ONLY IN AMERICA

'CROSS COUNTRY' [EXCERPT] - ROBERT SULLIVAN (NEW YORK TIMES, JULY 2): ?The America that I see is an America that tells you to keep moving, to move on to something better, to get on the road and keep going, to stop only briefly to refuel your car and yourself but then to keep pushing toward the place that is closer to where you should be, or could be, if only you would keep going. America says move, move on, don't sit still.?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/02/books/ch...agewanted=print

WHAT PERCENT OF COLLEGE FACULTY ARE PART-TIME? USA TODAY (JULY 3): Part time college faculty represent 46% of all instructors, up from just 23% in 1971.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/snapshot.htm?...006-07-03-profs

I guess that I am some kind of an oddity, here in OUR America .....

Living now where I did when I was young ....

On the same land ...

Like I was John Adams or something like that, anyway ....

Not getting sucked in to this thing that this article descrbes above here ......

The search ....

For the land .....

At the end of the rainbow ....

The place where it is always going to be ...

Better than it was ...

In the last place you were at ...

And so .....

If you aren't content ....

With that space ...

Directly above your shoe tops ....

No sense looking for something better ...

Down the road .....

That's my thought, anyway ....

And if you are satisified with that space ....

Well ...

What do you even need a road for?

You're already home ...

And so ....

I AM ......

AN AMERICAN .....

JUST AS MUCH ....

AS REPUBLICAN UNITED STATES SENATOR MITCH McCONNELL IS ....

AND I DO NOT SEE ....

ANYTHING WRONG .....

WITH A UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT RULING .....

THAT CALLS A SPADE ....

A SPADE ....

IF AMERICANS ...

ARE GUILTY ...

OF WAR CRIMES .....

THEN THEY MUST BE PUNISHED ...

SIMPLE AS THAT .....

NOT PROTECTED ....

WHICH WOULD BE AN ABOMINATION ....

AS WELL AS ...

A REAL MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE ...

IN THIS WORLD OF OURS ....

WHERE WAR CRIMINALS OF ANY STRIPE ...

AND ESPECIALLY AMERICAN WAR CRIMINALS ....

ARE UNWANTED ...

AND UNWELCOME .....

THE PROBLEM FOR THE REPUBLICANS .....

OF COURSE ...

IS THAT THEY ...

WANT TO HAVE ....

A FOREIGN POLICY .....

THAT ALLOWS THEM ....

TO DO THINGS ....

THAT WERE CONSIDERED WAR CRIMES ...

WHEN DONE BY THE NAZIS .....

AND THE JAPANESE ....

DURING WWII ....

And so .....

HAMDAN v. RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, et al.

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit

No. 05-184. 

Argued March 28, 2006--Decided June 29, 2006

Even assuming ....

That Hamden is a dangerous individual ....

Who would cause great harm ....

Or death .....

To innocent civilians ....

Given the opportunity ....

The Executive (GEORGE W. BUSH) ....

Nevertheless ....

Must comply .....

With the prevailing ....

Rule of law .....

In undertaking .....

To try him .....

And subject him ....

To criminal punishment .....

HAMDAN v. RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, et al.

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit

No. 05-184. 

Argued March 28, 2006--Decided June 29, 2006

The military commission, a tribunal neither mentioned in the Constitution nor created by statute, was born of military necessity.

See W. Winthrop, Military Law and Precedents 831 (rev. 2d ed. 1920) (hereinafter Winthrop).

Though foreshadowed in some respects by earlier tribunals like the Board of General Officers that General Washington convened to try British Major John André for spying during the Revolutionary War, the commission "as such" was inaugurated in 1847.

Id., at 832; G. Davis, A Treatise on the Military Law of the United States 308 (2d ed. 1909) (hereinafter Davis).

As commander of occupied Mexican territory, and having available to him no other tribunal, General Winfield Scott that year ordered the establishment of both "'military commissions'" to try ordinary crimes committed in the occupied territory and a "council of war" to try offenses against the law of war.

Winthrop 832 (emphases in original).

When the exigencies of war next gave rise to a need for use of military commissions, during the Civil War, the dual system favored by General Scott was not adopted.

Instead, a single tribunal often took jurisdiction over ordinary crimes, war crimes, and breaches of military orders alike.

As further discussed below, each aspect of that seemingly broad jurisdiction was in fact supported by a separate military exigency.

Generally, though, the need for military commissions during this period--as during the Mexican War--was driven largely by the then very limited jurisdiction of courts-martial:

"The occasion for the military commission arises principally from the fact that the jurisdiction of the court-martial proper, in our law, is restricted by statute almost exclusively to members of the military force and to certain specific offences defined in a written code."

Id., at 831 (emphasis in original).

Exigency alone, of course, will not justify the establishment and use of penal tribunals not contemplated by Article I, §8 and Article III, §1 of the Constitution unless some other part of that document authorizes a response to the felt need.

See Ex parte Milligan, 4 Wall. 2, 121 (1866) ("Certainly no part of the judicial power of the country was conferred on [military commissions]"); Ex parte Vallandigham, 1 Wall. 243, 251 (1864); see also Quirin, 317 U. S., at 25 ("Congress and the President, like the courts, possess no power not derived from the Constitution").

And that authority, if it exists, can derive only from the powers granted jointly to the President and Congress in time of war.

See id., at 26-29; In re Yamashita, 327 U. S. 1, 11 (1946).

The Constitution makes the President the "Commander in Chief" of the Armed Forces, Art. II, §2, cl. 1, but vests in Congress the powers to "declare War ... and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water," Art. I, §8, cl. 11, to "raise and support Armies," id., cl. 12, to "define and punish ... Offences against the Law of Nations," id., cl. 10, and "To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces," id., cl. 14.

The interplay between these powers was described by Chief Justice Chase in the seminal case of Ex parte Milligan:

"The power to make the necessary laws is in Congress; the power to execute in the President."

"Both powers imply many subordinate and auxiliary powers."

"Each includes all authorities essential to its due exercise."

"But neither can the President, in war more than in peace, intrude upon the proper authority of Congress, nor Congress upon the proper authority of the President ... ."

"Congress cannot direct the conduct of campaigns, nor can the President, or any commander under him, without the sanction of Congress, institute tribunals for the trial and punishment of offences, either of soldiers or civilians, unless in cases of a controlling necessity, which justifies what it compels, or at least insures acts of indemnity from the justice of the legislature."

4 Wall., at 139-140.21

Whether Chief Justice Chase was correct in suggesting that the President may constitutionally convene military commissions "without the sanction of Congress" in cases of "controlling necessity" is a question this Court has not answered definitively, and need not answer today.

For we held in Quirin that Congress had, through Article of War 15, sanctioned the use of military commissions in such circumstances.

317 U. S., at 28 ("By the Articles of War, and especially Article 15, Congress has explicitly provided, so far as it may constitutionally do so, that military tribunals shall have jurisdiction to try offenders or offenses against the law of war in appropriate cases").

Article 21 of the UCMJ, the language of which is substantially identical to the old Article 15 and was preserved by Congress after World War II, reads as follows:

"Jurisdiction of courts-martial not exclusive."

"The provisions of this code conferring jurisdiction upon courts-martial shall not be construed as depriving military commissions, provost courts, or other military tribunals of concurrent jurisdiction in respect of offenders or offenses that by statute or by the law of war may be tried by such military commissions, provost courts, or other military tribunals." 64 Stat. 115.

We have no occasion to revisit Quirin's controversial characterization of Article of War 15 as congressional authorization for military commissions.

Cf. Brief for Legal Scholars and Historians as Amici Curiae 12-15.

Contrary to the Government's assertion, however, even Quirin did not view the authorization as a sweeping mandate for the President to "invoke military commissions when he deems them necessary."

Brief for Respondents 17.

Rather, the Quirin Court recognized that Congress had simply preserved what power, under the Constitution and the common law of war, the President had had before 1916 to convene military commissions--with the express condition that the President and those under his command comply with the law of war.

See 317 U. S., at 28-29.23

That much is evidenced by the Court's inquiry, following its conclusion that Congress had authorized military commissions, into whether the law of war had indeed been complied with in that case.

See ibid.

The Government would have us dispense with the inquiry that the Quirin Court undertook and find in either the AUMF or the DTA specific, overriding authorization for the very commission that has been convened to try Hamdan.

Neither of these congressional Acts, however, expands the President's authority to convene military commissions.

First, while we assume that the AUMF activated the President's war powers, see Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U. S. 507 (2004) (plurality opinion), and that those powers include the authority to convene military commissions in appropriate circumstances, see id., at 518; Quirin, 317 U. S., at 28-29; see also Yamashita, 327 U. S., at 11, there is nothing in the text or legislative history of the AUMF even hinting that Congress intended to expand or alter the authorization set forth in Article 21 of the UCMJ.

Cf. Yerger, 8 Wall., at 105 ("Repeals by implication are not favored").

Likewise, the DTA cannot be read to authorize this commission.

Although the DTA, unlike either Article 21 or the AUMF, was enacted after the President had convened Hamdan's commission, it contains no language authorizing that tribunal or any other at Guantanamo Bay.

The DTA obviously "recognize[s]" the existence of the Guantanamo Bay commissions in the weakest sense, Brief for Respondents 15, because it references some of the military orders governing them and creates limited judicial review of their "final decision[s]," DTA §1005(e)(3), 119 Stat. 2743.

But the statute also pointedly reserves judgment on whether "the Constitution and laws of the United States are applicable" in reviewing such decisions and whether, if they are, the "standards and procedures" used to try Hamdan and other detainees actually violate the "Constitution and laws." Ibid.

Together, the UCMJ, the AUMF, and the DTA at most acknowledge a general Presidential authority to convene military commissions in circumstances where justified under the "Constitution and laws," including the law of war.

Absent a more specific congressional authorization, the task of this Court is, as it was in Quirin, to decide whether Hamdan's military commission is so justified.

It is to that inquiry we now turn.

"Al-Zarqawi's death fails to stop bloodshed"

By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 58 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Deaths among Iraq civilians, police and soldiers dropped slightly last month but the number of wounded rose, indicating little easing of violence since the killing of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, government figures showed Monday.

The tallies from the defense, interior and health ministries did not specify how many of the deaths and injuries occurred before the June 7 airstrike that killed the al-Qaida in Iraq leader.

Of the 1,006 Iraqis reported killed in political or sectarian violence last month, 885 were civilians, according to figures obtained by The Associated Press.

The overall figure was down from the 1,053 deaths recorded by the three ministries in May.

Despite the dip in deaths, the number of Iraqis wounded rose from 1,426 in May to 1,769 in June.

In all, about 5,062 Iraqis were killed and 6,898 were wounded in the first six months of this year, the figures said.

Those totals do not include the 66 people killed and about 100 wounded in Saturday's car bombing in Baghdad's Shiite-dominated district of Sadr City.

That was the deadliest attack in Iraq since the unity government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki took office in May, pledging to curb the violence so Iraqi forces can take over their own security within 18 months so American troops can begin withdrawing.

In announcing al-Zarqawi's death, U.S. officials cautioned against expecting any quick reduction in violence, particularly the suicide attacks and car bombings against Shiite civilians that have been the hallmark of his group.

Al-Qaida quickly announced a new leader — Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who vowed to continue the fight.

Since al-Zarqawi's death, al-Qaida in Iraq has claimed responsibility for several attacks, including the brutal slayings of two U.S. soldiers captured south of Baghdad last month.

Nevertheless, American and Iraqi officials believe that over time, the death of the charismatic al-Zarqawi will help dampen the violence and encourage other insurgent groups to talk with the government about ending the insurgency.

"Attacks have increased since al-Zarqawi's death, but the group is being weakened and is disintegrating because they have lost their most important symbol," Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Ali Rashid said, citing no figures.

Still, his comments offer little comfort to Iraqis, who face daily bombings and shootings.

Taxi driver Firas Hussein learned how precarious life can be.

On June 20, the 38-year-old Shiite taxi driver stopped his vehicle near a Baghdad market to let the engine cool from the baking, 110-degree heat.

Moments later, a minivan exploded, killing four people and hurling shards of hot metal into his leg.

Fifteen other people were injured.

"Three pieces of shrapnel penetrated my left leg," Hussein recalled.

"I looked around and saw dead and wounded people on the ground."

There are no generally accepted figures on the number of Iraqis killed or wounded since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

Government institutions did not start functioning again until more than a year after the invasion, and the Iraqi Health Ministry only began tabulating civilian deaths in April 2004, when heavy fighting broke out between U.S. forces and gunmen in Fallujah and Najaf.

Many deaths are believed to go unreported, and families sometimes collect bodies from the hospital before they can be recorded at the morgue, making a reliable count difficult.

Iraq Body Count, a private group that bases its figures in part on reports by 40 media outlets, puts the number of civilian deaths since the conflict began at between 38,786 and 43,215.

Deputy Health Minister Adel Mohsen said Baghdad's main morgue had recorded some 25,000 victims of violence since 2004 — 8,000 so far this year, 10,500 in 2005 and 6,500 the year before.

The morgue figures only cover Baghdad and its outskirts, excluding the volatile western Anbar region, the relatively quiet Kurdish north or southern Shiite areas that witness fewer attacks than Sunni regions where the insurgency is active.

In December, President Bush estimated that at least 30,000 Iraqis had been killed so far during the conflict.

Some 2,750 coalition troops, including more than 2,500 Americans, have died in Iraq since the war began.

But it is clear that Iraqi civilians are suffering the most.

"What we are seeing is a significant increase in civilian casualties, Iraqi civilian casualties," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, said last week.

"They account for about 70 percent of all casualties on a daily basis within Iraq."

"They are, unfortunately, the ones who are taking the brunt of this insurgent activity."

"Army: Policy violated in GIs' abductions, deaths - Military says soldiers who were kidnapped and slain had been left alone"

REUTERS

Updated: 8:45 p.m. ET July 1, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Three U.S. soldiers killed by insurgents south of Baghdad last month had been left alone at a checkpoint in violation of military procedure, a U.S. military spokeswoman said on Saturday.

An investigation is already under way into how the soldiers came to be on their own in an armored Humvee vehicle in an al-Qaida hotspot known as the "Triangle of Death" as night fell.

Militants abducted and killed two of them in an attack in which the third soldier also died.

"A lone vehicle does not fit standard operating procedures and does not match published guidance," Lieutenant Colonel Michelle Martin-Hing told Reuters.

"The investigation will look at the circumstances surrounding this event and how it was that this vehicle was there by itself."

Major General James Thurman, commander of U.S.-led forces in the Baghdad area, ordered the probe into the deaths of Privates First Class Kristian Menchaca, 23, Thomas Tucker, 25 and David Babineau, 25.

He has been reluctant to comment on whether a breach in military procedure made them vulnerable to attack, saying this will form part of the investigation.

'No one has a good answer'

The mutilated and booby-trapped bodies of Menchaca and Tucker were found three days after militants captured them on June 16 near the village of Yusufiya.

Babineau was killed in the attack on the checkpoint on a canal bridge.

The Army Times quoted Martin-Hing as saying that "no one has a good answer" for the apparent lapse in security procedure.

The newspaper said in its latest edition that "a three-Humvee minimum has evolved as the standard for combat patrols and convoys".

Martin-Hing told the newspaper that two Humvees, part of the same patrol, had been manning a traffic control point slightly to the northeast of the bridge crossing.

They were in radio communication with the lone Humvee but not in visual range.

Thurman said this week it took 15 minutes for a quick reaction force to reach the site after U.S. soldiers in the area heard small arms fire and explosions near the checkpoint.

The deputy commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, has since ordered his commanders to look at procedures for combat patrols, Martin-Hing said.

"U.S. automakers' sales decline in June"

By SARAH KARUSH, Associated Press Writer

12 minutes ago

DETROIT - Domestic automakers' sales slid in June, lashed by higher gas prices and by tough comparisons with last summer's discount-driven bonanza, the companies said on Monday.

Struggling General Motors Corp. got the worst beating; its sales plunged 25.7 percent last month.

But rising fuel costs were a boon to Toyota Motor Corp., which credited its fuel-efficient lineup for much of its 14.4 percent sales increase over June 2005.

Honda Motor Co.'s U.S. sales were flat.

Sales from a year ago slipped 15.5 percent at DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group and 6.8 percent at Ford Motor Co., the companies reported Monday.

Across the industry, sales were down 10.5 percent, with truck sales plummeting 19.4 percent and cars inching up 1.6 percent, according to Autodata Corp.

The seasonally adjusted sales rate for June, which shows what total sales would be if they remained at the same rate for the entire year, was 16.3 million vehicles.

Automakers sold 17 million vehicles in 2005.

GM had warned that its June sales would be down significantly because of aggressive discounts last summer.

Paul Ballew, GM's executive director of global market and industry analysis, said comparisons with last year were difficult because of the promotion, which allowed all customers to purchase vehicles at the price given to employees.

"The Employee Discount for Everyone program and the success of that program was probably a once-in-a-decade home run for the industry and certainly for ourselves," Ballew said in a conference call.

He said this June's performance was in line with the company's expectations.

High gas prices cut into sales of pickups and big sport utility vehicles — traditionally the stronger segment at both GM and Ford.

GM's truck sales fell 37 percent in June, while cars were down less than half a percent.

Year-to-date, GM's sales fell 12.2 percent, including a 13 percent drop for trucks and an 11 percent dip for cars.

At Ford, sales of light trucks plummeted 14.6 percent.

But the company saw a bright spot in car sales, which rose 8.6 percent, as demand for new midsize sedans — the Ford Fusion, Mercury Milan and Lincoln Zephyr — remained high.

Sales of truck-based sport utility vehicles have been declining across the industry for four years in a row, but until recently, pickups were relatively immune from the phenomenon, Ford said.

However, pickup buyers now appear to be delaying purchases because of the pressure of high fuel costs, said Al Giombetti, president of marketing and sales for Ford, Lincoln and Mercury.

In a statement, Giombetti said the increase in car sales is "cause for optimism because it shows we can win in the industry's most competitive segment."

For the first half of the year, Ford's sales fell 3.8 percent, with truck sales sliding 9.7 percent and car sales rising 7.8 percent.

Toyota, however, continued to gain ground in trucks, selling 4.8 percent more last month than in June 2005.

But its biggest gains were in car sales, which climbed 21.9 percent.

Jim Lentz, executive vice president of Toyota's U.S. division, pointed to a 38.7 percent increase in sales of the Toyota Corolla, one of the most fuel-efficient models, as evidence of the impact of gas prices.

Year-to-date, Toyota's sales rose 9.8 percent, including a 10.4 percent increase in cars and a 9.1 percent increase in trucks.

Honda's car sales crept up 3.8 percent, while truck sales fell 5 percent.

The company reported increased demand for small cars, including a 3.9 percent increase in sales of the Civic.

Demand for the Fit, a new subcompact, continued to outpace supply, Honda said.

Not all the Japanese manufacturers escaped the pain, however.

Nissan Motor Co. saw total vehicle sales drop 19 percent.

Chrysler blamed gas prices for its sales decrease, though its biggest drop was in cars, which fell 32.7 percent, compared with a 10 percent drop in truck sales.

For the first six months of the year, Chrysler sales were down 4.9 percent, including a 6.5 percent drop in car sales and an 8.4 percent drop in trucks.

Chrysler said it expects an employee pricing program it launched over the weekend, along with its "Ask Dr. Z" ad campaign, featuring DaimlerChrysler Chairman Dieter Zetsche, to boost sales.

Last summer, Chrysler matched GM's employee discount program, as did Ford.

But GM and Ford have said they will not take that route this year.

Instead, GM is offering zero percent financing for up to 72 months on many models through July 5, while Ford is offering it for 60 months on many models and 72 for the Expedition large sport utility vehicle.

The Ford offer expires July 31, as does Chrysler's employee discounts for everyone.

The Associated Press reports unadjusted sales figures, calculating the percentage change in the total number of vehicles sold in one month compared with the same month a year earlier.

Some automakers report percentages that are adjusted for the number of sales days in a month.

Ford shares fell 22 cents, or 3.2 percent, to close at $6.71 Monday on the New York Stock Exchange.

GM shares fell 38 cents to $29.41, and DaimlerChrysler shares rose 29 cents to $49.65.
___

On the Net:

Ford Motor Co.: http://www.ford.com

General Motors Corp.: http://www.gm.com

Toyota Motor Corp.: http://www.toyota.com

DaimlerChrysler AG: http://www.daimlerchrysler.com

Honda Motor Co.: http://www.honda.com

Nissan Motor Co.: http://www.nissandriven.com

According to the REPUBLICANS .....

George W. Bush ...

IS GIVING ...

THOSE IRAQI WOMEN ....

JUST WHAT THEY DESERVE ....

And so ....

"Ex-GI charged in rape of Iraqi, killings"

By TIM WHITMIRE, Associated Press
Last updated: 3:42 a.m., Tuesday, July 4, 2006

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- When U.S. military officials found the bodies of four Iraqis inside a burned house near Mahmoudiya in March, they at first blamed insurgents.

Three of the bodies had gunshot wounds, and the body of a woman was burned.

Authorities believe she was raped before being shot in the head.

But on Monday, federal prosecutors revealed the outcome of a joint military and FBI investigation: the culprits, they now believe, are U.S. soldiers who manned a checkpoint a short distance from the home.

Officials have charged one of them, Steven D. Green, a skinny, 21-year-old former private who was honorably discharged this spring by the Army because of a "personality disorder."

He was accused Monday of rape and four counts of murder during an appearence in a federal courtroom in Charlotte.

Wearing baggy shorts, flip-flops and a Johnny Cash T-shirt, Green spoke only to confirm his identity and stared as a federal magistrate ordered him held without bond on murder and rape charges that carry a possible death penalty.

Green became the first person identified in the latest case of alleged killings of Iraqi civilians by U.S. troops.

According to a federal affidavit, Green and three other soldiers from the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 101st Airborne Division had talked about raping the young woman, whom they first saw while working at a traffic checkpoint near her home.

On the day of the attack, the document said, Green and other soldiers drank alcohol and changed out of their uniforms to avoid detection before going to the woman's house, with Green using a brown T-shirt to cover his face.

Once there, the affidavit said, Green took three members of the family -- an adult male and female, and a girl estimated to be 5 years old -- into a bedroom.

Shots were heard.

"Green came to the bedroom door and told everyone, 'I just killed them'."

"'All are dead,'" the affidavit said.

The affidavit is based on FBI and military investigators' interviews with three unidentified soldiers assigned to Green's platoon.

Two of the soldiers said they witnessed another soldier and Green rape the woman.

"After the rape, (the soldier) witnessed Green shoot the woman in the head two to three times," the affidavit said.

One of the three soldiers interviewed said he was left behind to mind the radio at the traffic checkpoint.

That soldier said Green and three others returned from the woman's house "with blood on their clothes, which they burned."

"Immediately after this, they each told (the soldier) that this is never to be discussed again."

An official familiar with details of the investigation in Iraq told The Associated Press that a flammable liquid was used to burn the rape victim's body in an attempted cover-up.

The affidavit noted that prosecutors have photos taken by Army investigators in Iraq of all four bodies found inside a burned house and a photo of a burned body of "what appears to be a woman with blankets thrown over her upper torso."

The age of the young woman was unclear.

FBI documents estimated her age at 25, but a neighbor of the family said the rape victim was 14 and her sister was 10.

The Washington Post reported the rape victim was 15 and that her mother worried her daughter had attracted the attention of U.S. soldiers at a checkpoint.

The mother asked a neighbor if the girl could sleep at his house.

The neighbor agreed but the girl and her family were attacked the next day, according to the Post.

Green, who was arrested Friday in the town of Marion northwest of Charlotte, is being prosecuted in federal, rather than military court because he is no longer in the Army.

According to the affidavit, his 11-month-stint ended "before this incident came to light."

The soldiers accused in the rape and killings are from the same platoon as two soldiers whose mutilated bodies were found June 19, three days after they were abducted by insurgents near Youssifiyah, southwest of Baghdad.

Military officials say they believe guilt over the mutilations may have spurred a confession by one of the soldiers during a combat-stress debriefing late last month.

No other soldier has been charged in the case, said Maj. Joseph Breasseale, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad.

However, military officials have said four Army soldiers have had their weapons taken away and were being confined to their base near Mahmoudiya.

The mayor of Mahmoudiya, Mouayad Fadhil, said Monday that Iraqi authorities had started their own investigation.

He said U.S. Army officers were also seeking permission to exhume one of the bodies; the U.S. military declined to comment on the report because the investigation is ongoing.

According to the affidavit, Green was arrested while traveling back to Fort Campbell after attending a funeral for one of the mutilated soldiers in Arlington, Va.

Court officials said Green will have a preliminary hearing and a detention hearing on July 10 in Charlotte, and will then be brought to Louisville to stand trial.

He was quoted in December by the Fort Campbell Courier about a search for insurgents and expressed surprise at the ease of the mission.

"I was surprised by how many people weren't home, but the ones who were there were submissive and let us look through their things," he said.

------

Associated Press writers Brett Barrouquere in Louisville, Mark Sherman in Washington and Kim Gamel and Robert H. Reid in Baghdad contributed to this report.

end quotes

PUNKS .....

IN PARATROOPER SUITS .....

WHO RAPE AND KILL WOMEN .....

FOR GEORGE W. BUSH ...

AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ....

ARE NOT REAL AIRBORNE TROOPERS .....

NOR ARE THEY REAL AMERICAN SOLDIERS ......

THEY'RE JUST A BUNCH .....

OF BUSHCOS ...

And so ....

"Iraq seeks oversight of rape-slaying case"

By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 24 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's justice minister demanded Tuesday that the U.N. Security Council ensure a group of U.S. troops is punished for allegedly raping and murdering a young Iraqi woman and executing her family, calling the attack "monstrous and inhuman."

Justice Minister Hashim Abdul-Rahman al-Shebli condemned the attack a day after former private Steven D. Green appeared in federal court in North Carolina to face charges of killing the woman's family so he and other soldiers could rape her.

At least four other U.S. soldiers still in Iraq are under investigation in the March 12 rape and killings in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad.

"If this act actually happened, it constitutes an ugly and unethical crime, monstrous and inhuman," said al-Shebli, a Sunni Arab.

"The Iraqi judiciary should be informed about this investigation which should be conducted under supervision of international and human organizations."

"Those involved should face justice."

"The ugliness of this crime demands a swift intervention of the U.N. Security Council to stop these violations of human rights and to condemn them so that they will not happen again," he added.

On Tuesday, Iraq's largest newspaper, Azzaman, expressed skepticism that the soldiers would be severely punished.

The newspaper said in an editorial that the rape "summarizes what has been going in Iraq for the past years not only by the American occupation army, but also by some Iraqi groups."

"The U.S. Army will conduct an investigation and the result at best is already known."

"One or two U.S. soldiers will receive a 'touristic punishment' and the whole crime will be forgotten as it happened with Abu Ghraib criminals," the newspaper said, referring to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. guards at a prison in west Baghdad.

Iraq's influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars condemned the alleged crimes Sunday, saying they were "a sign of shame to American invaders."

According to a federal affidavit, Green and three other soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division had talked about raping the young woman, whom they first saw while working at a traffic checkpoint near her home.

On the day of the attack, the document said, Green and other soldiers drank alcohol and changed out of their uniforms to avoid detection before going to the woman's house.

Green used a brown T-shirt to cover his face.

Once there, the affidavit said, Green took three members of the family — an adult male and female, and a girl estimated to be 5 years old — into a bedroom.

Shots were heard.

Green allegedly shot the woman in the head after he and another soldier raped her, the affidavit said.

Green was dishonorably discharged from the Army because of a "personality disorder" before the attack came to light, the affadavit said.

He is being prosecuted in federal, rather than military, court because he is no longer in the Army.

end quotes

Calling on the U.N. to do something about this ...

Would be just the same ...

As calling on George W. Bush ....

And the REPUBLICAN PARTY ....

WHOSE TROOPS THESE ARE ...

And so ....

"Naturally, the common people don't want war ....."

"But they can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders ......"

"Tell them they are being attacked ....:

"And denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism ....."

"And endangering the country ......"

"It works the same in every country ....."

- Herman Goering, Hitler's Reichsmarschall at the Nuremberg trials

If the author of the Declaration of Independence were to utter such a sentiment today, the Post Office Department could exclude him from the mail, grand juries could indict him for sedition and criminal syndicalism, legislative committees could seize his private papers ... and United States Senators would be clamoring for his deportation that he ... should be sent back to live with the rest of the terrorists.": -- Frank I. Cobb
(1869-1923) American Journalist -Source: New York World

=
"No matter who you are or what you believe, you have to understand that some day the worst control-freaks among your bitterest enemies will control the federal government, and you better have restored effective, working constitutional limitations on that government before that time arrives." -- Rick Gaber

=
"Given the low level of competence among politicians, every American should become a libertarian. The government that governs least is certainly the best choice when fools, opportunists and grafters run it. When power is for sale, then the government power should be severely limited. When power is abused, then the less power the better." -- Charley Reese

Time is a loop, Snuf ....

Time is a loop ...

Time is a loop .....

Where nations start .....

Seems to be ...

Where they get back to ....

When they end ....

And so ....

"In Texas town, few knew ex-soldier charged"

By STEVE QUINN, Associated Press
Last updated: 5:17 a.m., Wednesday, July 5, 2006

MIDLAND, Texas -- After a former Army private was accused in the horrific rape and killing of a young woman and the execution-style slaying of her family, few in this West Texas town offered details about the 21-year-old's life here.

But one resident -- a former Marine -- hoped the accusations against Steven D. Green don't reflect poorly on the soldiers still serving in Iraq.

"I don't care where he's from; this gives us a black eye," said Shaun Sanders, who spent 14 months in the Middle East and Africa and now lives in the building by Green's family but did not know him.

"To hear a story of something like this happen in this particular region, at this particular time, is not good."

Green's father, John, told The Associated Press that attorneys have advised him not to publicly talk about the case against his son, who was charged with rape and four counts of murder Monday in a federal courtroom in Charlotte, N.C.

Steven Green, who served in the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 101st Airborne Division, is being prosecuted in federal rather than military court because he is no longer in the Army.

He was honorably discharged this spring because of a "personality disorder."

Investigators say Green and other soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division plotted to rape a young Iraqi woman they first saw at a traffic checkpoint in the village of Mahmoudiya.

Green is accused of rounding up three family members in a room of the woman's house and shooting them before raping and killing her.

Greg Simolke told The Washington Post that his nephew had visited relatives in North Carolina last week on his way to and from a funeral at Arlington National Cemetery for a member of his platoon who was killed in Iraq.

"When he was here for this visit, he seemed like the same old Steve," Simolke told The Post.

"I don't understand what happens in a war, so I don't know how these things happen."

Relatives told the newspaper that Green had grown up in Midland and joined the Army after receiving his GED.

He went to Fort Benning, Ga., for infantry training and graduated in June 2005, his family said.

"He had found direction in his life, something important and something that he really wanted to do," Simolke told The Post.

"He was talking about making the military his career and was ready to go to Iraq."

"He thought it was a good thing to be serving his country."

Green was arrested Friday at a relative's home in Marion, about 75 miles northwest of Charlotte, but authorities wouldn't disclose the relative's name.

Mary Simolke, Green's grandmother who lives near Marion, declined comment.

According to an affidavit, the funeral Green was attending in Arlington was for one of the two soldiers whose mutilated bodies were found June 19, three days after they were abducted by insurgents near Youssifiyah, southwest of Baghdad.

end quotes

"I don't understand what happens in a war, so I don't know how these things happen."

Well .....

Having served in another FAUX war in Viet Nam .....

Let me help you out here .....

WARS are places on the face of the earth .....

Where there are no laws ...

No rules ...

No regulations .....

Just barbarity .....

And so ...

Women ...

And girls ...

BECOME FAVORED TARGETS ....

Of those ...

Who are ...

The BARBARIANS ....

Having the war ...

And so ....

WHAT IS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT THAT?

It is really pretty simple .....

SUSPEND LAW AND ORDER ....

As George W. Bush has done ...

And is still doing ...

AND YOU HAVE LAWLESSNESS ....

WHERE WOMEN ...

AND GIRLS ...

BECOME FAVORED TARGETS ....

OF THOSE WHO ARE LAWLESS ....

And so .....

"Officials: Ex-GI had antisocial disorder"

By STEVE QUINN, Associated Press Writer

Wed Jul 5, 9:40 AM ET

MIDLAND, Texas - A former Army private accused in the horrific rape and killing of a young Iraqi woman and the execution-style slaying of her family had been discharged because of an "antisocial personality disorder," U.S. military officials told The Associated Press.

Investigators say Steven D. Green and other soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division plotted to rape a young Iraqi woman they first saw at a traffic checkpoint in the village of Mahmoudiya.

Green is accused of rounding up three family members in a room of the woman's house and shooting them before raping and killing her.

Previously, in a federal court affidavit, investigators said only that the 21-year-old Green had been given an honorable discharge for a "personality disorder" this spring before the March murder case came to light.

But U.S. military officials who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case said late Tuesday it was an "antisocial personality disorder."

They did not elaborate.

In the West Texas town of Midland where Green grew up, few people offered details of his life.

Green's father, John, told the AP that attorneys have advised him not to publicly talk about the case against his son, who was charged with rape and four counts of murder Monday in a federal courtroom in Charlotte, N.C.

But one resident — a former Marine — hoped the accusations against Steven D. Green don't reflect poorly on the soldiers still serving in Iraq.

"I don't care where he's from; this gives us a black eye," said Shaun Sanders, who spent 14 months in the Middle East and Africa and now lives in the building by Green's family but did not know him.

"To hear a story of something like this happen in this particular region, at this particular time, is not good."

Greg Simolke told The Washington Post that his nephew had visited relatives in North Carolina last week on his way to and from a funeral at Arlington National Cemetery for a member of his platoon who was killed in Iraq.

"When he was here for this visit, he seemed like the same old Steve," Simolke told the Post.

"I don't understand what happens in a war, so I don't know how these things happen."

Relatives told the newspaper that Green had grown up in Midland and joined the Army after receiving his GED.

He went to Fort Benning, Ga., for infantry training and graduated in June 2005, his family said.

"He had found direction in his life, something important and something that he really wanted to do," Simolke told the Post.

"He was talking about making the military his career and was ready to go to Iraq."

"He thought it was a good thing to be serving his country."

Green was arrested Friday at a relative's home in Marion, about 75 miles northwest of Charlotte, but authorities wouldn't disclose the relative's name.

Mary Simolke, Green's grandmother who lives near Marion, declined comment.

According to an affidavit, the funeral Green was attending in Arlington was for one of the two soldiers whose mutilated bodies were found June 19, three days after they were abducted by insurgents near Youssifiyah, southwest of Baghdad.
___

AP Writer Ryan Lenz in Iraq contributed to this report.

end quotes

The COMMANDER-IN CHIEF ...

Of OUR American military forces in IRAQINAM ...

Exhibits ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOR ....

ALL OF THE TIME ....

With all of his talk about COLLATERAL DAMAGE .....

Which is the needless, wanton killing of civilians .....

USUALLY WOMEN AND CHILDREN ...

Being not only acceptable ....

But desireable as well ......

And so ...

WHO IS SURPRISED ....

WHEN THE TROOPS EMULATE HIM ....

By exhibiting anti-social behavior of their own ...

To match his ....

And so ....

THE "FOG" .....

Of war .....

That phrase ....

Is from Von Clausewitz, of course ....

And for anybody who does not recognize the name ...

That is not surprising ....

For he is not an American ....

And he is dead ...

And quite some time, at that ....

And when he was alive ....

It was over in Europe ....

At a time ....

When those nations over there ...

Were content to tear themselves apart ....

And rend their populations .....

OUT OF MADNESS, I suppose ....

Since there is not a rational explanation for it ....

But I digress .....

When Von Clausewitz was around ....

There was no smokeless powder, as there is today ....

And so ....

As soon as a battle began ....

The smoke from the weapons obscured the battlefield ....

So that a commander could not see his own men at times ....

Nor could he see the enemy ...

And so ...

The phrase ....

THE FOG OF WAR ....

Which meant ...

That you could not SEE what was going on ...

IN THE PHYSICAL REALM ....

NOT THAT YOU NO LONGER KNEW ...

RIGHT FROM WRONG ...

AS GEORGE W. BUSH ....

HAS HIS MILITARY LAWYERS ....

TWISTING ....

THE MEANING ....

OF THAT PHRASE INTO ....

TO EXCUSE ...

THE WANTON DESTRUCTION ....

OF HUMAN BEINGS ....

"Oh, pardon me, I just got carried away there, the FOG OF WAR, don't you know, what, what, cheerio-pip-pip!"

And so .....

I have been in a "war" ......

Which is simply a place ...

Where the law has been suspended ...

And human life is worthless .....

And just because you might not always be able to see what is going on ....

IT DOES NOT MEAN ...

THAT YOU NO LONGER ...

CAN TELL ...

RIGHT FROM WRONG ...

And so .....

It seems to me .....

That everything of OURS ...

That is "AMERICAN" .....

Like INTEGRITY ....

And HONOR ....

BECOMES SOILED ....

AND PERVERTED ....

BY THE TOUCH ....

OF GEORGE W. BUSH'S HANDS ....

And so .....

With that the case, here in OUR America today ...

WHERE WE HAVE A VALUELESS MAN .....

In there ....

As COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF ...

Of OUR American military ....

WHO REALLY IS SURPRISED ...

That these low-level troops ...

ARE RAPING ...

AND MURDERING WOMEN?

And I'll tell you ...

It sure is not me ...

Because I have been there before ...

AND I HAVE SEEN THIS SAME OLD **** ....

To the point of where it gags me to think about it ......

And so .....

These troops do this stuff ...

BECAUSE OF A FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP ....

FROM THE TOP ON DOWN .....

AND NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND .....

And so .....

THE MAN ....

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE ....

AND ACCOUNTABLE .....

FOR THOSE RAPES ....

AND MURDERS .....

IS THE MAN ...

IN THE WHITE HOUSE ....

DOWN THERE IN CORRUPT WASHINGTON. D.C. ......

WHO COMMANDS THOSE TROOPS .....

And so .....

From Soapbox at: http://capwiz.com/congressorg/pyv/electors/

"How the Patriot Act Compares to Hitler's Enabling Act - Why Does Bush Need To Take Away Our Rights To Fight His "War On Terror?"

Also: Read Alex Jones' breakdown of the USA Patriot Act on the Rickie Lee Jones website: http://www.rickieleejones.com/political/patriotact.htm

1) How the Patriot Act Compares to Hitler's Ermächtigungsgesetz (Enabling Act)

On March 23, 1933, the newly elected members of the Reichstag met in the Kroll Opera House in Berlin to consider passing Hitler's "Ermächtigungsgesetz".

The "Enabling Act" was officially called the "Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich."

Opponents to the bill argued that if it was passed, it would end democracy in Germany and establish a legal dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.

To soften resistance to the passing of the Enabling Act, the Nazis secretly caused confusion in order to create an atmosphere in which the law seem necessary to restore order.

On February 27, 1933, Nazis burned the Reichstag building, and a seat of the German government, causing frenzy and outrage.

They successfully blamed the fire on the Communists, and claimed it marked the beginning of a widespread terrorism and unrest threatening the safety of the German "Homeland."

On the day of the vote, Nazi storm troopers gathered around the opera house chanting, "Full powers - or else!"

"We want the bill - or fire and murder!"

The Nazis used the opportunity to arrest 4,000 communists.

Not only did the Nazis use the incident as a propaganda against communists but they also arrested additional 40,000 members of the opposition.

Consequently, the Nazis had achieved their objective of eliminating democracy and ensuring their majority in the parliament.

After the fire on February 28, 1933, president Hindenburg and Hitler invoked Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, which permitted the suspension of civil liberties during national emergencies.

Some examples of this Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and State abrogated the following constitutional protections:

Freedom of the press, free expression of opinion, individual property rights, right of assembly and association, right to privacy of postal and electronic communications, states´ rights of self-government, and protection against unlawful searches and seizures.

Before the vote, Hitler made a speech to the Reichstag in which he pledged to use restraint.

He also promised to end unemployment and promote multilateral peace with France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union.

In order to accomplish all this, Hitler said, he first needed the Enabling Act.

Since this act would alter the German constitution, a two-thirds majority was necessary.

Hitler needed 31 non-Nazi votes to pass it.

The Center Party provided these votes after Hitler made a false promise to them.

Four hundred and forty votes were registered for the Enabling Act, while a mere 84 votes were opposed – the social Democrats.

In glory the Nazi Party stood to their feet and sang the Nazi anthem, the Hörst Wessel song.

The German Democratic party had finally been eliminated, and Hitler’s dream for Nazi command became closer to reality.

The Enabling Act granted Hitler the power he craved and could use without objection from the Reichstag.

Shortly after the passing of The Enabling Act all other political parties were dissolved.

Trade unions were liquidated and opposition clergy were arrested.

The Nazi party had, as Hitler said, become the state.

By August 1934, Hitler became commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

This was in addition to being President and Führer of the German Reich, to whom every individual in the armed forces pledged unconditional obedience.

The Reichstag was no longer a place for debate, but rather a cheering squad in favor of whatever Hitler might say.

2) A 21st Century Comparison of The Enabling Act and The Patriot Act

Last September, German Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin pointed out that George Bush is using Iraq to distract the American public from his failed domestic policies.

She capped her statement by reminding her audience:

"That's a popular method."

"Even Hitler did that."

What was lost in the reactions to Ms. Daeubler-Gmelin's comments was that she wasn't comparing Bush to the Hitler of the late 1930s and early 1940s; but to the Hitler of the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Most Americans have forgotten that Hitler came to power legally.

He and the Nazi Party were elected democratically in a time of great national turmoil and crisis.

They themselves had done much to cause the turmoil, of course, but that's what makes the Bush comparison so compelling.

Similar to the Bush administration, the Nazis were funded and ultimately ushered into power by wealthy industrialists looking for government favors in the form of tax breaks, big subsidies, and laws to weaken the rights of workers.

When the Reichstag (Germany's Parliament building) was set ablaze in 1933 (probably by Nazis), the Nazis framed their political rivals for it.

In the general panic that followed, the German Parliament was purged of all left-wing representatives who might be soft on communists and foreigners, and the few who remained then VOTED to grant Chancellor Hitler dictatorial powers.

A long, hideous nightmare had begun.

History teaches us that it is shockingly easy to separate reasonable and intelligent people from their rights.

A legally elected leader and party can easily manipulate national events to whip up fear, crucify scapegoats, gag dissenters, and convince the masses that their liberties must be suspended (temporarily, of course) in the name of restoring order.

Consider the following two statements, and see if you can identify the authors.

Statement Number One:

"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders."

"That is easy."

"All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."

"It works the same way in any country."

Statement Number Two:

"To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve."

The first statement is a quote from Hitler's right hand man, Hermann Goering, explaining at his war crimes trial how easily he and his fellow Nazis hijacked Germany's democratic government.

The second statement is a quote from Bush's right hand man, John Ashcroft, defending the Patriot Act and explaining why dissent will no longer be tolerated in the age of terrorism.

If that doesn't send chills down your spine, nothing will.

When the shooting started at Lexington Green in 1775, those calling themselves patriots were the men and women who refused to yield their rights to an increasingly oppressive government.

Today, according to John Ashcroft and his Patriot Act of 2001, a patriot is someone who kneels down in fear, and hands over his or her rights to the government in the name of fighting terrorism.

Isn't the hypocrisy of this all too obvious?

The Bush administration wants us to fight in Afghanistan, to fight in Iraq, and to fight wherever terrorists may be hiding.

And what, pray tell, are we fighting for?

Well, according to the White House, we're fighting for freedom.

Yet freedom is exactly what the White House is demanding that we now SURRENDER in the name of fighting terrorism.

So what's really going on?

Well, it's all a lie, of course.

The Bush administration isn't any more interested in protecting our freedom from terrorists than Hitler was in protecting Germans from communists, Jews, and all the other groups he scapegoated.

The Bush administration is fighting only to protect itself and its corporate sponsors.

It hides behind a veil of national security and behind non-stop war headlines of its own creation.

And behind that smokescreen, Bush, Inc. is pursuing Hitler’s old agenda from the 1920s and 1930s: serving the interests of the corporate industrialists who brought it to power.

There is a name for governments that serve the interests of Big Business at the expense of their own citizens: fascist.

Here's a short list of the rights we've already surrendered since the September 11 attacks.

Most of these abuses are from a single piece of legislation called the Patriot Act of 2001, which was rushed through Congress with no debate in the aftermath of the attacks.

Many of the Congressmen who voted for it later admitted that they hadn't even read it at the time.

3) Ten Key Dangers of The Patriot Act That Every American Should Know

No. 1: The government can conduct "sneak and peek" searches in which agents enter your home or business and search your belongings without informing you until long after.

No. 2: Government agents can force libraries and bookstores to hand over the titles of books that you've purchased or borrowed and can demand the identity of anyone who has purchased or borrowed certain books.

The government can also prosecute libraries and bookstores for informing you that the search occurred or even for informing you that an inquiry was made.

According to ACLU staff attorney Jameel Jaffer, such "searches could extend to doctors offices, banks and other institutions which, like libraries, were previously off-limits under the law."

Chris Finan, President of the American Booksellers group adds:

"The refusal of the Justice Department to tell Congress how many times it has used its powers is even more unsettling because it naturally leads to the suspicion that it is using them a lot."

No. 3: Federal agents are authorized to use hidden devices to trace the telephone calls or emails of people who are not even suspected of a crime.

The FBI is also permitted to use its Magic Lantern technology to monitor everything you do on your computer--recording not just the websites you visit but EVERY SINGLE KEYSTROKE as well.

No. 4: Government agents are permitted to arrest and detain individuals "suspected" of terrorist activities and to hold them INDEFINITELY, WITHOUT CHARGE, and WITHOUT an ATTORNEY.

(That could be you or me for sending or receiving this Email, by the way)

No. 5: Federal agents are permitted to conduct full investigations of American citizens and permanent legal residents simply because they have participated in activities protected by the First Amendment, such as writing a letter to the editor or attending a peaceful rally.

No. 6: Law enforcement agents are permitted to listen in on discussions between prisoners and their attorneys, thus denying them their Constitutional right to confidential legal counsel.

No. 7: Terrorism suspects may be tried in secret military tribunals where defendants have no right to a public trial, no right to trial by jury, no right to confront the evidence, and no right to appeal to an independent court.

In short, the Constitution does not apply.

No. 8: The CIA is granted authority to spy on American citizens, a power that has previously been denied to this international espionage organization.

No. 9: In addition to the Patriot Act, the Bush administration has given us Operations TIPS, a government program that encourages citizens to spy on each other and to report their neighbors activities to the authorities.

It's EXACTLY the kind of thing for which we used to fault East Germany and the Soviet Union, and for which we currently fault Red China and North Korea.

Fortunately, Operation TIPS (or AmeriSnitch, as it's known to its many detractors) seems to have been recalled to the factory--at least for now.

(Incidentally, in a clever variation of "two-can-play-at-that-game”, Brad Templeton has set up a website at http://www.all-the-other-names-were-taken.com/tipstips.html where you can report people you suspect of being informants for Operation TIPS. It's an interesting and amusing site, well worth a look.)

No. 10: In the wake of Operation TIPS came something even worse: Total Information Awareness.

TIA is a program of the Defense Department that when fully operational will link commercial and government databases so that the DOD can immediately put its finger on any piece of information about you that it wants.

New York Times columnist William Safire writes:

"Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as a virtual, centralized grand database."

And that's not all.

Who did our president appoint to head the TIA?

Who gets to be Big Brother himself?

Why it's none other than John Poindexter, a man convicted in 1990 on five counts of lying to Congress, destroying official documents, and obstructing congressional inquiries into the Iran-contra affair.

Another Hermann Goering, if there ever was one.

4) BILL MOYERS' NOW COMMENTS On THE PATRIOT ACT

At the same time the Bush administration is probing into your private life, it is shielding itself from all public scrutiny.

It has shredded the Freedom of Information Act; it has locked away presidential records not only of the current administration but of administrations going all the way back to Reagan as well; and it has even locked up George W. Bush's gubernatorial records so that the people of Texas can't see what he did to them while serving as their governor.

Not surprisingly, the Bush administration is also using anti-terror legislation and executive orders to protect its corporate sponsors from scrutiny and from prosecution.

The drug company Eli Lilly, for instance, was recently granted immunity from all cases brought against it-–even those initiated long before the war on terrorism--related to a vaccine it manufactured that turned out to cause autism in many children.

(Eli Lilly contributed over $3 million in the last two election campaigns.)

The Bush administration also protected the Bayer Corporation's patent on the antibiotic Cipro throughout the anthrax scare, whereas other countries, such as Canada, broke that patent so that other companies could make cheaper versions of the drug in case of emergency.

It is interesting to note that during WWII Bayer was part of the I.G. Farben conglomerate, the top financial contributor to the Nazi Party.

I.G. Farben produced petrol and rubber for the Nazi war machine and it manufactured the Zyklon B gas that was used to exterminate millions of Jews and other "enemies of the state."

In exchange for these services, the Nazis provided Farben (and Bayer) with lucrative government contracts and with slave labor from concentration camps.

Under George W. Bush's kinder, gentler fascism, U.S. corporations are now allowed to do business with the Homeland Security Department even if they cheat the government out of vast amounts of tax revenues by setting up offshore business fronts in the Caribbean Islands.

It used to be that tax-evaders were tracked down and punished.

Now they're rewarded with fat government contracts.

Could the slave labor be far behind?

If only this were the extent of the Bush administration's ramble down the road to fascism.

Way back in November of 2001, William Safire accused the Bush administration of "seizing dictatorial power."

Well, Mr. Safire, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, just when you thought we can't lose any more of our liberties and still call ourselves a "free society," we learn that the Bush administration wants to take away even more of our rights.

A secret document was just leaked out of John Ashcroft's Justice Department and turned over to the Center for Public Integrity.

Titled the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, this document turns out to be a draft of new anti-terrorism legislation, a vastly more muscular sequel to Patriot Act.

If passed, it would grant the executive branch sweeping new powers of domestic surveillance, and it would eliminate most of the few remaining checks and balances that protect us from tyranny.

It's the Patriot Act on steroids.

Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity shared this document with Bill Moyers, who examined it on NOW, his weekly PBS program.

That episode aired Friday, February 7, yet even now no mainstream news broadcaster has picked up this incredible story.

Read the NOW transcript and see the document itself online at http://www.pbs.org/now/.

You can also read the Center for Public Integrity's analysis of the document at http://www.publicintegrity.org/.

Dr. David Cole, a Law professor at Georgetown University and author of Terrorism and the Constitution assessed the document, saying, "I think this is a quite radical proposal."

"It authorizes secret arrests."

"It would give the Attorney General essentially unchecked authority to deport anyone who he thought was a danger to our economic interests."

"It would strip citizenship from people for lawful political associations."

"Secret arrests”?

Did we hear that right?

It seems that the Homeland Security Department (HSD) is about to become the KGB.

The first Patriot Act already allows for people to be locked up indefinitely without a lawyer and without being charged with a crime.

If Patriot Act II passes, then arrests would also be secret.

That means that dissenters (or anyone else, for that matter) could disappear without a trace, just as they did in Nazi Germany, in Stalinist Russia, and in Pinochet's Chile.

Patriot Act II would also grant even more immunity to Big Business.

A corporation could pour toxins into your local river, for instance, and you wouldn't know about it until all the fish died and your neighbor’s kids were born with missing limbs.

And then when you went to court and demanded to know what the company was dumping in your river, the company could deny you that information on the grounds that it's a national security secret.

Jim Hightower put it this way:

"All a company has to do to shield anything it wants to keep from the public eye--say, an embarrassing chemical spill--is give the documents to the Homeland Security Department and call them 'critical infrastructure information'."

Ah, but there's even more to be concerned about here.

The document was created back in early January, but so far it appears that the only members of Congress who even know of its existence are House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Vice-president Dick Cheney.

(The Vice-president presides over the Senate, which makes him a member of the legislative branch as well as the executive branch.)

This raises a troubling question: Why has the White House been sitting on this bill for a month?

If the CEOs down at Bush, Inc. really believe that they need these broad new powers to protect us from terrorists, why not roll out that bill and start the debate?

The answer is all too plain.

In all likelihood, the Bush administration was planning to avoid debate entirely by springing this bill on the American people in the midst of a perceived national crisis.

Perhaps during the war with Iraq, for instance.

Or perhaps in the aftermath of the next terrorist attack.

Or perhaps right after the Reichstag fire.

Had some courageous soul not leaked this document out of the Justice Department, the White House might easily have succeeded in passing it through Congress without debate in the midst of our next perceived national crisis, much as it did with the first Patriot Act in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

A thorough debate of this bill right now, under fairly stable circumstances, would defuse it and prevent its passage even under more frightening circumstances later on.

There's just one problem.

The debate can't begin until more Americans know about this bill, but so far the Washington Post is the only major news outlet to even MENTION this story since Bill Moyers broke it on Friday night.

Here's what you can do to help

First, forward this email to everyone you know.

Second, send an email to the Center for Public Integrity and to the producers of NOW thanking them for breaking this story.

Here's a sample message that you can use or modify:

I am writing to express my heartfelt thanks and admiration to the Center for Public Integrity, to Bill Moyers, to the producers of NOW, and especially to the brave unnamed patriot who valued the Bill of Rights over his or her own personal well-being and, at great personal risk, leaked a draft of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 out of the Justice Department.

Sincerely,(Your name, city, and state.)

Center for Public Integity: mailto:feedback@publicintegrity.org.

NOW with Bill Moyers: mailto:now@thirteen.org.

http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/usapatriot/RL31377.pdf

HAMDAN v. RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, et al.

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit

No. 05-184. 

Argued March 28, 2006--Decided June 29, 2006

The common law governing military commissions may be gleaned from past practice and what sparse legal precedent exists.

Commissions historically have been used in three situations.

See Bradley & Goldsmith, Congressional Authorization and the War on Terrorism, 118 Harv. L. Rev. 2048, 2132-2133 (2005); Winthrop 831-846; Hearings on H. R. 2498 before the Subcommittee of the House Committee on Armed Services, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 975 (1949).

First, they have substituted for civilian courts at times and in places where martial law has been declared.

Their use in these circumstances has raised constitutional questions, see Duncan v. Kahanamoku, 327 U. S. 304 (1946); Milligan, 4 Wall., at 121-122, but is well recognized.

See Winthrop 822, 836-839.

Second, commissions have been established to try civilians "as part of a temporary military government over occupied enemy territory or territory regained from an enemy where civilian government cannot and does not function."

Duncan, 327 U. S., at 314; see Milligan, 4 Wall., at 141-142 (Chase, C. J., concurring in judgment) (distinguishing "martial law proper" from "military government" in occupied territory).

Illustrative of this second kind of commission is the one that was established, with jurisdiction to apply the German Criminal Code, in occupied Germany following the end of World War II.

See Madsen v. Kinsella, 343 U. S. 341, 356 (1952).

The third type of commission, convened as an "incident to the conduct of war" when there is a need "to seize and subject to disciplinary measures those enemies who in their attempt to thwart or impede our military effort have violated the law of war," Quirin, 317 U. S., at 28-29, has been described as "utterly different" from the other two.

Bickers, Military Commissions are Constitutionally Sound: A Response to Professors Katyal and Tribe, 34 Tex. Tech. L. Rev. 899, 902 (2002-2003).

Not only is its jurisdiction limited to offenses cognizable during time of war, but its role is primarily a factfinding one--to determine, typically on the battlefield itself, whether the defendant has violated the law of war.

The last time the U. S. Armed Forces used the law-of-war military commission was during World War II.

In Quirin, this Court sanctioned President Roosevelt's use of such a tribunal to try Nazi saboteurs captured on American soil during the War.

317 U. S. 1.

And in Yamashita, we held that a military commission had jurisdiction to try a Japanese commander for failing to prevent troops under his command from committing atrocities in the Philippines.

327 U. S. 1.

Quirin is the model the Government invokes most frequently to defend the commission convened to try Hamdan.

That is both appropriate and unsurprising.

Since Guantanamo Bay is neither enemy-occupied territory nor under martial law, the law-of-war commission is the only model available.

At the same time, no more robust model of executive power exists; Quirin represents the high-water mark of military power to try enemy combatants for war crimes.

The classic treatise penned by Colonel William Winthrop, whom we have called "the 'Blackstone of Military Law,' " Reid v. Covert, 354 U. S. 1, 19, n. 38 (1957) (plurality opinion), describes at least four preconditions for exercise of jurisdiction by a tribunal of the type convened to try Hamdan.

First, "[a] military commission, (except where otherwise authorized by statute), can legally assume jurisdiction only of offenses committed within the field of the command of the convening commander."

Winthrop 836.

The "field of command" in these circumstances means the "theatre of war."

Ibid.

Second, the offense charged "must have been committed within the period of the war."

Id., at 837.

No jurisdiction exists to try offenses "committed either before or after the war."

Ibid.

Third, a military commission not established pursuant to martial law or an occupation may try only "[i]ndividuals of the enemy's army who have been guilty of illegitimate warfare or other offences in violation of the laws of war" and members of one's own army "who, in time of war, become chargeable with crimes or offences not cognizable, or triable, by the criminal courts or under the Articles of war."

Id., at 838.

Finally, a law-of-war commission has jurisdiction to try only two kinds of offense:

"Violations of the laws and usages of war cognizable by military tribunals only," and "[b]reaches of military orders or regulations for which offenders are not legally triable by court-martial under the Articles of war."

Id., at 839.29

All parties agree that Colonel Winthrop's treatise accurately describes the common law governing military commissions, and that the jurisdictional limitations he identifies were incorporated in Article of War 15 and, later, Article 21 of the UCMJ.

It also is undisputed that Hamdan's commission lacks jurisdiction to try him unless the charge "properly set[s] forth, not only the details of the act charged, but the circumstances conferring jurisdiction."

Id., at 842 (emphasis in original).

The question is whether the preconditions designed to ensure that a military necessity exists to justify the use of this extraordinary tribunal have been satisfied here.

The charge against Hamdan, described in detail in Part I, supra, alleges a conspiracy extending over a number of years, from 1996 to November 2001.

All but two months of that more than 5-year-long period preceded the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the enactment of the AUMF--the Act of Congress on which the Government relies for exercise of its war powers and thus for its authority to convene military commissions.

Neither the purported agreement with Osama bin Laden and others to commit war crimes, nor a single overt act, is alleged to have occurred in a theater of war or on any specified date after September 11, 2001.

None of the overt acts that Hamdan is alleged to have committed violates the law of war.

These facts alone cast doubt on the legality of the charge and, hence, the commission; as Winthrop makes plain, the offense alleged must have been committed both in a theater of war and during, not before, the relevant conflict.

But the deficiencies in the time and place allegations also underscore--indeed are symptomatic of--the most serious defect of this charge: The offense it alleges is not triable by law-of-war military commission.

See Yamashita, 327 U. S., at 13 ("Neither congressional action nor the military orders constituting the commission authorized it to place petitioner on trial unless the charge proffered against him is of a violation of the law of war").

There is no suggestion that Congress has, in exercise of its constitutional authority to "define and punish . . . Offences against the Law of Nations," U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 10, positively identified "conspiracy" as a war crime.

As we explained in Quirin, that is not necessarily fatal to the Government's claim of authority to try the alleged offense by military commission; Congress, through Article 21 of the UCMJ, has "incorporated by reference" the common law of war, which may render triable by military commission certain offenses not defined by statute.

317 U. S., at 30.

When, however, neither the elements of the offense nor the range of permissible punishments is defined by statute or treaty, the precedent must be plain and unambiguous.

To demand any less would be to risk concentrating in military hands a degree of adjudicative and punitive power in excess of that contemplated either by statute or by the Constitution.

Cf. Loving v. United States, 517 U. S. 748, 771 (1996) (acknowledging that Congress "may not delegate the power to make laws"); Reid, 354 U. S., at 23-24 ("The Founders envisioned the army as a necessary institution, but one dangerous to liberty if not confined within its essential bounds"); The Federalist No. 47, p. 324 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) (J. Madison) ("The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands ... may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny").

This high standard was met in Quirin; the violation there alleged was, by "universal agreement and practice" both in this country and internationally, recognized as an offense against the law of war.

317 U. S., at 30; see id., at 35-36 ("This precept of the law of war has been so recognized in practice both here and abroad, and has so generally been accepted as valid by authorities on international law that we think it must be regarded as a rule or principle of the law of war recognized by this Government by its enactment of the Fifteenth Article of War" (footnote omitted)).

Although the picture arguably was less clear in Yamashita, compare 327 U. S., at 16 (stating that the provisions of the Fourth Hague Convention of 1907, 36 Stat. 2306, "plainly" required the defendant to control the troops under his command), with 327 U. S., at 35 (Murphy, J., dissenting), the disagreement between the majority and the dissenters in that case concerned whether the historic and textual evidence constituted clear precedent--not whether clear precedent was required to justify trial by law-of-war military commission.

At a minimum, the Government must make a substantial showing that the crime for which it seeks to try a defendant by military commission is acknowledged to be an offense against the law of war.

That burden is far from satisfied here.

The crime of "conspiracy" has rarely if ever been tried as such in this country by any law-of-war military commission not exercising some other form of jurisdiction, and does not appear in either the Geneva Conventions or the Hague Conventions--the major treaties on the law of war.

Winthrop explains that under the common law governing military commissions, it is not enough to intend to violate the law of war and commit overt acts in furtherance of that intention unless the overt acts either are themselves offenses against the law of war or constitute steps sufficiently substantial to qualify as an attempt.

See Winthrop 841 ("[T]he jurisdiction of the military commission should be restricted to cases of offence consisting in overt acts, i.e., in unlawful commissions or actual attempts to commit, and not in intentions merely" (emphasis in original)).

The Government cites three sources that it says show otherwise.

First, it points out that the Nazi saboteurs in Quirin were charged with conspiracy.

See Brief for Respondents 27.

Second, it observes that Winthrop at one point in his treatise identifies conspiracy as an offense "prosecuted by military commissions."

Ibid. (citing Winthrop 839, and n. 5).

Finally, it notes that another military historian, Charles Roscoe Howland, lists conspiracy " 'to violate the laws of war by destroying life or property in aid of the enemy' " as an offense that was tried as a violation of the law of war during the Civil War.

Brief for Respondents 27-28 (citing C. Howland, Digest of Opinions of the Judge Advocates General of the Army 1071 (1912) (hereinafter Howland)).

On close analysis, however, these sources at best lend little support to the Government's position and at worst undermine it.

By any measure, they fail to satisfy the high standard of clarity required to justify the use of a military commission.

That the defendants in Quirin were charged with conspiracy is not persuasive, since the Court declined to address whether the offense actually qualified as a violation of the law of war--let alone one triable by military commission.

The Quirin defendants were charged with the following offenses:

"[I.] Violation of the law of war.

"[II.] Violation of Article 81 of the Articles of War, defining the offense of relieving or attempting to relieve, or corresponding with or giving intelligence to, the enemy.

"[III.] Violation of Article 82, defining the offense of spying.

"[IV.] Conspiracy to commit the offenses alleged in charges [I, II, and III]." 317 U. S., at 23.

The Government, defending its charge, argued that the conspiracy alleged "constitute[d] an additional violation of the law of war." Id., at 15.

The saboteurs disagreed; they maintained that "[t]he charge of conspiracy can not stand if the other charges fall." Id., at 8.

The Court, however, declined to resolve the dispute.

It concluded, first, that the specification supporting Charge I adequately alleged a "violation of the law of war" that was not "merely colorable or without foundation." Id., at 36.

The facts the Court deemed sufficient for this purpose were that the defendants, admitted enemy combatants, entered upon U. S. territory in time of war without uniform "for the purpose of destroying property used or useful in prosecuting the war."

That act was "a hostile and warlike" one. Id., at 36, 37.

The Court was careful in its decision to identify an overt, "complete" act.

Responding to the argument that the saboteurs had "not actually committed or attempted to commit any act of depredation or entered the theatre or zone of active military operations" and therefore had not violated the law of war, the Court responded that they had actually "passed our military and naval lines and defenses or went behind those lines, in civilian dress and with hostile purpose." Id., at 38.

"The offense was complete when with that purpose they entered--or, having so entered, they remained upon--our territory in time of war without uniform or other appropriate means of identification." Ibid.

Turning to the other charges alleged, the Court explained that "[s]ince the first specification of Charge I sets forth a violation of the law of war, we have no occasion to pass on the adequacy of the second specification of Charge I, or to construe the 81st and 82nd Articles of War for the purpose of ascertaining whether the specifications under Charges II and III allege violations of those Articles or whether if so construed they are constitutional." Id., at 46.

No mention was made at all of Charge IV--the conspiracy charge.

If anything, Quirin supports Hamdan's argument that conspiracy is not a violation of the law of war.

Not only did the Court pointedly omit any discussion of the conspiracy charge, but its analysis of Charge I placed special emphasis on the completion of an offense; it took seriously the saboteurs' argument that there can be no violation of a law of war--at least not one triable by military commission--without the actual commission of or attempt to commit a "hostile and warlike act." Id., at 37-38.

That limitation makes eminent sense when one considers the necessity from whence this kind of military commission grew: The need to dispense swift justice, often in the form of execution, to illegal belligerents captured on the battlefield.

See S. Rep. No. 130, 64th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 40 (1916) (testimony of Brig. Gen. Enoch H. Crowder) (observing that Article of War 15 preserves the power of "the military commander in the field in time of war" to use military commissions (emphasis added)).

The same urgency would not have been felt vis-À-vis enemies who had done little more than agree to violate the laws of war.

Cf. 31 Op. Atty. Gen. 356, 357, 361 (1918) (opining that a German spy could not be tried by military commission because, having been apprehended before entering "any camp, fortification or other military premises of the United States," he had "committed [his offenses] outside of the field of military operations").

The Quirin Court acknowledged as much when it described the President's authority to use law-of-war military commissions as the power to "seize and subject to disciplinary measures those enemies who in their attempt to thwart or impede our military effort have violated the law of war." 317 U. S., at 28-29 (emphasis added).

Winthrop and Howland are only superficially more helpful to the Government.

Howland, granted, lists "conspiracy by two or more to violate the laws of war by destroying life or property in aid of the enemy" as one of over 20 "offenses against the laws and usages of war" "passed upon and punished by military commissions." Howland 1071.

But while the records of cases that Howland cites following his list of offenses against the law of war support inclusion of the other offenses mentioned, they provide no support for the inclusion of conspiracy as a violation of the law of war.

See ibid. (citing Record Books of the Judge Advocate General Office, R. 2, 144; R. 3, 401, 589, 649; R. 4, 320; R. 5, 36, 590; R. 6, 20; R. 7, 413; R. 8, 529; R. 9, 149, 202, 225, 481, 524, 535; R. 10, 567; R. 11, 473, 513; R. 13, 125, 675; R. 16, 446; R. 21, 101, 280).

Winthrop, apparently recognizing as much, excludes conspiracy of any kind from his own list of offenses against the law of war.

See Winthrop 839-840.

Winthrop does, unsurprisingly, include "criminal conspiracies" in his list of "[c]rimes and statutory offenses cognizable by State or U. S. courts" and triable by martial law or military government commission. See id., at 839.

And, in a footnote, he cites several Civil War examples of "conspiracies of this class, or of the first and second classes combined." Id., at 839, n. 5 (emphasis added).

The Government relies on this footnote for its contention that conspiracy was triable both as an ordinary crime (a crime of the "first class") and, independently, as a war crime (a crime of the "second class").

But the footnote will not support the weight the Government places on it.

As we have seen, the military commissions convened during the Civil War functioned at once as martial law or military government tribunals and as law-of-war commissions. See n. 27, supra.

Accordingly, they regularly tried war crimes and ordinary crimes together.

Indeed, as Howland observes, "[n]ot infrequently the crime, as charged and found, was a combination of the two species of offenses."

Howland 1071; see also Davis 310, n. 2; Winthrop 842.

The example he gives is "'murder in violation of the laws of war.'"

Howland 1071-1072.

Winthrop's conspiracy "of the first and second classes combined" is, like Howland's example, best understood as a species of compound offense of the type tried by the hybrid military commissions of the Civil War.

It is not a stand-alone offense against the law of war.

Winthrop confirms this understanding later in his discussion, when he emphasizes that "overt acts" constituting war crimes are the only proper subject at least of those military tribunals not convened to stand in for local courts.

Winthrop 841, and nn. 22, 23 (emphasis in original) (citing W. Finlason, Martial Law 130 (1867)).

Justice Thomas cites as evidence that conspiracy is a recognized violation of the law of war the Civil War indictment against Henry Wirz, which charged the defendant with " '[m]aliciously, willfully, and traitorously ... combining, confederating, and conspiring [with others] to injure the health and destroy the lives of soldiers in the military service of the United States ... to the end that the armies of the United States might be weakened and impaired, in violation of the laws and customs of war.'"

Post, at 24-25 (dissenting opinion) (quoting H. R. Doc. No. 314, 55th Cong., 3d Sess., 785 (1865); emphasis deleted).

As shown by the specification supporting that charge, however, Wirz was alleged to have personally committed a number of atrocities against his victims, including torture, injection of prisoners with poison, and use of "ferocious and bloodthirsty dogs" to "seize, tear, mangle, and maim the bodies and limbs" of prisoners, many of whom died as a result. Id., at 789-790.

Crucially, Judge Advocate General Holt determined that one of Wirz's alleged co-conspirators, R. B. Winder, should not be tried by military commission because there was as yet insufficient evidence of his own personal involvement in the atrocities:

"[I]n the case of R. B. Winder, while the evidence at the trial of Wirz was deemed by the court to implicate him in the conspiracy against the lives of all Federal prisoners in rebel hands, no such specific overt acts of violation of the laws of war are as yet fixed upon him as to make it expedient to prefer formal charges and bring him to trial." Id., at 783 (emphases added).

Finally, international sources confirm that the crime charged here is not a recognized violation of the law of war.

As observed above, see supra, at 40, none of the major treaties governing the law of war identifies conspiracy as a violation thereof.

And the only "conspiracy" crimes that have been recognized by international war crimes tribunals (whose jurisdiction often extends beyond war crimes proper to crimes against humanity and crimes against the peace) are conspiracy to commit genocide and common plan to wage aggressive war, which is a crime against the peace and requires for its commission actual participation in a "concrete plan to wage war."

Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal: Nuremberg, 14 November 1945-1 October 1946, p. 225 (1947).

The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, over the prosecution's objections, pointedly refused to recognize as a violation of the law of war conspiracy to commit war crimes, see, e.g., 22 id., at 469,39 and convicted only Hitler's most senior associates of conspiracy to wage aggressive war, see S. Pomorski, Conspiracy and Criminal Organization, in the Nuremberg Trial and International Law 213, 233-235 (G. Ginsburgs & V. Kudriavtsev eds. 1990).

As one prominent figure from the Nuremberg trials has explained, members of the Tribunal objected to recognition of conspiracy as a violation of the law of war on the ground that "[t]he Anglo-American concept of conspiracy was not part of European legal systems and arguably not an element of the internationally recognized laws of war."

T. Taylor, Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir 36 (1992); see also id., at 550 (observing that Francis Biddle, who as Attorney General prosecuted the defendants in Quirin, thought the French judge had made a "'persuasive argument that conspiracy in the truest sense is not known to international law'").

In sum, the sources that the Government and Justice Thomas rely upon to show that conspiracy to violate the law of war is itself a violation of the law of war in fact demonstrate quite the opposite.

Far from making the requisite substantial showing, the Government has failed even to offer a "merely colorable" case for inclusion of conspiracy among those offenses cognizable by law-of-war military commission.

Cf. Quirin, 317 U. S., at 36.

Because the charge does not support the commission's jurisdiction, the commission lacks authority to try Hamdan.

The charge's shortcomings are not merely formal, but are indicative of a broader inability on the Executive's part here to satisfy the most basic precondition--at least in the absence of specific congressional authorization--for establishment of military commissions: military necessity.

Hamdan's tribunal was appointed not by a military commander in the field of battle, but by a retired major general stationed away from any active hostilities.

Cf. Rasul v. Bush, 542 U. S., at 487 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment) (observing that "Guantanamo Bay is ... far removed from any hostilities").

Hamdan is charged not with an overt act for which he was caught redhanded in a theater of war and which military efficiency demands be tried expeditiously, but with an agreement the inception of which long predated the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the AUMF.

That may well be a crime, but it is not an offense that "by the law of war may be tried by military commissio[n]."

10 U. S. C. §821.

None of the overt acts alleged to have been committed in furtherance of the agreement is itself a war crime, or even necessarily occurred during time of, or in a theater of, war.

Any urgent need for imposition or execution of judgment is utterly belied by the record; Hamdan was arrested in November 2001 and he was not charged until mid-2004.

These simply are not the circumstances in which, by any stretch of the historical evidence or this Court's precedents, a military commission established by Executive Order under the authority of Article 21 of the UCMJ may lawfully try a person and subject him to punishment.

I am not a Democrat ....

And being a LOYAL AMERICAN ....

Who believes that OUR United States Constitution ....

IS AND REMAINS ....

The LAW OF THE LAND ....

In times both fair ...

And foul ....

In times of War ...

As well as in times of peace ....

I SURE AS HELL AM NOT A LAWLESS POWER-HUNGRY REPUBLICAN .....

And so ....

I do not see this HAMDEN case .....

Or GUANTANAMO RULING ...

As the media calls it ...

So much as a repudiation of a power-hungry REPUBLICAN-controlled White House ......

Which it certainly is .....

BUT AS A REPUDIATION .....

OF A LAWLESS MAN .....

Him being George W. Bush ....

AS WELL AS .....

A STATEMENT ....

TO ALL THE CANDID WORLD .....

THAT JUST BECAUSE A LAWLESS TYRANT .....

HAS COME TO POWER ...

BY WHATEVER MEANS .....

HERE IN OUR AMERICA ...

WE ARE NOT ALL LAWLESS .....

JUST BECAUSE GEORGE W. BUSH .....

AND THE REPUBLICANS ARE ...

And so ....

"Bloodthirsty dogs ..."

Shades of abu Graib ......

And so .....

We have here ...

What I think ....

Old Tom Jefferson ...

Would call ....

A DELICIOUS IRONY ......

Where George W. Bush's FANCY LAWYERS .....

Seem to have ......

LAID A REAL GOOD FOUNDATION .....

For a war crimes prosecution ....

Of George ...

And his TOP ADVISERS .....

Based on .....

GEORGE W. BUSH's MILITARY STRATEGIES .....

WHICH WERE APPROVED ....

AFTER CONSULTATION .....

WITH THE REPUBLICAN-CONTROLLED .....

UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ...

AND THE REPUBLICAN-CONTROLLED ....

UNITED STATES SENATE .....

AND SO .....

IF WHAT WAS CONSULTED ON ...

AND APPROVED ....

WAS IN FACT TANTAMOUNT ....

TO A CONSPIRACY TO WAGE AGGRESSIVE WAR ....

And to commit war crimes ....

WELL .....

THAT MAKES LIFE REAL INTERESTING .....

Heading into this election season ....

With this RAPE-MURDER ATROCITY ...

Just committed by some of George W. Bush's troops .....

Who he has responsibility for ....

Pursuant to his own precedents ...

Hanging out there .....

FRONT AND CENTER .....

AS A CENTERPIECE .....

OF THE FRUITS ....

OF GEORGE'S NOW THOROUGHLY DISCREDITED "WAR" POLICIES .....

AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF ....

And so ......

I honestly believe .....

That if he were here right now ...

Old Tom Jefferson .....

Would be rolling on the floor ....

Howling in laughter ...

At the position ....

Yea, PREDICAMENT ....

THAT THE REPUBLICANS HAVE GOT THEMSELVES ...

AND OUR TROOPS IN ....

WITH THIS LEGITIMATE CONCERN .....

THAT THIS REPUBLICAN MITCH McCONNELL HAS .....

WITH OUR TROOPS BEING CHARGED WITH WAR CRIMES .....

FOR DOING WHAT GEORGE W. BUSH ....

AND THE REPUBLICANS ....

TOLD THEM TO DO ....

And so ....

This, to me, has got to be .....

ONE OF THE MOST BIZARRE EPISODES .....

Associated with the interminably long reign .....

Of this CLOWN PRINCE George .....

And his GOVERNMENT ...

WHICH HAS JUST BLOWN ...

A BIG WAD ...

OF OUR TAX DOLLARS .....

ON SOME FANCY LAWYERS ....

Who have just argued ...

George W. Bush ...

And the REPUBLICAN-CONTROLLED CONGRESS .....

A whole step closer .....

To a WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL .....

By a COMMISSION ......

FOR THEM ....

TO TRY THEM ......

FOR THEIR APPARENT SELF-ADMITTED CONDUCT ....

IN ALLEGED VIOLATION ...

OF INTERNATIONAL LAW .....

And so ...

TO ME .....

AN OLDER AMERICAN ....

I THINK THAT WOULD BE A REAL GOOD THING ....

TO YANK THIS LAWLESS GEORGE W. BUSH UP SHORT .....

LIKE THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT JUST DID .....

WITH THIS GUANTANAMO BAY RULING .....

Where it was made real clear ...

To all the candid world ...

In very simple langauge ...

Easy to comprehend ...

And understand ...

That George W. Bush ....

IS WAY OFF THE RESERVATION .....

With his method ...

Of conduct ....

Of these wars of agression of his ...

And so ...

Delicious irony, indeed, Tom Jefferson ....

And so ...

Reminds me:

Years ago, back in the 60s, some reporter asked Robert S McNamara, the world's smartest whiz kid, why we were in Vietnam.

"We are in Vietnam," he replied, " to prove to the world that aggression does not pay."

Like I said, he was the world's smartest whiz kid.

Back in the 60's .....

Boy, that is a lifetime ago, now, jeffmoskin .....

And so ....

That lesson got lost ...

In the mists of time, I suppose ....

Which always seems to be the case in the affairs of human beings ...

So now ...

George W. Bush ...

Is going to prove that all again .....

In spades this time, most likely .....

Since he is a much bigger ****-up than McNamara was .....

And so .....

HAMDAN v. RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, et al. continued

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit

No. 05-184. 

Argued March 28, 2006--Decided June 29, 2006

Whether or not the Government has charged Hamdan with an offense against the law of war cognizable by military commission, the commission lacks power to proceed.

The UCMJ conditions the President's use of military commissions on compliance not only with the American common law of war, but also with the rest of the UCMJ itself, insofar as applicable, and with the "rules and precepts of the law of nations," Quirin, 317 U. S., at 28--including, inter alia, the four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949.

See Yamashita, 327 U. S., at 20-21, 23-24.

The procedures that the Government has decreed will govern Hamdan's trial by commission violate these laws.

The commission's procedures are set forth in Commission Order No. 1, which was amended most recently on August 31, 2005--after Hamdan's trial had already begun.

Every commission established pursuant to Commission Order No. 1 must have a presiding officer and at least three other members, all of whom must be commissioned officers. §4(A)(1).

The presiding officer's job is to rule on questions of law and other evidentiary and interlocutory issues; the other members make findings and, if applicable, sentencing decisions. §4(A)(5).

The accused is entitled to appointed military counsel and may hire civilian counsel at his own expense so long as such counsel is a U. S. citizen with security clearance "at the level SECRET or higher." §§4©(2)-(3).

The accused also is entitled to a copy of the charge(s) against him, both in English and his own language (if different), to a presumption of innocence, and to certain other rights typically afforded criminal defendants in civilian courts and courts-martial. See §§5(A)-(P).

These rights are subject, however, to one glaring condition: The accused and his civilian counsel may be excluded from, and precluded from ever learning what evidence was presented during, any part of the proceeding that either the Appointing Authority or the presiding officer decides to "close."

Grounds for such closure "include the protection of information classified or classifiable ... ; information protected by law or rule from unauthorized disclosure; the physical safety of participants in Commission proceedings, including prospective witnesses; intelligence and law enforcement sources, methods, or activities; and other national security interests." §6(B)(3).

Appointed military defense counsel must be privy to these closed sessions, but may, at the presiding officer's discretion, be forbidden to reveal to his or her client what took place therein. Ibid.

Another striking feature of the rules governing Hamdan's commission is that they permit the admission of any evidence that, in the opinion of the presiding officer, "would have probative value to a reasonable person." §6(D)(1).

Under this test, not only is testimonial hearsay and evidence obtained through coercion fully admissible, but neither live testimony nor witnesses' written statements need be sworn. See §§6(D)(2)(b), (3).

Moreover, the accused and his civilian counsel may be denied access to evidence in the form of "protected information" (which includes classified information as well as "information protected by law or rule from unauthorized disclosure" and "information concerning other national security interests," §§6(B)(3), 6(D)(5)(a)(v)), so long as the presiding officer concludes that the evidence is "probative" under §6(D)(1) and that its admission without the accused's knowledge would not "result in the denial of a full and fair trial." §6(D)(5)(b).

Finally, a presiding officer's determination that evidence "would not have probative value to a reasonable person" may be overridden by a majority of the other commission members. §6(D)(1).

Once all the evidence is in, the commission members (not including the presiding officer) must vote on the accused's guilt.

A two-thirds vote will suffice for both a verdict of guilty and for imposition of any sentence not including death (the imposition of which requires a unanimous vote). §6(F).

Any appeal is taken to a three-member review panel composed of military officers and designated by the Secretary of Defense, only one member of which need have experience as a judge. §6(H)(4).

The review panel is directed to "disregard any variance from procedures specified in this Order or elsewhere that would not materially have affected the outcome of the trial before the Commission." Ibid.

Once the panel makes its recommendation to the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary can either remand for further proceedings or forward the record to the President with his recommendation as to final disposition. §6(H)(5).

The President then, unless he has delegated the task to the Secretary, makes the "final decision." §6(H)(6).

He may change the commission's findings or sentence only in a manner favorable to the accused. Ibid.

"Bush seeks to build standing with public"

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer

36 minutes ago

CHICAGO - The president who loves to get home to his own bed is planning more nights on the road.

It's part of a public-relations effort aimed at boosting President Bush's low standing in polls and bolstering the chances of the Republican Party he leads in this fall's midterm elections.

The idea is to place Bush in more freewheeling settings where he comes across best and before local media that tend to give softer coverage.

"I'm doing a lot of campaigning," Bush told CNN's Larry King during an interview aired Thursday night.

"We're going to do just fine in '06."

Throughout his presidency, Bush has been known for extensive travels outside Washington that most often feature quick fly-in, drive-by stops.

But in recent months that has begun to change with more overnight trips.

He spent several days traveling California and Nevada in April, went to Florida for three days in May and hopped through New Mexico, Texas and Nebraska over a couple of days last month.

Thursday and Friday were finding Bush in and around Chicago — even spending the evening of his 60th birthday away from home.

The visit began after a day of telephone diplomacy to try to build consensus among other countries over a response to North Korea's missile tests.

Bush expressed support for a draft U.N. Security Council resolution, offered by Japan, to impose sanctions on North Korea for its seven missile tests Tuesday, which included a long-range Taepodong-2 believed capable of reaching U.S. soil.

China, the North's closest ally, and Russia, which has been trying to re-establish Soviet-era ties with Pyongyang, are pushing for diplomacy alone to resolve the dispute.

During an interview broadcast Thursday night on CNN's "Larry King Live," Bush was asked whether he had been prepared to shoot down the long-range missile.

The president replied, "If it headed to the United States we've got a missile defense system that will defend our country."

Pentagon officials said Thursday that the very brief flight of the Taepodong-2 missile made it difficult to collect useful technical data, such as its intended target, its payload and even whether it was a two-stage or three-stage missile.

At this point, U.S. officials are leaning toward the theory that it was configured as a space launch to deliver a satellite into orbit, rather than as a flight test of a ballistic missile.

Trips like the one to Chicago were being planned for Bush throughout the summer, White House counselor Dan Bartlett said, with the president spending more time in communities to "really sink his teeth into the local market."

"Oftentimes when you fly into a community, you're in and out within 55 minutes and you talk about one subject," Bartlett said.

"This gives him an opportunity to cover a broader range of subjects in the local community."

The highlight of Bush's Illinois journey is a unique heartland news conference, which will find the president standing for an hour of questioning at Chicago's stately Museum of Science and Industry, from not only the national media but their local counterparts as well.

"We're going to mix it up," said White House press secretary Tony Snow.

The packed schedule of events in Illinois began with dinner Thursday night with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and seven heavy-hitters from the local business community.

Over a private breakfast Friday, he was to listen to the concerns of local business leaders again.

After the news conference, Bush was raising campaign cash for Republican gubernatorial candidate Judy Baar Topinka, the state treasurer who is running to unseat Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and touting his plan to boost America's global competitiveness during a tour and speech in the district of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

The president was talking up his so-called American Competitiveness Initiative at Cabot Microelectronics Corp., a supplier of chip-manufacturing materials and products used in making semiconductors headquartered in Aurora, Ill., in Chicago's exurbs.

The initiative proposes to double government funding for basic research in the physical sciences, train thousands of new science and math teachers and extend a popular tax credit businesses can receive for investing in research and development.

The president's approval numbers have been slowly rebounding from an all-time low this spring, but White House aides don't want to leave anything to chance.

If Democrats win control of either the House or Senate this November, a lame-duck Bush would face even more resistance to his agenda during his last two years in office.

In addition to spending more time in local communities, Bush has been making more impromptu stops along his travel route in hopes of benefiting from public exposure to his folksier side.

Last week in Ohio, for instance, the president's motorcade pulled over at a lemonade stand across the street from a Republican fundraiser where he helped bring in $1.3 million.

He's also stopped unannounced to shake hands with people waving to his limousine outside an elementary school in Laredo, Texas, and then popped into a nearby Mexican barbecue restaurant.
___

Associated Press writer Nedra Pickler contributed to this story.

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IF ......

George W. Bush ...

Really wanted to show OUR America .....

And the candid world .....

THAT HE WAS TOUGH .....

On these alleged TAY-RISTS .......

HE WOULD HAVE PUT THIS HAMDEN .....

ON TRIAL .....

PUBLICY ......

FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE .....

RIGHT AS SOON ....

AS THE BUSHCO PRIME ....

HAD HIM IN CUSTODY ....

LIKE IS HAPPENING ...

WITH SADDAM HUSSEIN ...

Over there in Iraqinam ....

BUT ...

George W. Bush ....

NEVER DID THAT .....

According to the United States Supreme Court .....

BASED UPON THE VERY EVIDENCE .....

That the BUSHCO FANCY LAWYERS .....

Presented to the United States Supreme Court ...

And so ....

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE, AMERICA?

Besides everything .....

And so ....

"US soldier subdued on Florida flight"

By Robert Green

1 hour, 9 minutes ago

TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier recently returned from Iraq tried to force his way into the cockpit of a Tampa-bound Delta Air Lines jet and was subdued by other passengers, Tampa International Airport officials said on Friday.

The 24-year-old man was undergoing mental evaluation at a Tampa hospital and the FBI was investigating whether charges should be filed, airport spokeswoman Brenda Geoghagan said.

The man, Neftali Alexander Laimendez, was flying with his brother to see their mother in Tampa and to seek medical attention, Geoghagan said.

As the flight from New York's LaGuardia Airport approached Tampa on Thursday night, he ignored flight attendants' instructions to sit down and fasten his seat belt, and ran up the aisle of the plane and into the first class cabin, Geoghagan said.

"As he is running, he is ramming the cockpit door, falling on the aisle, getting up and repeatedly doing this," she said.

"Three or four of the passengers restrained him and held him on the floor."

Airport police arrested him after the McDonnell Douglas MD-88 landed.

Laimendez was unarmed and wearing civilian clothes, according to investigators who said his intent was unclear.

He was taken to a hospital for evaluation under a law that allows people to be held involuntarily for 72 hours if they are considered a threat to themselves or others, Geoghagan said.

Laimendez is a U.S. soldier who had recently returned to the United States from Iraq, and his term of service was to end on July 12, Geoghagan said.

Cockpit doors on all U.S. airliners have been reinforced and locked since the September 11 hijackings.

"The hardening of the cockpit door worked," said airport Executive Director Louis Miller, who praised the passengers who tackled and subdued Laimendez.

"They're absolute heroes," he said in a teleconference with reporters.

"They got this incident under control."

"No one overreacted, no one was hurt."

(Additional reporting by Jane Sutton in Miami)

"Bush: Lay was generous, but betrayed trust"

Thu Jul 6, 10:21 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush on Thursday called convicted Enron Corp. founder Ken Lay, who died this week, a "generous person," but said he had betrayed the trust of shareholders.

Lay died of heart disease on Wednesday while on vacation in Colorado, six weeks after being convicted of fraud and conspiracy in the financial scandal that brought down the energy conglomerate.

Lay, a former confidant of Bush's father, and called "Kenny boy" by the current president, was once a major contributor to the Bushes' political campaigns.

Bush, speaking in an interview with CNN's "Larry King Live," said he knew Lay "pretty well" and called him a "good guy" he had gotten to know while governor of Texas.

"One of the things I respected him for was he was such a contributor to Houston's civil society."

"He was a generous person," Bush said.

"I'm disappointed that he betrayed the trust of shareholders."

The president said he had not contacted Lay's wife yet, but planned to write her a letter.

Lay, 64, was facing decades in prison in connection with Enron's 2001 bankruptcy.

Lay and another former Enron chief executive, Jeffrey Skilling, were found guilty of hiding the financial ruin at Enron, which they had built into the seventh largest company in the United States.

Just as soon as he learns how to write.

And as George seeks to make himself more likeable .....

With us common folks ...

Who George has absolutely nothing in common with ....

He is having BARDS .....

And TUNESMITHS .....

Wite some songs about him .....

To make him seem more countrified .....

And down to earth ...

LIKE US ....

And so ....

Here is one of the better efforts ...

In that regard ....

Right now ...

Off my radio ...

As I speak these words ....

And so ...

Make the Pie Higher

As a child, he was not all that special.
Not a hint of a great destiny.
Not the worst, not the best,
sort of average, I guess,
but still blessed with the name of his daddy.

As a youth, he had no clear direction.
He just moseyed along down the trail,
to a college career,
where he majored in beer,
cutting classes, he was proud
not to fail.

He preferred not to fight for his country.
As an oil man, his well came up dry.
He was feeling no pain,
as he stayed entertained,
he was known for his jokes
and effrontery.

Then one day, someone said, “You’re not ugly.
You have fingers and eyeballs and hair.
You should get in the game.
They will vote for your name.”
So he said, “What the heck?
Dude, I’m there!”

(Chorus) He said, “We should make the pie higher.
Families is where
our nation finds hope,
where wings take dream.
Well, when you say that
you’re gonna do something,
and then you don’t do it,
that is trustworthiness.
You know that is trustworthiness.”

The campaign was intense, as expected.
Full of slander, distortions, and lies.
He held on for the ride,
and he soon turned the tide,
for his message brought tears
to our eyes.

(Chorus)He said, “We should make the pie higher.
Families is where
our nation finds hope,
where wings take dream.
Well, when you say that
you’re gonna do something,
and then you don’t do it,
that is trustworthiness.
You know that is trustworthiness.”

Some may say the election was stolen.
But I feel that perhaps that’s too strong.
Call it luck.
It was fate.
He was meant to be “great,”
to be feted in story
and song,
like this one called...

(Chorus)He said, “We should make the pie higher.
Families is where
our nation finds hope,
where wings take dream.
Well, when you say that
you’re gonna do something,
and then you don’t do it,
that is trustworthiness.
You know that is trustworthiness.”

The Happytones
PO Box 28448
Austin, Texas, 78755-8448.
E-mail: mail@thehappytones.com

Amend that .....

To learns how to write ....

In some form of language ...

That is intelligible ....

As a language ......

And so ...

MAKE THE PIE HIGHER, jeffmoskin ...

GO FOR IT!

Because that is where it all is at ...

And so ....

And speaking about ....

MAKING THE PIE HIGHER .....

Here's some now .....

"U.S. commander finishes Haditha review"

By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press

Last updated: 4:23 a.m., Saturday, July 8, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A top U.S. commander who reviewed an investigation into whether the Marines tried to cover up the Haditha case agreed that errors were made, a U.S. military official said.

Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli has forwarded his findings and recommendations to Gen. George W. Casey, the top commander in Iraq and the only one superior to Chiarelli.

The investigation was separate from an inquiry still under way into whether a group of Marines killed 24 civilians -- including women and children -- on Nov. 19 in a revenge attack after a fellow Marine died in a roadside bombing in the town of Haditha.

Chiarelli's report was based on an investigation conducted by Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell into whether the Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment followed proper procedures in reporting the incident to commanders, or whether anyone engaged in a cover-up.

His investigation also may consider whether any criminal charges should be brought.

The military initially said the Iraqi deaths were the result of the roadside bomb and a subsequent gunfight with insurgents.

The U.S. military official said Chiarelli agreed with Bargewell's findings for the most part, but there were some areas in which he recommended a different course of action.

The official did not elaborate on that point.

But he said the investigation found that errors were made in the reporting and follow up of initial allegations after the killings and suggested some were of a criminal nature.

"It essentially bolsters the ongoing criminal investigation and lays bare some of the administrative faults that existed during November 2005," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the findings have not been publicly released.

"What some of these people did wrong is certainly not illegal or criminal, but administratively their actions are something that Gen. Chiarelli wants to look at," the official said.

The New York Times quoted two U.S. Defense Department officials as saying that Chiarelli concluded that senior officers did not follow up on inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the initial reporting of the incident that should have raised questions.

He faulted the senior staff of the Second Marine Division, commanded at the time by Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck, and the Second Regimental Combat Team, then headed by Col. Stephen W. Davis, and recommended unspecified disciplinary action for some officers, the newspaper reported.

"He concludes that some officers were derelict in their duties," one of the officials, who declined to identify which or how many officers were singled out, was quoted as saying.

The military official said the military hoped to release most of the findings in the next two weeks, but anything that could be used in the criminal investigation would not be made public.

"Some of the portions will be redacted because they could be used in a criminal investigation, either a current one or one in the future," he said.

Iraq has ordered its own probe of the killings, with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki using unusually strong language to condemn them.

The case is among the most serious against U.S. soldiers allegedly involved in the deaths of Iraqi civilians.

At least 14 U.S. troops have been convicted.

Steven D. Green, a former Army private, pleaded not guilty this week to federal court charges of slaying and raping a young Iraqi woman and killing her father, mother and sister in March near Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad.

Up to four others still in uniform are under investigation in Iraq.

Seven Marines and one Navy medic are charged with premeditated murder in the shooting death of an Iraqi man near Fallujah west of Baghdad.

Other cases involve the deaths of three male detainees in Salahuddin province in May, the shooting death of unarmed Iraqi man near Ramadi in February, and the death of an Iraqi soldier after an interrogation in 2003 at a detention camp in Qaim.

Such cases threaten to further weaken popular support for the Iraq war in the United States and tarnish the military's image.

end color

Well .....

George W. Bush ...

SAID ...

He was going to make the pie higher .....

And it looks to me ...

Like he has succeeded ...

Which would make him ...

A MAN OF HIS WORD ....

And so .....

IF YOU LIKE ....

THE PIE REAL HIGH ....

Well ...

VOTE REPUBLICAN ....

Because they are the only ones ...

Who realy know how ...

To do that ...

REAL GOOD ....

And so ...

"Army cuts 1,000 for personality disorders"

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer

Fri Jul 7, 6:44 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The Army discharged more than 1,000 soldiers last year for personality disorders, the reason it gave for this year's discharge of a private now accused of raping a young Iraqi woman and killing her and her family.

That total represents about 1.2 percent of the 83,000 soldiers given early discharges during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2005.

That was a bit higher than the less than 1 percent discharged for those reasons during the 2001 fiscal year before the war in Iraq began.

Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, the Army's surgeon general, told reporters Friday that the disorder usually is not associated with combat trauma and may be a lifelong problem that is not always easy to identify in military screenings.

He said soldiers exhibiting such traits would not be automatically discharged because many can continue to perform well.

Steven D. Green, who pleaded not guilty through his public defenders Thursday, was discharged because of an "anti-social personality disorder" according to military officials and documents.

That condition is defined as chronic behavior that manipulates, exploits or violates the rights of others, such as someone who repeatedly lies, fights or breaks the law.

According to a federal affidavit, Green, 21, and other soldiers targeted a young Iraqi woman after spotting her at a traffic checkpoint near Mahmoudiya.

They later went to her house, raped and killed her and shot members of her family, the affidavit said.

Green is being tried in federal rather than military court because he no longer is in the Army

Kiley told Pentagon reporters that personality disorders — which are not forms of mental illness — do no necessarily exclude people from serving in the armed forces.

In fact, he said that up to 4 percent to 5 percent of the soldiers have taken sleep medications or antidepressant drugs at one time or another during their combat service.

Altogether, there were nearly 493,000 people in the Army during the 2005 fiscal year, compared with about 481,000 in 2001.

The Army discharged 805 soldiers for personality disorders in 2001, 734 in 2002, 980 in 2003, 988 in 2004 and 1,038 in 2005.

Mental disorders represented between less than 1 percent to 1.4 percent of the total early discharges for those years.

The total number of early discharges ranged from about 69,000 to more than 87,000.

Soldiers can receive early discharges for a number of reasons, but most often they are for physical fitness issues.

Kiley said the Army is allocating more resources that ever to combat stress and provide mental health counseling for soldiers on the battlefield.

Currently, he said, there are about 200 mental health and behavioral health personnel in Iraq and 25 in Afghanistan.

Many of them are assigned to different regions of the country and travel in small teams to the forward operating bases to meet with soldiers.

The Army, he said, is trying to find ways to encourage soldiers to use the mental health services and overcome the perception among the military that seeking mental health counseling is a sign of weakness.

"There is something very demanding and tough about being in combat," said Kiley.

"And anything that would be perceived as being weak and not ready and tough carries with it some stigma."

As a result, he said, the Army is trying to reach out regularly to soldiers while they are in combat, and officials are encouraging entire units to go through mental health screenings so that soldiers will feel more comfortable doing it if they see their commanders and unit leaders participating.

By the plain language ....

Of that definition .....

Of "ANTI-SOCIAL PERSONALITY DISORDER" ......

GEORGE W. BUSH ...

SOUNDS LIKE A CLASSIC CASE .....

Especially the part .....

About repeatedly breaking the law .....

And lying .....

And chronically ....

Manipulating ....

Exploiting ...

And violating .....

The rights of others ....

And so .....

He should be discharged ....

AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF .......

Of OUR American military ...

By reason of this disorder .....

Which definitely affects him ...

In the discharge of his duties ...

As Commander-In-Chief .......

Of OUR American military ....

And so .....

And while we are on the subject ...

Of George W. Bush ...

Violating the law ....

HAMDAN v. RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, et al., continued ....

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit

No. 05-184. 

Argued March 28, 2006--Decided June 29, 2006

Hamdan raises both general and particular objections to the procedures set forth in Commission Order No. 1.

His general objection is that the procedures' admitted deviation from those governing courts-martial itself renders the commission illegal.

Chief among his particular objections are that he may, under the Commission Order, be convicted based on evidence he has not seen or heard, and that any evidence admitted against him need not comply with the admissibility or relevance rules typically applicable in criminal trials and court-martial proceedings.

The Government objects to our consideration of any procedural challenge at this stage on the grounds that (1) the abstention doctrine espoused in Councilman, 420 U. S. 738, precludes pre-enforcement review of procedural rules, (2) Hamdan will be able to raise any such challenge following a "final decision" under the DTA, and (3) "there is ... no basis to presume, before the trial has even commenced, that the trial will not be conducted in good faith and according to law."

Brief for Respondents 45-46, nn. 20-21.

The first of these contentions was disposed of in Part III, supra, and neither of the latter two is sound.

First, because Hamdan apparently is not subject to the death penalty (at least as matters now stand) and may receive a sentence shorter than 10 years' imprisonment, he has no automatic right to review of the commission's "final decision" before a federal court under the DTA.

See §1005(e)(3), 119 Stat. 2743.

Second, contrary to the Government's assertion, there is a "basis to presume" that the procedures employed during Hamdan's trial will violate the law:

The procedures are described with particularity in Commission Order No. 1, and implementation of some of them has already occurred.

One of Hamdan's complaints is that he will be, and indeed already has been, excluded from his own trial.

See Reply Brief for Petitioner 12; App. to Pet. for Cert. 45a.

Under these circumstances, review of the procedures in advance of a "final decision"--the timing of which is left entirely to the discretion of the President under the DTA--is appropriate.

We turn, then, to consider the merits of Hamdan's procedural challenge.

In part because the difference between military commissions and courts-martial originally was a difference of jurisdiction alone, and in part to protect against abuse and ensure evenhandedness under the pressures of war, the procedures governing trials by military commission historically have been the same as those governing courts-martial.

See, e.g., 1 The War of the Rebellion 248 (2d series 1894) (General Order 1 issued during the Civil War required military commissions to "be constituted in a similar manner and their proceedings be conducted according to the same general rules as courts-martial in order to prevent abuses which might otherwise arise").

Accounts of commentators from Winthrop through General Crowder--who drafted Article of War 15 and whose views have been deemed "authoritative" by this Court, Madsen, 343 U. S., at 353--confirm as much.

As recently as the Korean and Vietnam wars, during which use of military commissions was contemplated but never made, the principle of procedural parity was espoused as a background assumption.

See Paust, Antiterrorism Military Commissions: Courting Illegality, 23 Mich. J. Int'l L. 1, 3-5 (2001-2002).

There is a glaring historical exception to this general rule.

The procedures and evidentiary rules used to try General Yamashita near the end of World War II deviated in significant respects from those then governing courts-martial.

See 327 U. S. 1.

The force of that precedent, however, has been seriously undermined by post-World War II developments.

Yamashita, from late 1944 until September 1945, was Commanding General of the Fourteenth Army Group of the Imperial Japanese Army, which had exercised control over the Philippine Islands.

On September 3, 1945, after American forces regained control of the Philippines, Yamashita surrendered.

Three weeks later, he was charged with violations of the law of war.

A few weeks after that, he was arraigned before a military commission convened in the Philippines.

He pleaded not guilty, and his trial lasted for two months.

On December 7, 1945, Yamashita was convicted and sentenced to hang.

See id., at 5; id., at 31-34 (Murphy, J., dissenting).

This Court upheld the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

The procedures and rules of evidence employed during Yamashita's trial departed so far from those used in courts-martial that they generated an unusually long and vociferous critique from two Members of this Court.

See id., at 41-81 (Rutledge, J., joined by Murphy, J., dissenting).

Among the dissenters' primary concerns was that the commission had free rein to consider all evidence "which in the commission's opinion 'would be of assistance in proving or disproving the charge,' without any of the usual modes of authentication."

Id., at 49 (Rutledge, J.).

The majority, however, did not pass on the merits of Yamashita's procedural challenges because it concluded that his status disentitled him to any protection under the Articles of War (specifically, those set forth in Article 38, which would become Article 36 of the UCMJ) or the Geneva Convention of 1929, 47 Stat. 2021 (1929 Geneva Convention).

The Court explained that Yamashita was neither a "person made subject to the Articles of War by Article 2" thereof, 327 U. S., at 20, nor a protected prisoner of war being tried for crimes committed during his detention, id., at 21.

At least partially in response to subsequent criticism of General Yamashita's trial, the UCMJ's codification of the Articles of War after World War II expanded the category of persons subject thereto to include defendants in Yamashita's (and Hamdan's) position, and the Third Geneva Convention of 1949 extended prisoner-of-war protections to individuals tried for crimes committed before their capture.

See 3 Int'l Comm. of Red Cross, Commentary: Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War 413 (1960) (hereinafter GCIII Commentary) (explaining that Article 85, which extends the Convention's protections to "[p]risoners of war prosecuted under the laws of the Detaining Power for acts committed prior to capture," was adopted in response to judicial interpretations of the 1929 Convention, including this Court's decision in Yamashita).

The most notorious exception to the principle of uniformity, then, has been stripped of its precedential value.

The uniformity principle is not an inflexible one; it does not preclude all departures from the procedures dictated for use by courts-martial.

But any departure must be tailored to the exigency that necessitates it.

See Winthrop 835, n. 81.

That understanding is reflected in Article 36 of the UCMJ, which provides:

"(a) The procedure, including modes of proof, in cases before courts-martial, courts of inquiry, military commissions, and other military tribunals may be prescribed by the President by regulations which shall, so far as he considers practicable, apply the principles of law and the rules of evidence generally recognized in the trial of criminal cases in the United States district courts, but which may not be contrary to or inconsistent with this chapter.

"(b) All rules and regulations made under this article shall be uniform insofar as practicable and shall be reported to Congress." 70A Stat. 50.

Article 36 places two restrictions on the President's power to promulgate rules of procedure for courts-martial and military commissions alike.

First, no procedural rule he adopts may be "contrary to or inconsistent with" the UCMJ--however practical it may seem.

Second, the rules adopted must be "uniform insofar as practicable."

That is, the rules applied to military commissions must be the same as those applied to courts-martial unless such uniformity proves impracticable.

Hamdan argues that Commission Order No. 1 violates both of these restrictions; he maintains that the procedures described in the Commission Order are inconsistent with the UCMJ and that the Government has offered no explanation for their deviation from the procedures governing courts-martial, which are set forth in the Manual for Courts-Martial, United States (2005 ed.) (Manual for Courts-Martial).

Among the inconsistencies Hamdan identifies is that between §6 of the Commission Order, which permits exclusion of the accused from proceedings and denial of his access to evidence in certain circumstances, and the UCMJ's requirement that "[a]ll ... proceedings" other than votes and deliberations by courts-martial "shall be made a part of the record and shall be in the presence of the accused." 10 U. S. C. A. §839© (Supp. 2006).

Hamdan also observes that the Commission Order dispenses with virtually all evidentiary rules applicable in courts-martial.

The Government has three responses.

First, it argues, only 9 of the UCMJ's 158 Articles--the ones that expressly mention "military commissions"--actually apply to commissions, and Commission Order No. 1 sets forth no procedure that is "contrary to or inconsistent with" those 9 provisions.

Second, the Government contends, military commissions would be of no use if the President were hamstrung by those provisions of the UCMJ that govern courts-martial.

Finally, the President's determination that "the danger to the safety of the United States and the nature of international terrorism" renders it impracticable "to apply in military commissions ... the principles of law and rules of evidence generally recognized in the trial of criminal cases in the United States district courts," November 13 Order §1(f), is, in the Government's view, explanation enough for any deviation from court-martial procedures.

See Brief for Respondents 43-47, and n. 22.

Hamdan has the better of this argument.

Without reaching the question whether any provision of Commission Order No. 1 is strictly "contrary to or inconsistent with" other provisions of the UCMJ, we conclude that the "practicability" determination the President has made is insufficient to justify variances from the procedures governing courts-martial.

Subsection (b) of Article 36 was added after World War II, and requires a different showing of impracticability from the one required by subsection (a).

Subsection (a) requires that the rules the President promulgates for courts-martial, provost courts, and military commissions alike conform to those that govern procedures in Article III courts, "so far as he considers practicable."

10 U. S. C. §836(a) (emphasis added).

Subsection (b), by contrast, demands that the rules applied in courts-martial, provost courts, and military commissions--whether or not they conform with the Federal Rules of Evidence--be "uniform insofar as practicable." §836(b) (emphasis added).

Under the latter provision, then, the rules set forth in the Manual for Courts-Martial must apply to military commissions unless impracticable.

The President here has determined, pursuant to subsection (a), that it is impracticable to apply the rules and principles of law that govern "the trial of criminal cases in the United States district courts," §836(a), to Hamdan's commission.

We assume that complete deference is owed that determination.

The President has not, however, made a similar official determination that it is impracticable to apply the rules for courts-martial.

And even if subsection (b)'s requirements may be satisfied without such an official determination, the requirements of that subsection are not satisfied here.

Nothing in the record before us demonstrates that it would be impracticable to apply court-martial rules in this case.

There is no suggestion, for example, of any logistical difficulty in securing properly sworn and authenticated evidence or in applying the usual principles of relevance and admissibility.

Assuming arguendo that the reasons articulated in the President's Article 36(a) determination ought to be considered in evaluating the impracticability of applying court-martial rules, the only reason offered in support of that determination is the danger posed by international terrorism.

Without for one moment underestimating that danger, it is not evident to us why it should require, in the case of Hamdan's trial, any variance from the rules that govern courts-martial.

The absence of any showing of impracticability is particularly disturbing when considered in light of the clear and admitted failure to apply one of the most fundamental protections afforded not just by the Manual for Courts-Martial but also by the UCMJ itself:

the right to be present.

See 10 U. S. C. A. §839© (Supp. 2006).

Whether or not that departure technically is "contrary to or inconsistent with" the terms of the UCMJ, 10 U. S. C. §836(a), the jettisoning of so basic a right cannot lightly be excused as "practicable."

Under the circumstances, then, the rules applicable in courts-martial must apply.

Since it is undisputed that Commission Order No. 1 deviates in many significant respects from those rules, it necessarily violates Article 36(b).

The Government's objection that requiring compliance with the court-martial rules imposes an undue burden both ignores the plain meaning of Article 36(b) and misunderstands the purpose and the history of military commissions.

The military commission was not born of a desire to dispense a more summary form of justice than is afforded by courts-martial; it developed, rather, as a tribunal of necessity to be employed when courts-martial lacked jurisdiction over either the accused or the subject matter.

See Winthrop 831.

Exigency lent the commission its legitimacy, but did not further justify the wholesale jettisoning of procedural protections.

That history explains why the military commission's procedures typically have been the ones used by courts-martial.

That the jurisdiction of the two tribunals today may sometimes overlap, see Madsen, 343 U. S., at 354, does not detract from the force of this history; Article 21 did not transform the military commission from a tribunal of true exigency into a more convenient adjudicatory tool.

Article 36, confirming as much, strikes a careful balance between uniform procedure and the need to accommodate exigencies that may sometimes arise in a theater of war.

That Article not having been complied with here, the rules specified for Hamdan's trial are illegal.

This is really something .....

When you think of it .....

This alleged TAY-RIST .....

From out of the wilds ....

Of Afghanist-NAM ......

Or someplace like that, anyway .....

KNOWING OUR LAW ...

BETTER THAN GEORGE W. BUSH DOES ....

So that the supposed TAY-RIST ......

COULD CLEAN GEORGE W. BUSH'S CLOCK .....

In a legal battle .....

In OUR United States Supreme Court .....

Despite George's coterie ...

Of real fancy lawyers ....

And smarmy mouthpieces .....

Which is really quite a message ...

To all the candid world ...

When you think on it .....

And so .....

In a lot of ways ...

IT IS A REAL TESTIMONIAL ....

TO OUR SYSTEM OF LAWS .....

THAT THEY WOULD AFFORD PROTECTION ...

TO EVEN THIS PERSON FROM AFGHANIST-NAM .....

BUT AT THE SAME TIME ...

IT IS A REAL EMBARASSMENT .....

THAT GEORGE W. BUSH'S COMPREHENSION ...

OF THOSE SAME LAWS ...

AND PROTECTIONS ....

IS SO DISMALLY POOR .....

AND NOW HE HAS ....

TROTTED ....

THAT ABYSMAL IGNORANCE ....

THAT HE POSSESSES ....

OF OUR SYSTEM OF LAWS OVER HERE .....

OUT IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE CANDID WORLD .....

FOR ALL TO SEE .....

AND WONDER AT .....

GIVEN GEORGE'S CLAIMS ....

TO BE REPRESENTING ...

THE FORCES ....

OF CIVILIZATION ....

AND LAW ...

AND ORDER ...

IN THIS DRAMA ....

BETWEEN HIM .....

AND HAMDAN ....

WHO NEVER WENT ...

TO YALE ...

OR HARVARD ....

LIKE GEORGE DID ......

AND MOREOVER ...

GEORGE W. BUSH ...

WAS AN OFFICER ...

IN OUR AMERICAN MILITARY ...

AND SO ...

HE SHOULD KNOW THE UNITED STATES UNIFORM CODE ....

OF MILITARY JUSTICE ....

FAR BETTER .....

THAN THIS FOREIGNER HAMDAN DOES ....

WHICH MAKES IT EVEN MORE EMBARASSING .....

GEORGE W. BUSH ...

GETTING ...

HIS CLOCK CLEANED .....

IN OUR UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT .....

BY THIS ALLEGED TAY-RIST HAMDAN .....

And so ...

HAMDAN v. RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, et al., continued ....

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit

No. 05-184. 

Argued March 28, 2006--Decided June 29, 2006

The procedures adopted to try Hamdan also violate the Geneva Conventions.

The Court of Appeals dismissed Hamdan's Geneva Convention challenge on three independent grounds:

(1) the Geneva Conventions are not judicially enforceable;

(2) Hamdan in any event is not entitled to their protections; and

(3) even if he is entitled to their protections, Councilman abstention is appropriate.

Judge Williams, concurring, rejected the second ground but agreed with the majority respecting the first and the last.

As we explained in Part III, supra, the abstention rule applied in Councilman, 420 U. S. 738, is not applicable here.

And for the reasons that follow, we hold that neither of the other grounds the Court of Appeals gave for its decision is persuasive.

The Court of Appeals relied on Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763 (1950), to hold that Hamdan could not invoke the Geneva Conventions to challenge the Government's plan to prosecute him in accordance with Commission Order No. 1.

Eisentrager involved a challenge by 21 German nationals to their 1945 convictions for war crimes by a military tribunal convened in Nanking, China, and to their subsequent imprisonment in occupied Germany.

The petitioners argued, inter alia, that the 1929 Geneva Convention rendered illegal some of the procedures employed during their trials, which they said deviated impermissibly from the procedures used by courts-martial to try American soldiers. See id., at 789.

We rejected that claim on the merits because the petitioners (unlike Hamdan here) had failed to identify any prejudicial disparity "between the Commission that tried [them] and those that would try an offending soldier of the American forces of like rank," and in any event could claim no protection, under the 1929 Convention, during trials for crimes that occurred before their confinement as prisoners of war. Id., at 790.56

Buried in a footnote of the opinion, however, is this curious statement suggesting that the Court lacked power even to consider the merits of the Geneva Convention argument:

"We are not holding that these prisoners have no right which the military authorities are bound to respect."

"The United States, by the Geneva Convention of July 27, 1929, 47 Stat. 2021, concluded with forty-six other countries, including the German Reich, an agreement upon the treatment to be accorded captives."

"These prisoners claim to be and are entitled to its protection."

"It is, however, the obvious scheme of the Agreement that responsibility for observance and enforcement of these rights is upon political and military authorities."

"Rights of alien enemies are vindicated under it only through protests and intervention of protecting powers as the rights of our citizens against foreign governments are vindicated only by Presidential intervention." Id., at 789, n. 14.

The Court of Appeals, on the strength of this footnote, held that "the 1949 Geneva Convention does not confer upon Hamdan a right to enforce its provisions in court." 415 F. 3d, at 40.

Whatever else might be said about the Eisentrager footnote, it does not control this case.

We may assume that "the obvious scheme" of the 1949 Conventions is identical in all relevant respects to that of the 1929 Convention, and even that that scheme would, absent some other provision of law, preclude Hamdan's invocation of the Convention's provisions as an independent source of law binding the Government's actions and furnishing petitioner with any enforceable right.

For, regardless of the nature of the rights conferred on Hamdan, cf. United States v. Rauscher, 119 U. S. 407 (1886), they are, as the Government does not dispute, part of the law of war.

See Hamdi, 542 U. S., at 520-521 (plurality opinion).

And compliance with the law of war is the condition upon which the authority set forth in Article 21 is granted.

For the Court of Appeals, acknowledgment of that condition was no bar to Hamdan's trial by commission.

As an alternative to its holding that Hamdan could not invoke the Geneva Conventions at all, the Court of Appeals concluded that the Conventions did not in any event apply to the armed conflict during which Hamdan was captured.

The court accepted the Executive's assertions that Hamdan was captured in connection with the United States' war with al Qaeda and that that war is distinct from the war with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

It further reasoned that the war with al Qaeda evades the reach of the Geneva Conventions. See 415 F. 3d, at 41-42.

We, like Judge Williams, disagree with the latter conclusion.

The conflict with al Qaeda is not, according to the Government, a conflict to which the full protections afforded detainees under the 1949 Geneva Conventions apply because Article 2 of those Conventions (which appears in all four Conventions) renders the full protections applicable only to "all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties." 6 U. S. T., at 3318.59

Since Hamdan was captured and detained incident to the conflict with al Qaeda and not the conflict with the Taliban, and since al Qaeda, unlike Afghanistan, is not a "High Contracting Party"--i.e., a signatory of the Conventions, the protections of those Conventions are not, it is argued, applicable to Hamdan.

We need not decide the merits of this argument because there is at least one provision of the Geneva Conventions that applies here even if the relevant conflict is not one between signatories.

Article 3, often referred to as Common Article 3 because, like Article 2, it appears in all four Geneva Conventions, provides that in a "conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum," certain provisions protecting "[p]ersons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by ... detention." Id., at 3318.

One such provision prohibits "the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples." Ibid.

The Court of Appeals thought, and the Government asserts, that Common Article 3 does not apply to Hamdan because the conflict with al Qaeda, being " 'international in scope,' " does not qualify as a " 'conflict not of an international character.' " 415 F. 3d, at 41.

That reasoning is erroneous.

The term "conflict not of an international character" is used here in contradistinction to a conflict between nations.

So much is demonstrated by the "fundamental logic [of] the Convention's provisions on its application." Id., at 44 (Williams, J., concurring).

Common Article 2 provides that "the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties." 6 U. S. T., at 3318 (Art. 2, ¶1).

High Contracting Parties (signatories) also must abide by all terms of the Conventions vis-À-vis one another even if one party to the conflict is a nonsignatory "Power," and must so abide vis-À-vis the nonsignatory if "the latter accepts and applies" those terms. Ibid. (Art. 2, ¶3).

Common Article 3, by contrast, affords some minimal protection, falling short of full protection under the Conventions, to individuals associated with neither a signatory nor even a nonsignatory "Power" who are involved in a conflict "in the territory of" a signatory.

The latter kind of conflict is distinguishable from the conflict described in Common Article 2 chiefly because it does not involve a clash between nations (whether signatories or not).

In context, then, the phrase "not of an international character" bears its literal meaning.

See, e.g., J. Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation 6, 296 (J. Burns & H. Hart eds. 1970) (using the term "international law" as a "new though not inexpressive appellation" meaning "betwixt nation and nation"; defining "international" to include "mutual transactions between sovereigns as such"); Commentary on the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, p. 1351 (1987) ("[A] non-international armed conflict is distinct from an international armed conflict because of the legal status of the entities opposing each other").

Although the official commentaries accompanying Common Article 3 indicate that an important purpose of the provision was to furnish minimal protection to rebels involved in one kind of "conflict not of an international character," i.e., a civil war, see GCIII Commentary 36-37, the commentaries also make clear "that the scope of the Article must be as wide as possible," id., at 36.63.

In fact, limiting language that would have rendered Common Article 3 applicable "especially [to] cases of civil war, colonial conflicts, or wars of religion," was omitted from the final version of the Article, which coupled broader scope of application with a narrower range of rights than did earlier proposed iterations. See GCIII Commentary 42-43.

Common Article 3, then, is applicable here and, as indicated above, requires that Hamdan be tried by a "regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."

6 U.S.T., at 3320 (Art. 3, ¶1(d)).

While the term "regularly constituted court" is not specifically defined in either Common Article 3 or its accompanying commentary, other sources disclose its core meaning.

The commentary accompanying a provision of the Fourth Geneva Convention, for example, defines " 'regularly constituted' " tribunals to include "ordinary military courts" and "definitely exclud[e] all special tribunals."

GCIV Commentary 340 (defining the term "properly constituted" in Article 66, which the commentary treats as identical to "regularly constituted"); see also Yamashita, 327 U. S., at 44 (Rutledge, J., dissenting) (describing military commission as a court "specially constituted for a particular trial").

And one of the Red Cross' own treatises defines "regularly constituted court" as used in Common Article 3 to mean "established and organized in accordance with the laws and procedures already in force in a country."

Int'l Comm. of Red Cross, 1 Customary International Humanitarian Law 355 (2005); see also GCIV Commentary 340 (observing that "ordinary military courts" will "be set up in accordance with the recognized principles governing the administration of justice").

The Government offers only a cursory defense of Hamdan's military commission in light of Common Article 3.

See Brief for Respondents 49-50.

As Justice Kennedy explains, that defense fails because "[t]he regular military courts in our system are the courts-martial established by congressional statutes."

Post, at 8 (opinion concurring in part).

At a minimum, a military commission "can be 'regularly constituted' by the standards of our military justice system only if some practical need explains deviations from court-martial practice." Post, at 10.

As we have explained, see Part VI-C, supra, no such need has been demonstrated here.

Bush Is Pressed on Reporting Domestic Surveillance

By Charles Babington

In a sharply worded letter, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee has told President Bush that the administration is angering lawmakers, and possibly violating the law, by giving Congress too little information about domestic surveillance programs.

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/world/mi...st/09abuse.html

US Military Braces for Flurry of Criminal Cases in Iraq
Robert Worth

A "regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples" .....

That's what the TAY-RIST was able to demonstrate to the United States Supreme Court ......

That George W. Bush .....

WAS DENYING HIM .....

ALL JUDICIAL GUARANTEES ....

WHICH ARE RECOGNIZED .....

AS INDISPENSIBLE ....

BY CIVILIZED PEOPLES ......

SO .....

Since it was George W. Bush ...

WHO WAS CAUGHT .....

HERE IN OUR AMERICA ....

DISPENSING WITH .....

ALL JUDICIAL GUARANTEES ....

WHICH ARE RECOGNIZED .....

AS INDISPENSIBLE ....

BY CIVILIZED PEOPLES ......

WHAT DOES THAT MAKE GEORGE W. BUSH?

BESIDES UNCIVILIZED?

And without MORAL AUTHORITY .....

As a result .....

And so ....

And speaking about UNCIVILIZED .....

And WITHOUT MORAL AUTHORITY ....

All in one breath .....

"5 more charged in Iraq rape-slayings case"

By RYAN LENZ, Associated Press
Last updated: 5:55 p.m., Sunday, July 9, 2006

TIKRIT, Iraq -- Four more U.S. soldiers have been charged with rape and murder and a fifth with dereliction of duty in the alleged rape-slaying of a young Iraqi woman and the killings of her relatives in Mahmoudiya, the military said Sunday.

The five were accused Saturday following an investigation into allegations that American soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division raped the teenager and killed her and three relatives at her home south of Baghdad.

Ex-soldier Steven D. Green was arrested last week in North Carolina and has pleaded not guilty to one count of rape and four counts of murder.

The U.S. statement said the five soldiers still on active duty will face an Article 32 investigation, similar to a grand jury hearing in civilian law.

The Article 32 proceeding will determine whether there is enough evidence to place them on trial.

One of the soldiers was charged with failing to report the attack but is not believed to have participated in it directly, the statement said.

The four facing murder charges could face the death penalty if convicted.

The names of the five were not released, but a U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, said Sunday that the soldiers recently charged are two sergeants, two privates first-class and one specialist.

The March 12 attack on the family was among the worst in a series of cases of U.S. troops accused of killing and abusing Iraqi civilians.

U.S. officials are concerned the alleged rape-slaying will strain relations with the new U.S.-backed government and increase calls for changes in an agreement that exempts American soldiers from prosecution in Iraqi courts.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has demanded an independent investigation into the case, which followed a series of claims that U.S. troops killed and mistreated Iraqi civilians.

According to an FBI affidavit filed in Green's case, he and at least two others targeted the teenager and her family for a week before the attack, which was not revealed until witnesses came forward in late June.

The soldiers drank alcohol, abandoned their checkpoint, changed clothes to avoid detection and headed to the victims' house, about 200 yards from a U.S. military checkpoint in the so-called "Triangle of Death," a Sunni Arab area south of Baghdad known for its violence, the affidavit said.

The affidavit estimated the rape victim was about 25.

But a doctor at the Mahmoudiya hospital gave her age as 14.

He refused to be identified for fear of reprisals.

Green is accused of raping the woman and killing her and three relatives -- an adult male and female and a girl estimated to be 5 years old.

An official familiar with the investigation said he set fire to the rape victim's body in an apparent cover-up attempt.

Iraqi authorities identified the rape victim as Abeer Qassim Hamza.

The other victims were her father, Qassim Hamza; her mother, Fikhriya Taha; and her sister, Hadeel Qassim Hamza.

end quotes

When the Commander-In-Chief makes it clear ...

By his actions ...

In violation ...

Of law ...

And treaty .....

That such violations ...

By him ...

Are acceptable .....

Those troops ....

Who follow George W. Bush ...

Will have this sense that the lawlessness ....

Which pervades the administration ...

Of George W. Bush ....

Is acceptable practice for them, as well .....

And so ....

The real man ....

Responsible ...

For this rape ....

Is the Commander-In-Chief .....

For setting this example ....

That anything goes ...

So long as you are LOYAL to him ....

And so ...

HAMDAN v. RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, et al., continued ....

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit

No. 05-184. 

Argued March 28, 2006--Decided June 29, 2006

Justice Stevens announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I through IV, Parts VI through VI-D-iii, Part VI-D-v, and Part VII, and an opinion with respect to Parts V and VI-D-iv, in which Justice Souter, Justice Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer join.

Inextricably intertwined with the question of regular constitution is the evaluation of the procedures governing the tribunal and whether they afford "all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."

6 U. S. T., at 3320 (Art. 3, ¶1(d)).

Like the phrase "regularly constituted court," this phrase is not defined in the text of the Geneva Conventions.

But it must be understood to incorporate at least the barest of those trial protections that have been recognized by customary international law.

Many of these are described in Article 75 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, adopted in 1977 (Protocol I).

Although the United States declined to ratify Protocol I, its objections were not to Article 75 thereof.

Indeed, it appears that the Government "regard[s] the provisions of Article 75 as an articulation of safeguards to which all persons in the hands of an enemy are entitled."

Taft, The Law of Armed Conflict After 9/11: Some Salient Features, 28 Yale J. Int'l L. 319, 322 (2003).

Among the rights set forth in Article 75 is the "right to be tried in [one's] presence." Protocol I, Art. 75(4)(e).66

We agree with Justice Kennedy that the procedures adopted to try Hamdan deviate from those governing courts-martial in ways not justified by any "evident practical need," post, at 11, and for that reason, at least, fail to afford the requisite guarantees.

See post, at 8, 11-17.

We add only that, as noted in Part VI-A, supra, various provisions of Commission Order No. 1 dispense with the principles, articulated in Article 75 and indisputably part of the customary international law, that an accused must, absent disruptive conduct or consent, be present for his trial and must be privy to the evidence against him. See §§6(B)(3), (D).

That the Government has a compelling interest in denying Hamdan access to certain sensitive information is not doubted. Cf. post, at 47-48 (Thomas, J., dissenting).

But, at least absent express statutory provision to the contrary, information used to convict a person of a crime must be disclosed to him.

Common Article 3 obviously tolerates a great degree of flexibility in trying individuals captured during armed conflict; its requirements are general ones, crafted to accommodate a wide variety of legal systems.

But requirements they are nonetheless.

The commission that the President has convened to try Hamdan does not meet those requirements.

We have assumed, as we must, that the allegations made in the Government's charge against Hamdan are true.

We have assumed, moreover, the truth of the message implicit in that charge--viz., that Hamdan is a dangerous individual whose beliefs, if acted upon, would cause great harm and even death to innocent civilians, and who would act upon those beliefs if given the opportunity.

It bears emphasizing that Hamdan does not challenge, and we do not today address, the Government's power to detain him for the duration of active hostilities in order to prevent such harm.

But in undertaking to try Hamdan and subject him to criminal punishment, the Executive is bound to comply with the Rule of Law that prevails in this jurisdiction.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings.

It is so ordered.

And while George is out there ...

On the world stage ....

Violating laws ....

And treaties ....

That were meant ....

To keep the world at least semi-civilized ....

When he is not otherwise occupied, of course ......

CADGING AND WHEEDLING AND BEGGING MONEY .....

FOR THE LAWLESS REPUBLICANS ....

What is going on ...

Over there ...

In George's new DE-MOCKERY .....

Of IRAQISTAN?

Besides chaos, death and destruction, that is ......

Which is the normal for George's world .....

And LAWLESSNESS .....

Which George introduced to IRAQINAM ..........

When he invaded the place ...

To steal its oil ....

And so ....

"Baghdad slaughter raises Iraq tensions - Shiite, Sunni officials lament violence that leaves dozens dead"

By JOSHUA PARTLOW and SAAD AL-IZZI

First published: Monday, July 10, 2006, Washington Post

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Shiite Muslim militiamen rampaged through a Sunni Arab neighborhood in Baghdad early Sunday morning, killing more than 50 people and discarding bodies in the streets, according to Iraqi officials and witnesses.

Hours later, attackers struck back, detonating two car bombs near a Shiite mosque.

Sunni politicians described the violence against the Sunni residents of the al-Jihad neighborhood in western Baghdad as one of the most coldblooded murder sprees since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

The killings occurred on a day when the U.S. military announced charges against four soldiers in the alleged rape and murder of a girl and the killing of three members of her family in the southern Iraqi town of Mahmudiyah.

A fifth soldier was charged with dereliction of duty.

The accused were not identified.

Last week, a former U.S. Army private, Steven D. Green, was charged with rape and murder in federal court in Charlotte, N.C.

He pleaded not guilty.

Sectarian killings escalated sharply across Iraq after a bomb destroyed a revered golden-domed Shiite shrine in Samarra on Feb. 22.

The bombing prompted reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques and pushed the country further toward all-out civil war.

In Baghdad, the armed men, some wearing masks and dressed in black, descended on the al-Jihad neighborhood in buses after sunrise.

They set up checkpoints along a main commercial street, demanded identification cards from passers-by and burst into homes to single out Sunni Arabs to kill, residents said.

One resident, Hazim al-Rawi, said he gathered up his family and fled the neighborhood after he saw 15 bodies outside his home.

"Some of them were tortured with drills," he said of the bodies.

"Some of them were hanged by ropes."

A U.S. military spokesman said that Iraqi national police and American soldiers found 11 dead Iraqis in three locations in the neighborhood.

The higher casualty reports "do not marry up with what we have found," Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington said.

Still, Sunni politicians said the spate of killings exacerbated the problems in Baghdad, where killings occur almost daily, and they accused Iraqi police of collaborating with Shiite militiamen in the violence.

"This is a new step."

"A red line has been crossed," said Alaa Makky, a Sunni member of parliament.

"People have been killed in the streets; now they are killed inside their homes."

Attackers retaliated by detonating two bombs in cars parked at al-Timim Shiite mosque in central Baghdad.

At least 12 people were killed, including five policemen, and 18 were wounded, according to Lt. Col. Memduh Abdulla of the Rusafa police district.

The Associated Press reported that 17 people were killed and 38 hurt.

"We've said it several times that there are people who want to create civil war," Wafeeq al-Samarrae, an adviser to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, said on the al-Jazeera satellite television network.

"Today, this country is on the edge of civil war, not sectarian strife."

Police picked up 57 bodies from the al-Jihad neighborhood, and three Interior Ministry police were also killed there, said Ali Hussein, a commando with the Interior Ministry who ferried bodies to Baghdad's Yarmouk Hospital.

Gen. Saad Mohammed al-Tamini of the Interior Ministry confirmed that more than 50 people were killed.

Some of the corpses that littered the streets lay handcuffed, pocked with bullet holes, while others were pierced with bolts and nails, witnesses said.

end quotes

Oh, well ...

It's just another day .....

In the neighborhood ....

IN AN UNCIVILIZED WORLD .....

WITH AN UNCIVILIZED PRESIDENT .....

ON ITS THRONE .....

And so .....

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Report_o...ed_by_0710.html
Report: US 'systematically' violates Geneva, Supreme Court

RAW STORY
Published: Monday July 10, 2006

Documents delcassified by the Pentagon to a civil liberties organization show that inmates at Guantanamo Bay have been "systematically tortured," RAW STORY has learned.

The Center on Constitutional Rights' 51-page "Report on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment of Prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba" is drawn from primary accounts given by current detainees and their American attorneys at the Guantánamo Bay prison.

According to the report, several accounts indicate that physical, psychological, sexual and religious abuse is commonplace at the prison. Many incidents catalogued by attorneys would be in violation of the Geneva convention, and as such, also in violation of the Court's ruling.

"I think the torture and abuse detailed here will shock Congress and the American public," said CCR Legal Director Bill Goodman, "because it reveals a lawless, immoral and ineffective detention facility and undermines the administration's increasingly desperate attempts to lie about what is happening down there."

CCR represents over 200 detainees at Guantánamo. In 2004, it successfully argued to the Supreme Court that detainees had a right to challenge their detention.

The report is available at CCR's website.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2262961,00.html

King George, alive and well
William Rees-Mogg

Bush has inherited regal powers — but they can never put him above the Supreme Court


GEORGE W. BUSH will never have to campaign for office again. That is rather a pity, as he has developed and matured as a campaigner during his years in office as US President. Last Friday, on his sixtieth birthday, he was holding a press conference in Chicago, the first of his campaign to save the mid-term congressional elections for the Republican Party.
The most amusing moment came on the unlikely subject of North Korea’s nuclear weapons. The President said that he did not know whether the number of these weapons had increased in recent years. The journalist who had asked the question commented: “Maybe you know but are not telling.” The President replied: “That’s an option . . . Maybe I don’t know but I don’t want to tell you I don’t know.” Such a light semantic play is a sign of the President’s relaxation after six years in office.



The traditional view of Washington insiders is that foreign policy never decides national elections. I am not sure why they think this. Plainly, the presidential elections of 1916 (First World War), 1932 (world slump), 1940 and 1944 (Second World War), 1952 (Korean War), 1960 (missile gap), 1968 and 1972 (Vietnam War), 1980 (Iran hostages) and 2004 (Iraq), were all strongly influenced by foreign policy; both world wars and Vietnam certainly impacted on the mid-term elections.

The Chicago press conference was intended, among other things, to give the local press an opportunity to raise local and domestic issues. That hardly happened at all. The journalists all asked questions about world issues. That was what interested them. The President talked with energy and force about his problems in world affairs. They were what interested him. No doubt these issues will interest the electorate in November.

In the press conference, I noted only two domestic issues — both of which turned out to be international. The first was the price of oil; that depends on the progress of the war in the Middle East and of US relations with Iran. The President knows this is an important popular issue. His policy is to diversify away from reliance on crude oil and to promote nuclear power. The one thing that would make the price of oil fall would be a reduction of tension between Washington and Tehran — which does not seem likely at present.

There was only one other local question, and that concerned Iraq. The President was asked what he would say to the parents of the three Illinois Guards units that have recently left for that country. He replied, with considerable dignity, that the Guards were “participating in a noble and important cause . . . If I didn’t think we could win, I wouldn’t be here”.

President Bush makes an impressive case for his policy of maintaining sufficient US forces until Iraq becomes “a free country that can govern itself and sustain itself”. Yet the war — which is becoming unpopular — will inevitably be a major issue in November.

There was a certain selectivity about the journalists’ concerns. There was little or no focus on Afghanistan, which probably worries British defence chiefs more than Iraq itself, and there was surprisingly little attention to the deteriorating situation in Gaza. Yet there was no doubt about the priorities of the journalists or those of the President. As he put it: “National security interests trump economic interests.”

There were passages in which the President made a traditional appeal to American idealism. I think that most Americans would respond favourably to his emphatic statement that “you win elections by believing something”. He is certainly a believer in spreading democracy. His model is the US governance of post-1945 Japan. Force may be unavoidable, but it should be followed by the development of a broader area of liberty and democracy. Mr Bush is in this sense a sincere neoconservative, though an increasingly cautious one. He used to be a Cheney-Rumsfeld type of neo-con; he now speaks with real warmth of Condoleezza Rice, who is Secretary of State. I think he trusts her the most.

There was one reply that seemed much less self-confident, and was therefore much less convincing than the rest of the press conference. That was the President’s answer to a question about the Supreme Court ruling on the military tribunal that was supposed to try the Guantánamo prisoners. The Supreme Court recently ruled that the military tribunal had no legal validity, because it did not constitute “due process of law”.

The President said that he would abide by the ruling, but he obviously wished that he did not have to do so. He would have liked to wriggle. He said he would work with Congress to create a new tribunal, but Congress will obviously be reluctant to give him what he wants. The President said that the Supreme Court had upheld Guantánamo, but then had to correct himself. He said that the court had been “silent” on Guantánamo; indeed the whole of Guantánamo is the antithesis of due process.

This is dangerous territory. In constitutional terms the President has powers that descend from the 18th-century English monarchs; he is the heir to George III. Even the English monarchs who tried to put themselves above the law were always in danger: Charles I was executed; James II was expelled. Some presidents have made claim to a similar imperial power, including Lincoln in the Civil War and Franklin Roosevelt in the slump; Roosevelt’s attempt to pack the Supreme Court failed.

Another imperial president, Richard Nixon, was forced to resign by the threat of impeachment. President Bush, in prosecuting the War on Terror, has also been tempted to put himself about the restraints of national and international law, including the Fourteenth Amendment on “due process” and the Geneva Convention. Now the Supreme Court has refused to uphold him, though on a narrower point. He had better accept its ruling as gracefully as he can.

http://www.counterpunch.org/
A Dreadful Mistake
The War in Iraq
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

At the heart of what is often touted as the mightiest empire in world history, it's not a pretty sight at the start of July. After a few chipmunk squeaks from the White House a couple of weeks ago about there being somehow a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel in Iraq the news rolls in that itis as bad, if not worse, than ever.

Bomb explosions in Baghdad wipe out scores of ordinary people in a single minute, the motive advertised n maybe truthfully n as sectarian hatred, between Shia and Sunni. The entire country, with the exception of the Kurdish provinces in the north, is transfixed with terror, as people flee neighborhoods because they are in the wrong religious faction.

Come to a road block and you don't know whether it's a unit of Iraqi police, a unit of Iraqi killers disguised as police, a group of US soldiers intent on revenge on anyone because one of their buddies just got blown up by a roadside bomb.

The world's headlines are filled with one terrible story after another about atrocities perpetrated by US forces. The latest is particularly stark in its savagery. The US army--not, it should be emphasized, some pinko columnist or reporter--says soldiers saw an attractive young Iraqi woman, planned her abduction and rape. Then they killed her and tried to burn her body. Then they murdered her family. Such are the charges.

Veterans of Vietnam say that in Iraq the situation isx analogous to that prevailing in Vietnam in 1968 when frightful atrocities like My Lai were perpetrated. The troops are over-extended, badly trained, demoralized and know that they are risking their lives in a war with no optimistic outcome.

The circumstances which produce soldiers and units capable of war crimes include the following, according to experts in analyzing the causes of post-traumatic stress disorder:

The soldiers are involved in operations which inevitably involve attacks on, and slaughter of, civilians.

Many have seen comrades killed. In this war the platoon is the soldieris sole life support and emotional and physical sanctuary. All officers are mistrusted and often despised. A death in the platoon engenders the frenzied bloodlust and cold blooded slaughters of incidents like that in Haditha.

Indeed the low quality of the officers in the US armed forces as it has developed across the past twenty years has not been sufficiently addressed by the press, and certainly not by the spineless Congress. On the private testimony of many veterans, it has declined steadily, up through the highest ranks, where there are endless examples of the failure of capable leadership.

So America will see, over the years to come, thousands of traumatized soldiers trying to reenter civil society and resume their peace time lives. Many will never shake off the traumas instilled by months of service in Iraq, and thousands of families, and communities, not to mention the soldiers themselves will be paying the price while the supreme commanders who launched this war will be making money from lectures and memoirs.

And of course back in Iraq there are already thousands who will only remember America as the land that sent soldiers who shot their brothers or sisters or cousins, or tortured them in prison, or destroyed their homes, or leveled their neighborhoods with high explosive from an airplane.

It's tragic to say it, but more and more Iraqis are doing so: Life was better for a large percentage of that countryis inhabitants under the dictator Saddam Hussein, horrible though he was. The war of iliberationi launched by Bush in 2003 with the stentorian support of many liberals here has produced more deaths, more suffering, more blighted lives with zero prospects except emigration for those who can afford it.

Is there any political force here in the US capable of hastening the end of this tragedy. None is visible. The Republicans are tub-thumping, as their best tactic for self-preservation in the fall elections. As a party, with a very few honorable exceptions, the Democrats are doing likewise. The peasce movement is ineffective. There is no light at the end of the tunnel.

QUOTATIONS FOR THE DAY

"BECAUSE WHICH FUNERAL DO YOU GO TO? IN MY JUDGMENT, I THINK IF I GO TO ONE I SHOULD GO TO ALL."

--President George W. Bush, answering why, to date, he has not attended the funeral of a single U.S. soldier who has been killed in his Iraq war; cited in Edward M. Gomez, "Bush Finally Explains Why He Won't Attend U.S. Soldiers' Funerals" (SFGate.com July 10)
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/det...5&entry_id=6914

HAMDAN v. RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, et al., continued ....

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit

No. 05-184. 

Argued March 28, 2006--Decided June 29, 2006

The Chief Justice took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

And for something completely different .....

"Excavation yields artifacts left by the ancients - Dig by students and others reveals site may date back 10,000 years"

By JENNIFER PATTERSON, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Monday, July 10, 2006

CENTRAL BRIDGE -- European glass trading beads and the remains of at least one longhouse have been unearthed at a Schoharie Valley excavation site that professional archaeologists have called one of the most important in the state.

Located on a terrace overlooking the Schoharie Creek, the excavation -- named the Pethick Site -- has so far uncovered more than 80,000 artifacts.

The site even drew dozens of amateur archaeologists and curious townspeople midway through the eight-week dig as word spread of the chance to experience firsthand a professional archaeological excavation.

The site -- 40 miles west of Albany and in its third year of excavation -- is run as a field school through cooperative effort by the University at Albany department of anthropology and the Division of Research and Collections at the New York State Museum.

"This is probably the most significant excavation I've ever been a part of," said Sean Rafferty, site co-director and assistant professor.

Rafferty directed a previous excavation about a half-mile away from the current site and has participated in other digs throughout his career.

"It still amazes me that we found one of the most prolific sites in the state completely by chance."

In 2004, the field school was denied access to a site, called Smith-Holloway, a stone's throw away from Pethick.

But, after that denial, a local archaeology enthusiast, Carleton Smith of Central Bridge, led the team to an open field where he had uncovered numerous artifacts.

Shovel test pits (a systematic survey using small holes spaced every five meters in a grid to gauge the presence of artifacts) were dug, yielding rich archaeological deposits.

And the Pethick site was born.

The field school program trains undergraduate and postgraduate students in the techniques of professional archaeology.

For eight weeks, students learn the basics of archaeological field work, laboratory processing and artifact analysis.

Those who complete the work are then able to seek jobs at private or public contract archaeology firms throughout the country.

Pit crews of four to five students dig in squares that measure 2 meters by 2 meters and excavate following the golden rule of archaeology, which states artifacts are to be documented by context and association.

That is, artifacts are recorded by noting where something is found (context) and what it's found with (association).

By digging in squares, the crew can accurately record the three-dimensional location of artifacts and features.

With a measuring tape, workers record an artifact's location by measuring its height and width within the unit, as well as its depth.

Artifacts recovered are cleaned and cataloged at the State Museum, where they are available for study by researchers, students and others.

"We discovered a pitted stone, scraper, projectile point and part of a drill so far today," said UAlbany senior Joshua Porter of Latham.

"We've been slowly excavating a fire pit on top of a storage pit, which is a pretty impressive find."

Newly discovered artifacts and their carbon dating indicate that people have inhabited the site since the Early Archaic Period, dating to as early as 8,000 B.C.

Mounting evidence indicates it has been continuously occupied since at least 3,000 B.C., with the most evidence coming from the Late Woodland Period, which dates to approximately the 11th century to A.D. 1400.

The occupants of the Schoharie Valley at that time are generally believed to be the ancestors of modern Iroquois cultures, including the Mohawk.

Numerous artifacts from that period have been recovered, including countless chipped stone waste flakes called chert, a byproduct of stone tool manufacture; projectile points, including Brewerton side-notched, Meadowood and Levanna; animal bone; seeds; and pottery chards.

Many hearths, fire-cracked rock deposits, storage pits and pieces of pottery patterns have also been documented.

Preliminary analysis suggests the presence of numerous house outlines and at least one longhouse.

Many of these finds were on site for viewing during a community appreciation day, held earlier this week.

Visitors were given interpretive tours and many brought artifacts from their own collections to be identified by professional archaeologists.

"A lot of people have inherited items from family members and have no idea how historically relevant they are," said state archaeologist and site co-director Christina Rieth.

"We're encouraging everyone to fill out site forms, so we (State Museum) know where items were found and how they relate to history."

The daylong event was planned and executed by UAlbany graduate students Steve Moragne and Jamie Moore to generate public interest in archaeology.

They were surprised by the number of people who attended and their interest in the history of the Schoharie Valley.

"It's our professional obligation to make personal connections with the community," Rafferty said.

"Local people often have a better idea of site locations and what types of material can be found."

"Our current excavation is a perfect example of the public and archaeologists working together, which I hope will continue in the future."

Jennifer Patterson can be reached at 454-5340 or by e-mail at jpatterson@timesunion.com.

To participate

For more information on the site in the Schoharie Valley and future excavations, call the UAlbany anthropology department, 442-4700, or the New York State Museum Cultural Education Center, 474-5976, or go to http://www.albany.edu or http://www.oce.nysed.gov.

"Judge: FBI raid on lawmaker's office legal"

By TONI LOCY, Associated Press Writer

30 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - An FBI raid on a Louisiana congressman's Capitol Hill office was legal, a federal judge ruled Monday.

Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan said members of Congress are not above the law.

He rejected requests from lawmakers and Democratic Rep. William Jefferson to return material seized by the FBI in a May 20-21 search of Jefferson's office.[/size]

In a 28-page opinion, Hogan dismissed arguments that the first-ever raid on a congressman's office violated the Constitution's protections against intimidation of elected officials.

Jefferson's theory of legislative privilege "would have the effect of converting every congressional office into a taxpayer-subsidized sanctuary for crime," the judge said.

Hogan acknowledged the "unprecedented" nature of the case but said "a Member of Congress is generally bound to the operation of the criminal laws as are ordinary persons."

Congress' effectiveness "is not threatened by permitting congressional offices to be searched pursuant to validly issued search warrants," said Hogan, who had approved the FBI's request to conduct the overnight search of Jefferson's office.

Jefferson had sought the return of several computer hard drives, floppy disks and two boxes of paper documents that FBI agents seized during an 18-hour search of his Rayburn Building office.

At issue was a constitutional provision known as the speech and debate clause, which protects elected officials from being questioned by the president, a prosecutor or a plaintiff in a lawsuit about their legislative work.

"No one argues that the warrant executed upon Congressman Jefferson's office was not properly administered," Hogan wrote.

"Therefore, there was no impermissible intrusion on the Legislature."

"The fact that some privileged material was incidentally captured by the search does not constitute an unlawful intrusion."

The raid on Jefferson's office angered members of Congress, some of whom threatened to retaliate by tinkering with the FBI and Justice Department budgets.

President Bush stepped in and ordered the solicitor general to take custody of the seized materials so Congress and the Justice Department could work out procedures to deal with similar situations in the future.

The president's 45-day "cooling off period" ended Sunday with no compromise worked out but with assurances from the Justice Department that it would not seek to regain custody of the materials until Hogan ruled on Jefferson's request.

Because Hogan signed the search warrant authorizing the search, Jefferson's legal team was not surprised by his ruling upholding it.

"While a Congressman is not above the law, the executive branch must also follow the law," said Jefferson's lawyer, Robert Trout.

"We appreciate the consideration the judge accorded our motion for the return of the seized property, but we respectfully disagree with his conclusion, and we intend to appeal the ruling."

Hogan said a search warrant seeking material is very different than a subpoena seeking testimony.

"Jefferson may never be questioned regarding his legitimate legislative activities, is immune from civil or criminal liability for those activities, and no privileged material may ever be used against him in court," the judge wrote.

Jefferson has been under investigation since March 2005 for allegedly using his position to promote the sale of telecommunications equipment and services offered by iGate, a Louisville-based firm, that sought contracts with Nigeria, Ghana and other African nations.

In return for his help, Jefferson allegedly demanded stock and cash payments.

Jefferson has not been charged and has denied wrongdoing.

An affidavit filed with Hogan to justify the May search says the FBI videotaped Jefferson in August 2005 accepting $100,000 from a business executive, who actually was a government informant.

The FBI said it subsequently recovered $90,000 from a freezer at Jefferson's home.

A bipartisan group of House leaders told Hogan in a court filing that the Justice Department had overstepped its authority by prohibiting Jefferson's private lawyer, House counsel and the Capitol Police from observing the search of Jefferson's office.

They also complained that agents showed up at the Rayburn Office Building unannounced and demanded that the Capitol Police chief let them into Jefferson's office immediately or they would "pick the office door lock."

Hogan said investigators don't have to seek approval from elected officials or their lawyers to seize possible proof of a crime.

"The power to determine the scope of one's own privilege is not available to any other person, including members of the co-equal branches of government: federal judges ... or the President of the United States," the judge said.

He also said judges have a legitimate role to play in ensuring prosecutors don't overstep their authority in investigating legislators.

"A federal judge is not a mere rubber stamp in the warrant process, but rather an independent and neutral official sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution," Hogan said.