Conspicuously missing from the Obama list of grand accomplishments of late is his success in keeping pot illegal. Prop 19--legalizing pot at the state level California--had a good shot at passing, until Obama's Attorney General, Eric Holder, piped up and warned that the Feds would "remain firmly committed to enforcing the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) in all states."
It was an illuminating moment, as relatively cloaked (via non-partisan local office-holding) Republican politicians jumped out with their anti-states rights' positions in support of Holder:
The letter was released at a press conference Friday morning at the L.A. Sheriff's Headquarters Bureau. Sheriff Lee Baca said that his deputies will work with federal authorities to continue to pursue marijuana violations even if Prop. 19 passes.
District Attorney Steve Cooley, who is running for attorney general, said that if he is elected and Prop. 19 passes, he will likely advise law enforcement agencies that the initiative is unconstitutional....
L.A. City Attorney Carmen Trutanich also appeared at the morning press conference, where he argued that Prop. 19 is "exactly what the cartels need." In fact, according to a recent Rand Corp. study, Prop. 19 would drive Mexican cartels out of the California market, cutting into their profits by around 2-4 percent.
Trutanich is a Pedro local, and I can't believe he's that dumb. He knows damn well that the end of Prohibition wasn't good for the gangsters. He's just gotta be lying. But Cooley and Baca I don't know. Regardless, the facts should be fairly clear: just because there's a federal law against pot doesn't mean there have to be state or local laws. And if there aren't state or local laws, then it's up to the feds to enforce their laws alone. It always amazes me how unable conservatives are to think about states' rights when they don't have their talking points tattooed to their eyeballs.
But Holder & Obama? It's just pure "no one's gonna call me 'soft on crime', so far as I can tell. And stupid as hell, to boot. Just listen to what the otherwise insane Pat Robertson just said, courtesy of TPM:
Pat Robertson more commonly garners media attention for blaming various things he doesn't like on things that have little or nothing to do with them (e.g. the Haitian earthquake on the nation's supposed pact with Satan, or the September 11th attacks on the ACLU and "the gays"). Yet this week he's making headlines for comments that sound a lot less Pat Robertson and a lot more Cheech and Chong. Apparently, Pat Robertson supports decriminalizing marijuana.
Opening a segment on faith-based prison rehabilitation on his show The 700 Club this week, Robertson noted that many conservatives look at drug addicts and "think 'lock 'em up, throw away the key,'....
At the end of the segment, Robertson rails against conservative politicians who he says run on a "tough on crime" philosophy that wins votes but is ultimately "not the answer." Beyond putting criminals behind bars, he argues, "we've got to take a look at what we're considering crimes":
"I'm not exactly for the use of drugs, don't get me wrong, but I just believe that criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing the possession of a few ounces of pot, that kinda thing it's just, it's costing us a fortune and it's ruining young people. Young people go into prisons, they go in as youths and come out as hardened criminals. That's not a good thing."
Pat Robertson the pragmatist. Barack Obama the ideologue.
Oh, and in Montana, the local prosecutor had to cut a deal, because they couldn't find a jury that would convict even a "convicted criminal" of possession for a few lousy joints.
According to Beaumont Enterprise, Cornell's "criminal history includes numerous felony convictions."
But none of this was enough for the potential jurors, who all told District Court Judge Dusty Deschamps that they would not convict him for the pot. "I thought, 'Geez, I don't know if we can seat a jury,'" Deschamps told the Missoulian.
He then called a recess, during which Deputy Missoula County Attorney Andrew Paul worked out a plea deal. Paul described the incident as "a mutiny."
Even Cornell's own attorney was flummoxed, calling it "bizarre."
"I think it's going to become increasingly difficult to seat a jury in marijuana cases, at least the ones involving a small amount," Deschamps said.
(A thoroughly disgusting state of affairs - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
After Ahmed Ghailani was found guilty of participating in a conspiracy to bomb two U.S. embassies in November, a conviction that could land him life in prison (his sentencing hearing is scheduled for January), the usual slate of right-wing pundits took to the airwaves, eager to denounce President Obama for trying the suspected terrorist at all.
Liz Cheney declared that the guilty verdict "signals weakness in a time of war."
John Yoo said prosecutors were "lucky to even get one conviction," adding that "It is really hard to see what the upside is to having civilian trials."
And Laura Ingraham, sitting in for Bill O'Reilly on Fox, called trying terror suspects in federal court "insane," "wrong" and "potentially dangerous."
On Wednesday, to the surprise of some spectators in the courtroom, a U.S. federal judge did the right thing: he followed the law.
Judge Lewis Kaplan had a clear choice before him: he could exclude the testimony of a government witness discovered via abusive CIA interrogation of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, or he could allow the government to introduce that testimony, in blatant violation of U.S. law. Ghailani, transferred from Guantanamo Bay to New York last year, is now on trial for allegedly assisting in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa.
In a U.S. federal court, testimony derived from a coercive interrogation is not admissible. A similar rule applies in the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay. Although judges there have more leeway, most military judges are equally principled and take the ban seriously. Torture-derived evidence is inadmissible for two reasons: to prevent U.S. authorities from engaging in torture, and because such evidence is inherently unreliable. International treaties similarly ban its use.
The government knew, of course, that this would be a problem, and it surely has plenty of other evidence against Ghailani or it wouldn't have transferred him to civilian court in the first place. After Judge Kaplan's ruling, Attorney General Eric Holder expressed his continued confidence in the case. Notably, four of his alleged co-conspirators in the bombings were tried and sentenced to life in prison back in 2001 - without the use of this particular government witness. Evidence introduced in that trial pointed to Ghailani as well.
Still, since Wednesday, commentators such as Liz Cheney and Jack Goldsmith have seized on Judge Kaplan's ruling to lament not the fact that Ghailani was thrown in a CIA black site for two years and likely tortured (the government refuses to address Ghailani's treatment in this trial but concedes he was "coerced"), but the fact that the judge has excluded the evidence that his interrogators squeezed out of him - or to claim the administration should never have given Ghailani a trial at all.
"If the American people needed any further proof that this Administration's policy of treating terrorism like a law enforcement matter is irresponsible and reckless, they received it today," announced Cheney after the ruling. Goldsmith, the Harvard Professor and former head of the Office of Legal Counsel Under President Bush, now writing on the new Lawfare blog, wonders "why the government is bothering to try Ghailani." Why not simply imprison him indefinitely?
Coming from Goldsmith, this is particularly disappointing. When he was at OLC, he had the courage to criticize his colleagues John Yoo and Jay Bybee for their twisted legal analysis that allowed them to institutionalize torture as U.S. policy. Now, rather than recalling that error as the source of the problem in Ghailani's trial today, he's criticizing the Obama administration for applying the rule of law at all.
Technically, Goldsmith may be right: the administration could just declare Ghailani an al Qaeda member and ongoing threat and hold him in military detention forever. That's the unfortunate consequence of the "war against al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated forces," which has no logical end. But as a matter of principle and policy, imprisoning people indefinitely without trial would be a disgrace, along the lines of what Goldsmith's colleagues at OLC sanctioned.
If there's anything the United States stands for -- or used to stand for -- it's that we don't throw people in prison without proof they've done something wrong.
Principle aside, it's just bad strategy. As General Petraeus has acknowledged, winning the war against al Qaeda and the Taliban is as much about winning over the local populations where they live as it is about U.S. military prowess. Throwing Muslims in prison for decades without charge or trial is hardly a good strategy. If, as national security experts tell us, al Qaeda's strategy is to present the U.S. war against terror as a war against Islam, indefinite detention of suspected Islamic insurgents without trial hands al Qaeda its most effective propaganda campaign on a silver platter.
Cheney and Goldsmith may be right that excluding a witness derived by torture will make the government's case against Ghailani more difficult. But in the end, a fair trial for a suspected terrorist in a respected federal court will do far more to defeat al Qaeda and its associates -- and to bolster the image of the United States in the world -- than will foregoing justice altogether.
But the event planners, Terry Jones and the Dove World Outreach Center, are moving forward in spite of the outcry. In fact, they posted five MORE reasons to burn a Koran on their blog just yesterday.
Human Rights First has compiled our own list--we asked our supporters to submit reasons NOT to burn a Koran. We received over 5,000 responses. Below is the Top 10 list:
Ten Reasons NOT to Burn a Koran
Book burning! Do I really need to say why?
By not burning a Koran I'm not burning a bridge to communication.
Burning the Koran because of extremist Taliban and Al-Qeada terrorists makes no more sense than burning the Bible because of the Ku Klux Klan or Nazis.
Hatred breeds more hatred and that is not going to solve any of our problems.
That type of hate-filled religious intolerance has no place anywhere in the world, and is especially abhorrent in a country where religious freedom is one of the pillars of its foundation.
It's a sacred book to millions of people. We should respect all people's beliefs.
It will only inflame. I'd like people to understand each other.
I may not believe in the words of the Koran but I would never burn one out of respect for my fellow humans who do.
Support our troops!
We must learn to coexist. We cannot continue to live in fear and suspicion.
You can make a stand with us. Show the fearmongers and the world that Americans don't stand for bigotry by ordering your free "Americans Don't Burn Books" bookmark (you just need to cover shipping and handling).
Senate Bill 1070, Arizona's notorious anti-immigrant law, is set to go into effect on July 29. With days left to go, Organizers are in a race against the clock to minimize the bill's impact on immigrant communities. Meanwhile, legal experts are examining the strategy behind a federal Department of Justice suit recently lobbed against the Arizona law, and other immigrant rights supporters continue to pressure the state via boycott. All of these acts are contributing to a tumultuous fight that's escalating by the day.
After an initial delay, Faisal Shahzad, the failed Times Square car bomber, stood up today in a federal courthouse in downtown Manhattan and entered a plea of "guilty".
Though his expected court appearance had been widely publicized, there were no gunshots heard or bomb threats issued. Notwithstanding Liz Cheney's warnings that bringing suspected terrorists to a U.S. federal courthouse can only cause chaos, the proceeding was orderly, calm and peaceful. The dozens of reporters from around the world who packed the courtroom quietly hurried out to file their stories across the globe.
And the story that they now have to tell is a simple one: the U.S. criminal justice is working.
Since it happened in May, critics of the Obama administration have heralded the failed Times Square bombing attempt as proof that Americans are under constant threat from a powerful foreign enemy and must, in our vigilance, treat all suspected terrorists as enemy warriors -- throwing them in an offshore military prison and either detaining them indefinitely or allowing them only a trial by military commission.
But the careful handling of Faisal Shahzad by New York City police and federal law enforcement is proof of just the opposite. Whether the attempted mass murderer sees himself as aligned with a group of foreign jihadists battling American imperialism is beside the point. What matters is that good old-fashioned law enforcement -- police officers quickly responding to the observations of an alert pedestrian, and skilled FBI agents using time-honored interrogation techniques -- successfully averted disaster and, thereafter, gained critical intelligence to help thwart future attacks.
Shahzad, a Pakistan-born U.S. citizen, was indicted last week on 10 terrorism and weapons charges that accused him of using money and training from the Pakistani Taliban to plot his failed car bombing. His plea of guilty to all 10 counts (five more than originally specified) could land the 30-year-old father of two in prison for life.
Shahzad's plot fizzled, of course, when the gasoline-and-propane bomb he tried to construct failed to ignite in the SUV he'd parked near a Broadway theater. That's typical, say many experts, of bombing attempts in the United States. Among the challenges of detonating a bomb on U.S. soil are the difficulty of obtaining high-powered explosives and of fashioning an effective explosive from the sort of products that are easily available.
That Shahzad wasn't successful doesn't mean he's not a terrorist, however. And what's critical about this case is that skilled law enforcement officials knew that even though his attempt failed, Shahzad was a potential treasure trove of information about the Pakistani Taliban and their operations. And they've exploited that well: after his arrest, Shaizad reportedly cooperated with law enforcement and answered their questions for two weeks before even requesting a lawyer. His arraignment was postponed several times even after a lawyer was appointed to represent him, indicating that even with a lawyer he continued to cooperate, with the process culminating in today's guilty plea.
Shahzad's cooperation has so far lead to the arrest of a Pakistani army major in Islamabad who was allegedly in contact with Shahzad by cell phone. Three men have also been arrested in the United States on immigration charges for allegedly helping Shahzad import money from Pakistan.
Administration critics such as John McCain insisted after Shahzad's arrest that he should never have been read his Miranda rights or treated as a common criminal. Indeed, a bill McCain introduced in March, the Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention and Prosecution Act, would have prevented that. The bill would require all terror suspects such as Shahzad to be turned over to the military for interrogation and possibly indefinite dentition without trial. There would be no Miranda rights, no right to a lawyer and no right to remain silent.
Although it's theoretically possible that military interrogators handling a suspect that way could get useful information, it's not clear exactly how or why that would work. For one thing, military interrogators are trained to gather information on a battlefield, not for future prosecution. That means the evidence can easily be compromised, making it impossible to prosecute the suspect later. That also means the interrogator loses the leverage a future prosecution can offer.
The administration, of course, has said that it can hold indefinitely any suspects it deems "alien enemy belligerents." But that also works against encouraging cooperation. After all, if a suspect knows that acknowledging his participation in the plot could land him in indefinite detention without charge or trial, what incentive does he have to cooperate?
One reason the FBI has been so successful is terrorism cases is that by following the federal court rules, it reserves its ability to criminally prosecute any terrorism suspect. It doesn't have to worry that the evidence won't be admissible later. The suspect, meanwhile, knows he's headed to court, and that the person interrogating him can influence what the charges and the sentence will be. That provides a strong incentive to cooperate and provide as much information as possible, in the hopes of getting some sort of a break -- a few decades in prison, say, instead of life.
Still, critics such as Liz Cheney and Senators Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Joseph Lieberman continue to argue that treating suspected terrorists as criminals isn't being tough enough, and demand military detention.
But just because something's run by the military doesn't make it any tougher. On the contrary, the military commissions created to try suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay have managed to convict only three terrorists in eight years -- and two are already out free. The criminal justice system, on the other hand, has convicted some 400 terrorists since September 11, 2001.
Faisal Shahzad's guilty plea today is a perfect example of how the system works, producing valuable intelligence while still landing convicted terrorists behind bars.
The U.S. faces a very real threat of terrorism, whether at home or abroad. But the solution to the threat isn't to do away with the most effective means we have of combating it.
Testifying to the House Judiciary Committee today, Attorney General Eric Holder reiterated his support for civilian trials for suspected terrorists and emphasized that Miranda warnings do not prevent suspects from talking. But he also repeated his statement, first made last Sunday, that the "public safety exception" to the Miranda rule should be "modernized" and "clarified" - although he never explained what's wrong with the Supreme Court rule as it stands now.
Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee today urged Attorney General Eric Holder to stick to his initial determination that the alleged 9/11 plotters should be tried in civilian court, and not bow to partisan politics on what should be a legal determination.
The thing that first strikes you about Guantanamo Bay's "Camp Justice" is what an extraordinary effort was made to create something that never needed to exist. Though federal courts have been interrogating, trying and imprisoning terrorists for more than 200 years, for some reason the U.S. government believed after September 11, 2001 that it needed to create a whole new way of doing that. So it set up this sprawling military camp, complete with housing for lawyers, journalists, observers, two new courthouses, hyped-up security with endless coils of concertina wire -- all to house a few hundred guys who could have been much more efficiently and just as safely held in high-security prisons in the U.S.
The Wall Street Journal is absolutely right that Lindsey Graham is tossing up an embarrassing air ball. Graham's effort to get the administration to abandon legitimate federal court trials for suspected terrorists in exchange for the funding needed to close Guantanamo Bay is headed nowhere fast, predicts the Journal.
The Washington Post reports today that President Obama's advisors are planning to recommend that the administration reverse its decision to try the September 11 suspects in federal court and instead opt for military commissions. That's more than just disappointing, given the overwhelming consensus of military and legal experts that civilian courts are more effective for prosecuting terrorists. If the president were to heed that advice, it would also be astonishingly bad politics.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) likes to tout his experience as a former military lawyer. Graham apparently thinks this makes him sound more convincing when he goes around advocating military trials for all suspected terrorists, as he's been doing lately. Graham's now trying to get that idea signed into law in a bill he's introduced in the Senate. A similar provision is likely headed to a vote today in the House of Representatives.
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 11/18/09 - Legal proceedings, such as they are, rumbled to life again today at Guantanamo Bay. Pre-trial issues in the case of Mohammed Kamin, an Afghan man who was captured by the U.S. in Afghanistan in 2003, were heard in a military commission courtroom on a small hill a few miles away from where the more than 200 detainees left at Guantanamo are housed.
Attorney General Eric Holder is addressing a war crime without addressing the wars, and is focusing on the lowest ranking participants in that crime without addressing its status as official policy established by higher ups and openly confessed to by a former president and vice president. This is bad applism, the same approach that has held a handful of recruits responsible for Abu Ghraib, claiming to thereby remove bad apples from a good system. But Congress' and the public's approach to the horrors of the past eight years is driven by our own bad applism, by our belief that the departure of Bush and Cheney in itself significantly repaired a system of government that is rotten to the core.
Nationally Renowned Scholars, Writers, Artists, and Advocates Urge Attorney General Holder to Uphold the Rule of Law and Appoint Prosecutor to Investigate Allegations of Torture and Other Serious Crimes
SALT LAKE CITY - Several prominent Americans, including authors, artists, legal experts, and renowned voices of conscience, today transmitted a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder urging the appointment of a prosecutor to investigate allegations of torture and other violations of human rights and civil liberties committed by former government officials and others. The signatories to the letter are:
STATE BLOGS
