Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: steve harris who wrote (64816)	8/2/2005 9:52:22 AM
From: lorne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

Jimmy 'No Shame' Carter August 2, 2005 Jimmy Carter reached a new low as an ex-president last weekend when, while on foreign soil, he called the war in Iraq "unnecessary and unjust" and said the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay provided "impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts." Let me tell you what I think provides the impetus and excuses to terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts – the un-American behavior of ex-presidents like Jimmy Carter. What Carter said would be bad enough if spoken here in the United States, but on foreign soil, it is beyond the pale. Now I don't have any objection to policy disagreements. It's a free country and we ought to have a lively and open debate. I have my own concerns about the way the war in Iraq is being fought – with shades of Vietnam political correctness. My beef, besides the venue, is with the words he chose. Imagine you are fighting for your country in Iraq right now. How would you feel if you heard an ex-president say your presence there is "unnecessary"? How would you feel if you had a son or daughter killed in the line of duty in this conflict? His words are demoralizing to our troops and to our country. He has become a bitter, divisive and petty political figure – even when he is supposedly teaching Bible studies. The man is shameless. He can't control his tongue. But it gets worse. When he calls the war "unjust," whose passions is he enflaming? That's right – the enemy's. While claiming that American servicemen guarding the lowest life forms on the planet at Gitmo are the ones providing impetus and excuses to the terrorists, Carter should look in the mirror. He is the one who is giving aid and comfort to al-Qaida, the Baathists and the other Islamo-fascists who would slit his throat if ever given the opportunity. Carter actually insisted that the treatment of prisoners at Gitmo "may be an aggravating factor" of terrorism. He may be right, in a sense. If we didn't coddle the terrorist prisoners with their choice of meals, provide them with Qurans and opportunities to pray five times a day, and have national debates here about whether the air-conditioning was high enough or too high, their comrades might not be so eager to join them at Club Gitmo. I'm sick of hearing about the conditions at Gitmo – hearing them compared by members of Carter's party with Nazi concentration camps and the Soviet gulags. The prisoners there are getting three squares a day. They are not being beaten and tortured. They're playing volleyball. Has Carter been to Gitmo? If not, I will personally pay his one-way fare. Just exactly what is it about the conditions that he finds objectionable? Personally, and I think I speak for most Americans, I find the conditions far too accommodating for the terrorist scum housed there. These are the hard-core al-Qaida and Taliban insiders – the prisoners who we suspect have some knowledge of future terrorist attacks or the whereabouts of top leaders. What would Carter do? Love them into talking? If so, he should be happy. That appears to be our current policy. "I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the USA," he said. You know what I think is a disgrace to the USA? When ex-presidents travel to foreign lands, demean their country, demoralize brave fighting men risking their lives, and encourage the enemy with lies and shameful attacks on the conduct of our servicemen. Jimmy Carter, you are a disgrace. worldnetdaily.com

To: steve harris who wrote (64816)	8/2/2005 1:06:31 PM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 81568

Leaked Emails Claim Guantánamo Trials Rigged By Leigh Sales ABC News Monday 01 August 2005 Leaked emails from two former prosecutors claim the military commissions set up to try detainees at Guantánamo Bay are rigged, fraudulent, and thin on evidence against the accused. Two emails, which have been obtained by the ABC, were sent to supervisors in the Office of Military Commissions in March of last year - three months before Australian detainee David Hicks was charged and five months before his trial began. The first email is from prosecutor Major Robert Preston to his supervisor. Maj. Preston writes that the process is perpetrating a fraud on the American people, and that the cases being pursued are marginal. "I consider the insistence on pressing ahead with cases that would be marginal even if properly prepared to be a severe threat to the reputation of the military justice system and even a fraud on the American people," Maj. Preston wrote. "Surely they don't expect that this fairly half-arsed effort is all that we have been able to put together after all this time." Maj. Preston says he cannot continue to work on a process he considers morally, ethically and professionally intolerable. "I lie awake worrying about this every night," he wrote. "I find it almost impossible to focus on my part of mission. "After all, writing a motion saying that the process will be full and fair when you don't really believe it is kind of hard, particularly when you want to call yourself an officer and lawyer." Maj. Preston was transferred out of the Office of Military Commissions less than a month later. Rigged? The second email is written by another prosecutor, Captain John Carr, who also ended up leaving the department. Capt Carr says the commissions appear to be rigged. "When I volunteered to assist with this process and was assigned to this office, I expected there would at least be a minimal effort to establish a fair process and diligently prepare cases against significant accused," he wrote. "Instead, I find a half-hearted and disorganized effort by a skeleton group of relatively inexperienced attorneys to prosecute fairly low-level accused in a process that appears to be rigged." Capt Carr says that the prosecutors have been told by the chief prosecutor that the panel sitting in judgment on the cases would be handpicked to ensure convictions. "You have repeatedly said to the office that the military panel will be handpicked and will not acquit these detainees and that we only needed to worry about building a record for the review panel," he said. Significant Find David Hicks' defense lawyer, Major Michael Mori, says the documents are "highly significant". "For the first time, we're seeing that concerns about the fairness of the military commissions extend to the heart of the process," Maj. Mori said. David Hicks's father, Terry, says the latest revelations confirm what he has suspected all along. "These commissions weren't set up to release people," he said. "These commissions were set up to make sure they were prosecuted and get the time that they give them, and the other thing we've said all along, that we believe that this system has been rigged as they call it." But the Pentagon's Brigadier General Thomas Hemingway, who is a legal advisor to the military commissions, says an investigation has found the comments are based on miscommunication, misunderstanding and personality conflicts. He says changes have been made in the prosecutors' office. "I think what we did is work on some restructuring in the office, there was some changes in the way cases were processed, but we found no evidence of any criminal misconduct, we found no evidence of any ethical violations," he said. Brig Gen Hemingway says he does not know if the Australian Government has been informed of the claims. "I can't tell you whether they were informed formally, I have so many contacts with representatives of your embassy here in town, the exchange of information has certainly been constant, open and significant but whether or not we got down into the details of this, I really have no recollection," he said. "We certainly would have shared it with them if we found that there was any evidence of misconduct in the office of the prosecution, but we did not find any such evidence." 'Sufficient Evidence' Brig Gen Hemingway denies that the cases being prosecuted are low-level. "All of the cases I have recommended that the appointing authority refer to trial, are cases upon which I thought there was sufficient evidence to warrant sending to a fact-finder," he said. "In each of the four cases which have been referred, the appointing authority John Alterburgh made an independent determination that the evidence was sufficient to warrant trial." He also denies that the commission panels are being hand-picked to insure detainees are not acquitted. "I can tell you that any such assertion is clearly incorrect," he said. "There is absolutely no evidence that it is rigged." -------