Latest Guantanamo ruling reaffirms American values

Court sends powerful message, upholds rights for detainees.

By USA Today

In baseball, the rule is three strikes and you're out. On Thursday, the Supreme Court called that third strike against the Bush administration and Congress over the system they devised for holding enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Twice before, the court has rejected the administration's attempts to bar foreigners at Guantanamo from challenging their detentions in regular civilian courts. Thursday's 5-4 decision made it plain that right cannot be suspended, even for those suspected of terrorism. Now it's time for the White House and Congress to accept that call and move on, rather than continue trying to craft new ways to get around the umpire — and the Constitution.

The ruling opens the door to federal courts for about 270 prisoners whose indefinite, years-long detentions have given the nation a black eye throughout much of the world. The gut reaction of many Americans may be that the prisoners are getting better treatment than they deserve. In some cases, perhaps they are. But the ruling also sends a powerful message about U.S. justice.

For all the hoopla over the court's rebuke of administration policies, the ruling simply upheld America's long tradition, known as the right to habeas corpus, that anyone in confinement can go before an impartial judge to challenge that confinement.

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Supreme Court Ruling Could Free Scores From Guantanamo

Editor's Note: The fact that the war on terror is a fraud makes this the right decision but it should have been 9-0! The government has been accused of eavesdropping on defense attorney & client telephone calls. Evidence of government involved torture has been destroyed(despite warnings not to do so)! And last but not least, lawyers haven't even been given access to the evidence that they're defending their client against! Is this China?

The Supreme Court's landmark Guantanamo Bay decision Thursday could free foreign prisoners while it inflames Capitol Hill.

Some consequences are immediate, for a case that's big legally, politically and militarily. Within hours of the court's decision in the combined cases known as Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States, attorneys were preparing to demand hearings for detainees long held without charges.

These habeas corpus hearings before federal judges will force the Bush administration to reveal its evidence and expose publicly how the detainees have been treated. Some attorneys think that the administration simply will start releasing detainees to avoid the potentially embarrassing hearings altogether.

"Frankly, I don't think the government is going to want to continue to hold these detainees," predicted Matthew MacLean, co-counsel for a detainee named Fawzi Khalid Abdullah Fahad al Odah.

Eugene Fidell, the president of the National Institute of Military Justice, agreed that the court ruling would provide "additional incentive for the administration to repatriate as many people as possible."

MacLean, a former Army prosecutor, noted that 100 to 200 detainees have had habeas corpus petitions on hold waiting for the Supreme Court to rule. Now that it has, Odah and others can pursue their cases before an assortment of judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

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Mullen: ‘Stop-loss’ to continue

FORT STEWART, Ga. — The U.S. military’s top uniformed officer told an audience of Army troops Wednesday the unpopular “stop-loss” policy won’t end anytime soon, and he predicted a small rise in the number of troops forced to serve past their re-enlistment or retirement dates.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an audience of 600 soldiers at Fort Stewart he understands the strain the stop loss practice and multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan have placed on service members.

“I would like to see an end to the stop-loss policy, but I don’t see it happening in the near future,” Mullen said during a question-and-answer session with the troops. “I see a slight growth in the next couple of years based on predictions right now.”

Mullen said about 11,000 Army soldiers are now serving under the stop-loss policy, which critics have referred to as a “backdoor draft.” Retaining troops beyond the date they’re due to leave the military has been necessary to keep units stocked with trained soldiers ready to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.

The stop loss question came up as Mullen spoke to noncommissioned and junior officers from the 3rd Infantry Division who returned from a 15-month deployment to Iraq in the last few months.

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Report: U.N. official diverted funds

NEW YORK | An internal U.N. investigation has sharply criticized the head of the organization's "good governance" division, finding he has diverted funds donated by the Greek government to improperly pay contractors and mismanaged a $2.8 million trust fund meant to foster transparency and accountability.

The report by the Procurement Task Force of the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) suggests that Guido Bertucci, director of the U.N. Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM), personally reimburse the trust fund for misused funds and be reprimanded for favoritism and other violations in hiring consultants.

The Washington Times obtained a copy of the report, which was completed in April.

Mr. Bertucci, 60, is scheduled to retire from the United Nations in six weeks. U.N. officials familiar with the case say he is unlikely to receive any punishment stronger than a note in his personnel file.

"The Task Force recommends that appropriate disciplinary action be considered against Mr. Bertucci, [and two others] for the violations identified herein, including ... gross negligence in managing the Trust Fund Agreement, and failing to meaningfully cooperate with the investigation," said the authors of the 91-page report.

The investigation was ordered in December 2006 by then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in response to investigations by The Washington Times and other news outlets.

The investigation was delayed for months, the authors write, because Mr. Bertucci refused to share his personal financial information with investigators.

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New Report Finds Treatment of Detainees Unnecessarily Harsh

More than two-thirds of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, including many cleared for release or transfer, are being housed in inhumane conditions that are reportedly having a damaging effect on their mental health, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released yesterday.

The 54-page report, “Locked Up Alone: Detention Conditions and Mental Health at Guantanamo,” documents the conditions in the various “camps” at the detention center, in which approximately 185 of the 270 detainees are housed in facilities akin to “supermax” prisons even though they have not yet been convicted of a crime. These detainees have extremely limited contact with other human beings, spend 22 hours a day alone in small cells with little or no natural light or fresh air, are not provided any educational opportunities, and are given little more than a single book and the Koran to occupy their time. Even their two hours of “recreation” time – which is sometimes provided in the middle of the night – generally takes place in single-cell cages so that detainees cannot physically interact with one another.

“Guantanamo detainees who have not even been charged with a crime are being warehoused in conditions that are in many ways harsher than those reserved for the most dangerous, convicted criminals in the United States,” said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch. “Security measures don’t justify locking people in windowless cells 22 hours a day, for months and years on end, with almost no opportunity for human interaction, physical exercise or mental stimulation.”

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Ethiopia Accused of War Crimes

Ethiopia's government has committed extensive war crimes and crimes against humanity during a brutal counterinsurgency campaign in the remote Ogaden region, a report says today.

Human Rights Watch accuses the Ethiopian military of extrajudicial killings, rape, torture, forcibly displacing thousands of civilians and using food as a weapon of war in its attempts over the past year to defeat the Ogaden National Liberation Front, which claims to seek self-determination for the eastern region.

Satellite images published in the 130-page report show how villages have been burnt down to deny the rebels a support base - a tactic more often associated with the Darfur region of neighbouring Sudan.

The watchdog accuses the US, UK and other EU countries, who give Ethiopia £1bn a year in aid, of ignoring the abuses, thereby increasing the risk of further "devastation, famine and impoverishment in a region that already knows these trends too well".

"We don't like to rank abuses in different parts of the world, but what is happening in the Ogaden is up there with the worst," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "We are talking about village elders being strangled, and women raped until the point of unconsciousness. And it is being done with complete impunity, and with a blind eye from the international community."

A small-scale rebellion in the Ogaden region, populated mainly by ethnic Somalis, had been simmering for decades before the ONLF attacked an oil installation in April last year. More than 70 Chinese and Ethiopian workers were killed.

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Exposing Bush Administration Corruption

Information for this article comes from long-time business, finance and political writer and analyst Bob Chapman, who publishes the bi-weekly International Forecaster. It's power-packed with key information and a valued source for this writer, who obtained voluminous material directly from this publication. People need to know it. Read on.

SueAnn Arrigo is the source. She was a high-level CIA insider. Her title was Special Operations Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). She also established the Remote Viewing Defense protocols for the Pentagon in her capacity as Remote Viewing Advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). Her work earned her a two-star general rank in the military. She called her new ranking a "ploy" so the Pentagon could get more of her time and have her attend monthly Joint Chiefs of Staff meetings. Only high-level types are invited, and she was there from October 2003 to July 2004.

Part of her job involved intelligence gathering on Iraq and Afghanistan—until August 2004, when she refused to spread propaganda about a non-existent Iranian nuclear weapons program and left. She followed in the footsteps of others at the CIA who resigned for reasons of conscience and became critics—most notably Ray McGovern, Ralph McGehee, and Phil Agee.

On May 16, 2008, Arrigo sent extensive government corruption and cover-up information to Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee—in 12 separate cases. This article covers four of them, or about one-third of what Congress got. The 12 are explosive and revealing, but just the tip of the iceberg. They contain evidence of:

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Bill and Hillary Clinton Draw Up List of 'Enemies'

Bill and Hillary Clinton have drawn up lists of "enemies" who betrayed them during the Democratic primary campaign by supporting Senator Barack Obama.

There is also a list of friends who have stayed loyal throughout the long and bitter race, which ended in defeat last week, and would be eligible for preferential treatment at a later date.

The tally of traitors is dominated by former Clintonites whom the couple, especially Mr Clinton, believe owed their careers to the former president and first lady.

Top of the list is thought to be Bill Richardson, now Governor of New Mexico and former energy secretary and United Nations ambassador, who gave Mr Obama a glowing endorsement after dropping out of the race himself, and only weeks after being pictured watching the Super Bowl with Mr Clinton.

"I know they're unhappy, but I've been on these lists before," Mr Richardson told the New York Times.

Other A-List betrayers include James Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, Gregory Craig, Mr Clinton's lawyer in his impeachment trial, Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri and various members of the Kennedy political clan.

Terry McAuliffe, who was chairman of Mrs Clinton's campaign, said: ""The Clintons get hundreds of requests for favours every week. Clearly, the people you're going to do stuff for in the future are the people who have been there for you."

The list is being kept by Doug Band, a Clinton from the White House era, according to the New York Times.

Source: Telegraph

Interior Department 'Shake Down' of Native Americans Over Oil Royalties?

A lawsuit over billions of dollars in royalties collected from oil and gas companies that leased Native American land has meandered through the court system for so long that a federal judge recently compared the case to Charles Dickens's "Bleak House," a tome about a long-running and convoluted legal dispute.

"The 'suit has, in course of time, become so complicated' that 'no two lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises,' " U.S. District Judge James Robertson wrote in a long January opinion, using Dickens's words to describe the 12-year odyssey of Cobell v. Kempthorne.

On Monday, Robertson began overseeing what is expected to be a two-week-long bench trial in a contentious saga that has seen numerous legal twists and political turns worthy of Dickens.

Robertson is hoping to answer the last key question in the legal battle: How much money, if any, is owed to hundreds of thousands of Native Americans who sued over alleged improper management of the gas and oil royalties by the Interior Department over the last 121 years? The plaintiffs are seeking at least $58 billion, according to court records.

Government lawyers argue in court filings that the Interior Department should not have to pay anything because evidence shows that Native Americans have received all of the money they were owed. At most, only several hundred million dollars remains in dispute, they have argued.

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BBC Uncovers Lost Iraq Billions!!!

A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq.

For the first time, the extent to which some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding has been researched by the BBC's Panorama using US and Iraqi government sources.

A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations.

The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.

War profiteering

While George Bush remains in the White House, it is unlikely the gagging orders will be lifted.

To date, no major US contractor faces trial for fraud or mismanagement in Iraq.

The president's Democratic opponents are keeping up the pressure over war profiteering in Iraq.

Henry Waxman who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said: "The money that's gone into waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just so outrageous, its egregious.

"It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history."

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Sneak Peak - TRUTH RISING: The 9/11 Chronicles Part One

An Alex Jones Film. Coming to the Infowar July 4th, 2008 & online first at Prison Planet.tv. This film follows the growing momentum of 9/11 truth, as people throughout the world take action against their globalist masters. Shot unlike anything you have ever experienced from Alex Jones, cinema verite' style, this masterpiece not only exposes the mistreatment of our 9/11 heroes, but also shows how a growing number of people around the world are questioning the official version of events that day. Featuring interviews with Willie Nelson, Rosie O'Donnell, Jesse Ventura, George Carlin, Martin Sheen, as well as confrontations with many political figures including Bill Clinton, David Rockefeller and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Iraq SOFA Deal Allows Future Wars

The proposed Iraq-US security treaty includes classified articles that would give US the right to attack other nations from Iraqi soil.

As reported by Press TV correspondent from Baghdad, the controversial classified articles in question include the following measures:

1. US forces would be free to attack via Iraqi airspace, land or waterways any country which threatens global and regional peace and security, menaces Iraqi government and constitution, or instigates terrorist and paramilitary groups.

2. US forces would have the right to set up additional military bases and stations inside Iraq that will support the Iraqi army. The number of the bases would depend on several factors, including the security conditions the US government deems desirable, negotiations with the US Embassy in Baghdad and the US command as well as discussions with the Iraqi Defense Ministry and relevant authorities.

3. The Iraqi government and its judiciary would not have the right to prosecute American forces or individuals. The immunity measure would extend to the US military, security, non-military and logistics firms affiliated with the US Army.

4. The Iraqi government would not have the right to independently determine whether US forces inside Iraq are qualified, nor would it have the right to limit or determine the size of American military bases and their routes.

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Whistleblower says U.S. Government Artificially Increasing Oil Prices

(Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII)
Lindsey Williams, who has been an ordained Baptist minister for 28 years, went to Alaska in 1971 as a missionary. The Trans-alaska oil pipeline began its construction phase in 1974, and because of Mr. Williams' love for his country and concern for the spiritual welfare of the pipeline workers, he volunteered to serve as Chaplain on the pipeline. Because of the executive status accorded to him as Chaplain, he was given access to information documented in his eye opening book, The Energy Non-Crisis.

An ominous warning that the rapid rise in oil prices has only just begun

The chief executive of the world's largest energy company has issued the most dire warning yet about the soaring the price of oil, predicting that it will hit $250 per barrel "in the foreseeable future".

The forecast from Alexey Miller, the head of the Kremlin-owned gas giant Gazprom, would herald the arrival of £2-per-litre petrol and send shockwaves through the economy. His comments were the most stark to be expressed by an industry executive and come just days after the oil price registered its largest-ever single-day spike, hitting $139.12 per barrel last week amid fears that the world's faltering supply will be unable to keep up with demand.

Mr Miller's prediction is well beyond even the most heady market forecasts, the most extreme of which fall between $150 and $200 per barrel, and was explained only by vague references to demand from the developing world. It nonetheless stoked an already febrile atmosphere of growing public anger across Europe over a soaring fuel cost that is wreaking havoc at nearly every level of the economy.

The British Government was urging motorists yesterday not to panic-buy petrol in anticipation of a strike on Friday by lorry drivers who deliver petrol to forecourts for Royal Dutch Shell, assuring motorists that contingency plans would ensure sufficient supplies.

In Spain, the regional government of Catalonia enacted an emergency action plan to bring in fresh food and fuel supplies after nearly half of its forecourts ran dry and supermarkets shelves were left bare.

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Pakistan blames U.S. coalition for troops' death

Pakistan's army on Wednesday accused the U.S.-led coalition of killing 11 Pakistani paramilitary troops in an airstrike along the volatile Afghan border.

A Pakistani army statement said the clash in the Mohmand tribal region "had hit at the very basis of cooperation" between the two countries in the war on terror.

The strike late Tuesday followed a reported clash between Afghan forces and Taliban militants in the same area. The Taliban said eight of its fighters died in the skirmish.

The army launched a strong protest and reserved "the right to protect our citizens and soldiers against aggression," the statement said.

The U.S. military declined to comment.

The lawless and remote mountain region is difficult for reporters to access and there were conflicting reports over the sequence of events and how many died in the fighting. The region is believed to be used by pro-Taliban militants as a launch pad for attacks into Afghanistan.

That infiltration is a constant source of tension in the counterrorism alliance. Pakistan has deployed tens of thousands of troops to police its tribal regions, but Western and Afghan officials say that has not deterred militants. Afghanistan often accuses Pakistan of abetting the Taliban, whose hardline regime it supported until its ouster in 2001.

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Iraqis Condemn American Demands

High-level negotiations over the future role of the U.S. military in Iraq have turned into an increasingly acrimonious public debate, with Iraqi politicians denouncing what they say are U.S. demands to maintain nearly 60 bases in their country indefinitely.

Top Iraqi officials are calling for a radical reduction of the U.S. military's role here after the U.N. mandate authorizing its presence expires at the end of this year. Encouraged by recent Iraqi military successes, government officials have said that the United States should agree to confine American troops to military bases unless the Iraqis ask for their assistance, with some saying Iraq might be better off without them.

"The Americans are making demands that would lead to the colonization of Iraq," said Sami al-Askari, a senior Shiite politician on parliament's foreign relations committee who is close to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. "If we can't reach a fair agreement, many people think we should say, 'Goodbye, U.S. troops. We don't need you here anymore.' "

Congress has grown increasingly restive over the negotiations, which would produce a status of forces agreement setting out the legal rights and responsibilities of U.S. troops in Iraq and a broader "security framework" defining the political and military relationship between the two countries. Senior lawmakers of both parties have demanded more information and questioned the Bush administration's insistence that no legislative approval is required.

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Kucinich Forces Vote On Bush's Impeachment

By Ben Pershing / Washington Post

Having failed in efforts to impeach Vice President Cheney, Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) escalated his battle against the administration this week by introducing 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush, using a parliamentary maneuver that will probably force a vote today.

Kucinich's impeachment measure accuses Bush of taking the country to war in Iraq under false pretenses; he introduced it as a "privileged resolution," which requires the House to take it up within two legislative days. Any lawmaker may offer a privileged resolution, but it is usually done only by party leaders.

Kucinich, upon introducing his articles of impeachment Monday evening, insisted on reading the resolution into the Congressional Record, a process that took nearly five hours. He finished reading it late yesterday after the close of legislative business.

As they have previously, Democratic leaders staunchly oppose Kucinich's impeachment effort. They expect to table the resolution by referring it to the Judiciary Committee, where they expect it to die.

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) suggested yesterday that engaging in a lengthy debate over impeaching Bush in the waning days of his administration is not a productive use of the House's time.

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Secret Bilderberg Agenda To Microchip Americans Leaked!!!

Sources from inside the 2008 Bilderberg meeting have leaked the details of what elitists were discussing in Chantilly Virginia last week and the talking points were ominous - a plan to microchip Americans under the pretext of fighting terrorist groups which will be identified as blonde haired, blue eyed westerners.

Veteran Bilderberg sleuth Jim Tucker relies on sources who regularly attend Bilderberg as aides and assistants but who are not Bilderberg members themselves. The information they provided this year is bone-chilling for those who have tracked the development of the plan to make the general public consider implanted microchips as a convenience as routine as credit cards.

"Under the heading of resisting terrorism there were points made about how the terrorist organizations are recruiting people who do not look like terrorists - blonde, blue eyed boys - they're searching hard for those types to become the new mad bombers," said Tucker.

As we have documented, the blue eyed blonde haired Al-Qaeda line is a familiar talking point that has been pushed on Fox News and within other Neo-Con circles in an attempt to turn the anti-terror apparatus around to target dissidents, protesters and the American people in general.

Ominously, Tucker's source also told him that Bilderberg were discussing the microchipping of humans on a mass scale, which would be introduced under the pretext of fighting terrorism whereby the "good guys" would be allowed to travel freely from airports so long as their microchip could be scanned and the information stored in a database.

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VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: David Ray Griffin On New 9/11 Evidence

Professor David Ray Griffin, who is one of the leading voices in the 9/11 Truth Movement, spoke to a capacity crowd in Los Angeles on Wednesday, June 4, 2008. Below is Griffin's talk - covering mostly new evidence about 9/11 - divided into three parts...

Part 1 (9:32)

"If we do get a real investigation or a trial there is simply no doubt of what the verdict will be because now the evidence that 9/11 is an inside job is now overwhelming." - David Ray Griffin

In Part 1 Professor Griffin begins with inconsistencies between the statements made by Ted Olsen (Solicitor General of the United States) about his wife Barbara Olsen's cell phone calls from Flight 77 and that of the FBI. Additionally, Griffin talks about the impossibility of using cell phones at high altitudes.

The last half of Part 1 is spent discussing the odd and unlikely behavior of Mohammed Atta and the inconsistencies in the government's story about Atta.

I'm fearful that many people will say, 'okay, the criminals are out of office now and so let's not work on [9/11]'. But the more hopeful possibility is people will say, 'now there may be a real chance for an investigation.'" - David Ray Griffin

In Part 3 Griffin speaks positively about how far the 9/11 movement has come and urges people not to give up pushing for the truth.

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Israelis Say 90% of Israel Tainted With Corruption!!

Ninety percent of the Israeli public thinks that the country is tainted with corruption and over half say that corruptibility is a necessary prerequisite to success in the political sphere, according to the Israeli Democracy Institute's (IDI) annual Democracy Index, which was submitted Tuesday to President Shimon Peres.

The findings reflect a "growing mistrust of government institutions and strong anti-political feelings, together with a demand for the state to improve its functioning and resume its position as the main player in the political-social-economic arena," the report said.

Only nine percent of those polled said that Israel has very little corruption, and only one in a hundred said that the country was entirely corruption-free.

In general, the Israeli public is displaying a growing indifference to politics, the survey found, with only 60 percent showing interest in politics and only 43 percent admitting to discussing politics with their friends and family - down from 73 percent in 2006.

The survey found that for the first time in many years, the public did not rate the Supreme Court as the top institution safeguarding democracy in Israel. Only 49 percent of those polled expressed their trust in the Supreme Court, as opposed to 61 percent in 2007.

The study also gauged the public's assessment of various institutions, placing the IDF at the head of the list of institutions which the public trusts the most at 71 percent. Confidence in the president rose from 22 percent in 2007 to 47 percent. Approval of the police fell significantly, from 41 percent in 2007 to 33 percent.

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