American Insouciance
Now that military officers selected by the Bush Pentagon have reached a split verdict convicting Salim Hamdan, a onetime driver for Osama bin Laden, of supporting terrorism, but innocent of terrorist conspiracy, do you feel safe?
Or are we superpower Americans still at risk until we capture bin Laden's dentist, barber and the person who installed the carpet in his living room?
The Bush regime, with its comic huffings and puffings, is unaware that it has made itself the laughing stock of the world, a comedy version of the Third Reich.
Hamdan was not defended by the slick lawyers that got O.J. Simpson off, and he most certainly did not have a jury of his peers. Hamdan was defended by a Pentagon-appointed U.S. Navy officer, and his jurors were all Pentagon-appointed U.S. military officers with an eye on their careers. Even in this kangaroo court, Hamdan was cleared of the main charge.
The U.S. Navy officer who was Hamdan's appointed attorney is certainly no terrorist sympathizer. Yet even this U.S. officer said that the rules Bush designed for the military tribunals were crafted to achieve convictions. He also said that the judge allowed evidence that would not have been admitted by any civilian or military U.S. court. He said that the interrogations of Hamdan, which comprised the basis of the Bush regime's case, were tainted by coercive tactics, including sleep deprivation and solitary confinement.
Does this make you a proud American?
Do you think you are made more safe when you stand there while "your" government implements its own version of Joseph Stalin's show trials?
The trial and conviction of Hamdan has made every American very unsafe.
The one certain fact about U.S. law is that it is expanded until it applies to everyone. Consider RICO, for example, the asset-freeze law that was intended only in criminal cases involving the Mafia. It wasn't long before RICO found its way into civil divorce proceedings.
Bush's multiyear, multibillion-dollar "war on terror" has been reduced to railroading a low-level employee, a driver, for "terrorism."
One would hope that the Hamdan verdict would be enough shame and ridicule for the United States in one day. But no, Bush didn't stop there. On his way to the Beijing Olympics, President Bush expressed "deep concerns" for the state of human rights in China.
But not in Guantanamo, or in Abu Ghraib, or in the CIA's torture dungeons used for "renditions," or in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the United States is expert at bombing weddings, funerals, children's soccer games and every assortment of civilians imaginable.
As the good book says, clean the beam from your own eye before pointing to the mote in your brother's eye.
But Americans, the salt of the earth, have neither beams nor motes. We are the virtuous few, ordained by God to impose our hegemony on the world. It is written, or so say the neocons.
What would President Bush say if, heaven forbid, the Chinese were as rude as he is and asked Mr. Superpower why the land of "freedom and democracy" has 1 million names on a watch list? China, with a population four times as large, doesn't have a watch list with 1 million names.
What would President Bush say if China asked him why the United States, with a population one-fourth the size of China's, has hundreds of thousands more of its citizens in prison? The percentage of Americans in prison is far higher than in China and is a larger absolute number.
What would President Bush say if China asked him why he used lies and deception to justify his invasion of Iraq? China, unlike Bush, is not responsible for 1.2 million dead Iraqis and 4 million displaced Iraqis.
China's human rights policy is not perfect. China's greatest human rights failing is that China is the Bush regime's prime enabler of its war crimes and human rights abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan. By financing Bush's budget deficit, China is financing Bush's gratuitous wars. Indeed, China can be said to finance the weaponry that the United States gives Israel to enable the suppression of the Palestinians and with which to bomb the civilian population of Lebanon.
China is a serious human rights abuser, because China is complicit in Bush's human rights abuses.
If we are honest about who is actually murdering and abusing people, it is the United States, Israel and the United Kingdom. There's your "axis of evil."
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
Entries(RSS)
In the official indictment for 9/11 its charges Abdullah Bin Laden and his NGO the Benevolence Fund for helping finance the 9/11 hijackers.
Several European intelligence agencies have named Omar and Abdullah Bin Laden as main financiers of international terrorism for the past decade in the Balkans and Abdullah’s WAMY (World Muslim Youth) organisation as being a front for recruiting terrorists.
With pressure from the EU and the US Bosnia was forced to investigate terrorist organisations operating there. The judges charged that Abdullah Bin Laden was financing and operating Chechen camps there.
Also discovered was a letter that the terrorists themselves wrote mentioning who there main financiers are which include Omar and Abdullah Bin Laden.
Yet no one has even thought about arresting or even mentioning Abdullah Bin Laden probably because he’s a senior shareholder in several high profile US companies like the Carlyle Group and a probable CIA asset. This pretty much proves the whole “War on Terror” is a fraud and the whole Osama bin Laden international terror network is pure fiction.
"Also discovered was a letter that the terrorists themselves wrote mentioning who there (sic) main financiers are (sic) which include Omar and Abdullah Bin Laden."
There is a difference between their and there. Thus: Who's dog is that? Their dog. Where is their dog? Over there.
Also the relative clause, "who their main financiers were", should have a verb in the past tense since the main verb, "was", is in the past tense.
I'm feeling peevish today.
@2David Collins
The grammar and punctuation is not the point.
The point is Abdullah’s name has popped up in serious investigation into financing of international terrorism and his famous brother Osama hasn’t.
I'm sure that's true, James, and you did make a good point. I'm just feeling peevish today.
I am waiting for somebody to comment the war in Georgia and Ossetia.
Meanwhile, I would suggest that this war is a necon plot intended as a distraction while Israel and the U.S. (that is, the neocons) attack Iran.
"China’s greatest human rights failing is that China is the Bush regime’s prime enabler of its war crimes and human rights abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan."
And this is worse than it's one-child policy??
David @2.
It's "Whose," not "Who's."
You asked for it.
The American government is the most evil institution in operation today.
Eric @7
Thanks, Eric. : )
Apparently Paul Craig Roberts fails to understand what constitutes a "kangaroo" court. Or perhaps his vision of the military remains so childishly stereotypical that he cannot bring himself to admit that he knows nothing about military law or lawyers.
lirelou @10
He's written a widely acclaimed book on the abuses of our legal system. A book praised by many prominent lawyers.
Have you?
Yes, Yes PCR.
And Ayman al-Zawahiri was just Osama's doctor.
Between your occasional allusions to 9-11 conspiracy and shilling for Islamists and even Islamic terrorists, whose side are you on again?
Fifth columns impugn isolationists.
You used to be a good economist.
Jack Benedict @6
China's one-child policy is a hoax. China is adding 12 million to its population each year. That said, PCR does go too easy on China, as their regime are clearly murderous thugs.
Ron Lewenberg @12
You sound like another arrogant, New York neocon. I'll take crazy conspiracy theorists over your lot anyday.
Personally, I don't believe in any 9/11 "conspiracy"...
But given the endlessly documented national treachery and murderous aggression of the neocons who've hijacked America's government, I'd say that's just about the only crime they haven't committed!
Paul Craig Roberts interview on Georgia-Russia conflict.
http://www.russiatoday.com/guests/video/1452
Can't wait till the next Paul Craig Roberts article on the subject as well as Srdja Trifkovic.