A new law signed by President Obama last month now allows the US Defense Secretary to block the release of photos depicting the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody overseas. This past week, Robert Gates put this new power to work for the first time.A new law signed by President Obama last month now allows the US Defense Secretary to... more
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"How to get people to vote against their interests and to really think against their interests is very clever. It's the cleverest ruling class that I have ever come across in history. It's been 200 years at it. It's superb." - Gore VidalThe Critical Unraveling of U.S. Society
By David DeGraw The Public Record Nov 19th,... more
Mr. President made his comment about not reaching the January 2010 deadline while in Asia. He says he's "not disappointed" because he "knew it would be hard".
Obama told Fox News: "It's hard not only because of the politics. People, I think understandably, are fearful after a lot of years where they were told that Guantanamo was critical to keep terrorists out."
While an exact date was not given, he says it'll be sometime in 2010.
Out of work and willing to relocate? McDonald's is advertising for an assistant manager for its sole franchise in Cuba -- serving up burgers and fries that sometimes feed detainees at the prison camps at Guantánamo Bay.Out of work and willing to relocate? McDonald's is advertising for an assistant... more
The Election Day 2009 was not good for Obama. His party lost Virginia and New Jersey. His electorate, made by young people and Afro-Americans, didn't go to vote.
Is it an alarm bell? http://www.inaltreparole.net/en/world/elezioni2009usa041109.htmlThe Election Day 2009 was not good for Obama. His party lost Virginia and New Jersey.... more
Rosanne Cash appeared on the Colbert Report to go toe-to-toe with Stephen Colbert on the use of music to torture at Guantanamo, and Rosanne made it clear: using music as torture is wrong and there’s no gray area. The upshot? Colbert signed our campaign letter agreeing with General Colin Powell that Guantanamo “should be closed this afternoon.” Since this is Colbert we’re talking about, he claims he signed it to “make it harder for Obama.” But we’ll take it.
You can join Stephen Colbert and add your name to the over 30,000 letters sent to Congress in just over a week of our campaign. Support President Obama's promise to Close Guantanamo.
FROM THE NEWS BLOG:
This week a group of musicians launched Close Gitmo Now, a movement with an eponymous objective. Why is a group of artists as diverse as Rage Against the Machine, REM, Billy Bragg, Roseanne Cash, Pearl Jam, Jackson Browne and Steve Earle getting involved in the debate over Guantanamo? Because of the use of popular music by military interrogators.
From the Guardian (UK):
"Several references to music as an interrogation tool appeared in a US senate report last year. Records were used to "stress" Mohamedou Ould Slahi during questioning in 2003, including repeated plays of a song by hard-rockers Drowning Pool. Other tracks that were reportedly played at high volume near prisoners include David Gray's Babylon, Metallica's Enter Sandman, Don McLean's American Pie, Queen's We Will Rock You, songs by REM, Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails, Bruce Springsteen, and even theme tunes from Sesame Street, Barney the Dinosaur and the Meow Mix commercials."
While the Meow Mix cats have yet to get involved, a wide range of other musicians have. Plenty of artists are plenty pissed about their music being a torture device. Ask Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello:
“Guantanamo is known around the world as one of the places where human beings have been tortured – from water boarding, to stripping, hooding and forcing detainees into humiliating sexual acts - playing music for 72 hours in a row at volumes just below that to shatter the eardrums. Guantanamo may be Dick Cheney’s idea of America, but it’s not mine. The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me – we need to end torture and close Guantanamo now."
Vanguard's Adrian Baschuk took a trip down to Gitmo last year and even spent the night. What going on at the most controversial jail in the world? (posted below)FROM THE NEWS BLOG:
This week a group of musicians launched Close Gitmo Now, a... more
dozens of artists filed a Freedom of Information Act; will launch formal protest of use of their music in conjunction with torture.dozens of artists filed a Freedom of Information Act; will launch formal protest of... more
A group of prominent musicians are joining a campaign to close Guantanamo Bay and demanding the release of records about what music was used during the potential torture of detainees there and at other facilities.
Some of the more famous names in the music industry are formally lending their prestige to an effort being led by retired generals, progressive groups and a former member of Congress to shut GITMO down. The list includes Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Jackson Browne, Rise Against, Rosanne Cash, Billy Bragg and the Roots, all of whom are joining the broader National Campaign to Close Guantanamo which was launched earlier in the week.
Hoping to cast further light on the potential illegalities that took place at the detention facility, the group is also working to obtain records about why and how music was used (under laws authorized by the Bush administration) to effectively torture suspected terrorists. The musicians have officially endorsed a Freedom of Information Act request for the declassification of all secret government records pertaining to music utilized during interrogations. At least two members of the coalition, Reznor and Morello, have had their music linked to interrogations.
"Guantanamo is known around the world as one of the places where human beings have been tortured -- from water boarding, to stripping, hooding and forcing detainees into humiliating sexual acts -- playing music for 72 hours in a row at volumes just below that to shatter the eardrums," said Morello, in a statement provided by the NCCG. "Guantanamo may be Dick Cheney's idea of America, but it's not mine. The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me -- we need to end torture and close Guantanamo now."
The National Security Archives will be officially filing the FOIA request on behalf of the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo (NCCG)
lA group of prominent musicians are joining a campaign to close Guantanamo Bay and... more
The Supreme Court's decision Tuesday to weigh whether a federal judge has the power to release Guantanamo Bay prisoners into the United States continues a legal tug of war begun when the Bush administration opened the overseas detention camp.
While President Barack Obama is trying to close Guantanamo's detention facility, he largely shares Bush's views about the deference owed a president. The latest case could further clarify this wartime balance of power.
"It's really important that the Supreme Court step in now," said Elizabeth Goitein, the director of the Brennan Center for Justice's Liberty and National Security Project. "This is an issue that's likely to keep arising."
In the closely watched case involving 17 Muslim Uighurs detained starting in 2002, the high court once more will consider how far traditional U.S. constitutional protections extend to the Guantanamo detainees.
A narrowly divided court in the 2008 Boumediene v. Bush case previously determined that detainees could file habeas corpus petitions challenging their indefinite detention. This time, the court will take the next step, considering whether a judicial remedy might include setting them free within the United States.
More @ linkThe Supreme Court's decision Tuesday to weigh whether a federal judge has the power to... more
The military can comply with a White House order to empty the detention center and clear all 221 war-on-terror captives off this remote base "with 10 days notice,'' the prison camps commander said Tuesday.
Navy Rear Adm. Tom Copeman said in an interview that his 2,100-member team of guards and other support staff can meet President Barack Obama's Jan. 22 closure deadline right through the eighth anniversary of the establishment of the controversial prison camps.
"If they say on Jan. 12, 'Move them out,' we can meet the deadline,'' he said, "given the proper amount of logistical support.''
He ticked off such requirements as enough airplanes to move them elsewhere and ferry runs across the bay that separates the prison camps from the Navy base landing strip where C-17 Globemaster aircraft shuttle the captives away.
More @ linkThe military can comply with a White House order to empty the detention center and... more
Il premio Nobel per la pace va al presidente degli Stati Uniti, Barack Obama. Ha ridato speranza alla cooperazione tra i popoli. Ma in Afghanistan dall'inizio dell'anno le forze americane hanno ucciso 1.500 innocenti. E Guantanamo è ancora lì.Il premio Nobel per la pace va al presidente degli Stati Uniti, Barack Obama. Ha... more
Eccovi il primo dei due video Web di lancio della nuova stagione Vanguard. In onda dal 13 ottobre su SKY 130 e sul nuovo sito che verrà lanciato in concomitanza con la prima puntata: http://vanguard.current.comEccovi il primo dei due video Web di lancio della nuova stagione Vanguard. In onda dal... more
WASHINGTON — To understand how hard it is proving for President Obama to close the American military prison at Guantánamo Bay, consider the case of Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed, Internee Security No. 692...WASHINGTON — To understand how hard it is proving for President Obama to close the... more
Attorney General orders secretive paramilitary group to turn over all its records
The plans of American Police Force to boss the $27 million dollar detention center in Hardin Montana as well as expand their presence across the country while training foreign troops inside the U.S. could be mothballed after Montana’s Attorney General launched an investigation and demanded the organization turn over all its records.
The investigation was prompted by the revelation yesterday that APF founder “Captain” Michael Hilton is a career criminal and a convicted fraudster who has operated under no less than 17 different aliases. Hilton, a native of Montenegro, was sentenced to 6 years in jail in 1993 for “Such schemes you cannot believe,” according to Joseph Carella, an Orange County, Calif. doctor, namely a dozen counts of grand theft. Hilton has defrauded numerous different individuals to the tune of $1.1 million dollars over the past 20 years.
APF’s plans to construct another facility in Hardin that will train international paramilitary forces also looks doomed following intense media scrutiny of the organization’s shady dealings with local authorities and their probable violation of article 2 section 33 of the Montana Constitution.
Judging by the reaction of Attorney Becky Convery, who negotiated the original deal between Hardin authorities and APF, the contract to man the detention center and build the training facility could be torpedoed.
“Convery said Two Rivers director Greg Smith had a tentative deal with Hilton’s company to provide law enforcement service, but she said it was never finalized and she was uncertain whether it would be legal,” reports the AP.
“We are not at all pleased with American Police masquerading as if they were the police for the city of Hardin,” she said.Attorney General orders secretive paramilitary group to turn over all its records... more
While everyone is watching Obama in New York addressing his very first UN General Assembly and charming the Security Council into nonproliferation, his administration has announced that they will not seek new powers to detain potential terrorists indefinitely.
From the Washington Post:
"The Obama administration has decided not to seek legislation to establish a new system of preventive detention to hold terrorism suspects and will instead rely on a 2001 congressional resolution authorizing military force against al-Qaeda and the Taliban to continue to detain people indefinitely and without charge, according to administration officials."
So to be clear, we’ve still got the system that brought us Guantanamo. What the Obama Administration is avoiding is any future Guantanamos.
This comes as a terror probe has been kicking along in the headlines – today with an indictment for one of the individuals for: “conspiring…to use one or more weapons of mass destruction, including bombs or other explosives.” (Wow.)
So what is the future of the so-called “War on Terror” (which as a phrase has even come to extinction within the Obama Adminsitration)? Will America’s standpoint on terrorism shift to a question of crime and punishment, away from the rhetoric of war (and the legal arguments that came with it)?While everyone is watching Obama in New York addressing his very first UN General... more
Binyam Mohamed, the former Guantanamo detainee, has reversed a decision to stay out of the public eye by signaling his determination to campaign for justice for prisoners at the American detention camp and highlight the lifelong effects of torture he suffered at the hands of his interrogators.
Six months after emerging as a frail and ghostly figure from the plane which brought him back to Britain from the US military prison in Cuba, Mr Mohamed last night used his first public speech since his release to explain the legacy of his seven years in detention, which he says included his "extraordinary rendition" to a prison in Morocco where his penis was repeatedly cut with a scalpel to force him to confess as an al-Qai'da terrorist.Binyam Mohamed, the former Guantanamo detainee, has reversed a decision to stay out of... more
As the Obama administration seeks to come up with a proposal for trying Guantanamo detainees, one of the most important cases to challenge presidential authority may provide some lessons. There are still 240 detainees left on Guantanamo and progress to close the prison has been stymied by congress and other legal concerns. One of the most important trials of a Guantanamo detainee was that of Salim Hamdan. The ruling in his case essentially established that the executive cannot come up with a new trial system without congressional approval and that the executive cannot ignore the Geneva conventions. Jonathan Mahler, author of The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight over Presidential Power, discusses his book and the case that challenged the use of secret military courts.As the Obama administration seeks to come up with a proposal for trying Guantanamo... more
The Obama administration is considering forgoing legislation and issuing an executive order that would authorize the president to incarcerate some terrorism suspects indefinitely, White House officials said Friday.
Such an order would be controversial — seemingly aligning the administration with a disputed legal doctrine of former President George W. Bush, whose lawyers held that the president had sweeping authority in wartime to imprison those he deemed threats to national security.
Obama officials sought to play down the significance of the discussions by an administration panel, saying that consideration of such an order was still in an early phase and subject to change. They said that lawyers had not written a specific proposal and that nothing had been submitted to the White House for review by senior officials.
Still, the possibility of the order appeared to reflect increasing frustration within the administration over the difficulties posed by the effort to meet Mr. Obama’s commitment to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by January and the dwindling options for dealing with the detainees before then.
At the heart of the issue are more than 200 men being held at Guantánamo, in some cases for years. Initially, the administration had hoped that most could either be sent back to their home countries or tried in criminal courts in the United States. But emptying the prison has proved politically difficult.The Obama administration is considering forgoing legislation and issuing an executive... more
But the quoted official, CIA lawyer Jonathan Fredman, told the committee on November 18 that he had made no such statement. In fact, Fredman added in a heretofore confidential, five-page memo, he had stressed at the 2002 meeting with interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility described in the Levin committee's report, "Interrogation practices and legal guidance must not be based upon anyone's subjective perception" (emphasis added) but rather upon "definitive and binding legal analysis."
Remarkably, the 18-page report issued by the committee (headed "Executive Summary") does not mention Fredman's vehement -- and, in my view, quite plausible -- denial of the horrifying words attributed to him in a document of debatable reliability that the report, and Levin, have treated as established fact.Excerpts --
But the quoted official, CIA lawyer Jonathan Fredman, told the... more
