Which terrorist are you connected with?

You may have heard the old canard that ‘you are only seven people away from knowing anybody in the world.’

If that is true, which terrorists do you think your boss is connected to? How about your mother or father? How about you?

This connectedness is what gets people kidnapped and tortured. All it takes is for some official to report you as knowing a friend of a friend who is an Al Qaeda member and you are off to Syria for some extended torture.

I think that Rush Limbaugh is only six people away from knowing terrorists and that Ann Coulter may only be once removed. Which terrorists are they close to? PETA? IRA?  We know that Rumsfeld knows terrorists personally. But we have not heard from him in a while. I wonder why… 

 

Torturing the innocent…because you can

The story of Maher Arar is a good one to tell your children. You can use it as an example of what happens when hysteria cripples rational thinking and emotion rules the head.  Teach your children to be careful and not to be afraid, the world will be better off. Don’t be afraid, be careful.

A very nice Canadian man takes a vacation with his family. Unexpectedly, his business calls him home. On his way back to Canada he changes planes at JFK and is apprehended by the US as a suspected terrorist. He is flown to Syria where it is known he will be tortured. One year later he is released back to Canada and is given ten million dollars for falsely identifying him as a member of an Al Qaeda terrorist cell and for the pain and suffering of being tortured.

The Department of Justice under the Bush Administration (that only hired rabid Republican lawyers and excluded Democrats) took steps to prevent the investigation of Maher’s case and to prevent the disclosure and the discovery of the truth that Maher was an innocent man.

Read what the DOJ did to stall the truth. Scott Horton testified before Congress and here is what he said.

Torturing innocent people is a stain upon America that may never be cleaned.  

Lawsuits against mercenary companies

ISTANBUL  – Four Iraqis are suing two US firms and their employees for allegedly torturing them at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Bagdad five years ago.

Their lawsuit is against private security contractor CACI International and two of its interrogators, Daniel Johnson and Tim Dugan, and the translation agency L-3 (formerly Titan Corp) and its interpreter, Abel Nakhla, lawyer William Gould told AFP in Istanbul on Monday.

Now this will get interesting: Can contractors be sued for aiding and abetting the treatment of people that the contractors could not do to animals?

(Yet I wonder if torture should be solely reserved for the government. After all, the government already has the force of law reserved for its own use. Perhaps we should issue permits and establish a government agency to oversee the conduction of torture? …Just kidding, folks. RC is against torture. )

So now, if you are a contractor who tortures people can you be sued in a US court of law for damages? I think that Paul Bremer’s proclamation is only valid for Iraqi courts. Do you remember the proclamation that contrators in Iraq cannot be tried for any crimes they may have committed or may yet commit?  This was Coalition Provincial Authority Order 17.

 CPA Order 17 stipulated that “Contractors shall be immune from Iraqi legal process with respect to acts performed by them pursuant to the terms and conditions of a Contract or any sub-contract thereto” (4.1).

  But somebody at the White House forgot to ask Congress to grant immunity for contractors in Iraq when sued in American courts. Oh, yes, this will get interesting now.  Which federal government department will want to prevent victims from testifying in open court about the treatment they endured that was approved by government officials? Which civilian contractor will say that their contracts with Uncle Sam included immunity from US courts? Which contractors will countersue the federal government for damages resulting from their completed agreements with Uncle Sam, yet now incur unexpected damages/costs as a result?

More to this story, for sure.

    

Who earns a living from the federal government?

From 2005, a study of who earns a living as a result of the federal government.

What say you about this?-RC