Archive for the 'Middle East' Category
07
Jan
Olmert Dreams of War
23
Dec
Lawyers Stepping Up
by Katrina vanden Heuvel
We are lawyers in the United States of America. As such, we have all taken an oath obligating us to defend the Constitution and the rule of law…. We believe the Bush administration has committed numerous offenses against the Constitution and may have violated federal laws…. Moreover, the administration has blatantly defied congressional subpoenas, obstructing constitutional oversight …. Thus, we call on House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy to launch hearings into the possibility that crimes have been committed by this administration in violation of the Constitution…. We call for the investigations to go where they must, including into the offices of the President and the Vice President. — American Lawyers Defending the Constitution
Over one thousand lawyers – including former Governor Mario Cuomo and former Reagan administration official Bruce Fein – have signed onto the above statement demanding wide-ranging investigative hearings into unconstitutional and potentially criminal activity by the Bush administration.
In a conference call with reporters yesterday, Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and winner of the 2007 Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship, said: “The majority of lawyers in this country understand that the Bush administration has really gone off the page of constitutional rights and off the page of fundamental rights, and is willing to push the Congress to restore those rights.” Ratner said he was “dismayed” that a Democratic majority has failed “to push on key illegalities… the torture program, and now the destruction of the tapes involving the torture program; the warrantless wiretapping, the denial of habeas corpus, the secret sites/rendition program, special trials, and of course what we now know is the firing of US Attorneys scandal…. The minimal that absolutely is needed to get us back on the page of law is to have serious investigative hearings that go up the chain of command and figure out who is responsible for what.”
Ratner noted that even with regard to the US attorney’s investigations, where Congressional committees held Harriet Miers, Josh Bolten, and Karl Rove in contempt, leadership has failed to enforce these actions by bringing the resolutions to a vote. “Just announcing that investigations will be held and subpoenas will be issued is terribly insufficient unless Congress is willing to enforce the subpoenas by issuing contempt citations,” Ratner said. “Congress has a constitutional duty to oversee the activities of the executive branch and our entire system of government is threatened when Congress simply folds before an obstinate executive. Issuing contempt citations against Bolten, Miers, and Rove should be Congress’s first order of business in 2008.”
Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild, discussed the administration’s torture program violating three US-ratified treaties and the US torture statute; the illegal War in Iraq violating the US-ratified UN Charter as a war of aggression; and Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s conflict of interest in overseeing investigations into the torture program and the destruction of the CIA interrogations tapes.
Also speaking with reporters was Jesselyn Raddack, a former Justice Department ethics lawyer who served as an advisor during the interrogation of John Walker Lindh (the “American Taliban”). Raddack said, “My e-mails documented my advice against interrogating Lindh without a lawyer, and concluded that the FBI committed an ethics violation when it did so anyway. Both the CIA videotapes and my e-mails were destroyed, in part, because officials were concerned that they documented controversial interrogation methods that could put agency officials in legal jeopardy…. ” Raddack pointed to the Department of Justice’s investigations of Enron and Arthur Anderson for obstruction of justice and destruction of evidence, and the need for the same aggressive oversight and legal proceedings in these scandals.
This is a vital effort by those charged with defending our constitution, as Ratner said, “This lawyers’ letter and the growing number of signatures we’ll have on it, and prominent people – it’s a way of saying to Congress, ‘You need some backbone. You need to have a serious investigation, wherever it might go, on these issues that really have taken the United States out of the mainstream of human rights.’ It’s absolutely critical… We’ve opened up the door to illegality…. Unless we have accountability on those illegalities, we’re going to be facing a very bleak future in which fundamental rights will not really be obeyed.”
Copyright © 2007 The Nation
The talk of the town [Washington] since the illegal invasion by the US into Iraq and the subsequent occupation [illegal] is that Iran has meddled in Iraqi affairs. Iran is meddling? Really?
Meddling is rhetoric penned by Washington [hawks], western media, lobby groups and of course Corporate America. Shhure, there’s other people and groups who blame Iran [largely] for the instability in Iraq, especially the south. But the four horsemen I mentioned are determined to wreak havoc in the Middle East at the expense of Iran - and at the expense of their own population.
The double-speak. The unspeak. The rhetoric. Words are weapons, remember. So it’s a matter of being careful how we read. What we read. And at the end, of what we do with the words we’ve read. We can turn them from word to action, it could get dangerous.
It’s pretty late. Not sure if I can muster anything interesting by myself. Keep it coherent, that’s all I need to do at this point. What am I on about? Do you know?
I came across this blog site. Interesting. It helps me this late in the morning[?].
President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been in my best estimate a good statesman. He has reached out to his supposed enemy with letters. No avail. With a visit. No avail. Now a blog.
There are tons of comments from around the world to read. Probably more interesting than this. Is this coherent yet? Nevermind, I hear the night birds. Check out the personal memos of Ahmadinejad.
Rhetorically I said ‘here’s what I don’t get.’ Oh yeah, but I forgot all about the whole double standards, geopolitical, we want Eurasia and all the oil angle.
Foreign policy in the US can, when scrutinized on an individual basis, screams inconsistency; incoherency. A broader scope of policy bellowed from the White House is more defined. Almost articulate. Eurasia is the goal. The resources, control of a population - that if united, would spell disaster for the Neocons of Washington.
Iraq seemed to be the most logical step in the direction of Eurasia. It was a weakened nation. War torn. Psychologically fucked. Now, Iraq is a Un-united State of America. A freakish love-child of Corporate America and the Military-Industrial-Complex. A punching bag. And, there are more nations with a vested interest in Iraq now more than ever.
Maybe I don’t get it yet. But I know it’s way too fucked up in the Middle East for the US to attempt a conquest of Eurasia. Logically, Iraq is a part of that conquest. An impossible, no chance in hell, kind of conquest.
Physically. Emotionally. Broken.
Jamie Leigh Jones worked in Iraq. Not the ideal setting I suppose due to the intense war ravaging the country. Conceivably, one would feel a little more at ease within the company of one’s own country[wo]men. Conceivably.
Jamie Leigh Jones was raped. In a foreign country. She was locked up by her employer for twenty-four hours. No food and no water. Jones was then warned that if she left Iraq for medical treatment she would be out of a job. Let go. Dismissed. Sacked. Relieved. Discharged. Fired.
Unthoughtful loopholes place contractors in Iraq beyond the reach of US law and so Jones does not have the opportunity to seek justice. Is justice blind in this case? Ignorant? Or held hostage by Corporate America? Oh, all of the above you say.
Corporate America has done its part to wreak havoc in Iraq. Halliburton and Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) are so implicated with creating instability in Iraq. They have blood on their hands. And they are complicit to the rape of Jamie Leigh Jones.
Pledge allegiance to the United States of Corporations.
A few hundred meters downhill from Ariel, an Israeli settlement, lives Sadeq al-Khuffash. He is the mayor of Marda and has this to say about the Israeli occupation of Palestine:
This is our home and resistance is a legal right. If there is no respect for agreements and international law, things will go on like this, with violence.
So, I got to thinking: is resistance legal? If that’s not enough, I began to grapple with the morality of resistance.
I know nothing else of Sadeq al-Khuffash, yet I do wish him good luck.
It began in ‘68. The green light was given in ‘96 and a year later it was ready to begin. But it would be frozen shortly thereafter. That is until now. Situations get fucked up.
What began in 1968 was the concluding phase of an Israeli housing plan for Jerusalem. Har Homa is an area of 468 acres. After a lengthy court appeal - tied up in Israeli courts - Shimon Peres made the decision to go ahead with construction. It mattered nothing that the Oslo Accords were meant to be in progress.
The announcement to build 6,500 Jewish [not Israeli?] homes for 40,000 settlers came in 1997. The obvious happened. Riots ensued. Oslo crumbled under the weight of it all. Heavy pressure by international actors froze the construction. That is until now. Situations get fucked up.
So now we have Annapolis: a photo op and ceremonial lunch for Bush on his final stretch. And now too we have Israel, approving of plans to build over 300 homes to expand Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem. What is now to become of the Annapolis Conference?
History looks destined to repeat itself. Situations really do get fucked up.
29
Nov
Ahmadinejad and Bush
One president comments on the success of the Annapolis conference, while another president comments on its failure. One believes that a two-state solution is practical in a 14-month time frame. The other, well, he believes that a two-state solution is unpractical because Israel is doomed to ‘collapse’.
So what are the flock to think of all this?
Well, think what you want.
Just remember that the Annapolis conference is part of a much broader picture. Until leaders with credibility - Abbas, Bush and Olmert are politically weak - are ready to pro-actively discuss the issues, any attempt at peace will fail. Retroactive solutions, like that of a junkie receiving methadone from a clinic, are destined to be a band-aid for the sixty years of violence in the holy land.
In the words of Ahmadinejad:
It is impossible that the Zionist regime will survive. Collapse is in the nature of this regime because it has been created on aggression, lying, oppression and crime.
