|
Banned
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Sun Tzu
The manual is not suprising, but does it matter who's next? The Federal Reserve Bank wont be an issue, neither will the dollar.
|
Sun Tzu, perhaps you misunderstood my question, in this thread's title.
I thought that I made it clearer with my last question in the thread OP.
I asked if, in both the US and in Pakistan, if the response to "terrorism" by the two governments, is more disturbing and damaging to the inhabitants of the two countries, than the terrorism, itself.
I fear that the answer to the title question is....<h3>US !!!!</h3>...we're "next".
I cannot exactly describe when oppression of individuals and deprivation of their rights and official criticism and disrespect for the rule of law and freedom of the press becomes "too much", in the name of "fighting terrorism"....but I know it when I see it....and now, I see it.
The difference seems to be, in Pakistan, the leader has the courtesy to announce his oppression/suspension, while here in the US, it's simply happening, via "a thousand cuts":
Quote:
http://www.ap.org/bilalhussein/
THE DETENTION OF AP PHOTOGRAPHER BILAL HUSSEIN
The U.S. military in Iraq has imprisoned Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein since April 12, 2006, accusing him of being a security threat but never filing charges or permitting a public hearing. "We want the rule of law to prevail," says AP President and CEO Tom Curley. "He either needs to be charged or released. Indefinite detention is not acceptable." Military officials say that Hussein was being held for "imperative reasons of security" under United Nations resolutions. A Pentagon spokesman reiterated that stance Sept. 18. Hussein is a 35-year-old Iraqi citizen and a native of Fallujah. AP executives said an internal review of his work did not find anything to indicate inappropriate contact with insurgents, and any evidence against him should be brought to the Iraqi criminal justice system. Hussein began working for the AP in September 2004. He photographed events in Fallujah and Ramadi until he was detained.
Bilal Hussein is one of an estimated 14,000 people detained by the U.S. military worldwide -- 13,000 of them in Iraq. They are held in limbo where few are ever charged with a specific crime or given a chance before any court or tribunal to argue for their freedom. In Hussein's case, Curley and other AP executives say, the military has not provided any concrete evidence to back up the vague allegations they have raised about him. More information is contained in the news stories and press materials below.
|
Quote:
http://www.startribune.com/10223/story/1523374.html
StarTribune.com
Ellison presses for answers on cameraman held at Guantanamo
A campaign to free a journalist imprisoned at Guantanamo gained support Thursday from the first Muslim member of Congress, who urged authorities to prosecute or release him after more than five years without charges.
Last update: November 01, 2007 – 7:32 PM
A campaign to free a journalist imprisoned at Guantanamo gained support Thursday from the first Muslim member of Congress, who urged authorities to prosecute or release him after more than five years without charges.
<h3>Sami al-Haj, a Sudanese cameraman for Al Jazeera</h3>, was captured in 2002 as he tried to enter Afghanistan to cover the war. His lawyer says he denies any connection to terrorism and has been on a hunger strike since January to protest his confinement.
In a rare show of public support from a U.S. official, Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, a Democrat, called for a hearing to determine whether the military has legitimate reason to hold Al-Haj with about 330 other men at the prison on a Navy base in Cuba. "If he's a bad actor, prove it. If not, let him out," the congressman told the Associated Press.
He said he believes all Guantanamo detainees should be allowed to challenge their confinement in the courts. But he said he is particularly concerned about the detention of a journalist who, as far as he can tell, was "detained for taking pictures."
He made the statement at the request of Al Jazeera. Ellison said he might seek a meeting with military officials or use his seat on the Judiciary Committee to press for more information about Al-Haj's case.
|
Quote:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...rious_matters/
Monday July 16, 2007 06:45 EST
Various matters
(updated below - updated again)
(1) This month's <a href="http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/prisoner_345.php?page=1">cover story</a> in the Columbia Journalism Review is a truly superb account, written by Washington Monthly editor Rachel Morris, of <h3>the plight of Sami al-Haj</h3>, a Sudanese cameraman for Al Jazeera who has been held in Guantanamo for the last five years.
Al-Haj has never been charged with any acts of terrorism against the U.S., which is true for 55 % of Guantanamo's inmates. Instead, the interrogations to which he has been subjected while in captivity have focused almost exclusively on Al Jazeera. As Morris documents, that news outlet has long been viewed as a virtual terrorist organization by the Cheney/Rumsfeld faction inside the administration and their hatred for it is a key part, if not the most important motivating factor, in why al-Haj has been detained:
For his part, Stafford Smith [al-Haj's lawyer] believes that al-Haj "is clearly in Guantanamo for one reason only, and that's because he's an employee of Al Jazeera." According to Stafford Smith, al-Haj has been interrogated approximately 130 times. Roughly 125 of those sessions, he said, dealt not with the allegations but with Al Jazeera's operations.
Stafford Smith told me that military interrogators have repeatedly asked al-Haj to confirm that prominent Al Jazeera journalists are members of terrorist organizations or that Al Jazeera is funded by Al Qaeda. In addition, said Stafford Smith, interrogators offered to release al-Haj if he would spy on the network. Several military and intelligence sources with knowledge of Guantanamo told me that those contentions seem plausible, but they are impossible to confirm.
Morris details that al-Haj has been subjected to the by-now-familiar litany of Guantanamo outrages -- the refusal to allow him to communicate with anyone for years, the vague and shifting accusations based on secret evidence, the severe physical and psychological abuse to which he and his fellow detainees have been subjected, etc. Morris' entire article is chilling and very well-documented, but I want to highlight one vital aspect of it:
Despite the novelty of al-Haj's status as the only journalist inside Guantanamo, it was a long time before he attracted much media attention. At first, even Al Jazeera was reluctant to cover his story.
"Up until around 2003, the air was very tense. You didn't really want to investigate it too much," said Ahmad Ibrahim, an Al Jazeera producer who has researched al-Haj's case. "At least to a lot of people around the world, holding people was probably justifiable due to the enormity of 9/11. And in the Arab world, the situation at Guantanamo was difficult to comprehend or believe, even -- that any kind of torture would be perpetrated by the U.S. A lot of people didn't comprehend what Guantanamo stood for, and the legal arguments that were used to justify it."
In 2005, Ibrahim invited Stafford Smith to Al Jazeera's headquarters in Doha. "That's when the big interest in Sami and his plight started." Since then, al-Haj has become a cause celebre in the Arab world. Ibrahim made a forty-five-minute documentary about him, Prisoner 345, and Al Jazeera regularly reports on his case. Al-Haj has also been featured in several stories in the British press.
But despite repeated efforts by Ibrahim and Stafford Smith, there was until very recently almost no coverage of al-Haj in the U.S., apart from a New York Times column last October by Nicholas Kristof. Al Jazeera "is still perceived in a very negative way" in the U.S., said Joel Campagna of the Committee to Protect Journalists. "I think that has made people pause when looking at this case."
There are numerous critical insights just in that passage alone. In the aftermath of 9/11, large portions of the world, including the Muslim world generally, were so supportive of the U.S. that they were reluctant to challenge even our most extremist detention policies based on the sense that "holding people was probably justifiable due to the enormity of 9/11." Al Jazeera itself seemed almost afraid to challenge the detention, with <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1648988,00.html">good reason</a>. And much of the Muslim world was slow to react to the detention of its journalist <h2>because the notion that the U.S. would just lawlessly detain people indefinitely, let alone systematically torture its detainees, was inconceivable.</h2>
But after several years of the Bush presidency, all of that has changed......
....In his Press Conference the other day, President Bush closed <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070712-5.html">his remarks</a> with this claim:
And the fundamental question facing the world on this issue is whether or not it makes sense to try to promote an alternative ideology. I happen to think it does. They say, he's idealistic. Yes, I'm idealistic, but I'm also realistic in understanding if there is not an alternative ideology presented, these thugs will be able to continue the recruit. They'll use hopelessness to be able to recruit.
<h3>He is right that we are certainly promoting an "alternative ideology" in the world. But it isn't one that is likely to help us stem the threat of anti-American terrorism, to put it mildly.</h3>
(2) Several weeks ago, I wrote about the <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/05/08/neocons/">revealing belief</a> of neoconservatives that any neoconservative -- including ones charged with and even convicted of the most serious wrongdoing -- must, by definition, be wrongfully accused. A neoconservative, after all, is so intrinsically good, so devoted to the right cause, that it cannot possibly be fair to punish them. If they are threatened with punishment, then, by definition, there must be some grave injustice.
The examples I used illustrating this mentality included Lewis Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, the AIPAC officials on trial for espionage, and neoconservative financier Conrad Black -- each of whom was charged with various degrees of wrongdoing. Each of them has been vigorously defended as victims of prosecutorial injustice by neoconservatives, who, when neoconservatives are not involved, could not be any more indifferent to the plight of criminal defendants. Quite the contrary, they cheer on every assertion of government power, no matter how unlimited and unchecked.
Just like Libby, Black last week was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6897991.stm">found guilty</a> in a federal court, after having been indicted and prosecuted by the Bush Justice Department, of multiple felonies. Already, neoconservatives like Mark Steyn are <a href="http://forums.macleans.ca/advansis/?mod=for&act=dis&eid=52&so=&ps=&sb=">busy smearing</a> everyone in sight -- the stupid jury, the unfair judge, the out-of-control federal prosecutor. One of Black's (and Libby's) most fervent defenders, David Frum, is on vacation, though we will undoubtedly hear from him soon about all the grave injustices which have befallen his neoconservative comrade.
When a neoconservative is accused of wrongdoing, even by the Republican government that they run, every theory is on the table, except for the possibility that they actually did something wrong. Anyone devoted to the neoconservative agenda (including the President) by definition <h3>cannot be guilty, and the greatest injustice of all is when they are held accountable for their actions under the law. After all, they have an Epic War of Civilizations to fight against the Supervillainous Evil Islamic Fascists.</h3> What's a little stockholder fraud and obstruction of justice -- or illegal eavesdropping -- when we're talking about our Greatest Civilization Warriors?
|
If you think that it "can't happen here"....it is. If the Associated Press, a US based, worldwide news agency must experience and endure, for 19 months, the US detention of it's Pulitzer prize winning photographer in Iraq, without criminal charges or a hearing, don't you yet think that these motherfuckers are bold enough, and anti-American (as in anti "the republic for which it stands") to detain you or someone who you care about, whenever it strikes them to do so, for as long as they decide to? They've persuaded me that there is a real risk that they will, and that they won't announce that they're doing it.
Last edited by host; 11-06-2007 at 03:45 AM..
|