Censorship, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Extraordinary Rendition, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Impeachment, Supreme Court, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Saul Landau – Cuba 50th Anniversary
Then and now, Venezuela and Cuba, 1960_2008
Hosts talk with author and internationally known scholar Saul Landau about his recent article titled Then and Now, Venezuela and Cuba, 1960-2008 and the Cuban 50th Anniversary.
Saul Landau:
- It’s almost a miracle the revolution in Cuba survived 50 years, considering the United States was determined to destroy it.
- In light of all that the Cuban revolution emerges as something miraculous.
- One looks at Cuba today, one finds lots of despair, especially after 3 brutal hurricanes.
- You see Cubans hanging out in the street in the middle of the work day, drinking beer, not exactly a sign of high spirited socialist morality.
- Some are plotting to go to Florida, where they still think there’s some paradise waiting for them. Some do succeed, cleaning the toilets at the Miami airport.
- I kept saying to myself, if someone came over from Europe to the United States in 1862, they would say “Oh, this place had so much promise.”
- I see the Cuban Revolution as a total success, in the sense it achieved all of its goals and then some.
- When I first went to Cuba, I was 24 at the time, the kids were running ministries and it was creative anarchy.
- Pre – Bay of Pigs: Cuba survived so many US based sabotages, terrorist attacks were launched from the United States.
- Some were assassination attempts on Fidel Castro, some were attempts to burn down Cuban installations.
- Fidel set out the goals of the Cuban Revolution that were established in the 1860s with the first war of Cuban Independence against Spain.
- Which meant not taking crap from the United States. However, anyone who defied the United States was removed from office by the Marines, or overthrown by a coup backed by the US.
- Removed from office in Domican Republican in 1965, Removed from office in Brasil in 1964, Ghiannah, the coup in Chile.
- Here Fidel stands for Cuban sovereignty which means disobedience.
- Today Cuba has 70 thousand doctors. 20 thousand in Venezuela, plus Cubans were actors on the world stage.
- Cuban soldiers helping stop apartheid in Southern Angola in 1986-87, and paved the way for independence in Angola and the release of Nelson Mandela.
- The Cuban Revolution WAS successful. Now, there are many professionals, such as engineers and doctors working as cab drivers or making pizza. The salary and wage structure are not just.
- When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Cuban economy tanked and Cubans were on their own. They’ve buying and selling illegally, which in the last 18 years, has had a corrosive effect. Each Cuban has had to have some sort of hustle in order to get along. Cuba must begin to make reforms now.
- Upsides: They can’t get evicted or homes foreclosed on them/ Access to the best medical care.
- A gerontocracy has been running Cuba for security reasons and they have to hand the car keys over to their middle aged kids.
- You have no right to practice opposition politics. Which is a minus. When you have highly educated people without access to the internet, creativity and productivity suffers.
- Ironically, the US and Cuba military have had good relations.
- Once the travel ban and embargo is dropped, and a million Americans come pouring in with fat wallets, the state has basically lost control of the economy.
- If they can’t trust the citizens to back up the system that has given them these rights, the right to housing, jobs, education, medical care etc.
- The counter-revolution was exported to Florida, (Republican Cubans – Miami) that’s where they are.
- Obama Administration – look for travel ban lifted for Cuban Americans. For the first time the President of the United States will owe nothing to the Cubans in Miami.
- Raul Castro has offered a swap of prisoners with new president
- Monroe Doctrine Funeral : Established 1823, written by John Quincy Adams, essentially saying that European colonial powers should stay out of Latin America
Guest – Saul Landau, an internationally known scholar, author, commentator, and filmmaker on foreign and domestic policy issues. Landau’s most widely praised achievements are the over forty films he has produced on social, political and historical issues, and worldwide human rights. Landau has written over ten books, short stories and poems. His films include: Fidel, 1968 /Cuba and Fidel 1974, / The Uncompromising Revolution, 1990. To order films send email to RoundWorldProductions at gmail.com
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RNC 8: Terrorism Charges Filed, Free Speech Chilled
Eight alleged leaders of the Republican National Convention protest organization called the RNC Welcoming Committee have been charged under the 2002 Minnesota Patriot Act with Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism. The RNC 8, may each face up to 7 and a half years in prison for their alleged roles in the RNC protest activities. The charges against the RNC 8 follow a year’s worth of investigation by the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department with coordination of state and federal agencies that had infiltrated and collected information on the group.
The RNC 8 are Monica Bicking, Eryn Trimmer, Luce Guillen Givins, Erik Oseland, Nathanael Secor, Robert Czernik, Garrett Fitzgerald, and Max Spector
According to Bruce Nestor, Minnesota Chapter president of the National Lawyers Guild, police did not find evidence of bomb making materials during the raids only common household items such as paint and computers. The National Lawyers Guild also mentions that police used paid informants that alleged the protesters intended to sabotage airports.
- RNC Welcoming Committee: anti-authoritarian anarchist group. It is an open, public organization with a website and press releases.
- Originally charged with conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism.
- Now, the Ramsey County attorney Susan Gertner in St. Paul Minnesota has added 3 more charges.
- Conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism, second degree.
- Conspiracy to damage property in furtherance of terrorism.
- Conspiracy to damage property criminal charge.
- With these charges the RNC 8 could get 20 years each under Minnesota patriot act style statute.
- Includes property damage as an act of terrorism /some plate glass windows broken, some police cars damaged.
- No property damaged occurred before the RNC 8 were arrested. Evidence Project – National Lawyers Guild
Guest – Gena Berglund with the Minnesota chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.
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Harpers Magazine Panel: Justice After Bush: Prosecuting an Outlaw Administration
We hear from Elizabeth Holtzman, Author of The Impeachment of George W. Bush. The panelists at the event discussed methods available to a democracy to prosecute high officials in the Bush Administration and responded to Scott Horton’s Harper’s Magazine cover story called “Justice After Bush: Prosecuting an Outlaw Administration.”
Elizabeth Holtzman:
- When the president takes the oath of office, treaties are the law of the land.
- The president is responsible for carrying out the Geneva conventions.
- The idea to torture in order to get information is not accurate. As a prosecutor, we handle murders, rapes, robberies, everyday in New York City and around this country.
- We don’t get the information to solve these crimes by beating it out of people, we do it through smart detective work and we do it through careful investigation.
- The idea that we can handle local crimes without torture or crimes of war is nonsensical .
- It’s important for us not to get into this trap of the ticking clock. When you’re dealing with a serial rapists or murderer you got a ticking clock too.
- We manage to deal with that everyday without torturing people in this country.
- Impeachment: A person can be impeached after he or she has left office.
- Statute: The Anti-Torture Act, it is a convention against torture making it a US crime. Which makes torture a felony prosecutable in the USA.
- If death results from torture, there’s a death penalty, which means there is not statute of limitations.
- Which means that somewhere down the line as long as these people are alive, they can be prosecuted and brought to justice.
- The War Crimes Act of 1996, which makes it a federal crime to deal in a cruel and inhuman way with detainees. This can be prosecuted in federal courts.
- So, whether “water boarding” is torture or not, is irrelevant under the War Crimes Act.
- That’s why Alberto Gonzales, wanted to opt out of the Geneva Conventions with respect to the members of Al-Quaeda.
- A little problem: The Supreme Court in the summer of 2006 ruled: the Geneva Convention applies to all US detainees. War Crimes Act liability.
- While passing the Military Commissions Act, they also slipped in that the War Crimes Act would be in effect retroactively.
- We need to restore the War Crimes Act because it has no statute of limitations. Restore as it was before October 2006, That will allow us no matter what to bring the prosecutions that need to be brought.
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Censorship, Human Rights, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Israel Attacks: Discussion with Author Joel Kovel and Guild Attorney Audrey Bomse
Last week Israel launched what has been described as one of the bloodiest attacks on Palestinians in Gaza since 1948. Protesters demonstrated worldwide as Israeli air strikes continued. Nearly 400 Palestinians have been killed and thousands injured from the bombing campaign. Targets of the strike include a Hamas building and an Islamic university. Gaza is approximately 146 square miles with a population density of 1.5 million, 2/3 of whom are refugees. Israel Lets Palestinians Flee; UN Warns of Crisis.
Guest – Author Joel Kovel, politician, academic, and eco-socialist. He has lectured in psychiatry, anthropology, political science and communication studies. He has published many books including the controversial Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine.
Guest – Audrey Bomse, a Lawyers Guild attorney working with the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group. Audrey has used her 25 years of civil rights legal experience to help establish training programs for attorneys representing prisoners in Israeli military courts and to produce ground_breaking public documents, such as a report published in conjunction with the Mandela Institute for Human Rights on the status of Palestinian prisoners. Audrey was also recently detained at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport for 4 days.
Joel Kovel:
- The Israeli invasion has been going on for 110 years.
- People have been mystified because of the power of the propaganda system.
- Zionism predates it Israel nearly 50 years, and is the driving force to remove non-Jewish from historic Palestine.
- The logic of the force of Zionism, moves back to the early settlers who were not armed, and relied on devious means and foreign powers. = Terror Strategy
- Balfour Declaration – To gather patrons for Israel. The US is the mega-patron.
- In 1937 when there was a great Arab uprising, the Peel Commission decided on partitioning the state into Arab/Muslim and Jewish/Zionist.
- There was consternation because the Zionists wanted the whole thing. Ben Gurion at the time, said don’t worry, once we get a state, we will continue the process of acquiring the whole thing.
- Ilan Pappe, author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
- Unless you see it as a long range project, you’re going to be lost, with the notions of let’s have a cease fire or let the sides get together, negotiate.
- You can’t conceive that the Israelis will negotiate in good faith once you realize how embedded this drive to eliminate everything non-jewish from Palestine.
- So eventually, you have a concentration of a million and a half people in this very small part of southwestern Israel.
- Then you have a democratically elected Hamas, elected because it was militant, it wouldn’t go along.
- These 1.5 million people are now led by a group of people that can’t be bought off.
- The U.S. not only provide Israel with the F16s, helicopters and cluster bombs, but also impunity.
- This impunity includes the media, Hollywood, and universities.
- A great conservative political philosopher said, “in a society, power consists of the capacity to give names and enforce definitions.”
- Encouraging, boycott, divestment and sanction. Human Rights organizations release dependence on Israeli based funding. Human Rights groups do not condemn the occupation.
- The apparatus is woven through the society, not that it can’t be dealt with, but it must be dealt with in the manner of which it exists.
Audrey Bomse:
- Since the Hamas election in August 2007, there’s been a closure that’s getting tighter, first when Hamas took over,with the support of the quartet, the UN, the US, the EU and Russia.
- They started cutting travel in and out of Gaza, and cutting the basic necessities out of Gaza.
- This type of abuse was permitted by the world community.
- Special Rappateur Richard Falk called the abuse a crime against humanity.
- I see the cease fire as ending in November, not December. When Israel provoked a Hamas reaction.
- Israel investigated tunnels out of Gaza during cease fire, killed 6 Hamas militants.
- Hamas reacted with a flurry of rockets sent in to Israel. By the December 9 cease fire,
- More rockets came from Gaza and Israel was able to portray itself as the victim.
- I’m not supporting sending rockets into civilian areas, this is the inevitable situation Gaza is placed in.
- They have to accept the circumstances or resist in anyway they can, which they do, and Israel uses that as an excuse to escalate, which they’re doing now.
- I was involved with the Free Gaza Movement on the boat to Gaza, before the recent attacks. We brought in 5 tons of medical supplies and Palestinian doctors.
- Very limited food, no milk available, there’s just enough food brought in to prevent massive starvation and widespread disease. I want to emphasize that this is a man-made catastrophe, its the consequence of a political policy.
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Amnesty International USA: Gaza By The Numbers
Zahir Janmohamed, Advocacy Director with Amnesty International USA of the Middle East has posted a powerful article on the Amnesty International USA blog, where he’s documented the tremendous humanitarian catastrophe that the Israeli blockade has caused for the people in Gaza.
Zahir Janomohamed:
- Price of food: Palestinian families in Gaza spend 37 percent of their income on food in 2004, in 2007, households spent 62 percent on food.
- Prices of wheat rose 34 percent in a period of 2 months in 2008.
- Richard Falk called the Gaza occupation a crime against humanity before the bombings.
- In my mind the assault on Gaza was going on all of 2007 and 2008. Hospitals don’t have electricity, students dropping out of school because there are no textbooks.
- For Israel to commit these attacks on this population at this time, it’s like attacking New Orleans during Katrina’s aftermath.
- Gaza is basically a prison. They eat and move based on factors outside of their control.
- Amnesty Report of March 2008 – Gaza Strip: A Humanitarian Implosion.
- International law stipulates that these attacks be done so that civilian targets are severely avoided.
- This is not possible in Gaza. To my mind, Israel broke the cease fire agreement, in early December, there were tons of supplies headed to Gaza from Libya that were blocked.
- Number of Israelis killed by rocket fire in 2008 . . 11 , Nearly 400 Palestinians killed in seconds.
- Israel has sort of carte blanche by the international community. Israel: If you test us, we’ll engage in collective punishment.
- US supplies bunker buster bombs, approved by Congress in September 2008
- The US policy on Israel is whatever Israel wants to do it can do.
Guest – Zahir Janmohamed, Advocacy Director with Amnesty International USA of the Middle East. Zahir is also the associate editor of altmuslim since 2004, works as the advocacy director for Middle East Programs at Amnesty International USA, and is the co-founder of the Qunoot Foundation, a Washington DC non-profit that seeks to promote socio-political education within the Muslim community.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Extraordinary Rendition, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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- Dick Cheney, Stalin and Hitler Torture Guidelines Traced Back to Chicago.
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Naomi Wolf – Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries
Law and Disorder hosts welcome back Naomi Wolf to the studio. Naomi is the author of seven books, and the groundbreaking book The End of America: A Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot, which was also turned into a feature documentary now playing in theaters. In the book, Naomi addresses ten steps that societies, dictators, and sometimes democracies use to close an open society to move it toward facsism. Her new book is titled Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries which is a call to action for every person, activist or not. When you ask that question “What Can I Do?” The answers are outlined in Give Me Liberty.
Naomi Wolf:
- A small group of people used the law to subvert the law. Reichstag Fire, then disembowel their own Constitution.
- Initial thinking inspired from my friend who is the daughter of holocaust survivors, she said the Bush strategies echo early 1930s Germany.
- Enabling Acts in Germany gave the power to the state to read a person’s mail, listen to their phone calls and read their telegrams. This, in the alleged interest of national security and the fight against terrorism.
- Nazis used to unload the coffins of the war dead at night.
- A would-be dictator sought to close an open society or crush a democracy movement. Mussolini in 1920, the great evil pioneer. Hitler studied Mussolini, Stalin studied Hitler.
- I looked at Russia, studied Czechoslovakia in the 60’s, Pinochet’s coup in 1973, the Chinese crackdown on democracy in the 80s.
- What I saw was there was a blueprint. The blueprint has 10 steps. The 10 steps have been codified, they teach them at the School of the Americas.
- To help would be Latin-American dictators to overthrow their own governments. What terrified me is that those ten steps are being put in place by the Bush Administration.
- Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
- Create a gulag
- Develop a thug caste
- Set up an internal surveillance system
- Harass citizens’ groups
- Engage in arbitrary detention and release
- Target key individuals
- Control the press
- Dissent equals treason
- Suspend the rule of law
Give Me Liberty: A Handbook For American Revolutionaries
Naomi Wolf:
- I like most Americans felt frustrated, helpless and powerless, I saw that they felt depressed and as if they had no authority. More depressed than in baby democracies like Sierra Leone
- I went back, just as I studied closing societies, I looked at how people dismantled tyranny and win back a republic.
- I drew on some remarkable historians who have established that this idea of liberty were brought forth by ordinary people. They meant to bequeath us with these core American values.
- What I’ve learned is that we’ve (U.S) been brainwashed for the last 30 years, as part of a systematic effort from a vested interested to get us to forget our leadership role as citizens.
- We’re really expected to lead the nation and have a whole arsenal of tools at our disposal.
- There’s a section called fake patriotism, where I talk about the false ideology that leads you away from core texts such as the Bill of Rights that tells you how to overthrow the government to dismantle tyranny.
- The message I categorically got from the founders was . . we were expected to totally take over the power and not leave it to the pundits to have the debates, not leave it to constitutional scholars, or politicians.
- Just calling your congressperson isn’t enough, you conform yourself into democracy commando teams of 20 to 30 people.
- Strategically intervene into the election cycle so you have more power, than lobbyists and special interests.
- You can stop complaining about the media and become the media, write your own op eds.
- Tools and information are deliberately kept out of people’s hands.
- People think there’s a brick wall whenever they pick up these tools, but its a Potemkin village.
- They don’t want us to engage.
- A Constitutional amendment that would drive a national referendum to bypass corrupt Congress to make law such as capping Campaign Finance
- Direct Action Activism. It always works to have thousands of people in the streets.
- But the kind of protest that always works is illegal. The thing that broke up the Soviet Union, we’re not allowed to do in the United States.
- Political Marches Today: I went from point A to point B but I feel like I didn’t do anything. You didn’t. The only protest that’s effective is protest that stops traffic. By definition, you can’t get a permit for stopping traffic.
- These horrible laws in the ten steps are still on the books and its going to take a mass movement to reverse them because Obama is not powerful enough to dismantle them.
- We need to legislate on the city council level and on the federal level, that our police can’t accept Homeland Security money, tasers, microwave technology and rubber bullets.
- All the cold war weapons manufacturers have shifted into building surveillance and security technologies. Their lobbyists sit down with Homeland Security and write the laws. That pressure is not going away.
- Barack Obama does not have the power to stop Boeing, Raytheon and AT&T. The population is the back bone for what the next president can do.
Guest – Naomi Wolf, American author, political consultant and intellectual. She is the author of The End of America: A Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot. It’s an impassioned call to return to the beliefs of the Founding Fathers. In the book, Wolf shows how events in the last six years echo those taken throughout history to build some of the worst dictatorships. A documentary film titled End of America was released this fall along with her follow up book Give Me Liberty: A Handbook For American Revolutionaries.
Naomi Wolf is the co-founder of the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership.
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Civil Liberties, Death Penalty, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Impeachment, Supreme Court, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Sit In Victory at Chicago’s Republic Windows and Doors Plant
Last wee, angry laid off workers from Republic Windows and Doors agreed to leave the closed Illinois plant they’ve occupied in protest for six days. The workers accepted a deal that will give each of them about 6 thousand dollars, accrued vacation time and two months of helathcare coverage. About 1.75 million will be put into an escrow account to be supervised by the worker’s union.
Paul Buhle:
- Why stand outside where you slug it out with cops and scabs while you can be inside defending your job.
- The sit down strike goes all the way back to the Wobblies in 1907
- We have entered a new era, the nation has acquired more political oxygen than it has in a long time.
- There’s a spirit of empowerment that people feel they have to change the situation immediately around them.
- In the way of occupying universities, we can move things much better than those in charge with their foot upon us.
- Now is the time to develop those abandoned factories into living spaces, so they don’t become targets of firebugs.
Guest- Paul Buhle, senior lecturer at Brown University, a historian of American radicalims., a former member of Students for a Democratic Society and author of many books including images of American Radicalism. Also, Che, A Graphic Biography, and Isordore Duncan, a graphic biography by Sabrina Jones.
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Verdict Against Holy Land Charity Could Have a Chilling Effect on the Muslim Community
Last month, a jury in Dallas, Texas found five Palestinian men guilty of more than 100 charges in the nation’s largest terrorism financing trial since 9/11. We talk with Laila Al-Arian, a Washington based journalist, who recently wrote a powerful Alternet article about this case and its impact on Muslim charities.
As many listeners may know, Holy Land was the largest Muslim charity in the United States, the the Bush administration shut it down after the September 11th attacks, and arrested five officials from the charity. In her article Al-Arian describes how the prosecution use unrelated video of suicide bombers to emotionally sway the jury. We’re later joined by Linda Moreno, a defense attorney in the case.
Laila Al-Arian:
- One of the witnesses (in this recent case) was an expert witness, he was a Shin Bet agent.
- The way the US government is trying to prove that these Zakaat Committees are funding Hamas is through the testimony of this Israeli witness. The testimony can’t be authenticated.
- The first time in a US court room that an expert witness, not a fact witness, testified under a pseudonym.
- How do you detect perjury, or how does the defense cross-examine without background.
- Expert witness lied to the jury about the Zakat committees being tied to Hamas
- What you’re really doing is prosecuting an Israeli Palestinian conflict in an American courtroom.
- For Muslims giving charity is a religious obligation.
- There will be an appeal on the grounds of the expert witness Shin Bet agent.
- Joe Lieberman and George Bush commented on the verdict of this case.
- All this does is punish people who are suffering, and punishing those who want to help them.
Linda Moreno:
- The government began its exhibit with a photograph of a bombed out bus, which had nothing to do with the accused in the Holy Land case.
- They also showed video of children doing skits, an art form that is a result of culture under occupation.
- Children in the US get to play violent video games, but they get to turn that off and go back to the safety of their home, go into your bedroom and shut the door. When you’re a Palestinian child, you don’t have that luxury.
- We know because we proved in both trials, that the US Government through USAID and other organizations was giving to the exact same Zakat Committees that were at issue in the indictment of this case.
- And the notion that you have to vet the recipient of charitiable donations, I believe is un-American.
- There’s just something wrong about criminalizing humanitarian aid. Charities under fire.
Guests – Laila Al-Arian, a Washington DC based journalist. Linda Moreno, high profile defense attorney.
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Harpers Magazine Panel: Justice After Bush: Prosecuting an Outlaw Administration
We hear from our own Michael Ratner President, Center for Constitutional Rights. The event discussed methods available to a democracy to prosecute high officials in the Bush Administration and responded to Scott Horton’s Harper’s Magazine cover story called “Justice After Bush: Prosecuting an Outlaw Administration.” We will hear more from the other speakers in the coming weeks.
- Elizabeth Holtzman, Author, The Impeachment of George W. Bush
- Scott Horton, Contributing Editor, Harper’s Magazine
- Jerrold Nadler, Chairman, House Subcommittee on the Constitution
- Antonio Taguba, Major General (U.S. Army Ret.)
Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Impeachment, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Host Updates:
Related News Stories:
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Verdict Against Holy Land Charity Could Have a Chilling Effect on the Muslim Community
Last month, a jury in Dallas, Texas found five Palestinian men guilty of more than 100 charges in the nation’s largest terrorism financing trial since 9/11. We talk with Laila Al-Arian, a Washington based journalist, who recently wrote a powerful Alternet article about this case and its impact on Muslim charities.
As many listeners may know, Holy Land was the largest Muslim charity in the United States, the the Bush administration shut it down after the September 11th attacks, and arrested five officials from the charity. In her article Al-Arian describes how the prosecution use unrelated video of suicide bombers to emotionally sway the jury. We’re later joined by Linda Moreno, a defense attorney in the case.
Laila Al-Arian:
- One of the witnesses (in this recent case) was an expert witness, he was a Shin Bet agent.
- The way the US government is trying to prove that these Zakaat Committees are funding Hamas is through the testimony of this Israeli witness. The testimony can’t be authenticated.
- The first time in a US court room that an expert witness, not a fact witness, testified under a pseudonym.
- How do you detect perjury, or how does the defense cross-examine without background.
- Expert witness lied to the jury about the Zakat committees being tied to Hamas
- What you’re really doing is prosecuting an Israeli Palestinian conflict in an American courtroom.
- For Muslims giving charity is a religious obligation.
- There will be an appeal on the grounds of the expert witness Shin Bet agent.
- Joe Lieberman and George Bush commented on the verdict of this case.
- All this does is punish people who are suffering, and punishing those who want to help them.
Linda Moreno:
- The government began its exhibit with a photograph of a bombed out bus, which had nothing to do with the accused in the Holy Land case.
- They also showed video of children doing skits, an art form that is a result of culture under occupation.
- Children in the US get to play violent video games, but they get to turn that off and go back to the safety of their home, go into your bedroom and shut the door. When you’re a Palestinian child, you don’t have that luxury.
- We know because we proved in both trials, that the US Government through USAID and other organizations was giving to the exact same Zakat Committees that were at issue in the indictment of this case.
- And the notion that you have to vet the recipient of charitiable donations, I believe is un-American.
- There’s just something wrong about criminalizing humanitarian aid. Charities under fire.
Guests – Laila Al-Arian, a Washington DC based journalist. Linda Moreno, high profile defense attorney.
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Legislation To Stop Preemptive Pardons
So far George W Bush has issued nearly 170 pardons, they include a Missouri farmer who unintentionally poisoned three bald eagles. Pardons give the recipients greater leeway to find jobs, live in public housing and vote. Many expect that President Bush will pardon himself and other high officials as a shelter from criminal charges and that’s what New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler is trying to prevent. Nadler is the Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, and he’s recently introduced House Resolution 1531 demanding that Bush refrain from issuing pre_emptive pardons of senior officials in his Administration during the final 90 days of office.
New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler:
- No pre-emptive pardons, the president should not do it, it’s a dangerous abuse of pardon power.
- HR 1531 also says that we believe an attorney general should appoint an independent counsel to investigate alleged various crimes, such as warrantless wiretapping, torture, renditions and so forth committed during the Bush administration.
- Premptive Pardons: President Ford pardoned Nixon, for any crimes that he might have committed.
- President H W Bush pardoned Casper Weinberger and various other people for any crimes they might have made. President Carter pardoned anyone who violated the draft laws in evading the draft during the Vietnam War.
- My feeling is the reason for pardons or give the pardon power in the first place is you want to temper justice with mercy.
- It would be an abuse of power before they get convicted of a crime. If he pardoned all the people well, then how do you develop a case.
- I think there should be a commission with supoena power, that can get at the facts, that can have people testify, that can develop more information for prosecutors to use.
- Right now the narrative will be: Nobody did anything wrong, we protected the American people from terrorism.
- We need to educate the American people about why these prosecutions must be done.
- It’s very important for the people in a democratic country to know what was done in their name.
- One of the problems we have in this country today is that everything is secret.
- The resolution will not be passed in this Congress. If Bush exercises pardons, then there’s very little we can do about those pardons. I’m going to introduce a constitutional amendment to restrict the pardon power in the future.
Guest – Congressman Jerrold Nadler – He represents New York’s Eighth Congressional district. The Eighth, one of the most diverse districts in the nation, includes Manhattan’s West Side below 89th Street, Lower Manhattan, and areas of Brooklyn including Borough Park, Coney Island, Brighton Beach, Sea Gate, Bay Ridge, and Bensonhurst.
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Harpers Magazine Panel: Justice After Bush: Prosecuting an Outlaw Administration
We hears excerpts from 2 speakers in the panel. Our own Michael Ratner President, Center for Constitutional Rights and Burt Neuborne, Legal Director, Brennan Center for Justice, New York University. The event discussed methods available to a democracy to prosecute high officials in the Bush Administration and responded to Scott Horton’s Harper’s Magazine cover story called “Justice After Bush: Prosecuting an Outlaw Administration.” We will hear more from the other speakers in the coming weeks.
- Elizabeth Holtzman, Author, The Impeachment of George W. Bush
- Scott Horton, Contributing Editor, Harper’s Magazine
- Jerrold Nadler, Chairman, House Subcommittee on the Constitution
- Antonio Taguba, Major General (U.S. Army Ret.)
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Civil Liberties, Extraordinary Rendition, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Supreme Court, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Debrief: Vermont Attorney General Candidate Charlotte Dennett
Attorney Charlotte Dennett of Vermont ran for the state attorney general on the platform that if elected she would immediately undertake the prosecution of George W. Bush for the unnecessary deaths of Vermont soldiers in Iraq. Vermont has paid the highest price in deaths per capita in the nation. This strategy is based and outlined in the book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, written by Vincent Bugliosi, former prosecutor and bestselling author. The strategy is to establish jurisdiction in the cases for Attorneys General in each state and also the approximately 900 district attorneys in the counties of those states.
Charlotte Dennett:
- We weren’t trying Bush on war crimes. What we were proposing was to prosecute Bush under state murder statutes, criminal statutes.
- William Sorrell, current Vermont Attorney General, in his campaign, claimed that it (prosecution) couldn’t happen in Vermont, if you want to prosecute war crimes you have to do it in the Hague.
- Sorrell repeated this message constantly, making it (prosecution) seem impossible to do in Vermont.
- Sorrell would not acknowledge that, if he did acknowledge then we could establish jurisdiction and moved forward.
- Because he refused to acknowledge it made it look hopeless and ridiculous. I’m afraid a lot of Vermonters got that message.
- A friend of mine told me that when asked if the Obama administration will prosecute Bush, our own senator Patrick Leahy, head of the senate judiciary committee said No it can’t be done. Dont’ roll over on thisIf we keep letting this happen then what kind of society are we going to encourage.
Guest – Charlotte Dennett, attorney, and former investigative reporter for 30 years and has been practicing law in Vermont for 11 years. She helped sue one of the worst polluters of the country, including Du Pont.
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On War Crimes and Torture: Should High Government Officials Be Investigated and Prosecuted?
We hear an excerpt from a debate between our own Michael Ratner and Stuart Taylor at Georgetown University, moderated by David Vladeck, Professor, Georgetown University Law Center. Stuart Taylor is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institute, he’s a columnist for the National Jornal and contributing editor for Newsweek magazine. The event was titled On War Crimes and Torture: Should High Government Officials Be Investigated and Prosecuted? These issues are moving to the forefront in some media as the Bush Administration comes to a close.
Internet Message Forum On The Debate
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Research Professor of Law, Michael Tigar
Michael Tigar is an expert in Constitutional Law and the Supreme Court. He has represented Terry Nichols of the Oklahoma City Bombing, Angela Davis, and Lynne Stewart. Tigar outlines several steps the Obama Administration must do to turn back the major breaches in U.S. civil liberties.
Michael Tigar:
- There is now a systematic breaking down of all barriers against government intrusion into the private lives of people.
- Alien Enemy Combatants: A creation of a new class of people who are thought to be utterly right-less, both as to whether they can be detained, the conditions of their detention, and the manner in which they can be held and interrogated.
- Meanwhile, we have legal fictions such as the Vice President saying he’s neither a member of the executive or legislative branch, and therefore being subject to the rules of both is subject to the rules of neither.
- We have justice system staffed with people whose only qualification is their asserted ideological purity.
- We have two aggressive wars, all done to the tune of the most massive federal debts in history.
- This, accompanied by the largest transfer of wealth from the poor, and working class to the already wealthy, coupled with the dismantling of regulatory barriers of how greed and avarice operate.
- It is the lack of any significant organized resistance from legislators, and with some few bright exceptions, judges and lawyers that define for us the task that lies ahead.
- Eric Holder, a good lawyer, was among the group of people in the Clinton administration that even though they had all the evidence, that they would not prosecute Pinochet.
- National State Secrets: the case of journalist Quentin Reynolds who took a ride on an Air Force jet and it crashed, his widow sued under the federal tort claims act saying that she thought there was negligence. The United States convinced the Supreme Court that to disclose the reasons why that plane crashed might involve state secrets, and that she should not be able to sue.
- Sixty years later the maintenance file on that plane was on unsealed. It turned out that it was a routine maintenance error that caused the crash. Behind the curtain of states secrets is illegality and mendacity.
- How many years did it take to get Pinochet for any kind of proposed criminal accountability, almost 20, because of states secrets.
- The tort system, that is the way we enforce rules about safe products, it’s the way that we enforce the rules about the toxic substances that poison people, it’s the way that we deal with the kleptocracy that rules wall street.
- It’s so well tested – Marbury v Madison 1803 – Chief Justice Marshall said that he could decide a case was unconstitutional.
Guest – Michael Tigar, a criminal defense attorney who has represented some of the country’s most controversial clients. He is also a member of the Duke University Law School faculty.
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