I had a little look up myself to see if I could find the teacher on the net, and success! Only took half an hour or so looking at faculty pages…
Anyway, if this is the right guy, he works at the Near East South Asia Centre for strategic studies, part of the aforementioned University. Here’s a link to his University Biog. [warning- PDF file]
From the biog;
So I guess two years ago he wasn’t teaching, but in fact a minister. Rather easier to find, if anything.
I have an idea: why doesn’t the US out-source intelligence-gathering to the Guradian? It would have to be cheaper than it costs at present, and have to be better quality (apart from the occasional typo that gets past the sub-editors).
**Sevastopol: I’ve opened a new thread to respond to your last post about Bluesman; I don’t want to hijack this one further.
I agree, although I think there is another point that wasn’t expored in the OP’s cite. IANAL, but I would assume that it is the responsibility of this guy’s attorney to dig up witnesses for him, not the court itself. Maybe in the case of the military tribunals it works differently, but I was assume that his attorney would not be stopped from looking for witnesses even if the court was doing that as well.
Now, it’s not clear to me that all these guys were actually given attorneys to argue on their behalf, but some of them certainly were-- witness LCDR Swift of Hamdan v Rumsfeld fame. These guys are not timid (again, witness LCDR Swift), but they may be overworked. Still, I have to wonder why even an overworked attorney couldn’t have found at least one of these witnesses.
Whatever the cause, though, this is inexcusable. At some point (maybe even now), we’d probably be better off just letting these guys go and forgetting about the trials altogether. I’m sure we got some good intelligence from some of them early on, but they can’t know anything useful anymore.
Plus change, plus c’est la meme chose.
Too bad the Officers of the Kangaroo Court didn’t bother using Google or Wikipedia to find Ahmed Ali Jalali – would have taken them onlya few seconds.
The USA needs to pick up its socks and start acting responsiby by acting on the values that it expouses.
Fill in the blank:
Vote an idiot in as President and get a government that makes idio_ic mistakes.
If you filled in the blank with any letter other than “t” YOU can be a US dept. of justice intellijenz ofiser.
It’ll all be forgotten pretty quickly. The attention span, and memory, of American voters is remarkably short, and the number that accept responsibility for their hiring decisions is sadly small as well. Plus, never overlook the human tendency to rationalize away failures as someone else’s fault, and when that’s not possible, to give the benefit of the doubt.
Here’s how it goes: I’ve heard depressingly many say “Well, Bush is trying his best to defend us, it’s a new situation, he’s been learning on the job like anyone would, and nobody’s perfect.” It’s even been followed by something along the lines of “At the very least, he’s stood for morality more than Clinton ever did.”
Facts, and consideration of them, really don’t matter. Human perversity and simple bloodymindedness trump that stuff most of the time.
This is the part that really infuriates me, John. The prisoners were shuffled into a murky legal limbo under the guise of fighting terrorists. They weren’t quite prisoners of war, rather people assumed (?) to have terrorist leanings. Why or how they were determined to be dangerous to require immediate imprisonment, minus trials, and kept imprisoned, wasn’t ever handled with anything resembling openess, much less due process.
This whole disgraceful non-process reeked from day one. It amounted to ‘hey, they’re so dangerous we just gotta keep ‘em out of commission’. Trust us, top secret, keeping you safe, blah, blah, blah’. The trouble is, they apparently didn’t do enough basic investigation before they slammed these guys right into Gitmo and left them to rot. Where in this murky non-process was the standard of sufficient evidence to idict? No matter what quasi-legal gulag this horrendous administration tried to create, the responsiblity rested squarely on them to be sure pretty damned sure first before slapping people into a sorta-not-really military prison.
Did Bush and his cadre of arrogant assholes really think that this crap would fly indefinitely? That no one would ever care enough to actually look at why people were imprisoned rather than just taking their word on it? What sort of vicious, stupid assholes just assume the entire world would or should indefinitely take their word that the prisoners should just be left to rot?
No matter which way it’s sliced, BushCo. went way out of a limb creating a special ‘terrorist’ gulag. Anybody with two connecting brain cells should have made damned sure, in advance, that actual grounds for imprisoment would bear scrutiny. Their grab-'em-all-and-sort-'em-out-later shit was guaranteed to backfire. I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that BushCo is not only vicious and morally bankrupt but also stupider than a box of hammers as well.
I disagree on your first point. Just as these proto-fascist “conservatives” will still exist regardless of what happens in November, they’ll try to lionize Shrub just as they do with Reagan. Christ, I remember some smug piece of pund-shit talking about how that coke-addled chimp is carrying on the Gipper’s “hard-line” legacy during the latter’s FUNERAL, for chrissake. They’re preparing to revel in dubya’s “legacy.” Just wait and see: he won’t be forgotten, he’ll be another entry in “the good ol’ days” ledger of the death-worshipping right wing before you know it.
As for the rest, I’m right with you. “Rationalize away failures as someone else’s fault?” Damned right. It’ll be the treasonous “left” and the librul media that will take the blame for the chimperor’s destructive bungling. We’ll be scapegoats and all that. Just as someone in my family blamed our loss in Vietnam on “the press.” “We’d have won in Iraq if you Murka-haters had supported the troops!” Nevermind the right’s control of the executive and legislative branches, and ceaseless attempts to undermine the judiciary. Us demmercrats are just that insidious. :rolleyes:
And I have indeed heard people protesting that the oppress-ident is “doing his best to protect us.” I remember some stupid cunt saying that Bush is “compassionate” because he does what he believes is right. My ass. You know what they say about the road to hell.
Fuck the right wing of this country. Fuck them right in the eye. :mad:
This is the Pit, Khan. There’s no need to mince words…
My simile is more metaphorical :“en route Bastille”. Yet again, Bush’s Hanging Dong in his transparent garb-áge. Yea, that’s French. Transparent is French.
Revolution is another French word.
Sorry 'bout this, sons of America…but here’s a truth in heritage. I challenge you to go a day without speaking French. Seriously, try to go a day without using a French root. It’s impossible.
We have imprisoned our people. We are in a prison of immolation. We are destroying ourselves through lack of principle. Our justification is illegitimate and a malignancy of hate.
Hmmm…
Nope, not in here. Sorry guys, just having a look around for Clothahump and** Shodan**. I wonder where they could be?
My understanding is that they were “captured on the battlefield” in Afghanistan. But I think some (many?) were simply turned in for bounty by various warlords. That may very well account for some of the more obviously innocent detainees.
I also think the administration wanted to interrogate them thoroughly before even attempting to try them. That probably wasn’t a bad idea, considering that at the time we had little idea of the scope of Al Qaeda’s plans. Not that I agree with all the interrogation techniques that were used, nor with the shoddy process of dispositioning them afterwards. Still, I’d like to hear from whichever advocate was handling this guy’s case (assuming there was an advocate) and understand what the issue was. Maybe it’s simply that he didn’t have an advocate. I wish the article had made that clear one way or the other, but like I said, the result speaks for iteslf-- something went terribly wrong.
John, it was my understanding from the article that it was made clear to the detainees the United States would not be responsible for assisting in transportation for witnesses in order for them to testify, which leads me to wonder how they’d get to the hearings, as the detainees had all assets frozen and would not be able to pay for transporting their witnesses, either. And if that was not possible, why could they not be deposed in Washington, DC in Mr. Jalali’s case and in Afghanistan in Mr. Massoud’s case?