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To: Oral Roberts who wrote (8857)6/29/2006 8:44:00 AM
From: Oral Roberts  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 14758
 
Stolen from Lindy. It would appear that newsmen have never been thought highly of by military officers:)

Interesting sentiment, from William Tecumseh Sherman:

"I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast.



To: Oral Roberts who wrote (8857)6/29/2006 10:10:29 AM
From: Proud_Infidel  Respond to of 14758
 
Moscow blames U.S. for envoys' killings
THE WASHINGTON TIMES ^ | June 29, 2006 | By Michael Mainville

washingtontimes.com

MOSCOW -- Russian lawmakers yesterday unanimously blamed the United States for the deaths of four Russian diplomats in Iraq, highlighting growing tensions between the two countries ahead of a meeting of Group of Eight foreign ministers in Moscow today.

Moscow also demanded in a proposed U.S. Security Council resolution that coalition forces in Baghdad provide better security for diplomats. The United States and Britain resisted the resolution.

President Vladimir Putin instructed Russian security services to find the killers and "destroy" them.

"The tragedy that occurred recently in Iraq was only possible because of the growing crisis in the country as the occupying powers increasingly lose control of the situation," read a motion unanimously approved by the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament.

"All the responsibility for the situation in Iraq, including the security of its citizens and of foreign workers, lies with the occupying powers. We are convinced that they could have prevented this tragedy," the lawmakers said hours before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Moscow for today's G-8 ministerial meeting.



To: Oral Roberts who wrote (8857)6/29/2006 10:54:08 AM
From: Proud_Infidel  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 14758
 
Supreme Court Blocks Guantanamo Bay War-Crimes Trials

foxnews.com

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court delivered a blow to the Bush administration's anti-terror policies Thursday when it ruled that the president was out of line when he ordered military war-crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees who have not been declared prisoners of war.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the opinion, which said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and Geneva conventions.

A huge question in this case was whether the Geneva Conventions applied to prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. The Bush administration argued that these detainees were not prisoners of war and therefore, not eligible to treatment under the Geneva agreement.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a strongly worded dissent, saying the court's decision would "sorely hamper the president's ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy."

The court's willingness, Thomas said, "to second-guess the determination of the political branches that these conspirators must be brought to justice is both unprecedented and dangerous."

The case focused on Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as a bodyguard and driver for Usama bin Laden. Hamdan, 36, has spent four years in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo. He faces a single count of conspiring against U.S. citizens from 1996 to November 2001.

The administration said foreign terror suspects don't have the right to come into U.S. courts and demand all of the rights afforded to U.S. citizens under the legal system here but that they would be given some rights under rules for the tribunals. The justices said conspiracy was not an appropriate charge under the so-called "laws of war," under which the administration said it could set up the tribunals.

Two years ago, the court rejected Bush's claim to have the authority to seize and detain terrorism suspects and indefinitely deny them access to courts or lawyers. In this follow-up case, the justices focused solely on the issue of trials for some of the men.

The vote was split 5-3, with moderate Justice Anthony Kennedy joining Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, David Souter and Stevens in the majority. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia voted in the minority.

Chief Justice John Roberts, named to the lead the court last September by Bush, was sidelined in the case because as an appeals court judge he had backed the government over Hamdan.

Thursday's ruling overturned that decision.

In his opinion, Breyer said, "Congress has not issued the executive a 'blank check."'

"Indeed, Congress has denied the president the legislative authority to create military commissions of the kind at issue here. Nothing prevents the president from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary," Breyer wrote.

Bush spokesman Tony Snow said the White House would have no comment until lawyers had had a chance to review the decision. Officials at the Defense and Justice Departments were planning to issue statements later in the day.

The administration had hinted in recent weeks that it was prepared for the court to set back its plans for trying Guantanamo detainees.

The president also has told reporters, "I'd like to close Guantanamo." But he added, "I also recognize that we're holding some people that are darn dangerous."

The court's ruling says nothing about whether the prison should be shut down, dealing only with plans to put detainees on trial.

"Trial by military commission raises separation-of-powers concerns of the highest order," Kennedy wrote in his opinion.

Ret. Army Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, who just returned from Guantanamo Bay, said every government branch needs to be on the same page as to how to deal with terror suspect in the United States.

"the American people and the Supreme Court and the rest of people in the enlightened world ... have to decide for themselves, are we in a state of war or are we not in a state of war?" Scales said. "The enemy is using our confusion about the conditions in the world today to their advantage and ultimately, we're going to end up with innocent dead in Europe, the United States and elsewhere in the world."

The prison at Guantanamo Bay, erected in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States, has been a flash point for international criticism. Hundreds of people suspected of ties to Al Qaeda and the Taliban — including some teenagers — have been there since 2002.

Three detainees committed suicide there this month, using sheets and clothing to hang themselves. The deaths brought new scrutiny and criticism of the prison, along with fresh calls for its closing.



To: Oral Roberts who wrote (8857)6/29/2006 11:18:16 AM
From: Proud_Infidel  Respond to of 14758
 
For Posterity, let's look at what some of the "innocent" prisoners released from Guantanamo have done:

Released Prisoners from Guantanamo

Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar, captured in Afghanistan in December 2001, was one of the twenty-three prisoners released from Camp Delta in late January 2004. After his release, he joined the remnants of the Taliban and was killed in a gunfight on September 26, 2004.[55]

Abdullah Mehsud, also captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 after surrendering to Abdul Rashid Dostum, masterminded the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers in Pakistan's South Waziristan region as well as returning to his position as an Al-Qaeda field commander.[56] Mehsud has also claimed responsibility for the bombing at Islamabad's Marriott Hotel in October 2004. The blast injured seven people, including a U.S. diplomat, two Italians and the Pakistani prime minister's chief security officer.

Airat Vakhitov and Rustam Akhmyarov, two Russian nationals captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 and released from Guantánamo in late 2002, were arrested by Russian authorities on August 30, 2005. The two former detainees were arrested in Moscow for allegedly preparing a series of attacks in Russia. According to authorities, Vakhitov was using a local human rights group as cover for his activities.[57]

en.wikipedia.org



To: Oral Roberts who wrote (8857)6/29/2006 12:04:43 PM
From: Proud_Infidel  Respond to of 14758
 
Groom left floating in the fjord
www.aftenposten.no ^ | 27 Jun 2006, 16:02 | Aftenposten English Web Desk

aftenposten.no

June is high season for weddings in Norway, like many other places in the world. And bachelor parties can sometimes get out of hand.

Such was the case with a would-be bridegroom in Trondheim earlier this month. His buddies thought they'd come up with a brilliant bachelor-party plan, but most of it went awry.

It all started when the 31-year-old bridegroom was picked up at his home in Trondheim's Bakklandet district. His friends took him down to the harbor, they all boarded a sailboat and off they sailed to the middle of the Trondheims Fjord.

Fortunately, the men dressed up the unsuspecting bridegroom in a survival suit before they dropped him into the water. "They were about two kilometers from land," Birgit Monsås of the Sør-Trøndelag Police District told newspaper Aftenposten.

The bridegroom's buddies had chartered a seaplane that was supposed to pluck him out of the water. But the waves got too high for the plane to land, and then the party on the sailboat lost sight of their man.

"So they called us," said Monsås. That set off a major search and rescue operation, complete with two police boats, a helicopter and a special rescue vessel, while more police and an ambulance waited on the shore.

Meanwhile, the bridegroom floated in the water in his survival suit, unaware of his own emergency. Suddenly he was surrounded by rescuers in the sea and in the sky, but assumed they were all part of his party.

"He was eventually taken home after lying in the water for about an hour," said Monsås. His best man was expected to be hit with a strong reprimand and fine.



To: Oral Roberts who wrote (8857)6/30/2006 11:15:11 AM
From: Proud_Infidel  Respond to of 14758
 
Iran lifts ban on newspaper after insulting cartoon

alertnet.org