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Coming Soon! From Common Courage Press Recent Stories July 23, 2003 Uri Avnery Caesar's Favor David Lindorff Lynne Stewart's Big Win: Ashcroft Rebuked Mano Singham Iraq's Missing WMD Scientists Steve Perry Better Late Than Never: the Press, the Dems, and Bush's Lies John Stanton Avoiding Plato's Republic in America: Is Anarchy the Only Hope? Patrick Bond Bush and South Africa: a Petro-Military-Commerce Mission Harry Browne A Victory for a Disarming Irishwoman Paul Beaulieu When the WTO Comes to Montreal Robert Fisk The Sons are Dead, But the Resistance Will Grow William Witherup Georgie Porgie Website of the Day Lieberman & Falwell: True Love at Last July 22, 2003 Diane Christian Bad Guy / Good Guy: War Forces; Peace Frees Jeremy Brecher Solidarity and Student Protests in Iran Steve Kretzmann and Jim Vallette Plugging Iraq into Globalization Sam Smith Greening the Golden Triangle James Plummer Smile, You're on Federal Camera Lucretia Stewart This Day Shall Not Define My Life: January 18, 2003 Website of the Day Iraq Coalition Casualties   July 21, 2003 Edward Said Imperial Arrogance and the Vile Stereotyping of Arabs Ron Jacobs Shut Up and Shoot Allan J. Lichtman Why is George Bush President? Elaine Cassel How's the Occupation Going? Ask the People of Iraq Christopher Brauchli History Recapitulates: Guantanamo and the Japanese Internment Camps Bruce Jackson Third and Arizona, Santa Monica Website of the Day John Dean: Taking Apart Bush's State of the Union Speech, Claim by Claim   July 19 / 20, 2003 Arthur Mitzman Will the Pax Americana be More Sustainable Than the Dot.com Bubble? Julian Bond We Shall be Heard Cynthia McKinney Bush's Racial Politics at Home and Abroad Mel Goodman What is to be Done with the CIA? Jason Leopold Tenet Blames Wolfowitz Mickey Z. History Forgave Churchill Doug Giebel Impeachment as the Message Jon Brown Whipping the Post Mano Singham Cheney's Oil Maps Steven Sherman Nickle, Dimed and Slimed at UNC Robin Philpot Liberia: History Doesn't Repeat Itself, It Stutters Khaldoun Khelil Capturing Friedman Jeffrey St. Clair You Must Leave Home, Again: Gilad Atzmon's A Guide to the Perplexed Lenni Brenner Sitting in with Mingus Vanessa Jones Three Dog Night Adam Engel Video Judas Video Poets' Basement Foley, Smith and Curtis Website of the Weekend Illegal Art   July 18, 2003 David Vest Drowning in Deep Doo-Doo Rahul Mahajan Deceit Runs Deep John Chuckman Enron-style Management in a Dangerous World Harold A. Gould The Bush-Musharraf Conclave Alvaro Angarita In the Eye of the Storm: Colombia's War on Journalists David Grenier Sovereignty and Solidarity in Indian Country...Rhode Island Dave Lindorff Bush and Hitler: a Response to the Wall Street Journal Website of the Day Murder of a Whistleblower? Timeline in David Kelly Affair   July 17, 2003 Ron Jacobs Sometimes Even the President of the United States Has to Stand Naked Lisa Walsh Thomas Bush Country: the Venom and Adulation of Ignorance Martin Schwarz Bush Pre-emptive Strike Doctrine is the Bane of Non-Proliferation Watchdogs Heidi Lypps Better Justice Through Chemistry? Forced Drugging and the Supreme Court Norman Madarasz Third Ways and Third Worlds: Lula at the Progressive Governance Conference Pankaj Mehta Criminalizing the Palestinian Solidarity Movement Marjorie Cohn Bush, War Lies & Impeachment: the Boy Who Cried Wolf Hammond Guthrie (Dis) Intelligence Revisited Website of the Day No Force, No Fraud: the Soul of Libertarianism July 16, 2003 Jason Leopold Wolfowitz Told White House to Hype Dubious Uranium Claims William Cook Defining Terrorism from the Top Down Elaine Cassel Judge Brinkema v. Ashcroft: She Whom Must Not Be Obeyed Jason Leopold How Can They Justify the War If WMDs Are Never Found? Linda Heard Bondage or Freedom? Raymond Barrett From Detroit to Basra Jeffrey St. Clair Back to the Future in Guatemala: The Return of Gen. Ríos Montt   July 15, 2003 Kathleen and Bill Christison Why We Resigned from VIPS Elaine Cassel Ashcroft's War on Legal Whistleblowers: the Ordeal of Jesselyn Radack Chris Floyd Barge Poles: Oil Wars and New Europe's Mercenaries Jason Leopold CIA Warned White House Last October that Niger Docs were Forgeries Gaius Publius Considering the Obvious: Fool Us Once, Fool Us Twise...Please John Troyer The Niger Syndrome Becky Gillette No Conspiracy at Coffeen Nature Preserve: a Response to David Orrr Uri Avnery The Bi-National State: The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb Website of the Day Cost of Iraq War   July 14, 2003 Lisa Taraki Hot Days in Ramallah Walter Brasch Bush: the Pretend Captain SOA Watch Training Colombia's Killers in the US Dan Bacher Yurok Tribe Denounces Klamath River Salmon Killers Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Intelligence Unglued Website of the Day Coalition for Democratic Rights and Civil Liberties July 12 / 13, 2003 Arthur Mitzman The Double Wall Before the Future Standard Schaefer The Coming Financial Reality: an Interview with Michael Hudson John Feffer A Fearful Symmetry: Washington and Pyongyang Ron Jacobs Shades of Gray in Iran Elaine Cassel Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights Tom Stephens Civil Liberties After 9/11 David Lindorff New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On" Jason Leopold The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11 Lee Sustar What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia? Mickey Z. AIDS Dissent and Africa Sam Hamod Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group Ramzy Baroud Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket Jeffrey St. Clair Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller Adam Engel Parable of the Lobbyist Robert Sanders A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream Poets' Basement Albert, Witherup, Guthrie   July 11, 2003 Conn Hallinan The Coin of Empire Tim Wise God Responds to Bush Mokhiber / Weissman The Two Faces of Bush in Africa Edward S. Herman Whitewashing Sandra Day O'Connor David Orr Coffeen-gate: What's Going on at the Sierra Club Foundation? David Lindorff An Iraq War & Occupation Glossary Website of the Day Dead Malls   July 10, 2003 Ron Jacobs Dealing with the Devil: the Bloody Profits of General Dynamics Sean Donahue Bush and the Paramillitaries: Coddling Terrorists in Colombia Yemi Toure Who Outted Bush in Afrika? Robert Jensen Politics and Sustainability: an Interview with Wes Jackson Ali Abunimah US Leaves Injured Iraqis Untreated Joanne Mariner Federal Courts, Not Military Commissions Website of the Day Electronic Iraq   July 9, 2003 David Lindorff Is the Media Finally Turning on Bush? David Krieger and Angela McCracken 10 Myths About Nuclear Weapons Mickey Z. Why Speak Out? Lee Sustar The Great Medicare Fraud John Chuckman The Worst Kind of Lie Gary Leupp "Pacifist" Japan and the Occupation of Iraq Website of the Day Hail to the Thief: Songs for the Bush Years   July 8, 2003 Elaine Cassel Bully on the Bench: the Pathological Dissents of Scalia Alan Maass Nights of Fire and Rage in Benton Harbor Chris Floyd Troubled Sleep: Getting Used to the American Gulag Linda S. Heard America's Kangaroo Justice Brian Cloughley They Tell Lies to Nodders Charles Sullivan Bush the Christian? Saul Landau The Intelligence Culture in the National Security Age Website of the Day Occupation Watch   July 7, 2003 William Blum The Anti-Empire Report Harvey Wasserman The Nuke with a Hole in Its Head Ramzy Baroud Peace for All the Wrong Reasons Simon Jones What Progressives Should Think About Iran Lesley McCulloch Fear, Pain and Shame in Aceh Uri Avnery The Draw Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3   July 4 / 6, 2003 Patrick Cockburn Dead on the Fourth of July Frederick Douglass What is Freedom to a Slave? Martha Honey Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation and Neglect Jeffrey St. Clair The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture Standard Schaefer Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004 Lenni Brenner Jefferson is for Today Elaine Cassel Fucking Furious on the Fourth Ben Tripp How Free Are We? Wayne Madsen A Sad Independence Day John Stanton Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War Jim Lobe Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment John Blair Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke Lisa Walsh Thomas Heavy Reckoning at Qaim David Vest Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite Adam Engel Queer as Grass Poets' Basement Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair Website of the Weekend The Lipstick Librarian   Hot Stories Wendell Berry Small Destructions Add Up CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Elaine Cassel Civil Liberties Watch Michel Guerrin Embedded Photographer Says: "I Saw Marines Kill Civilians" Uzma Aslam Khan The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War: What America Says Does Not Go Paul de Rooij Arrogant Propaganda Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online Search CounterPunch

July 26, 2003 The Politics of Military Trials Monsieur Moussaoui By JOANNE MARINER It may turn out that the fatal weakness in Zacarias Moussaoui's case is not that the defendant is an admitted member of al Qaeda, but rather that he's French. Moussaoui, who is charged with conspiring to carry out the September 11 terrorist attacks, is on trial for his life. Whether his prosecution should remain in federal court or be transferred to Guantanamo for substandard proceedings before a military commission is the question now facing the Bush administration. It is, for the time being at least, a political decision more than a legal one. And from Moussaoui's perspective the political odds are not encouraging. Foreigners Only No Americans are being held on Guantanamo, nor will they be. Although the Bush administration has detained two American citizens indefinitely as "enemy combatants," the two are held on U.S. territory. Unlike other only such detainees, they do not face the prospect of prosecution before a military commission. American citizens, even the most unrepentant terrorists, are excluded from military commission trials by the terms of the presidential order creating the commissions. Although the key WWII-era Supreme Court precedent on military commissions drew no legal distinction between Americans and foreigners, the Bush administration was savvy enough to recognize that the distinction would resonate with the public. Substandard justice is somehow more noticeable and more galling when it affects a compatriot. Ever since it became known that British and Australian detainees were being held on Guantanamo, the two countries' media have featured a steady stream of news and critical commentary about the Guantanamo substitute for justice. But it was earlier this month, with the announcement that two Britons and one Australian were among the first six detainees deemed eligible for trial by military commission, that public disapproval of the U.S. approach reached critical mass. Very quickly, the same sorts of political pressures that shielded American citizens from military proceedings began to work on behalf of the British. 163 members of the British parliament signed a petition calling on the U.S. government to repatriate the two Britons facing trial. Tony Blair, President Bush's staunchest ally in the war on Iraq, was equally insistent, raising the issue of his country's detainees in a mid-July meeting with Bush. And so it happened that last week American officials told the British government that the United States would give special treatment to the two British citizens facing military trials. Most critically, they promised that the U.S. would not to seek the death penalty against the two. The officials also assured British representatives that, unlike other defendants, the British pair did not have to worry about their conversations with defense lawyers being monitored. In addition, their trials would be open to reporters, and the two men would be allowed to consult with British lawyers, not just Americans. The administration also agreed that the Australians on Guantanamo (whose country, like Britain, contributed troops for the invasion of Iraq) would receive similarly preferential treatment. While the decision to improve the rules of the proceedings is good news for the British and Australians, its message to the rest of the world is provocatively clear. Military commissions are not fit for our own people; they are not suitable for our close allies, at least in their unadulterated form, but they're good enough for everybody else. What Quality of Justice for Moussaoui? Zacarias Moussaoui, who is currently being prosecuted in federal court in Virginia, may soon be joining the unlucky ones. Even as events conspired to help protect British and Australian detainees from military proceedings, a contrary dynamic was developing in his case. As a critical component of his defense, Moussaoui wants to depose Ramzi bin al-Shibh, an al Qaeda operative currently held by the U.S. military in an unknown location abroad. (One should note, at least in passing, that bin al-Shibh has been "disappeared," an abhorrent abuse no matter who is subject to it.) Even a cursory review of Moussaoui's indictment reveals bin al-Shibh's central importance to the case. Only via bin al-Shibh, who once shared an apartment with hijacker Mohammed Atta and who wired money to Moussaoui, does the indictment link Moussaoui to the September 11 conspirators. (The other "overt acts" mentioned in the indictment -- taking flying lessons, owning a knife, joining a gym ­ provide only circumstantial evidence of Moussaoui's involvement in the plot.) Bin al-Shibh could be the source of crucial exculpatory testimony that could save Moussaoui's life. It has been reported that during interrogation abroad bin al-Shibh said that Moussaoui, though a member of al Qaeda, was not involved in the September 11 plot. Moussaoui himself has repeatedly claimed that bin al-Shibh can attest to his lack of participation in the conspiracy. Nonetheless, citing national security risks, the government refuses to allow Moussaoui to question bin al-Shibh. Although the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution clearly requires that such questioning be permitted, the prosecution has stated that it will not comply with a court order giving Moussaoui access to question bin al-Shibh via videoconference. Given the prosecution's recalcitrance, the district court presiding over the Moussaoui case may be forced to dismiss the indictment. This may be all that the government needs to transfer his case to a military commission. To the extent that a defendant's nationality now determines the quality of justice due him, Moussaoui -- citizen of a country that, notoriously, did not support the U.S. war on Iraq -- loses out. (Indeed, the jingoistic Wall Street Journal published an editorial calling for Moussaoui's trial before a military commission that described the fact of his French citizenship as "an added bonus.") But in making this choice, the administration should be aware of its ultimate consequences. If Moussaoui, having been denied access to potentially exculpatory testimony, were to be sentenced to death by a military tribunal, France would not be alone in condemning the verdict. The entire world would condemn it, and rightly so. Joanne Mariner is a human rights attorney and regular CounterPunch contributor. She is the author of No Escape: Male Rape in US Prisons published by Human Rights Watch. An earlier version of this piece appeared in FindLaw's Writ. She can be reached at: mariner@counterpunch.org. Weekend Edition Features for July 19 / 20, 2003 Arthur Mitzman Will the Pax Americana be More Sustainable Than the Dot.com Bubble? Julian Bond We Shall be Heard Cynthia McKinney Bush's Racial Politics at Home and Abroad Mel Goodman What is to be Done with the CIA? Jason Leopold Tenet Blames Wolfowitz Mickey Z. History Forgave Churchill Doug Giebel Impeachment as the Message Jon Brown Whipping the Post Mano Singham Cheney's Oil Maps Steven Sherman Nickle, Dimed and Slimed at UNC Robin Philpot Liberia: History Doesn't Repeat Itself, It Stutters Khaldoun Khelil Capturing Friedman Jeffrey St. Clair You Must Leave Home, Again: Gilad Atzmon's A Guide to the Perplexed Lenni Brenner Sitting in with Mingus Vanessa Jones Three Dog Night Adam Engel Video Judas Video Poets' Basement Foley, Smith and Curtis Website of the Weekend Illegal Art   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /