Welcome to America

By GottaLaff

Crime: Being Not White and Muslim. Punishment: Unlawful imprisonment, abuse, humiliation. Era: Bush Crime Family:

The U.S. government will pay $1.26 million to five Muslim men detained for months without charges after the September 11 attacks who sued for unlawful imprisonment and abuse, their lawyers said on Tuesday.

The men claimed they suffered inhumane and degrading treatment in a Brooklyn detention center, including solitary confinement, severe beatings, incessant verbal abuse and a blackout on communications with their families and attorneys. [...]

The report said videotapes showed some detention center staff "misused strip searches and restraints to punish detainees and that officers improperly and illegally recorded detainees' meetings with their attorneys." [...]

The lawsuit said some of the plaintiffs, upon entering the jail, had their faces smashed into a wall where a blood-smeared American flag T-shirt was taped and told "welcome to America," according to the lawsuit.

Their pain and suffering will never go away, and yet the U.S. admits no liability. Shades of Fayiz al-Kandari's Gitmo.

Welcome to BushCoWorld.

VIDEOS- Jane Mayer: "U.S. rights thrown out the window", Bush warned "This may be criminal"

By GottaLaff

This is Part 28349239 in my series, primarily about an innocent prisoner held for the past 7+ years at Gitmo, Fayiz al-Kandari, as told to me by his military attorney, Lt. Col. Barry Wingard.

All previous posts can be found here; That link includes audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

This post introduces you to Jane Mayer, for those who haven't yet seen her or read her book:

August 15, 2008

There has been significant debate about the United States' tactics in the fight against terrorism and how they have undermined America's moral authority. Recently, I spoke with two authors who have new books out on the subject. Jane Mayer is an investigative reporter for The Yew Yorker. Her book is called The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals. Philip Gourevitch, editor of the Paris Review, co-authored the book Standard Operating Procedure.

Here’s another in our series of short video interviews, each running a minute (give or take), with PBC authors. This one’s with Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side, which tells the inside story of how the US government shredded the Constitution after 9/11, adopting “war on terror” policies —indefinite detention, rendition, torture—that violated the most basic and cherished American values.

Our system of justice is broken. Military commissions rely on coerced confessions and hearsay, something Jane Mayer covers in great detail in her book..

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

Supermax prison: Obama’s books "potentially detrimental to national security"

By GottaLaff

Shhh, don't tell anyone what's in Prez O's books. And warning to the millions who have read them-- they are now Super Duper Double Ultra Top Secret:

The federal government's most secure prison has determined that two books written by President Barack Obama contain material "potentially detrimental to national security" and rejected an inmate's request to read them.

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali is serving a 30-year sentence at the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colo., for joining al-Qaida and plotting to assassinate then-President George W. Bush. Last year, Abu Ali requested two books written by Obama: "Dreams from My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope."

Wait... an Al-Qaida member in an American supermax prison? How could that be?

Oh I know. The libruls let him roam around the country loose for awhile, and then he got so tired and slow that they caught him and locked him up before he could find his way into any back yards.

But the Obama books... those are the real threat.

But prison officials, citing guidance from the FBI, determined that passages in both books contain information that could damage national security.

That darned Obama, exposing all those national security secrets sandwiched between loving tributes to his family. He's a sly one, alright.

Or is he a Communist Marxist Fascist terrorist? I hear he once wandered into a back yard, too.

The rejection is just one indication of the harsh conditions imposed on inmates at the supermax prison, according to Abu Ali's lawyer, Joshua Dratel. [...]

Abu Ali requested the books in August, before Obama was elected. [...]

Prison officials cite specific pages — but not specific passages — in the books that they deem objectionable. They include one page in Obama's 1995 book, "Dreams from My Father," and 22 separate pages in his policy-oriented 2006 book, "The Audacity of Hope." It was not immediately obvious what passages might have been deemed problematic, though nearly half of the pages cited are in a chapter devoted to foreign affairs.

They could have just done this to the books. They do it to everything else:

Gitmo prisoner's lawyers accuse Defense Secretary Gates of lying about torture

By GottaLaff

Nobody's talking about this. No, the priorities of the news media are Caroline Kennedy and the Rod Blagojevich scandal. Big hair, bad running suits, repeated use of the F-word, and condemning the Dem du Jour are far weightier than whether or not our Secretary of Defense might have falsified an affidavit about some dark-skinned detainee:

Lawyers for a British resident held at Guantánamo Bay have accused Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, of signing a "flagrantly false" affidavit to avoid having to disclose evidence of torture.

In a sworn affidavit to a district court in Washington, Gates says the US authorities have provided Binyam Mohamed's lawyers and the British government with all the information they possess relating to Mohamed's treatment while held in secret prisons. Gates declared his affidavit to be the truth "under penalty of perjury".

Clive Stafford Smith, Mohamed's lawyer and director of Reprieve, the charity that fights miscarriages of justice and human rights abuses, has told the court that Gates's affidavit is "flagrantly false". He has asked the court whether Gates was aware Mohamed was held incommunicado for three years in Pakistan, Morocco, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. Stafford Smith says there seems to be only one explanation for the affidavit: the defence secretary has been "misadvised".

The claims refer to what US officials knew about Mohamed's treatment and where he was rendered to. They also refer to obligations under international law and US domestic law.

When you stop and think about all the horrendous secrets that shouldn't be kept, all the crimes that shouldn't have been committed, and all the deceitful U.S. officials (former and current) who shouldn't have skated, it's stunning.

We all know these things are happening, but we are reduced to the status of rubberneckers driving by a multi-car pileup.

Gitmo captive asks Obama to close prison camps

By GottaLaff

Habeas Corpses:

A Saudi captive accused of plotting an ill-fated al Qaeda terror attack waved a picture of Barack Obama at the war court Monday and urged the president-elect to make good on his promise to close the prison camps here.

Ahmad al Darbi, 33, delivered the message in a near whisper, displaying little of the showmanship of other defendants.

But the timing was significant: His was the last military commission hearing before the eve of Obama's inauguration. The court closed for the holidays and doesn't have a new hearing scheduled until Jan. 19.

''I hope this location will be closed as he promised,'' said Darbi, waving a copy of an American Civil Liberties Union poster with a pensive Obama and his campaign's closure pledge on it. ``He will earn back the legitimacy the United States has lost as a world leader.''

Darbi, the brother-in-law of one of the Sept. 11 hijackers, is accused of plotting a never-realized attack on an unnamed ship in the Strait of Hormuz. He also allegedly met with Osama bin Laden and trained at an al Qaeda camp. Conviction as an al Qaeda conspirator could bring life imprisonment.

Defense lawyers argue the father of two, whose family is in Yemen, was tortured in U.S. military custody, and that the government case relies on up to 119 self-incriminating statements.

Self-incriminating statements from torture victims are as reliable as press conference statements from President [sic] Bush.