Nightmare Rape Meets Saudi Y "Utopia"

The illustrious "blueblood" cum Citibank bigwig Alwaleed Al-Talal, once described his kingdom as "Utopia" - we'll footnote that For Royal Men ... if you want to find justice, wealth or even utopia in Saudi Arabia, you'd better show your y chromosomes - even if you're born there...


Someone at the top must be in a state of shock. Not about the brutal gang-rape of a 19-year-old by seven Saudi thugs, or the rape of the male who was driving her home. Not about a judge meting out the brutal "punishment" of 200 lashes on the victim, plus six months prison. Not about her brother attempting to kill her for "shaming" her family by being raped at knife-point. Not about the initial sentence in which one of her rapists was given fewer lashes than she was. Not about doubling her sentence only because she told her story to "the media". Not even that this punishment has no basis in the Shari'a or in the Qur'an or in Islam - except insofar as they impose a "false Shari'a" worse than anything David Horowitz could dream up.

No. Saudi royal sensibilities are shocked that the rest of the world doesn't think 200 lashes and six months in jail is a suitable punishment for being in a car with a man who is not her relative. So they came up with a solution. Now the Saudis changed their story, and it's not just about her being in a car with a relative. The "real story" now is that she is an "adulteress." So this is simply a different way of administering the Scarlet Letter.

Now the Saudi Ministry of Justice issued a statement in defense ofthe decision to punish the gang-rape victim with what could only be described as "cruel and unusual", to say the least - definitely draconian - by saying she "deserved" 200 lashes and 6 months in jail. For being what Greta van Susteren once termed "a floozy." The statement implied "that the woman had owned up to having an extramarital affair with the man in the car."

"She admitted to ... exchanging sinful relations," the statement said, adding
the woman was in state of undress with the man in the car before the attack took
place.

While her own testimony, both in court and to Human Rights Watch and the press, in an ABC News report, stated:

"I had a relationship with someone on the phone. We were both 16. I had never
seen him before. I just knew his voice. He started to threaten me, and I got
afraid. He threatened to tell my family about the relationship... "

She only went to meet the young man to retrieve a photo of herself to prevent him from blackmailing her. Because women by law can't drive in Saudi Arabia, he was her only way home. The 2 were kidnapped within minutes of reaching her home. As she describes,

"One of the men brought a knife to my throat. They told me not to speak. They
pushed us to the back of the car and started driving. We drove a lot, but I
didn't see anything since my head was forced down.
"They took us to an area
... with lots of palm trees. No one was there. If you kill someone there, no one
would know about it. They took out the man with me, and I stayed in the car. I
was so afraid. They forced me out of the car. They pushed me really hard ...
took me to a dark place. Then two men came in. They said, 'What are you going to
do? Take off your abaya.' They forced my clothes off. The first man with the
knife raped me. I was destroyed. If I tried to escape, I don't even know where I
would go. I tried to force them off but I couldn't."

The rest is even worse, as the whole world now knows. Yet the Saudi Ministry of Justice has the guts to claim that her testimony, from which the above is pretty much the same, admits "guilt" to "sinful relations", which the "official press" interprets as an extramarital affair. So again, the Saudi government wants to show that she "deserved" those 200 lashes, while they further smear her reputation.

I guess wearing a black cloak is no guarantee of protection from rape, or from being publicly humiliated with libelous statements. So what then is the point of the "abaya"? Why not ask a Saudi woman?

Hatoon al-Fassi, a history lecturer at King Saud university in Riyadh and
another women rights activist, agreed that women suffer from the lack of written
laws, which subjects rulings to the discretion of judges. "It all depends on the
reasoning of the judge," she told AFP. "It is good that the case has taken an
international dimension. It is shameful that such a case could have stayed
unspoken of... This is a ruling that has treated the victim as a culprit," she
said. "Such logic is so distant from Islam. It is the result of a
male-chauvinist reasoning," she charged.

"The woman does not have the right to represent herself in a court. She enters the court covered entirely in black. Some judges do not even allow her to speak," she said.

The victim's husband describes her situation, and how the court railroaded her.

The events ended her pursuit of an education past high school, he said. "Her
situation keeps changing from bad to worse," he said. "You could say she's a
crushed human being." "The court proceedings were like a spectacle at times," he
said. "The criminals were allowed in the same room as my wife. They were allowed
to make all kinds of offensive gestures and give her dirty and threatening
looks." Of the three judges at the trial, one of them "was mean and from the
beginning dealt with my wife as guilty person who had done something wrong," he
said.

It's not even her word against theirs. It's their word against ... a standing, mute, black-cloaked object. The judge was actually on the rapists' side, saying that she "brought it on" by being in a car with a man not a member of her family. Even though she was kidnapped along with the young man with her. But now the Saudi Ministry of Justice one-ups the judge, accusing her, against her own sworn testimony, of not only adultery, but being in "a state of undress", while riding home in a car in Saudi Arabia, no less. And this is supposed to "defend" the Saudis' position. So of course the woman is supposed, in their view, to be "of ill repute" and hence, "fair game" for gang-rape.

But again, she couldn't actually tell her story. It's not even her word against theirs. It's their word against ... a standing, mute, black-cloaked object. Women in Saudi Arabia can't speak in a court of law. A lawyer, or another man, have to speak for them. So imagine what that means when the judge summarily removes her attorney from the case. She becomes a mute, standing object draped in black. So the only testimony that can be heard is not that of the victim, but of the perpetrator.

Along with the young woman's sentence, the General Court of Qatif confiscated
the license of her attorney, Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem, a lawyer known for taking on
controversial cases that push back against Saudi Arabia's strictly interpreted
system of sharia, or Islamic law.
"Asking me to appear in front of a
disciplinary committee at the Ministry of Justice ... is a punishment for taking
human rights cases against some institutions," Al-Lahem
told Arab News.

The ministry also stressed the Saudi judicial system was based on Islamic law derived from the holy Koran and that a court ruling in the kingdom was only made after both sides in a case are given a fair and balanced hearing.

And since there were "no confessions" and "no witnesses", there was not much of a case, according to the Saudi government. Right - the rapists conveniently withdrew their confessions when the thought of 100+ lashes began to sink in. And since their victim has no voice, their heads would remain safely on their necks.

On the other hand, a columnist in the Philadelphia Bulletin has opined:

The West has continuously failed to understand that the primary reason for the
Arab world's anti-Americanism is not because of our freedom, liberties and way
of life but because we are seen as meddling in the internal and sovereign
affairs of Arab countries.
Whether we like it or not, the Middle East, and
Saudi Arabia in particular, controls of much of the world's oil supply. Until
that situation changes, we would do well to heed the old adage "It's not what
you say; it's how you say it."

He's probably cool with Bush's original assessment: "astonishing." But until someone attacks and puts pressure on abusive governments, they will continue to act as they do without a care in the world. In the absence of conscience, what can human beings rely on if not social condemnation for abuse? The "Girl of Qatif", a Shi'a in a Sunni world, came before the court of the world because the Saudis do not hear. To remain silent on such abuse is to put oil before conscience, lucre before the soul.

It's not enough that Saudi Arabia has to smear a traumatized, innocent, and very young woman in a place where being smeared means being subhuman, "fair game" for brutality. They also smear Islam and the Qur'an, too, by claiming that this "justice system" is based on Islamic law. Since when did Saudi Arabia have anything to do with Islamic Law or the Qur'an, except in name only? Don't just blame David Horowitz...

200 lashes is not a punishment for any crime in the Qur'an. (And neither is stoning or beheading.) Being in the proximity of a man not a relative is also not a crime in the Qur'an. Nor does the Qur'an specifically require a woman to cover her face, or even her hair (except by interpretation of a word that means "ornaments"). But the Qur'an does mention the cutting off of hands for theft - which is also mentioned in the old Testament. But a greater law is "the rule of law must be by mutual agreement and discussion between you all." They call it "shura" and it's reduced under the Saudis to a few men lining up to politely ask for some favors from royals. What a farce!

Dictatorship is in fact against the Qur'an's guidance, if one were to take it seriously. But the Saudi royals wouldn't dare apply the real Shari'a. After all, they consider the country's resources as their pocket money. If the Shari'a were applied, imagine how many hands would fly... and considering the way judges lord it over their victims, they'd better watch their own necks .. or at least, backs.

As for the world's pressure on this case, at least it caused the Saudi delegation to the peace talks in Annapolis "embarrassment", according to sources. And judging by what "shame" means to a woman there, perhaps "embarrassment" on a public stage will have some impact on a man - or better yet, a few powerful men.

Dubai Bigger Than China? Same Boom, Labor Issues...

Check out this video on CNBC discussing Dubai's new emergence as a world tech Mecca - even allegedly bigger than China, according to the Guy from Google.

Note how the Dubai elite brush off issues regarding the slave labor conditions of their mostly Asian workers - who make up about 80% of the population in Dubai - who are not, and cannot become, Dubai citizens. Got a few issues here, if Dubai wants to be, as Mr. Alabbar, the man in charge of much of the building boom here, says, the new "hub" of the region that includes Pakistan, Iran, and of course, the Middle East. There has to be some honesty in the face of their long-held elitist attitude. One of the prices of the perks of progress. (Israel, are you listening?)

In Sports at Least, Palestine is a Nation - with a Winner

While doomed negotiations with the ever-refusing Israelis crawl in the vacuum tube called U.S. Foreign Policy, Palestine and its flag flies over athletics and bench-pressing as this record-setting athlete, Ahmed Abukhater, represents his country in world competition.

Who, incidentally, is also a water resources specialist at the University of Texas who can comment on the water crisis facing Gaza's 1.4 million residents.

Read more...

Be A Voice Against Torture

On Wednesday evening, the House of Representatives passed an Iraq withdrawal bill that provides interim funding for the hostilities in Iraq and calls for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. It includes an anti-torture provision that would require all government agencies - including the CIA - to follow the Army Field Manual when conducting interrogations. In doing so, it would prohibit torture and other such "harsh" interrogation techniques. Majority Leader Harry Reid has said that he will bring this bill before the Senate today (Friday, November 16, 2007).

Don't let the Senate debate a bill that relates to torture without expressing your support for the anti-torture provisions in the bill.

Please contact - by phone or by email - your Senators to express your support for the provision that would require the CIA and other government agencies to abide by the restrictions in the Army Field Manual on Interrogations. You can contact your Senators by calling the Senate switchboard at (202) 224-3121, or you can look up their direct lines and their email addresses at this website.

Bush/Cheney gun for Ahmedinejad; But Saudis "Tool up" for War, Too - The Devil is on Both Sides?

Richard Posner Favors Surveillance of All US Muslims

"There, but for the grace of God, go I." Under surveillance, Sheikh Posner! To the Kangaroo Court you go!"

The title is a link to this brainboggling article, which is the culmination of all things Orwellian where reason is replaced by the knee-jerk notion, "Have you screwed bin Laden today?"

Of course, it speaks volumes for the "First Freedom," freedom of religion. Which was right up there in the First Amendment along with freedom of speech until Mr. Posner came along and saw fit to class all Muslims with UBL, who has been trying hard to repent, but we just won't let 'im, folks.

Now bear in mind that Richard Posner is a possible Supreme Court Justice contender, and considered a "libertarian" or "liberal" as opposed to an "authoritarian". The Aussie article where this story broke, reports:

" Melbourne QC Tim Tobin said it was a shock to hear such hard and isolationist positions coming from a judge known as a liberal thinker. While he was disturbed by the judge's proposed crackdown on US and Canadian Muslims, he suspected the sentiment would be welcomed by the Howard Government.
Judge Posner raised the prospect of secret trials as a "tailored regime" to prosecute terrorists in cases where there was a concern about classified information going public.
Queensland SC Glenn Martin said he had been "jolted" by the address: "I hope we never have secret trials in Australia." "

It sounds like the notion of Big Brother and Kangaroo Courts is resonating in the supposed halls of justice. These guys no longer believe in justice. For justice cannot be meted out on the basis of fear, or on the basis of emotions. Maybe he never heard of the Salem witchcraft trials. Maybe he forgot about the Spanish inquisition. When emotions, especially fear, are running high, well, it's hard to really believe in due process. Ask any crime victim. On the other hand, shall we give up 200 years of due process for which our founding fathers fought so hard because some old guys are so whipped up into a state of fear that they forget the cause of all their terror in the first place?

And what's that "cause"? It's their own demons: greed, blindness, power-lust, oppression, cruelty, and prejudice. Withdraw the troops from invasive ill-begotten wars, stop financing the eternal Israeli occupation of the Palestinians (with oppression and murder and bulldozing rampant), take care of our own Americans, hold together our respected and free Republic, give what we can to the hungry and downtrodden, and the "terrorists", especially the "Islamic terrorists", will vanish into the sunset, quite suddenly. Leaving a struggling but peaceful, and terror-free landscape. Not a dream, not a promise, but an obvious, glaring truth.

One species, too many lies. Truth endures.

Record number of Chinese Muslims making pilgrimage to Makkah

Many people do not know that Islam is alive and well in China. Oh, yes, and that it's universal, and has nothing to do with being of one ethnicity or another. Contrary to popular opinion.

Just some stats:

To prevent possible accidents, China's Regulations on Religious Affairs,
which was promulgated in 2004, stipulates that all outbound pilgrimage
activities of Chinese Muslims should be organized by the national Islamic
association, referring to the IAC.

China has more than 20 million Muslims, mainly living in Xinjiang,
Qinghai, Ganshu, Ningxia, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia and Henan. Starting in
1985, nearly 100,000 Muslims have fulfilled their pilgrimages.

Cyclone Sidr about to hit: Networks in Vegas

Bridgethought of the day: Do you ever get the feeling "World News" is just another franchise bought by - who else? - either Rupert Murdoch, Sam Walton's kids, or Alwaleed bin Talal?

Here's another post on the same subject - Cyclone Sidr, that is.

Surge Success: "There is no one left for them to kill"

The news is full of it: Casualties in Iraq are down, the Surge is a success. Bush/Cheney and Al-Maliki claim that they have "won" a "victory" over the "militants" - whatever that means. They cite recent lower casualty numbers, claiming the "surge" worked, and things are getting better. But people on the ground have a different explanation for the relative calm, which is atypical of the rest of 2007.
"There is no one left for them to kill," 55-year-old retired teacher Nathum Taha told IPS in Baghdad. "The Americans continue to use Arab Shia Iraqi militias to kill Sunnis, but most people have left by now."
Now the city of Baghdad, and much of the nation that was Iraq before we invaded it, is divided along sectarian lines. Where once Shi'a and Sunni families coexisted peacefully, there are ethnic cleansings that have driven many into "safe" neighborhoods, and others are refugees in strange cities, if they can't leave Iraq altogether. And it's not because they're naturally violent or divisive as the Republicans would have you believe...

This assessment from an Iraqi who voiced what people who have to live in the war zone are saying:

"Americans and Iranians have succeeded in realising their old dream of dividing the Iraqi people into sects. That is the only success they can talk about."

"If the situation is good, why are five million Iraqis living in exile," says 55- year-old Abu Mohammadwho was evicted from Shula in West Baghdad to become a refugee in Amiriya, a few miles from his lost home.

"Sectarian killings are less because all the Sunnis have been evicted from mixed areas in Baghdad," Salman Hameed, a teacher who was evicted from the al-Hurriya area west of Baghdad eight months ago told IPS. "All my relatives and Sunni neighbours who survived the killing campaign led by the militias under the eyes of American and Iraqi forces have fled either to Syria or to other Sunni cities."

Over 30 tons of cluster bombs, which are known for their heavy "collateral damage" on civilian populations, were dropped in the first 6 months of 2007. And that's not counting the
"Attacks against U.S. forces are not much less than they were last month, but media coverage has almost disappeared," Muhammad Younis from Mosul, in Baghdad on a business trip, told IPS. "The resistance is moving fast and changing locations in order to avoid intelligence provided by collaborators. Most Iraqis hate the Americans more than ever after the death and destruction caused by their occupation."

"American air raids are increasing in a way that shows a total failure on the ground," a retired general of the dissolved Iraqi army told IPS. "A whole family was killed near Madayin, southeast Baghdad on Saturday (Nov. 3) just after the tragic bombing of houses south of Tikrit (about 100 km north of Baghdad) where more than 10 civilians were killed."

On Nov. 4, Iraqi army personnel backed by U.S. soldiers detained 12 people during a raid on the Sunni Abu Hanifa mosque in the Adhamiyah district of northern Baghad.

"Those American and government forces could not face the resistance fighters, so they arrest innocent people," Aziz Thafir, a lawyer who witnessed the arrests, told IPS. "They started their raid with nasty sectarian words against Sunnis, and then arrested every one who was around in the mosque."
"They are more vicious than they were before," 44-year-old Abu Ahmed told IPS in the capital. "This is a religious war against Sunnis, who would not accept the occupation and division of the country."

Many Iraqis believe the sectarian violence is being perpetrated or orchestrated by the U.S., not prevented or stopped by them, as presented in American public propaganda, aka media blitzes. And they see that reporting is not accurate either - attacks by U.S. and Iraqi forces, as well as Iraqi police, against Iraqi civilians, are not being covered. They see the U.S. as working on a "divide and conquer" policy, and the lessening of violence as merely the result of so many people having either been killed or fled as refugees - plus the dividing of their cities into ethnically cleansed "havens".

"I would like to agree with the idea that violence in Iraq has decreased and
that everything is fine," retired general Waleed al-Ubaidy told IPS
in Baghdad. "But the truth is far more bitter. All that has happened is a
dramatic change in the demographic map of Iraq."
And as with Baquba and
other violence-hit areas of Iraq, he says a part of the story in Baghdad is that
there is nobody left to tell it. "Most of the honest journalists have
left."
"Baghdad has been torn into two cities and many towns and
neighbourhoods," Ahmad Ali, chief engineer from one of Baghdad's municipalities
told IPS. "There is now the Shia Baghdad and the Sunni Baghdad to start with.
Then, each is divided into little town-like pieces of the hundreds of thousands
who had to leave their homes."

The U.S. has to answer questions about possible complicity.

"The Americans ask (Prime Minister Nouri al) Maliki to stop the sectarian assassinations when they know very well that his ministers are ordering the sectarian cleansing," Mahmood Farhan from the Muslim Scholars Association, a leading Sunni group, told IPS.

At least they could have read

"A UN report released September 2005 held interior ministry forces responsible for an organised campaign of detentions, torture and killings. It said special police commando units accused of carrying out the killings were recruited from the Shia Badr and Mehdi militias.
Retired Col. James Steele, who served as advisor to Iraqi security forces under former U.S. ambassador John Negroponte, supervised the training of these forces.

Steele had been commander of the U.S. military advisors group in El Salvador in 1984-86; Negroponte was U.S. ambassador to neighbouring Honduras 1981-85. Negroponte was accused of widespread human rights violations by the Honduras Commission on Human Rights in 1994. The Commission reported the torture and disappearance of at least 184 political workers.
The violations Negroponte oversaw in Honduras were carried out by operatives trained by the CIA, according to a CIA working group set up in 1996 to look into the U.S. role in Honduras.
The CIA records document that "special intelligence units", better known as "death squads", comprised CIA-trained Honduran armed units which kidnapped, tortured and killed thousands of people suspected of supporting leftist guerrillas.
Negroponte was ambassador to Iraq for close to a year from June 2004. "

Makes you wonder what those in Iraq were really trained to do. Why then don't the Democrats put up a stronger fight to stop this disastrous war?

Here's a taste of life under an Emperor. We can be put in jail for not paying taxes. $10 billion of those taxes can be given unconditionally to a dictator in a far-away country, say, Pakistan, because Dick and George say they get it. And there ain't a damn thing you or Congress or anyone else can do about it. Because now it's Dick and George's money.

According to the Washington Post article:

U.S. assistance to the key anti-terrorism and nuclear armed ally _ which has totaled nearly $10 billion since 2001 _ is governed by legislative requirements that could trigger automatic aid cutoffs, but all are covered by locked-in presidential waivers, said officials familiar with a government-wide review.

Those waivers exempt Pakistan from aid restrictions.

If you look closely, you'll find a lot of those waivers. And Presidential directives. And signing statements. And there ain't a damn thing you or the Congress or anyone else can do about it. Because Dick wants George to be an Emperor, and y'all to be an Empire. An expensive enterprise, that. So far in human history, there's no nation that could ever really afford it.

Being an empire inevitably costs more than any one nation can produce, and its subjected sub-nations invariably hate the imposition, which usually leads to unrest, often civil war, and as long as it's an empire and handled militarily, rarely offers those riches and resources so desired by the invading powers.

So Pakistan, run by a military dictatorship, is actually "on the road to democracy"? And guess who's footing the bill for that democracy?

"Bush has been obligated by law since 2002 to issue waivers for most assistance to Pakistan, declaring that direct payments to Islamabad are in the U.S. national interest because they promote the transition to democratic rule. The officials familiar with the aid review conceded Musharraf's recent actions are at odds with the process of democratization but noted that unless Congress enacts new legislation or passes the new budget, the existing waivers continue to apply."

And the war in Iraq is also touted for promoting democracy. That's the whole point.

Building an empire. Democracy by force. And you pay ... or else...

Dalia Karpel Meets the Occupation: Her Riveting Story: "My God, What Did We Do?"

One night, Tamar Yarom was awakened by one of the soldiers in her unit. He said he wanted to show her something in the basement of the abandoned building where they were staying. "Before we opened the door, I heard this awful noise from a generator and there was a strong smell of diesel fuel. I saw a middle-aged Palestinian detainee lying with his head on the generator. His ear was pressed against the generator that was vibrating, and the guy's head was vibrating with it. His face was completely messed up. It amazed me that through all the blood and horror, you could still see the guy's expression and that's what stayed with me for years after - the look on his face." Yarom, now a film director, made two films following her army service as a mashakit tash (welfare officer) in an infantry company in the territories.

Read the rest...

"Aliens in America": Comic Diplomacy Trumps Guns ... Hopefully

In the war on terror, is there a more effective weapon in ... comedy? In a new sitcom on CW network, "Aliens in America," comedy wins.

An interview with "Mad About You" co-creator David Guarascio on the altmuslim website reveals how the show was conceived and ultimately became the first TV series with a lead character who is also a Muslim Pakistani teen in suburban America - and the whole thing actually succeeds in being funny. As Guarascio says,
"We also started talking about politics and the giant gap that exists between Americans and really the rest of the world, specifically the Muslim world. In that stew, we sort of came up with the idea for the show."

The "situation" involves "all the insecurities, anxieties, and nightmare experiences of high school" and the interviewer, Wajahat Ali, notes "the main character Justin Tolchuk, played by Dan Byrd, is one of the unluckiest and dorkiest teenagers I've seen on television in a long time." Guarascio describes him as "feeling like an alien in his own school."
"So, the idea is that we are all sort of aliens in one way or another."
The reaction from the American Muslim community has been very enthusiastic. As Guarascio reveals,
"The first results we usually get from Muslims is "thank you for doing a comedy," Nobody ever called MPAC with a comedy, usually it's very serious, a drama, not always terrorism, but always very, very serious. So, they said thank you for a comedy because it allows people to relax a bit and is a lot more inclusive, and more can identify with comedy than drama."
Interestingly, the idea for the main protaganist, Justin, comes from the experiences of Guarascio's co-creator for the show, Moses Port, who
"comes from a small town that is entirely Christian and he was just one of the couple of Jewish kids in his school. During Christmas time, the whole school would sing Christmas songs together, and they would put Moses and one other kid on stage to sing Hanukkah songs. So, he has distinctive feelings about being marked for his differences."
The feeling of being a stranger in a strange land could, through the universal medium of humor, bring together people who, in other circumstances, have been at war. The real war on terror is in breaking down the terror, the fear, the xenophobia, the ethnic prejudices on all sides. With comedy? Well, it's universal, it's a common language, it's not aggressive, it's compelling, and compared with the military weapons we've spent so much on, maybe it's more effective.
We need a surge of great universal sitcoms... right about now...
After all, America has successfully brought together vastly different people from clashing cultures to live together in relative peace in one society. The very charisma of that idea helps form the bond that keeps us together.
Maybe this comedy-to-peace thing should go farther. How about a surge of great universal sitcoms? ... once we get those explosives out of the way...

Omar Khadr Update

This from the ACLU:

"ACLU attorney Jamil Dakwar is in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba serving as a human rights observer at the hearing of a Canadian citizen named Omar Ahmed Khadr. Khadr was only 15 years old when he was captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. This is his third hearing; the first two resulted in the charges against him being thrown out.
After nearly six years of disarray and uncertainty about how to prosecute the 320 remaining prisoners being held at Guantánamo Bay, the U.S. government has failed to complete a single trial. As the prisoners continue to languish without being charged or tried, one thing remains crystal clear: We cannot arbitrarily detain prisoners, deny them access to lawyers, and hold them indefinitely.
It is also clear that Congress cannot continue to put off taking action, they need to close Guantánamo Bay, restore habeas corpus and repudiate torture once and for all. In the meantime, you and I cannot wait for a change in Congress or the White House to demand that our leaders fix the damage done to the Constitution, our freedoms and our most fundamental American values over the last seven years.
That’s why we’re asking ACLU members to bring the discussion about these vital issues to their friends and family by hosting a screening of the powerful documentary, "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib," on or before December 10, International Human Rights Day. Sign up to host a screening. "

P.S. You don't have to be an ACLU member to do this (I don't believe).

And this blockbuster from CTV:

Khadr legal team says eyewitness was 'buried'

"The defence team for Canadian Guantanamo Bay prisoner Omar Khadr said they have just recently been told about an eyewitness who could provide "exculpatory information."
The surprise announcement came after a U.S. military judge postponed making a decision on whether Khadr is subject to a war-crimes tribunal.
Upon arriving at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, defence lawyers for Khadr told reporters that there was an eyewitness to the 2002 firefight that led to Khadr being charged in the death of U.S. Army Sgt. Christopher Speer.
CTV's Lisa LaFlamme reported from Guantanamo Bay that the witness was a U.S. government employee, possibly a soldier.
Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler, Khadr's U.S. trial lawyer, told reporters Thursday that the government had known about the witness but had tried to bury him.
"It's an eyewitness that the government has always known about," said Kuebler.
"They weren't going to tell us who he was or how to get in touch with him or where he was. Their theory is that they've done their investigation and they've disclosed everything they have to disclose. And we don't necessarily have an entitlement to talk to people who were actually at the scene of the crime."
Khadr's defence team said they learned of the eyewitness only two days ago when they received disclosure prior to the appearance before a military tribunal.
"He's been in custody for how long? Coming up on six years?" asked Deputy Chief of Defence Mike Berringer. "How we can be on the eve of a hearing to determine his status, how we can have newly discovered evidence, is beyond me."
Meanwhile, Khadr's tribunal in Guantanamo Bay ended without a clear determination of his status.
The court is pondering the question of whether Khadr is an "alien unlawful enemy combatant."
"The judge decided to withhold that pending a Federal Court appeal," LaFlamme said Thursday.
In the end, Khadr was not arraigned. Instead, dates for December and January have been set to hear new pre-trial motions.
Khadr appeared relaxed during his hearing, telling the judge he was satisfied with his defence team.
Khadr was before the military judge for a pre-trial hearing as lawyers argued whether the U.S. Defence Department has the right to try him on charges of murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and spying.
Asked if he wanted to keep his current legal team -- a Pentagon-appointed lawyer and two civilian defence lawyers -- Khadr told the judge: "Yes, sir."
The 21-year-old entered the room dressed in a white uniform reserved for the most compliant prisoners.
He then sat unshackled with his legs crossed at the defence table, alongside his legal team.
Khadr is accused of killing Speer with a grenade during a firefight in Afghanistan on July 27, 2002 -- when he was 15.
In 2004, a military panel classified him as an "enemy combatant."
But because he wasn't classified as an "alien unlawful enemy combatant" -- required under rules written by Congress -- Col. Peter Brownback said last June that he had no choice but to throw the case out.
In September, a special military appeals court ruled that Brownback has the authority to determine whether Khadr was "unlawfully" fighting with the Taliban when Speer was killed.
Born in Canada, Khadr returned with his family to Pakistan and then travelled to Afghanistan as a child. He was captured at 15 at a suspected al Qaeda compound, badly wounded and blinded in one eye.

Despite Khadr's admission that he was satisfied with his legal team, Khadr's Canadian lawyer Dennis Edney said earlier Thursday that the trial was being manipulated.
He said Khadr is only able to choose between the prospect of representing himself or accepting a U.S. military system that's stacked against him.
Edney criticized his client's U.S. lawyer, Kuebler, saying his team was unprepared.
"The military defence team has not interviewed any of the prosecution's witnesses and only recently has looked at the disclosure -- notwithstanding that the prosecution team has been preparing for these days for the last two years," Edney told CTV's Canada AM on Thursday.
Edney also said Khadr's U.S. lawyer has no trial experience and only has a background in taxation law.
"The least you could provide him (Khadr) with is a competent lawyer familiar with the areas in which Mr. Khadr is charged," he said.

Edney has been barred from Thursday's arraignment because of his complaints about Kuebler.
"I think there's a concern that I would delay the process by advising the judge that first of all Mr. Khadr needs a psychiatric assessment to determine his fitness to stand trial," said Edney.
"You have to understand that Mr. Khadr has spent a quarter of his life in solitary confinement in that hellhole called Guantanamo Bay."
Edney's partner, lawyer Nate Whitling, did manage to meet with Khadr on Wednesday to explain that Edney would not be present today.

Meanwhile, Canada does have a representative at the base for the proceedings but officials are remaining very secretive, said LaFlamme.
"The Canadian government is the only Western nation that has done nothing to try to extradite their national from this prison," she said. "Every other country -- the U.K., Australia, New Zealand -- they've all reclaimed their detainees here at Guantanamo."
University of Toronto political scientist David Welsh criticized the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay saying that the detainees were not being treated with due process.
The U.S. have been "making it up as they go along," he said.
But Sgt. (Ret'd) Layne Morris, a former U.S. soldier injured in the 2002 firefight, said Thursday that he believes the evidence will be compelling.
"I think that's probably why those who would argue on behalf of Omar Khadr are so anxious to always go back and try and challenge the legal system and the circumstances of the trial because, to a certain extent, they think the outcome of this is probably inevitable," Morris told Canada AM.
Morris was left partially blind following the 2002 firefight. "

We hope that justice will prevail, but knowing the U.S. system on this, it's doubtful.

Peace Between the Semites: The Halloween Solution

First of all, OK, I know I'm late. But Mideast Peace is always late, so this should be appropriate.

Second of all, neither Israel nor the Palestinians (a people without a place) celebrate Halloween. But that's exactly what we need - an uninvolved 3rd party.

Third, Halloween is all about being scared, and the last thing we need more of in the Middle East is fear. Well, there's a huge difference between "being scared" and having your home bulldozed, your food supply and electricity cut off, and your ability to earn a living removed. What we need are more hobgoblins and Star Wars characters, less bloodbaths in the nursery. What we need is not a "Peace Talk" for Propaganda where nothing moves, nothing changes. What we need is a real costume party.

You see, it's all about make-believe, fake fears, and trust...

Now just imagine, for a moment, that your kids are in front of a house trick or treating. This requires a fair amount of trust. You trust that the house does not contain a man armed with an M-16 who will open the door and blow everybody's head off. You trust that the street also does not contain such men. In fact, you trust that the other children with your child are actual children, friends, not "enemy combatants", for example. And you trust that the candy is not poisoned.

The people in the house also trust that these children are not a come-on for some killers in the background. Or that they are not going to vandalize their house afterwards - or before. Or that they are not going to enter suddenly, by force, weilding knives or other weapons.

Normally, this trust is definitely kept. Halloweens come & go, mostly without incident. Incidents of a violent or other criminal nature are the rare exception. Parents take certain precautions, of course. But the level of trust is a sign of a relatively healthy society.

It's what you call neighbors, community... it's something Palestinians don't have much of, cross-nationally speaking. But they do have make-believe. And so do the Israelis. In fact, Israeli policy relies heavily on make-believe. The Israeli government is not a peace-maker, but plays one on TV.

They have no motive to make peace. Things are OK as is, apparently. Bush/Cheney have no intention of working on this thing. Giuliani, for one, doesn't see the "need" for a Palestinian state. The Israeli govt. has put peace on indefinite hold, and really doesn't give a damn. But one day, if doomsday prophesies are fulfilled (which we're plied with on Halloween) Israel may not even be able to exist with the power and might it now does - and Israelis and Palestinians may have to share shelters. So we need a little more, shall we say, empathy. Even fake empathy?

So when Palestinian civilians are killed in Israeli bombings, even in the Gaza, there should be a contingent of public Israelis wearing "tragedy" masks. And when a suicide bomber explodes in an Israeli marketplace and someone is killed, there should be also Palestinians wearing their "tragedy" masks. Of course, normally this would never happen, and both sides rarely feel for the other. But wearing the masks would put some make-believe into empathy.

And each side should don their "happy face" masks when the other has cause for celebration - that is, celebration that does not involve the thrill of revenge or the thrill of military/violent victory/conquest.

And when it comes to impossible "thorny" issues such as recognition of Israel - which they feel as preconditional endorsement of their own oppression with no promise of gain - or the Palestinians' right of return - which is seen on the other side as opening the Pandora's floodgate for a devastating influx of former refugees on an already strained system/infrastucture: well, in these two cases, each wears a "compromise" mask - a serious, but friendly face that shows willingness to consider the other sides' view.

And the media should only view the masks. Both sides' interests should receive equal coverage in all media. Palestinians whose homes were bulldozed should be allowed to air their grievances, and Israelis should wear their "tragedy" masks. It gives the impression of compassion, even if none is there.

And when it comes to collective punishment - tell me, what mask should the Israelis wear? And what mask should be worn when the Palestinians' home is bulldozed to clear the way for the Israeli settlers? And what mask should be worn by both sides when settlers move into what was once a Palestinian Semite's (and to the Nazis, btw, all Arabs were also "Juden") home in a nice new, much better Israeli home, after the pogrom? Shall the Palestinians wear "happy faces" welcoming their tormenters to their former piece of land, so they can wander looking for a place to "assimilate"? Does no one see the oppressed repeating his oppressor's crimes when he's in the driver's seat?

And what mask should be worn by the Israeli soldiers as they search and kill suspects in the Palestinian side, in their homes? What costume could terrify a Palestinian child more than that of an Israeli soldier? The blood, the death of people he knows are not make-believe.

We need more Star Wars costumes, less bayonets, less checkpoints, less militarism. We need more trust, more peace.

But peace is here only make-believe. And no mask can hide the glaringly obvious absence of conscience. Happy Halloween.

Hobgoblin NSPD-51 Meets Murphy's Law: Will There Even Be An Election?

Bridgethought of the Day: The most astounding and powerful things happen, and almost nobody notices. Until later, sometimes too late...

Let's see, it was just another day, another Presidential Decree... National Security Presidential Directive-51 (NSPD-51) and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20 (HSPD-20), to be exact ... that was back on May , 2006 ... nobody noticed, but hey, ol' GWB just gave himself the right to declare martial law!

Yes, folks, just in case there should be a national emergency - something Bush, and Bush alone, can determine - then he can just up & declare it - and boom! Martial Law!

Now don't say it can't happen, because Bush/Cheney made it possible last May with the above-mentioned "Directive." And anything that's possible to happen ... oh, did you remember Murphy's Law? And what does that mean? And maybe that little gaff with Putin wasn't a "gaff" after all... maybe Bush just couldn't keep his trap shut...

So what's Martial Law? For starters it cancels the elections!

That's right. Puts elections on hold.

And what could be a better emergency than WWIII - or Nuclear war with Iran?

Do you see where I'm going with this? Ever wonder why Cheney/Bush and the neocons in general are so damn anxious to get into war, preferably nuclear war, with Iran??? I mean, it's not like we're overextended...

Well, why not so they can cancel the elections! And Republicans win! And that way, Hillary can't get elected. Because there won't be any elections. And Bush can say "I was right"... it's WWIII!

And if you're not up with that, may I suggest impeachment?? For survival's sake...