Just another peek into the kind of television programming Hamas creates for children.
No, this is not a joke.
Tag Archive for 'Terrorism'
In the first war-crimes trial at Gitmo, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s former driver was found guilty of providing material support to Al Qaeda. WashPost has this story recapping the verdict. SCOTUSBlog has this writeup.
That was the good news.
The bad news: He was sentenced to 5 years and 6 months, which, after being given credit for time served, is a scant SIX MONTHS. Yes, the U.S. has the right to hold him after that time for his status as an “illegal enemy combatant”, but with the whole mess Hamdan’s SCOTUS cases have caused, I don’t have faith that the next President, either McCain or Obama, would have the balls to make that judgment.
Continue reading ‘Hamdan, Osama’s driver, gets only 6 months after time-served’
Parliament voted in favour of 42 day detention (of terror suspects without charge) last night by the slender margin of nine votes. The prime minister, Gordon Brown, and his Labour party hold a parliamentary majority of 66 votes and only passed the legislation with help from MP’s from other parties after their own MP’s rebelled. Continue reading ‘42 Days of Fallout’
By a 5-4 decision in Boumediene vs Bush, authored by Justice Kennedy, and joined by Justices Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg and Souter, the Supreme Court has declared Congress’ provision stripping the Court of jurisdiction to be an “unconstitutional suspension of the writ” (of Habeus Corpus), despite the fact that the Congress has the right to determine the Court’s jurisdiction. Then the Court found it necessary to rule (make a statement) on a question that was not considered at all by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, as to whether the DTA/MCA were a sufficient Habeus substitute, and answered the question in the negative. No briefings, no fidings of fact by a lower court, nothing. In the past, the Court has preferred to stay out of a case until all lower options have been exhausted. In this case, the majority chose not to do so.
Chief Justice Roberts writes an unusually stunning dissent, noting that the Court has engaged in a “constitutional bait and switch”, in holding DTA unconstitutional after it was crafted to meet the Court’s 2004 decision in Hamdi, as well as the MCA, which was enacted after 2006’s Hamdan case. Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito joined in the Chief Justice’s dissent.
Justice Scalia’s own lengthy dissent starts by identifying the beginning of the “war with radical Islamists” - the 241 Marines killed at the Barracks in Lebanon 25 years ago. The Chief Justice and Justices Alito and Thomas joined Justice Scalia’s dissent.
Yeah, the United Nations will help keep the peace.
Armed Hezbollah militants warded off members of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) last month when the peacekeepers discovered a truck carrying weapons and ammunition belonging to the Lebanon-based guerilla group.
The incident was referred to briefly in a semi-yearly report submitted to the UN Security Council by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. The incident was the first time that UNIFIL forces were confronted by armed Hezbollah men south of Lebanon’s Litani River, an area which Security Council resolution 1701 prohibits Hezbollah from entering.
According to a government source in Jerusalem, the incident caused great embarrassment for UNIFIL. The source described the incident, explaining that UNIFIL troops on patrol discovered the truck and chased it down and pulled it over. When the UNIFIL troops approached the vehicle, the source said, armed Hezbollah men exited the truck and threatened the troops at gunpoint. The UNIFIL patrol then went back into their cars, according to the source, and returned to their base.
The report submitted to the Security Council said the incident occurred on the night between the 30 and 31 of March. “This serious violation of the UN resolution raises concerns,” the report said.
The incident was not reported in the media at the time of its occurrence.
Shocking, simply shocking! This is why the United Nations needs to be abolished, it’s a waste of resources.
Here’s a scary story.
One of the world’s most dangerous terror suspects was last night preparing for a life on benefits in Britain after judges ruled that his deportation would breach human rights law.
Abu Qatada, dubbed Osama Bin Laden’s “truly dangerous” ambassador in Europe, could be released from jail within months following the Court of Appeal verdict.
Yesterday’s decision has left Britain’s anti-terror laws in tatters. It means the Jordanian father of five - who has been linked to a string of global terror conspiracies and is held in a high security prison under immigration powers - can expect to receive £1,000 a month in handouts.
The taxpayer also faces a bill of tens of thousand of pounds to keep the hate-filled cleric under 24-hour surveillance by security services under a control order unless a last-ditch Home Office appeal is granted by the House of Lords. Even if it is, Qatada could appeal again, to the European Court of Human Rights.
Yesterday the Court of Appeal said Qatada could stay because evidence used against him in any prosecution in his native Jordan may have been obtained by torture - a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
At the same time, 12 Libyan fanatics were cleared to remain in Britain for the rest of their lives by a second human rights ruling. They include an asylum seeker considered a “real and direct threat” to security who had a map marked with the flightpath to Birmingham Airport.
The rulings mean that - despite Tony Blair’s promise in the immediate aftermath of the 7/7 attacks that the “rules of the game have changed” - not a single international terrorist has been forcibly removed from this country.
Check out the rest of the article, it’s pretty scary that the Brits have lost the nerve to deport a known terrorist. I’m sure the judges think they are being very humane, but the fact remains that this fellow is a threat to the UK and should go, period.
From The Washington Post…
Memo: Laws Didn’t Apply to Interrogators
Justice Dept. Official in 2003 Said President’s Wartime Authority Trumped Many Statutes
The Justice Department sent a legal memorandum to the Pentagon in 2003 asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives because the president’s ultimate authority as commander in chief overrode such statutes.
The 81-page memo, which was declassified and released publicly yesterday, argues that poking, slapping or shoving detainees would not give rise to criminal liability. The document also appears to defend the use of mind-altering drugs that do not produce “an extreme effect” calculated to “cause a profound disruption of the senses or personality.”
“If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network,” Yoo wrote. “In that case, we believe that he could argue that the executive branch’s constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions.”
Interrogators who harmed a prisoner would be protected by a “national and international version of the right to self-defense,” Yoo wrote. He also articulated a definition of illegal conduct in interrogations — that it must “shock the conscience” — that the Bush administration advocated for years.
“Whether conduct is conscience-shocking turns in part on whether it is without any justification,” Yoo wrote, explaining, for example, that it would have to be inspired by malice or sadism before it could be prosecuted.
More sickness at the link.
In other words, as long as our interregators didn’t get hard-ons during the torture, it’s all good, and if the President of the United States thinks that a suspect might be al-Qaeda, then of course any and all torture is perfectly, absolutely legal.
If we didn’t live in Bizzarro World, Yoo would be put on trial in the Hague for war crimes.
I’m really getting sick and tired of being ashamed of my country.
Patton Oswalt made a joke about how living in Bush’s America made him think that he was living in the bizarro-world version of our country. What does it say that this memo was finally released on April Fool’s Day? Keep in mind this wasn’t a joke, this actually happened.
Speaking of interrogators and hardon’s, this is from an article in the latest issue of Vanity Fair.
Sands reports that [Lt. Colonel Diane] Beaver, who was charged with writing a document providing legal authority for harsh interrogation, confirms new details of the crucial meeting that took place at Guantánamo, and she tells Sands she “kept minutes” at other brainstorming sessions in which new techniques were discussed. The younger men would get particularly excited, she says: “You could almost see their dicks getting hard as they got new ideas.” Beaver also notes that ideas arose from other sources, such as the television show 24. Jack Bauer, the main character, had many friends at Guantánamo, says Beaver: “He gave people lots of ideas.” It was clear to Sands that Beaver believed that Washington was directly involved in the interrogations, and her account confirms what others tell Sands—that Washington’s views were being fed into the process by people physically present at Guantánamo.
Read all about it here.
Pardon the joke - we know Krog isn’t Mayor, but I’ve insisted that he secretly controls the city, hence the title.
Today’s attempted bombing of a military recruiting center in Times Square is disturbing. Precisely becuase it is Times Square, and the renaissance that the area has had since Giuliani took over the Mayoralty in 1993. Even though no one was present (which is better than the AP’s use of “empty” - depite their later statement that it is used by all of the armed servives) when it happened, and no one was hurt, and only glass was broken, it has shattered the image.
The AP says summarizes it, ‘A small bomb caused minor damage to an empty military recruiting station in Times Square early Thursday, shaking guests in hotel rooms high above “the crossroads of the world.”‘ They add that even four blocks away the blast could be felt.
WCBS 2 had this bit from Mayor Bloomberg:
“The fact that this appears deliberatey directed at the recruiting station insults every one of our brave men and women in uniform stationed around the world fighting to defend our freedoms and the things that we hold so dear,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg during a morning news conference outside the site.
Well, duh. Both the AP and WCBS stories recount similar incidents over the past couple of years, ones that apparently didn’t get coverage in wide press. They make one wonder what the Bloomberg Administration has been doing with City security. It also seems to devalue whatever thought of a 3rd-party Presidential bid Bloomberg may have had.
The WBCS story notes evidence being sent to the FBI lab in Quantico, Va., just down the road from me, and home to my train club’s permanent HO scale layout. I have some faith in the FBI’s Quantico operation, but it still does not repair the broken image of Times Square, shown shut-down on the cable and network morning programs.
Wow.
To give you a rundown on this Palestinian children’s show, “Pioneers of Tomorrow”, it always features a large animal host. I think they started out with a Mickey Mouse’s estranged brother ‘Farfour’ who was martyred about a year ago (see video below) who was then replaced by a bee. The bee couldn’t get the medical attention necessary (thanks to evil Jews, natch) and he has now been bravely replaced by a rabbit named ‘Lion’.
Here’s the video of Farfour being martyred:
I wonder if the Israelis have a comparable television show for their children. I doubt it.
Should we laugh at this stuff, or cry?
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