Any of us could be the next Padilla.

by **banned** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 5:29 am

<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/if-it-can-happen-to-padil_b_11075.html">www.huffingtonpost.com/ce...11075.html</a>

by **Hugh Manatee Wins** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 5:42 am

"...a United States citizen. That used to mean something." Ah, the good old days when our government would torture people in Asia, Africa, Central and South America. But not Americans... unless you weren't white. It meant that you could vote...unless you weren't white. It meant you had due process of law..unless you weren't white. Yup, myths are hard to lose.

by **robertdreed** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 5:45 am

Hugh, I don't think you're very clear on the concept of national sovereignty. In this case, it's an extremely important distinction. It isn't the U.S. government that has historically deprived people of rights overseas, it's other national governments. You're mixing the fact that we've supported some of those regimes with the fact that they're the ones who oppress their people. And I don't care much for the I-hate-America line that harps on what used to happen as a matter of official jurisprudence, without bothering to mention that it's been corrected. (So I suppose it's on to the next I-hate-America retrenchment, that the redress hasn't been perfect in practice. As if there's been no improvement whatsoever, as if nothing has changed, as if no one need have bothered to write an official reform into law. Phony I-hate-myself breastbeating. I gather you've found yourself guilty of the crime of Privilege, for being a white male citizen of the U.S.A. Call your own bluff, and go find a cliff to jump off of.) Yeah, we are different. The day that we aren't any longer, look out. "Any of us could be the next Padilla." Exactly. That's the entire point. People keep wanting to paint a cartoon of Padilla, as if they "know" his story, and that he's an obvious Bad Guy who's, you know, "guilty", even if he isn't actually guilty. Horseshit. If the man is guilty of a crime, show the cards. Because the real point is that when due process gets taken away, it doesn't just get taken away from Jose Padilla, it gets taken away from everyone. You and me. A legacy that goes back to the Magna Carta- gone, just like that. Like what Fela Kuti once said, "In my country (Nigeria, the miltary dictatorship of Abacha)- things happen to you, just like that." That's why I've been calling for the impeachment of the entire Bush regime ever since they've started asking for power like that- simply for what they've stated that they want. Why wait until they get it? In fact, they should be tried for sedition and high treason. With due process, of course. But I think the evidence is sufficient enough to indict. They're running a bluff, and that's the most effective way to call it. "Just Like That." It's a great song. If you haven't heard it, you should go get the record. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 11/24/05 3:25 am

by **banned** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 6:10 am

....to the Fire Pit after professorpan took issue with me, equating the Nuremberg trials with BushCo murder. Check it out! <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/happy.gif ALT=":D"> "In fact, they should be tried for sedition and high treason. With due process, of course." AMEN!

by **robertdreed** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 6:19 am

If the Democratic Party leadership had any integrity- not to mention any sense of what it takes to really appeal to the American body politic- they would have immediately responded to Bush's attempt to abrogate habeus corpus with a motion for impeachment, and a call for a Federal prosecutor to indict. And the quicker the swing, the harder the punch. Make them explain themselves. Put them on the defensive. Why should ordinary citizens like Cindy Sheehan have to be the ones to do it? Do you know how many teams of military prosecutors at Guantanamo have recused themselves, stood down, refused to complete their assignment, requested a transfer? Three. One after the other. Patriots, every last one of them. The Bush regime is still looking for prosecutors for those cases, last I heard. By the way, that's one of the biggest stories of the year. Where is it, in the news media? Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 11/24/05 3:23 am

by **banned** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 7:23 am

They don't. Moving right along...

by **anonymous** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 11:24 am

Deb Davis Meets the PATRIOT Act by PAPERSPLEASE.ORG (from conspiracyplanet) <a href="http://tinyurl.com/7fzzb">tinyurl.com/7fzzb</a> "(EDITOR'S NOTE: Deb Davis finally understands what the PATRIOT (Sic) Act is all about. Plus her boy's in Iraq fighting for Bush. You can't beat that kind of a joke with a stick. And people made fun of Al Martin's column called "Papers Please" on AlMartinRaw.com...) "Meet Deborah Davis. She's a 50 year-old mother of four who lives and works in Denver, Colorado. Her kids are all grown-up: her middle son is a soldier fighting in Iraq. She leads an ordinary, middle class life. You probably never would have heard of Deb Davis if it weren't for her belief in the U.S. Constitution. "This is not America. When honest, law-abiding citizens can't commute to work on a city bus without a demand for their 'papers', something is very, very wrong. "One morning in late September 2005, Deb was riding the public bus to work. She was minding her own business, reading a book and planning for work, when a security guard got on this public bus and demanded that every passenger show their ID. "Deb, having done nothing wrong, declined. The guard called in federal cops, and she was arrested and charged with federal criminal misdemeanors after refusing to show ID on demand. "On the 9th of December 2005, Deborah Davis will be arraigned in U.S. District Court in a case that will determine whether Deb and the rest of us live in a free society, or in a country where we must show "papers" whenever a cop demands them." ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED <a href="http://www.papersplease.org/davis/">www.papersplease.org/davis/</a>

by **banned** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 1:00 am

Torture claims 'forced US to cut terror charges' Â· Dirty bomb evidence came from al-Qaida leaders Â· CIA worried case would expose prison network Jamie Wilson in Washington Friday November 25, 2005 The Guardian The Bush administration decided not to charge Jose Padilla with planning to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a US city because the evidence against him was extracted using torture on members of al-Qaida, it was claimed yesterday. Mr Padilla, a US citizen who had been held for more than three years as an "enemy combatant" in a military prison in North Carolina, was indicted on Tuesday on the lesser charges of supporting terrorism abroad. After his arrest in 2002 the Brooklyn-born Muslim convert was also accused by the administration of planning to blow up apartment blocks in New York using natural gas. The administration had used his case as evidence of the continued threat posed by al-Qaida inside America. Yesterday's New York Times, quoting unnamed current and former government officials, said the main evidence of Mr Padilla's involvement in the plots against US cities had come from two captured al-Qaida leaders, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, believed to be the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, and Abu Zubaydah, a leading al-Qaida recruiter. But the officials told the newspaper Mr Padilla could not be charged with the bomb plots because neither of the al-Qaida leaders could be used as witnesses as they had been subjected to harsh questioning and could open up charges from defence lawyers that their earlier statements resulted from torture. Officials also feared that their testimony could expose classified information about the CIA prison system in which the men were thought to be held. The CIA has never publicly acknowledged it is detaining Mr Mohammed and Mr Zubaydah. It is not known where they are being held. But it was reported last month the CIA was using secret detention centres in eastern Europe, possibly in Poland and Romania, for interrogations, thus beyond the reach of US law. Internal reviews by the CIA have raised questions about the treatment and credibility of the two men. The New York Times said one review, completed in spring last year by the CIA inspector general, found that in the first months after his capture Mr Mohammed had suffered excessive use of "waterboarding", a technique involving near drowning which entails the detainee being strapped to a board and then submerged. Announcing the charges against Mr Padilla on Tuesday, the attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, repeatedly refused to answer questions on why none of the allegations involving attacks on the US had been included. "I am not going to talk about previous accusations and allegations that are outside the indictment," he said. However, the New York Times said the officials had emphasised that the government was not backing off its initial assertions about the seriousness of Mr Padilla's actions. Mr Padilla was arrested at O'Hare airport in Chicago in 2002 after returning from Pakistan. President George Bush declared him an enemy combatant, and the administration resisted calls to charge and try him in civilian courts. His case became a cause cÃ©lÃ¨bre, with human rights groups claiming it was an extreme example of how civil liberties had been brushed aside in pursuit of the war on terror. Mr Padilla was handed over last week to the justice department for civilian proceedings, avoiding a potentially embarrassing supreme court showdown over how long the US government could hold one of its citizens in military custody without charges. Torture has become an emotive issue around the world since prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq was uncovered. A new law sponsored by Senator John McCain, a former Republican presidential candidate and a war hero who was tortured in Vietnam, would ban inhumane treatment and oblige all US agencies to abide by international law on torture. The draft law was approved by 90 votes to nine in the Senate earlier this month, but the House of Representatives has yet to give its support and Dick Cheney has launched an aggressive effort to modify the legislation to allow the CIA to be exempted - causing the Washington Post to label him "Vice President for Torture" in an editorial.

by **anon** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 2:40 am

rdr, PLEASE . . . you just can't have had your eyes open since, what, LBJ? What's this big change, that cuts to the the very roots? that clueless labeling of people as "America haters" trip has so very little to back it up. It's like an enabler, trying to hush up the family member who is calling out the truth on the family abuser. Yes there are some blessed differences between USA and some other countries. There are also cursed similarities. This country is not the savior of the human race. Not. Dont go telling people to jump off a cliff nat'l soveriegnty??? thats a bit much like Charlie Manson, eh? anyway . . .

by **robertdreed** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 3:43 am

anon, there isn't nearly as much of a "hate-America Left" crowd as the pro-Bush people want everyone to think. But they exist. And I call them like I see them. I don't think much of facile cheap shots that conflate our faults and our virtues, evidently seeking to wind the anchor rope of Guilt around what's best about this country's heritage and toss it overboard. Don't call me "clueless." Read the post again. I read self-flagellating comments like that, and it's like encountering a member of some sort of secular Opus Dei, implicitly assuming a stance of Moral Superiority by bemoaning their status of Sinfulness, and inviting everyone else to join the Cult. I feel the need to distinguish my own positions from their...whatever it is. I decline to wear the Cilice. "Hugh Manatee" cashed his own check with that one. As far as I can tell, the ONLY practical consequence of taking his comment seriously would be to simply decide to bid Due Process and Habeus Corpus farewell once and for all, so that we privileged U.S. citizens- especially the White Males- can finally achieve Equality with everyone else. I mean, why fight for the survival of Due Process, if it simply represents another example of White Male American Privilege? So I invited him to call his own bluff, find a cliff and jump off of it. It was a way of making clear that I'm not inclined to jump off with him. It was a metaphor, you know what I mean? Not to mention that he sounds as if he thinks that the USA has already taken over the entire world, and that we bear sole responsibility for, and sole direction of, every oppressive regime to which the US government grants official recognition and trade status. Horseshit. On another topic- I've been increasingly considering leaving this board lately. Not because I tire of defending my positions- I don't, it's good practice. In fact, I enjoy debating multiple posters at once. I'm simply weary of dealing with "concerned citizens" who feel the need to hide under pseudonyms- it just seems so chickenshit. It sounds as if a few of you have legitimate reasons for wanting your identities concealed. But most of you seem as if you're living in fear, for no reason. Step up. In a sufficiently serious political discussion, I'm increasingly of the opinion that pseudonyms are for the fatuous. I could be wrong about that. I'm going to require more on-line time to come to a conclusion. And I'll probably stay on the board, as long as I'm allowed to post here. But I think that more posters ought to consider using their actual names. I think that it's a very direct way of demonstrating a modicum of seriousness of intent. Honestly- what are you afraid of? Goon squads? Government dirty tricks? Ever read the parable of the Door of the Law? <a href="http://faculty.rmwc.edu/tmichalik/kafka.htm">faculty.rmwc.edu/tmichalik/kafka.htm</a> Does that scare you? Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 11/26/05 1:59 am

by **banned** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 4:53 am

....given the nature of the Internet you can't tell who is really who anyway. You could be Laura Bush for all we know, just because you use a real name doesn't mean that's really your name. I don't use my real name on the Internet because I'm a single woman who lives alone and once, not long after I went online in 1995, I DID tell someone my real name. I then got an IM from them that they had a map to my house. I also NEVER use my credit card on the Net, because I don't want someone to get hold of it. My banker was giving me the full court press to do my banking online and I told him absolutely not. Sure, whether it's cyberstalking or ID theft it doesn't happen that often but it only has to happen once to you and your life can be seriously messed up. Admiral Poindexter knows who we all are anyway. You'll have to come up with a less lame reason for wanting to take a powder <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/happy.gif ALT=":D"> . And as far as hating America--I hate pretty much everything the American government has done abroad since WWII except for the Marshall Plan. I also hate the current Republican and Democratic members of Congress with a few exceptions. I hate American laziness, stupidity, greed, and hypocrisy. If that bothers you, that is your problem, not mine.

by **robertdreed** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 5:11 am

They were what I was looking for. That said, consider all of the journalists who write for various publications under their own name, or who have broadcast media shows...they assume that risk, as part of being journalists. In the usual case, the same is true of people who write letters to the editors of newspapers and magazines. Using a credit card on-line is MUCH more risky than posting on an Internet bulletin board, I think. And look how many people do THAT, these days. "Admiral Poindexter knows who we all are anyway." Actually, that's just what I want to counteract- this idea that Omniscience is Power. Omniscience isn't "power" for human beings, it's an unattainable state. And attempting to achieve omniscient surveillance isn't empowering- it's a burden, if not an outright bag of snakes and spiders, as long as the citizenry retains the right to due processs of law and habeus corpus. If some goon at the top of today's State Bureaucracy wants to achieve Surveillance Omniscience, well, let them find out what an Overdose feels like. The Threat of Omniscience is useful to the Bush Regime. It helps to cow people and keeps them in line. But in practice, attempting to keep track of millions of dissenters in a country of nearly 300 million people is an express ticket to the Loony Bin. As long as a large enough number of dissenters steps up and actually involves themselves in dissenting activities, that is. The real fun begins when one realizes the difficulties that are bound to ensue simply from attempting to maintain the loyalty of the Guards. That's one of the reasons that I don't get the "Omnipotent Monolithic CIA" meme. Not only is it not accurate, it actively sows paranoia among the dissenter community. The "Omnipotent Monolithic American CIA/FBI/NSA/military/police/etc." thesis is rife with unexamined premises, in my opinion. It presumes that everyone employed by those agencies is a racist fascist militarist goon who can't wait to impose the Final Clampdown on this country, on behalf of people who want to take over the world. In fact, there aren't nearly enough hardliners to suit the coercive power elite of this country. Most of the folks who work for those agencies are simply people who want to keep terrorists from blowing up bombs in this country. (This does NOT mean that I think that the very idea of U.S. government inside involvement in a MIHOP/LIHOP conspiracy is ridiculous. It does mean that I think that the actual number of any such government people involved with anything close to full foreknowledge of such a plot would be miniscule- as RI poster Homeless Halo pointed out, a maximum of about 50 or so- because if the massive Good Citizen contingent within those agencies got ever managed to get wind of what was being planned, they would drop the hammer on the conspirators. ) In all of my years of being a conspiracy investigator (in my own broke-ass, part-time, and less effectual than I could potentially be sort of way), I've ALWAYS wanted the FBI to track the list of library books that I was reading. ALWAYS. Following that trail is enough to radicalize almost any American of reasonable intelligence and good will. And toward that end, I have NEVER returned a single library book on time. Every book I've checked out for the past ten years has generated an overdue notice. "Go ahead and look", you know. That's my attitude. If you knew what I knew, you'd be more sympathetic to why I was yammering on the radio 1995-98 for zero dollars an hour, sounding like a nut, talking about Democrat Bill Clinton acting in cahoots with Republican George Bush to back up a bunch of Somocista gangsters and their coke-running Latin American military junta buddies by (among other things) providing impunity for their wholesale drug smuggling enterprises, back in the 1980s... Actually, the CIA- like the Army- is facing a recruiting shortage, these days...quite a few qualified people who would formerly have been inclined to join those services out of a sense of patriotic loyalty and freedom-loving idealism are looking at the Bush administration and crossing those career opportunities off of their lists. And "banned", as for your condemnation of "laziness, stupidity, greed, and hypocrisy"- I hardly think those faults are exclusive to Americans. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 11/26/05 4:44 am

by **rocco322** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 5:43 am

American Muslim student convicted on al-Qaeda charges CBC News A federal jury in Virginia deliberated for 2 ½ days before finding a Muslim student guilty of belonging to al-Qaeda and plotting to kill U.S. President George W. Bush and hijack aircraft. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 24, faces life in prison at his sentencing on Feb. 17. The U.S. citizen had claimed that officials in Saudi Arabia tortured him to extract a false confession to the charges. Jurors who watched the videotaped confession did not accept his version of events. Note: And to think people have a hard time believing what is happening... Wake up people! This is an every day thing now. Jose Padilla today, you and I tommorrow. <a href="http://apo.apocripha.com/2005/11/23/american-muslim-student-convicted-on-al-qaeda-charges/">apo.apocripha.com/2005/11/23/american-muslim-student-convicted-on-al-qaeda-charges/</a>

by **banned** » Sun Nov 27, 2005 12:28 am

Mine was that my posting as "banned" rather than using my real name, which is Wolf J. Flywheel, is not out of 'fear' of the authorities, since it's my assumption they are monitoring me anyway (which is not just an assumption, they've opened my mail.) If I were interested in making a name for myself as a blogger, which I am not, I would, like Jeff, probably use my real name, unless I wanted to establish a persona in which case I would use a moniker until I got famous like, oh, Pud on "FuckedCompany." "And "banned", as for your condemnation of "laziness, stupidity, greed, and hypocrisy"- I hardly think those faults are exclusive to Americans." Yes, but as with certain other things--baseball, rock and roll, cheeseburgers and chili dogs--we EXCEL at them <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif ALT=";)"> . And anyway, we were TALKING about Murkans, no? If you want to get onto other nationalities, you will have to go a fur piece to find someone as outspokenly critical of those g. d. furriners as I am. Just name a nationality and I will find something nasty to say about them. But I don't live in their countries and, except for emigrants, I don't have to rub elbows every day with, say, some arrogant Froggy prick or some terminally boring Swede.

Any of us could be the next Padilla.

Any of us could be the next Padilla.

Re: Any of us could be the next Padilla.

Re: Any of us could be the next Padilla.

DAYum, Roberto...saying that got me hauled off...

The Bush bluff

" If the Democratic Party leadership had any integrity.

Deb Davis Meets the PATRIOT Act

Padilla case and torture

rdr reply to Hugh

...

Aw, c'mon, Roberto....that's bogus...

good points about Internet anonymity...

Re: good points about Internet anonymity...

I'm not sure I know what your point is.

Who is online