Texas hearing on Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales indictment turns chaotic

02:12 PM CST on Friday, November 21, 2008
Associated Press

RAYMONDVILLE, Texas — A county prosecutor who brought indictments against Vice President Dick Cheney, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others pounded his fist and shouted at the judge Friday about special treatment for high-profile defendants as a routine motions hearing descended into chaos.

Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra, who is accusing the public officials of culpability in the alleged abuse of prisoners in a federal detention center, asked Presiding Judge Manuel Banales to recuse himself. Guerra has complained about Banales' handling of the case.

Attorneys for the vice president and other defendants leapt to their feet in objection, as Guerra pounded the table and accused Banales of giving the defendants special treatment in allowing motions to quash the indictments to be heard before the defendants were arraigned.

"Now all of a sudden there is urgency," Guerra shouted. "Eighteen months you kept me indicted through the election." The charges against Guerra were dismissed in October. Guerra lost re-election in the March Democratic primary.

Banales called a recess to contact the chief justice of the state Supreme Court for suggestions on how to proceed, and ordered Guerra, who had slipped out once before in the hearing, to remain in the courthouse.

"I will not obey that order," Guerra said. When Banales implied he would take steps to keep Guerra in court, Guerra agreed to stay if the judge asked him respectfully.

Unlike the initial hearing Wednesday when Guerra was absent and media and attorneys for the indicted appeared in equal numbers, curious residents packed the well-worn pews of the Willacy County Courthouse's only courtroom Friday.

Half of the indictments returned Monday are linked to privately run federal detention centers in the sparsely populated southern Texas county. The other half target judges and special prosecutors who played a role in an earlier investigation of Guerra.

Banales appointed a special prosecutor to handle the local officials indicted along with Cheney, Gonzales and state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville, because Guerra has sparred with them for years.

The vice president is the highest public official Guerra has pursued, but he made a nearly 20-year-career of passing over routine crimes in favor of public corruption before being defeated in the March Democratic primary election.

It was Guerra's interest in the contracts to build and run a federal detention center that led to some of his biggest successes _ three guilty pleas on bribery charges from former county commissioners in 2005. But he also believes it was the motivation for his own legal battles.

Guerra responded to his theft arrest by camping outside the courthouse with farm animals in protest. He continued working for more than a year while under indictment on charges of extorting money from a bail bond company and using his office for personal business until Banales dismissed the indictment last month.

Guerra ran the current investigation into alleged prisoner abuse with a siege mentality. He worked it from his home, dubbed it "Operation Goliath" and kept it secret from his staff, he said. He gave all the witnesses biblical pseudonyms - his was "David" - and sometimes gave false reasons for witnesses' appearances so as not to raise suspicion in a courthouse he believed to be filled with political enemies. A clerk and a judge who share the building were among those indicted Monday.

The grand jury also charged Lucio with illegally profiting from prison consulting fees.
The GEO Group Corp. was indicted on a murder charge for the death of an inmate at a federal prison.

"The indictment is the product of prosecutorial vindictiveness and is void on its face," defense attorney Tony Canales, who represents the private prison operator, wrote in a motion. Canales is also the legal representative for Cheney and Gonzales.

Another indictment alleges that Cheney's personal investment in the Vanguard Group, which invests in private prison companies, gives him culpability in alleged prisoner abuse.

Other indictments charge two district judges, two special prosecutors and the Willacy County district clerk with abusing their powers in investigating Guerra's office.

The defendants did need to appear in person Friday.

BY CAROL ROSENBERG

crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- Two Navy defense lawyers upended a prison camps taboo Tuesday and toured a top-secret detention facility that houses the alleged elite of al Qaeda, called Camp 7.

''We weren't hooded,'' said Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, Pentagon-appointed defense attorney for alleged 9/11 conspirator Ramzi bin al Shibh. She declined to provide details of the special prison camp whose exact location on this 45-square mile Navy base is considered a national security secret.

Pentagon officials will only say that the facility segregates some 16 former CIA-held captives from the 235 or so other war-on-terror detainees.

Among those sequestered there are alleged al Qaeda kingpin Khalid Sheik Mohammed, an Indonesian terror captive called Hambali and alleged arch-terrorist known as Abu Zubaydah, two of whom the CIA has confirmed waterboarding during overseas detention before President Bush ordered their transfer here for war court prosecution in September 2006.

Until Tuesday, only the Red Cross and unidentified prison camp personnel had seen Camp 7, a site so clandestine prison camp officials won't identify the commander of the secret detention center unit known as Task Force Platinum.

But a military judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, issued an order in October permitting Lachelier and her co-counsel, Navy Lt. Rich Federico, to inspect the portion of the prison complex where Bin al Shibh is held. The order covered a visit to his cell, two adjacent cells, a so-called recreation room, medical room and media room -- providing a glimpse of the facilities of the clandestine prison camp on Tuesday night.

Their purpose was to evaluate the circumstances of his confinement as part of ongoing hearings of whether he is mentally competent to serve as his own defense counsel at any future death-penalty trial.

Prosecutors have charged Bin al Shibh and four other former CIA captives, among them alleged 911 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a complex conspiracy case. They allegedly trained, advised and financed the 19 hijackers who commandeered American airlines on Sept. 11, 2001, and then crashed them into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, killing 2,973 people.

Bin al Shibh's attorneys have said in court filings that the Yemeni is being administered psychotropic drugs by U.S. military medical staff, which may hamper his ability to defend himself at trial. Under the terms of their access, Federico and Lachelier said, they could describe little about their 90-minute Tuesday night tour.

"We accomplished everything that the judge ordered," the commander said.

Pentagon officials consider Camp 7 such closely guarded secret that they consistently refuse to say how much money was spent on its construction -- in contrast to public disclosure of contracts for the other prison camps that sprawl across a bluff at Guantánamo overlooking the Caribbean.

In ordering the unprecedented access in October, judge Kohlmann noted that both Navy lawyers have top secret security clearances -- and volunteered to be blindfolded, if need be, as a condition of transport to the special prison camp.

Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, a war court defense attorney, at left, and her co-counsel, Navy Lt. Richard Federico, at right, paid an unprecedented visit Tuesday Nov. 18, 2008 to the top-secret prison facility called Camp 7 where their Pentagon appointed client, Ramzi bin al Shibh, center, is held along with other former CIA detainees. Bin al Shibh is accused of conspiracy the mass murder of nearly 3,000 people in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. He has refused to work with his lawyers, who are trying to determine whether he is mentally competent to defend himself at trial.

• Photo

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PAINT BALL GAME GONE WILD! SECRET MILITARY EXERCISES NEAR MOHAWK COMMUNITIES? [In-depth Report]

MNN. Nov. 19, 2008.

If Canada is such a peace loving country, why is it saber rattling and playing war games like "Vigilant Shield 09"? Huge military exercises are taking place on Turtle Island this month. These are being run by “NorthCom” and “NORAD” [North American AeroDefence Command]. NorthCom works with “Canada Command” and coordinates civil incidents through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security DHS. This has nothing to do with Afghanistan. It has to do with “civil” control, not democracy. The Canadian part is called “Determined Dragon, Trillium Response”. [What bunch of jerks made this one up? Sounds like some kind of teenage fantasy video? These guys are scary!]

In the U.S. during a "disaster or emergency" JTF-CS operates within a Department of Defense chain of command that begins and ends with the President of the U.S. Canada is on this dog chain. In other words, it gave up its independence. Civilian agencies, including "State, local, territorial, and tribal [band] governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure," would be controlled by the military. They define the “disaster” that will lead to world domination.

What’s going on here? Details are scarce, especially on the Trenton Air Force Base aspect which is near the Mohawk community of Tyendinaga. Another exercise is going on in Hamilton, near Six Nations. Another in Thunder Bay. Are there others? Is it a coincidence that these are mostly next to Ongwehonwe communities?

The main focus is "Communications Interoperability" to coordinate various agencies: the military, Joint Task Force JTF, army, navy and air force; all police agencies, RCMP, OPP, CBSA, “Aboriginal” police, municipal police; emergency responders, ambulances, fire trucks, rail security and select government bureaucrats; and the effected private sector such as nuclear reactors. “Interoperability” means coordinating all their goons and thugs to have “Joint War Games”.

It looks more like an exercise designed to set up the infra structure needed to impose “martial law”. Communications and radio frequencies will come under one command. The new device called the "Incident Commanders” Radio Interface looks like a cigar box, about 5" x 8" x 2". It can be held by one wired-up adolescent to receive and send messages to all these agencies during an emergency, natural or man-made disaster, including a "terrorist attack". But who and where are the terrorists? The only scary guys in the neighborhood is them!

NORAD is the North American AeroDefense Command, a U.S.-Canada control center based in Colorado, that is supposed to warn of an attack by aircraft or missiles. Project HAARP is the Pentagon-run “High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program” with plans to heat the earth’s ionosphere, using high frequency radio waves. How do we know they haven’t already been doing this? The military can send signals to nuclear subs and spy deeply underground [www.haarp.net]. This is based near Anchorage Alaska where military exercises are going on too. E Systems which is owned by Raytheon has the defense contract to run this. [They’re the biggest arms makers and dealers in the world.]

It’s all scripted. The U.S. has a “Hollywood Style” National Training Center NTC in California and Joint Readiness Training Center JRTC in Louisiana. They’re not teaching peace. They’re teaching warfare against Iraq and Afghanistan and whoever else gets in their way. Hi fi simulations are created, complete with mock towns and actors portraying natives and insurgents. One actor even dresses like a “tribal sheik”. Bombs are exploded and rockets stream in from the countryside. Civilians scream and scatter. The victims wear gory make up to simulate bloody wounds and morbid deaths. Injured civilians are left behind by the soldiers. The soldiers secure the town before going in to meet with the “regional governor”, supposedly “to win over the locals” but actually to get information from him in exchange for money. The young natives are taken away to Abu Graib for questioning. [It has already been established that the methods used there include torture and death]. Observers judge and grade each performance. Our question is who are the “traitors” who help them set up these scenarios? [www.worldpoliticsreview.com] Are these same guys writing the script for Bin Laden and Al Qaida too? Meanwhile the Taliban will just have to keep on improvising!

In Canada in the 1990s, after the Mohawk-Oka Crisis, a mockup of the Mohawk community of Kahnawake was created at a New Brunswick army base to help soldiers practice warfare on us. Who played the Mohawks? Who played the cowardly treasonous band council? It gets worse! In Saskatchewan the target at the police shooting range was a stereotypical Indigenous woman.

Doing so many exercises in our communities is meant to desensitize us to the presence of armed soldiers over, around us and in our back yards. We forget the danger. We’ll be close targets when the guns are turned on us.

Even more sinister is that these exercises can act as a cover for "real"/pretext events such as 911, the London bombings and the Oklahoma City bombing. It was hard to sort out what was real and what was an exercise. Cities where exercises have taken place such as Seattle are considered as being "prepped" for martial law.

These exercises involve hundreds of people, dozens of vehicles, boats, UAVs, helicopters and planes. Thunder Bay is the furthest inland port where large ships can load and unload and where rail and truck lines meet. Right now nuclear reactors are arriving here on their way to the Alberta oil sands. Rumors abound that these exercises will involve a simulated nuclear attack. At the same time US exercises are taking place in Alaska near the HAARP weather modification installation and in California where wild fires are now raging.

The Thunder Bay exercise will combine a severe weather event and emergency situations to create various scenarios. The first part will be an incident with a container ship along the federal port. Simulated will be collapsed buildings, human casualties, and toxic spills. The second will involve a rail incident. Simulated will be a response to a train fire/explosion and resulting toxic spill. Of course, they’re trying to recruit Ongwehonwe for the military because they want “expendable” people to do their dangerous work.

For this, National “Defense” [offense?] will transport the Toronto Heavy Urban Search and Rescue group to Thunder Bay on a Globemaster aircraft: between 400 and 550 military personnel from the Immediate Response Unit (IRU) and 63 Domestic Response Company to arrive on 22 Nov. 2008 and leave by 25 Nov. 2008.

Involved may be the local civilian authorities such as “primary responders”, provincial authorities, imbedded media, the Coast Guard (to provide fire fighting and power generation), the RCMP and Navel Reserve divers. Included are “personal development activities”! [Steve Carroll, National Defence, 416-633-6200 ext. 5808, Fax: 613-631-5349 Carroll.SL@forces.gc.ca refer to CEAR 08-01-39685]

Our Haudenosaunee territory includes many "strategic infrastructures" such as nuclear reactors, nuclear waste stockpiles, chemical factories, rail hubs and harbors. The Great-Lakes St. Lawrence is a major industrial area. The military needs the nuclear stockpile. By the way, whatever happened to the 500 tons of yellowcake that was dumped off in Montreal harbor last July 2008? It was in the papers. Then we never heard about it again.

Government agencies and actors roped into this “war movie” include Public Safety, Health Canada and Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Guess what? Indian Affairs is in there like a dirty shirt? Why? This is coming right out of our budget for desperately needed clean water, housing, education and medical care. The “chain of command” starts at the Pentagon. Peter “Flat-Foot” Fisher of the Aboriginal Policing Directorate at Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada is the link to the “aboriginal police” involved in the exercise [613- 990-2666 fax: 613-991-0691].

The recent horrific crash that killed three non-natives at the Cornwall Ontario border checkpoint in Akwesasne last week was a similar multi-“service” operation, by the Canada Border Services Agency CBSA, the Ontario Provincial Police OPP, the RCMP and the Akwesasne Mohawk Police. The guys on steroids with guns and fast cars are obviously trying to take control.

The Mohawk Police were chasing and ramming the van driven by the 21 year old non-native youth that ended in a dramatic fiery fatal crash. The cops created the kind of catastrophe they say they are protecting the public from. Two days later, while military exercises were going on in Hamilton, there was another strangely similar high speed chase of a non-native into the 6 Nations community which ended up in a crash and shoot out. Is this coincidence or was it planned?

We’re still waiting for answers at Akwesasne. Why didn't ambulances and nearby fire trucks take action immediately? Why did the Mohawk cops go straight for the load of cigarettes and not help the victims? Why were witnesses told to stop talking to the media about anything they saw? Was this staged to make an excuse to bring in the outside colonial agencies that don’t have jurisdiction but we can’t seem to get rid of? Watch out! They might be installing surveillance devices everywhere, like they did in Kanehsatake, or planting weapons to come in and raid us.

What’s going on? Are these lunatics trying to bring martial law into our communities because the colonists are saying we can’t handle the bedlam they’re creating? The fascist method is to isolate and eliminate the source of greatest resistance to their plans. Let's face it, folks, right now one of the main resisters is the freedom loving Ongwehoneh. The military interest in us could have something to do with the fact that all the land and resources of Turtle Island belong to us. In the US militant groups are getting more scared and more armed. Frightened people with guns is a dangerous scenario! Nobody wants that.

Iako’ha:kowa & MNN Staff – Mohawk Nation News www.mohawknationnews.com kittoh@storm.ca
Katenies20@yahoo.com kahentinetha2@yahoo.com

THE OTTAWA CABAL. Public Safety [Danger]: Minister Peter “Pumpkin-Eater-and-Trough-Licker” Van Loan; Suzanne “Hurts-to-be-Herself” Hurtubise DM 613- 991-2895; Myles “Away-from-Reality” Kirvan ADM 613- 990-2633, 613-949-0322; Chantal “Dirty-Fingers-in-Every-Pie” Bernier ADM Community Safety [Endangerment] and Partnerships (613) 993-4325; Scott “ODB” Broughton Sr ADM Emergency [Mis]Management and National [In]Security (613) 991-2820; Lynda “Useless-Forked-Tongued-Drone” Clairmont ADM, same as “ODB” (613) 990-4976; Daniel “Pepsi-and-May-West” Lavoie DG Communications (613) 990-2743; Elisabeth “Botox-from-Head-to-Toe” Nadeau ADM, Corporate Theft (613) 990-2615; Kristina “Fingers-Getting-Itchier-and-Itchier-to-push-the-Trigger” Namiesniowski ADM Strategic Policy (613) 949-6435; Eva “Nosey-Nit-Picker” Plunkett Inspector Field “General” of CSIS (613) 949-0675; Richard “Diarrhea-Mouth” Wex ADM Policing, Law Enforcement & Interoperability (613) 990-2703. The biggest safety risk for us Ongwehonwe is this ADM cabal of agents; Health Canada, partners with the US through the Canada-US Joint Radiological Response Plan, under the Federal Nuclear Emergency Plan; Foreign Affairs Lawrence “Chinese-Food-Glutton-at-Taxpyers-Expense” Cannon 613-992-5516 Fax 613-992-6802; 819-441-2510 Fax: (819) 441-2680; (819) 281-2626 Fax: (819) 281-2755 Cannon.L@parl.gc.ca; Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway Stockwell Day.

FEDERAL PARLIAMENT STARTS NOV.18. EMAILS FOR MP'S:
VanLoan.P@parl.gc.ca, clabchuk@greenparty.ca, Baird.J@parl.gc.ca, Clement.T@parl.gc.ca, leader@greenparty.ca, Cannon.L@parl.gc.ca, Barbot.V@parl.gc.ca, Sorenson.K@parl.gc.ca, Dewar.P@parl.gc.ca, Khan.W@parl.gc.ca, Patry.B@parl.gc.ca, ThibaLo@parl.gc.ca, ChongM@parl.gc.ca, TrostB@parl.gc.ca, BigraB@parl.gc.ca, CardiS@parl.gc.ca, LafraM@parl.gc.ca, CulleN@parl.gc.ca, GallaC@parl.gc.ca, HawnL@parl.gc.ca, McTeaD@parl.gc.ca, AlghaO@parl.gc.ca, AnderDa@parl.gc.ca, BevinD@parl.gc.ca, DebelC@parl.gc.ca, OuellCh@parl.gc.ca, CrowdJ@parl.gc.ca, ChowO@parl.gc.ca, LunnG@parl.gc.ca, BerniM@parl.gc.ca, StrahC@parl.gc.ca, MilliP@parl.gc.ca, Hill.J@parl.gc.ca, MacKay.P@parl.gc.ca, Bell.C@parl.gc.ca, Kramp.D@parl.gc.ca, Brown.G@parl.gc.ca, DelMastro.D@parl.gc.ca, Dewar.P@parl.gc.ca, Coderre.D@parl.gc.ca, DionS@parl.gc.ca, Comartin.J@parl.gc.ca, Oda.B@parl.gc.ca, OConnor.G@parl.gc.ca, Solberg.M@parl.gc.ca, Atamaa1@parl.gc.ca, blackd@parl.gc.ca, Black.D@parl.gc.ca, Ambrose.R@parl.gc.ca, Toews.V@parl.gc.ca, Emerson.D@parl.gc.ca, Blackburn.J@parl.gc.ca, Hanger.A@parl.gc.ca, McDonough.A@parl.gc.ca, Paradis.C@parl.gc.ca, Moore.J@parl.gc.ca, Mulcair.T@parl.gc.ca, Duceppe.G@parl.gc.ca, Barbot.V@parl.gc.ca, Layton.J@parl.gc.ca,
LINKS:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/10/410779.html
http://tinyurl.com/4x8o8p
http://www.topix.com/forum/source/eureka-times-standard/T3SKIPLLRMPUSTFAC
http://www.northcom.mil/News/2008/110508.html
Monday, November 10, 2008, US NORTHCOM Exercise Vigilant Shield 09
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/13-0
http://policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=1162&issue_id=42007
CAP (Civil Assistance Plan) at www.canadacom.forces.gc.ca/docs/pdf/cap_e.pdf
Joint Task Force-Civil Support (JTF-CS) http://www.jtfcs.northcom.mil
Exercise Trillium Response 08 http://www.ceaa.gc.ca/050/Viewer_e.cfm?CEAR_ID=39685
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/Canada-to-Spend-C-500-Million-on-CFB-Trenton-05059/
http://www.reach.net/~bqac/ The Bay of Quinte Aeromodellers http://www.defensetech.org/archives/cat_training_and_sims.html
http://www.firerescue1.com/fire-products/communications/interoperability/press-releases/240205-Army-National-Guards-Civil-Support-Teams-Gain-First-Response-Interoperability-with-Other-Agencies/
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/northern-edge-2007.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/ex.htm
US Military Exercises: The Mindset: The more you sweat in peace time, the less you bleed in combat.
National Response Plan; Civil Assistance Plan; Canada-U.S. Combined Defense Plan (CDP); C-AT's "Incident Commanders' Radio Interface" Equipment; Communication interoperability, IACP State and Provincial Police Division (S&P); Canada Command Direction for Domestic Operations;

ASK THE POLITICIAN ABOUT: rerouting 401 traffic in Toronto; evacuations; Lake Ontario ships, subs and planes, UAVs; dangers of fires and smoke; how many soldiers? how many US?; how many cops and others?; telecommunications: controlling the airwaves, radio "Incident Commanders”; Radio Interface from a “cigar box”; are the Mohawks a “trial run” or something bigger like martial law?; what are the “terrorist” scenarios?; are they part of the weather, hurricane or earthquake scenario?; what are “Critical Infrastructure Protection”, like nuclear reactors, oil refineries, etc.; What do drugs & cigarette busts have to do with it?; do exercises demonstrate US flexing, resolve and capability to protect U.S. military power & national interests?; how do they feel about complaints to try to prevent a “false flag” or “pretext” event like 911 or the London bombings?; "Exposure to live ammo so that the participants handle it with a fear and reverence..." http://www.ceaa.gc.ca/050/Viewer_e.cfm?CEAR_ID=39685

Mr. Paulson¹s Deceptive Speech

Michael Hudson

Yesterday, November 20, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson presented so deceptive a speech at The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, that was that its false framing of Washington's financial giveaway to Wall Street deserves to be enshrined in the annals of Orwellian doublethink.

What prompted the speech seems have been Congressional criticism of Mr. Paulson¹s bait-and-switch transfer of public funds to Wall Street, and the Federal Reserve¹s transfer of an amount twice as high as Congress's $700 billion. His most urgent aim was to ward off accusations that the Treasury and Federal Reserve have acted illegally. Federal law, and in particular the Anti-Deficiency Act, prohibits Treasury from spending money, lending money, and guaranteeing or buying assets without Congressional approval. The Federal Reserve can and does lend on a secured basis, but only if it expects not to realize losses. (Italics added.)

But Congress did not approve the Treasury's $250 billion of preferred stock investments in Wall Street banks. The happy recipients, their stockholders and officers evidently worried precisely that this "investment" would end up taking losses. That is why the Treasury stands in
back of bona fide creditors. That is why preferred stock was preferred by existing stockholders to loans and guarantees (which have priority in case of bankruptcy), not to mention the conditions that Congress thought it had laid down calling for these institutions to renegotiate mortgages to bring them in line with the debtor's ability to pay.

The Fed has refused to let Congress know any details ­ any details at all ­ about its cash-for-trash swaps with these institutions. This is what has concerns Congress, and what has prompted Bloomberg to bring a lawsuit in order to discover and publicize the details. It is not hard to'see why this curiosity exists. The only reasonable explanation as to why investment banks, American International Group (A.I.G.) and commercial banks apparently headed by Citibank (whose shares plunged yet another 30 percent during Wednesday and Thursday) have turned over a trillion dollars worth of illiquid mortgage securities, junk bonds and who knows what other junk to the Fed is to avoid taking a loss on these bad loans and investments. As Mr. Paulson explained matters, ³the Federal Reserve has statutory authority to lend against a pool of mortgage loans on a fully secured basis. The Fed was able to assist the JPMorgan purchase because they believed that there was a reasonable prospect of avoiding losses.

What time frame are we talking about here? Evidently one in which Mr. Paulson will have left the administration, sticking his successor with the losses and, presumably, the blame.

Everything seems to have been unexpected to Mr. Paulson ­ as if ignorance is a defence. When I came to Washington in 2006, he reminisced, markets were benign. We were still in Alan Greenspan's idea that inflating asset prices on credit constitutes wealth creation. At that time I myself was only one of many who warned that the real estate market had come to rest on a foundation of junk mortgage lending. Every banker with whom I spoke at the time knew this. But most were still seeking to make hay while the making was good, and it was still quite good ­ for the banks, that is. Matters were not benign for the increasingly debt-ridden U.S. economy, but at least they were rosy for Wall Street. Bank executives were paying themselves enormous
salaries and even larger stock options. Meanwhile, the smarter money managers were beginning to shift their funds out of the U.S. economy in a wave of capital flight of a magnitude not seen since Russia in the mid-1990s.

Acting as if all this could not have been foreseen, Mr. Paulson assured his mistake-friendly audience, There was no playbook for responding to a once or twice in a hundred year event.² A kind of random historical earthquake seems to have been at work, a financial San Andreas fault. Mr. Paulson then trivialized this, however, with the euphemism "housing correction."

The key is, what is to be corrected? Is it not the financial market itself?

Mr. Paulson then set about dissembling the character of the U.S. and global financial system. "Our financial system," he claimed, "is built on the hard work of our citizens; it is built on the savings of our citizens."

This is where he seeks to spread the disinformation that the explosion of debt that now burdens the U.S. economy has not been the case of Americans saving. It is the result of autonomous credit-creation by the commercial banking system. The basic financial principle of modern banking is that loans create deposits. The bank loan comes first ­ then the deposit or saving.

Here's how it works. A bank's marketing department seeks to drum up customers for debt. A borrower will go into a bank and sign a promissory note, and the bank then creates a checking account in the amount that is stipulated. The note calls for a specific rate of interest to be paid ­ a
rate much higher than that which the bank can borrow from the Federal Reserve or in the money market in general. One benchmark global rate to bankers is the London Interbank Borrowing Overnight Rate (LIBOR), and the other is the Federal Reserve's discount rate to banks. (Japanese banks also provided loans to large financial institutions at under 1% per year,
spurring the international carry trade, borrowing cheap in yen and then converting the funds into other currencies and lending at a higher rate.)

None of this involves saving. It involves credit creation in which banks have a legal monopoly, with funding monetized by the U.S, Japanese and other major foreign central banks. This free credit creation is at the root of the problem, not the natural growth of savings.

What have banks done with this credit-creating privilege? Nearly all their loans have been to enable buyers to purchase assets (real estate, stocks and bonds or entire companies) already in place, or to enable hedge funds to play the mathematical games that have come to characterize today¹s casino capitalism. Mr. Paulson depicts the resulting financial system as being essential for the good functioning of "Main Street." But surely he must know some lawyer who might explain to him that only very, very wealthy speculators are allowed to play the hedge fund game of financial derivatives that lies at the heart of today's financial breakdown and negative equity
for banks that have made bad gambles. The legal reality is that in order to invest in hedge funds and similar casino capitalism gambles (or in Broadway plays and other high-risk ventures, for that matter), prospective financiers must sign releases attesting to the fact that they can afford to lose their money.

"If the financial system were allowed to collapse,"Mr. Paulson warned, "it is the American people who would pay the price. This has never been just about the banks; it has always been about continued prosperity and opportunity for all Americans." Not really. Wall Street hardly is so altruistic. It has increasingly made its money off Americans, by engaging in increasingly predatory, extractive lending to the economy. That is what has caused the U.S. debt burden to soar so far ahead of the ability of debtors to pay. It also is what is now diverting spending away from consumption and (for companies) new capital investment to pay creditors.

Not content with misrepresenting how the U.S. economy works, Mr. Paulson then drew a picture of the global economy that also is a travesty. "The world was awash in money looking for higher return," he explained, "and much of this money was invested in U.S. assets."

Well, not exactly. The world economy has been awash in the U.S. payments deficit, which has swollen the reserves of central banks in the creditor nations from Asia to Western Europe. These central banks have recycled $4 trillion their dollar inflows to the United States under dollar
hegemony. Rather than seeking a "higher return," central banks have found themselves o liged to invest in low-yielding U.S. Treasury securities, or somewhat higher Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities. These returns are much lower than U.S. investors have sought in buying up foreign companies and their stocks, whose price appreciation far exceeded the rate that foreign economies were able to recoup on their dollar recycling to the United States.

Mr. Paulson wants above all to deter foreign economies from breaking away from this dysfunctional system. The second important priority, he explained to his Reagan Library audience, must be continued reform of the International Financial Institutions like the World Bank and the IMF to allow for greater participation of developing nations.² The aim here is to make the financial sector's lobbying control over the world¹s financial system global. A final reform priority must be consistent liberalization of policies on trade and investment, with an emphasis on avoiding new protectionist measures and achieving a breakthrough in the Doha
round of global trade talk.

New protectionist measures! Even as U.S. auto companies are advocating special subsidies for the U.S. auto industry in Detroit and pursuing beggar-my-neighbor financial policies (let foreign banks and economies absorb the financial loss from playing in the Wall Street casino),
foreign countries are not to develop a financial system more highly regulated, an agriculture more aimed at feeding their own people. They are not to block capital outflows from the United States based on ³free² credit creation to buy out their commanding heights as the IMF imposes austerity plans and forced privatization sell-offs on Third World and post-Soviet countries while cutting taxes at home in the face of an escalating U.S. trade deficit and rising foreign military spending.

Mr. Paulson's speech looks like a major salvo in the Bush Administration's attempt to make both the Wall Street bailout and the U.S. predatory finance irreversible, while the government replaces public debt (Treasury bonds) for Wall Street's bad gambles. His errors are calculated to
misinform, as are most lobbying efforts by the banking and financial sector. One can only hope that Congress will question his testimony that has repeatedly followed this line with more acumen than prompted its earlier acceptance of the Treasury's bailout act. It's time to clean up this act.

Obama Advisers Say No Charges Likely Against Those Who Authorized Torture

Ugh.

Read It and Weep Department, Mach 1000

Unbelievable. "How can you decide guilt or innocence without a fair hearing," one asks.

By LARA JAKES JORDAN
Associated Press Writer

Washington - Barack Obama's incoming administration is unlikely to bring criminal charges against government officials who authorized or engaged in harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists during the George W. Bush presidency. Obama, who has criticized the use of torture, is being urged by some constitutional scholars and human rights groups to investigate possible war crimes by the Bush administration.

Two Obama advisers said there's little - if any - chance that the incoming president's Justice Department will go after anyone involved in authorizing or carrying out interrogations that provoked worldwide outrage.

The advisers spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans are still tentative. A spokesman for Obama's transition team did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

Additionally, the question of whether to prosecute may never become an issue if Bush issues pre-emptive pardons to protect those involved.

Obama has committed to reviewing interrogations on al-Qaida and other terror suspects. After he takes office in January, Obama is expected to create a panel modeled after the 9/11 Commission to study interrogations, including those using waterboarding and other tactics that critics call torture. The panel's findings would be used to ensure that future interrogations are undisputedly legal.

"I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture, and I'm going to make sure that we don't torture," Obama said Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes." "Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world."

Obama's most ardent supporters are split on whether he should prosecute Bush officials.

Asked this weekend during a Vermont Public Radio interview if Bush administration officials would face war crimes, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy flatly said,

"In the United States, no."

"These things are not going to happen,"

said Leahy, D-Vt.

Robert Litt, a former top Clinton administration Justice Department prosecutor, said Obama should focus on moving forward with anti-torture policy instead of looking back.

"Both for policy and political reasons, it would not be beneficial to spend a lot of time hauling people up before Congress or before grand juries and going over what went on," Litt said at a Brookings Institution discussion about Obama's legal policy. "To as great of an extent we can say, the last eight years are over, now we can move forward - that would be beneficial both to the country and the president, politically."

But Michael Ratner, a professor at Columbia Law School and president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said prosecuting Bush officials is necessary to set future anti-torture policy.

"The only way to prevent this from happening again is to make sure that those who were responsible for the torture program pay the price for it," Ratner said. "I don't see how we regain our moral stature by allowing those who were intimately involved in the torture programs to simply walk off the stage and lead lives where they are not held accountable."

In the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the White House authorized U.S. interrogators to use harsh tactics on captured al-Qaida and Taliban suspects. Bush officials relied on a 2002 Justice Department legal memo to assert that its interrogations did not amount to torture - and therefore did not violate U.S. or international laws. That memo has since been rescinded.

At least three top al-Qaida operatives - including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed - were waterboarded in 2002 and 2003 because of intelligence officials' belief that more attacks were imminent. Waterboarding creates the sensation of drowning, and has been traced back hundreds of years and is condemned by nations worldwide.

Bush could take the issue of criminal charges off the table with one stroke of his pardons pen.

Whether Bush will protect his top aides and interrogators with a pre-emptive pardon - before they are ever charged - has become a hot topic of discussion in legal and political circles in the administration's waning days. White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto declined to comment on the issue.

Under the Constitution, the president's power to issue pardons is absolute and cannot be overruled.

Pre-emptive pardons would be highly controversial, but former White House counsel Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr. said it would protect those who were following orders or otherwise trying to protect the nation.

"I know of no one who acted in reckless disregard of U.S. law or international law," said Culvahouse, who served under President Ronald Reagan. "It's just not good for the intelligence community and the defense community to have people in the field, under exigent circumstances, being told these are the rules, to be exposed months and years after the fact to criminal prosecution."

The Federalist Papers discourage presidents from pardoning themselves. It took former President Gerald Ford to clear former President Richard Nixon of wrongdoing in the 1972 Watergate break-in.

Timely reminder: Nazis par excellence

By Khalid Amayreh in Israeli-Occupied Palestine

19 November, 2008

Jewish boys smuggle a calf for
Food into Ghetto Warsaw, 1943

A Palestinian man smuggles cow for food into the Gaza-2008

Israeli propagandists routinely dismiss comparisons between Nazi Germany and Israel as “corrupt” and “far-fetched.” Some Zionists would even argue that only pathological anti-Semites would dare make such comparisons.

However, in light of what Israel has been and is doing to the Palestinians, including the present ruthless blockade of the Gaza Strip, and the slow, agonizing death meted out to innocent Gazans, any honest person shouldn’t fail to observe the striking similarity between the Nazi mentality and the collective Israeli mindset.

The Nazis viewed their victims as “Untermenschen” while Zionist Jews simply refer to their equally tormented victims as “terrorists” or “potential terrorists.”

Even a 7-year-old Palestinian school child is often referred to in Israel as “a terrorist child.”

Needless to say, the demonizing, dehumanizing language is meant to make the readers, viewers and listeners hate the victims. This is exactly what the Nazis did during the Second World War.

For example, when a Jewish resistance fighter was killed in one of the many Jewish communities throughout Nazi-occupied Europe, the German and other pliant press would report the event with a caption reading “ a bandit fell to his death” or “a bandit emerges from his hideout.”

Many of the fighters would rather jump to their death from the a fourth or fifth floor than hand themselves over to the SS, very much like Palestinian freedom fighters are doing these days.

Today, the Israeli army and media use nearly identical epithets in reference to Palestinian victims of Israeli Nazism. They only replace the word “bandit” with the word “terrorist.” The rest is almost a verbatim rendition from German to Hebrew.

But, of course, the matter goes beyond Semantics. Israel today is imposing a manifestly brutal siege to the 1.5 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, which is strikingly similar to the German siege imposed on the 350,000 Jewish inhabitants of Ghetto Warsaw in 1942.

Yes, the modalities and circumstances may be somewhat different. But the mentality, the hatefulness and vindictiveness are undoubtedly the same.

The Israelis are cutting off food, electricity, fuel and gas supplies to the Gaza Strip, causing a human disaster on a very large scale.

The Germans did the same at Ghetto Warsaw, but on a comparatively smaller scale.

It is true that Israel is not transporting Gazans to death camps as the SS did at Ghetto Warsaw. However, it is also true that that Israel is killing and maiming Palestinians in droves, nearly on a daily basis as a result of denying them access to adequate food and health care, which causes many ill-Gazans to succumb to their often treatable illnesses.

This week, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, spoke of a real humanitarian disaster in Gaza where hundreds of thousands of people are being starved for political reasons.

“We are talking about 1.5 million Palestinian men, women and children are deprived of their most basic human rights for months.”

The words used by Pillay fall short of fully communicating the extent of the gigantic human disaster facing the people of Gaza where an entire people are pushed to the brink of physical extermination on no other account than them wanting to be free from Israeli Nazism.

Unfortunately, Israel, a country ruled by fascist politicians and former army generals who are war criminals par excellence , is constantly emboldened by the disgraceful silence or acquiescence of western powers, including the United States and Europe.

This Nazi-like state continues rather unflinchingly the sadistic policy of starving Gazans in the hope that they will rise up against their democratically elected government and join the American-backed regime in Ramallah, which many Palestinians have come to view as a quisling entity, very much like the Judenrate or Jewish councils that ran Jewish communities on behalf of the Nazis throughout Nazi-Occupied Europe.

I really don’t understand how Jews, who produced luminaries like Albert Einstein, are allowing themselves to behave in this visibly barbarian manner? Do they feel particularly virile and manly when they watch babies succumb to death due to lack of medicine or absence of health care?

Do they feel that by starving and killing innocent Gazans, they are punishing the Nazis vicariously?

I am raising these questions because I know there are hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews and non-Israeli Jews who are gleefully enjoying the macabre suffering of hundreds of thousands of innocent Gazans, at the hands of their “Jewish army,” the “most moral army in the world.”

Well a truly moral army doesn’t behave like this. Only an army of thugs, gangsters, vile criminals, and psychopaths would withhold food and medicine from dying children?

It is only an army of a Wehrmacht style and political leaders of Hitler’s ilk that refuse to allow ill men and women seek urgently-needed medical care to proceed to their destination in the West Bank and Jordan?

What does preventing ill people from seeking medical care abroad have to do with security? Is saving a child’s life a serious threat to Israel’s security and territorial integrity?

What does preventing a truckload of flour or wheat from reaching Gaza have to do with security?

Well, it is the old adage: crime and lie go hand in hand.

Yes, these are the very people who have made the holocaust their ultimate religion, the people who think that Nazi atrocities during the Second World War justify the slow-motion genocide being meted out to the helpless Palestinians.

European governments are also shamefully watching the unfolding tragedy in Gaza, but are saying virtually nothing and doing nothing to stop it.

European diplomats, like British Foreign Secretary David Miliband , seem to pay far more attention to Sderot and other Jewish settlements bordering Gaza than to the Dresden-like death camp which Gaza has been transformed into, thanks to the west’s failure to rein in its monstrous brat.

In 1948, Harry Truman, who was instrumental in creating Israel, wrote the following:

“I fear very much that the Jews are like all underdogs. When they get on the top they are just as intolerant and cruel as the people were to them when they were underneath. I regret this situation very much because my sympathy has always been on their side.”

Well, I am afraid that Truman prophecy has been fulfilled. Some people would say that it was fulfilled many many years ago.

---

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• A Defeated Policy, Not a Defeated People
• Gaza Death toll continues to rise and go unreported in the U.S. media
• Israel: At War With Every Single Man, Woman and Child In Gaza
• Gaza City in darkness as Israel halts fuel shipments

Cheney's lawyer files motion to quash indictment

By Lynn Brezosky and Peggy Fikac / San Antonio Express-News

RAYMONDVILLE - Some of the top names in South Texas legal defense converged at the Willacy County courthouse with briefcases and a sense of conviviality about indictments reaching as far as the White House.

Lawyers like J.A. "Tony" Canales, a former U.S. attorney who is representing Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, said they hoped to get a range of charges brought by embattled District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra quickly dismissed.

Guerra, a 53-year-old Rio Grande Valley prosecutor who drew national attention for suing counterparts in the county justice system and staging a protest with barnyard animals, long has alleged high-ranking corruption in the deals that brought the impoverished county a $60 million immigration detention center.

On Monday, he got a grand jury to sign off on a slew of indictments including an acceptance of honorarium charge against state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., and an engaging in organized criminal activity charge against Cheney and Gonzales.

Cheney is accused of contributing to the neglect of federal immigration detainees by contracting for-profit prisons.

“By working through corporations as prisons for profit, Defendant Richard Cheney has committed at least misdemeanor assaults of our inmates and/or detainees,” the indictment reads, adding that a “money trail” can be traced to Cheney's substantial investments in the Vanguard Group, which invests in privately run prisons.

This morning, Canales filed a motion to quash indictments "for prosecutorial vindictiveness and failure to allege an offense."

"In most of the indictments, the prosecutor identifies himself as the victim. The prosecutor has usurped for himself the role of prosecutor, judge, victim, and director of the grand jury. His conflict of interest and abuse of office require that he be stopped," Canales said.

Courthouse officials said Guerra had not been seen today.

A number of experts were shaking their heads at the indictment.

Shannon Edmonds of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association, after reviewing a faxed copy of the indictment against Cheney and Gonzales, said he’d never seen one like it.

“It’s a creative indictment, but I don’t think it properly alleges any crime,” Edmonds said. “It’s more of just a rambling narrative … I think a court will find that it’s legally insufficient in that it fails to allege a crime.”

Chip B. Lewis, a prominent criminal defense lawyer in Houston whose clients have included former Enron chairman Ken Lay, said, “It’s a shame. I’m not a Cheney supporter by any means. I’m Democrat. But the misuse of our criminal justice system is apparent … It just smacks of partisanship and it’s a shame that credence can be lent to this type of charge because you have a grand jury indictment.”

Lewis said, “I don’t think he (Cheney) will ever spend a day in court.”

Cheney's lawyer files motion to quash indictment

Cheney's lawyer files motion to quash indictment

By Lynn Brezosky and Peggy Fikac / San Antonio Express-News

RAYMONDVILLE - Some of the top names in South Texas legal defense converged at the Willacy County courthouse with briefcases and a sense of conviviality about indictments reaching as far as the White House.

Lawyers like J.A. "Tony" Canales, a former U.S. attorney who is representing Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, said they hoped to get a range of charges brought by embattled District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra quickly dismissed.

Guerra, a 53-year-old Rio Grande Valley prosecutor who drew national attention for suing counterparts in the county justice system and staging a protest with barnyard animals, long has alleged high-ranking corruption in the deals that brought the impoverished county a $60 million immigration detention center.

On Monday, he got a grand jury to sign off on a slew of indictments including an acceptance of honorarium charge against state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., and an engaging in organized criminal activity charge against Cheney and Gonzales.

Cheney is accused of contributing to the neglect of federal immigration detainees by contracting for-profit prisons.

“By working through corporations as prisons for profit, Defendant Richard Cheney has committed at least misdemeanor assaults of our inmates and/or detainees,” the indictment reads, adding that a “money trail” can be traced to Cheney's substantial investments in the Vanguard Group, which invests in privately run prisons.

This morning, Canales filed a motion to quash indictments "for prosecutorial vindictiveness and failure to allege an offense."

"In most of the indictments, the prosecutor identifies himself as the victim. The prosecutor has usurped for himself the role of prosecutor, judge, victim, and director of the grand jury. His conflict of interest and abuse of office require that he be stopped," Canales said.

Courthouse officials said Guerra had not been seen today.

A number of experts were shaking their heads at the indictment.

Shannon Edmonds of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association, after reviewing a faxed copy of the indictment against Cheney and Gonzales, said he’d never seen one like it.

“It’s a creative indictment, but I don’t think it properly alleges any crime,” Edmonds said. “It’s more of just a rambling narrative … I think a court will find that it’s legally insufficient in that it fails to allege a crime.”

Chip B. Lewis, a prominent criminal defense lawyer in Houston whose clients have included former Enron chairman Ken Lay, said, “It’s a shame. I’m not a Cheney supporter by any means. I’m Democrat. But the misuse of our criminal justice system is apparent … It just smacks of partisanship and it’s a shame that credence can be lent to this type of charge because you have a grand jury indictment.”

Lewis said, “I don’t think he (Cheney) will ever spend a day in court.”

Activism: Dead Bodies at DOJ / Obama at White House

Federal judge orders five Guantanamo detainees released

Jaclyn Belczyk at 12:37 PM ET

[JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] on Thursday ordered the release [order, PDF] of five Algerian Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainees. In the first ruling on detainees' rights since the June Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush [opinion, PDF; JURIST report], Judge Richard Leon [official profile] decided [Washington Post report] that the government's evidence was insufficient to persuade him that the men were planning to travel to Afghanistan to join al Qaeda and therefore properly classed as "enemy combatants:"

[W]hile the information in the classified intelligence report, relating to the credibility and reliability of the source, was undoubtedly sufficient for the intelligence purposes for which it was prepared, it is not sufficient for the purposes for which a habeas court must now evaluate it. To allow enemy combatancy to rest on so thin a reed would be inconsistent with this Court's obligation under the Supreme Court's decision in Hamdi to protect petitioners from the risk of erroneous detention. [emphasis in original]

Leon ordered that a sixth detainee, Belkacem ben Sayah, remain in custody because the government's evidence against him was sufficient to label him an enemy combatant. US Justice Department officials issued a statement [text] indicating that they were "pleased" with the court's decision to detain ben Sayah, but "disappointed" with the court's decision to release the other detainees.

Leon began habeas corpus hearings [JURIST report] for the six Algerians earlier this month. In October, he ruled [order, PDF; JURIST report] that in order to be validly held as "enemy combatants," Guantanamo Bay detainees [JURIST news archive] must have directly supported hostilities against the US or its allies, setting the standard which the government must use to justify their detention.

In a related development Wednesday, a military judge at Guantanamo Bay rejected [ACLU press release] evidence against detainee Mohammed Jawad [DOD materials; JURIST news archive], finding that it had been obtained through torture. Other evidence against Jawad for his pending trial by military commission was excluded [JURIST report] in October, also because it had allegedly been obtained through torture.

You can read the full decision at this link, too:

http://news.lp.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/guantanamo/20081120-order-to-release-detainees.pdf

Senior judge says Iraq invasion broke international law

By Europe correspondent Emma Alberici

Source: ABC

One of Britain's most senior judges has attacked Britain and the United States over their invasion of Iraq, describing it as a serious violation of international law.

In a speech to the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, Lord Bingham accused Britain and the US of acting like world vigilantes.

It was his first major address since retiring as the senior law Lord.

He rejected the then attorney-general's defence of the 2003 invasion of Iraq as fundamentally flawed, saying that the US, the UK and other states such as Australia had violated international law and the rule of law.

The conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in the UK continue to press for an independent inquiry into the circumstances around the invasion.

By ABC 13

McALLEN, TX -- A South Texas grand jury has indicted Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners in Willacy County's federal detention centers.

The indictment criticizes Cheney's investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" on detainees by working through the prison companies.

Gonzales is accused of using his position while in office to stop an investigation into abuses at the federal detention centers.

Another indictment charges state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. with profiting from his public office by accepting honoraria from prison management companies.

From comments:
a president cannot be indicted while in office BUT that rule does NOT apply to a sitting Vice President, who can be indicted and prosecuted for his role in the commission of war crimes in Iraq and lying the nation into an aggressive illegal war of aggression, the supreme crime against humanity as defined at Nuremberg, Click Here, http://kucinich.house.gov/SpotlightIssues/documents.htm

Human Rights Watch Wants Obama to Ban Torture

Activists Seek Executive Order Banning Torture
By Wolfgang Kerler / November 17, 2008

NEW YORK - Shutting down the infamous detention centre at Guantanamo Bay is just one of a series of measures to reform U.S. counterterrorism practices being urged by the watchdog organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In a report released Sunday, the New York-based HRW urged President-elect Barack Obama to quickly repudiate the abusive policies put in place by the George W. Bush administration in its "global war on terror".

"The Obama administration is going to have a difficult task to restore America's standing in the world," Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism programme director at HRW, told IPS. "The Bush administration's counterterrorism policies deeply damaged the reputation of the United States."

HRW's 11-step action plan -- entitled "Fighting Terrorism Fairly and Effectively: Recommendations for President-elect Obama" -- suggests how the U.S. could again become a credible leader in the fight for the global implementation of human rights.

"But it depends on how dramatically the Obama administration makes a clear break with the past," Mariner added.

According to HRW, some 250 terrorist suspects are still being held as "enemy combatants" at the military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay opened in 2002. Most of the detainees have now been in custody for nearly seven years, without charge.

As president, Obama should close the detention facility -- a step he has already pledged to take -- and establish a task force to review all the detainees' cases to determine whether they should be charged and brought to trial or released.

Also among the 11 steps is the abolition of military commissions to try suspected foreign terrorists. HRW argues that these commissions lack "basic fair trial guarantees" and that federal criminal courts were the "best-equipped" and "time tested" venues to handle terrorism cases.

Similarly, plans to legalise the indefinite preventive detention of suspected terrorists – based on "predictions of future dangerousness" -- should be rejected by Obama, HRW says.

Justifying detention without charge by classifying people as "enemy combatants" in the "war on terror", as has happened to suspects arrested in locations like Bosnia, Thailand and along the U.S.-Mexico border, should also be stopped.

HRW also condemned the use of torture and inhumane interrogation techniques by U.S. armed forces and intelligence agencies -- "including stripping detainees naked, subjecting them to extremes of heat, cold, and noise, and depriving them of sleep for long periods".

To ban these practices, which have led to the deaths of some detainees, Obama should quickly issue an executive order and repudiate legal memos issued by the Bush Justice Department and presidential directives under the outgoing administration that permit torture and other abuses.

HRW called on the new administration to redress victims of abusive counterterrorism policies -- something which has not happened so far as the victims have effectively been shut out of U.S. courts.

Above all, past abuses should be investigated, documented and publicly reported by a non-partisan commission with subpoena power, and former government officials who were responsible for some of the crimes should not be given immunity from prosecution, the group said.

Last week, Rep. Rush Holt, a Democrat from New Jersey who chairs an intelligence oversight panel, issued a statement saying that "while an executive order [to ban torture] will not remove the need for legislation on the issue," if Obama did so, it would "begin to restore our moral leadership on the issue".

Holt also expressed support for the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), a coalition of religious groups from all over the country that is lobbying to eliminate the use of torture as a part of U.S. policy.

On Nov. 12, NRCAT held a nationwide action day with more than 50 delegations of religious leaders holding meetings with members of Congress. Thirty religious groups participated in a demonstration in front of the White House, where President Bush is spending his final days in office.

While she agreed on the need to fight terrorism, Mariner of HRW rejected many of the measures taken after the 9/11 terror attacks, emphasising that "the Bush administration entirely disregarded even basic principles of the rule of law."

"The government addressed terrorism in an extremely counterproductive way," Mariner said.

Instead of diminishing the terrorist threat, reports of human rights violations at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and elsewhere fuelled the recruitment of supporters for militant groups, which argued the U.S. was in fact leading a "war on Islam".

Asked whether she believes Obama will heed the recommendations of HRW, Mariner stressed that by voting against the Military Commissions Act of 2006 to authorise trials by military courts, "Obama has already stood up against these abuses.ct"

The president-elect also explicitly pledged to close Guantanamo during his campaign.

"So we are confident that consistent with his message of change, his actions and his criticism, he is going to repudiate the abusive counterterrorism policies of the Bush administration," Mariner said.

Source / IPS News