Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post

host · 11-05-2007, 02:16 AM

Quote:

http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/test...ycommittee.htm
Testimony of Attorney General John Ashcroft
Senate Committee on the Judiciary
(NOTE: THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OFTEN DEVIATES FROM PREPARED REMARKS)
December 6, 2001

Mr. Chairman, Senator Hatch, members of the Judiciary Committee, thank you for this opportunity to testify today. It is a pleasure to be back in the United States Senate.

.... <h3>This is a seized al Qaeda training manual</h3> - a <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20011208175949/www.usdoj.gov/ag/manualpart1_1.pdf">"how-to" guide</a> for terrorists - that instructs enemy operatives in the art of killing in a free society. Prosecutors first made this manual public in the trial of the al Qaeda terrorists who bombed U.S. embassies in Africa. We are posting several al Qaeda lessons from this manual on our website today so Americans can know our enemy.

In this manual, al Qaeda terrorists are told how to use America's freedom as a weapon against us. They are instructed to use the benefits of a free press - newspapers, magazines and broadcasts - to stalk and kill their victims. They are instructed to exploit our judicial process for the success of their operations. Captured terrorists are taught to anticipate a series of questions from authorities and, in each response, to lie - to lie about who they are, to lie about what they are doing and to lie about who they know in order for the operation to achieve its objective. Imprisoned terrorists are instructed to concoct stories of torture and mistreatment at the hands of our officials. They are directed to take advantage of any contact with the outside world to, quote, "communicate with brothers outside prison and exchange information that may be helpful to them in their work. The importance of mastering the art of hiding messages is self-evident here.".....

Quote:

http://newswww.bbc.net.uk/1/hi/uk/4442479.stm
Wednesday, 13 April, 2005,
Comment: Questions unanswered
...'No triumph'

It was the aim of the Old Bailey prosecution to link the so-called "UK poison cell" to al-Qaeda via various documents, including the "Manual of Afghan Jihad", which had been seized in Manchester in April 2000. ...

http://web.archive.org/web/200504181...rald.com/49175
A pestle and mortar and castor beans ... tools of a terror plot or an excuse for the government to ramp up public paranoia?

....“You’ve now got a situation where Charles Clarke is saying we need to change the justice system and get identity cards,” Hayes says. “They don’t want to admit that the whole idea of an al-Qaeda conspiracy has been a farce from start to finish.”

17 April 2005.....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/st...585130,00.html
Explanation for the Guardian altering and re-posting this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/st...598960,00.html
The ricin ring that never was
Yesterday's trial collapse has exposed the deception behind attempts to link al-Qaida to a 'poison attack' on London
Duncan Campbell
Thursday April 14, 2005
Guardian

....When, in October, I showed that the chemical lists found in London were an exact copy of pages on an internet site in
Palo Alto, California, the prosecution gave up on the Kabul and al-Qaida link claims. But it seems this information was
not shared with the then home secretary, David Blunkett, who was still whipping up fear two weeks later. "Al-Qaida and
the international network is seen to be, and will be demonstrated through the courts over months to come, actually on our
doorstep and threatening our lives," he said on November 14.
The most ironic twist was an attempt to introduce an "al-Qaida manual" into the case. The manual - called the Manual of
the Afghan Jihad - had been found on a raid in Manchester in 2000. <h3>It was given to the FBI to produce in the 2001 New
York trial for the first attack on the World Trade Centre. But it wasn't an al-Qaida manual. The name was invented by the
US department of justice in 2001, and the contents were rushed on to the net to aid a presentation to the Senate by the
then attorney general, John Ashcroft, supporting the US Patriot Act.</h3>
To show that the Jihad manual was written in the 1980s and the period of the US-supported war against the Soviet
occupation was easy. The ricin recipe it contained was a direct translation from a 1988 US book called the Poisoner's
Handbook, by Maxwell Hutchkinson.
We have all been victims of this mass deception. I do not doubt that Bourgass would have contemplated causing harm if
he was competent to do so. But he was an Islamist yobbo on his own, not an Al Qaida-trained superterrorist. An Asbo
might be appropriate.
? Duncan Campbell is an investigative writer and a scientific expert witness on computers and telecommunications. He is
author of War Plan UK and is not the Guardian journalist of the same name

US news coverage= http://www.newsweek.com/id/49342
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Apr13.html

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060905-4.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 5, 2006

President Discusses Global War on Terror
Capital Hilton Hotel
Washington, D.C.

THE PRESIDENT:....These radicals have declared their uncompromising hostility to freedom. It is foolish to think that you can negotiate with them. (Applause.) We see the uncompromising nature of the enemy in many captured terrorist documents. Here are just two examples: After the liberation of Afghanistan, coalition forces searching through a terrorist safe house in that country found a copy of the al Qaeda charter. This charter states that "there will be continuing enmity until everyone believes in Allah. We will not meet [the enemy] halfway. There will be no room for dialogue with them." <h3>Another document was found in 2000 by British police during an anti-terrorist raid in London -- a grisly al Qaeda manual</h3> that includes chapters with titles such as "Guidelines for Beating and Killing Hostages." This manual declares that their vision of Islam "does not… make a truce with unbelief, but rather confronts it." The confrontation… calls for… the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine gun."...

<h2>In the preceding paragraph, the president of the united states, boldly repeats the discredited (since april, 2005) hype about a "manual" from 1980's Afghanistan, recovered by UK police in Mancehester, UK in april, 2000, and renamed "al-Qaeda training manual" by then US atty general Ashcroft, shortly after 9/11/2001....</h2>

The agenda is to terrorize the US population with a constant hyped, manipulated, officially delivered "fear" message, with a constant railing against "activist judges", and "the courts", and "the lawyers", delivered as background "noise" accompanying the "terrorists hate us for our freedom", broadcast:

They've coined the "term" lawfare to describe "enemy: misuse of US and foreign courts as a weapon against our military:

Quote:

http://www.cfr.org/publication.html?id=5772
Lawfare, the Latest in Asymmetries

March 18, 2003
Council on Foreign Relations

What We Know:

The intersection of globalization and the emergence of international law has resulted in a variant of warfare described by some as lawfare. Lawfare is a strategy of using or misusing law as a substitute for traditional military means to achieve military objectives. Each operation conducted by the U.S. military results in new and expanding efforts by groups and countries to use lawfare to respond to military force.

Although not a symmetrical threat to American military power, lawfare can be used to undercut American objectives. For example, it can be used as a decapitation strategy as in Colombia where international groups encourage peasants to file human rights suits with few grounds against military figures. Regardless of their validity, the legal costs of fighting these suits can effectively remove a particular commander from active duty for years at a time as the cases work their way through the court system.

In addition, lawfare can be used to goad American forces into violations of the Law of Armed Combat, which are then used against the United States in the court of world opinion. Armed combatants may conceal weaponry or themselves amongst civilians, encouraging attacks that can be used as propaganda against American forces.

....What are the Next Steps?

Several participants argued that the United States should not fear lawfare, but instead embrace it and use it to its advantage. To some extent, the military has done this in the current campaign against Iraq by embedding journalists with units. These journalists will show the professional way in which the U.S. military operates and will be able to document any Iraqi attempts to use civilians as shields or any Iraqi claims regarding American atrocities.
<h3>host asks....like, at Abu Ghraib ?</h3>

....Others participating in the Roundtable were not as certain of the positive aspects of lawfare. They fear that lawfare will slowly pervade the military forces and create a climate of fear and second guessing, with lawyers exercising combat authority over generals and those in the field. In this line of thinking, the military should be allowed to operate as freely as possible, recognizing that American soldiers are well trained and inculcated with a sense of moral duty.

<h2>They introduced actual language to discredit the legal process by foreign and domestic courts, for the first time, in this 2005 defense strategy report:</h2>

Quote:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...mar2005_ib.htm
NATIONAL DEFENSE STRATEGY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
I. AMERICA'S SECURITY IN THE 21st CENTURY
B. A CHANGING SECURITY ENVIRONMENT

....3. ASSUMPTIONS FRAMING THE STRATEGY

....OUR VULNERABILITIES

Nevertheless, we have vulnerabilities:

....Our strength as a nation state will continue to be challenged by those who employ a strategy of the weak using international fora, judicial processes, and terrorism....

Quote:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070924/cole_lobel/4
(September 24, 2007 issue)
Why We're Losing the War on Terror

David Cole & Jules Lobel

....National Defense Strategy, published by the Pentagon, warns that "our strength as a nation state will continue to be challenged by those who employ a strategy of the weak using international fora, judicial processes, and terrorism." The proposition that judicial processes and international accountability--the very essence of the rule of law--are to be dismissed as a strategy of the weak, aligned with terrorism itself, makes clear that the Administration has come to view the rule of law as an obstacle, not an asset, in its effort to protect us from terrorist attack.....Security rests not on exceptionalism and double standards but on a commitment to fairness, justice and the rule of law. <h3>The rule of law in no way precludes a state from defending itself from terrorists but requires that it do so within constraints. And properly understood, those constraints are assets, not obstacles. Aharon Barak, who recently retired as president of Israel's Supreme Court, said it best</h3> in a case forbidding the use of "moderate physical pressure" in interrogating Palestinian terror suspects: "A democracy must sometimes fight terror with one hand tied behind its back. Even so, a democracy has the upper hand. The rule of law and the liberty of an individual constitute important components in its understanding of security. At the end of the day, they strengthen its spirit and this strength allows it to overcome its difficulties."

Quote:

http://tapdev.browsermedia.com/cs/ar..._lawfare_scare

The "Lawfare" Scare

The latest conservative attack on legal challenges to the Bush administration's detention and interrogation policies doesn't hold water.

Deborah Pearlstein | March 6, 2007
Late last month, The Wall Street Journal featured another entry in a series of op-eds from the conservative legal team of David Rivkin and Lee Casey railing against those who would challenge the administration's policies of detention, interrogation, and trial in the post-9/11 world. This time, Mssrs. Rivkin and Casey accuse lawyers who have opposed such administration policies in court of engaging in "lawfare," a term they define as "the growing use of international law claims, usually factually or legally meritless, as a tool of war."
...Given such dangerous effects, the authors contend, the administration should seek legal sanctions whenever possible to deter and punish lawyers whose advocacy would threaten to regulate any of the more "traditional" methods for waging war.....

....

Quote:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117220137149816987.html
Lawfare
By David B. Rivkin, Jr. and Lee A. Casey
Word Count: 1,077

The term "lawfare" describes the growing use of international law claims, usually factually or legally meritless, as a tool of war. The goal is to gain a moral advantage over your enemy in the court of world opinion, and potentially a legal advantage in national and international tribunals.

Al Qaeda, of course, is an experienced lawfare practitioner. <h3>Its training manual, seized by British authorities in Manchester, England, openly instructs detained al Qaeda fighters</h3> to claim torture and other types of abuse as a means of obtaining a moral advantage over their captors. That advice has been routinely followed by detainees ...

<h2>host notes: the fucking "training manual" was exposed as an Ashcroft/Bush admin. propaganda fabrication in an april 2005 criminal trial in a British court !</h2>

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/13/wa...=1&oref=slogin
Official Attacks Top Law Firms Over Detainees

Article Tools Sponsored By
By NEIL A. LEWIS
Published: January 13, 2007

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 — The senior Pentagon official in charge of military detainees suspected of terrorism said in an interview this week that he was dismayed that lawyers at many of the nation’s top firms were representing prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and that the firms’ corporate clients should consider ending their business ties.

The comments by Charles D. Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, produced an instant torrent of anger from lawyers, legal ethics specialists and bar association officials, who said Friday that his comments were repellent and displayed an ignorance of the duties of lawyers to represent people in legal trouble.

“This is prejudicial to the administration of justice,” said Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University and an authority on legal ethics. “It’s possible that lawyers willing to undertake what has been long viewed as an admirable chore will decline to do so for fear of antagonizing important clients.

“We have a senior government official suggesting that representing these people somehow compromises American interests, and he even names the firms, giving a target to corporate America.”....

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...RlOTBlY2UxYTQ=
June 12, 2007 10:10 AM

Lawfare Strikes Again
The Fourth Circuit’s combatant case heralds the return of September 10th.

By Andrew C. McCarthy

Strike another blow for lawfare: The use of the American people’s courts as a weapon against the American people in a war prosecuted by the president — the only public official elected by all Americans — under an authorization for the use of military force overwhelmingly passed by the American people’s representatives in congress. And all for the benefit of an alien sent here to attack...

Quote:

http://jaghunters.blogspot.com/2007/...-and-cinc.html

26 January 2007

THANKS TO CONGRESS AND THE CINC...

WE ARE ALL SUBJECT TO MARTIAL LAW!!

FEDERAL CIVILIAN COURTS, AUTHORIZED BY CONGRESS AND MADE OPERABLE BY AN EXECUTIVE ORDER SIGNED BY COMMANDER IN CHIEF BUSH, MAY PROSECUTE ALL CIVILIANS UNDER ARTICLE 47 OF ARTICLES OF WAR (UNIFORM CODE OF MILITARY JUSTICE).

<h3>So we have a US administration with a six year history of hyping a terror threat via deliberately false, fabricated, and misleading declarations (remember the politically timed, color coded terror "alerts" that crippled airport operations? We have a collective effort by the executive branch, the DOD, and by sympathetic media to discredit our legal process, calling it a weapon used to counter our military, a campaign complete with actual intimidation of law firms by an asst. sec'ty of defense. For the icing on "the cake", we have the foundation, in the immediately preceding link and description, of a recent executive authorization for civilian courtsmartial, in the US.</h3>

Here are reports on how it's "gone down" in Pakistan, since last friday. The excuse given for suspending the constitution there was "terrorism", and interference by the legal system, with the country's "fight on terrorism".

Look who had been targeted for detention...the judges, and the lawyers. Does it seem disturbingly similar to the Bush administration's "prep work", here in the US? It does to me. Why have we even let it get this far? Has Pakistan's dictator given us a sudden peak at our own future?

Quote:

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...-11-2007_pg1_1
Sunday, November 04, 2007
By Rana Qaisar

ISLAMABAD: Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Pervez Musharraf on Saturday imposed a state of emergency in the country and promulgated a Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) holding the Constitution in abeyance.

“Chief of Army Staff General Pervez Musharraf has imposed a state of emergency in the country and issued a Provisional Constitutional Order,” an official statement said, without using the word “president” for Gen Musharraf....
....The proclamation of emergency order cited “increasing interference by some members of judiciary” and increasing terrorist attacks as justifications. The imposition of emergency comes as the Supreme Court was hearing a petition challenging Gen Musharraf’s eligibility to contest presidential elections. The government was reportedly expecting an adverse decision in the case, with intelligence reports indicating that most judges on the 11-member bench were likely to rule against the president. The prime minister and his cabinet, and the provincial governors and chief ministers of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan and their cabinets will remain in place......

Quote:

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...-11-2007_pg1_7
Friday, November 02, 2007
‘Boycott of judges taking oath under PCO’

LAHORE: The newly elected Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) President Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan said on Thursday the lawyers’ community has decided to boycott the judges who will take oath under the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO). Aitzaz told Geo news that the proclamation of an emergency in the country would mean the failure of political options for the government, adding that President Pervez Musharraf was shying away from such ground realities. Ahsan, of the Professional Group of Lawyers, led by Hamid Khan, was elected president of the SCBA by a record margin on Sunday. daily times monitor

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...-11-2007_pg1_5
Sunday, November 04, 2007
News analysis: Where do we go from here?

By Najam Sethi

Several points are interesting and significant about last night’s political rupture.

1: We have a state of martial law, whatever the government may say and however long it may last. The Proclamation of Emergency (PE) and the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) have been signed by the “Chief of Army Staff”, General Pervez Musharraf, and not by “President” Musharraf or Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. In fact, a PCO is an extra constitutional deviation and only an army chief can order it.

2: The constitution has accordingly been “held in abeyance”. But significantly, the PCO says that the country will continue to be governed, “as nearly as possible” by the constitution. But where there is any other departure from the constitution apart from what is contained in the PCO and the PE from now onwards, it will be at the behest of the “President” and not the COAS. In other words, General Musharraf’s presidency has been confirmed and upheld by the PCO.

3: The PCO prohibits the courts from holding or issuing any decree against the President, the Prime Minister or anyone exercising powers under their authority. Specifically, the President shall now require a fresh oath under the PCO by those judges who wish to be included in the Federal Shariat Court, High Courts and Supreme Court. In this context, four Supreme Court judges have already taken oath under the PCO from President Musharraf and a new chief justice of Pakistan has been nominated, ie, Justice Hameed Dogar. In other words, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry is now to be referred to as a former chief justice of Pakistan. He will be in the company of at least seven other fellow judges who have revolted against the PCO. We should now expect a host of other judges from the four High Courts and possibly Federal Shariat Court to be excluded from the new oath taking ceremonies. If this manoeuvre is accomplished by General Musharraf relatively quickly and the high courts are sufficiently revamped, then we shall have a pro-executive judiciary soon.

5: The PE lists several reasons for its necessity. The prime reason is the state of deteriorating law and order and the vanishing writ of the state owing to acts of terrorism. But the judiciary has been held to be a major culprit in log-jamming the executive and undermining the war against extremism. Indeed, out of 11 effective clauses in the PE, eight refer to the negative role played by the judges and the judiciary in undermining the war against terrorism, the executive functioning of government and the economy. As such, the Supreme Court under Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry is held critically responsible for harming the national interest and exacerbating the crisis of the state and deadlock of the political system.

7: We should expect the lawyers, civil society groups and most, but not all, the opposition parties to launch a spirited protest on the streets and boycott the courts. But with the electronic media blinded, and the administrations freed from the oversight of the courts, the police and paramilitary forces will be used to arrest opponents and crush the protest movement. Two factors will play a critical role in what happens next: one, the extent to which the lawyers can continue their protest and if necessary sacrifice some dead bodies for their cause; two, the role played by the People’s Party of Ms Bhutto and the JUI of Maulana Fazalur Rehman. We should also expect a surge in terrorist activities and bomb blasts by Taliban and Al Qaeda elements to take advantage of the situation.

9. Writ petitions will fly against the PCO. The new SC will agree to hear them. But no judgment will be forthcoming until such time the elections have been held and a new parliament is in place to indemnify the PCO and confirm President Musharraf as the legitimate president of Pakistan. In other words, the unconstitutionality of this act will probably be pronounced by the new SC after it has got retrospective validity from a new parliament some months hence. The question of whether General Musharraf will remain army chief for another five years or take off his uniform then will have to be settled by the new parliament in 2008 as happened in 2003.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...07_pg1_7Monday, November 05, 2007
14 SC judges put under house arrest

ISLAMABAD/LAHORE: <h3>Fourteen Supreme Court (SC) judges, who refused to take oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) promulgated by President General Pervez Musharraf on Saturday, have been detained at their residences</h3>, sources in the judiciary told Daily Times.

A senior lawyer claimed that security personnel surrounded the houses of all such judges. Their telephone landlines and mobile phones had also been blocked. Sacked chief justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Chaudhry reportedly had no access to newspapers or television. Security personnel ringed the Lahore home of Supreme Court judge Khalilur Rehman Ramday, who had been hearing challenges to President Musharraf’s October 6 re-election, AFP reported. staff report

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...-11-2007_pg1_5
Monday, November 05, 2007
<h2>Crackdown on lawyers, politicians continues</h2>

* Munir Malik, Javed Hashmi and Hameed Gul arrested
* Hundreds of PML-N, PPP, MMA activists arrested across the country

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD/LAHORE/ KARACHI/QUETTA /PESHAWAR: The nationwide crackdown on lawyers, politicians and civil society activists continued on Sunday after the imposition of a state of emergency in the country a day earlier.

Malik, Hashmi, Gul arrested: A senior police official said that former Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Munir A Malik, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Acting President Javed Hashmi, former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Hameed Gul, Sindh High Court Bar Association President Abrar Hassan and lawyer Ali Ahmad Kurd had been arrested.

Police also picked up five lawyers from Quetta, who were known as staunch supporters of sacked chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. Lawyers Ijaz Bajwa, Naseer Bhutta, Iftikhar Ali Bhatti, Faiz Rasool, Khalid Hussain, Assad Abbas, Khurram Zaman, Nadeem Akhtar, Sajjad Butt, Rashid Gull, Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmad, Kamran Ashraf, Malik Pervaiz Iqbal, Muhammad Jehangir, Malik Abdur Rehman, Naqi Haider, Zulfiqar Haider Naqi, Naveed Inayat Malik, Muhammad Ashraf, Rasheed Warsi and Rehman Jamil were arrested from Lahore.

Activists arrested: Lahore police arrested some 832 political activists, including PML-N activists and lawyers. The Ravi Police Division arrested 51 activists, Model Town Division arrested 91, Civil Lines Division arrested 103, Kotlakhpat Division arrested 45, Cantonment Division arrested 106, Iqbal Town Division arrested 100, Saddar Division arrested 98 and Mughalpura Division arrested 131 activists.

A PPP official said around 200 of its activists had been arrested in central Punjab, AP reported. These include lawyer Khurshid Khan, who had blackened the face of government counsel Ahmed Raza Qasuri at the Supreme Court. ....

Quote:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i...67xJPcV4M9gSgA

......The House also voted 404-6 Tuesday to create a national commission to study the causes and the means to prevent homegrown terrorism. The commission is to look into the social, criminal, political, psychological and economic roots of domestic terrorism, said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., sponsor with Rep. David Reichert, R-Wash.

"Free speech, espousing even very radical beliefs, is protected by our Constitution — but violent behavior is not," she said. <h3>"Our plan must be to intervene before a person crosses that line</h3> separating radical views from violent behavior."....

The homegrown terrorism bill is H.R. 1955.

http://public.cq.com/docs/hs/hsnews1...002614411.html
....By a vote of 404 to 6 last week, the House of Representatives passed a bill

(HR 1955) to create a 10-member “National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism.”
....But the commission is only the beginning. At the end of its 18-month term, it would cede its work to one of the Homeland Security Department’s university-based Centers of Excellence, according to the bill.
....The Directorate of National Intelligence (DNI), founded in 2004 to harness the work of America’s 16 spy agencies, has also addressed the issue, most recently in its July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, “The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland.”

Islamic extremists here bear watching, it said, but those carrying European passports were identified as a more immediate security concern.

The DNI also sponsored a conference of government and outside experts in the summer of 2006 “to tackle the complex issue of what causes individuals and groups to form movements that become radicalized.”

Even the New York Police Department has studied it. Its August report called American prisons, mosques, <h3>universities and the Internet “radicalization incubators” that are “rife with extremist rhetoric.”</h3>

It’s not that Congress has ignored the subject, either.

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is just now wrapping up its investigation of homegrown terrorism, with plans to issue a report in the near future, says Collin’s press secretary Jen Burita. A hearing on “Local Police and Islamic Extremism” is scheduled for Oct. 30.

The legislation also would <h3>direct the Homeland Security Department to work with friendly foreign counterparts and report back on their successes in combating domestic terrorism. ....</h3>

.....Indeed, only two years ago, a senior FBI official testified that “environmental and animal rights activists who have turned to arson and explosives are the nation’s top domestic terrorism threat.”

Ironically, the bill doesn’t actually single out Islamic radicalism as a target, although a reasonable interpretation of the bill leads to that conclusion.

Pressed on that, Reichert said the commission will look at white power groups, neo-Nazis and other extremists, too.

“We don’t want to focus on any one group or leave anybody out,” he said....

....In any event, the staffer said on condition of anonymity, what’s needed is action. Homegrown terrorism has been studied to death.....

<h3>Whoops...at first glance, I thought that the preceding quote box was a Pakistani development, but now I see that it's one of ours....(I wonder how long I have until Rep. Jane Harmon (D-CA & Israel) decides it's time to pre-empt my radical "leanings"?</h3>

A sensible suggestion from John Dean. If the democrats would demand this, and Bush does not attempt to stop the investigation of a special prosecutor, I'd view it as taking one step back from the progression towards getting "Pakistaned", wouldn't you?

Quote:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/057806.php
A Last Thought Before the Senate Judiciary Committee Confirms Judge Mukasey

By John W.

Dean click to show

Before the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee completely cave-in to Bush, at minimum they should demand that Judge Mukasey appoint a special prosecutor to investigate if war crimes have been committed. If Mukasey refuses he should be rejected. This, indeed, should be a pre-condition to anyone filling the post of Attorney General under Bush.....

The U.S. choice to make an unwavering commitment to the regime of a military dictator of a country so important in the described war on terror, even as that war was supposed to be about "bringing democracy", is now even more troubling to me.
Isn't it reasonable to suspect that the current regimes in both Pakistan and in the US pose more immediate and graver threats to the way of life of the inhabitants of both countries, than the "terrorists" do, today?