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Oversight: the IRS and Targeted Killing

It's 'What a World' time. Some folks are freaking out over the IRS' unwarranted scrutiny of right wing organizations. The media are stirring up the populace. The need for oversight of those who choose targets to investigate is plain to see. While this is a wasteful misuse of public funds it poses no danger to organizations unless they are breaking the law.

But nobody seems to care about President Obama's uncontrolled listing of people to kill. This is a license to murder. Where's the media?. Where's the outcry? Have you bothered to let your representatives know how you feel about the lack of due process in targeted killing?

 

Guantanamo, Boston, and al-Qaeda's Inspire Magazine

Guantanamo, Boston, and al-Qaeda's Inspire Magazine
May 9, 2013 by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact

You may have thought, “Whatever else is wrong with Guantanamo prison, it is making us safer.”

Think again. Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations have been using the torture chambers of Guantanamo as a recruiting tool for years. (Yes, indefinite detention after charges have been dropped is torture. So is forced feeding; especially when administered roughly with oversized feeding tubes.)

The Boston Marathon bombers were readers of al-Qaeda’s Inspire magazine, and the captured brother claims that they were self-radicalized partly by reading internet inducements to violence, including Inspire. Guantanamo is referenced 20 times in the first 10 issues.  It is a powerful cognitive symbol.

Guantanamo conjures up images of torture, humiliation, injustice, and hypocrisy. It reminds readers of Abu Ghraib and all the other black sites used to torture people with no regard for the law.  

President Obama can order the closing of Guantanamo.

It will take courage on his part, but we will all be safer for his valor.

The Boston bombers were not the only terrorists known to have read Inspire. The following list will indicate its recently broad influence:

•             On April 15, 2013 Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev allegedly exploded 2 devices at the annual Boston Marathon. They had allegedly assembled at least four types of improvised explosives from plans they read in Inspire magazine.

•             In March, 2103, three men in the United Kingdom pleaded guilty to terrorism charges related to attending terrorism training camps in Pakistan. The men allegedly were motivated by Inspire.

•             On Nov. 29, 2012, two brothers from Florida, Raees Alam Qazi and Sheheryar Alam Qazi, were arrested and charged with plotting attacks in New York. Prosecutors noted that the pair had been motivated by Inspire magazine.

•             On Oct. 17, 2012, Bangladeshi national Quazi Nafis was arrested as part of an FBI sting operation after he attempted to detonate a vehicle bomb outside New York's Federal Reserve Bank. Nafis reportedly was an avid reader of Inspire magazine.

•             On Sept. 15, 2012, Adel Daoud, another avid Inspire reader, was arrested after he parked a Jeep Cherokee outside a Chicago bar and attempted to detonate the bomb he thought it contained. His was also an FBI sting operation.

•             On April 25, 2012, four men were arrested in the British town of Luton and charged with plotting attacks against a British army base. The four were also charged with downloading and possessing six editions of Inspire magazine. They pleaded guilty March 1, 2013.

•             July, 2011, PFC Jason Abdo was arrested trying to assemble a bomb from Inspire instructions. He intended to blow up a restaurant that was popular with soldiers from Fort Hood.

•             November, 2011, Jose Pimental was arrested in Manhattan as he was constructing a bomb from Inspire instructions.

•             November 2009, Maj. Nidal Hasan killed 13 people. A second soldier who was plotting an attack was found to have copies of Inspire.

 

 

Obama, the king.

How is one to explain the extraordinary chutzpa of our fearless leader?

He picks and chooses people to be human targets for our mechanized killing machines, ,and now

He picks and chooses who deserves to be told of their Miranda rights.

He picks and chooses

as if he were the king.

And we sit.

Silent servants.

 

Guantanamo Trials: Reinventing a Justice System & Bugging the Courtroom

Is the Guantanamo courtroom being bugged by unknown parties? This weekly summary of proceedings is by Valerie Lucznikowska of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, an organization that continues to lobby for the closure of the Guantanamo Detention Center. Invited as a 'family member' who lost someone in the 9/11 attacks she has documented some surprising aspects of the trial.

"Rita Lasar and I attended the Guantanamo hearings through CCTVthis week at Fort Hamilton Army Base in Brooklyn.  (Each of us missed someportion of the events, but one of us was always present.) The current hearingsare to review and decide motions brought by the defense in the cases of KhalidSheik Mohammed (KSM), Ramzi Binalshibh, Walid binAttash, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi and Ali Abd al-Aziz Al, the so-called 9/11co-conspirators.

Monday, January 28 began the pre-trial motions. The participantsare named in the attached chart of the courtroom, with the accused and counselon the left and the government team on the right (CCTV showed the room theopposite way, from behind the judge). Open sessions were held on Monday,Tuesday and Thursday (morning only). Special closed sessions were calledfor when classified information was to be discussed, or when the judge calledfor an ex parte (pertaining to one party or not requiring the attendanceof all parties) session.

As I had not attended such proceedings before this, I was struckon Monday by the realization that most of the motions (which can be seen on theOMC website) were procedural, and precedents were called up largely fromfederal law and also from military law. That stands to reason as the military commissionscourt (also referred to as the military court and tribunal) is based on theMilitary Commissions Act of 2009 (which replaced the Military Commissions Actof 2006) and has no precedents in capital cases, nor many precedents at all.(NB: Military commissions law, first established in 2006, is not the same asmilitary law, and normal military courts rarely deal with anything as seriousas death penalty cases.)  So we are dealing with a whole new structurethat has to be articulated, and sometimes invented, as it occurs. Motions thatwere to be heard (not all of which were taken up during these sessions) are inan attached document, previously sent by Karen Loftus. Not all motions listedwere actually heard, and some were named as classified and heard in camera (private session).

Monday also provided the most significant (and startling)event of this week's hearings: an unknown source cut off the CCTV video andaudio while KSM lead counsel Nevin was referring to a motion relating to blacksites.  CCTV stream is on a40-second delay to all (family members and press are in a sound-proof roomwatching the proceedings) to allow time to cut off the feed if classifiedinformation is inadvertently mentioned. This sent the usually calm andcollected Judge Pohl into a state of high irritation, asking why this hadhappened as he is the only one in his court who can order the security officerto push the button that cuts off the feed, and he had not ordered it. DoJ(Department of Justice) lawyer Joanna Baltes explained that the "OCA"(Original Classification Authority) in this motion, which refers to interrogationsat black sites, would be the CIA – pointing to that agency as the source. In turn, this provoked deep concern in the defense attorneys who wantedto know if the communications among themselves and with their clients - in andout of court - were being recorded or overheard.  Subsequently, the judgeordered the cut audio and video to be publicly released, as there was noclassified material divulged, and ordered "an undisclosed” governmentagency to remove any enabling equipment from his courtroom (“unplugged”).

The defense introduced an emergency motion to haltproceedings until they are assured they are not being overheard.  JudgePohl did not rule on that motion, but said that this must be resolved firstthing at the next session on February 11, and it will be discussed among theparties in the interim.

In another important development, the defense leveled acharge of “unlawful command influence”, meaning interference from thegovernment. Responding to this, the judge has orderedthe “convening authority” – the Pentagon’s most senior official responsible forthe war court, retired Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald, to testify in a pre-trialhearing the week of Feb. 11.

Judge Pohl heard arguments on 15 motions and ruled on six, onewas withdrawn by the defense and one was mooted.  A number of othermotions that are not yet decided deal with information flow among defenselawyers and their clients, and between the prosecution and defense. One defensemotion asks the judge to remove the language allowing the OCA to determinewhether a piece of information is allowed to be given to the defense on a“need-to-know” basis.

Another important motion dealt with the defense's request thatdefense lawyers be granted 48-hour stays in the area of confinement of theirclients to properly investigate the conditions of their confinement. The judgehas not ruled on this as yet, and indicated that the hearing could be partiallyclosed as classified. 

It is clear from viewing the proceedings that reinventing ajustice system is a long and arduous road, and thousands of motions may stillbe in the offing, indicating a trial date at the very minimum of a year, andconceivably much more, away.  One defenseattorney thinks it will be at least 2-3 years away. Most agree that if thetrials had been held in federal court, they would have been over and done withby now.

Nevertheless, I found the proceedings fascinating, and hope Iwill be able to attend the February sessions (Feb. 11-14 - see attached) whenarguments will be heard on motions to dismiss (such as "Motion to DismissBecause the Military Commissions Act Unconstitutionally Requires the ConveningAuthority to Act as Both Prosecutor and Judge of the Defendants") will beheard, as well as, perhaps, a resolution to the mystery of the governmentagency that bugged the courtroom!"

[Passed on to you as received on February 2, 2013 by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact]

Related articles

Clarity on Guantanamo

Drone Folly Continues as U.S./Saudi Arabia Competition for Terrorists Continues

The race is on. Ahmed Abdullah Saleh al Khazmari al Zahrani, who is better known as Abu Maryam al Zahrani probably made it to the U.S. ‘kill these guys’ list today. He’s been on the Saudi list of wanted terrorists since 2009, mainly for acts committed in 2007 and his ongoing propaganda work for al-Qaeda. Membership in al-Qaeda is a crime in Saudi Arabia.

There is a difference in the lists. The U.S. designation blocks all al-Zahrani's property interests subject to U.S. jurisdiction and prohibits U.S. persons from engaging in transactions with or for the benefit of al-Zahrani. It may also move him up as a candidate for ‘targeted strikes.’ If we find him we’ll probably kill him in another cowardly act of murder by Obama. It is the President of the United States who actually signs off on the kill list when we are in doubt about our ability, or willingness to put American lives at risk, to capture accused terrorists.

The Saudis, on the other hand, want to bring him to trial. It sounds like the Saudis take a more Rule of Law path than the U.S. policy of “kill first, defend the action later.” Our drone enforcement policy is drag on our reputation in the international community and should be halted. Being afraid to execute an arrest warrant is no excuse for extrajudicial murder.

This past year the Saudis have tried over 100 al-Qaeda operatives and extracted a great deal of information from them. The U.S. drone justice has killed hundreds in over 333 strikes in Afghanistan alone and learned nothing from them.

If we had the courage of our stated convictions we would bring more terrorists to trial and murder fewer innocent civilians.

January 25, 2013 by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact

Obama's Drone Policy Can Change: to at least reduce innocent civilian casualties

Tom Haydon put this in the Nation today:

The Council on Foreign Relations issued a report this week calling for fundamental reforms in US drone policies, surfacing sharp differences in official circles in response to widespread questioning and protest. Micah Zenko writes in the Council Special Report that the Pentagon and CIA use the term “bug splat” in referring to their civilian collateral damage methodology. The acronym MALE is employed to describe “medium altitude long-endurance” drone technologies of the future.

More substantively, the CFR report recommends: 

• Bug splat is the official term used by US authorities when humans are killed by drone missiles. (Image: Wesley Saver / PJRC)That the Obama administration’s targeted-killings policy be limited to individuals with a “direct operational” role in terrorist plots against the US; 

• Ending the so-called “signature strikes” against individuals or groups who the White House says, “bear the characteristics of Qaeda or Taliban leaders on the run,” and which define "all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants;”

• Far greater transparency and accountability in the definitions of civilian casualties, including aggressive congressional oversight.

['nuff said on January 18, 2013 by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact]

Close Guantanamo

We don't march much these days, but enough is quite enough and it's surely time to close Guantanamo, the constant reminder of too many American faults.

Aside from it's power as a recruiting tool for al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups who love to point to the hypocrisy of America's praise of Justice and the Rule of Law; aside from the inhumanity of keeping in prison men already found innocent; aside from the repeatedly broken promises of President Obama...It's just not right.

Terry Rockefeller, at yesterday's march and rally in Washington, D.C., said it quite eloquently. She's a member of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows and has been working on issues of the Rule of Law for years. She said, "...the Guantanamo Military Tribunals are a deeply flawed legal system invented by the Bush Administration, which Congress and the Obama Administration have tried unsuccessfully to rectify.

By decision of the Tribunal judge, all testimony concerning torture of the defendants will be classified.  Outrageous!  It is well known that the defendants were tortured...In a ruling...made public last week the judge said lawyers in the 9/11 proceedings cannot share even unclassified materials with the press or public. 

We say enough! End the Military Tribunals and try the 9/11 suspects in Federal Court."

January 12, 2013 by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact

The full text of Rockefeller's speech:

Guantanamo after 11 Years

 On September 11^th 2001, my sister Laura was helping to run a seminar on information technology.  When the first plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center, Laura was on the 106th floor.

 Today, more than 11 years after Laura’s murder, there is still no justice for 9/11 victims and their families. The prison at Guantanamo and all it represents has never furthered this goal.  Instead, torture, indefinite detention, and the failure to transfer inmates approved for release have made Guantanamo a powerful symbol of lawlessness; while the Military Tribunals in which the men accused of the 9/11 attacks are currently being tried fall egregiously short of the fair, transparent, and Constitutional trials that the United States should have conducted years ago.

9/11 families, along with all US citizens, indeed the entire world, have been betrayed! 

 Our organization, September 11^th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows was founded because we believed that nonviolent responses to the 9/11 attacks were possible and would in the long run be the most effective way to prevent future terrorist attacks.

 Peaceful Tomorrows’ members have consistently spoken out against wars that have produced hundreds of thousands of deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.  And, as we opposed war, we demanded efforts to bring those responsible for the 9/11 attacks to justice. We believe that the Rule of Law and respect for human rights are vital to promoting nonviolence and ensuring security.

 But the Guantanamo Military Tribunals are a deeply flawed legal system invented by the Bush Administration, which Congress and the Obama Administration have tried unsuccessfully to rectify.

 By decision of the Tribunal judge, all testimony concerning torture of the defendants will be classified.  Outrageous!  It is well known that the defendants were tortured. U.S. leaders justified this as necessary to protect us.  To classify testimony about this torture denies all Americans the opportunity to learn what was perpetrated in our names.

 In a ruling issued on December 20, but only made public last week the judge said lawyers in the 9/11 proceedings cannot share even unclassified materials with the press or public.

 We say enough! End the Military Tribunals and try the 9/11 suspects in Federal Court.

 President Obama you promised to do this four years ago.  Now that you have been reelected, use the power of your Presidency to finally do the right thing!   For all around the boundaries of the corrupt and malignant system that Guantanamo has become there is further decay of the Rule of Law.  Because we have been unable to try and convict terrorists the Obama Administration has shamelessly resorted to using drones to assassinate terrorism suspects.

 This was NEVER, NEVER something I wanted done in my sister’s name! We must none of us allow it to continue in our names.

 The America I believe in will release the innocent Guantanamo detainees.   It will hold those responsible for torture accountable.  It will move the 9/11 trials into Federal courts.

 The America I believe in will CLOSE GUANTANAMO.

 

 

 

Reflections on Obama's (Secret) Targetted Killings

Yesterday's New York Times piece, "Misplaced Secrecy on Targeted Killings" gave us more than indigestion. It brought up this bile:

What decency we have left, as a nation, is being slowly eroded at an increasing pace. The Rule of Law has become a mockery. So weak are we morally that we are used as a recruiting tool for terrorist organizations. Just as we like to dehumanize our enemies so our enemies like to portray us as less than human...an immoral clan whose religion is money and power, with little regard for the law or the human rights we trumpet so loudly as we invade, occupy, and destroy.

January 4, 2013 by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact

 

Al Jazeera America, Joe Walsh, and Pam Geller

We eagerly await the entrance of Qatar-based Al Jazeera America to the U.S. media family. We’ve been following A lJazeera.com for some time and have found its presentations to be quite refreshingly honest if not balanced.

Although sometimes lambasted as a terrorism-advocate of murky Middle Eastern origins, we have found many items that American media is too shy (too constrained?) to cover. Take its year-end lead, for instance. Its headline, “Anti-Muslim Violence Spiraling out of Control in America.” To most readers it may seem like an exaggeration worthy of Fox News. To many Muslim Americans it carries a heavier ring of truth.

The article uses two illustrations to make its main point. The first: Just days after Senator Joe Walsh (Republican from Illinois) said, “Muslims are here trying to kill Americans every day," a man opened fire on an Illinois mosque while it was packed with hundreds of congregants for Ramadan. The next day, another mosque was hit with an acid bomb thrown at a window while worshippers had gathered for night services.  These acts of terrorism received little notice in American national media.

The second illustration of the deep anti-Muslim current creeping through America was the follow up to New York City's resident Islamophobe (Thank you, Huffington Post for the label) Pam Geller’s offensive September subway ad. The City was restrained from stopping it by dint of our free speech laws.  By December the anti-Muslim sentiment had become more violent. One murderer stated, “I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims… Ever since 2001 when they put down the Twin Towers, I've been beating them up.” (In fact, the victim was not a Muslim.) Also in December three Middle Eastern shopkeepers were murdered in Brooklyn, right in our neighborhood.

The Al Jazeera article points out that anti-Muslim violence is reaching record highs in America.  This, despite the fact that one would never know it from following mainstream U.S. media.  Opening a public dialogue about the influence of hate-speech and hate-advertising is valuable in a nation supposedly driven by Justice and the Rule of Law. American media have been avoiding such self-investigation. Merely recognizing, admitting, publicly stating that violent anti-Muslim incidents are increasing in frequency is a big plus.

We may not like what Al Jazeera America will bring to our consciousness, but we will be the better for it.

January 3, 2013, by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact

Related articles

Al Jazeera buys US channel Current TV

The Hero of Zero Dark Thirty: a Mistake With a High Price (for Khaled el-Masri)

It's just a movie, for sure, but the one-sided, heroic projection of the star is just a fiction. There was no single hound relentlessly chasing Osama bin Laden, and the character does not exist. However the CIA does exist, and did find bin Laden. But its actions regarding the Rule of Law, Justice, and rendition were responsible for one more of America's horrendous forays into torture...and well outside the reach of American courts.

Darryl Li, of the Committee on Global Thought (at Columbia University), has written an excellent article describing the Kahled el-Masri case and it is replete with details about the secret rendition program supposedly ended by the Obama administration.

It aint over. Here's part of the the European Court of Human Rights' (ECHR) findings in its investigation of the el-Masri case:

A German citizen of Lebanese origin, el-Masri was arrested in Macedonia on New Year’s eve in 2003, held incommunicado and interrogated in a hotel for several weeks at the behest of the United States, and then handed over to CIA personnel. The Court recounts what happened next:

  [el-Masri] was beaten severely from all sides. His clothes were sliced from his body...His underwear was forcibly removed. He was thrown to the floor, his hands were pulled back and a boot was placed on his back. He then felt a firm object being forced into his anus…a suppository was forcibly administered on that occasion. He was then pulled from the floor and dragged to a corner of the room, where his feet were tied together. His blindfold was removed. A flash went off and temporarily blinded him. When he recovered his sight, he saw seven or eight men dressed in black and wearing black ski masks. One of the men placed him in a nappy. He was then dressed in a dark blue short-sleeved tracksuit. A bag was placed over his head and a belt was put on him with chains attached to his wrists and ankles. The men put earmuffs and eye pads on him and blindfolded and hooded him. They bent him over, forcing his head down, and quickly marched him to a waiting aircraft, with the shackles cutting into his ankles.

The CIA held el-Masri Afghanistan for five months before they decided he was innocent and knew nothing of value. They dumped him on a roadside in Albania.

El-Masri’s secret detention and torture had all been based on a mistaken identification. The analyst was later promoted and presumably had a key role in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. 

For the full article see MERIP

 

December 18, 2012 by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact