For the Record

A "morally depraved" judiciary: Arar case dismissed in the U.S.

Greenwald discusses and summarizes:

Yesterday, the Second Circuit -- by a vote of 7-4 --  agreed with the government and dismissed Arar's case in its entirety.  It held that even if the government violated Arar's Constitutional rights as well as statutes banning participation in torture, he still has no right to sue for what was done to him.  Why?  Because "providing a damages remedy against senior officials who implement an extraordinary rendition policy would enmesh the courts ineluctably in an assessment of the validity of the rationale of that policy and its implementation in this particular case, matters that directly affect significant diplomatic and national security concerns" (p. 39).  In other words, government officials are free to do anything they want in the national security context -- even violate the law and purposely cause someone to be tortured -- and courts should honor and defer to their actions by refusing to scrutinize them.

Reflecting the type of people who fill our judiciary, the judges in the majority also invented the most morally depraved bureaucratic requirements for Arar to proceed with his case and then claimed he had failed to meet them.  Arar did not, for instance, have the names of the individuals who detained and abused him at JFK, which the majority said he must have.  As Judge Sack in dissent said of that requirement:  it "means government miscreants may avoid [] liability altogether through the simple expedient of wearing hoods while inflicting injury" (p. 27; emphasis added).

Americans, in particular, should read the rest of Greenwald's excoriating post, including the embedded excerpts from dissenting judges lamenting the death of an independent judiciary and describing Arar's horrific treatment.  What has that country come to?  Oh, and there's also this.

A welcome statement

Clinton says that Israeli settlement activity on Palestinian lands is illegitimate.

Barack Obama wins Nobel peace prize?

What for?

Some apt astonishment from Glenn Greenwald here and Matt Taibi here.

Benj and Leiter correctly point out that the award is aimed at messaging positive value to not being a Republican.  That's something, I guess.

Update:  speaking of other reasons for not handing Obama the Prize on a platter, how about the fact that he put the foxes in charge of the financial bailout and failed to implement any real reform, causing continuing misery and violence to millions of Americans, as their houses and hard-earned cash continue to go up in smoke and mirrors?  The U.S.: all scam, all the time.

The Goldstone report on Israel's attack on Gaza

If you were really in any doubt about whether Israeli forces have engaged in war crimes and crimes against humanity against Palestinians, you can put those doubts to rest.

The full UN site on the fact-finding mission is here.

The summary report is here.

The full report is here.

Bush signature on torture authorization

I'm reposting this 7 February 2002 memo, signed by Bush. (Source: this archive, which I discovered via this dKos diary.)

The central finding of the memo is that members of AQ are not covered under either article 3 or 4 of the Geneva Conventions. Accordingly, "detainees" held to be members of AQ need be "treated in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva" only insofar as is "appropriate and consistent with military necessity". In other words, torture away.

The central finding is clearly false. According to convention IV, part 1, article 4, paragraph 4:

Every person in enemy hands must have some status under international law: he is either a prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third Convention, a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention, or again, a member of the medical personnel of the armed forces who is covered by the First Convention. There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law.

There you have it, war crimes approved by Bush's hand.

What can one say about this sort of thing?

This is what the U.S. abroad has come to.

Celebrating torture

From Jim John:

An article in defense of torture as US policy by someone named Deroy Murdock appeared in the National Review Online this Monday.  It features the astonishing remark that "[w]aterboarding is something of which every American should be proud."  [Murdock also says "In short, there is nothing “repugnant” about waterboarding".]  I'm not making this up.  The article can be read here:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjNkYmU2NWVlOWE4MTU5MjhiOGNmMWUwMjdjZjU2ZjA

I discovered this morning that Murdock is listed as a faculty member at the libertarian-leaning Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University.  Their contact information is here:

Institute for Humane Studies
at George Mason University
3301 N. Fairfax Dr., Ste. 440
Arlington VA 22201-4432
800.697.8799 (toll-free)
703.993.4890 (fax)

It seems the Institute ought to change its name.  Please do take action on this.

Bush wishes he could do this

Musharraf imposes military rule:

Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup and is also head of Pakistan's army, suspended the constitution on Saturday ahead of a Supreme Court ruling on whether his recent re-election as president was legal. He ousted seven independent-minded Supreme Court judges, put a stranglehold on independent media and granted sweeping powers to authorities to crush dissent.

One small difference: Bush would probably keep the complicit Supreme Court who anti-democratically installed him in the first place.

Hat tip to my most excellent stepfather, Don Doiron.

Whitewashing Blackwater

The old site, and the new site.

Wired is helpin' out with a new logo contest.

Hat tip to Lisa Rivera.

Tutu barred from speaking for speaking up against Israel: updated

How very tiresome that reactionary members of Zionist lobbies (how many profit from, or are friends with those who profit from, the arms and munitions industry, I wonder?) persist in persecuting rational observers of the continuing human rights abuses of the Israeli government against the long-suffering (40 years and counting) Palestinians.  Not content with hounding top-flight academics like Norman Finkelstein (who was "retired" from his position at DePaul University) and Juan Cole (whose offer from Yale was withdrawn), pro-Israel-no-matter-what attack dogs have now scuttled a talk  at the University of St. Thomas---thanks to the helpful interference of University President "Father knows best" Dennis Dease---by Desmond Tutu, winner of the Nobel Peace prize, among other accolades.

As if this supression of reasoned observation weren't outrageous enough, the cancellation was accompanied by the removal of Cris Toffolo, the chair of the Justice and Peace Studies program (which had sponsored Tutu's talk), from her position as chair, for "the way she questioned the administration's decision".  Toffolo has tenure (thank heavens) but no longer heads the department.

Muzzlewatch has further details and the means to write a letter of protest here.

UPDATE: Facing widespread condemnation for its decision to block a speaking invitation to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the University of St. Thomas announced Wednesday that he would be welcome on the campus after all. While many on the campus said that they were pleased with the reversal, some also questioned whether the university was doing enough to undo damage from the incident.

http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/11/tutu