Tag Archives: terror

9/11 trial: American justice restored

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Hold the trial of alleged 9/11 plotters in civil court, using American standards for criminal justice, and in New York, a scene of the attack, is an opportunity to show the world that our criminal justice system can handle the hardest cases, and at the same time provide defendants with fairness and openness. The complexity will be high, but the return to respect for the rule of law makes the effort worthwhile.

From an editorial in today’s New York Times:

Republican lawmakers and the self-promoting independent senator from Connecticut, Joseph Lieberman, pounced on the chance to appear on television. Despite all evidence to the contrary, they said military tribunals are a more secure and appropriate venue for trying terrorism suspects. Senator John Cornyn of Texas, a former judge who should have more regard for the law, offered the absurd claim that Mr. Obama was treating the 9/11 conspirators as “common criminals.”

There is nothing common about them — or Mr. Holder’s decision. Putting the five defendants on public trial a few blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center is entirely fitting. Experience shows that federal courts are capable of handling high-profile terrorism trials without comprising legitimate secrets, national security or the rule of law. Mr. Bush’s tribunals failed to hold a single trial.

Sign of the times: Standish, Michigan

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The economy is in very bad shape in Michigan. That is not news. One small town north of Detroit has been discussing one way to keep jobs in town.  In Standish, the State of Michigan had built a maximum security prison recently that is scheduled to be closed due to budget shortfalls. Now, the state is offering to use the facility to house relocated Gitmo prisoners. The people of Standish appear undecided on this approach, but to me, maximum security prisons house far more dangerous people than the average Gitmo prisoner. People like Timothy McVeigh and the Unibomber have been successfully held. It would be good to have the jobs in Michigan and also the additional protection of officers from the Department of Defense and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Here is coverage of the story from yesterday’s NewsHour on PBS. A transcript is available here.

Obama administration taking out more terrorists than Bush

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The Obama White House fires back at Dick Cheney over anti-terroism effectiveness:

Responding to criticism from former Vice President Cheney that President Obama is making the nation more vulnerable to terrorism, the president’s National Security Adviser, Gen. Jim Jones (Ret.), told ABC News in an exclusive interview that actually the reverse is true: President Obama’s greater success with international relations has meant more terrorists put out of commission.

Given his past lies (Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, etc.), I am puzzled as to why anyone listens to anything that Dick Cheney has to say.

Politicizing homeland security

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In his new book, Tom Ridge claims that as secretary of Homeland Security he was pressured days before George Bush’s relection in 2004 to raise the national threat level. If this is true, it is inexcusable.

After Osama bin Laden released a threatening videotape four days before the election, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld pushed Mr. Ridge to elevate the public threat posture but he refused, according to the book. Mr. Ridge calls it a “dramatic and inconceivable” event that “proved most troublesome” and reinforced his decision to resign.

More (much more) on this from Glenn Greenwald at Salon.

Troops Mirandizing terrorists? Nope.

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First, the troops do not Mirandize anyone. Second, as reported in the Washington Post, during the Bush administration, in order to collect evidence that would be admitted in United States courts, the FBI sent interrogators overseas to do fresh interviews with detainees already interviewed without Miranda rights. These new, “clean” agents did give Miranda-like warnings to the detainees. There has been no change in policy.

The Anonymous Liberal has chapter and verse.

The one issue GOP

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Frank Rich, in today’s New York Times:

The speech itself, with 20 mentions of 9/11, struck the same cynical note as the ads, as if the G.O.P. was almost rooting for a terrorist attack on Obama’s watch. “No one wishes the current administration more success in defending the country than we do,” Cheney said as a disingenuous disclaimer before going on to charge that Obama’s “half measures” were leaving Americans “half exposed.” The new president, he said, is unraveling “the very policies that kept our people safe since 9/11.” In other words, when the next attack comes, it will be all Obama’s fault. A new ad shouting “We told you so!” awaits only the updated video.

The Republicans at least have an excuse for pushing this poison. They are desperate. The trio of Pillsbury doughboys now leading the party — Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Cheney — have variously cemented the G.O.P.’s brand as a whites-only men’s club by revoking Colin Powell’s membership and smearing the first Latina Supreme Court nominee as a “reverse racist.” Republicans in Congress have no plausible economic, health care or energy policies to counter Obama’s. The only card left to play is 9/11.

As Rich also notes, the mainstream so-called liberal media once again refused to question the claims made by Cheney in his speech designed to play on fear rather than truth. Only McClatchy newspapers prepared a point-by-point analysis of the falsehoods in Cheney’s speech. Recall that McClatchy was one of the very rare media outlets that seriously questioned the run-up to the Iraq war, prepared by the same reporters as this story, back when McClatchy was Knight-Ridder.

An opinion you can safely ignore

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So here we have criticism of Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the US Supreme Court. You can ignore this comment:

Obama had some truly outstanding legal intellectuals and judges to choose from—Cass Sunstein, Elena Kagan, and Diane Wood come immediately to mind. The White House chose a judge distinguished from the other members of that list only by her race. Obama may say he wants to put someone on the Court with a rags-to-riches background, but locking in the political support of Hispanics must sit higher in his priorities.

Why ignore it? Because of the author of the remark. John Yoo.

More here.

DOJ lawyers faces sanctions in wiretapping case

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In a long-fought case filed by an Islamic charity claiming it had been illegally wiretapped, the Judge seems to have reached the end of his rope regarding government delay and claims of “state secrets” to refuse discovery.

Government lawyers trying to fend off a much-watched warrantless wiretapping case in federal court now face sanctions and the possibility of a judgment that the United States committed illegal surveillance (pdf), following an order filed on Friday by Northern District of California Chief Judge Vaughn Walker (.pdf).

Walker, bringing to a head months of volleying between the government, the plaintiffs and himself, ordered Justice Department lawyers to explain why he should not essentially enter a default judgment against the government for violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by spying on the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation.

Cheney assasination squad

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73954997MW001_Vice_PresidenIn an earlier post, I referred to Seymour Hersch’s statements that Cheney authorized an assasination squad to take out America’s enemies. One of his aids seems now to confirm the story.

Earlier this month the New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh claimed that his research for an upcoming book uncovered evidence of a secret special operations unit unmonitored by Congress with authority to assassinate high-value targets in a dozen countries.

“They’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving,” Hersh said.

Enter John Hannah. The former Cheney aide told CNN on Monday that Hersh’s claim “is not true.”

But when asked about possible assassination targets, Hannah seemed to reverse himself, saying that “troops in the field” are given “authority” to “capture or kill certain individuals” who are perceived as a threat. “That’s certainly true.”

Krugman and the Obama administration

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Paul Krugman has been critical of the Obama administration’s bank bailout/stimulus/toxic asset programs.  I tend to agree with most of his positions. Now Evan Thomas writes a profile of Krugman as the cover story of the current issue of Newsweek.

If you are of the establishment persuasion (and I am), reading Krugman makes you uneasy. You hope he’s wrong, and you sense he’s being a little harsh (especially about Geithner), but you have a creeping feeling that he knows something that others cannot, or will not, see. By definition, establishments believe in propping up the existing order. Members of the ruling class have a vested interest in keeping things pretty much the way they are. Safeguarding the status quo, protecting traditional institutions, can be healthy and useful, stabilizing and reassuring. But sometimes, beneath the pleasant murmur and tinkle of cocktails, the old guard cannot hear the sound of ice cracking. The in crowd of any age can be deceived by self-confidence, as Liaquat Ahamed has shown in “Lords of Finance,” his new book about the folly of central bankers before the Great Depression, and David Halberstam revealed in his Vietnam War classic, “The Best and the Brightest.” Krugman may be exaggerating the decay of the financial system or the devotion of Obama’s team to preserving it. But what if he’s right, or part right? What if President Obama is squandering his only chance to step in and nationalize—well, maybe not nationalize, that loaded word—but restructure the banks before they collapse altogether?