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HOW HADITHA HAPPENED; WHY IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN "You live like an animal. You learn to like killing. .. Hate civilians. Can't trust the bastards. You hate taking prisoners. You'd rather kill them. Why?" Read Vietnam vet Marc Levy's extraordinary Primer on the Whys and Wherefores of PTSD and understand what is happening in Iraq. PLUS Andrew Lack on the incredible frauds of the bottled water industry. Why you should drink tapwater out of a glass and save your money PLUS Jeffrey St Clair on the deadly secrets of America's oldest bomb factory PLUS Chris Reed on Eros and Militarization: how Japan's sexpot schoolgirls fit into the right's Re-Arm agenda. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! |
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Today's Stories June 30, 2006 Marjorie Cohn June 29, 2006 Bill Quigley Ron Jacobs Paul Craig Roberts June 28, 2006 Jorge Mariscal Greg Moses Mark Weisbrot Ramzy Baroud Dave Lindorff William S.
Lind Mike Ferner Zoltan Grossman
Marjorie Cohn Benjamin /
Jarrar William Hughes Doug Giebel Uri Avnery Alexander Cockburn
June 26, 2006 Don Santina Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Rafael Rodriguez-Cruz Evelyn Pringle Jonathan Cook
June 23, 2006 Youmans / Erakat Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Col. Dan Smith
June 22, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Winslow T.
Wheeler Tanya Reinhart Mike Marqusee William Blum
June 21, 2006 Ramzy Baroud Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp Greg Moses
June 20, 2006 Fred Gardner Omar Waraich Christopher Reed CP Newswire Jonathan Cook
June 19, 2006 Bill Quigley John Walsh Mike Whitney Alexander Cockburn
June 16 / 18,
2006 Kathy / Bill
Christision Joseph Nevins Farrah Hassen Greg Moses Nicole Colson John Scagliotti Mokhiber / Weissmann
June 15, 2006 Kathy Kelly Norman Solomon Ron Jacobs Sam Bahour Ramzy Baroud CounterPunch Wire Gabriel Kolko Website of the Day
June 14, 2006 Nicole Colson Jonathan Cook Joseph Schechla Michael Carmichael Evelyn Pringle Ward Churchill Rev. William E. Alberts Website of the
Day
June 13, 2006 Medea Benjamin Anthony Alessandrini Paul D'Amato Dave Lindorff John Ross Gabriel Garcia Hilton Obenzinger Yitzhak Laor Juan Antonio
Ocasio Rivera Jennifer Van
Bergen Website of the
Day
June 12, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Patrick Cockburn Mike Marqusee Lee Sustar Robert Fisk Michael J. Smith Felice Pace Jennifer Loewenstein Website of the Day
June 10 / 11,
2006 Robert Fisk Diane Christian Joe Allen Ralph Nader Fred Gardner Dave Lindorff Dave Zirin /
John Cox Dennis Perrin Greg Moses John Chuckman Michael J. Smith Roger Burbach Ira Moskowitz Sam Bahour Seth Sandronsky Michael Berg Kirsten Roberts Ron Jacobs Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Website of the
Weekend
June 9, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Paul Craig Roberts Gary Leupp Eric Ruder Evelyn Pringle Mickey Z. Michael J. Smith Patrick Cockburn Website of the
Day
June 8, 2006 Chris Floyd Michael Dickinson Ron Jacobs William S. Lind Joshua Frank Missy Comley Beattie Lloyd Williams Bill Christison Website of the Day
June 7, 2006 Dave Lindorff Sunsara Taylor John Walsh David MacMichael Mickey Z. Evelyn Pringle Myles Palmer Laura Ribeiro Website of the Day
June 6, 2006 Diane Christian Paul Craig Roberts Ralph Nader Norman Solomon Darmont / Genovali Manuel Garcia,
Jr. Subcomandante Marcos Patrick Cockburn Website of the Day
June 5, 2006 Bruce Jackson Chris Floyd Michael Neumann Heather Gray William Hughes David Swanson Alexander Cockburn Website of the Day
June 3 / 4, 2006 Robert Fisk James Petras Rosemary Radford Ruether Harry Clark Jeffrey St. Clair Ron Ridenour Ron Jacobs Fred Gardner Peter Montague John Walsh Greg Moses Sean Donahue Mike Whitney Dave Patten Ali Khan Robert Dotson,
MD Hammond Guthrie St. Clair / D'Antoni Poets' Basement Website of the
Day
June 2, 2006 Kathy Kelly Alan Maass Mickey Z. Dave Lindorff Chris Kutalik Sunsara Taylor Sam Husseini Mike Ferner Website of the
Day
June 1, 2006 Brian Cloughley David Peterson Lee Ballinger Jonathan Cook Mike Whitney Paul Rockwell Clifton Ross Kevin Zeese Website of the
Day
May 31, 2006 Dave Lindorff Joshua Frank Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz P. Sainath Ramzy Baroud Seth Sandronsky Mickey Z. Ralph Nader Jeffrey St. Clair Website of the Day
May 30, 2006 Lee Ballinger Jonathan Cook Gary Leupp John Ross Robert Jensen Michael Dickinson Michael Carmichael Tim Wise Harry Browne Website of the
Day
May 27 / 29,
2006 Paul Craig Roberts Kathleen Christison Kathy Kelly Christopher
Reed Lawrence R. Velvel Tom Barry Gary Leupp Col. Dan Smith Ron Jacobs Don Fitz Fred Gardner Peter Montague Raymond Garcia John Farley Seth Sandronsky Tia Steele Lenni Brenner Dr. Susan Block Scott Michael Perey Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Recipe of the
Weekend Website of the Weekend
May 26, 2006 Col. Douglas
MacGregor Brian J. Foley Michael Dickinson Missy Comley Beattie Pierre Tristam Joe Allen Kona Lowell Roger Burbach Website of the
Day
May 25, 2006 Les AuCoin Jeff Halper Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Bob Wing Elise Gould Robert Bryce Website of the Day
May 24, 2006 Michael Donnelly Patrick Cockburn Lucinda Marshall Dave Lindorff Shmuel Rosner Moshe Adler Heather Gray Pratyush Chandra Paul Craig Roberts Floyd Rudmin Website of the Day
May 23, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Sharon Smith Sunsara Taylor Joel Whitney Alice Cherbonnier Ron Jacobs Kristen Ess Patrick Cockburn Website of the
Day
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June 30, 2006 A Supreme RebukeBush Loses Guantanamo CaseBy MARJORIE COHN In the most significant rebuff to George W. Bush's assertion of executive power since he declared his "war on terror," the Supreme Court called a halt to Bush's kangaroo courts at Guantánamo Bay. Justice Stevens wrote for the 5-3 majority, "We conclude that the military commission convened to try Hamdan lacks power to proceed because its structure and procedures violate both the [Uniform Code of Military Justice] and the Geneva Conventions." Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter and Kennedy joined Stevens in the majority opinion. One of Hamdan's lawyers, Georgetown University Law School Professor Neal Kayta, called the ruling a "rebuke" to a system of "fake courts." Shafiq Rasul, speaking for himself and two other former Guantánamo detainees, said, "We are ecstatic at today's outcome. This is another step in our collective efforts to see that those we left behind are treated fairly under international law." Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents nearly half of the Guantánamo detainees, was "thrilled" by the Court's decision. "What this says to the administration is that you can no longer decide arbitrarily what you want to do with people. It upheld the rule of law in this country and determined that the executive has gone beyond the constitution and international law." In November 2001, Bush set up military commissions to try Guantánamo prisoners charged with crimes. Of the more than 700 men and boys who have been housed there in the last four and half years, only 10 have been charged with criminal offenses. Bush charged Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's driver, with one count of conspiracy "to commit . . . offenses triable by military commission." Before yesterday's landmark ruling on his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, Hamdan was awaiting trial in a military commission. The Bush administration filed a motion to dismiss Hamdan's challenge to the military commission after Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act on December 30, 2005. In the DTA, Congress purported to strip US federal courts of jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus petitions filed by Guantánamo detainees. But the Court held Congress did not intend to deny federal court jurisdiction to detainees like Hamdan, whose cases were already pending on the date the DTA was enacted. Although this is a narrow ruling, leaving open the door for Bush to argue that Congress effectively denied other detainees the right to file future challenges to their confinement, the Court clearly stated it was reserving any decision on whether Congress could constitutionally deny a prisoner the right to federal habeas corpus jurisdiction. Unlike the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Bush's military commissions would allow a defendant to be convicted by evidence he never sees in a proceeding he cannot attend with evidence that does not meet federal evidentiary standards. This includes statements obtained by coercion. The majority held Bush failed to show it would be impracticable to furnish defendants in military commissions safeguards commensurate with those guaranteed by the UCMJ. One of the most critical parts of the Court's decision was its ruling that Common Article 3 to the Geneva Conventions applies to al Qaeda. Common Article 3 prohibits "the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples." Article 3 Common requires that prisoners be treated humanely; it forbids outrages on personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment. The Pentagon had planned to eliminate any reference to Common Article 3's protections from its interrogation regulations. But the Supreme Court has now affirmed that all prisoners, not just prisoners of war, must be treated humanely. This is bound to put a severe crimp in the Bush administration's cruel and torturous interrogations. Arguing out of both sides of his mouth, Bush had maintained the Geneva Conventions didn't apply to al Qaeda because they weren't prisoners of war. But Bush also asserted that Common Article 3, which applies to conflicts "not of an international character," doesn't apply to al Qaeda. The Court shot down that argument, holding that "the term 'not of an international character' is used in contradistinction to a conflict between nations.'" Bush can't have it both ways. Justice Kennedy, in a separate concurrence joined by Justices Souter, Breyer and Ginsburg, noted that Common Article 3 "is part of a treaty the United States has ratified and thus accepted as binding law." The target of recent conservative attacks for his willingness to cite treaties, Justice Kennedy was spot on here. For while treaties are international law, they are also part of US law under the Supremacy Clause of our Constitution. Interestingly Justice Alito, who filed a separate dissent from the Court's decision, did not dispute the notion that Common Article 3 applies to al Qaeda, a proposition the Bush administration has strongly denied. The Court also held that Congress's Authorization for the Use of Military Force, passed shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, did not expand Bush's authority to convene military commissions that do not comport with UCMJ safeguards. This is an important precedent that opponents of Bush's warrantless surveillance of Americans can cite in opposition to administration claims that the AUMF authorizes the spying program. Four justices - Stevens, Souter, Breyer and Ginsburg - notably cited Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, Article 75. It incorporates trial protections, including the right to be tried in one's presence. Although the US has not ratified Protocol I, they wrote, "it appears that the Government 'regard[s] the provisions of Article 75 as an articulation of safeguards to which all persons in the hands of an enemy are entitled.'" Article 75, the four justices said, is "indisputably part of the customary international law." The dissent by Justice Thomas shows that he continues to be the Bush administration's toady. In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld two years ago, he said, "This detention falls squarely within the Federal Government's war powers, and we lack the expertise and capacity to second-guess that decision." Yesterday, Justice Thomas wrote in his Hamdan dissent that the Court's opinion "openly flouts our well-established duty to respect the Executive's judgment in matters of military operations and foreign affairs." In contrast, Justice Breyer's concurrence harked back to the majority opinion in Hamdi, saying, "The [Hamdan] Court's conclusion ultimately rests upon a single ground: Congress has not issued the Executive a 'blank check.'" Most importantly, the Supreme Court reiterated that, "Nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law." Now Bush can no longer deny the Guantánamo detainees basic due process. This decision is a significant victory for justice and the rule of law. Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson
School of Law, president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild,
and the US representative to the executive committee of the American
Association of Jurists.
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann  Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair          Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.                    |
