer, he replies to a question about moral guidance by saying “… the toughest decisions and the right answers to those tough decisions are still the ones that you come to when you just sit down and you say, ‘O.K., what are we trying to do?’ What are the right moral values to guide it? Ignore all the politics. Ignore the screaming and shouting.”

If you really want to change Washington, you will have to ignore the inevitable screaming and shouting that will come when you push against the status quo. Instead of talking politics, develop the 21st-century equivalent of FDR’s fireside chats and communicate directly with us, clearly, honestly, and often. Encourage the American people to get educated about the issues, not by preaching or drowning us in details, but by teaching and leading by example. In a recent interview with Bill Moyers about her recent book “The Age of American Unreason”, author Susan Jacoby said that the President’s responsibility would be better defined as “Educator-In-Chief” rather than “Commander-In-Chief”. When you embark on a new foreign policy agenda, show us the map, introduce us to the people, give us the background and the perspectives. For health-care and other domestic issues, talk to us clearly about the pros and cons of various approaches and explain your choices. Show the American people that conservation equals patriotism, consuming less does not mean giving in, and a State of the Union address can be as gripping as an episode of American Idol. Give us an avenue for feedback other than polls. Then, when you need support for change against old-school politics, come to us. From your mouth to our ears and back to our Congressional representatives. You’ve been saying that it takes working together to accomplish meaningful change, and that will continue to be true after the election as well.

Change the Bush White House of Secrets and Deception to the Obama White House of Openness and Truth. Renounce the unconstitutional Executive privileges the Bush White House has procured and exploited and bring our government back into balance. Remind Congress of their responsibility to demand accountability from all areas of government and encourage their investigations on behalf of the American people. Ferret out and squash the activities that have been going on in our intelligence and military operations that have caused us to lose the respect of the rest of the world. Publicly take action against the use of torture tactics, eradicate Blackwater-type mercenaries from our military, act in accordance with the Geneva Convention, and close Guantanamo Bay. Reconfirm that, in this democracy, we are all indeed equal under the law. Last but not least, in your cleaning, scrub deep down into the fluorescent halls of government agencies like the FCC and the FDA. Remind them of their mandate to work on behalf of the people of this country, not the business entities. Get Congress to help you, and the people will help them.

Finally, in regards to the idea of “re-branding America”, I know you’re the best one for the job. We need to reinstate confidence in American values around the world and show the rest of the world that we are one of them, and willing to listen as well as talk. Help yourself by finding as many equally hopeful and dedicated diplomats and public servants as possible, people who are wise to the ways of the world without having been jaded by them in the process.

I know this is a really tall order, and more than anyone should expect from a new affair. Don’t worry, we understand change doesn’t happen overnight, and we can be patient. But from “Day One”, you need to show your commitment in this relationship, and prove that you’re serious about working with us on this change thing. I’ll vote with my heart, then hope, watch, and wait for your call to join in.

[this is a re-post of this letter from my own website, originally dated February 18. At this current date, post-Texas and Ohio, I feel even stronger that Obama needs to focus on details and approaches and specifics for his campaign to continue to be successful. Please don't let Hillary steal the nomination through her underhanded tactics!]

Bush Waterboarded in Guantanamo

Halford Fairchild, Ph.D. — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 09:59:08 EST

What to do with Dubya after he retires from the white house? Send him to Guantanamo for waterboarding. Maybe that'll get the truth out about the profits his oil company is making in Iraq, or the company of his parents and brother (Insight Corp) in the No Child Left Behind Act. That justice, would be sweet.

The personal value of YouTube in politics

Wesley Fryer — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 01:02:56 EST

I listened to the full 20 minute speech by Senator Obama at the Jefferson Jackson Dinner on YouTube this evening.

The availability of video content like this on YouTube is personally transformational for me, as far as my thinking and decisions that relate to politics go. I rarely watch television anymore. I am on the Internet working many hours of almost every day, however, and I have opportunities to read articles as well as watch videos from traditional news sources online. When I want, as I did tonight, to take some time and listen to a message from a candidate, it is SO POWERFUL as well as valuable to be able to listen to their message directly, without advertisements or distractions, as I did tonight on YouTube.

I think all U.S. voters should be taking time to listen carefully to the messages of the different candidates running for office, both at the national as well as at state and local local levels. I am thrilled the Obama campaign is thoroughly embracing the use of read/write web technologies and user-created content, and look forward to sharing more of my thoughts and reflections which relate to Senator Obama and his Presidential campaign in the weeks and months ahead. I maintain my own blog ("Moving at the Speed of Creativity") and regularly contribute to several other education blogs, but none of those spaces are entirely appropriate for the political ideas and views I want to share. This blog provides me with that space. For that I am thankful.

I resonated with many things Senator Obama said in his speech at the Jefferson Jackson dinner recently. I am ready for a President who will take steps to end the war in Iraq. I agree this is a war we should never have started, and never gotten engaged in to begin with. I do agree with Senator McCain, that we are not going to be able to just drop everything and leave Iraq tomorrow. A great deal is at stake. But I AM supportive of a President that is committed to ending this war which should never have been started. I will elaborate more on this point in later posts, but I will say for now that I am VERY committed to the ideals of human rights and self-determination. Saddam Hussein was NOT a good leader for the people of Iraq, but neither is the current leader of North Korea or the leaders of the communist party in China. We don't see the United States marching into those countries with our military might and forcing a political transition "to democracy," and we shouldn't see the US doing this in Iraq either.

I also agree with Senator Obama's position on torture. It is ridiculous, embarrassing, and intolerable that the United States continues to violate the human rights of numerous people with our military and intelligence facility in Guantanamo Bay. The Bush government has kidnapped many, many people in Iraq as well as elsewhere and moved them to Guantanamo because there, they ostensibly have no human rights-- to due process or anything else. I am not naive. I know we are at war. I know there are lots of people who hate the United States and want to destroy our nation and what we stand for. But I fervently believe one of the things we DO NOT and SHOULD NOT stand for is condoning torture and the arbitrary suspension of habeas corpus. Senator Obama is right to speak out on these issues, and I support him because of these views.

I also am ready to have a President who will lead meaningfully on the issue of health care. As a husband and father of three young children, I'm quite aware of health care costs. They are ridiculous. We have not seen strong national leadership on the issue of health care costs, and we need it. I'm not for nationalized health care. I've been in the military, and I'm quite familiar with the challenges and problems which come with socialized medical care systems. We do, however, need a system which serves the interests of the average consumer more than it serves the interests of the insurance companies. I think our current system fails to meet the needs of many, and I'm ready for leadership on health care.

I could write more, but I will close with those thoughts for now. If you haven't already, take some time to watch some of the videos of Senator Obama posted to his campaign's official YouTube channel. You may not be able to tune in "live" to watch him give a speech, but thanks to the power of digital communication technologies, sites like YouTube, and the work of his tech-saavy campaign support team, you don't have to. Take some time and watch Senator Obama speak online, on your own time. That's called "time and place shifting" in your consumption of electronic media, and enabling that dynamic as the Obama campaign is doing should be considered a "best practice" for 21st century electoral politics.

French Shower Rumsfeld with Love, Subpoenas

Kevin — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 18:32:34 EDT

From Wonkette:

You’d think Donald Rumsfeld would know better than to go to the land of rabid Jerry Lewis fans, striped boating shirt aficionados and melty cheeses, but oh, no! He probably thought, “It’s Sarkozy’s town, now,” and, therefore, he’d be greeted as a liberator.

Well, not exactly: Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s jaunt to France was interrupted today by an unscheduled itinerary item — he was slapped with a criminal complaint charging him with torture.

Rumsfeld, in Paris for a discussion sponsored by the magazine Foreign Policy, was tracked down by representatives of a coalition of international human rights groups, who informed the architect of the US invasion of Iraq that they had submitted a torture suit against him in French court. The filed documents allege that during his tenure, the former defense secretary “ordered and authorized” torture of detainees at both the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the US military’s detainment facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Also: they yelled at him and called him a murderer! And it’s totally unfair! Because that Abu Ghraib stuff? It’s not like he connected the battery cables to the terrorists’ genitals himself or anything! God, that country has gone to the dogs. Renoir would be so embarrassed.

"Lead by Example"

Alexandra MacCallum — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 15:30:53 EDT

"Lead by example" – that's what Barack said yesterday in San Antonio, Texas. Speaking about some of the most important issues of our day – poverty, nuclear proliferation, and the violence in Darfur – Barack said he wants to change the way politics is done – on a worldwide scale.

"We're going to lead [the world] by example — by not just word but by deed. That's our vision for the future."

Not only that – "While we're at it, we're going to close Guantanamo. And we're going to restore habeas corpus," Barack said.

Reasserting the importance of our Constitutional rights, and ensuring that the US is internationally respected again are the kind of things that will give Americans faith in their country – and in the political process – again.

Barack sees it, and is saying it all across the country.

THE 'GREAT SADIST'

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 03:32:06 EDT

MALIGNANT NARCISSISTS ARE OFTEN SADISTS. SADISTIC DOMINANCE GIVES THEM POWER AND 'CONTROL'. DICK CHENEY IS NOT "THE GREAT SATAN", HE IS 'THE GREAT SADIST'!

IF YOU READ CHENEY'S RECENT SPEECH TO AIPAC, IT IS FULL OF SADISTIC LANGUAGE AND IMAGERY. "WE WILL NOT S-U-B-M-I-T TO THE TERRORISTS." NEARLY THE ENTIRE SPEECH IS ABOUT DOMINATION!

CHENEY REMINDS ME OF NOAH CROSS (SUPERBLY PLAYED BY JOHN HUSTON) IN ROMAN POLANSKI'S STUNNING FILM 'CHINATOWN'.

<JOHN HUSTON AS NOAH CROSS IN ROMAN POLANSKI'S BRILLIANTLY DIRECTED "CHINATOWN".

SUBMITTED BY 'FIVE CENT' A/K/A 'PLUG NICKEL' (JOHN LEWIS-DICKERSON) ATLANTA

Welcome, and Start HERE!

Alpha Doug — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 01:37:25 EST

If you need a primer on what this is all about, click on the link below for a thorough explanation by Keith Olbermann.

Link

The Wisdom to Know the Difference

Tony Loyd — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 14:31:54 EST

For those of you who read this blog, you know that I've spent the last several months being upset. I've been stuck on the idea that America "should" be leading the world in civil liberties and human rights. I keep thinking the US government "should" stop spying on its citizens and torturing people. We "should not" indefinitely hold people in Guantanamo and other secret prisons. The more I think about the way things “should” be, the more upset I become. In response to my level of upset, I write my blog and take an active role in protesting, but it never seems like enough.

Do You Know Joe?

Tony Loyd — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 15:14:19 EST

Do you know the name Jose Padilla? You might think, “Wasn’t he caught trying to set off a dirty bomb?” or maybe, “Wasn’t he fighting in Afghanistan?” I’m afraid you’d be wrong on both counts, though it’s easy to see how you would be confused with all of the misinformation that has been spread by the Bush Administration. Despite the fact that his name is mentioned regularly on the national news, you might have lost him in all of the terror-related news since September 11, 2001. Let me help you to get caught up.

One Grain at a Time

Tony Loyd — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 04:59:50 EST

Have you ever held a single dry soybean in your hand? What do you think it weighs: one gram? Imagine holding a soybean in your palm and see if you can get a sense of the weight of it. It’s very, very light – hardly noticeable. And yet, this year, somewhere in the Midwest, someone will probably die from the weight of soybeans.

Australians for Obama.

ozforobama — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 10:43:30 EST

Well, in case you thought the Senator's campaign wasn't being taken seriously outside of Illinois...

Australian Prime Minister John Howard took a swing at Obama yesterday, saying;

"If I was running al-Qaeda in Iraq I would put a circle around March 2008 and pray as many times as possible for a victory, not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats..."

Truly, this foray by our Prime Minister into domestic American politics is unheard of, but it is also not outside the realm of explanation. With meetings with General Peter Pace of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff this week in Canberra, it seems like Howard is trying to earn some serious favor with the Pentagon. Perhaps he thinks this will help secure the release of Guantanamo detainee David Hicks, who has been held by the United States since his arrest as an enemy combatant in Afghanistan in December, 2001.

More likely, however, is that Prime Minister Howard is succombing to the same plague of myopia that affects nearly everyone in Establishment Washington - along with the War Rooms of coalition members and fellow hawks worldwide. This war is going badly, and now that those who opposed it from the start are making themselves heard, the issue of credibility is coming to the fore. Prime Minister Howard, entering an election year with his lowest approval rating since 2001, knows the danger of throwing stones inside his own house. But it appears he's game for throwing them at someone else's altogether.

To those Americans who don't know - +70% of Australians opposed the war in Iraq, and that number is higher now in the wake of these bitter years of fighting. We see American soldiers and Iraqi civilians dying in greater number every day, and we grieve the same way you do - with bitterous gall towards those who are responsible, with shame for not doing more to stop their instigation of the violence, and with sadness and regret for those who have been lost in this hopeless, pointless war.

Let us see to where this goes.