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Sonic Youth
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Post by Sonic Youth »

Damien wrote:I can't imagine anyone, even -- dare I say it -- criddic not wanting to sign this petition to restore habeas corpus,

http://www.defendhabeas.org/
Colin Powell agrees with you.
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Post by Sonic Youth »

Speaking of enemy combatants...

Court Rules in Favor of Enemy Combatant


Jun 11, 1:58 PM (ET)

By ZINIE CHEN SAMPSON


RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - The Bush administration cannot legally detain a U.S. resident it suspects of being an al-Qaida sleeper agent without charging him, a divided federal appeals court ruled Monday.

"To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, even if the President calls them 'enemy combatants,' would have disastrous consequences for the constitution - and the country," the court panel said.

In the 2-1 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel found that the federal Military Commissions Act doesn't strip Ali al-Marri, a legal U.S. resident, of his constitutional rights to challenge his accusers in court.

It ruled the government must allow al-Marri to be released from military detention.

He is currently the only U.S. resident held as an enemy combatant within the U.S.

Jose Padilla, another U.S. citizen, was held as an enemy combatant in a Navy brig for 3 1/2 years before he was hastily added to an existing case in Miami in November 2005, a few days before a U.S. Supreme Court deadline for Bush administration briefs on the question of the president's powers to continue holding him in military prison without charge.

Al-Marri has been held in solitary confinement in the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., since June 2003. The Qatar native has been detained since his December 2001 arrest at his home in Peoria, Ill., where he moved with his wife and five children a day before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to study for a master's degree at Bradley University.

Al-Marri's lawyers argued that the Military Commissions Act, passed last fall to establish military trials after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, doesn't repeal the writ of habeas corpus - defendants' traditional right to challenge their detention.
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Post by Sabin »

Love the signature, Sonic.
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Post by Sonic Youth »

Thank god, SOMEONE likes "Bushie":

The Albanians! Woo-hoo!
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Post by OscarGuy »

Enemy by whose definition? Just because the President says they're enemy combatants doesn't make it so. Technically, he could lock up his harshest critics calling them enemy combatants. The only difference is if those "enemy combatants" were black or white, I'm sure there would be the biggest stink you've ever heard over them. Especially if they were black or white Americans. He keeps these people away from justice because he can. They deserve access to the court system where people who aren't biased decide if they really are enemy combatants or injustly incarcerated. If you disagree, then you don't give two shits about the constitution or the freedom purportedly being brought to the world.
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Post by criddic3 »

Doesn't have much "zing" because of just what you said. The law is there for NON_ENEMY combatants. Most of those held at Guantanamo are considered enemy combatants. You can't have it both ways.
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Post by Sonic Youth »

The front page of that web-site is misleading. H.C. is still the law for all non-enemy combatants, no matter how much Gonzalez doesn't want it to be. The Supreme Court upheld the law several years ago. I guess "Restore Habeas Corpus for Guantanamo Prisoners" doesn't have much zing these days.
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Post by Damien »

I can't imagine anyone, even -- dare I say it -- criddic not wanting to sign this petition to restore habeas corpus,

http://www.defendhabeas.org/
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Post by 99-1100896887 »

And 60+ Canadians in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban. As Canada's population is 1/10 of the US, that works out to 600+ in your terms.
AND every single one is highlighted and feted in the paper as a hero. VS. what happens in the US, we hear.
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Post by Sonic Youth »

<span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>3,501</span>


BAGHDAD (AP) - The four-year U.S. military death toll in Iraq passed 3,500 after a soldier was reported killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad. A British soldier was also shot to death Thursday in southern Iraq, as Western forces find themselves increasingly vulnerable under a new strategy to take the fight to the enemy.

The British ambassador to Iraq, meanwhile, signaled his government was ready to talk to those behind the abduction of five Britons in Baghdad last month. Iraqi officials have said they believe the Britons were taken by the Mahdi Army militia, which is largely loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

In a rare televised interview, al-Sadr blamed the United States for Iraq's woes, often referring to it as "the occupier" and accusing it of being behind the sectarian violence, the growing schism between Iraq's majority Shiites and once-dominant Sunni Arabs and economic hardships.

"We are now facing a brutal Western assault against Islam," he said, draped in his traditional black robe and turban. "This agenda must be countered with a cultural resistance," he said.

The mounting U.S. casualties, most by makeshift bombs placed in potholes on roads or in fields where troops conduct foot patrols, come as American troops work with Iraqi forces on the streets and in remote outposts as part of a joint crackdown on sectarian violence.

A U.S. soldier was killed and two others were wounded Wednesday when a roadside bomb exploded during combat operations in a southwestern section of Baghdad, the military said Thursday. At least 3,501 U.S. service-members have been killed since the beginning of the war, according to an Associated Press count.

They include at least 23 American deaths during the first six days of June - an average of almost four per day, a similar pace to that in May. American troops deaths reached 127 in May, making it the third-deadliest month since the war started in March 2003. The average is nearly double the roughly two a day killed in June 2006.

A British soldier also was shot to death and three others were wounded Thursday while on patrol in southern Iraq, according to Britain's Ministry of Defense, pushing to at least 150 the number of deaths reported by the British military.

Separately, the British ambassador to Iraq, Dominic Asquith, appealed to the kidnappers of five Britons to release them or open negotiations.

The five - four security guards and a consultant - were abducted from the Iraqi Finance Ministry on May 29 by some 40 heavily armed men who then rode off with them in the direction of the sprawling Shiite district of Sadr City.

Iraqi officials say the Mahdi Army may have grabbed the men in retaliation for the killing by British forces of the militia's commander in the southern city of Basra.

"I ask those holding them to release them so they may return to their families," Asquith said. Then, in a clear offer to consider demands, he added, "We have people here in Iraq who are ready to listen to any person about this incident, or any person who may be holding these men and who may wish to communicate."

The Mahdi Army, which fought U.S. forces in 2004, has been blamed for many of the sectarian attacks in Iraq. The U.S. accuses Iran of fueling the violence by providing weapons and training fighters.

On Thursday, al-Sadr said he maintains "friendship and good relations" with Iran but rejects any interference by Tehran in Iraq's affairs.

"I must maintain friendship and good relations with Iran but nothing else," he said.

The anti-American cleric dodged a question about his disappearance from public view during which he was believed to have been in Iran.

The interview on Iraqi state television was believed to be al-Sadr's first since he re-emerged in public nearly two weeks ago. The program, which aired Thursday, was taped Sunday at his office in the holy city of Najaf, according to his aides. Al-Sadr had dropped out of sight at the start of a U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown in February.

Despite the crackdown, bombings, shootings, mortar attacks and execution-style killings left at least 63 Iraqis dead nationwide Thursday. They included 32 unidentified men who were handcuffed, blindfolded and shot to death in Baghdad - the apparent victims of so-called sectarian death squads usually run by Shiite militias like the Mahdi Army.

Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, stressed it was too early to see results because the buildup of some 30,000 extra U.S. forces for the operation would not be complete for nearly two more weeks.

"We achieved some early success through the first several months of the effort. The sectarian murder and execution rate was cut by over two-thirds, and then we saw it come back a bit during the month of May," he told CNN.

"We do have some aggressive plans to ... go after al-Qaida and some of the sanctuaries they've been able to build and dispatch car bombs from for some time. That won't be without a fight, but it is something that we must do in the areas around Baghdad to provide better security for the people in Baghdad," he said.

The day's deadliest attack was a simultaneous suicide bombing of a bus and a truck in the town of Rabia, near the Syrian border.

The truck exploded at a police station, killing at least five policemen and five civilians and wounding 22 other people, including 14 policemen, according to army Capt. Mohammed Ahmed.

A guard shot the driver as he approached the building, but the truck still penetrated its blast walls and exploded, destroying the one-story structure, said Ahmed, an officer with the army's Third Division, which oversees the area.

Another bomber driving a minibus struck a building about 500 yards away at the same time, according to police officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared retribution. They said five Britons working in the building were wounded. British officials could not immediately be reached to confirm that report.

In Baghdad, a bomb beneath a parked car exploded at lunchtime outside a falafel restaurant, killing at least seven people and wounding 14, police reported. The teeming slum, which is a Mahdi Army stronghold, has repeatedly been targeted by Sunni extremists seeking to terrorize the Shiite majority and inflame hostilities between the Muslim sects.

Iraqi journalist Sahar al-Haidari, 45, was shot to death while she was waiting for a taxi Thursday in a predominantly Sunni area in the northern city of Mosul. Al-Haidari covered political and cultural news for the independent Voices of Iraq news agency and was the second employee of the organization to be killed in little more than a week.
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Post by criddic3 »

OscarGuy wrote:To correct a small incorrect portion of your statement. The constitution was amended during the Truman administration, not during the Roosevelt. If he hadn't died, he could have kept getting re-elected, I'm sure. However, Truman felt that two terms would be enough and thus pushed for the amendment.

Truman initially sought a third term, but he pulled out early due to low approvals. That is why he declined a third term. It was not because he felt he needed to be the new Washington.

I agree with Mister Tee, though. The amendment was one the worst things the Republicans ever passed in Congress. Reagan would have certainly won a third term, and possibly Eisenhower. Unfortunately, Clinton might have actually won a majority had he run a third time. So we all lose with that amendment. [though if Reagan had won a third term, we may not have had a Clinton, and maybe Bush 41 wouldn't have picked Quayle as his VP in 1992] I actually think the idea to limit to 3 terms would have been smarter, but the reason it passed at 2 was the reference to Pres. Washington.
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Post by Mister Tee »

Umm..actually, the amendment was proposed and promoted by the newly elected Republican Congress, and was widely seen as their after-the-fact revenge on FDR. Truman may well have felt the way you say about it, but it was the GOP that desperately wanted the amendment. (And, in one of history's wonderful ironies, it was they who had the more popular presidents over the next half-century, who were ineligible to run for third terms)
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Post by OscarGuy »

To correct a small incorrect portion of your statement. The constitution was amended during the Truman administration, not during the Roosevelt. If he hadn't died, he could have kept getting re-elected, I'm sure. However, Truman felt that two terms would be enough and thus pushed for the amendment.
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Post by 99-1100896887 »

Of course, you would have seen a Gore victory. The election was stolen by the Republicans. The Pubs even agree, and gloat about it( at least the ones I know).
All this arguable stuff. And no criddic. He must have already run out of excuses for his Saviour.

Would be interested if any one of you had run into such an incompetent pair of HS people as we did. Magilla, you have. Anyone else?
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Post by Mister Tee »

Well, as far as 2000, Gore clearly won the popular vote, which is all the Keys system promises to predict (no sense getting into Florida again). Clinton was immensely popular, and had he been eligible to run, the margin would likely have been far wider; Gore lost additional two keys -- charisma and incumbency -- which made it a tougher race, but he was still the predicted victor (and in a rational world, that's how it turned out).

Regarding other turnovers from two-term presidencies: in 1988, Reagan's second administration left a positive record (growing economy, foreign policy successes with Gorbachev) that made Bush a favorite (despite insistent media myths that Dukakis "blew" the election). The '61-'68 JFK/LBJ run wasn't an orthodox two-term, but the circumstances -- the war, the violent protests, the Wallace third party run -- made it impossible for Humphrey to succeed. Eisenhower's two terms are usually misjudged by pundits, who point to Ike's enduring (and merited) popularity with the public due to his WWII heroics and thus proclaim the adninistration a success. To the contrary, his second term featured the Sherman Adams scandal, a midterm election disaster, poor economic growth (culminating in a recession during the '60 campaign), and the foreign policy humiliation of the downed U-2 plane. For an utterly non-charmismatic (and non-incumbent) Nixon to win in that circumstance would have been miraculous -- though Kennedy's then-controversial Catholicism made it closer than it ought to have been.

Going back in history: Truman's almost-two terms left a mess of scandals and foreign policy disasters (Korea and China) that made it impossible for Stevenson to win. Wilson's second term -- which actually resembles Bush's, apart from the fact he won his war -- included recession, big losses in the midterms, and huge failure to sell the League of Nations; his would-be successor was wiped out.

There aren't actually that many pristine two-term examples -- Harding/Coolidge/Hoover filled just 12 years, two of the terms successful and the third disastrously not; FDR had three successful re-elections (before they amended the Constitution to forbid such long runs), then died leaving Truman the incumbent for '48. And, going further back, McKinley/T. Roosevelt was 12 years between the two with McKinley's assassination helping prolong incumbency.
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