LOL! Do you really think a Democrat DA, who has to be elected in Brooklyn, ISN’T going to find a rationale not to prosecute?
On Mar 1, 6:03 pm, CaliforniaLuis wrote:
– –
– – – – –
– FEBRUARY 12, 2010 -
ARGUMENT PRINT | TEXT SIZE | EMAIL | SINGLE PAGE KSM Doesn’t Deserve to Be a War CriminalTreating terrorists like warriors is exactly what they want.BY TOM MALINOWSKI | FEBRUARY 11, 2010
As the U.S. Congress threatens to block funds for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s (KSM’s) civilian trial, critics of President Barack Obama’s approach to prosecuting terrorism have a common refrain: KSM is a combatant, not a criminal. As Sen. John Barrasso recently put it, “These people are at war against the United States and our values. They deserve a military judge and jury.” COMMENTS (8) SHARE: Digg
[image: Bookmark and Share]More…
But does KSM really “deserve” the honor of a military trial? That is a privilege normally reserved for defendants entitled to call themselves warriors.
It’s no surprise that al Qaeda members would want to be seen as soldiers at war with the United States. Terrorist groups always want to be seen as warriors. Just think of the names they give themselves: the Lord’s Resistance Army, Lashkar-e-Taiba (*”*Army of the Righteous”), or the Irish Republican Army*, *to name a few. The warrior mystique helps them to recruit glory-seeking young men to join their cause. It helps them justify the killing of their enemies and portray all of their victims as casualties of combat. It enables men like Osama bin Laden to portray themselves not as outlaws hiding in caves but leaders of great armies, confronting the world’s superpower on a global battlefield.
When KSM was first brought before a military panel in Guantanamo, he reveled in the trappings of military justice. After confessing to the September 11 attacks, he said: “I did it, but this [is] the language of any war.” In war, he said, “there will be victims.” He then compared himself to George Washington, and said that if Washington had been captured by the British, he too would have been called an “enemy combatant.”
It makes sense that a man who plotted the murder of innocent people from a refuge thousands of miles away would want to be seen as a soldier in a war. But why would politicians who claim to be tough on terrorism want to give him that status, as many Republicans do today? Why on earth do they think that facing justice in a civilian court, where the United States prosecutes murderers, rapists, drug dealers, pimps, and yes, terrorists (over 300 during George W. Bush’s presidency), would be some sort of privilege?
Even if KSM stands accused of war crimes, it doesn’t necessarily follow that he should be put before a military tribunal. The War Crimes Act, passed by Congress unanimously in 1996, gives federal civilian courts jurisdiction to prosecute grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions in wartime — in other words, war crimes. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is leading the Republican fight against civilian trials, says that the United States has never put combatants captured on foreign battlefields in civilian courts. That is flat wrong. The George H. W. Bush administration did that to Gen. Manuel Noriega, head of the Panamanian armed forces who was captured during the U.S. military invasion of Panama. Noriega demanded the right to be tried by fellow officers in a military court. The Bush administration conceded that he was a prisoner of war, but tried him before a civilian court anyway to drive home the point that he was nothing more than a drug trafficker.
Congo: A Death Toll Rivaling The Holocaust Posted by Laura Heaton on Feb 11, 2010 [image: Listen to this article. Powered by Odiogo.com] [image: Dusk at Mugunga IDP camp, Congo]
With an estimated death toll of six million, the Holocaust is widely viewed as the singularly most devastating period in modern history. The word holocaust, derived from the Greek words meaning “burnt whole,” is now used almost exclusively to describe the state-sponsored massacre of European Jews. In the aftermath, countries came together to create the United Nations and craft international treaties intended to build a more cohesive international community that would be better prepared to respond in the future to horrors like they had just witnessed in Nazi Germany.
Yet despite the increased interconnectedness of the world and the international provisions in place to respond to humanitarian crises, the conflict in eastern Congo rages on even today without an effective international response –- surpassing the Holocaust in number of years and now, even in number of lives lost.
In 2007, the International Rescue Committee, or IRC, released the results of a pivotal study, which found that 5.4 million people had died in eastern Congo since 1998. They also found that the death toll was mounting at a rate of about 45,000 people per month. But those figures are now nearly three years old. In a *New York Times* op-ed this week, Nick Kristof’s calculation caught my attention: “That would leave the total today, after a dozen years, at 6.9 million.” Think about that … 6.9 million. It’s hard to fathom.
Click here to continue reading.
*This post is part of a new series that will appear every Thursday on Change.org’s **Stop Genocide blog* *.*
*Photo: Dusk at Mugunga IDP camp, North Kivu (Enough/Laura Heaton)* [image: Technorati Tags:]*Technorati Tags: *Advocacy Conflict Minerals Eastern Congo International Criminal Court Protection Punishment Sexual Violence United Nations Violence Against Women
– – ADD NEW COMMENT
Notorious Congo War Criminal Making News Posted by Laura Heaton on Feb 11, 2010 [image: Listen to this article. Powered by Odiogo.com]
It seems the pressure may be rising against a Congo warlord known as The Terminator who is a regular at eastern Congo’s most posh establishments.
Wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, Bosco Ntaganda was given a command position in the Congolese army when his rebel group, theCNDP , agreed to fight alongside the Congolese government as integrated units, rather than against it. The integration came about after the Congolese and Rwandan governments struck a quiet deal that landed the charismatic CNDP leader, Laurent Nkunda, under house arrest in Rwanda. (As an upcoming Enough strategy paper will explain, the integration has been anything but smooth.) Perhaps one of the most alarming developments to emerge from this deal-making is that it left the United Nations peacekeeping force essentially in cahoots s with international war criminals.
True, the U.N. mission monitors the rosters of the Congolese army units it supports to ensure that its resources aren’t directly funneled to people accused of committing atrocities, but as a recent piece in the Guardian examines, the association between some of Congo’s most unsavory characters and the U.N. certainly conveys a distressing message in a part of the world where impunity is blamed for facilitating, or even encouraging, violence. Describing Bosco as a “casual sportsman in this oasis of luxury amid the poverty of Goma,” the Guardian piece offers this indictment:
“[Bosco] is the personification of what critics say is a ‘pact with the devil’. While the eyes of the world are distracted by wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere, many believe the thickly forested hills of eastern Congo are witnessing another shameful chapter in UN peacekeeping that ranks alongside the impotent displays in Srebrenica and Rwanda.”
In his most recent op-ed from Bukavu, South Kivu today, Nick Kristof also identifies apprehending Bosco as one of the key steps necessary for changing the calculations of would-be killers and rapists in Congo. (He also gave a shout-out to the Enough-backed conflict minerals legislation currently gaining momentum in Congress, which is appreciated.)
The more we see the names of obscure Congolese wanted war criminals in the mainstream media the better, especially when they seem to flaunt their liberty, giving leaders in the region no excuse for letting them walk free.
*Photo: Bosco Ntaganda* [image: Technorati Tags:]*Technorati Tags: *Advocacy Conflict Minerals Eastern Congo International Criminal Court Punishment
– – ADD NEW COMMENT
BBC
Feed Date: 08.02.2010 Feed Time: 17:09:19 Keywords: AF1, RWANDA, COURT Language: English
http://biggovernment.com/fgaffney/2010/02/03/shariah-finance-criminal-wrongd oing-in-the-aig-takeover-will-the-special-inspector-general-for-the-tarp-fun ds-investigate-the-illegal-trust/
Shariah Finance, Criminal Wrongdoing in the AIG Takeover: Will the Special Inspector General for the TARP Funds Investigate the Illegal Trust? by Frank Gaffney
Yesterday we broke the story of possible criminal wrongdoing in regards to the bailout of AIG by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, then Director of the New York Federal Reserve, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
It appears that, through it’s 77.9% control of AIG’s equity and voting rights, the NYFed “sought to accomplish an illegal financial transaction through false means” by creating an “independent”: trust that was in fact not independent, placing it “in violation of federal anti-money laundering statutes (18 USC § 1956).” Here we elaborate a bit further, laying out the issue in the text of a letter submitted to Neil Barofsky, Special Inspector General for TARP (SIGTARP)– as the government takeover of AIG was accomplished using funds provided to the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
First, however, some context: Crucially, these facts were discovered while securities litigator David Yerushalmi and the Thomas More Law Center was representing Iraq War vet Kevin Murray in Murray vs. Geithner, et al. Mr. Murray is rightfully horrified that the very doctrines of the enemy he faced in combat would be promoted by the US government. Specifically, prior to the U.S. government’s takeover of the insurance giant AIG, the company was the world’s leading promoter of Shariah-compliant finance products and businesses. Bailing out and forcefully (and illegally) taking ownership of AIG put the American taxpayer in the position of advocating Shariah-compliant finance, which is troubling on many levels:
===>
First, the Shariah authorities themselves tell us that Shariah is a holistic and indivisible whole and that you cannot carve out “business law Shariah” from any other of its constituent parts, like the law of jihad. And, you can see this in that part of Shariah called civil law or fiqh al-muamalat. According to Shariah, AIG cannot invest its takaful funds in a business that might rent space to a church, because that would violate the principle of not supporting any religion other than Allah’s. Further, AIG may invest its funds in a military armament factory for Muslim armies but not US or infidel armies. In other words, these laws which seemingly have nothing to do with business concerns or ethics but rather everything to do with theo-political concerns apply as forcefully to Shariah-compliant finance as the laws on interest. And, of course the reason for this we know because the Shariah authorities tell us: Shariah makes no distinction between religion, law, politics and war. It is all subsumed under Allah’s law called Shariah.
Second, the very Shariah authorities who have the legitimacy to be Shariah board members for such an international concern are themselves advocates of violent jihad or they are the students and disciples of such Shariah authorities. For example, AIG employs Mufti Imran Usmani, who is the son, student and disciple of Mufti Taqi Usmani, the very authority who sat on the Dow Jones Islamic Index Shariah advisory board for almost 10 years beginning in 1999 and who wrote a book and had it translated into English also in 1999 which called on western Muslims to rise up and engage in violent jihad against the West. Now, either Dow Jones was recklessly blind to this fact or willfully blind to it. Now, we see that AIG and the US Treasury have succumbed to the same reckless disregard of what are now quite obvious facts.
Dear Mr. Barofsky:
I am an attorney who has worked in the securities litigation arena for more than 25 years and I also serve as General Counsel to the Center for Security Policy, a highly-respected think tank in Washington, D.C., headed up by former Reagan administration official Frank Gaffney, which focuses on matters of national security. I have cc’d Mr. Gaffney on this email.
In this capacity, I am representing Kevin Murray in a First Amendment/Establishment Clause case against the Fed and the Sec. of the Treasury in his official capacity as head of the Treas. Dept. We have alleged that the takeover of AIG by the US Government encourages, promotes and indeed sustains AIG’s advocacy of Shariah-Islamic insurance products worldwide in violation of the First Amendment. The government filed a motion to dismiss which was denied. I have attached that opinion. Currently, we are in the throes of discovery and awaiting the court’s ruling on our motion to compel Secretary Geithner’s deposition, which was necessitated by the fact that the Fed and Treasury Rule 30(b)(6) deponents either testified inaccurately or feigned ignorance (no surprise to you I am sure). I have attached our Motion to Compel and our companion Response to the government’s Motion for Protective Order.
I write to you today because in the course of our discovery investigation, we effectively uncovered a fraudulent artifice which allowed the Fed/FRBNY and the Treasury (using TARP funds) to accomplish that which it could not accomplish legally at the time (pre-EESA)—the acquisition of 77.9% of AIG’s equity and voting rights. We discovered this because we were looking at “standing” issues relative to the Fed/FRBNY funds provided to AIG under the Credit Facility approved in the latter half of Sept. 2008. But, what we learned was quite simply astounding.
The FRBNY wanted more than just a standard debt deal; it wanted absolute control and ownership of AIG. But, it was illegal for the FRBNY to hold equity and the Treasury Dept. did not yet have the legislative authority, later granted under EESA, to do so. But this didn’t stop then-President Geithner or his general counsel Thomas Baxter. They crafted the AIG Trust to accomplish the same goal. But the Trust was transparently invalid and illegal for two fundamental reasons: One, the FED maintained absolute control over the Trust’s existence, its terms, and the Trustees through Section 1.03 of the Trust Agreement. This, as we explain in our Response papers attached, invalidates the trust; yet the government continues to speak about this as an “independent” Trust.
Two, the Fed/FRBNY could not take legal title to the equity but neither could the Treasury Department during this pre-EESA period. So, the FRBNY named the U.S. Treasury (in the Trust Agreement) as the beneficial owner. But again, as our Response papers point out, it is elemental trust law that a beneficiary must be a person or entity that can actually hold title. While the Treasury Department can hold title, the U.S. Treasury can no more hold title than a bank account – because that is what it is. You can deposit funds or assets into a depository account but the account cannot have “ownership” because it has no more authority to do so than a tree log. But, the FRBNY had to conceal the fact that this transaction was really for the benefit of the Treasury Department (something the Treasury Dept’s Rule 30(b)(6) deponent conceded under oath (also provided in our Response papers), because the Treasury department had no legal authority. And, even if it did, as under EESA a few months later, to grant the federal government voting rights would be to create a Gordian Knot of conflicts-of-interest, which is why presumably the legislation seeks to avoid the government from taking both the equity and exercising voting rights. But, at the time of the AIG Trust, there was absolutely no legislative authority for the Treas. Dept to take control of AIG. Yet, this is what the purportedly Trust accomplished.
In the world of finance, and you certainly know this as well as I, if you seek to accomplish an illegal financial transaction (“specified unlawful activity”) through false means (the Trust structure), you are in violation of federal anti-money laundering statutes (18 USC § 1956). I have attached a ppt presentation my office has prepared for oral argument in our case (although the criminal violation is not at issue insofar as we don’t have standing to raise it). Since this artifice included TARP funds, you, in your capacity as the SIGTARP, do. Please feel free to use this material as you deem best.
I will be in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday meeting with some Congressional leaders on this point, and would be more than willing to discuss this in greater detail.
Thank you.
David Yerushalmi. Esq.
Dear Friends,
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) wishes to forward to you the following press release from International Bridges to Justice (IBJ).
Asian Human Rights Commission
Hong Kong
Another rat abandons ship. These assholes shit on Americans on their way out by voting for this crap healthcare. Breaking News Alert The New York Times Wed, January 06, 2010 — 12:24 AM ET
Maybe it just should be a civil lawsuit for disorderly conduct?
Mw. Tony Owana,
Weren’t GESTAPO (Third Reich), State Research Bureau (SRB), the National Security Agency (NASA), STASI (East Germany), SECURIDAD (Romania) etc all legally recognised?
MB Auckland