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alanmithee, I included an article origninally published about the two ALCU board members who face discipline by the entire
83 member ACLU board for allegedly criticizing the ACLU for
it's alleged violation of it's own donor privacy policy and undermining it's own "mission to preserve free speech rights."
One item not covered in your post was that no national ACLU board member "threatened to expel" Kaminer or Meyers. The ACLU Oregon state chapter accused them of "acting inappropriately. You provided no report that ACLU national president Nadine Strossen has predicted that any proposal to discipline the Kaminer and Meyers will be rejected. I believe that the information that you posted is unduly sensational and more negative than the details reported so far actually indicate..........
In fact, the ACLU national board took no action against national ACLU board Kaminer and Meyers.......
The ACLU is imperfect. You exaggerate the ACLU's shortcomings; you wrote:
I ask you again, please cite examples where the ACLU has done more harm than good.......and who do you propose to replace the ACLU as a national watchdog and legal defender of the constituional rights of all Americans, and with oversight of government compliance of FOIA and of full disclosure ?

You stated that, "It is my opinion that the ACLU foia suits are helping undermine US activities in Iraq. It is my opinion that they are doing this knowing that they are undermining the military, and actually have that as a goal. I believe that if Falwell does organize a law school that his organization will better serve the intrests of the country and it's citizens."

Do you believe that the government should be exposed, or even challenged when it commits illegal acts, or covers them up ? My "sig" is intended to be a tribute to SCOTUS Justice Robert H. Jackson, the chief U.S. prosecutor at Nuremberg. Can you defend what I quoted from you above about the ACLU intentionally undermining "U.S. activities in Iraq" after reading the following quotes of Justice Jackson ? Do you take into account that the pentagon has the discretion and authority to prevent disclosure of FOIA requested documents on the grounds of national security, if it deems the material to be sensitive ? The ACLU has disclosed new incidents of mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq and the complicity of military commanders in the destruction of evidence of prisoner abuse in Afghanistan. Do you believe that this is information should be concealed from the people of the U.S. ? The U.S. military released this information but you would not have done so ? You are shooting the messenger if you continue to believe that the ACLU's FOIA requests are the problem here.

I have paraphased excerpts Justice Robert Jackson's summation at Nuremberg in 1946. In some places, even an
ardent partisan might admit to himself that there is cause for concern as far as the decision to invade Iraq and in the prosection of the war.
July 26, 1946

THE PRESIDENT: I call on the chief prosecutor, the United States of America.

The intellectual bankruptcy and moral perversion of the BUSH regime might have been no concern of international law had it not been utilized to
goosestep the NEOCONS across international frontiers. It is not their thoughts, it is their overt acts which we charge to be crimes. Their creed and teachings are important only as evidence of motive, purpose, knowledge, and intent.

We charge unlawful aggression but we are not trying the motives, hopes, or frustrations which may have led AMERICA to resort to aggressive war as an
instrument of policy. The law, unlike politics, does not concern itself with the good or evil in the status quo, nor with the merits of the grievances
against it. It merely requires that the status quo be not attacked by violent means and that policies be not advanced by war. We may admit that overlapping ethnological and cultural groups, economic barriers, and conflicting national ambitions created in the 1990's, as they will continue to create, grave problems for AMERICA as well as for the other peoples of THE WORLD. We may admit too that the world had failed to provide political or legal remedies which would be honorable and acceptable alternatives to war. We do not underwrite either the ethics or the wisdom of any country, including my own, in the face of these problems. But we do say that it is now, as it was for sometime prior to 2003, illegal and criminal for AMERICA or any other nation to redress grievances or seek expansion by resort to aggressive war...........

..............The Crimes of the BUSH Regime.

The strength of the case against these defendants under the conspiracy Count, which it is the duty of the INTERNATIONAL COURT to argue, is in its simplicity.

It involves but three ultimate inquiries: First, have the acts defined by the Charter as crimes been committed; second, were they committed pursuant to a Common Plan or Conspiracy; third, are these defendants among those who are criminally responsible?

The charge requires examination of a criminal policy, not of a multitude of isolated, unplanned, or disputed crimes. The substantive crimes upon which we rely, either as goals of a common plan or as means for its accomplishment, are admitted. The pillars which uphold the conspiracy charge may be found in five groups of overt acts, whose character and magnitude are important considerations in appraising the proof of conspiracy. ..................

................. Laws were enacted of such ambiguity that they could be used to punish almost any innocent act. It was, for example, made a crime to provoke "any act contrary to the public welfare" (PATRIOT ACT I).

The doctrine of punishment by analogy was-introduced to enable conviction for acts which no statute forbade (PATRIOT ACT I). ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT explained that THE BUSH ADMIN. considered every violation of the goals of life which the community set up for itself to be a wrong per se, and that the acts could be punished even though it was not contrary to existing "formal law" (PATRIOT ACT I).

The JUSTICE DEPT> and the DEPT. OF HOMELAND SECURITY were instrumentalities of an espionage system which penetrated public and private life (PATRIOT ACT I).

ASHCROFT controlled a personal wire-tapping unit. All privacy of communication was abolished (PATRIOT ACT I). HOMELAND SECURITY appointed over every 50 householders spied continuously on all within their ken (TIPS PROGRAM).

Upon the strength of this spying individuals were dragged off to "protective custody" and to DETENTION camps without legal proceedings of any kind (JOSE PADILLA) and without statement of any reason therefor (PATRIOT ACT I). The BUSH APPOINTED SECURITY Police were exempted from effective legal responsibility for their acts (PATRIOT ACT I).

With all administrative offices in BUSH's control and with the REPUBLICAN CONGRESS reduced to BEING BUSH's RUBBER STAMP, the judiciary remained the last obstacle to this reign of terror (PATRIOT ACT I). But its independence was soon overcome and it was reorganized to dispense a venal justice () Judges were ousted for political or racial reasons and were spied upon and put under pressure to join the REPUBLICAN Party (). After the Supreme Court had acquitted three of the four men whom the BUSHCO accused of BEING ENEMY COMBATANTS, its jurisdiction over treason cases was transferred to a newly established "MILITARY TRIBUNALS" consisting of MILITARY OFFICERS ()....................

The result was the removal of all peaceable means either to resist or to change the Government...............

.....................The central crime in this pattern of crimes, the kingpin which holds them all together, is the plot for aggressive wars. The chief reason for international cognizance of these crimes lies in this fact. Have we established the Plan or Conspiracy to make aggressive war?

Certain admitted or clearly proven facts help answer that question. First is the fact that such war of aggression did take place. Second, it is admitted that from the moment the BUSHCO came to power, every one of them and every one of the defendants worked like beavers to prepare for some war. The question therefore comes to this: Were they preparing for the war which did occur, or were they preparing for some war which never has happened? It is probably true that in their early days none of them had in mind what month of what year war would begin, the exact dispute which would precipitate it, or whether its first impact would be IRAQ, IRAN, or NORTH KOREA. But I submit that the defendants either knew or were chargeable with knowledge that the war for which they were making ready would be a war of AMERICAN aggression. This is partly because there was no real expectation that any power or combination of powers would attack AMERICA. But it is chiefly because the inherent nature of the BUSHCO plans was such that they were certain sooner or later to meet resistance and that they could then be accomplished only by aggression. ............................

...................The orders for the treatment of IRAQI prisoners of war were so ruthless that ALBERTO GONZALES, pointing out that they would "result in
arbitrary mistreatments and killing," protested to the BUSHCO against them as breaches of international law. The reply of RUMSFELD was unambiguous. He said:

"The objections arise from the military conception of chivalrous warfare! This is the destruction of an ideology! Therefore, I approve and back the measures" ().

The Geneva Convention would have been thrown overboard openly except that RUMSFELD objected because he wanted the benefits of ENEMY observance of it while it was not being allowed to hamper the U.S. in any way. ........................

...........................The dominant fact which stands out from all the thousands of pages of the record of this Trial is that the central crime of the
whole group of BUSHCO crimes the attack on the peace of the world was clearly and deliberately planned. The beginning of these wars of aggression was not an unprepared and spontaneous springing to arms by a population excited by some current indignation. A week before the invasion of IRAQ, BUSH told his military commanders:

"I shall give a propagandist cause for starting war. Never mind whether it be plausible or not. The victor shall not be asked later on whether we told the
truth or not. In starting and making a war, it is not the right that matters, but victory ().

The propagandist scenarios were duly provided by the BUSHCO incessantly and falsely inferring that Saddam had ties to Al Qaeda and the 9/11 Attacks, and posed an imminent threat to America because he possessed large stockpiles of biological weapons and was close to developing nuclear weapons, in order to create the appearance of a credible threat of an impending Iraqi attack on the U.S. or on one of it's allies. ()..................

.................Each of these people made a real contribution to the BUSHCO plan. Each one had a key part. Deprive the BUSHCO regime of the functions

performed by a RUMSFELD, a WOLFOWITZ, a RICE, or a CHENEY and you have a different regime. Look down the rows of fallen men and picture them as the photographic and documentary evidence shows them to have been in their days of power. Is there one who did not substantially advance the conspiracy along its bloody path toward its bloody goal? Can we assume that the great effort of these people's lives was directed toward ends they never suspected?

To escape the implications of their positions and the inference of guilt from their activities, the defendants are almost unanimous in one defense. The
refrain is heard time and again: These officials were without authority, without knowledge, without influence without importance.......
........In the testimony of each defendant, at some point there was reached the familiar blank wall: Nobody knew anything about what was going on. Time after time we have heard the chorus from the dock: "I only heard about these things here for the first time."

These officials saw no evil, spoke none, and none was uttered in their presence. This claim might sound very plausible if made by one defendant. But when we put all their stories together, the impression which emerges of the BUSH REGIME, which was to herald the new millenium, is ludicrous. If we combine only the stories of the front bench, this is the ridiculous composite picture of BUSH's Government that emerges. It was composed of:

A Defense Chief who knew nothing of the excesses of the Military Intelligence Units which he created, and never suspected the IRAQI PRISONER TORTURE program although he was the signer of over a score of decrees which instituted the persecutions of those detainees;

A VICE PRESIDENT who was merely an innocent middleman transmitting BUSH's interest in obtaining definitive IRAQI WMD intelligence from the CIA, like a postman or delivery boy;

A Secretary of State who knew little of foreign affairs and nothing of foreign policy;

A Commanding General in IRAQ who issued orders to the Armed Forces but had no idea of the results they would have in practice;

A Homeland security chief who was of the impression that the policing functions of his department were somewhat on the order of issuing colorful threat level warnings that were politically motivated.

A Political Advisor and Mastermind who was interested in polling research and had no idea of the violence which his philosophy was inciting in the twenty
first century;

A provisional authority governor of who reigned but did not rule; and could not account for nearly $9 billion in funds he controlled that belonged to the
Iraqi citizens.

An NSA director who denied that BUSH saw briefings before 9/11 on the threat of terrorist airliner attacks, but who had no idea that anybody would read them;

A CIA Director who knew not even what went on in the interior of his own office, much less the interior of his own department, and nothing at all about the accurate pre-invasion intelligence about Iraqi WMD's or about Saddam's cooperation with AL Queda;

A president who never failed to create new justification and a new mission for his troops to justify his war of aggression as each previous justification
that he had advanced to the world, wilted under half hearted and delayed media scrutiny and closer inspection on the ground in IRAQ.

And a preparation for the war economy that included huge tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens, guaranteeing huge federal deficits, but with no thought that it had anything to do with war.

This may seem like a fantastic exaggeration, but this is what you would actually be obliged to conclude if you were to acquit these defendants.

They do protest too much. They deny knowing what was common knowledge. They deny knowing plans and programs that were as public as the pronouncements of the

NEOCONS of the PNAC and the Party program. They deny even knowing the contents of documents they received and acted upon. .....................
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If nothing else, and until you find an effective replacement for the ACLU and it's FOIA suits, the Bush government cannot claim that "it knew nothing", because the American people and the world know.

I put much effort into backing what I post with information and cited sources that I do not believe to be easily impeached. I rarely post links to http://commondreams.org or to http://americanprogress.org. If I attribute something to Michael Moore, I anticipate that I will have to defend the accuracy of the details. I consider Bill Moyer to be a journalist of the highest reputation for ethics in the U.S. today.

alansmithee, if I post something that you can argue is misleading or untrue, please post an objection with linked souces to back up yourself up to the same degree that I have referenced whatever you are objecting to. I seem unreasonable and rabidly partisan mostly because we disagree on many issues and are of different philosophies.