On October 15, Professor Richard Falk delivered the keynote address, “Imperial Wars and the Obama Presidency: The Role of Law,” at the National Lawyers Guild convention in Seattle. He was introduced by NLG president Marjorie Cohn.
Category: War on Terror
Obama’s Guantánamo Appeasement Plan
Two days after his inauguration, President Obama pledged to close Guantánamo within one year. The Republicans, led by Senators John McCain, Mitch McConnell and Pat Roberts, immediately launched a concerted campaign to assail the new president. They claimed his plan would release dangerous terrorists into U.S. communities and allow released terrorists to resume fighting against… Read more »
Memos Provide Blueprint for Police State
Seven newly released memos from the Bush Justice Department reveal a concerted strategy to cloak the President with power to override the Constitution. The memos provide “legal” rationales for the President to suspend freedom of speech and press; order warrantless searches and seizures, including wiretaps of U.S. citizens; lock up U.S. citizens indefinitely in the… Read more »
A Call to End All Renditions
Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian residing in Britain, said he was tortured after being sent to Morocco and Afghanistan in 2002 by the U.S. government. Mohamed was transferred to Guantánamo in 2004 and all terrorism charges against him were dismissed last year. Mohamed was a victim of extraordinary rendition, in which a person is abducted without… Read more »
NLG Calls on President-elect Obama to Close Guantanamo, Opposes Establishment of National Security Courts
After September 11, 2001, George W. Bush established the Guantánamo Bay prison to enable the United States to imprison non-Americans indefinitely outside the reach and protection of both U.S. and international law. The military commissions and their trial procedures, created under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, have been universally condemned by jurists, scholars and… Read more »
End the Occupation of Iraq – and Afghanistan
So far, Bush’s plan to maintain a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq has been stymied by resistance from the Iraqi government. Barack Obama’s timetable for withdrawal of American troops has evidently been joined by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Bush has mentioned a “time horizon,” and John McCain has waffled. Yet Obama favors leaving… Read more »
John Yoo, David Addington Stonewall Congress
JOHN YOO, DAVID ADDINGTON STONEWALL CONGRESS; NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD URGES SPECIAL PROSECUTOR, CONGRESSIONAL WAR CRIMES COMMISSION Today the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties continued its investigation into the role played by key administration lawyers in the development of aggressive interrogation techniques. This was the third hearing of this… Read more »
Scalia Cites False Information in Habeas Corpus Dissent
To bolster his argument that the Guantánamo detainees should be denied the right to prove their innocence in federal courts, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his dissent in Boumediene v. Bush: “At least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantánamo have returned to the battlefield.” It turns out that statement is false. According to… Read more »
Supreme Court Checks and Balances in Boumediene
After the Supreme Court handed down its long-awaited opinion, upholding habeas corpus rights for the Guantánamo detainees, I was invited to appear on The O’Reilly Factor with guest host Laura Ingraham. Although she is a lawyer and former law clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas, Ingraham has no use for our judicial branch of government, noting… Read more »
NLG Says Politics Motivated Decision in Cuban Five Case
Two Judges on Three-Judge Panel Uphold Conspiracy to Commit Murder Conviction Despite Government’s Lack of Evidence New York. The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) believes that politics influenced yesterday’s federal appeals court decision upholding the convictions of five Cuban patriots accused of spying in the United States. The so-called Cuban Five were gathering information on U.S.-based… Read more »