At the risk of hyperbole, I'm posting this incredible story I just saw.
The AP is reporting that a military judge has thrown out terrorism charges against Omar Khadr, a detainee at Guantanamo.
That's a serious blow to Bush's whole war-crimes trial system that he's put up by itself.
However, what may be more stunning is that this ruling could throw out THE ENTIRE WAR-CRIMES TRIAL SYSTEM. And how? Because a technicality which appears to have been caused by the Bush Administration itself.
Get it? They create a system which ignores international human rights and American system of laws, but then they screw up that whole screwed up system with a screw up!!
Update: Lawyer says this is not just a technicality. See Notes at end.
I found this so striking, so straightforward in its demolishment of the indefensible Bush position on torture, I could not resist bringing it to your attention.....
link
The Daily Dish: "Verschärfte Vernehmung"
"The phrase "Verschärfte Vernehmung" is German for "enhanced interrogation". Other translations include "intensified interrogation" or "sharpened interrogation". It's a phrase that appears to have been concocted in 1937, to describe a form of torture that would leave no marks, and hence save the embarrassment pre-war Nazi officials were experiencing as their wounded torture victims ended up in court. The methods, as you can see above, are indistinguishable from those described as "enhanced interrogation techniques" by the president. As you can see from the Gestapo memo, moreover, the Nazis were adamant that their "enhanced interrogation techniques" would be carefully restricted and controlled, monitored by an elite professional staff, of the kind recommended by Charles Krauthammer, and strictly reserved for certain categories of prisoner. At least, that was the original plan."
House Representative John Murtha admitted probably one of the saddest truths a military man will ever have to admit: that some of his fellow veterans killed innocent civilians.
Civilians killed in attack
From the beginning, Iraqis in the town of Haditha said U.S. Marines deliberately killed 15 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including seven women and three children.
One young Iraqi girl said the Marines killed six members of her family, including her parents. “The Americans came into the room where my father was praying,” she said, “and shot him.”
A video, obtained by Time magazine, was broadcast a day after town residents told The Associated Press that American troops entered homes on Nov. 19 and shot dead 15 members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl, after a roadside bomb killed a U.S. Marine.
