Forget Change

Jacob Hornberger, in his excellent essay “Waging War on Terrorism on American Soil” puts forth a timely cautionary warning of the danger of military dominance of our domestic life.  We have seen how this has played out in history when the military assumes a law enforcement power base independent of domestic police control. 

Forget change, I would just gladly settle for Obama returning some of our rights and privileges stolen under the Bush administration.  I cannot believe that a power once created by despotism is never renounced by subsequent leaders.  It troubles me that all the infringements and atrocities initiated by Bush are now still cruising full speed ahead (only more surreptitiously) under Obama.  War, domestic spying, torture and the US military mucking about in domestic police work seem to be undeterred.

I just finished listening to a report on Democracy Now! (7-28-09) 

this morning concerning the US military’s continued spying and use of agent provocateurs to infiltrate peace groups in the Northwest.  Tell me Obama has plausible deniability in this.  It looks like Posse Comitatus is as dead in Amerika as is Habeas Corpus

Another fraud that continues to be perpetrated under Obama is the myth of the infamous “al Qaeda sleeper cell.”  To my knowledge, there never has been a case of substantial evidence presented for such an entity, in spite of front-page headlines announcing indictments on Monday and retractions on page ten on Friday.

The infamous, fraudulent prosecution of the Lackawanna Six is a good case in point.  In it we see evidence of the pressure of the “criminal prosecution v. enemy combatant status” dilemma perfected by prosecutors and used to indict innocent defendants. 

This report is excerpted from History Commons (dot) org:

A group of seven men in Lackawanna, near Buffalo, New York, are influenced by religious discussions with two al-Qaeda operatives, Kamal Derwish and Juma al-Dosari. The seven US citizens leave for jihad training in Afghanistan and attend a six-week long weapons course at the Al Farooq camp.

Some of them meet Osama bin Laden in Kandahar and they all hear him give a speech (June 2001). However, most of them apparently think they are in over their heads and find excuses to cut their basic training course short and return home. The six who return show little to no evidence of any al-Qaeda plotting in the following months. Jaber Elbaneh, however, becomes committed and stays overseas with al-Qaeda. The six who return will later be arrested and dubbed an al-Qaeda cell known as the “Lackawanna Six” (September 13, 2002). [PBS]

Early September 2002: Bush Administration Considers Designating ‘Lackawanna Six’ Enemy Combatants
 
In early September 2002, a group of senior Bush administration officials gathers for a secret videoconference to decide what to do with the “Lackawanna Six,” the six Yemeni-Americans living in Lackawanna, New York, who had attended an al-Qaeda training camp before 9/11. Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld argue that the men should be locked up indefinitely as “enemy combatants,” and thrown into a military brig with no right to trial or even to see a lawyer. The US has already done this with two other US citizens, Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla.

According to a participant in the meeting, Cheney argues, “They are the enemy, and they’re right here in the country.” However, all six men left their basic training course early and there is no evidence any of them had carried out or even planned any terrorist acts (April-August 2001). Attorney General John Ashcroft insists he can bring a tough criminal case against them for providing “material support” to al-Qaeda. Ashcroft wins the argument and the six men are formally charged several days later (September 13, 2002). [Newsweek, 10/10/2007]

THE SIX MEN WILL ALL EVENTUALLY STRIKE PLEA BARGAINS AND PLEAD GUILTY, SAYING THEY WERE ESSENTIALLY FORCED TO BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT MADE IT CLEAR THAT IF THEY FOUGHT THE CHARGES THEY WOULD BE DECLARED EMEMY COMBATANTS. (May 19, 2003).

Robert Boldt an editor of MWC News, is a freelance film/video producer living in Jefferson City, Missouri. He is active in local politics, worked on the Howard Dean and John Kerry campaigns and is a cofounder of The White Rose Collective. Articles by Bob Boldt at MWC News http://mwcnews.net/bob-boldt

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