Posts filed under “War on Terror”
NYT: The Return Of The Good Old Days
The New York Times is furiously wiping something off its face, and it doesn’t look like egg to me. Once again, they have been caught simply making up stuff and passing it along, hiding behind the flimsy skirts of the anonymous source routine: McClatchy Newpapers is reporting that “U.S. officials” are contending that there is [...]
Obama’s First Military Tribunal Case
Yesterday, the Obama administration proudly kicked off the “first major hearing of a military tribunal on (their) watch”. The poster child for the Obama military tribunals is a mere child. Or, at least, that’s what he was when he was captured, before being bunged into Guantanamo Bay. He has now spent a third of his [...]
In Defense Praise Of Military Commissions
Yesterday, attorney general Eric Holder held up military commissions for Guantanamo detainees as “not only appropriate, but also necessary.” It probably behooves us to ask: appropriate and necessary for what? Even he isn’t ready (yet) to argue that they are appropriate and necessary for the rule of law to triumph. They are appropriate and necessary [...]
When Will They Ever Learn?
How many times are we going to watch this same movie? There is a military incident that results in charges of misconduct of one kind of another. First, the military denies that the alleged misconduct occurred. Then, they deny that the official version of events constitutes a cover-up. And then, just as surely as Lucy [...]
NSA Wiretap Program NOT Declared Illegal
Yesterday, Judge Vaughn R. Walker handed down a ruling that the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping of Al Haramain, and two of its lawyers, in 2004 was illegal. At first blush, it may seem that Judge Walker held the NSA warrantless wiretapping program to be illegal. Especially when The New York Times‘ lede reads: A federal judge [...]
Bipartisan Supreme Court Victory For Obama Administration
In a Supreme Court case involving Uighurs detained at Guantanamo Bay, the Obama administration has won the kind of victory the president should presumably relish. Both sides won, in some sense. In October 2008, U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina had ordered that 17 Uighur detainees be released into the US: U.S. District Judge Ricardo [...]
The State Secrets Privilege
It’s a privilege to be in a position where you can conspire to destroy evidence in order to preserve the ugly secrets of the torture state. A proud privilege. A privilege that Senator Pat Roberts, who used to be chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee back when Bush was adding phrases like “enhanced interrogation” to [...]
Offences Against Logic And Language At The WP
Carrie Johnson and Spencer S. Hsu had a Washington Post story yesterday about Najibullah Zazi‘s guilty plea. A very sloppily written story. At the very least, this paragraph offends the intelligence of its readers. It could even be said to constitute a dishonest twisting of logic: Law enforcement sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity [...]
John Yoo And The Limits Of Presidential Power
John Yoo believes that the President of the United States has the constitutional authority and unfettered power to order an entire village to be “massacred”. John Yoo believes that Congress cannot stop the President from using nuclear weapons, if he “thought in good faith he was saving millions of … lives”. (Note that lives don’t [...]
Washington D.C. Unmanned Forever By Snow?
(1) Liberals bloggers would have you believe that the reason why government has come to a crushing, grinding halt in recent months is the unprecedented obstructionism of Republicans in the Senate. Or, specifically, their rampant abuse of the filibuster, so that 60 votes are now required for virtually every single piece of legislation in the [...]