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Today's
Stories
October
7, 2003
Gary Leupp
Israel's
Attack on Syria: Who's on the Wrong Side of History, Now?
October
6, 2003
Robert
Fisk
US
Gave Israel Green Light for Raid on Syria
Forrest
Hylton
Upheaval
in Bolivia: Crisis and Opportunity
Benjamin Dangl
Divisions Deepen in Third Week of Bolivia's Gas War
Bridget
Gibson
Oh, Pioneers!: Bush's New Deal
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey
Wasserman
The Bush-Rove-Schwarzenegger Nazi Nexus
Nicole
Gamble
Rios Montt's Campaign Threatens Genocide Trials
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The
New Unity Partnership:
A Manifest Destiny for Labor
Website
of the Day
Guerrilla Funk
October
3 / 5, 2003
Tim Wise
The
Other Race Card: Rush and the Politics of White Resentment
Peter
Linebaugh
Rhymsters
and Revolutionaries: Joe Hill and the IWW
Gary Leupp
Occupation
as Rape-Marriage
Bruce
Jackson
Addio
Alle Armi
David Krieger
A Nuclear 9/11?
Ray McGovern
L'Affaire Wilsons: Wives are Now "Fair Game" in Bush's
War on Whistleblowers
Col. Dan Smith
Why Saddam Didn't Come Clean
Mickey
Z.
In Our Own Image: Teaching Iraq How to Deal with Protest
Roger Burbach
Bush Ideologues v. Big Oil in Iraq
John Chuckman
Wesley Clark is Not Cincinnatus
William S. Lind
Versailles on the Potomac
Glen T.
Martin
The Corruptions of Patriotism
Anat Yisraeli
Bereavement as Israeli Ethos
Wayne
Madsen
Can the Republicans Get Much Worse? Sure, They Can
M. Junaid Alam
The Racism Barrier
William
Benzon
Scorsese's Blues
Adam Engel
The Great American Writing Contest
Poets'
Basement
McNeill, Albert, Guthrie
October
2, 2003
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
What's
So Great About Gandhi, Anyway?
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
The
Ashcroft-Rove Connection
Doug Giebel
Kiss and Smear: Novak and the Valerie Plame Affair
Hamid
Dabashi
The Moment of Myth: Edward Said (1935-2003)
Elaine Cassel
Chicago Condemns Patriot Act
Saul Landau
Who
Got Us Into This Mess?
Website of the Day
Last Day to Save Beit Arabiya!
October 1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Married
with Children: the Supremes and Gay Families
Robert
Fisk
Oil,
War and Panic
Ron Jacobs
Xenophobia
as State Policy
Elaine
Cassel
The
Lamo Case: Secret Subpoenas and the Patriot Act
Shyam
Oberoi
Shooting
a Tiger
Toni Solo
Plan Condor, the Sequel?
Sean Donahue
Wesley
Clark and the "No Fly" List
Website of the Day
Downloader Legal Defense Fund
September
30, 2003
After
Dark
Arnold's
1977 Photo Shoot
Dave Lindorff
The
Poll of the Shirt: Bush Isn't Wearing Well
Tom Crumpacker
The
Cuba Fixation: Shaking Down American Travelers
Robert
Fisk
A
Lesson in Obfuscation
Charles
Sullivan
A
Message to Conservatives
Suren Pillay
Edward Said: a South African Perspective
Naeem
Mohaiemen
Said at Oberlin: Hysteria in the Face of Truth
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
Does
a Felon Rove the White House?
Website
of the Day
The Edward Said Page
September 29, 2003
Robert
Fisk
The
Myths of Western Intelligence Agencies
Iain A. Boal
Turn It Up: Pardon Mzwakhe Mbuli!
Lee Sustar
Paul
Krugman: the Last Liberal?
Wayne Madsen
General Envy? Think Shinseki, Not Clark
Benjamin
Dangl
Bolivia's Gas War
Uri Avnery
The
Magnificent 27
Pledge
Drive of the Day
Antiwar.com
September
26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Alan
Dershowitz, Plagiarist
David Price
Teaching Suspicions
Saul Landau
Before the Era of Insecurity
Ron Jacobs
The Chicago Conspiracy Trial and
the Patriot Act
Brian
Cloughley
The Strangeloves Win Again
Norman Solomon
Wesley and Me: a Real-Life Docudrama
Robert
Fisk
Bomb Shatters Media Illusions
M. Shahid Alam
A Muslim Sage Visits the USA
John Chuckman
American Psycho: Bush at the UN
Mark Schneider
International Direct Action
The Spanish Revolution to the Palestiniana Intifada
William
S. Lind
How $87 Billion Could Buy Some Real Security
Douglas Valentine
Gold Warriors: the Plundering of Asia
Chris
Floyd
Vanishing Act
Elaine Cassel
Play Cat and Moussaoui
Richard
Manning
A Conservatism that Once Conserved
George Naggiar
The Beautiful Mind of Edward Said
Omar Barghouti
Edward Said: a Corporeal Dream Not Yet Realized
Lenni Brenner
Palestine's Loss is America's Loss
Mickey
Z.
Edward Said: a Well-Reasoned Voice
Tanweer Akram
The Legacy of Edward Said
Adam Engel
War in the Smoking Room
Poets' Basement
Katz, Ford, Albert & Guthrie
Website
of the Weekend
Who the Hell is Stew Albert?
September
25, 2003
Edward
Said
Dignity,
Solidarity and the Penal Colony
Robert
Fisk
Fanning
the Flames of Hatred
Sarah
Ferguson
Wolfowitz at the New School
David
Krieger
The
Second Nuclear Age
Bill Glahn
RIAA Doublespeak
Al Krebs
ADM and the New York Times: Covering Up Corporate Crime
Michael
S. Ladah
The Obvious Solution: Give Iraq Back to the Arabs
Fran Shor
Arnold and Wesley
Mustafa
Barghouthi
Edward Said: a Monument to Justice and Human Rights
Alexander Cockburn
Edward Said: a Mighty and Passionate
Heart
Website
of the Day
Edward Said: a Lecture on the Tragedy of Palestine
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 24, 2003
Stan Goff
Generational
Casualties: the Toxic Legacy of the Iraq War
William
Blum
Grand Illusions About Wesley Clark
David
Vest
Politics
for Bookies
Jon Brown
Stealing Home: The Real Looting is About to Begin
Robert Fisk
Occupation and Censorship
Latino
Military Families
Bring Our Children Home Now!
Neve Gordon
Sharon's
Preemptive Zeal
Website
of the Day
Bands Against Bush
September
23, 2003
Bernardo
Issel
Dancing
with the Diva: Arianna and Streisand
Gary Leupp
To
Kill a Cat: the Unfortunate Incident at the Baghdad Zoo
Gregory
Wilpert
An
Interview with Hugo Chavez on the CIA in Venezuela
Steven
Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause--Part 2: Charity Ryerson, Young and
Radical
Stan Cox
The Cheney Tapes: Can You Handle the Truth?
Robert
Fisk
Another Bloody Day in the Death of Iraq
William S. Lind
Learning from Uncle Abe: Sacking the Incompetent
Elaine
Cassel
First They Come for the Lawyers, Then the Ministers
Yigal
Bronner
The
Truth About the Wall
Website
of the Day
The
Baghdad Death Count
September
20 / 22, 2003
Uri Avnery
The
Silliest Show in Town
Alexander
Cockburn
Lighten
Up, America!
Peter Linebaugh
On the Bicentennial of the Execution of Robert Emmet
Anne Brodsky
Return
to Afghanistan
Saul Landau
Guillermo and Me
Phan Nguyen
Mother Jones Smears Rachel Corrie
Gila Svirsky
Sharon, With Eyes Wide Open
Gary Leupp
On Apache Terrorism
Kurt Nimmo
Colin
Powell: Exploiting the Dead of Halabja
Brian
Cloughley
Colin Powell's Shame
Carol Norris
The Moral Development of George W. Bush
Bill Glahn
The Real Story Behind RIAA Propaganda
Adam Engel
An Interview with Danny Scechter, the News Dissector
Dave Lindorff
Good Morning, Vietnam!
Mark Scaramella
Contracts and Politics in Iraq
John Ross
WTO
Collapses in Cancun: Autopsy of a Fiasco Foretold
Justin Podur
Uribe's Desperate Squeals
Toni Solo
The Colombia Three: an Interview with Caitriona Ruane
Steven Sherman
Workers and Globalization
David
Vest
Masked and Anonymous: Dylan's Elegy for a Lost America
Ron Jacobs
Politics of the Hip-Hop Pimps
Poets
Basement
Krieger, Guthrie and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Ted Honderich:
Terrorism for Humanity?
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
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
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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October
7, 2003
Shock and Awe in the
Moussaoui Case
Judge
Brinkema Drops a Bomb
By ELAINE CASSEL
Judge Leonie Brinkema dropped a bomb on Thursday.
In a shock that reverberated around the beltway, where I live
and work, lawyers were buzzing about the news. Showing independence
from the government and the defense, Brinkema announced the penalty
for prosecutors' refusal to produce three witnesses for Zacarias
Moussaoui and his attorneys to question. She did exactly what
this writer had hoped she would do. She did not dismiss the case,
but took the death penalty off the table.
In a 15-page thoughtful, and well-cited
and documented decision, Judge Brinkema noted that the law gives
her much latitude in meting out sanctions when a party does not
comply with discovery orders. The most draconian is dismissal
of the case. But that never happens in real life_at least I have
never know of it in my 24 years of practice and 24 years of reading
cases. Typically, the judge will do something commensurate with
the content or context of the noncompliance. For instance, a
defendant who refuses to answer a question about whether or not
he committed adultery may be barred from questioning witnesses
his wife would put on the stand to prove the husband's adultery.
Judge Brinkema laid out generally what
it had been suggested the government's hidden witnesses would
say in Moussaoui's defense. She reasoned that some of the testimony
could indicate that he was not involved directly with the September
11 hijackings and that he had not engaged in any direct acts
of terrorism. Further, what she had seen of the government's
evidence so far suggested that Moussaoui had done, at worst,
little more than plan to do something bad. Perhaps he was involved
in some scheming, but that alone would not warrant a death penalty.
The appropriate sanction, she said, and
one supported by the evidence as she has seen it unfolding, is
that the government should not be able to put into evidence any
suggestion that Moussaoui was involved in planning the September
11 attacks. And because the lack of direct involvement obviates
the death penalty, then the government could not ask for execution.
In taking this independent approach,
Brinkema has thrown the government, the defense, and the 4th
Circuit Court of Appeals a curve. The defense attorneys are left
somewhat chagrined, I would think, for they joined in the government's
request for dismissal, a move this defense attorney thought a
bit odd. Surely, we know for a fact that the government will
declare
Moussaoui an enemy combatant and move
him to Guantanamo or a navy prison if the case is dismissed (they
may still do it, for the government makes up its enemy combatant
rules as it goes along). They would no longer have a client if
he disappeared from federal court. His only chance of getting
a fair trial is in federal court. And what better judge could
he ever have than Judge Brinkema? If Judge Brinkema had dismissed
the case, the 4th Circuit might have found that the witnesses
should not be made available but that the case had to go forward,
violating Moussaoui's 6th amendment right to confront witnesses.
Then their client would be left without exculpatory witnesses
and facing death. Had I been Moussaoui's attorneys, I would have
asked for what Brinkema did_it would (and did) jam the government
where it hurts_the penalty phase.
In keeping the case and taking the needle
out of the hands of the prosecutors, Brinkema has put them in
a bind. The only thing they have to scream about now is that
they can't kill the defendant. The case can go forward.
Indeed, Brinkema said, it must go forward.
She noted that all along the government has insisted that "terrorists"
can be tried in federal court. They can, she said, but they will
get the rights any federal court defendant gets. Further, she
said, she and everyone else had spent way too much time, money,
and energy on this case to walk away from it.
The 4th Circuit will have a hard time
overturning Judge Brinkema's ruling. Trial judges have wide latitude
in dealing with discovery sanctions and with making evidentiary
decisions. Of course, the 4th Circuit has been known to reach
before_they did it recently in the Hamdi case, in saying that
no court can question a person's enemy combatant status. But
if they reverse her ruling that Moussaoui cannot face execution,
the court, Ashcroft, and the prosecutors will look the bloodthirsty
henchmen that they are.
They wanted to gloss over the trail part,
and march straight to the execution chamber. Now, they will have
to endure a trial and be content with less than death. Unless,
of course, a military helicopter swoops down in Alexandria and
hauls Moussaoui away in the dead of night. I wouldn't put that
past the prosecutors, but such a move would be so obviously done
to avoid the rule of law, that few but the most stalwart of Ashcroft
supporters would defend such an action.
I heard Judge Brinkema give a brief talk
at a recent attorney gathering. She talked about how times had
changed since she first came to federal court in Alexandria 20
or so years ago, then as a prosecutor. She urged attendees to
go to the National Archives and stand in awe of the new exhibit_the
Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of
Rights displayed all in one room, with the entire documents visible
for viewing. We are nothing as a nation, she said, without the
rule of law. She called on prosecutors to try cases within the
law and for defense attorneys to hold the prosecutors to the
law. She said nothing of her role. But we saw it yesterday.
She judges according to the law. Ironic,
though, that her applying the rule of law to a Muslim "terrorist"
is a shock to what we have grown to expect in trials post-September
11. And thus, all the more awe-inspiring.
Elaine Cassel
practices law in Virginia and the District of Columbia, teachers
law and psychology, and follows the Bush regime's dismantling
of the Constitution at Civil
Liberties Watch. She can be reached at: ecassel1@cox.net
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 26 / 28, 2003
Tim Wise
The
Other Race Card: Rush and the Politics of White Resentment
Peter
Linebaugh
Rhymsters
and Revolutionaries: Joe Hill and the IWW
Gary Leupp
Occupation
as Rape-Marriage
Bruce
Jackson
Addio
Alle Armi
David Krieger
A Nuclear 9/11?
Ray McGovern
L'Affaire Wilsons: Wives are Now "Fair Game" in Bush's
War on Whistleblowers
Col. Dan Smith
Why Saddam Didn't Come Clean
Mickey
Z.
In Our Own Image: Teaching Iraq How to Deal with Protest
Roger Burbach
Bush Ideologues v. Big Oil in Iraq
John Chuckman
Wesley Clark is Not Cincinnatus
William S. Lind
Versailles on the Potomac
Glen T.
Martin
The Corruptions of Patriotism
Anat Yisraeli
Bereavement as Israeli Ethos
Wayne
Madsen
Can the Republicans Get Much Worse? Sure, They Can
M. Junaid Alam
The Racism Barrier
William
Benzon
Scorsese's Blues
Adam Engel
The Great American Writing Contest
Poets'
Basement
McNeill, Albert, Guthrie
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