Saying Yes to State Terror (Chris Floyd)

[enough]

http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd12122003.html

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Arar's case is not extraordinary. In the past two years, the Bushist organs have "rendered" thousands of detainees, without charges, hearings or the need to produce any evidence whatsoever, into the hands of regimes which the U.S. government itself denounces for the widespread use of torture. Apparatchiks of the organs make no secret of the practice--or of their knowledge that the "rendered" will indeed be beaten, burned, drugged, raped, even killed. "I do it with my eyes open," one renderer told the Washington Post. Detainees--including lifelong American residents--have been snatched from the homes, businesses, schools, from streets and airports, and sent to torture pits like Syria, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan--even the stateless chaos of Somalia, where Ashcroft simply dumped more than 30 Somali-Americans last year, without charges, without evidence, without counsel, and with no visible means of support, as the London Times reports.

snip>

Not content with capture and torture, the organs have been given presidential authority to carry out raids and kill "suspected terrorists" (including Americans) on their own volition--without oversight, without charges, without evidence--anywhere in the world, including on American soil. In addition to this general license to kill, Bush has claimed the power to designate anyone he pleases "an enemy combatant" and have them "rendered" into the hands of the organs or simply killed at his express order--without charges, without evidence, with no judicial or legislative oversight whatsoever. The life of every American citizen--indeed, every person on earth--is now at the disposal of his arbitrary whim. Never in history has an individual claimed such universal power--and had the force to back it up.

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[pinto]

1. did you see the DOJ decision that US citizen, Padilla will be denied

counsel as long as he has "information"? I'll look for link. It's a national security argument - that as long as he has, in DOJ opinion, info to caugh up, they will and can deny right to counsel.......

edited for correct name