I wonder what will happen next? There is a problem with reconciling this account with those of Moazzam Begg and Binyam Mohamed, with the governor of Ghazni, and with her son, Ahmed, who recounts incarceration. I suppose it could all be an elaborate fabrication, but this is now the 5th or 6th story line, and some pieces don't work.

Anyway, there is a final hearing on her fitness to stand trial on July 6th.

This country has been torturing its own citizens, far to long, and in far to many ways. So why give a shit about a non citizen. I like this present president, and the right has left him far to much shit to deal with than is normal. I still beleive this president can get it together. I'ts the congress that is a bunch of bullshiting criminals, the people that are misrepresinting americans. Congress and their lobbying big business supportors are nothing less than tratiors to the declaration of independence. The congress is nothing but bought an payed for. The congress in power is nothing, nothing less than a bunch of corporate yes people, If they do not give the people health care may they go to hell. Just like those corporation would never give me a job and a chance at life and decency, bleep them , beep, bleep, I'm not going to die and fade away. And brother, this local goverment here don't know hell, like I do, may hell give them, what they deserve. They will give me that which they have taken away, from an innocent. In the end it will be even.

OK, so nearly 12 years after he was indicted for his alleged part in the African embassy bombings in August 1998, over six years since he was seized after a gunfight in Gujrat, Pakistan in July 2004, and four years after his transfer to Guantánamo — after two years in secret CIA prisons, where, he says, he was "a victim of the cruel ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’" — Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian and one of 14 supposedly "high-value detainees" transferred to Guantánamo in September 2006, will face a trial in a federal court in New York. On Thursday, Federal Court Judge Lewis Kaplan set a date of September 13, 2010 for his trial to begin.(cited from antiwar.com)

So this gets back to something I was trying to establish about Afghanistan (and I know already you don't agree with me about that, okay?). Even accepting all the torture memoes, presidential executive orders, and directives, and all the other stuff that the Bush people offered up as legal justifications, where is the justification for this guy?

There was certainly justification for a civilian criminal arrest, but he wasn't on any battlefield, he wasn't someone who harbored those who planned September 11th or who planned September 11th, he was wanted for something that happened in 1998 on yet a different continent from the trade towers, Afghanistan, or Iraq.

By accepting the mere fact of how he was held from when he was captured to the present, isn't that justifying or acknowledging a whole, completely different, method of authorizing the use of force, one that doesn't include the Congress at all, and has no limits whatsoever? This guy doesn't fall under any authorization of use of military force, but all of his incarceration has been based on war. What war and who authorized it? This country does not have a system by which the President, together with lawyers for the OLC, can authorize a war. Or does it?

“They tortured me, some beatings, sleep deprivation, insults, psychological torture, standing me for several hours in front of a wall, keeping me in solitary confinement for one year,” Mr. Afshari said...

Mr. Afshari has clearly not been tutored in the sacred American principles of Objectivity and Bipartisanship. Perhaps if we arranged a scholarship for him to study some democratic discipline at one of our great institutions of learning -- law at the University of California at Berkeley, for instance, or journalism at UT Austin -- he would realize how unfair his statements are.

That, my friend, is a good question. It is a real fine question because it is my belief that the politicians of this country would have a much more difficult time in taking the country to war if the congress had to follow the constitution and declare one(*) each time we committed any acts of war. I am not saying that it would end all the empire's evil interventions into countries that had not attacked us, but it sure would help.

But history, ondelette, shows that a declaration of war by the congress is not needed anymore. It seems most feel that congress has ceded that power to the president. Years ago it was said that in a nuclear age faced with the USSR that there was no time to go to congress; but it seems that the power ceded to the president never was returned.

I know that there is usually some authorization of force that the president can point to; but no authorization for war. Everyone here knows in their heart that President Obama could get away with a massive air strike on Iran today if he so chose to do so. That is far too much power for one man to have.

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(*) The debates alone would give many politicians pause. Could you imagine if Reagan had to argue the invasion of Granada back in his time? What a hoot that would have been --- he would have been laughed out of the presidency; no need for impeachment.

Mr. Preesident -

Why are you utilizing the services of Xe (formerly called Blackwater) in Afghanistan? When I voted for you, I expected you to live up to your campaign promise of Change.

You haven't changed a damned thing except breed of dog housed at the White House.

You claim we don't still torture yet you won't allow inspectors into Bagram Prison.

You claim you will comply with court orders for documents and yet you continue to delay the release of these documents.

You claimed your administration would be transparent and yet you are doing the exact same things the Bush Administration did to hide its activities.

You claim to want our country to be a nation of laws, not men, yet you continue to protect high government officials (past and current) from investigation and possible prosecution.

You claimed that you would end the excessed of the NSA yet you block legal action in that regard by claiming national security risks. That's bullshit and you know it.

You should be impeached and if that doesn't happen, you should be limited to a single term. Frankly, I'd prefer the former.

Sincerely,

(Jebbie)