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08.13.10 - 7:27 PM
Khadr Trial: "Opinions" In the Eyes of the Beholder
The defense of Omar Khadr met with a setback when prosecutors removed the only potential juror who thinks Guantanamo should be closed, arguing he had "preconceived" views. The seven jurors remaining either think it should stay open, have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, or have lost friends there; none believe the US uses torture. Also, the trial was suspended for 30 days after Khadr's sole attorney collapsed in court. More on the makeup of the jury here.
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34 Comments so far
Show AllIt sounds like the infamous show trials of the former Soviet Union.
But I suppose the people staging this travesty of justice are unfortunately deceiving more than themselves.
So called "confessions" extracted by torture have been ruled as admissible evidence. The jury is also compromised.
This trial needs to start again. Properly this time. If you cant have a fair trial, then why bother to have a trial at all.
". The seven jurors remaining either think it should stay open, have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, or have lost friends there; none believe the US uses torture"
Of course they believe the US uses torture. !
they could not function at all if they did not.. their own PRISONS and 'police cells' use torture - we can SEE if happening on 'hidden' cameras...
Of course, seeing these kinds of videos where brutality is done in other lands, like Australia, and Britain et al... well, these people DO use torture.. but they are not americans - AMERICANS DON'T! (those vidoes of police brutality in america are made by people who hate and are jealous of America. ! ...
What to do with people like this?
It's almost as if William Haynes, Cheney, and Rumsfeld are still at the Pentagon pulling levers from behind the curtain. I'll say it again: Obama should have charged into the Pentagon and DOJ with a sharp hatchet and fired every damned sleeper agent left behind by Cheny and Rumsfeld. The trial judge appears to be one of those sleeper agents who is busy rigging this show trial to obtain a pre arranged conviction. Lest you forget, Haynes was one of the idealogues who in a moment of candor stated that all of the men at Guantanamo must be found guilty. Shortly after that ill advised statement he resigned. Bush had tried to get him an assignment as a 4th Circuit federal Judge, as Jay Bybee had been made a 9th Circuit judge. The Senate was alerted to the seeming stupidity,arrogance, and extreme forgetfullness during testimony of Haynes and he didn't get that promotion. Bybee was confirmed before the Senate got wind of his actions in relation to torture documents. What should be so shocking is that these trials seem to just continue as an example of military arrogance gone crazy.
Aarky, i would respectfully say, and i agree with the rest of your post, that McCain was as likely to charge into the pentagon and DOJ with a sharp hatchet, as obama was. I will never understand, honestly and sincerely, why people thought that a politician wasn't a politician. Since when do they not lie when they campaign?
I always go back to the fact he is biracial. I see no other reason for him to have been seen as transcendentally inspired. I would love to have just one poster explain what made them believe a slick, polico was a truth teller. Please.
I always go back to the fact he is biracial. I see no other reason for him to have been seen as transcendentally inspired. I will never understand, honestly and sincerely, why people thought that a politician wasn't a politician. Since when do they not lie when they campaign?
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I'm sure you're right, Rita -- people looked at his skin color and saw him as an above-average but ethically normal member of a pariah group who would therefore be motivated to work for beneficial changes. A sort of bi-racial version of Dennis Kucinich. And he and his handlers cold-bloodedly exploited that mistaken perception.
The one nice thing I can think of is that Lincoln was right: they can't fool all of us all of the time. Some people are never fooled, and most of the rest gradually catch on, so a scam can only be used a few times before it has to be replaced. And the number of plausible scams is limited.
I am quite sure the Canadian government has asked the yanks to find Mr. Khadr "guilty" of whatever they can dream up.
I'm quite sure you're right. More's the pity.
Of course he'll be found 'guilty', he's in a kangaroo court after all. There is a greater chance that the gov't of Israel would unilaterally withdraw from all territories occupied since 1948 than Mr. Khadr would be found not guilty.
I don't think there are any criminals or terrorists in Gitmo. rumsfeld said these guys are the worst of the worst. So there was some pressure to produce somebody to put on trial. This is the "worst" they could find. A child soldier who in civil society can't be put on trial, a child soldier accused of "murder", because he allegedly tried to defend his country from a foreign invader, not a shred of evidence against him.
this country gets uglier and meaner and nastier by the minute.
The tragic farce continues.
This trial is more rigged than even the 2000 presidential election.
As one poster said above, probably NONE of the detainees at Guantanamo is guilty of anything more than trying to defend his country against a foreign invader.
Except, perhaps, for Khalid Sheik Mohammad, who does appear to be a bona fide international terrorist.
But even Khalid Sheik Mohammad, who, unlike the others, was not whisked away from the dusts of Afghanistan but was brought there after being captured in Pakistan, is surely not the "9/11 mastermind" he admitted to being under torture, along with a thousand other things.
The Guantanamo lager, and the unfortunate souls enclosed therein, are simply a smokescreen meant to justify the bogus "War on Terror."
This is why Khadr's trial, and all such trials, are and will be rigged.
Without the confessions obtained under torture, the US has NO EVIDENCE whatsoever of any of these people's involvement in 9/11.
And that includes Khalid Sheik Mohammad.
Without torture, and the resulting show trials, the tyrants have no fall guys.
How long will this go on? Until American society collapses under the weight of all its lies and crimes and corruption? Will justice be served then? And, if so, what form will it take?
The Trial is a continuation of the "Myth that the 9/11 Attacks were planned by a guy in a cave!........The CIA has multiples of truth serums, yet none of them was used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammad......it took 5 years of torture and brainwashing to get him to confess to something he knew nothing about!
Please, "Explain how these guys in caves got NORAD to schedule 5 Practice Exercises so that 4 hijacked planes could not be intercepted!" Please, "Explain how explosives were placed in three buildings!" (Yes, there were eyewitnesses to explosions, reporters on video talking about the explosions! And, evidence of nano-thermite was found in the ashes!)
The conviction tne other day was for supporting al-Qaeda! Excuse me, the CIA created al-Qaeda, armed al-Qaeda. and funded al-Qaeda and that funding and arming went on through the 90´s to help install the Taliban in power!
Oh, your man Khalid Sheikh Mohammad led a group known as Jundallah! OOOOppps, July 2008, Congress approved 400 million dollars for the destabilization of Iran with most of that money going to Jundallah, a Taliban Organization..And, Jundallah claimed responsibility for a Mosque attack last month that killed 27 unarmed civilians....The Congress of 2008 should all surrender to the Guantanamo Courts for supporting the enemy and funding a terrorist attack that killed 27!
Relax, Herb. I agree with everything you say. But the fact that KSM might be on the CIA payroll doesn't make him any less of a terrorist; if anything, it makes him more of one.
Tin foil hat alert!
Mindless cliché alert!
it was a valid response to a vapid post.
Sorry, but invoking such phrases as "tinfoil hat" or "conspiracy theory" in response to presentations of fact or reasoned arguments is NOT VALID. It's simply a mindless, unquestioning, knee-jerk reaction learned from watching too much TV and reading too many mainstream newspapers with an uncritical eye.
And how do YOU think the 47-story WTC 7 came down in 6.5 seconds, Saturnalia?
I don't buy the idiotic and foolish claims by the lunatic fringe who call themselves the 'truthers'. Sorry, if that disappoints you. But their claims are fucking crazy. Sorry if it makes you think I'm 'deluded' frankly I don't care.
There is no evidence that those buildings came down by any other method than fire. That's it. No gov't conspiracy, no explosives in the building, no thermite at all. Frankly I'm getting tired of the silly idea that the us gov't would be able to pull off such a scheme in the first place. They've never kept any secrets before; at all.
Then you are simply incapable of observing phenomenon with anything resembling scientific objectivity. There is no way that a 47-story building can fall straight down at virtual freefall speed, with each element falling INTO THE PATH OF GREATEST RESISTANCE. At least not in this physical universe. The underlying support elements had to be moved out of the way for this to happen. They could not simply move out of the way, all at the exact same moment. Buildings' structures, even under far more severe fires than those in Building 7, don't just conveniently step aside, element by element, with split-second precision. The only way for this to occur is through the use of explosives, for which there is ample evidence, forensic and eyewitness. The evidence is on my side, not yours. Your position is one of blind faith. And the abusive tone and obscenities that you use to "argue" merely demonstrate the underlying weakness of your case.
The left is so weak because people like you don't have the guts to believe your own eyes. You would rather run with the herd. History will bear me out, and see your ilk as the blind fools that you are. I have nothing to do with any "truth movement." I merely think for myself, on the basis of observation, research, and analysis. I doubt you can make the same claim on this issue.
And, incidentally, it's not the "lunatic fringe" that agrees with me on this point, but fully 1/3 of the American populace, which is far more than a "fringe." Not to mention people like Ray McGovern, Robert Baer, Andreas Von Bulow, Francesco Cossiga, (Nobel Laureate) Dario Fo, and literally thousands of other prominent individuals in their respective fields (engineers, architects, writers, politicians, firemen, pilots, etc.).
You're whacked lad. What do you think that the buildings would fall up?
Modern buildings are built out of air. They didn't fall into the 'path of greatest resistance' because most of the buildings are nothing but air. They weren't that well designed either. That was obvious by the fact that the escape stairs could be cut off. Once the supports have lost their integrity, they're falling straight down. Yes, at freefall speed, what speed do you think it's going to fall at??? There is no evidence of the use of explosives. There is no evidence that anyone could have planted explosives.
I know it gives some people comfort to think that someone couldn't possibly have attacked the usa successfully without the support of the us gov't. Why that is, is beyond me. I'd imagine that you think you're too exceptional to be attacked. Bummer to be proven wrong; again...
1/2 of the yanks believe that 'evolution' is not a scientific theory, but some other plot. Don't try to back up your conspiracy theory by appealing to the numbers of kooks who live in your country.
"Modern buildings are built out of air. They didn't fall into the 'path of greatest resistance' because most of the buildings are nothing but air."
You live in a fantasy world. Your argument is pure blather. One floor cannot fall into another floor and then continue to fall at freefall speed, and then so on for forty-seven floors. Each subsequent floor must necessarily slow down the collapse, unless it and its various support elements are removed so that they no longer impede the continuing descent of the floors above. You have no understanding of physics and simply say the first thing that comes into your head.
As for evidence, let me cite only one of many instances. There is a video of WTC 7 just before collapse. Some onlookers are walking by, and a workman on the site says to them: "See that building there? It's going to be comin' down."
That workman, like many others, knew that the building was about to be demolished. Put him, and his bosses, on the stand, and you'll know who brought the building down and why. And the whole obscene charade of the 9/11 disaster will begin to unravel.
You clearly have only a superficial knowledge of the events of that day. If not, you would know, for example, that people like that workman, as well as all the firefighters and policemen on duty that day, are under gag orders not to say what they witnessed. Remove the gag orders, and you'll find out what the government doesn't want you to know. (A few have already violated the order and spoken to independent journalists, but outside of a courtroom, the legal effect is nil.)
You disparage Americans and at the same time blindly believe the explanation of their government's 9/11 Commission, two of whose members said their investigation was rigged. You believe a government that has started two wars of aggression, killing well over a million people abroad and bankrupting their own country. You believe a government whose president Bush refused to testify under oath before the Commission, and who insisted that he and Dick Cheney only testify together. You believe a government, many of whose former employees, such as Robert Baer, Ray McGovern, Adm. Stubblebine, Paul Craig Roberts, Mike Ruppert (former LAPD detective superintendent and son of two CIA agents), Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatowski, and so on, have said that they think there was government collusion in the 9/11 events, and that the evidence "would certainly indicate this" (thus Robert Baer, former top CIA agent for the Middle East).
You're probably even unaware that the 9/11 Commission wanted to charge top Pentagon officials with perjury, so contradictory and garbled were their responses to the Commission of inquiry.
You don't know a fraction of the available information on what happened that day, and yet you think your ignorance ("modern buildings are built out of air") is sufficient to explain an event you don't understand, and that your kneejerk anti-Americanism buttresses your "argument."
Incidentally, I don't live in the US.
Frankly I'm getting tired of the silly idea that the us gov't would be able to pull off such a scheme in the first place. They've never kept any secrets before; at all.
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Surely you're joking. Operation Northwoods.
And there's a physicist, Dr Steven Jones, who's respected by his peers as a solid, sober experimenter, who flatly says the Official Conspiracy Theory fails to account for the phenomena visible in the videotapes of the buildings' destruction or the information available from the residues.
Thanks Mairead. To add to your comment, the statement you quote:
"Frankly I'm getting tired of the silly idea that the us gov't would be able to pull off such a scheme in the first place. They've never kept any secrets before; at all."
is standard boilerplate for dismissing "conspiracy theories" and it's false. How long did they keep the USS Liberty secret? Threaten enough people and they'll keep silent. Anyway plenty of eyewitness have spoken out, and people (formerly) within the government have spoken out, and they have all been ignored. When people such as they know only part of the story (whichever part they happened to witness or be part of, such as the FBI and Military Intelligence agents tracking the terrorists who saw their efforts shut down by higher ranking officials), then they can be easily denied by officialdom.
Along with the Official Conspiracy Theory is the Official Denial, which the likes of Saturnalia embrace. As I said above, history will vindicate those who have eyes in their head and can think for themselves, while the disasters we are living through, and those which further await us as a result of this crime against humanity, will be seen to have been facilitated by Official Denial and those who, while rejecting most everything else that the mouth of officialdom spews out, insist on embracing the patently ludicrous Official Conspiracy theory.
There was also the totally inappropriate rush to make sure the evidence was destroyed.
Any time a passenger aeroplane goes down, even if the cause seems to be well-understood, all the recoverable bits and pieces are painstakingly picked up, with experts spending years if necessary painstakingly reassembling them so as to be sure the supposed cause was, as far as can be known, the actual cause.
The idea that a monstrous, unprecedented crime should have the evidence immediately destroyed forever just doesn't pass the smell test...unless the ones ordering it destroyed were the criminals.
As to the commission that "investigated" what happened, I think Feynman's experience of the Challeger commission tells us what we need to know about such theater.
Indeed. I agree with all you say.
Peace to you.
Omar Khadr knew he was in trouble, when the kangaroos in their neatly pressed military uniforms hopped into the jury box!
All hail President Zero, invertebrate of the year!
It's the Amerikkkan system of justice: We'll give you a fair trial before we hang you.
This is terrible. Our George Bush wannabe Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, whom only 1 in 5 people in the country voted for, is disgusting. Somebody, call an election, please!!!
If the U.S. really respected International Law, then this trial would be held in an International Court. Otherwise, this is sounding like Agatha Christie's play, "10 Little Indians"... "and then there were 7." When will they charge the real and instigating American terrorists?
arresting and charging a child soldier is ok now? no it isn't, and it's never going to be, not even when child soldier Omar is old and grey and still behind bars.
Evidence extracted by torture is admissible? no it is not in a real trial in a real court. It was admissible in the Moscow trials, because it was the only evidence available, and also the Kremlin did not play by the rules.
That's why the u.s. changed the rules for Omar: there is no real evidence against him. as far as that goes, there was not even a crime committed.
Obama is making Nixon and Reagan look like honorable presidents.
Justice US style. Gives the country a black eye.
None of the "jurors" believe the US practices torture.
But the judge ruled that "evidence" acquired by torture-induced "confession" is admissible.
The jurors should wash that wax out of their ears.
As to the discussion about 9/11
It's clear that the events of 9/11 gave incredible power to the Bush Administration, conservatives, and Zionists.
IF the story line were TRUE, then a transparent investigation would INCREASE the power of the above groups. They would have pushed to have the investigation.
But if the story were false, then a transparent investigations would DECREASE the power of the Bush Administration, conservatives, and Zionists.
There was no transparent investigation.
Why?
De-Countrify Israel Now and force Zionists to pay Reparations.