Wednesday, April 19, 2006

SHELDON RICHMAN: U.S. Holds Acknowledged Noncombatants at Gitmo. Here's a story to raise your blood pressure. From the Christian Science Monitor: Compared with most other detainees at the US Naval Base at Guantnamo Bay, Cuba, Abu Bakker Qassim and Adel Abdu al-Hakim have a strong argument for why they should be immediately released from the terrorism prison camp. According to the United States military, they are neither terrorists nor "enemy combatants." So why are they being held at the camp nearly a year after a military panel ruled that they pose no threat to the US? They have no place else to go. Their appeal for freedom suffered a setback Monday. The US government says that if the two men are sent home to the semi-autonomous western region of China they might face human rights abuses, and even torture, at the hands of Chinese authorities. Both men are members of the Uighur minority religious and ethnic group which has been the target of a Chinese government crackdown in recent years. They were captured after being trained with the Taliban in Afghanistan. No other country has been willing to take them. And the Bush administration refuses to allow them to enter the US, even temporarily, out of fear of establishing a legal precedent that might be used by lawyers for other Guantnamo detainees. On Monday, the US Supreme Court declined to take up the case. Instead, the matter will be argued on May 8 before a federal appeals court panel in Washington, D.C. At issue is what power, if any, federal judges have in the matter.... [Emphasis added.] A federal judge says the men are being held illegaly, but he also says he can't do anything about it. So the Bush administration is imprisoning people it concedes are not terrorists, or combatants, or even criminals. In other words, we know who the real criminals are. Cross-posted at Free Association. [Liberty & Power: Group Blog] Well gosh, it's just so thoughtful of the government to subject these people to human rights abuses, and even torture, in order to protect them from the possibility of human rights abuses, and even torture, at the hands of Chinese authorities. I'm sure they're overcome with gratitude. 11:25:13 AM    comment () trackback () Tonight We're Going to Argue Like It's 1999. Jesse Walker finds a Glenn Reynolds statement from 1999 that could easily appear on Antiwar.com:[O]ur current situation – with so many foreign troop deployments that even military buffs can't keep track of them all and with wars initiated essentially on presidential whim – would have horrified the Framers. Reynolds huffs and puffs, but Walker could have quoted more. Here's the passage above in broader context (scroll down):During the 18th and 19th centuries, militia forces proved quite... [Antiwar.com Blog] There's also reference to a book titled The Minuteman: Restoring an Army of the People, which sounds interesting. I had come to the realization myself that America would be better off if the existing military were disbanded and replaced by the militia system we were supposed to have. 10:28:49 AM    comment () trackback () I'll Take "Swords" for 600, Alex. Tacoma wants to ban them: For more than a year now, Tacoma city officials have quietly struggled to find a way to regulate the sale of ancient weapons. Swords. Throwing stars. Daggers. Knives. Crossbows. Medieval stuff that freaks out average law-abiding citizen-types when they see it for sale at the corner store alongside candy bars and gum. So far, the attempt has produced little in the way of results. Stanching the sale of drug paraphernalia proved easier. The challenge for the city's lawyers is figuring out how to update Tacoma's "dangerous weapons" ordinance to stop a convenience store from selling a giant collectible sword, but not also make it illegal for Fred Meyer to sell a bread knife. The city might end up adopting an ordinance that addresses swords and other weapons, but leaves out knives. The funny thing is, the council admits that this is purely symbolic. The entire effort to ban the convenience store swords is due to the fact that some people are "alarmed" by them. The swords they're aiming to ban are too cheap to effectively be used as a weapon (a bread knife would be more effective), and the number of "sword" attacks in the area hasn't gone up as a result of their sudden availability at the 7-11. TrackBack (0) | [The Agitator] I actually have a real sword. It's not the kind of thing you'll ever see for sale in a convenience store. Real swords are quite expensive (mine cost as much as a good pistol) and very hard to use. I have some idea how a sword is supposed to be used, but I don't actually know how to use mine. For some random person who's seen Conan the Barbarian too many times, he'd probably do more damage with a baseball bat. 9:31:32 AM    comment () trackback ()

© Copyright 2006 Ken Hagler. Last update: 5/2/2006; 11:33:47 AM.