Dear Gov Dean -- Talk about extreme hiking …

8 December 2005

Steve Clemons reports today at The Washington Note on a discussion he had with the journalist Yosri Fouda. Mr. Fouda has conducted extensive interviews with Khaled El-Masri, the victim of Bush administration kidnapping and rendition. As Steve Clemons recounts:



Please do what you can to ensure that the media and the US Congress ask Ms Rice to explain how it is that once El-Masri was known to be innocent he was left to perish in a dangerous wilderness. Since Ms Rice has claimed that the United States will do all it can to make amends for its misdeeds, she should be forced to address how the United States is going to enable El-Masri to recover from the cruel and unusual treatment Bush’s CIA administered to him.

Our America is being permanently tarnished by Bush and the neoconsters willful disregard for basic human rights and international law -- the case of Khaled El-Masri is but one more reason why.

If you have any doubt about the lasting consequences of the now extensive recognition of the damage Bush and the neoconsters have done you need look no further than The Economist – Global Agenda for 7 December 2005:



Any attempt to deny the practice of rendition for the purpose of transporting a victim of Bush’s regime of terror to a place that permits torture will now have to overcome the existence of a Department of Defense ‘torture by proxy’ policy memorandum uncovered in the case of Majid Mahmud Abdu Ahmad described today in the Los Angeles Times: http://tinyurl.com/7d7lt

I agree with John R Judis’ latest comments about you, Gov Dean, in his New Republic OnLine article entitled ”IN DEFENSE OF DEAN.” To paraphrase, America ignores what you have to say at its own peril. I hope you have much more to say about Bush and the neoconsters’ illegal war of aggression on Iraq and their cruel crimes against humanity for which we now have an abundance of examples.

Our America is being permanently tarnished by Bush and the neoconsters willful disregard for basic human rights and international law, and it is time for every citizen to make a decision to stop them and bring them to justice.

"We the People ..." have reached the "America, Or Not?" moment in the history of the Republic.

... between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.

The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.

More at the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/politics/09intel.html?ei=5094&en=7e35bbb61b8d1d0c&hp=&ex=1134190800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all

Britain's Top Court Rules Information Gotten by Torture Is Never Admissible Evidence

By SARAH LYALL

LONDON, Dec. 8 - Britain's highest court thrust itself into the middle of a roiling international debate on Thursday, declaring that evidence obtained through torture - no matter by whom - was not admissible in British courts. It also said Britain had a "positive obligation" to uphold antitorture principles abroad as well as at home.

"The issue is one of constitutional principle, whether evidence obtained by torturing another human being may lawfully be admitted against a party to proceedings in a British court, irrespective of where, or by whom, or on whose authority the torture was inflicted," said Lord Bingham, writing the lead opinion in a unanimous ruling for the Law Lords. "To that question I would give a very clear negative answer."

The ruling dealt specifically with 10 men who were detained after the attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and were held without charge in Britain on suspicion of being terrorists. But while the question at hand concerned only British courts, the ruling seems to have been made with the current international situation very much in mind. Several of the concurring opinions referred explicitly, and not flatteringly, to the United States.

Much more at the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/international/europe/09britain.html?pagewanted=print