A Terrorist goes to trial but no one seems to care, or know.

[annm4peace]

http://www.startribune.com/world/100531029.html


War-crimes trial of youngest Gitmo detainee opens with tape showing him making bombs



GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - A war-crimes trial for Guantanamo's youngest detainee opened Thursday with prosecutors showing an al-Qaida video of him making — and apparently planting — bombs in Afghanistan.

(he was 15 at the time, in 2002.. and still at Guantanamo)

[annm4peace]

1. what do the MN Senators think?

A Friend called Klobuchar's and Franken's D.C. offices, as well as Durbin's D.C. office.

He chairs the Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee.

Franken is also on that subcommittee, which held a hearing about six months ago on implementation of human rights treaties.

" I read to all of them Article 15 of the Convention Against Torture: "Each State Party shall ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made." I also told them this kind of egregious judicial conduct -- admitting a "confession" clearly obtained under torture -- is what happens when senators who have responsibility for overseeing the Justice Department do not speak out forcefully enough or often enough. And when they are so reluctant to criticize the Obama administration for covering up the torture that was done in our names.

Also, here's a link to the Toronto Globe and Mail coverage of this trial: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/americas/khadr-took-comfort-in-thoughts-of-killing-soldier-us-prosecutor/article1670467/. It has a reporter down there covering it. The New York Times? Not as far as I can tell.

[annm4peace]

2. Call to write our Senators and Reps.

Please call or write your senators and representatives about this case, or write a letter to the editor, or an op-ed.

This is what happens when public officials do not speak out for accountability for torture.

The judge in this case admitted into evidence a "confession" obtained through torture -- threats of rape until death, which were admitted to.

Below you'll find a link to some Canadian coverage of the trial -- Khadr is Canadian -- and here's a link to a Glenn Greenwald aritlce about the fiasco: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/11/khadr/index.html.

[annm4peace]

3. From Glenn Greenwald from Salon

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/11/khadr/index.html

Military commissions were one of those Bush/Cheney policies which provoked virtually universal outrage among progressives and Democrats back in the day when executive power abuses and rule of law transgressions were a concern.

The Obama administration's claim that the commissions are now improved to the point that they provide a forum of real justice is being put to the test -- and blatantly failing -- with the first such commission to be held under Obama: that of Omar Khadr, accused of throwing a grenade in 2002 which killed an American solider in Afghanistan, when Khadr was 15 years old.

This is the first trial of a child soldier held since World War II, explained a U.N. official who condemned these proceedings. The commission has already ruled that confessions made by Khadr which were clearly obtained through coercion, abuse and torture will be admitted as evidence against him.

Prior to the commencement of Khadr's "trial," the commission ruled in another case that the sentence imposed on a Sudanese detainee Ibrahim al-Qosi -- convicted as part of a plea bargain of the dastardly crime of being Osama bin Laden's "cook" -- will be kept secret until he is released. What kind of country has secret sentences?



As I've written before about the Khadr case (as well as the very similar case of child soldier Mohamed Jawad), what is most striking to me about this case is this: how can it possibly be that the U.S. invades a foreign country, and then when people in that country -- such as Khadr -- fight back against the invading army, by attacking purely military targets via a purely military act (throwing a grenade at a solider, who was part of a unit ironically using an abandoned Soviet runway as its outpost), they become "war criminals," or even Terrorists, who must be shipped halfway around the world, systematically abused, repeatedly declared to be one of "the worst of the worst," and then held in a cage for almost a full decade (one third of his life and counting)?

It's hard to imagine anything which more compellingly underscores the completely elastic and manipulated "meaning" of "Terrorist" than this case: in essence, the U.S. is free to do whatever it wants, and anyone who fights back, even against our invading armies and soldiers (rather than civilians), is a war criminal and a Terrorist.