I mean, once you recognize 9/11 for what it is and who did it....
"allows the Republican administration to put some terrorism suspects on trial before the presidential election."
"First Guantanamo Bay trial approved; Bin Laden driver's case set for Monday" by Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times | July 18, 2008
MIAMI - Senior US military officers will be scrambled from around the world this weekend for jury duty at Guantanamo Bay in the Pentagon's first war-crimes trial since World War II.
In a victory for the Bush administration in its protracted quest to prosecute terror suspects held at Guantanamo, a federal judge in Washington yesterday rejected defense attorneys' appeals to halt the trial of Osama bin Laden's former driver, Salim Hamdan of Yemen, and it will get underway Monday.
Hamdan's lawyers had argued that the trial should be delayed until civilian judges weigh the constitutionality of the tribunal's rules and procedures. Hamdan will be the first from among 265 Guantanamo prisoners to be tried on terrorism charges, and his appearance before Allred and a panel of at least seven senior officers will allow the Bush administration to demonstrate whether the tribunal it created nearly seven years ago works, and can produce convictions.
Robertson's refusal to postpone the start of trial also allows the Republican administration to put some terrorism suspects on trial before the presidential election.
If Hamdan were to be convicted and sentenced and the Sept. 11 defendants, including confessed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, are tried this fall, it could be more difficult for the next administration to dismantle a judicial system that keeps the reputed terrorists off US soil.
Please see: Keeping the 9/11 Lie Front and Center: The Mastermind
Pre-trial proceedings under way at Guantanamo have tended to expose flaws in the Pentagon's system for detaining, interrogating, and trying foreign terrorism suspects. The war-crimes court has been under fire from European allies and human rights advocates since its creation in November 2001. Critics lament its lack of due process and the admissibility, if the military judge allows, of hearsay and coerced evidence."
See how lightly the MSM press treats the issue of TORTURE, folks?!
They may report it, but they don't hammer away at it like the daily agenda pushing garbage of terrorism, immigrants, global warming, etc, etc.
That's why this astonishing admission is back further in the paper:
"Ashcroft details his reversal on harsh interrogation tactics" by Lara Jakes Jordan, Associated Press | July 18, 2008
WASHINGTON - Former attorney general John Ashcroft yesterday disavowed the now-defunct legal reasoning used to justify harshly questioning terrorism suspects but defended White House officials who pressured him to approve terror surveillance programs while he was hospitalized four years ago.
At the heart of an House Judiciary Committee hearing with Ashcroft was whether US interrogators acted legally in using harsh tactics, including waterboarding, on captured terror suspects after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Waterboarding involves strapping a person down and pouring water over his or her cloth-covered face to create the sensation of drowning. Critics call it torture.
As if there is somehow some disagreement over the issue.
Only in the minds of the AmeriKan press and government, folks.
The rest of the world sees it for what it is: TORTURE!!!
Ashcroft was attorney general when he approved two Justice Department legal opinions in 2002 and 2003 that, essentially, approved the use of waterboarding and other harsh methods as long as they did not "cause pain similar in intensity to that caused by death or organ failure."
Both memos were written, in part, by former deputy assistant attorney general John Yoo. Ashcroft agreed to withdraw them a few years later after advisers said they were concerned that the legal reasoning on them overstepped the limits of executive authority.
Republicans on the panel argued that waterboarding and other harsh tactics yielded information that may have saved lives, and Ashcroft did not disagree. He also said he does not believe waterboarding or any methods allowed under the memos amounted to torture.
On the topic of the now-infamous March 2004 hospital visit, Ashcroft demurred from giving many details about the encounter at his bedside that pitted former White House chief of staff Andy Card and counsel Alberto Gonzales against former deputy attorney general Jim Comey and FBI Director Robert Mueller.
Ashcroft said that he was "grouchy," that hadn't eaten in several days, and that doctors had been poking needles in him when Card and Gonzales asked him to approve a classified national security program against the advice of Comey and Mueller. Mueller has said the clash was about the government's warrantless wiretapping; Gonzales and the White House said it was about other intelligence activities. Ashcroft sided with Comey and Mueller, and, ultimately, President Bush agreed to change some aspects of the program to satisfy their concerns."All this ILLEGALITY that just slides right on by and no one does a damn thing.
Also see: Ashcroft Endorses Waterboarding
And it is all based on a DAMN LIE.
That's why the "terror" cases are always such railroad job shit.
"[The evidence] was reduced to the mention of a telephone conversation between the accused and a third person"
"4 absolved in Madrid train bombings; Acquittal upheld for accused mastermind" by Dale Fuchs, New York Times News Service | July 18, 2008
MADRID - A Spanish court absolved four men and upheld the acquittal of a fifth yesterday in the convoluted legal proceedings relating to the 2004 Madrid commuter train bombings that killed 191 people in the deadliest attack by Islamic militants on European soil.
Most dramatically, the court yesterday upheld the acquittal of one of the bombing's accused masterminds, Rabei Osman, an Egyptian, who was found guilty in 2006 in Italy of belonging to a terrorist organization. Osman was arrested in Italy in June 2004 but disputed prosecution evidence citing wiretaps in which he was purported to have said he had conceived the idea of the attacks.
In its 959-page ruling yesterday, the higher court acquitted him, saying that prosecutors had not produced enough evidence against Osman:
"The presentation of the facts contains an affirmation of such a general nature that it is not sufficient to establish his belonging to determined organization or terrorist group. [The evidence] was reduced to the mention of a telephone conversation between the accused and a third person, [which the court deemed] clearly insufficient."
Try another one on for size:
"The three men were not charged with financing terrorist groups."
WORCESTER - Prosecutors also said the fraud on the IRS deprived the government of more than $330,000 in tax revenue, roughly a third of the money donated to the group from 1997 to 2003.
Saylor said prosecutors hadn't proved a specific tax loss, but he agreed that the government had been defrauded:
"It's a crime to give false information. One simply cannot file false documents with the IRS without punishment."
He said, however, that Care International had performed much legitimate charitable work. The three men were not charged with financing terrorist groups, but with failing to tell the IRS how Care International used some of its tax-exempt donations."
I'm so sick of the lies and BS.
