June 29, 2006
Here Here!!!
This is an excellent victory.
Now can we impeach Bush for violating the law? Or does he still need to get caught sticking it to an intern? Hopefully this is a sign that the end is nigh for the conservative douchebags who have been running things lately.
By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 29, 2006; 12:06 PM
The Supreme Court today delivered a stunning rebuke to the Bush administration over its plans to try Guantanamo detainees before military commissions, ruling that the commissions violate U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of war prisoners.
In a 5-3 decision, the court said the trials were not authorized by any act of Congress and that their structure and procedures violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and the four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949.
Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the opinion in the case, called Hamdan v. Rumsfeld . Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. recused himself from the case.
The ruling, which overturned a federal appeals court decision in which Roberts had participated, represented a defeat for President Bush, who had ordered military trials for detainees at the Guantanamo Bay naval base. About 450 detainees captured in the war on terrorism are currently held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.
The case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a 36-year-old Yemeni with links to al-Qaeda, was considered a key test of the judiciary's power during wartime and carried the potential to make a lasting impact on American law. It challenged the very legality of the military commissions established by President Bush to try terrorism suspects.
Hamdan, who was charged with a single count of conspiracy to commit war crimes and terrorism, had argued that no congressional act or common law of war supported a trial by a military commission for conspiracy, an offense he maintained was not covered by the laws of war. He also argued that the commission's procedures violated U.S. military and international law, including the principle that a defendant must be allowed to see and hear the evidence against him. Hamdan acknowledged that a court martial constituted in accordance with the UCMJ would have authority to try him.
Writing the majority opinion, Stevens said, "we conclude that the military commission convened to try Hamdan lacks power to proceed because its structure and procedures violate both the UCMJ and the Geneva Conventions." He said four justices also found that the offense attributed to Hamdan is not one that can be tried by a military commission under the laws of war.
The ruling does not mean that the United States must close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility or free any of its detainees, including Hamdan.
According to Hamdan's military lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, he now must be tried either in a federal court or before a properly constituted court martial.
Joining Stevens in the majority were justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Anthony M. Kennedy and David H. Souter. Dissenting were justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.
In a dissenting opinion, Scalia pointed to congressional enactment on Dec. 30, 2005, of the Detainee Treatment Act, which provides that as of that date, "no court, justice or judge" shall have jurisdiction to consider an application by a Guantanamo detainee for habeas corpus, challenging his detention.
Thomas said in another dissenting opinion that the Supreme Court "lacks jurisdiction" to consider Hamdan's claims because of that law and that "its opinion openly flouts our well-established duty to respect the Executive's judgment in matters of military operations and foreign affairs."
For the first time in his 15-year tenure on the court, Thomas took the unusual step of reading part of his dissenting opinion from the bench. The court's willingness "to second-guess the determination of the political branches that these conspirators must be brought to justice is both unprecedented and dangerous," he said.
Stevens wrote, however, that although the Detainee Treatment Act implicitly recognizes the existence of the military commissions, it "contains no language authorizing that tribunal or any other at Guantanamo Bay." Moreover, neither the act nor a congressional authorization for the use of military force against terrorists in 2001 "expands the president's authority to convene military commissions."
In a concurring opinion, Breyer strongly disputed the dissenters' assertion that today's ruling would, as Thomas wrote, "sorely hamper the president's ability to defeat a new and deadly enemy."
"The Court's conclusion ultimately rests upon a single ground: Congress has not issued the Executive a 'blank check,' Breyer wrote. "Indeed, Congress has denied the president the legislative authority to create military commissions of the kind at issue here. Nothing prevents the president from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary."
He argued that far from weakening "our nation's ability to deal with danger," judicial insistence upon consultation with Congress "strengthens the nation's ability to determine -- through democratic means -- how best to do so."
The case raised core constitutional principles of separation of powers as well as fundamental issues of individual rights. Specifically, the questions concerned:
? The power of Congress and the executive to strip the federal courts and the Supreme Court of jurisdiction.
? The authority of the executive to lock up individuals under claims of wartime power, without benefit of traditional protections such as a jury trial, the right to cross-examine one's accusers and the right to judicial appeal.
? The applicability of international treaties -- specifically the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war -- to the government's treatment of those it deems "enemy combatants."
Hamdan was captured by Afghan militiamen in late November 2001 after the radical Islamic Taliban movement was driven from power in Afghanistan by U.S.-backed Afghan forces. He was subsequently turned over to U.S. authorities, who sent him to the U.S. detention facility at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba in 2002.
He acknowledged that he had worked as a bodyguard and driver for Osama bin Laden, whom he met in Afghanistan in 1996. But he denied having any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks carried out by bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
On Nov. 13, 2001 -- the day the Afghan capital, Kabul, fell to U.S.-backed forces after five years of Taliban rule -- President Bush issued Military Order No. 1 declaring that military commissions would try foreign terrorist suspects for alleged war crimes and sentence them to punishments including death. The administration argued that the commissions were authorized by laws on military justice, by a congressional resolution passed on Sept. 14, 2001, and by the powers vested in the president as commander in chief under the U.S. Constitution.
Hamdan later became one of the first 10 detainees at Guantanamo chosen to face military trials. He was charged in July 2004 with conspiracy to commit terrorism and war crimes while serving as a weapons courier and driver for bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda members. If convicted, he faced a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Military prosecutors alleged that Hamdan delivered arms, ammunition and other supplies to al-Qaeda fighters, picked up weapons at Taliban warehouses and drove or accompanied bin Laden to appearances at al-Qaeda training camps and other events. During these appearances, bin Laden would give speeches encouraging followers to carry out suicide attacks and engage in holy war against Americans, the prosecution alleged.
Specifically, prosecutors charged, Hamdan served as a driver in a convoy in which bin Laden fled potential U.S. reprisal attacks in Afghanistan at the time of the al-Qaeda bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 and the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. In addition, he allegedly received weapons training at al-Qaeda's Farouq training camp in southern Afghanistan on various occasions between 1996 and 2001.
In April 2004, Hamdan, represented by Georgetown University law professor Neal K. Katyal, , filed a petition for habeas corpus, challenging the legality of his detention. While the petition was pending before the U.S. District Court in Washington, the government formally filed the conspiracy charges against him and set in motion his trial before a military commission.
In August 2004, Hamdan appeared in a makeshift courtroom at Guantanamo as the U.S. military formally opened its first trial of an alleged al-Qaeda collaborator. His appearance, after nearly three years in detention, marked the first time that the United States had used military commissions to try war crimes suspects since World War II.
Hamdan's military attorney promptly attacked the military commission process, calling it unfair, and challenged the qualifications of the presiding officer and several other members.
In November 2004, the U.S. District Court granted Hamdan's habeas petition in part, ordering a halt to the military commission. The court ruled that Hamdan could not be tried by a military commission unless a competent tribunal determined that he was actually an "unlawful combatant" and not a prisoner of war under the 1949 Geneva Convention.
Hamdan maintained that instead of facing a military commission under a presidential order, he should be tried by a court martial under the U.S. Code of Military Justice in accordance with the 1949 convention. That would afford him the same rights accorded to U.S. military personnel tried by courts martial, rather than the restrictions he would encounter in a military commission. Human rights groups have charged that the commissions' rules do not meet international standards for fair trials.
The Bush administration appealed the District Court's ruling, and the Defense Department meanwhile gave Hamdan and other Guantanamo detainees hearings before a Combatant Status Review Tribunal. In Hamdan's case, the tribunal affirmed that he was an enemy combatant requiring continued detention. It said he was "either a member of or affiliated with al-Qaeda."
In July 2005, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned the District Court's decision, breathing new life into the military commissions. The appeals court said the Geneva Convention does not apply to al-Qaeda members and that the military commissions were authorized by Congress.
The Supreme Court agreed in November last year to hear Hamdan's appeal of the ruling. Chief Justice Roberts, one of the judges who voted against Hamdan's appeal when he served on the appeals court, recused himself from the case.
Congress entered the fray in December, passing the Detainee Treatment Act, which stripped federal courts of jurisdiction over Guantanamo detainees' habeas corpus petitions that were "pending on or after" the date of the law's enactment. The act also provided an alternative military process for reviewing the enemy combatant status of detainees and designated the D.C. Circuit appeals court as the sole venue for appeals of military commission verdicts.
Arguing that the act implicitly accepts the legitimacy of the military commissions and that it disallows Hamdan's habeas petition, the administration asked the Supreme Court in January to dismiss the case. Administration lawyers said the proper time for Hamdan to file a constitutional challenge was after his trial before a military commission.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
June 26, 2006
June 24, 2006
My Cat is F'n Cute Multiplied by a Thousand
So I'm just sitting here on the computer futsing around on myspace and trying to muster the energy to make final revisions to my admission essays that are due this week at The New School - essays that I will be happy not to look at again for a nice looooong while, as I have been working on them for about half a year now. (This is how I know that I will have to go to school full time and refrain from holding on to my regular job - there is no way I can do both and still get what I want out of it.) After my application is submitted, I get to take a vacation to Oregon to see my family. That is my reward for finally getting this thing done. I get to sit back and cross my fingers that they will accept me and that I will be enrolling in college for my first time this fall. I feel really good about it already.
Anyway, so I got sidetracked from what I was GOING to say - about something far more important than my little college application: my cat Matilda. The cutest cat that has ever lived. She is a Russian Blue mix. She's jet black but has the physical attributes of a Russian Blue. She is tiny even though she is four years old and she is the friendliest cat EVER. I know that cat lovers everywhere would argue that their cats are the cutest and friendliest ever, but I'm just here to say that they would be wrong. My cat is the cutest and friendliest ever.
For example, as I sit here typing, she springs onto my lap and her tiny silken paws press into my lap firmly as she puts her nose right into the crook of my arm for a nuzzel. She presses all the weight of her little body into my torso and suggests that I squeeze her. She loves when I squeeze her. Matilda is a cat that likes hugs and kisses. Not just being petted, though she loves that too, but she is a total snuggler. She likes to cuddle on the couch and curl up into a little ball that fits right in with the curve of a warm human body. This morning, as I lay in bed, she kissed my boob. She came up and put her wet little nose right to my breast and gave it a tiny kiss. Rob thought it was hilarious. I just thought it was the sweetest little gesture of love from one animal to another - from Feline to Woman.
I really think one of the best thing about being human is having friends who are of different species and living with them in happy harmony. Matilda is a great friend. She's always there for me with her little kisses and adorable poses, her furry body coursing with loyalty and dependence, her heart beating just like mine, lungs breathing just like mine, needing food and water and love and affection just like anybody else. Of course, she was born into a life of unconditional privilege, but that is her consolation for having been born a lesser sentient being, so I'm not mad at her. I'm willing to allow her to do nothing all day long but sit around preening herself, eating, sleeping and causing mischief when the mood strikes her - because in return she loves me in a way that no human ever could - without any judgment or care as to who I am as a person, as long as I'm not a cat abuser. I even forgive her when she pees on Rob's demo bags because she thinks they have the texture of a sandbox or when she tears up the wall trying to get up to the window sill. After all, who could stay mad at this?
June 22, 2006
No to Nukes
Please go and sign this petition at thepetitionsite.com!
President Bush has proposed sweeping exemptions from US nuclear trade law, practice, and non-proliferation laws in order to provide nuclear technology and fuel to India, even though India has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has conducted nuclear test explosions.This could a set a dangerous precedent and severely damage the NPT. With the importation of nuclear fuel, India could use its uranium reserves to increase its nuclear weapons output.
The US should not expand nuclear trade with any state if it comes at the expense of efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons.
Congress can still make changes to the deal, however. Congress should establish a set of tough, but reasonable conditions that a non-NPT country must meet to become eligible for civilian nuclear trade with the United States. These include halting the production of highly enriched uranium and stopping the separation of plutonium for nuclear weapons, making a binding commitment not to conduct nuclear tests, accepting IAEA full-scope safeguards on all nuclear facilities and materials, and maintaining a strong export control system.
Tell Congress and key decision makers to say "No" to breaking the nonproliferation rules upon which our security depends.
If we expect certain countries to curb/cease/abstain from the production and proliferation of weapons - nuclear, biological and otherwise - we have to honor the same standards that we expect and in fact, demand, from other nations. (this is actually called "the Golden Rule" - it was posted on the wall in my 1st grade classroom).
It is counter-productive to the objective of peace and the survival of the human race to proclaim that the United States has the right to bear arms and produce and trade weapons of mass destruction while simultaneously asserting that other countries have no right to do the same, unless of course, we decide that they're trustworthy (the standards by which this is determined remains a mystery to everyone except for the idiots who are perpetrating these shenanigans against treaties).
It is a simple concept that even a child can understand, that you can not tell other people to do one thing, while you do the opposite thing, without them wanting to kill you. Our U.S. government needs to rise to this most basic logic and honor Non-Proliferation treaties in the exact same manner that we expect of others.
June 08, 2006
Therapy Session
Every morning on the train I scribble down my little thoughts into my little notebook. Thoughts about life. About myself or my family or something I saw on Oprah or something that happened that I thought was amusing. I've become so enamored with my ballpoint pen and my little book. When you're writing for yourself you can write about anything. Doesn't have to be interesting. Like...
I just went to take a sip of beer and a big droplet fell right through my lip onto my white sweatshorts. Hmmm. Gonna have to clean that off.
I wonder if I'll want to do the dishes more five minutes from now than I do at this time. Because at this time, I don't feel like doing them at all.
I walked with Jen through the Diamond District tonight. The weather cleared up just in time for us to leave work and take the walk to 6th Avenue. We stopped in almost every window on 47th between 5th and 6th to look at the sparkling diamonds and talk about the ones we liked and didn't like. Amidst the chaos of a spring night after-work in midtown Manhattan, we were hypnotized by all the sparkling jewels. Nothing else existed. We were cool.
Jen makes me laugh all the time. I love hanging out with her because she gets me and I get her. Sometimes when we talk we just have tears in our eyes from the start because we already know something funny is coming. Jen is an actor. But not the annoying kind who makes a big deal out of herself all the time. She's laid back. We've really bonded over the past couple of years. Which is about how long it takes to really feel like a person is a solid friend who you will never want to lose touch with.
When I got home I plopped down in my new chair to take my boots off. Rob came over and straddled me and threw all of the weight of his body onto me in a big, welcoming hug. It felt sooo good. I just laid there and breathed him and felt how great it is to fit with someone and to experience a moment of such utter peace.
It didn't last long of course, as it never does with me. I always have one foot on the warpath. I never really come all the way off of it. Some might see that as unfortunate. I see it as being true to self - and also slightly unfortunate. So I got mad at him about something right before he had to go run an errand I gave him the cold shoulder. Now I feel bad. I was mad about nothing. Just being a total nag. In fact, I think that Rob is the first person to ever coin the phrase "nagigation system" which is what he referred to me as one day when I was telling him how to drive. Don't forget that you heard it here first. And speaking of personal conflict...
I may have lost a friend - because of a culmination of events and feelings that have apparently been gaining velocity for months, maybe even years, which exploded yesterday into a confetti of hurtful words and irreconcilable differences. The reason I know these differences are likely irreconcilable is because it was a very small thing that set the ball into motion and it rolled down a very steep, slippery hill into a swamp of mutual disdain. In one way I think this friend of mine is very unhappy with her life and she's being a hater. I was really hurt by her reproach, but then again, maybe mine really sucked too. Maybe I am a bitch on wheels and there's no other explanation. But then I remember that she is an even bigger bitch on wheels, so it's really not a good idea to argue. We were friends as a result of circumstances that forced us together in one way. I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about. I don't say forced because it was painful in the beginning, but only because we never would have bothered with a friendship had it not been that my boyfriend has known her and her husband for many, many years. We are totally incompatible as friends. The ways are too many to count. But I love her daughter and I love her family and I really, truly, love her. Is that crazy? I love her even though sometimes I don't like the things she do? That's family, right? I love her even though sometimes she act a fool? Yeah.
Maybe I deserved to be told the things that she told me. Maybe I have been judging her all this time and thinking that somehow I'm better than her. That if I were her, I would do things differently. Our interests have always been worlds apart. One of the few things we could share was a love of rap music, and even in that department, we had really different thoughts and feelings about it. Maybe I do think I'm smarter. Maybe I do think her interests and behavior are childish and not becoming to anyone. I felt like a victim yesterday when it all went down. Now I feel like my responsibility for what happened is equal to hers, only I express myself more articulately and I wasn't nearly as angry at her as it turned out she was at me. I tried to reason with her but she told me in so many words to fuck off.
It all started because I told her I don't want to get her annoying chain emails. I did it in a non-decorous manner - by posting a bulletin on myspace saying: People, please don't post bullshit on my page and p.s. grow the fuck up. I didn't name her, but she knew that she and another friend of mine (still) were the culprits and she immediately deleted me from her list of "myspace" friends. Does it sound high school enough? We are grown women. Which was a part of my point. I use myspace as a place to keep in touch with all of my real friends. People that I actually know in real life. People like her. But she uses is at as a forum to post juvenile bulletins and leave "chain comments" which usually involve a lot of ____o__O__ those and ^^^^^ those and fancy banners which drive me crazy. I just wanted it to stop. I should have found a better way to say it, but I also feel like no matter how I said it she would have taken it the wrong way, since she reacted with a great deal of hostility to my "request." The emails that ensued consisted of her telling me that I'm a jerk, and me expressing surprise and disgust at her irrational inability to hear my honest feelings about the subject when I thought we were like family. There's nothing like having someone who you thought liked you make it clear that for a long time they've been thinking about how much they actually don't like you, and saying the wrong thing can be like sticking a pin inside a balloon and watching all of the air come hissing out. I've always thought of her as a sister-in-law who I had to love, even though I didn't always like her either (though there were plenty of times when I genuinely did). She certainly seemed to feel clearly about the latter. She told me that I "always have an attitude" and that I am "difficult to please in groups." I wanted to respond, to defend myself, but at that point I gave up. I realized that trying to understand what specifically she was referring to and trying to explain that I've never met anyone who had a worse attitude than her or more difficulty adjusting to different settings and people than her, would probably just end in her being even angrier and me not feeling a lot better. So I let it go. I didn't respond and even though I want to, I am holding back because I know it's all ego. When it all burns out I just feel sorry that I hurt her feelings and sorry that she's having a hard time right now and I just made it worse, and also pissed off that she's being so retarded about the whole thing and she can't just cop to that. I'm hurt that she says she doesn't want to be my friend anymore. Maybe I am fucking stuck up even if I never think of myself that way. And maybe I never should have posted that harsh bulletin.
I didn't think it was an unforgivable sin for me to throw a tantrum about the spam-like shit that she posts on an incessant basis. I guess we're even. Maybe one day we'll get over it when enough time has passed that we are able to forget why we are angry or all the things that we dislike about eachother. But right now it's looking like the last nail was just hammered into the coffin of the friendship that we always tried so hard to pretend we had. Thank god Rob took my side in the whole fiasco. Much of the time he'll tell me I'm getting too worked up, but in this case he agreed with me, which was very welcome support.
When I came home last night I had a letter from Kathleen. It's always exciting to get something in the mail from her, almost more so because she lives so close by and she never HAS to write if she doesn't want to. But she did. She wrote me a beautiful letter about how much she loves me and how glad she is that we've been friends for all these years and still have all the same wonderful things in common and much, much more. She enclosed an article that was written about her father, Howard, in the Ashland tribune 10 years ago, just shortly after she and I had met. Now that he's gone that article meant so much to read. It told what an amazing person he was.
It was then that I let out a huge sigh of relief - that I do have real friends who love me despite all of the flaws that they've seen revealed a hundred times, despite the arguments that we've had and the times when we've thought the other is out of line, we still have a bond that is unbreakable. I felt so much relief that Kathleen is my best friend and that we are here for eachother, in New York, thousands of miles from where we first met, and that she will never, ever post a comment to me that isn't FOR me or that I'm supposed to forward to 20 people or else. True friends are where it's at. Unconditional. That's family.