Louis, by the grace of God, King of France and Navarre, to all present and to come, greeting from the year 1708:

One of the most useful tools of an absolute monarch like me are lettres de cachet, which may be translated as “seal letters”. You might not be familiar with this term. In my time, a seal letter (in its narrow sense) is a direct order from the king by which a subject is sentenced without trial and without an opportunity of defense to imprisonment in a state prison or an ordinary jail, confinement in a convent or a hospital, transportation to the colonies, or expulsion to another part of the realm. It’s a common practice – not a practice I’m particularly proud of, but sometimes necessary to lock away potentially dangerous individuals and maintain the power of the crown. In other terms, it’s the standard procedure to dungeon political prisoners. This is how absolute monarchy works.

However, most of you are living in a democracy, and your time considers seal letters symbols of the abuses of what you call “absolutism”. That’s why the founders of your democracies invented the writ of habeas corpus, which is basically a legal procedure through which a person can seek relief from unlawful detention of himself or another person. It has been praised as being one of the cornerstones of individual freedom and democracy. Leaders have now to justify themselves when they dungeon someone. This is how democracy works.

However, the habeas corpus can be somewhat unhandy when dealing with politically motivated arrests, for example, of supposed terrorists. That’s why the U.S. Government had this really great idea: build a prison outside the U.S. borders such that they can imprison people without any trial. I’m the last one who could condemn political imprisonment - but, as far as I understand, this is not how democracy works.

Now it seems that democracy strikes back. In the case Boumediene vs. Bush, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed on June 12 the habeas corpus rights of detainees in Guantanamo:

The full text as PDF

Whereas I feel with King George W., Rex Christianissimus Americae, that he can no more sign lettres de cachet, I have to admit that this court decision is a victory for democracy. As you might have guessed, I’m not a big fan of democracy - but, if you do it, you should do it correctly. If you give the power to the people, you can’t take it away with the other hand. And, luckily for you, democracy has mechanisms like the Supreme Court to prevent political leaders to undermine its very basic principles.

This is how democracy works.

Given at Versailles in the month of June, in the year of grace 1708, and of our reign the sixty sixth.

The treatment of Omar Khadr is an example of the monsters we have become in our “War on Terror.” Born in 1988 in Toronto, Khadr was raised by two, insane Muslim parents. They spent every moment preparing him for Jihad, telling him suicide bombers were the bestest of the best.

Sounds like my old man -- except he made me play baseball.

When Omar was two, the family moved to Pakistan. In 1992, the family moved back to Canada for three years because Dad stepped on a land mine and needed to recover. Shit happens during a Jihad, yo. Omar's father raised money for Al Qaeda and sent Khadr to get formal military training before he was 12. He spent most of his formative years in Al Qaeda camps and even spent time with Osama bin Laden in Jalalabad.

When the US attacked Afghanistan, Omar was fighting with the Taliban. Well, sort of fighting. At 14, his job was to wash clothes and cook for the actual fighters. On July 27, 2002, Khadr was sent to the village of Ab Khail to translate for Taliban fighters at a gathering. American forces arrived and a firefight broke out.

Khadr was captured and charged with throwing a grenade that killed Sgt. Christopher Speer. The Pentagon said that Khadr was the only one who could have killed Speer, because he was the only person alive at that point. Of course, the Pentagon was lying.

Khadr was 15 on that day. Check him out in all his glory.



The shooting left him blind in one eye. And Khadr’s fucked up life was only about to become a lot worse. Raised by animals, who filled his mind with poison and attempted to turn him into a killing machine, Khadr saw one way out.

No can do. We have to torture you and make you go crazy. Khadr was patched up and sent to Guantanamo for some civilized American treatment.

How about a little more detail?

In 2004, the U.S. called him an “enemy combatant” in a Summary of Evidence memo that was prepared for his Combatant Status Review Tribunal. A judge tossed the case out last year.

No problemo.

But just to make sure there are no further problems, Khadr is now an "unprivileged belligerent." “Unprivileged belligerents” apparently don't have the right to wage war.

I am constantly amazed at our retardation and incredible lack of humanity. I am, however, no longer amazed by our constant defying of our own laws and treaties.

But he’s 20 now, so I wouldn’t expect any sympathy from anyone. He’s a product of child abuse, raised by an insane family that tried to turn him into a suicide bomber. He is the reason many countries came together to create child soldier laws. But rather than being civilized, we have gone the other way. We have justified every lie Omar’s parents ever told him. We have erased any doubt he may have had that America must be destroyed. And we have given up any right to condemn another country when they torture our soldiers during war. We are no different than the supposed enemy we fight.

Omar Khadr will have another hearing next week. Maybe we should ask him if he wants to continue to live like a rat, or if he would rather die. But, then, that would show a glimmer of humanity.

Over six years after the 9/11 attacks - and coincidentally in an election year - charges are finally being brought against those responsible. And surprisingly enough, the evil masterminds have already been in American custody for several years.

In a rare reversal for this administration, not only are the detainees to stand actual trial (albeit military rather than civil), but the

Emphasis added.

The defendants include such notables as Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and the so-called "Twentieth Hijacker," Mohammed al-Qahtani, whose treatments in American custody have been, at best, controversial, and whose confessions are therefore, again at best, dubious.

Indeed, some analysts are already criticizing what they see as perhaps the crowning example of the politicization of the administration's War on Terror.

Such an interpretation, while undeniably cynical, is sadly well-attested by the evidence of the past six and a half years.

Whether this is the last gasp of an overplayed partisan tactic or the defining moment of a generational global conflict will, I suppose, soon be revealed.

It was a big week for the United States Supreme Court - the Justices not only heard oral arguments in potentially landmark cases challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection and mandatory voter identification, but the Court building also served as the site of a massive demonstration calling for a shutdown of Guantanamo Bay.

The Court returned from a winter break on Monday and began the year by hearing Baze v. Rees, a case brought by two inmates on death row in Kentucky. They contend that the three-drug combination used in executions in all but one of the 36 states that still have the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, which is prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.

In 1977, when death by electric chair was the norm, the chief medical examiner in Oklahoma developed the drug cocktail in an attempt to make executions more "humane." It consists of a barbiturate to make the individual unconscious, pancuronium bromide to paralyze muscles and stop breathing, and potassium chloride to stop the heart. Essentially, this thirty-year-old dosage combination suffocates people to death, only the drug that is supposed to make the condemned unconscious often doesn’t work. So they are conscious of the suffocation as it comes on, but unable to move or speak to communicate about it.

Opponents of the death penalty were hopeful when the Court agreed to hear the case challenging this method last fall – they essentially halted all executions in the country by granting stays to any prisoner that appealed to them. Some saw this is a hint that perhaps they would strike down this method and, for all intents and purposes, stop the death penalty for the foreseeable future. But a lot of those hopes were dashed by the reactions of the Justices during oral argument.

Justices Scalia and Roberts expressed expected opposition, but the usually liberal Justice Breyer was unexpectedly skeptical, expressing doubt that any other method of execution would be any less painful or less prone to human error. And even Justice Stevens, the Court’s most liberal Justice, conceded that the state should probably win if the issue was how well it administered the current protocol, leaving open the question about whether the constitutionality of the method itself was really being examined at all.

You can read the entire transcript of the arguments here, or download them and hear them for yourself here.

The Justices also expressed skepticism at a challenge to an Indiana law requiring all voters present valid, government-issued IDs at the polls in order to cast a vote. The challengers – the ACLU and the Indiana Democratic Party – contend that the ID requirement is an undue burden on the right to vote because the justification of voter fraud is not enough of a problem to need such a drastic solution. They claim that it will disproportionately affect poor and minority voters (who usually vote for the Democratic Party) who are less likely than more affluent white voters to have drivers’ licenses and passports.

The Justices seemed dismissive not only of this argument, but of the entire case in general. Courts are only supposed to hear cases brought by parties who are actually harmed, but this suit was brought before the law could ever be implemented. So, technically, no one has ever been harmed by it. The issue is a deeply partisan one, of course, but the Justices apparently managed to ignore this fact.

And finally, the week rounded out with a massive protest, both inside and outside the Court, against the torture of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. Police arrested 80 people without incident.

Ironically, the protest overshadowed the fact that the Court ruled on that very day that the Guantanamo detainees could not sue Pentagon officers and military officials for torturing them.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell held his tongue for four years during his tenure as the Bush Administration’s chief foreign policy officer, faithfully toeing the party line when he was asked to do so. It was Powell who made the now infamous Iraq war presentation in front of the U.N. Security Council, forcefully declaring the case for war. Of course, the evidence in that presentation has turned out to be nearly universally false and as a result Powell’s credibility has been forever damaged. While it is not certain how much he knew was false before he gave the speech, all indications are that he considers it the low point of his political career, as he told Barbara Walters in 2005.

Still, Powell’s resignation from Bush’s cabinet does not mean he’s given up political posturing altogether. Two years ago he called two Senators to voice his opposition to the nomination of John Bolton as US Ambassador to the UN. Today, he formally opposed another hot-button Bush project: the military detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

It is indeed what our system is about, Mr. Powell, but try telling that to President W.

It’s unclear whether Powell’s remarks come as an attempt to atone for past sins or as an earnest attempt to speak out about important matters of state. It is however very clear that Powell has not lost his grasp on the concept of international relations.

Seems like a pretty basic principle of diplomacy. When you’re trying to present yourselves as the world’s leader on freedom and democracy, it comes off extremely hypocritical to gleefully suspend the rights of others in a systematic fashion. Still, some others on the right just aren’t getting it.

Huckabee’s remarks are predictably moronic. I guess “every consideration” does not include stuff like access to attorneys. That would be going above and beyond, I suppose. And while I’m sure he’s right that the treatment the Gitmo detainees receive is super peachy keen, his argument that we should keep them in Guantanamo because otherwise they’ll be flying planes into buildings is total hogwash. If they are criminals, they can be convicted of crimes. If they are not criminals, they should be let free. As Powell said, that is indeed what our system is about.

Liberals, like myself for example, like to blame the Bush Administration for a lot of stuff. Usually, we’re justified in doing so. Powell’s comments today and Huckabee’s response to them made me think of something else we can righteously pin on Bush: were it not for the warmongers in the White House enlisting Powell as their invasion salesman four years ago, we might now have a Republican presidential candidate that knows their ass from a hole in the ground. Instead, they ruined his career.

Thanks, Bush Administration. You dickholes.

Before he sent the letter that would ruin his career, Lt. Commander Matthew Diaz was a distinguished member of the Navy’s JAG core. According to his Wikipedia page, he had “spent most of his adult life” in the service. Then one day he sent a Valentine’s Day card to Barbara Olshansky of the Center for Constitutional Rights. As a result of that Valentine, a military jury has now recommended Lt. Commander Diaz be sentenced to a six month prison sentence and discharged from the service.

Why? Well, turns out the card had a little bit more information than your standard “I Cho-Cho-Choose You!” fare.

Yikes. I’d hate to see what he sent on Mother’s Day.

But seriously folks, as you can imagine the Navy was not amused. They court-martialed and convicted him. But why would a career officer with a plum job in the JAG core throw away his career like this? Apparently, he was just about to finish his tour as an adviser at Gitmo and let's just say he was not quite impressed with the facility.

Diaz acknowledges that he was wrong to pass along the classified information and apologized for his actions. By virtue of his clandestine disclosure, he also managed to violate several rules of professional responsibility that lawyers must abide by. However, his apparent contrition did not stop him from accusing the administration of lying and worse.

Diaz’s accusations are certainly not out-of-the-ordinary. Of course, it’s not often we hear them from government lawyers who were charged with investigating Gitmo’s conditions. Those folks tend to keep their mouths shut. It’s also worth noting that the names Diaz sent were previously ordered to be disclosed by a federal judge several months beforehand, and have since been forced public by the Associated Press.

The fact that the names should have been disclosed by the government well before Diaz leaked them does not excuse him from facing the resulting consequences. Nor should it. However, it’s hard not to admire a man who risked his career and his freedom to attempt to do what his convictions required of him. Indeed, this could be one of those rare occurrences where someone was justly convicted of doing the right thing.

Subrosa runs his articles how he run his articles. You want to investigate him, roll the dice and take your chances. He eats breakfast 300 pixels from 4000 members who are trained to threadjack him, so don't think for one second that you can come down here, flash some tits, and make him nervous.

David Hicks is the most glaring example of how poorly the Bush administration is handling their War on Terrorism. The Australian was captured in December 2001 in Afghanistan and was accused of conspiracy to commit war crimes; attempted murder by an unprivileged belligerent; and aiding the enemy. The US believed Hicks had attended al-Qaeda terrorist training courses at different camps in Afghanistan.

During his imprisonment Hicks enjoyed some delightful treatment by his US torturers. He was beaten while blindfolded and handcuffed, had his head rammed into asphalt, was medicated against his will and beaten while sedated, he was forced to run in leg shackles which ripped the skin his ankles, he was deprived of sleep, he endured death threats at gunpoint, anal penetration with objects and witnessed dog attacks on other prisoners. Over his imprisonment he lost 30 pounds, even though he was physically fit when captured. Hicks became suicidal. In an affidavit, Hicks offered to provide many other instances of abuse he suffered but said he would need a “substantially longer document.”

Hicks' trial was originally to be held on January 10, 2005 but in November 2004 a Federal Court ruled that the military commissions of Guantanamo prisoners were “neither competent nor lawful.” After over a year of appeals, the Supreme Court ruled on June 26, 2006 that the military tribunals were illegal under US law and the Geneva Conventions. Hicks’ lawyers then began to pressure the Australian government to force the US to adhere to international standards for prisoners or release him.

In February 2002 Donald Rumsfeld described the prisoners who were being held at Guantanamo as "the worst of the worst." Last month, Hicks became the first Guantanamo Bay prisoner to be convicted by military tribunals. Prosecutors claimed he was a highly trained and dangerous Al Qaeda operative.

A panel of officers recommended a sentence of seven years but Hicks only received nine months. Why? Because he had already reached a plea agreement due to the idiotic and illegal actions of the Bush administration. The chief prosecutor, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, said that the lenient sentence was negotiated without his input. Oh, Hicks will also serve his sentence in his hometown in Australia.

So, now we know how our government takes care of “the worst of the worst.” They get a brutal nine-month sentence and have to serve it in their home country, in the same town they grew up in. Take that, you murderous bastard.

But the real motivation behind the sentence is revealed in the gag order. Under the agreement, Hicks was forced to state that he had never been “illegally treated” and he had to promise not to sue the US officials or ANY American citizen. These two agreements totally undermine any credibility the military tribunals ever had and any statement the Bush administration has ever made about the threat of “terrorists” being held at Guantanamo. But that is what will happen when you give a "terrorist" a light sentence to keep quiet.

The way the Bush administration has played this, they are either totally inept at prosecuting terrorists or they have botched prosecutions by torturing and thereby undermining any cases they could have made. Either way, it is a colossal fuck up by “The War President” and another reason why his love of torture is undermining the security of our country.

Following the dramatic suicide attempts by three detainees being held in Gauntanamo bay and the horrifying abuse received by prisoners there has been an uproar over the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners in the "war on terror." The Supreme Court rebuked Bush in a decision that said he could not give prisoners military tribunals in lieu of public trials with congressional approval because of treaty obligations that cannot simply be waived. Bush has replied by releasing a memo today stating that captors will obey Geneva convention obligations and that... uh... they've been doing that the whole time, they're just, you know, saying it again.

Well, if by "complex" Snow means the decision " made the White House look moronic" then he's a little closer to the truth. What's especially sad is that this administration's decision to abide by treaty obligations that the consitution demands is enough to make headlines; one would assume that it was de rigeur for the president to follow his constitutional obligations. The doubletalk insistence that all prisoners have been held in accordance with Geneva convention rules already is also patently absurd, and the rest of the world is fully cognizant of this fact, even if the administration refuses to admit any wrongdoing on the part of people in uniform, even when fully documented on camera and video. But in the end, this concession is better than none at all, and if it provides the impetus to keep stricter oversight on how jailors are treating their wards then it's a worthwhile endeavor.

The Bush administration has consistently sought to increase the scope of its executive powers since Bush first took office, whether it be by secretly spying on American citizens, whisking away suspected terrorists to foreign prisons by CIA operatives, conducting secret energy policy meetings, or indefinitely imprisoning foreign nationals for being suspected of participating in terrorist acts. Today the Supreme Court put a check on this executive power grab by limiting the government's ability to try prisoners held in Guantanamo bay by military tribunal.

As the "war on terror" starts to look more and more like the "war on drugs," that is, an endless time, manpower and money sink which is literally unwinnable the roles of Congress, the President and the Supreme Court are starting to become more clearly defined. The constitution had a system of checks and balances written into it to ensure that no single branch of government was too powerful. While neither the Supreme Court nor Congress wants to limit the ability of the president or military to prosecute and crack down on terrorists, all they're asking is that he operates within the established letter of the law.

The in-house partisans of the court held a dissenting opinion, which should surprise no one.

It's not entirely clear why justice Thomas believes that the president deserves any particular deference in this matter, other than the fact that he was nominated to the position by the president's father. Justice Scalia's opinion was in the minority because the standard that government established was not the same standard to which treaties obligate the US to uphold, and treaty obligations were deemed the more important factor in this case, as pointed out by SCOTUSBlog.

If this new standard bears out in practice it should be quite a comfort to US allies who have been grumbling about how the US is not upholding Geneva convention standards with respect to its prosecution of the "war on terror." It also puts significant limitations on the sorts of problems that have arisen as a result of a makeshift prison system with no effective oversight. Perhaps this really is the end of Gitmo.

The inmates in the US prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have existed in an almost Kafkaesque state of bureacratic limbo since their initial incarceration several years ago. The US administration refuses to acknowledge them as either prisoners of war, which would grant them rights defined by the Geneva Conventions, to which the US is a party, or as incarcerated criminals, in which case they could pursue their cases in US courts. Their lack of formal status as anything but the ill-defined "enemy combatant" has removed them from all forms of governmental oversight, and lead to alleged abuses by their jailors. Some inmates have even taken to killing themselves as a protest to their treatment and status. None of this has helped the United States' image abroad with either our enemies or our allies, as we're clearly not capable of "walking the walk" when it comes time to mete out justice. In the face of mounting pressure from EU allies, President Bush finally come out in favor of shutting the place down.

Well, that's good. I'll sleep a hell of a let better at night knowing that those who have been wrongly imprisoned will be set free, and those who deserve to be locked up will get a fair trial that puts them in a legitimate prison. The real question remains however, which is how serious is Bush about actually shutting it down? One need only look back on some ill-kept (and bizarre) Bush promises from his presidency to not take his word completely at face value. Like, say putting people on Mars, or eliminating steroids from major league baseball, both two unexpected comments from previous state of the union addresses that haven't exactly been followed up with decisive action.

Keeping these people locked up can only hurt us, however, a fact that some European leaders may have been trying to impress upon Bush.

Coudln't have put it better myself. If Bush is serious about trying to crack down on terrorist groups (and despite his multitude of other failings, I at least believe his sincerity in that regard) it's going to require a truly international effort and commitment to values that separates us from them. The only way to maintain alliances is to show that commitment to values in actions rather than just rhetoric. A good start would be to shut down Guantanamo. Sooner rather than later.

Since the viral marketing explanation didn't exactly resonate as a way to explain away the suicides at Guantanamo Bay, the President is taking a new direction:

Wait, what?

The "darn dangerous" people could be held in any number of other locations. The reason Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root has been busy building out Guantanamo is the same reason that other countries have "an excuse" as Bush calls it: the prison camps there have been deemed outside of the laws of the United States. As long as Bush's little torture fetish outweighs his desire to comply with the Geneva Conventions and the Constitution, Guantanamo will be open for business, damaged image be damned.

When it comes to our little Boy Scout camp down at Guantanamo Bay, it is undeniable that the United States hold all the high cards—we're the guards, the rulemakers, the providers of lemon chicken and two types of fruit. We hold men without charges or the prospect of trials, and without rights that would be covered under the Geneva Convention. So when a few Guantanamo inmates decide to off themselves, as was the case this past weekend, what is our reaction?

Were the suicides an act of desperation? Nope. A sign that the situation at Guantanamo needs to be reviewed, and soon? Nope. A calculated act in which we—the wardens and chicken chefs—are the victims? Yeah, that will work just fine.

From Rear Admiral Harry Harris, commander of Guantanamo:

Asymmetric warfare? That's pretty impressive coming from people who have been locked in cells for over three years. Let's get another opinion from an official at the oh-so-sensible State Department:

The money part of that last quote is that Graffy's job responsibilities include—wait for it—"improving the United States' image abroad, especially in Islamic countries, according to her biography on the State Department Web site."

Heckuva job. Really.

Considering the inability of some people in the government to look at these suicides for the acts of desperation they are, it wouldn't be surprising to see it spun as something completely different tomorrow: a college prank, maybe? Too much Grand Theft Auto? Or a terrorist viral marketing campaign to rival Snakes on a Plane? You never know, though it would be awfully amusing to hear Samuel L. Jackson yelling out "Suicides in motherfucking Guantanamo!"

When it comes to our little Boy Scout camp down at Guantanamo Bay, it is undeniable that the United States hold all the high cards—we're the guards, the rulemakers, the providers of lemon chicken and two types of fruit. We hold men without charges or the prospect of trials, and without rights that would be covered under the Geneva Convention. So when a few Guantanamo inmates decide to off themselves, as was the case this past weekend, what is our reaction?

Were the suicides an act of desperation? Nope. A sign that the situation at Guantanamo needs to be reviewed, and soon? Nope. A calculated act in which we—the wardens and chicken chefs—are the victims? Yeah, that will work just fine.

From Rear Admiral Harry Harris, commander of Guantanamo:

Asymmetric warfare? That's pretty impressive coming from people who have been locked in cells for over three years. Let's get another opinion from an official at the oh-so-sensible State Department:

The money part of that last quote is that Graffy's job responsibilities include—wait for it—"improving the United States' image abroad, especially in Islamic countries, according to her biography on the State Department Web site."
Heckuva job. Really.
Considering the inability of some people in the government to look at these suicides for the acts of desperation they are, it wouldn't be surprising to see it spun as something completely different tomorrow: a college prank, maybe? Too much Grand Theft Auto? Or a terrorist viral marketing campaign to rival Snakes on a Plane? You never know, though it would be awfully amusing to hear Samuel L. Jackson yelling out "Suicides in motherfucking Guantanamo!".