A former military prosecutor said in a declaration filed in federal court yesterday that the system of handling evidence against detainees at Guantanamo Bay is so chaotic that it is impossible to prepare a fair and successful prosecution.
Darrel Vandeveld, a former lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, filed the declaration in support of a petition seeking the release of Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who has been held at the military prison in Cuba for six years. Jawad was a juvenile when he was detained in Kabul in 2002 after a grenade attack that severely wounded two U.S. Special Forces soldiers and their interpreter.
Evidence in Terror Cases Said to Be in Chaos
Iraq Palestinians see hypocrisy in Maliki denouncing Gaza attack
Banned from holding Iraqi citizenship, even if they were born here, Palestinians lost some of the few rights they had after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and have lived in fear of Iraqi groups who seek revenge for the Palestinians' perceived connection to the old regime.
Now they feel even more alone, as they watch Arab satellite-television news about the fighting in Gaza, which has killed nearly 1,000 Palestinians, among them more than 200 children. They know Palestinians aren't wanted in Iraq, either.
How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe
The only way to make sense of Israel's senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context. Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of the infant state. On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". I used to think that this judgment was too harsh but Israel's vicious assault on the people of Gaza, and the Bush administration's complicity in this assault, have reopened the question.
Official: Guantanamo Detainee Was Tortured
A Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo Bay says the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Washington Post reported. We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," Susan J. Crawford told the Post. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.
Crawford is the first senior Bush administration official who investigates Guantanamo dealings to publicly say a detainee was tortured.
TVNL Comment: Makes you proud, doesn't it? Just asking....
'Times-Pic' to Bush: 'No Question' That Federal Response to Katrina Was 'Slow, Shameful'
In his last official press conference as president George W. Bush vigorously defended the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina, denying it had been slow.
Tuesday, The Times-Picayune -- whose staff was forced to abandon its New Orleans headquarters in the rising flood waters and whose reporters were the first to alert the nation that the city had not "dodged a bullet" on Katrina -- begged to differ. Strongly.
Obama And Conservatives Break Bread At George Will's House
The president-elect arrived at the Chevy Chase, Md., home of syndicated columnist George Will shortly after 6:30 p.m., according to a press pool report. Greeting him at the residence were other luminaries of the conservative commentariat, including the Weekly Standard's William Kristol, New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post.
The odd-couple gathering led to speculation that Rush Limbaugh, who said that he was in D.C. for a "secret meeting," was also in attendance. "I'm just offering, a personal trip, nobody even has to know about this," the notorious and combative talk show host wrote on his website.
Bush appointee saw Justice lawyers as 'commies,' 'crazy libs,' report says
He was referring to the career lawyers in the Justice Department's civil rights and voting rights divisions. From 2003 to 2006, Schlozman was a Bush appointee who supervised them. Along with several others, he came to symbolize the mid-level political appointees who brought a hard-edged ideology to the day-to-day workings of the Justice Department.
"My tentative plans are to gerrymander all of those crazy libs right out of the section," he said in an e-mail in 2003. "I too get to work with mold spores, but here in Civil Rights, we call them Voting Section attorneys," he confided to another friend.
Military Times Poll Flawed
The Palm Center today issued a policy memo in response to assertions this month by Elaine Donnelly in the National Review Online and on Fox News that lifting the ban on openly gay troops would "destroy" the U.S. military. Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, made her case in a January 2nd blog post and again on the Fox News Channel on January 11th. She based her argument on a survey conducted by the Military Times which found that 58% of respondents oppose openly gay service and 10% claim they would not re-enlist if the ban were lifted.
Read more...
A Device to Avert Strokes Lacks Proof That It Works
It is not unusual for medical practice to run ahead of scientific findings. But the hole-closing heart device is a case study of how the actions of doctors, regulators, device makers and patients themselves can combine to undercut the gathering of reliable medical evidence.
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