This Time, Congress Has No Excuse

By Andrew Cohen - The Washington Post

Of all the stupid, lazy, short-sighted, hasty, ill-conceived, partisan-inspired, damage-inflicting, dangerous and offensive things this Congress has done (or not done) in its past few recent miserable terms, the looming passage of the terror detainee bill takes the cake. At least when Congress voted to authorize the Iraq War legislators can point to the fact that they were deceived by Administration officials. But what's Congress' excuse now for agreeing to sign off on a law that would give the executive branch even more unfettered power over the rest of us than it already has?

It just keeps getting worse. This morning, esteemed Yale Law professor Bruce Ackerman published this fine essay in the Los Angeles Times. His lead? "Buried in the complex Senate compromise on detainee treatment is a real shocker, reaching far beyond the legal struggles about foreign terrorist suspects in the Guantanamo Bay fortress. The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House, authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights.

"This dangerous compromise," Professor Ackerman continued, "not only authorizes the president to seize and hold terrorists who have fought against our troops 'during an armed conflict,' it also allows him to seize anybody who has 'purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.' This grants the president enormous power over citizens and legal residents. They can be designated as enemy combatants if they have contributed money to a Middle Eastern charity, and they can be held indefinitely in a military prison."

Scary enough for you? But wait, there is more. The legislation also appears to allow illegally-obtained evidence-- from overseas or right here at home-- to be used against enemy combatants (which gives you an idea of where this Congress really stands on the National Security Agency's domestic spying program). And wait, there is this: the Administration's horrible track record when it comes to identifying "enemy combatants" and then detaining them here in the States. Two of the most famous ones, Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla, both ended up having the highest courts in our land back up their legal claims, which is why the government had to release Hamdi outright and then turn Padilla over to the regular civilian courts (where he is a defendant in a weak case against him).

Do you believe the Administration has over the past five years earned the colossal expanse of trust the Congress is about to give it in the name of fighting terrorism? Do you believe that Administration officials will be able to accurately and adequately identify so-called "enemy combatants" here at home so as to separate out the truly bad guys from the guys who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? Did you want your legislative branch to abdicate so completely its responsibility to ensure that there are adequate checks and balances upon executive power even in a time of terror? You might have answered "no" to all three questions. But your answer doesn't matter. And neither does mine. To Congress, the answer is "yes, sir." Our Congress is about to make yet another needless mistake in the war on terror and this time the folks making it won't be able to say that the White House tricked them into it.

McCain, Graham and Warner Capitulate

They compromised away our basic values





Gutting habeas corpus is no way to restore America's moral standing.












St. Petersburg Times Editorial

After all the fuss and noise made by three Republican senators who stood in the way of the Bush administration's military tribunals legislation, they quietly capitulated when the pressure was turned up. The "compromise" they reached with the White House is a serious disappointment that will do little to resurrect America's international standing as an upright actor and moral leader.

Republican Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and John Warner had it about right when they insisted that the Geneva Conventions as written be respected for every prisoner, including terror suspects. They were right to demand that any military tribunal system would have to include basic due process protections, including the right of the accused to know the evidence used against him, and the exclusion of any evidence obtained through coercive means. These are baseline principles that should not be compromised. We would accept no lesser standard for an American captured by a foreign power.

But by entering into negotiations with the White House on these key points, McCain, Graham and Warner demonstrated a willingness to horse-trade our bedrock values in exchange for an agreement where everybody claims victory and essential protections are lost.

The senators do deserve credit for their resistance. Unlike so many other Republicans, they were unwilling to adopt whatever was put forward. Because of that, the administration was forced to grant prisoners the right to see all evidence used against them. That is an important concession.

But the senators gave the rest away. Under the "compromise," evidence obtained through coercive means could be used if a judge finds it reliable and probative. The president also would be given the explicit power to interpret aspects of the Geneva Conventions, opening the door for the continued use of abusive interrogation techniques.

Habeas corpus protections also would be gutted. Detainees would be barred from going before a judge to challenge their treatment and indefinite detention. And the legislation would retroactively excuse brutal and illegal conduct by civilian interrogators under the War Crimes Act, leaving members of the military to stand alone in answering for the abuse of prisoners.

If the point of the stand by McCain and the others was to bring our treatment of detainees into the realm of recognized civilized conduct, the "compromise" measure falls far short. As Bush adviser Dan Bartlett told the New York Times, the president essentially got what he wanted on the Geneva Conventions. "This is more of the scenic route, but it gets us there," Bartlett said.

The case of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen kidnapped by the CIA, illustrates how damaging the continuation of Bush's corrosive policies would be to our national character and national security.

Our government sent Arar to Syria, convinced he had terrorist connections. Arar was then tortured until he signed a confession that he had been in Afghanistan training in an al-Qaida camp. After a thorough investigation by Canada, it turns out that Arar was completely innocent and had never been to Afghanistan.

Innocent people will admit to anything to stop abusive interrogations, including implicating others and outlining phantom plots. Then we have to deploy valuable manpower to track down those worthless leads.

Arar's case has been an international disgrace, yet Bush refuses to apologize or hold anyone responsible for the actions taken against this man. Instead, he pushes for the power to do the same to others. This cannot be making us safer.

The Senate should not move forward on any legislation that does not uphold the core America values of humanity and fair process. This "compromise" doesn't come close.

The Best War Ever!

"How are nations ruled and led into war? Politicians lie to journalists and then believe those lies when they see them in print."

—Austrian journalist Karl Wiegand, explaining the causes of the First World War.



The Best War Ever, by the best-selling authors of Weapons of Mass Deception, is a vital account of why America is losing in Iraq and the Middle East. We have met the enemy—and it's our own PR machine.

click here to see the video

Osama Bin Forgotten

Bush Tells Reporter Capturing Bin Laden Is 'Not A Top Priority'


"knock-knock"

"who's there?"

"nine-one-one"

"nine-one-one who?"

"Hey! I thought you said you would never forget!"

Bush Lied: US Senate Intelligence report finds no Saddam-Al Qaeda link

Bush's False Iraq War Justifications Laid Bare

"Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support"

Senate report (pdf)

"One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror."
President Bush



The Senate Intellignce Committee has found no evidence of links between the regime of Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

In a report issued on Friday, it also found that was little or no evidence to support a raft of claims made by the US intelligence community concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The 400-page report was three years in the making, and is probably the definitive public account of the intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq.

One startling point is this:

In a poll conducted this month by Opinion Research Corporation for CNN, a sample of American adults was asked: "Do you think Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 11 September terrorist attacks, or not?"

Forty-three percent of those polled answered yes, they believed Saddam was personally involved.

Even though it is well-established that Saddam Hussein was no ally of al-Qaeda, nor did he possess weapons of mass destruction, the original justifications for the invasion for Iraq linger on, often in ways that have strangely mutated on their journey through politics and media.

Cheney claims 'untrue'

In fact, the intelligence agencies had been extremely cautious in suggesting links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

It was Vice-President Dick Cheney who asserted most strongly in public that Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaeda had an operational relationship.

In a television interview in September 2003, he said there was "a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s... al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained... the Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organisation."

It was "clearly official policy" on the part of Iraq, he said.

Friday's report, issued by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, provides another definitive statement that that assertion is simply not true.

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