Olbermann: Bush, Cheney Should Resign

Riveting commentary. It is approximately 10 minutes long, and it is essential to watch.

U.S. Diplomat: Iran Sending Weapons to Taliban... Yeah, and Saddam Funded Osama

This is yet another claim by the Bush Administration that is so completely outrageous, that anyone with basic knowledge of the Muslim world would be able to refute it. Just as it was basic knowledge prior to the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were bitter enemies, it is basic knowledge today that Iran and the Taliban are enemies as well. This claim by the Bush Administration attempts to capitalize on general ignorance of subtle differences between Muslims in order to build a stronger case to attack them.

From the International Herald Tribune:

A senior U.S. diplomat, lobbying world powers for tougher sanctions against Iran, accused Tehran on Wednesday of violating international law by arming its once-bitter foe — Afghanistan’s Taliban — and of trying to destabilize the Middle East.

If true, the claim by Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns that Iran is supplying weapons to the Taliban could mark a disturbing escalation in Iran’s efforts to resist U.S. policy on multiple fronts, from Iraq to Afghanistan. Tehran is violating a recent Security Council resolution barring it from weapons exports, Burns said.

Read more:

• U.S. official says Iran violating U.N. rules by sending weapons to Afghanistan's Taliban

New York Times Editorial: It’s Time to Close Gitmo

Here is a powerful editorial from The New York Times arguing for the need to close the gulag at Guantánamo Bay:

Ever since President Bush rammed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 through Congress to lend a pretense of legality to his detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, we have urged Congress to amend the law to restore basic human rights and judicial process. Rulings by military judges this week suggest that the special detention system is so fundamentally corrupt that the only solution is to tear it down and start again.

The target of the judges’ rulings were Combatant Status Review Tribunals, panels that determine whether a prisoner is an “unlawful enemy combatant” who can be tried by one of the commissions created by the 2006 law. The tribunals are, in fact, kangaroo courts that give the inmates no chance to defend themselves, allow evidence that was obtained through torture and can be repeated until one produces the answer the Pentagon wants.

On Monday, two military judges dismissed separate war crimes charges against two Guantánamo inmates because of the status review system. They said the Pentagon managed to get them declared “enemy combatants,” but not “unlawful enemy combatants,” and moved to try them anyway under the 2006 law. That law says only unlawful combatants may be tried by military commissions. Lawful combatants (those who wear uniforms and carry weapons openly) fall under the Geneva Conventions.

If the administration loses an appeal, which it certainly should, it will no doubt try to tinker with the review tribunals so they produce the desired verdict. Congress cannot allow that. When you can’t win a bet with loaded dice, something is wrong with the game.

There is only one path likely to lead to a result that would allow Americans to once again hold their heads high when it comes to justice and human rights. First, Congress needs to restore the right of the inmates of Guantánamo Bay to challenge their detentions. By the administration’s own count, only a small minority of the inmates actually deserve a trial. The rest should be sent home or set free.

Second, Congress should repeal the Military Commissions Act and start anew on a just system for determining whether prisoners are unlawful combatants. Among other things, evidence obtained through coercion and torture should be banned.

And Congress should shut down Guantánamo Bay, as called for in bills sponsored by two California Democrats, Representative Jane Harman in the House and Senator Dianne Feinstein in the Senate. Both lawmakers are intimately familiar with the camp and have concluded it is beyond salvaging.

Their bill would close Gitmo in a year and the detainees would be screened by real courts. Those who are truly illegal combatants would be sent to military or civilian jails in the United States, to be tried under time-tested American rules of justice, or sent to an international tribunal. Some would be returned to their native lands for trial, if warranted. The rest would be set free, as they should have been long ago.

The Guantánamo camp was created on a myth — that the American judicial system could not handle prisoners of “the war against terror.” It was built on a lie — that the hundreds of detainees at Gitmo are all dangerous terrorists. And it was organized around a fiction — that Mr. Bush had the power to create this rogue system in the first place.

It is time to get rid of it.

Here is a link to the editorial:

• Gitmo: A National Disgrace

Homeland Security Using Muslims to Help Prevent Radicalism

It is very unfortunate that some Muslims allow the Department of Homeland Security to help dictate what is defined as radicalism and how to prevent it. Islam already a very rich history of advancing a moderate society and rejecting extremism. Working with agencies that have proven to be unjust and outright anti-Muslim is not an effective method for Muslims to combat extremism in our communities. Rather, it helps an anti-Muslim agenda more effectively.

As Allāh says in the Qur’ān:

وَكَذَلِكَ جَعَلْنَاكُمْ أُمَّةً وَسَطًا لِّتَكُونُواْ شُهَدَاءَ عَلَى النَّاسِ وَيَكُونَ الرَّسُولُ عَلَيْكُمْ شَهِيدًا

Wa kadhālika ja‘alnākum ummatan wasatan litakūnū shuhadā'a ‘alā n-nāsi wa yakūnu r-Rasūlu ‘alaykum shahīda.

We have made you a justly-balanced Ummah (worldwide nation), so that you may be witnesses over the nations, and the Messenger may be a witness over you.

(Qur’ān, Sūrat al-Baqarah, Āyah 143)

An excerpt from a San Francisco Chronicle article:

After nearly six years of intense law enforcement scrutiny of Muslims in the United States, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is reshaping his agency’s approach to Muslims and invited four prominent Muslims to help the agency prevent homegrown radicalism.

The four leaders Chertoff called on -- a former ambassador from Pakistan, a Santa Monica author who grew up in San Jose, a Houston city councilman and an Austin, Texas, blogger -- suggest increasing youth services, working with bloggers to fight extremist ideology on the Web and even changing the terminology the government uses to describe terrorists.

The May 8 meeting -- the first of its kind the Homeland Security secretary has called with Muslims -- was part of a series of gatherings that Chertoff told Congress in March would be “an unprecedented level of cooperation” with various ethnic and religious communities to “prevent radicalization.”

Read more:

• San Francisco Chronicle: Security agency enlisting Muslims to rebut radicals