Another 16 Words: Boumediene Bites Bush Again
Laura Rozen rocks, and today she rolls up more jaw dropping malevolence and fraud on the part of the Bush/Cheney Administration.
A potentially explosive new court filing by the lawyers for Lakhdar Boumediene and five other Guantanamo detainees suggests that the Bush administration ordered the Bosnian government to arrest and hold the men after an exhaustive Bosnian investigation had found them innocent of any terrorism related activity and had ordered their release, in order to use them as props in Bush’s January 2002 State of the Union speech.
The filing–"Lakhdar Boumediene, et al., Petitioners, v. George W. Bush, President of the United States, et al., Respondents, Petitioners’ Public Traverse to the Government’s Return to the Petition for Habeas Corpus"–lays out the case that the Bush administration threatened at the highest levels to withdraw diplomatic and military aid to the Balkan nation if Bosnia released the men, which its own three-month investigation had found innocent of any terrorism charges in the days leading up to Bush’s January 2002 State of the Union.
Faced with the threats of the withdrawal of aid and that if it released the men, the White House would order NATO troops to detain them, Bosnia transferred the men under duress to the custody of the US government in January 2002. Ten days later, Bush used sixteen words to warn Americans that, in "cooperation" with the Bosnian government, it had captured terrorists who had planned to bomb the US embassy in Sarajevo: "Our soldiers, working with the Bosnian government, seized terrorists who were plotting to bomb our embassy," Bush told the nation.
But, six years later, the detainees’ petition says, after the US Supreme Court has sided with the detainees and ordered the US to give the detainees habeas corpus rights, the Bush administration has failed to repeat the embassy plot charges that Bush used in his State of the Union address, or to produce credible evidence of why the men should be held as enemy combatants.
It is hard to be shocked by these kind of revelations anymore, there has been so much criminal depravity on the part of the Bush/Cheney crew in relation to their torture and sadistic gulag detention programs that it just dulls the senses after a while. And it is not like we didn’t know that the case against Lakhdar Boumediene was bogus; that was evident from the prior litigation that led to the original Supreme Court Boumediene decision. The pleading containing the new allegations is here (pdf). For those of you perplexed by the title of the pleading, a "traverse" pleading is nothing more than a somewhat archaic term for a reply pleading.
The revelation that Boumediene has been, from the outset, about yet another 16 word intentional lie to the American public, and indeed the world, in the hallowed State of the Union Speech, in order to fraudulently gin up the basis for an illegal and immoral war of aggression, is heart stopping and hard to stomach. We already had a 16 word blatant lie by Bush for this purpose. Crikey, how many other 16 word lies are out there?
As I said, we knew the detention and persecution of Boumediene and the others known as the "Algerian Six" was unjustified and unsupportable, but the similarities to the other "16 Word" scandal are striking.
Both cases involved facts that the Bush/Cheney Administration possessed and knew were patently false, and yet cravenly used in the State Of The Union to sell their desire for war of choice and aggression. Both involved bordering Islamic countries in Northwestern Africa. Both were hurriedly put in the SOTU to gin up the war on terror and lay the groundwork for the invasion of Iraq that both Bush and Cheney were jonesing for since before they took office. And both were linchpins in the respective SOTU speeches in 2002 and 2003, seeking to sell and con the public for support by the Bushies.
Repetitive analogous conduct, in similar situations, over time. This is what in the law is known as pattern and practice evidence. Hard to say something is a mistake if you keep making that same "mistake" over and over and over. Well, the Bush/Cheney Administration has a crystal clear pattern and practice of using 16 word snippets of fraud to sell war to the American people. I wonder if Condiliar Rice will blithely laugh off the new "16 Word" fraud as overblown nonsense the way she did the original "16 Word" scandal?
Another day, another outrage.
“It is hard to be shocked by these kind of revelations anymore, there has been so much criminal depravity on the part of the Bush/Cheney crew in relation to their torture and sadistic gulag detention programs that it just dulls the senses after a while.”
And yet, we must not allow our sense of outrage to be dulled. After all, that is what they want– to throw such a blizzard of outrages at us that such illegalities will appear commonplace and, thus, acceptable. We must not allow that to happen.
Thanks, bmaz, for this information.
Bob in HI
This is exhausting. Can the criminals just be put behind bars, please?
We could, if that despicable idiot Pelosi hadn’t so famously (or infamously) taken impeachment off the table.
She cannot impeach..she knew about the torture and did nothing…she is guilty of war crimes..
I know the level of corruption oozing from this administration has become par for the course hard for the American public to keep up. The majority of folks either do not care or have given up.
Just how different are Americans from the people who did nothing when millions of Jews, Poles, Gypsies, handicapped and others were brutally and systematically murdered by the Nazi’s? Oh folks will say but this is different. How different is it when our leaders created an environment for war crimes to take place in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gitmo, Abu Gharib who knows how many other torture situations there have been.
How different are most Americans who do absolutely nothing about the crimes that have been committed in our nations name?
Around the time of the east coast teach-in, it became clear some substantial counselor reckoning was carrying habeas petitions in dozens of lawfirms pro bono, and there would be follow-through for damages. We got the Padilla migration to civil, the Luttig resignation huff, now Clive Smith has assisted the UK courts to voice some warnings, though, as mentioned above, the US state department has intervened in some of these cases to keep documents secret. In the Binyam matter, Mukasey’s rejoinder has been to withdraw charges against Binyam, no charges, no discovery. Then there are the Uighurs, whose very un-habeas reachable detention itself now is the government’s excuse to withhold further grinding of wheels of justice, averring the detention itself has made the prisoners more dangerous. Next train stop, rehab; both prisoners and guards, debark.
New evidence that Bush lied us into war, hardening the case for his criminality….wait we are 24/7 Joe the Plumber this news cycle. Palin’s SNL appearance should keep us occupied next.
so is Bosnia a member of the International Criminal Court ???
better cancel those plans to move to Paraguay george
The United Nations crimes against humanity prosecution group, under the former Canadian top court judge Arbour [sic?], had & has jurisdiction over the area.
Not that there’s any particular reason for you to recall this, but John Bolton led the US effort to justify not signing onto the International Criminal Court concept. I do know Bolton authored several papers in reputable journals arguing the rationale and effect, which I could find pretty readily, but the bottom line was simple: The US is not a signatory, so crimes against humanity by US government actors [and agents?] were not to be subject to the ICC’s jurisdiction.
But it might not be all that simple with the UN mandate in Bosnia & environs – which as we know is different from the ‘arrangement’ in Iraq [although how substantial that difference might be – I’d have to go back and re-start my brain on that].
I can’t recall who here – Mary? – was prominent on a thread – probably several – in the fall when the torture tapes story heated up – in which we had a discussion about the jurisdiction of the ICC in relation to American government military & paramilitary [CIA? DOD?] exposure to the ICC.
By way of reminder, the ICC concept arose out of the Rome accord, which itself was driven by a number of NGOs, particularly out of Canada, which as I understand it actually went to the trouble of lending government assistance to the concept, including the fellow who was made the chief judge of the ICC.
I don’t know if he came out of the Canadian government legal ministry, or from its foreign office – but I do recall he was born somewhere in Europe –
Austria? Switzerland? Italy? during WWII? or shortly thereafter? I have to refresh my memory –
but was a Canadian citizen when he came to was assigned to/lent to the project.
Given the timing, that would have occurred under one of the former Liberal governments that came before the Harper Conservative government.
I’m not convinced a discussion about the ICC goes to contributing usefully to this, but even without emptywheel’s “message of intent to express interest” above, I’ll take another look at it between now and Sunday evening to see if there’s anything useful there.
Either way, though, impeachment is obviously called for…ie SNAFU, as has been the case since January 2007.
You may be thinking of Philippe Kirsch? I don’t know where he was born, but the education and diplomatic experience are all Canadian. He has been president of the ICC since March 2003, and that is an impressive resume.
Yes, Bosnia is a member.
Wow. I am still shocked. I know by all accounts I shouldn’t be but I am.
It makes me continue to think of what is out there that we still dont know about.
These people are truly evil. I don’t use that word as cavalierly as the Bushcos do but it fits this gang. They are evil. What could be more evil than knowingly imprisoning the innocent for personal gain.
Is it still too late to impeach? Seriously.
ot: Cindy McCain’s summary pages of her most recently filed federal income tax return now available over at McCain’s place, for those so inclined.
it’s officially friday.
Digg bmaz here.
we thank the bmaz one:
thanks
Yup.
The perfidy of Bushco is beyond dispute – however, there is something Pilate-like in the decisions of many other governments in their willingness to hand over their nationals to Bush for torture and imprisonment, even death, despite their doubts or even certainties as to their innocence. I hold the Bosnian government, with thousands of NATO troops surrounding them, somewhat less culpable than I hold my own Canadian government for the Arar case, or the British, and many others who washed their hands of responsibility because it was politically inconvenient to do so.
Thanks bmaz.
Can you post this same post again on MOnday once we’ve all had some time to think this through and figure out how to redress it?
Maybe if we studied up on our Constitutions we could find something there?
off topic, scary stuff
reading about some things really make me worry at night …
bird flu
frozen carbon pools melting
the ozone layer
now we gotta worry about a “contact transmissive” form of cancer ???
I’m thinkin I should change my bet
I was bettin on “Global Warming” minus six points
now I think I’m gonna double back on “the germs”, and take the points …
yeah, I know I’m betting against humanity, what of it ???
See the Fermi (aka Fermi-Hart) Paradox.
I’d forgotten what a spectacular shill Condi’s been for Bush, but that CNN article featuring the Blitzer interview brought it all back!
She’s been a model of “Loyalty trumps Ethical Competence” all along.
She was the National Security Advisor to Bush at the time of 911.
Tenet and Black briefed her on July 10, 2001, warning her ‘in the starkest possible terms’ that a Terrorist Attack was imminent.
A month later, the August 6th PDB said “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US” and featured these two items:
– We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a XXXX service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the relaease of “Blind Shaykh” ‘Umar’ Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists.
– Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
She has a long history of supporting Bush on the front end (Mushroom Clouds) and covering for him on the back end (those 16 Words were ‘just a data point’ and ‘not the reason’ we invaded.)
She’s a Clever, Shameless, Immoral Minion, all too ready to Cover Bush’s Reckless Negligence with her Completely Bogus “True Believer’s” passion and indignation.
But, she’s utterly ‘typical’ of Bush’s Cabinet – Morally Weak, Ethically Blind, and only too happy to “show her Loyalty” to Please the Boss.
Are there an real terrorists in Gitmo? I guess KSM counts, but who else?
I suspect few..if any. The US dropped leaflets stating that anyone who turned in a terrorist would get enough money to support their families for life. That meant that any Arab was in danger of being turned in simply because they were Arab.
Maybe not Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, either. He was tortured.
You mean this was all just a ploy to distract everybody so they could finish off the constitution and loot the treasury?
http://www.juancole.com/2008/1…..comes.html
I’m shocked
Excellent work bmaz.
Ignorant and willful enemies of freedom abound. VIDEO clip of McCarthite Michele Bachmann (R-MN) featured on Maddow
Thank you for this post bmaz.
This is the kind of thing I think of when people do the, “Bush isn’t really responsible, it’s his advisors” crap.
It’s such a sad place we’ve ended up. It’s not just that we’ve become a nation whose Dept of Justice happily turned us into a state sponsor of “legal” torture and murder that disappears and purchases humans for human experimentation. It’s just as much that the Bush DOJ dutifully joined in lockstep with the Republican party, and thousands and thousands and thousands without murmer, without blinking, showed up day after day, year after year, with absolute knowledge they were working for torture and torturers, for human experimentation and trafficking, and there weren’t enough who gave a damn to keep a city from becoming a pillar of salt.
I haven’t been able to process it for years now – how do so many thousands all toe the line for torturing and disappearing innocent people and children. I just don’t understand.
You should’ve been in Viet Nam
Look at what it took to stop that
I’m still trying to process it
Great post, bmaz, crystal clear, rock solid — thank you very much. I can still be shocked; what wears me down is analyzing the patent illogicality/duplicity of the government’s arguments and then trying to explain to others that, yes, this really is what they are saying and doing. They are so brazen, so open about it that they seem to have lulled a lot of people into thinking this is normal. (And I don’t mean just your government; ours has a lot to account for on this turf too.)
Yesterday, like John Lopresti, I was watching to see whether we’d get any news about the Uighurs. I thought we’d been told last week that the appeals court was going to move quickly on its own stay of Judge Urbina’s ruling. Apparently not.
There was a fascinating article in the NYT on Wednesday that laid out a further twist in the Uighurs’ story. In theory, the administration has been trying to talk other countries into accepting the Uighurs. Well, the State Department has been trying. But the DoJ arguments to the court last week about how dangerous the Uighurs still are forced an ambassador to call off a trip to negotiate transfer of the detainees, DoJ having just given other countries an excuse to decline to accept them.
Worse, the DoJ isn’t just arguing that the Uighurs have been trained in “insurrection.” They can shift gears and admit openly that they consider the Uighurs to pose “a risk distinct to this nation” simply because they were imprisoned by the U.S.:
That’s the kind of stuff that makes skdadl’s head hurt.
And then there’s Omar Khadr, whose chances just got worse with Harper’s re-election. The Liberals, who were at fault in the first place, are at least committed now to getting Khadr back to Canada. There’s a campaign we really have to ramp up here.
Stone’s movie apparently perpetuates the myth of Bush as a bungler, a victim of his handlers. This is the softer, easier, way.
Repetitive analogous conduct, in similar situations, over time. This is what in the law is known as pattern and practice evidence. Hard to say something is a mistake if you keep making that same “mistake” over and over and over. Well, the Bush/Cheney Administration has a crystal clear pattern and practice of using 16 word snippets of fraud to sell war to the American people. I wonder if Condiliar Rice will blithely laugh off the new “16 Word” fraud as overblown nonsense the way she did the original “16 Word” scandal?
——————–
Wow, bmaz.
Great post bmaz — thanks! Aside from BushCo’s apparent numerology fetish (again with the 16) what really strikes me about this is the blatant blackmail of another country. If they did it to Bosnia, you can bet they did it to others. Makes me wonder how many countries were coerced and whether in time they will unite to air their grievances against BushCo to put the blackmailers behind bars. Also, it begs the question of whether the NATO troops in Bosnia should be considered occupiers instead of peacekeepers.
Yep, the blackmail and leveraging has been another pattern and practice of the Bushies. And, really, we have known about that from the start. Remember that is how we gained the participation of many of the “coalition of the willing”.
Damn these people are void of conscience. It shouldn’t surprise one after so much evidence. The most brutal of crimes have yet to be revealed I fear.
With what We know at this point, imvho, Impeachment is too Dignified for Bush and Cheney.
They’ve Disgraced Our Country, ‘played’ Our Constitution, and Violated the Public Trust – All in Order to Advance their Immoral Political Agenda – while simultaneously Benefitting their Cronies and Subverting Accountability to Oversight and Justice.
Imvho, Bush and his Cabal should be Arrested on the afternoon of 1/20/09.
That would be a Definitive Re-Assertion of the Rule of Law on behalf of the People and Our Constitution.
But, I would implore All of US to go with this Possibility as calmly and patiently as we Suffered All of Bush’s Outrages. Once We perceive that ‘the Power’ has come back to the People, Our ‘urge’ will be to ‘tear Bush apart,’ but We can’t do that – We can’t let that happen.
Instead, We should recognize that it is the Constitution, and Our Service to It As Citizens, that is Prevailing here over Bush’s Concerted Effort to Game the System – and, the Constitition won’t Truly Prevail unless We let it work it’s way through naturally – Just the way the Founders imagined it Saving the Nation.
I saw “W” last night. There was a lot of focus on the relationship of W to Pappy. I think the scene about the (original) 16 words was not very clear, nor did it really shake out the truth.
There was nothing about Plame, Libby. In passing only some mention (2x I think) of the Texas Air Natl Guard.
I realize the cast of characters becomes too many to manage, so stick to the ones who are easily recognized, the stories familiar to most.
I guess the focus was on how he bungled Iraq, but even that did not do justice to the true magnitude of it.
The Bush Regime has allowed the torture of and detaining of people who were purchased from Pakistan and other lovely places! Nice. Spit.
Everything George Bush & Dick Cheney did over the past 8 years was illegal. I can’t think of one thing they did that was honest and in the best interest of the American people.
Jesus, this should be on the front page of every paper in the world today.
From Nate at Fivethirtyeight—america unvarnished:
So a canvasser goes to a woman’s door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she’s planning to vote for. She isn’t sure, has to ask her husband who she’s voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, “We’re votin’ for the n***er!”
Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: “We’re voting for the n***er.”
Good gawd. I’m glad to hear they’re voting for Barack but to say something like that is not freaking funny! What the hell is wrong Americans these days? Oh wait! I know! Our country went through 8 years of the Bush Regime. Nevermind.
It’s sometimes important to know what “real americans” are sayin and doin- this provides an interesting picture- tracking with what Murtha said about western PA.
Well, at least they are voting for them. In a way, this says a lot, maybe a lot that is good. They still have their prejudices, but they have overcome them enough to vote for Obama. That alone is a huge step.
Driveby – I just read through the Traverse and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr did a very nice job.
Jeez it makes your head swim, though. Muslim honorifics represented by gov to the courts as “aliases” “Evidence” that someone was a combatant being that they “served in the Algerian Army” from 82-87 – – as a part of a national service requirement! Or that one was in Bosnia during the conflict and might (no evidence other than location) have served with the Bosnian army – – – which of course the US was SUPPORTING at the time.
Oh, and since they were from Algeria, maybe they “might” have had something to do with an Algerian nationalist terrorist group that started up after they left Algeria and pretty much died out in 1997.
It’s a kitchen sink approach by gov – mention lots of things that will have strange sounding names to the court – Muslim honorifics, names of long since irrelevant Algerian insurgent groups, the freaking Algerian Army from the 80s – throw it all and hope a confused court will reel from it.
emptywheel..Oct 15..Who Signed the Explicit Authorization to Torture?
I answered the question long after everyone was gone. The answer is Rumsfeld.
I should have added that I have the proof over there at #52.
The authorizations in question were for the CIA. Why would Rusmsfeld be the one to authorize torture for the CIA?
so, I am not sure, have I called these guys sociopaths yet?
if not;
“these two depraved people are sociopaths”
The problem is they don’t care what you think. Isn’t that amazing? I can’t imagine being able to live with myself if the whole world hated me – especially people in my own country. What does it take to make people like them? I truly don’t understand.
You would have to be evil to understand evil.
Psychopaths have no sense of guilt.
Another small bite from the filing for the Algerians.
Gov had been using as “evidence” for quite some period of time information from an FBI interview with a US prisoner, Enaam Arnaout. The lawyers – our DOJ lawyers, floated that info to the court as credible evidence.
Indeed, as the lawyers for the detainees disovered, Mr. Arnaout had even petitioned in his proceedings for leniency in sentencing bc of all the cooperation he provided to Gov. Oddly, about the time that the lawyers for the detainees were making that discovery and a few days before they were supposed to be allowed to interview Mr. Arnaout, gov went in and hastily withdrew that FBI interview info.
See, it turns out that back when Mr. Arnaout had petitioned for leniency in sentencing, gov had objected to leniency, telling the court in Mr. Arnaout’s proceedings that Arnaout’s “cooperation” had all been a pack of lies.
Got that?
What gov had argued to a court in one proceeding were lies, gov was putting under seal and speaking about ominously and mysteriously as “evidence” of terrorism in another proceeding. Once some real lawyers showed up who were going to expose the fraud on the court, the “evidence” was withdrawn.
No harm, no foul, move along.
Some of this you wouldn’t make up. That one reminds me of the bipolar chef held for years in isolation. Years In Isolation. Bc “some guy” (who got paid $$$$) told “someone” that the bipolar chef ran, yes RAN, an al-Qaeda training camp during xyz. Once a real lawyer actually got involved, it was pretty damn easy to prove that the bipolar chef had been working and making souffles in Mayfair when he was supposed to be in Afghanistan.
For me the point is “Will the new Obama administration investigate, indite, and convict”, or will we be asked to close our eyes and pretend that if George is out of town it is all over.
This sort of criminal conspiracy requiers the active cooperation of a large number of people at all levels of the military and the government. Each and every one of them should be found, tried, convicted and jailed for these outrages against humanity.
Will Obama have the balls? I dont know. I voted for him this morning, I hope that I will not be regretting that choice.
Can’t there be both impeachment and prosecution…high crimes and misdemeanors, crimes against humanity, etc. As they say: throw the book at these criminals who have been outlaws and allowed to skate and to flaunt their abuses for so.
Barbara Olshansky also has an account of these Bosnian-Algerians in her book Democracy Detained. Seems the Bosnia-Herzegovina Human Rights Chamber Court has also ruled that the Bosnian Government, in handing these people over to the U.S. violated Article I and Protocols 6 and 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Democracy Detained p.97).
One of them is also the man I described in the discussion with Hina Shamsi that Christy Hardin Smith moderated the other day, Sabar Lahmar, who is, for all intents and purposes, wasting away and dying at Guantanamo. The results of the solitary confinement and other deprivations on him are that he has lost the use of his legs to neuropathy, and is pretty much incommunicate with the outside world (he lies on his mattress and stares). I had written about him here, and Human Rights Watch wrote about him here, and Emily Bazelon of Slate wrote about him here a long time ago. I think he has a good case for the Torture Victims Protection Act, the War Crimes Act and the Torture Act. I don’t see any reason why just getting him released would be adequate, given that he was innocent from the beginning.
Yeah, I agree; but there is nothing that would be adequate. Not much reason to discuss adequacy of remedies while he, and they, is/are still detained though.
I was under the impression that anyone can bring a complaint under the torture and war crimes laws. Is there a restriction that the plaintiff must be not detained? If the evidence is available that makes the charge serious, why isn’t that sufficient to empanel a grand jury regardless of the circumstances of the victim?
(that’s a genuine question, your response leads me to believe there is some reason? These acts are not all about lawsuits some of them are about criminal prosecutions, so I don’t understand about the remedies part, please inform)
No, just seems like the first goal is to get him, and them, out.
Isn’t the first goal to stop the abuse? His abuse consists of extreme solitary confinement with noise. It’s having a permanent physical and psychological effect. Filing on torture might stop that, while they wrangle about whether or not he should be there at all.
This is a semantical distinction/argument; the abuse will not stop until he is released.
No. There is a question of inhumane treatment as well. The treatment should become humane immediately, even if the detention persists. This is again the problem I had mentioned where some organizations don’t favor closing Guantanamo unless at least the conditions at Guantanamo can be obtained in the places to which the prisoners will be sent. Inhumane treatment, especially if it rises to the level of torture, is a more pressing problem than detention without charge, unless the latter can be remedied very quickly.
In the U.S., there is a tendency to be blind to solitary confinement, and deprivation tortures. There is some odd sense that depriving a prisoner of light and dark distinctions, or of sleep, or locking them in a cell that is cut off from all other prisoners with no access to sunlight isn’t by itself inhumane. Or that all prisoners start at square one when it comes to abuse. So we get these very strange situations where neither the prosecution nor the defense sees something that requires immediate attention as the prisoner degenerates. All prisoners held for 6 years without charge aren’t equal.
Even Geneva makes this distinction, for civilians, for instance, it bans torture and inhumane treatment outright, but only stipulates that the legitimacy of the detention be revisited every six months (it bans “close confinement” of more than 30 days, too).