Gitmo Trials Rigged By Bush Appointee Overseeing Prosecution & Defence

When asked if he thought the men at Guantánamo could receive a fair trial, Davis provided the following account of an August 2005 meeting he had with Pentagon general counsel William Haynes–the man who now oversees the tribunal process for the Defense Department. “[Haynes] said these trials will be the Nuremberg of our time,” recalled Davis, referring to the Nazi tribunals in 1945, considered the model of procedural rights in the prosecution of war crimes. In response, Davis said he noted that at Nuremberg there had been some acquittals, something that had lent great credibility to the proceedings.

“I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process,” Davis continued. “At which point, [Haynes’s] eyes got wide and he said, ‘Wait a minute, we can’t have acquittals. If we’ve been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can’t have acquittals, we’ve got to have convictions.’“

Davis submitted his resignation on October 4, 2007, just hours after he was informed that Haynes had been put above him in the commissions’ chain of command. “Everyone has opinions,” Davis says. “But when he was put above me, his opinions became orders.”

Also coverage at Democracy Now!

Iraq Lies Not As Offensive As Mentioning Israel’s Nukes

Oops! Silly me I said Israel has nukes, doh! Oh no I just did it again!

The full extent of government anxiety about the state of British-Israel relations can be exposed for the first time today in a secret document seen by the Guardian.

The document reveals how the Foreign Office successfully fought to keep secret any mention of Israel contained on the first draft of the controversial, now discredited Iraq weapons dossier. At the heart of it was nervousness at the top of government about any mention of Israel’s nuclear arsenal in an official paper accusing Iraq of flouting the UN’s authority on weapons of mass destruction.

The dossier was made public this week, but the Foreign Office succeeded before a tribunal in having the handwritten mention of Israel kept secret.

The FO never argued that the information would damage national security. The Guardian has seen the full text and a witness statement from a senior Foreign Office official, who argued behind closed doors that any public mention of the candid reference would seriously damage UK/Israeli relations. In the statement, he reveals that in the past five years there have been 10 substantial incidents and 20 more minor ones relating to Israeli concerns about attitudes to their government within Whitehall.

So as well as not arresting accused war criminals from Israel we absolutely will not mention they have nukes. Oh no! I’ve gone and done it again, I must remember when mentioning what we must not mention, I must not mention what must not be mentioned ie. Israel has nukes. Dammit! Right, now forget everything you have just read, particularly the bits about Israel having nukes..oh and erm that mention as well, everything, ok? Good that way we can be sure that absolutely no one offends those ever so touchy Israeli government peeps by mentioning their huge nuclear arsenal…D’OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!

Amnesty On 15 Year Olds Tasering

Relating to this. 

Last night the campaigning charity Amnesty International expressed its concern over the use of the taser weapon by North Wales Police. The organisation’s Welsh director Cathy Owens said: “We don’t know the full circumstances in this case.

“But on the face of it, it seems a young person has been shot with the taser, a very dangerous weapon, for not being reasonable, or non-compliance.

“In our view the taser should only be used as an alternative to lethal force where the situation presents immediate threat of death or serious injury to themselves or others.”