As the nation focused on whether Congress would exercise its constitutional duty to cut funding for the war, Bush quietly issued an unconstitutional bombshell that went virtually unnoticed by the corporate media. The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, signed on May 9, 2007, would place all governmental power in the hands of the… Read more »
The scandal at Walter Reed Army Medical Center has called into question the Bush administration’s “support” for our troops. But it doesn’t stop there. On March 8, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! broadcast the testimony of former Abu Ghraib commander Col. Janis Karpinski as she responded to my questioning at a January 2006 war crimes… Read more »
On March 6, the court-martial will begin in Germany for Army Specialist Augustín Aguayo, who faces up to seven years in prison for refusing to deploy to Iraq for a second tour of duty. His petition for habeas corpus was denied by a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on February 16…. Read more »
Last week, in Boumediene v. Bush, two judges on a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the provision of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that strips the rights of all Guantánamo detainees to have their habeas corpus petitions heard by U.S. federal courts. If that decision is left to stand,… Read more »
It’s déja vu. This time the Bush gang wants war with Iran . Following a carefully orchestrated strategy, they have ratcheted up the “threat” from Iran, designed to mislead us into a new war four years after they misled us into Iraq. Like its insistence that Iraq had WMD, the Bush administration has been hyping… Read more »
When the Army judge declared a mistrial over defense objection in 1st Lt. Ehren Watada’s court martial, he probably didn’t realize jeopardy attached. That means that under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Constitution, the government cannot retry Lt. Watada on the same charges of missing movement and conduct unbecoming an officer.Lt. Watada is the… Read more »
In 1971, singer Marvin Gaye raised hackles when he tried to make sense of the madness of the Vietnam War by asking, “What’s Going On?” He sang: Mother, mother/ There’s too many of you crying/ Brother, brother, brother/ There’s far too many of you dying/ You know we’ve got to find a way/ To bring… Read more »
As the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives and were on the verge of taking over the Senate, George W. Bush announced that Donald Rumsfeld was out and Robert Gates was in as Secretary of Defense. When Bush is being run out of town, he knows how to get out in the front… Read more »
By Marjorie Cohn The announcement of Saddam Hussein’s death sentence two days before our midterm elections brings to mind the opening scene of Woody Allen’s film Bananas. Howard Cosell is covering the impending assassination of a dictator in an unnamed Banana Republic. On one side of the street, Cosell thrusts a microphone under the dictator’s… Read more »
The Military Commissions Act of 2006 governing the treatment of detainees is the culmination of relentless fear-mongering by the Bush administration since the September 11 terrorist attacks. Because the bill was adopted with lightning speed, barely anyone noticed that it empowers Bush to declare not just aliens, but also U.S. citizens, “unlawful enemy combatants.” Bush… Read more »