From the New York Times

Judge Voids Bush Policy on National Forest Roads

By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: September 21, 2006
WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 — In the latest round of legal Ping-Pong over the future of 49 million roadless acres of national forests, a federal judge in California on Wednesday reinstated Clinton-era protections against logging and mining on the land and invalidated the Bush administration’s substitute policy.

The judge, Elizabeth D. LaPorte of Federal District Court in San Francisco, said the new policy had been imposed without the required environmental safeguards.

The reversal, however, does not cover nine million acres of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska because a separate set of legal opinions determines their use.

Judge LaPorte ruled in a suit filed by a coalition of environmental groups and states that objected to the decision last year to scuttle what was widely known as the “roadless rule” of 2001.

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll reveals overwhelming public opposition to the Bush administration's current policy of holding suspected terrorists indefinitely without charges at Guantanamo Bay. Seven in ten Americans say the detainees "should either be given POW status or charged with a crime." The New York Times reports today that the Bush administration has "dropped its insistence on redefining the obligations of the United States under the Geneva Conventions." This new development suggests the administration has "blinked first in its standoff" with the group of senators who have blocked White House efforts to authorize torture. "But few details were available, and it was not clear whether a compromise was imminent or whether the White House had shifted its stance significantly."

‘Captive Iraqis were beaten with iron bars, kicked, starved, and forced to drink their own urine during abuse which led to the death of a prisoner, the first court martial of British troops accused of war crimes was told yesterday.

The dead man, 26-year-old Baha Musa, had 93 injuries to his body. Two other Iraqis were severely wounded by "systematic mistreatment".

Among the seven soldiers in the dock is the most senior officer to face charges over the Iraq war, Colonel Jorge Mendonca, 42, who is accused of negligence in his duties in failing to halt the ill-treatment by his men.

At the start of yesterday's proceedings, one of the defendants, Corporal Donald Payne, 35, pleaded guilty to inhumanely treating civilians in Basra four months after the official end of the war.

The Military Court Centre at Bulford Camp on Salisbury Plain, heard that the beating of the prisoners took place "for no apparent reason, sometimes, it seems, for the entertainment of others".’

Iraqi Captive Died With 93 Injuries - QC Says

"We're all winners," Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said about the recent agreement on detainee legislation, "because we've been able to come to an agreement through a process of negotiations and consensus."

But the details - not to mention crowing from the White House - indicate that the administration is walking off with a major victory while allowing the Senate to save face.

The White House agreed "not to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions," but the legislation "would give the president explicit authority to interpret 'the meaning and application' of the relevant provisions in Common Article 3."

The War Crimes Act will now include a list of "grave breaches" of the conventions, while the president "could decide on his own what actions might be a lesser breach...and what interrogation techniques he considered permissible."

The legislation "would permit CIA interrogators to use harsh techniques critics call torture." "In effect, the agreement means that U.S. violations of international human rights law can continue as long as Mr. Bush is president, with Congress's tacit assent."

The administration admitted it had gotten exactly what it wanted from the Senate. "We proposed a more direct approach to bringing clarification," Dan Bartlett said.

"This one is more of the scenic route, but it gets us there."

The CIA program to fly pre-judged terrorists around the world to secret prisons where they are tortured is now condoned.

The US now has a system where ‘disappearing’ & torturing people has become part of the law, with Bush the judge, jury & executioner. He becomes an entire parallel legal system unto itself. American jurisprudence - and the right of a person to be considered innocent until proven guilty - has been forever changed.

And if you don’t think it can happen here, just take a look at how jihad johnnee’s anti-terror laws have been used to trample of the rights of Joseph Thomas.

Mr Thomas, from Melbourne, travelled to Afghanistan and was trained to use weapons, explosives and other military techniques. He met Osama bin Laden and was given money and a falsified passport to return home.

Mr Thomas has denied he intended to commit a terrorist act and said he went to fight for the Taliban, then in government, against the Northern Alliance.

Mr Thomas was acquitted on charges of intentionally providing resources to a terrorist group, but a jury found him guilty of using a false passport and accepting money from a terrorist group.

Victoria's Court of Appeal quashed the convictions, ruling that a federal police interview in Pakistan was inadmissible because Mr Thomas did not have a lawyer. It also ruled that his ``admissions'' were not voluntary.

The Commonwealth said yesterday it would apply for Mr Thomas to be retried based on an interview he gave to ABC TV's Four Corners.

The court transcripts show Mr Jabbour told Mr Mowbray there was no "direct evidence", but he believed Mr Thomas "intended" to become an al-Qaeda "resource".

Mr Burmester said Mr Thomas had been instructed to gather intelligence on military bases in Australia and had done "jihad training" before leaving for Afghanistan.

The Government also cited new evidence from two prison guards that Mr Thomas threatened to kill one of them and continued to "justify the use of suicide homicide bombers or terrorist acts".

Of the men arrested last year, Mr Jabbour said: "We are certainly aware, from persons that are currently in custody, that they certainly did not support the Australian Government's involvement in Iraq, also in Afghanistan, and this was one of the motivations for them to carry out or plan for a terrorist act in this country."

Mr Thomas was acquitted on charges of intentionally providing resources to a terrorist group, but a jury found him guilty of using a false passport and accepting money from a terrorist group.

Victoria's Court of Appeal quashed the convictions, ruling that a federal police interview in Pakistan was inadmissible because Mr Thomas did not have a lawyer. It also ruled that his ``admissions'' were not voluntary.

Immediately after the Court of Appeal decision, the federal government sought & was granted an interim control order against Mr Thomas, imposing a midnight-to-dawn curfew, restricting his communications and requiring him to report to a police station thrice weekly.

It has now been revealed that Mr Ramzi Jabbour, head of counter-terrorism at the Australian Federal Police, told the secret hearing before a federal majistrate that “there was no evidence that Thomas, the first Australian subjected to a control order, planned a terrorist attack here”.

This admission was made ‘in camera’, with neither the media nor counsel for Thomas being made aware of it.

The court was also told by the federal government's chief general counsel, Henry Burmester, QC, that the likelihood of Mr Thomas committing a terrorist act was irrelevant to the application for a control order.

The test for issuing the order - that it "substantially assist in preventing a terrorist act" - should be interpreted broadly.

"In our submission, something can substantially assist in preventing a terrorist act or something else without the need to show that the terrorist act or the particular conduct is likely to happen or not," Mr Burmester said.

Only a tortured mind like that of Phillip Ruddock could dream up such logic.

Meanwhile, the anti-terrorism laws are set to face their first constitutional challenge, with Thomas yesterday making an application to the High Court to have his control order overturned. The hearing will be in October.

Last week a 36-year-old Syrian-Canadian, Maher Arar, became to Canadians what David Hicks is to Australians. Both are victims of the war on terror, although, in the case of Arar, the Canadian government was decent enough to hold a commission of inquiry which recommended compensation for his wrongful arrest, detention and humiliation.

Canadians Fault US For Its Role In Torture Case

And at least the former Canadian government of Paul Martin admitted its grave errors in its disgraceful treatment of Arar'.

By contrast, the Australian Government sits on its hands while one of its citizens, David Hicks, languishes at Guantanamo Bay, unable to get a fair trial. The Howard Government's errors of judgment & inhumanity towards Hicks ought to be the subject of an independent inquiry - & the ALP should promise to establish one if elected to office next year.

Second, when Attorney-General Philip Ruddock & Foreign Minister Alexander Downer assure the Australian people claims by David Hicks that he has been tortured in Guantanamo Bay are groundless, the case of Arar ought to tell us to take such assurances with a grain of salt.

Third, whenever the media prints information leaked by the Australian Federal Police, ASIO or any other government agency alleging that some individual or group in this country has terrorist links, again the Arar case shows that such leaking is sometimes done with scant regard for the truth.

Fourth, what the Arar case tells us is that the intelligence gathering by security agencies & police forces in the war on terror is likely to harm many innocent people. How can Australians be assured that faulty information is not being used to persecute their fellow countrymen?

Finally, will the Australian Government guarantee that it has not & will never, assist the Americans in deporting Australian citizens to countries such as Syria which have no prospect for human rights?

You can expect that the answer to that last question by Mr Howard, Mr Ruddock & Mr Downer will be an unequivocal No.

They have shown, through the introduction of anti-terrorism laws & their treatment of David Hicks, that they are prepared to throw out the rule of law when it comes to the war on terror.