Olson is a powerful, compelling speaker.

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Tuesday, Feb 7, 2012 11:00 AM 12:21:25 EST

Published in Salon.com

The secretive military system for prosecuting accused terrorists is a travesty says the man once ran it

The U.S. Defense Department specializes in euphemism. “Limited kinetic action” is a polite way of saying “war” and “collateral damage” does not sound as blunt as “dead children.” When I was chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay during the Bush administration, I was told not to say publicly that a detainee had “attempted suicide.” The government-approved term for the act was “self-injurious behavior.” I could not say “torture,” or as some called it, the “T-word.” Instead, I had to say “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

The euphemism tradition remains alive and well in the Obama administration. The slogan “fairness, transparency, justice” is featured prominently throughout the military commissions’ new half-million dollar web site. The slogan even shows up when case document links lead to a notice saying the “document you are trying to access is currently undergoing a security review” and might be posted later if the government decides it is “publicly releasable.”

Say you are interested in the case against Abd Rashim Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing in Yemen in October 2000 that killed 17 U.S. sailors. You are not allowed to see the judge’s docketing order setting April 11-13 for the next session to consider motions.

You are not allowed to see a key motion seeking authorization for Nashiri’s lawyers to depose former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh while he is in the United States. The Obama administration is permitting Saleh to visit New York City for medical care; many believe he should be at the International Criminal Court facing charges for turning his forces on Yemeni protestors resulting in 270 civilian deaths.

Before being elected to the presidency, Barack Obama condemned what he said were “flawed” Bush-era military commissions. He voted against the Military Commissions Act of 2006 when he was a member of the Senate and he argued that detainees accused of criminal conduct should be tried in federal courts or courts-martial, either of which he said would “demonstrate our commitment to the rule of law.” Six years later it appears all it takes to transform fatally flawed into fundamentally fine for Barack Obama is to tack a new word onto an old title to give it a euphemistic revival: now we have “reformed military commissions.”

Brigadier General Mark Martins, the sixth and current chief prosecutor for the military commissions, gave a talk to the New York City Bar Association last month. In it, he used the phrase “reformed military commissions” more than three dozen times. Apparently tacking the word “reformed” onto “military commissions” and using it over and over is supposed to erase a decade-long record of failure that has, as then-Senator Obama said, tarnished “our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law.”

The failure of the military commission system is well-documented. President Bush first authorized military commissions in an order he issued on November 13, 2001. Six military commission trials were completed in the decade that followed. Two of the six “worst of the worst” war criminals – David Hicks and Salim Hamdan – have served their short military commission sentences and are free men back in their home countries.

Over the same period, hundreds of terrorism-related cases were tried with success and without incident in federal courts resulting in typical sentences that exceeded those in military commissions by a wide margin. The Bush administration’s initial notion that military commissions would be more swift, more secret, and more severe than federal courts has proven clearly wrong. Nonetheless, the Obama administration intends to press ahead with “reformed military commissions,” U.S. credibility be damned.

I was one of the most public advocates of the original military commission structure that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled was illegal in June 2006. Congress revived and reformed the military commissions in September 2006 with the Military Commissions Act (that Senator Obama voted against.) These “reformed” military commissions were implemented through a series of documents that set out new rules and procedures to improve the process that the Supreme Court had struck down. Once again, I publicly praised their virtues to an increasingly skeptical world audience. Before I resigned as chief prosecutor in October 2007, I personally authorized charges against David Hicks, Salim Hamdan and Omar Khadr under the 2006 “reformed” military commission system.

President Obama ordered a halt to military commissions as soon as he took office in January 2009, but he backtracked a few months later in the face of conservative fear-mongering. Nine months after President Obama took office, the Democrat-controlled Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2009 to replace and reform the process it had created in 2006 to replace the process President Bush created in 2001. The slight change in 2009 is supposed to let President Obama save face. The military commissions authorized in 2001, 2006 and 2009 have so far generated 51 implementing documents totaling 2,352 pages setting out rules and procedures. Each series of reforms purports to be better than the last which had purported to be better than ones before. Each has failed.

I honestly believed we were committed to full, fair and open trials when I became chief prosecutor in 2005, but I lost confidence in that commitment over time as political appointees tried to manipulate the process and make it more like a theatrical production than a judicial proceeding. After more than a decade of futility and failure, the question is no longer whether the U.S. could proceed with “reformed again and again and again military commissions,” but whether it should.

In his recent talk, Brigadier General Martins said “… while federal courts will and should objectively be the appropriate forum in most instances, reformed military commissions will sometimes be the better choice.” His rather vague statement raises some issues that should be considered before lumbering along even further down the sullied military commission path.

Which cases are candidates for military commissions? Brigadier General Martins said federal courts are the appropriate forum in most instances and that military commission cases may be “numerically few.” The administration has identified fewer than three dozen detainees they intend to prosecute for alleged criminal conduct. How will those cases be divided between federal courts and military commissions? Senator Diane Feinstein hinted at the answer during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 2010 when she told Attorney General Eric Holder that in choosing between the two forums, “make the decisions based on the legal facts and where we best get a conviction.” If you peel back the rhetoric and examine the ground truth, military commissions likely end up the “better choice” when there is a chance the U.S. government might not be assured of a conviction elsewhere. In other words, the U.S. will afford an accused all the justice possible while ensuring the cards are stacked decidedly in the government’s favor.

Military commission proponents rationalize the need for this peculiar forum citing the exigencies of war and the unique circumstances presented on the battlefield. That argument would be more persuasive had most of the Guantanamo detainees been captured under circumstances bearing some resemblance to battle. They were not. For example, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was rousted from a bed in a house in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, by Pakistani authorities and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was captured in the United Arab Emirates without any U.S. military involvement. In the end, it is not so much what the detainees did that make military commissions the better choice, it is what the U.S. did that may not stand up to traditional principles of justice.

The U.S. has invested a great deal of effort in trying to revive a military commission process it last used in World War II and make it fit the unique circumstances of a handful of post-9/11 terrorism cases. There have been 779 men detained at Guantanamo over the past decade. Only 171 remain, and a majority of them have been cleared for transfer (about 89 men) or designated for indefinite detention without trial (about 46 men). Four more have already been convicted and sentenced, leaving 32 potential cases for prosecution. The last of the 32 was captured in 2006, so the facts of any case have not changed in more than five years.

Rather than developing these few cases to conform to the rules of regular federal court, the U.S. has tried to develop an irregular military court to accommodate the cases. The end result – at least until the next reform attempt – is a process where an accused can spend a decade or more waiting for his day in court; nearly all of the information is classified and the accused only gets to see what the prosecution decides is appropriate; the government demands that it gets to see the information shared between the accused and his attorney; and even if the accused wins, he is likely to still spend the rest of his life in prison.

This is the kind of ‘heads we win, tails you lose’ process the U.S. condemns when it is used in other countries. If President Obama thinks this is going to restore America’s reputation as a nation committed to the rule of law he is mistaken. Pinning the word “reformed” to the title does not make a silk purse out of this sow’s ear of justice.

Morris Davis was chief prosecutor for the military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from 2005-2007. He is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and a member of the faculty at the Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C.

Ron Paul has enough flaws in his views on abortion that you could drive a truck though them. Life begins at conception but….so if someone is raped a shot of estrogen is ok.  Then why isn’t the morning after pill a good thing?  This guy is a medical doctor.  If I listened to him, I would be so confused.  

I have never met a single person who believes abortion is exceptable  acceptable [sorry about that, gang] at 9 months.  I doubt I ever will.  No one does.  Surely they mean a life or death of the mother situation.  I am tired of that even being part of the discussion.  Roe v. Wade does not find that acceptable either.  But the lies and confusion continue.

Mr. Libertarian sure wants to put some restrictions on women. His logic is non-existent.   Perhaps he isn’t really a libertarian.  It seems like behind the scenes this entire election is about abortion, contraception and planned parenthood rather than about recovery and jobs.

From Moe Davis:

There was more patriotism in the Clint Eastwood ad than in any real political ad by either real party I’ve seen all year. I was ready to go kick ass and take names, and charge up the hill.

 

Could it be that Clint Eastwood just called out America for being so divisive?

Your reaction?

How about those commercials!? 

I enjoyed the Mayan end days one. 

Predictions?

UPDATE:  BOCS MEETING Tues. Feb 7 @ 2 pm

Carlos Martinelly Sentenced to 20 Years in Car Crash That Killed Nun: MyFoxDC.com

Carlos Martinelly was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his drunk driving accident (August 1, 2010)  that injured 2 nuns and killed a third.  Martinelly was also charged with felony murder. 

Wikipedia defines ‘felony murder’ as follows:

The rule of felony murder is a legal doctrine in some common law jurisdictions that broadens the crime of murder in two ways. First, when an offender kills accidentally or without specific intent to kill in the course of an applicable felony, what might have been manslaughter is escalated to murder. Second, it makes any participant in such a felony criminally liable for any deaths that occur during or in furtherance of that felony. While there is some debate about the original scope of the rule, modern interpretations typically require that the felony be an inherently dangerous one, or one committed in an obviously dangerous manner. For this reason, the felony murder rule is often justified by its supporters as a means of deterring dangerous felonies.

I keep thinking about this case being Corey Stewart’s launch pad into state politics.  For over a year we have heard about this case, day after day.  This case has been all over Fox News time after time, as some sort of landmark illegal immigrant case rather than a drunk driving case.  Martinelly was brought here illegally  as a child.  He had a green card.  He just didn’t have legal status.  He became the ‘nun killer.’ 

Meanwhile, another drunk driving case  was barely mentioned.  William John Mallory was sentenced to 20 years for the deaths of a grandmother and her toddler grandson.  17 years of that sentence  were suspended.  Mallory serves 3 years.

There is some inequity here.  I excuse no one nor am I attempting to excuse drunk driving. However, why is Martinelly serving all 20 years and why was he charged with murder?  I feel certain he didn’t get in his car that morning and decide to go mow down a car load of nuns in cold blood.  I feel certain William Mallory didn’t plan on killing a grandmother and her little grandson. 

Why is there so much disparity between these two cases?  Could it be that the Commonwealth Attorney’s office caved in because Martinelly was an illegal immigrant?  Could it be that killing nuns is worse than killing grandmothers? Judge Farris sentenced Martinelly to 20 years. 

 On the other hand,  Judge Johnston also ordered that  Mallory, who hit the family in 2009,   also has to serve 5 years probation and put a wreath on the graves of the deceased to remind him of what he did.  The family feels short-changed.  On the other hand, the Benedictine nuns said from the beginning that they wanted no retribution and they didn’t want the case to become political. 

Mallory did not receive national attention.  Martinelly did.  Stewart won’t catapult into a state election on the back of Mallory like he is trying to do over Martinelly.  I would just like to see similar cases treated equally. 

Is this guy a redneck or what?

Social conservatives emboldened by Republican gains in the General Assembly in November suffered a major setback Thursday when a Senate committee deadlocked on a bill to prohibit women from having an abortion beyond 20 weeks of pregnancy.

But today, the House of Delegates appears ready to pass a bill to defund state-paid abortions for low-income women expecting a child with “gross and totally incapacitating physical deformity or mental deficiency” after the chamber advanced the measure Thursday.

The vote was 7-7 on Senate Bill 637 sponsored by Sen. Mark D. Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg. Republicans hold an 8-7 majority on the committee, but Sen. Harry B. Blevins, R-Chesapeake, abstained, deadlocking the measure.

After the vote, Blevins said he was moved by the wrenching testimony of Tara Schleifer, a mother from Haymarket in Prince William County. She tearfully described ending a pregnancy in its second trimester after learning the fetus had congenital heart and bowel defects that would translate to debilitating pain and suffering as a child.

“I would rather have died than do this to my baby,” said Schleifer, who brought her 3-year-old son to the proceedings.

She said the bill prohibiting abortions after 20 weeks would give families virtually no time to decide whether they need more testing to determine the viability of the fetus.

“It was just traumatic for me to sit there and think about what that woman was going through and not give her any consideration,” Blevins said.

The vote came after conflicting testimony over at what point during gestation a fetus can feel pain. The proposed 20-week limit was predicated on the assumption that fetuses can feel pain beyond 20 weeks, but other citations suggest that does not occur until at least 24 weeks, or roughly the beginning of the third trimester.

In Virginia, abortions are permitted up to a physician’s determination of viability, typically 24 to 25 weeks at the end of the second trimester.

The tie vote, stalling the bill, is a blow for abortion opponents and Republicans who on Wednesday advanced legislation through the full Senate that would require women seeking an abortion to first have an ultrasound.

“It is unfortunate that by one vote, pain-capable unborn children will continue to suffer the horrific death caused them by abortion,” said Olivia Gans, president of the Virginia Society for Human Life.

Is this woman being deliberately obtuse?  Does she not understand that the abortions being discussed were for fetuses with profound abnormalities, very often conditions that would be horribly painful  post birth?  We treat our animals better than humans if this is the mentality that is being used.  Most of us would never give birth knowingly to  a child who would suffer horrible pain during the course of its life. 

The backlash from this war waged by some of the social conservatives is going to be terrific. It needs to be.  Warnings from the reproductive rights activists were going unheeded.  This daily attack is the end result.  It needed to happen to shake the pro-choice community off its apathy. 

SB637 was stalled but will probably reappear since a similar bill is coming through the delegate assembly and will probably end up in the same committee.  Senator Blevins is to be commended for his careful consideration of an issue that is incredibly painful for women and couples who must consider the termination of a very wanted pregnancy because of severe abnormalities.  Tara Schleifer of Haymarket is a hero for her brave, painful testimony before this group.  It had to be difficult as she spoke through her tears.   Often people who step up and do the right thing subject themselves to harassment by zealots. I sincerely hope that does not happen to this brave woman.

HB 67 should come out of the gate at a fast pace.  That bill is a state funding bill.  Currently poor women who have been victims of rape or incest can have state funded abortions.  

The House of Delegates advanced House Bill 62, introduced by Del. Mark L. Cole, R-Spotsylvania. The measure would repeal a section of state code authorizing the Board of Health to fund abortions in cases of gross incapacity and deformity for women on medical assistance.

The Virginia Department of Health approved funding of 23 abortions in fiscal 2010 with a total cost of $14,681, according to a fiscal impact statement attached to the bill. In fiscal 2011, the department approved funding for 10 abortions for a total cost of $2,784.

Cole said the bill conforms Virginia Medicaid law to federal law by incorporating the Hyde Amendment, a federal provision — named for former Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois — that bars the use of tax dollars to pay for abortions in circumstances other than rape, incest or threat to the mother’s life.

Democrats argued against the measure for the impact it could have on women with no financial means.

“Think about the human beings behind this,” said Del. Vivian E. Watts, D-Fairfax, pointing to the “tremendous burden borne by someone on Medicaid” if her child is born in such a condition.

As of Friday afternoon, HB67 passed the House of Delegates.  NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia released the following:

“No woman plans to have an abortion, but if she needs one, every woman deserves the opportunity to make the best decision for her circumstances. Women and their families should have access to safe and affordable health services, especially in a medical crisis despite her financial circumstances,” said Keene. “Virginia is a Commonwealth which by definition should seek to care for the most vulnerable among us during their most difficult times. The Commonwealth has failed women today.”

Hopefully there will be private funds available.  The anti-choice crowd always over-reaches.  Keep going.  The sleeping giant is awakening.  The women of Virginia won’t go back because of fools who simply refuse to look at the complexities of life outside of a binary operation.  All in life is not good or bad.  Sometimes as humans we have to weigh our choices, like  Tara Schleifer did.  Surely that was not a decision she wanted to have to make.

Obviously the Virginia legislature is not always correct. HBO will air The Loving Story on February 14, Valentine Day. The Lovings were an interracial couple  from Caroline County, Virginia. They grew up, fell in love, and married in Washington, DC. They failed to realize that just living together as man and wife was also illegal.

It’s hard to believe that this nonsense went on back in the 19th century…..wait! It wasn’t the 19th century! This nonsense has been in my lifetime! From Visitcaroline.com:

The Beginning
Richard Loving was born October 29, 1933.

Mildred Delores Jeter was born June 22, 1939.

They grew up and lived as neighbors in Caroline County, Virginia, near Central Point where they fell in love. Because of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, interracial marriage was illegal in the Commonwealth of Virginia so Mildred and Richard married on June 2, 1958 in Washington, D.C.

They returned to Caroline County, and they were later arrested on July 14th in their home by Caroline Sheriff Garnett Brooks and two deputies. On January 6, 1959, the Lovings were prosecuted and convicted of violating the state’s anti-miscegenation law.

Judge Leon M. Bazile sentenced each to a one-year jail term at a state penitentiary. However, Judge Bazile promised to suspend their sentences if they agreed to leave the state and not return for 25 years.

The story continued and eventually the case came before the Supreme Court and was THE test case that overturned miscegenation laws in the United States. Loving v. Virginia was handed down in 1967. Inter-racial marriage has only been legal in all states, including our own, for 45 years.

Just to put a few things on the time line:

Brown v. Board of Education                      1954  (desegregation)

Griswold v. Connecticut                                1965 (privacy, contraception)

Loving v. Virginia                                             1967 (privacy, interracial marriage)

Roe v. Wade                                                          1973 (privacy, abortion rights)

Speak all we want about ‘judicial activism (citizens united?), would any of these cases ever been solved at the state level considering all things?  Probably not but they were critical, landmark decisions.  It is critical to keep in mind that Mrs. Loving would be only 73 years old if she were alive today.  If you are 45 or older, this case was decided in your lifetime. 

The Loving Story looks like a must-see!   The Racial Intergrity Act of 1924, a Virginia Law, forbid a white person to marry anyone who wasn’t white. 

From Yahoo News:

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – One Million Moms — a project of the American Family Association — is very angry at JC Penney.

No, not because it sells sweater vests (heck, Rick Santorum is a fan of those), but because the Texas-based department store has hired Ellen DeGeneres as a spokeswoman.

And DeGeneres is — cue the scary music — gay, and open about it.

“Funny that JC Penney thinks hiring an open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of their customers are traditional families,” the million (or so) moms write on their website. “DeGeneres is not a true representation of the type of families that shop at their store. The majority of JC Penney shoppers will be offended and choose to no longer shop there.”

One Million Moms is asking people to call JC Penney to complain.

With this campaign, One Million Moms, which claims to be “the most powerful tool you have to stand against the immorality, violence, vulgarity and profanity the entertainment media is throwing at your children,” is going after one of the country’s most-beloved television hosts.

The moms want JC Penney “to replace Ellen DeGeneres as their new spokesperson immediately and remain neutral in the culture war.”

Fat chance, says the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination

What is wrong with people?  I simply do not understand what is happening in my country.  Ellen DeGeneres is a human being and frankly, I don’t stop and think whether she is straight or gay.  I don’t care!  She is a likable entertainer.  She is a fine spokesperson for JC Penney.  She is a well-liked TV host.  I don’t know anyone who dislikes her. 

Why would an organization target someone like Ellen DeGeneres?   These are probably the same people who think some  philanderer like Newt is ok and Ellen is a Godless sinner, bound for the firey pits of Hell.  We don’t treat Americans like this, especially over who she is.  She has done nothing wrong and has hurt no one.  That kind of attack is simply immoral.  I hope the children of the moms are kinder, gentler spirits and more accepting  of their fellow human beings. 

If millions of moms are offended by my post, perhaps they would like to email me so I can tell them how much I am offended by an attack on Ellen DeGeneres.