Welcome to Law and Disorder Radio
Law and Disorder is a weekly independent civil liberties radio program airing on more than 150 stations and on Apple podcast. Law and Disorder provides timely legal perspectives on issues concerning civil liberties, privacy, right to dissent and practices of torture exercised by the US government and private corporations.
Law and Disorder November 3, 2008
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Updates:
- Troy Davis Update (Dalia Hashad)
- Guantanamo Update: Mohamed Jawad
- Bush Launches Last Minute Deregulation Push
- Emanuel (Toto) Constant – Haitian Death Squad Leader Sentenced To Prison On Mortgage Fraud
- Muslim, Arab, Men Rounded Up Post 9/11 Based On Racial Profiling: Ashcroft, Others Knew.
- R.A.N.D. Lobbys Pentagon: Start War To Save US Economy
- A Torturer’s Tale: Trained By The US, This is Why He Stopped
- Calls Go Out To Save Autistic Scots Hacker From Threat of US Prison.
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Iraq Veterans Against The War: Jose Vasquez
The group Iraq Veterans Against The War or IVAW has emerged as the leading antiwar group in the United States. Recently, thousands of IVAW members held rallies and marches at the RNC and nearly 10 thousand marched at the DNC in Denver. The demonstrations urged presidential candidates to endorse ending the Iraq war and paying reparations to the people of Iraq.
The IVAW also calls for the immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces in Iraq, stopping the corporate pillaging of Iraq, and full benefits, adequate healthcare for returning servicemen and women. IVAW chapters are in 48 states, Canada and DC, members include recent veterans and active duty servicemen and women from all branches of military service, National Guard members, and reservists who have served in the United States military since September 11, 2001.
Guest – Jose Vasquez, a 14 year US Army veteran and conscientious objector. He is an active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) serving as the New York City chapter president. Jose was also a key organizer of Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Iraq War – Status of Forces Agreement: Anthony Arnove
Nearly 4,200 US soldiers and 1 million Iraqi civilians have been killed in the US occupation of Iraq since 2003. .Right now there are 75 major US bases in Iraq, 140 thousand US troops and 180 thousand private contractors operating in Iraq. The cost of the Iraq War so far is 3 trillion and this year the monthly average expense is 12 billion dollars.
A pact recently negotiated in secret by the US government intends to extend the US occupation 3 more years in Iraq despite public and Congressional opposition. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have demonstrated against the pact that calls for full US withdrawal by 2012, but the agreement also leaves open the possible later date of withdrawal.
Anthony Arnove:
- Status of Forces Agreement; Orwellian slieght of hand – Combat troop withdrawal only.
- US is currently responsible for the detention of thousands of Iraqis who are being held without trial.
- 14 permanent US bases in Iraq: Areas to project power from in the future.
- Iraq: World’s second largest oil reserves, and world’s most strategic shipping routes.
- In the SOFA agreements, the US is making a condition to pass a national oil law.
- Iraq’s oil is distributed unevenly, leading to regional tensions between Kurdish and Shia regions.
- Obama rhetoric: Blaming the Iraqi people – the Iraqis haven’t spent money or achieved political reconciliation, or passed a national oil law
Guest – Editor and writer, Anthony Arnove, author of Iraq: The Logic Of Withdrawal.
Anthony Arnove Wikipedia Entry:
Arnove is best known for his books on Iraq and the Iraq War. Arnove is the author of the book Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal, published in hardcover by the New Press and in paperback by Haymarket Books. Arnove toured the country promoting the book in spring 2006 as part of the New Press’ “End the War Tour”.
Arnove is also the editor of Iraq Under Siege, published by South End Press, the co-editor with Howard Zinn of Voices of a People’s History of the United States, published by Seven Stories Press, and the editor of The Essential Noam Chomsky, published by the New Press. He writes frequently for left-wing publications; he is a featured author at ZNet, a columnist for Socialist Worker, and on the editorial board of the International Socialist Review. He has also written for The Nation, In These Times, Le Nouvel Observateur, L’Humanité, and The Financial Times.
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Law and Disorder October 27, 2008
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Updates:
- Michael Ratner on the Cuban Five, a Cuba Visit, the Uighurs and the Latest on Guantanamo.
- US Drops Charges for 5 Guantánamo Detainees
- US missiles’ Hit Pakistan school
- Blackwater Sends Warship to Gulf of Aden
- North American Army Created Without OK by Congress
- Guantanamo Guards Struggle With Hunger Striker
- U.S. Helicopters Attack Syrian Village
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Stay Issued In Case of Troy Davis
Monday, October 27 was the day set for the execution of Troy Davis. A third stay has been issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. A 3 judge panel ordered attorneys to draft briefs that address whether Troy Davis can meet requirements for a next round of appeals. Attorneys have 15 days to file briefs.
Two weeks ago the Supreme Court refused to hear Troy Davis’ death penalty appeal, despite broad out pouring of support from former President Jimmy Carter, the European Parliament, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to Jessie Jackson Jr. and this list goes on.
Lawyers Launch New Appeal Effort
Guest – Jessie Cohn with the Death Penalty Abolition Campaign Amnesty International USA
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Former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge Arrested
Former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge was arrested last week near Tampa Florida on charges of obstruction of justice and perjury. The sixty year old retiree was picked up in his Apollo Beach home for allegedly lying about whether he tortured suspects in Chicago decades ago. According to People’s Law Office Attorney Flint Taylor, torture techniques included electric shocks and dry submarino, (suffocating with bags)
Under Seventh Circuit law if there’s a conspiracy to cover up the evidence in a civil case to show fraud then you can bring the case again. The People’s Law Office brought the case in 2005 and the city of Chicago refused to settle the case while pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars in that case. Flint Taylor says the city has spent over the 10 million dollars in aiding the defense of Commander Jon Burge.
- Chicago Mayor Daley Issues Sarcastic Apology for Torture
- Prosecutors Widen Chicago Police Torture Probe
- Law and Disorder Chicago Torture Archive
Guest – G. Flint Taylor, attorney at the Peoples Law Office.Taylor, a graduate of Brown University and Northwestern University School of Law and a founding partner of the People’s Law Office.
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Luis Posada Carriles: A Tribunal
We hear the last of the speeches from this tribunal. Brian Becker, Director, A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition.
From the New York Daily News: “It took years, but he is finally going to be charged in the U.S. for his crimes – even if only symbolically. It will occur here, in New York, when a tribunal composed of scholars and human rights activists take up the case of international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, a man who is responsible for a long list of murderous attacks.
Posada, though, is a very lucky man. Despite his dark history, Posada remains free to roam Miami’s sunny streets and happily lives at home with his family. His rap sheet is long and deadly. A convicted terrorist in two countries – he escaped Venezuela and was pardoned in Panama – Posada is considered the mastermind behind the 1976 bombing of Cubana Airlines Fight 455, which killed the 73 passengers on board, including the Cuban national fencing team. He is believed responsible for a string of hotel bombings in Cuba, resulting in the death of Italian tourist Fabio diCelmo. But these are only two examples of his treachery. Posada later boasted about the diCelmo killing in a New York Times interview, which should give everybody a clear idea of what kind of person this man is.
Inexplicably, the Justice Department has refused to classify the former CIA operative as a terrorist. The reason may have to be found in Posada’s long and extensive ties with the CIA and several other nation’s intelligence agencies.â€
Law and Disorder October 20, 2008
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Updates:
- EFF Sues To Overturn Telecom Immunity
- Paris to quadruple number of CCTV cameras
- NYCLU, ACLU Warn NYPD About Illegal Arrests of School Children
- Supreme Court Declines To Hear Troy Davis Case
- The Financial Crisis Of US Capitalism
Federal Appeals Court Overturns Two Terrorist Convictions
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Sheik Mohammed Ali Al Moayad and Mohammed Mohsen Zayed, convicted of supporting terrorists, can have new trials. The men were convicted in federal court in Brooklyn after a six week trial in early 2005 on charges of conspiring to support Al Qaida and Hamas.
National Lawyers Guild Lawyer, Robert Boyle: This case involved an FBI sting operation where the FBI and the Dept of Justice lured Sheik Mohammed Ali Al Moayad and Mohammed Mohsen Zayed from their native Yemen to Germany.
- They were lured on the promise (…and this was an FBI informant that told them this) that they would provide hundreds of thousands of dollars to Al Moayad’s charitable organizations. The issue was entrapment – set up by the FBI.
- The Sheik went to Germany arrested there in 2003 after meetings with the informant -all recorded. He was brought to trial in Brooklyn but imprisoned in a Florence, Colorado supermax prison.
- The trial judge allowed the government to introduce a host of prejudicial and irrelevant evidence.
- Robert Boyle – “Its rare that they find the cumulative prejudicial evidence as grounds for reversal. This decision is gratifying and unique, its rare to get a reversal in a case where there is alleged terrorism.”
- Extremely similar to Lynne Stewart’s case, if you don’t have direct evidence, prejudice the jury. Raise the spectre of Osama Bin Laden and you hope that the jury overlooks the weaknesses of the government’s case and convicts.
Guest – Lynne Stewart, has also helped set up the Muslim Innocence Project for Muslims caught in similar entrapment.
Guest – Robert Boyle, a national lawyers guild attorney who represented Sheik Mohammed Ali Al Moayad and former civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart who tells us why this brings other issues to light in her case.
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Luis Posada Carriles: A Tribunal
We hear a speech from Wayne Smith, Senior Fellow, Center for International Policy, he was among three speakers. We e will hear Brian Becker, Director of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition in the weeks to come.
Wayne Smith addressed the failure of the United States, specifically the Bush family to prosecute Luis Posada Carriles on charges of terrorism. The failure to charge Posada with terrorism is an open violation of the Resolution 1373 of the UN Security Council. A resolution George Bush pushed through on the days following the attacks on 9/11.
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Collateral Damage : Chris Hedges
Author, journalist Chris Hedges exposes the dark violence deep within the ranks of the Iraq War. The type of violence and eyewitness accounts you don’t hear about in the media. His book pulls together the 50 stories from by combat veterans as they describe the day to day carnage.
Chris Hedges:
- We wanted to give people a window into the sheer terror that has been visited on Iraqi civilians.
- Convoys have to keep moving: Running over children. If an IED goes off, soldiers lay down withering suppressive fire.
- The Sunnis are building a powerful force and will soon unleash a civil war
- Barack Obama speaks in the same toxic language of war bequeathed to us by the Bush Administration. He wants to expand the war in Afghanistan, he talks about leaving behind troops in the green zone and the super bases and fighting terrorism.
- We have no rights as citizens of this country to debate the terms of this occupation, in post Nuremberg terms this war is a criminal war of aggression.
- Resistance. We find our spiritual worth in our ability to resist and to take moral stance n0 matter how lonely.
Guest – Chris Hedges, author of many books specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and society. He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans and right now, he’s a senior fellow at The Nation Institue in New York City and a lecturer in the Council of the Humanities.
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