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Texas Grand Jury Indicts Cheney, Gonzales Over Prisoner Abuse (AHN)

(AHN) - Outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have been indicted by a south Texas grand jury in connection with alleged abuses of inmates at privately operated prisons. - Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:35:02 GMT

Obama Picks First African-American Attorney General (AHN)

(AHN) - President-elect Barack Obama has selected senior campaign legal advisor and Eric Holder to serve as the first African-American attorney general. - Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:01:22 GMT

Texas grand jury indicts Cheney, Gonzales of crime

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A grand jury in South Texas indicted U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and former attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Tuesday for "organized criminal activity" related to alleged abuse of inmates in private prisons.

That was then ... Matthews lauded "experience" of Bush's Cabinet picks in 2001, but says Obama's selection of prior administration vets is "crap"

On the November 18 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, amid reports that President-elect Barack Obama has decided to nominate Clinton Justice Department veteran Eric Holder to be attorney general, host Chris Matthews said, "This is what you do when you don't have elections. You simply promote the people ... who had the deputy jobs. You could do this in any bureaucratic state, you could do it in the old Soviet Union. ... You don't need elections for this crap." But in 2001, responding to then President-elect George W. Bush's selection to his cabinet of veterans of prior administrations, Matthews offered a very different assessment of such actions. Purporting to quote "an NBC driver" on the January 3, 2001, edition of Hardball, Matthews said the driver, a Vietnam veteran, is "like a lot of guys you meet," and said, "They want guys who've been around and survived." Matthews then said of then-President elect George W. Bush's Cabinet picks: "You've got it in this Cabinet. There's some real heavyweights in terms of experience." At the time, Bush had nominated Donald Rumsfeld to be secretary of defense, the same position he held under President Ford, and Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under George H.W. Bush, to be secretary of state. He had also named Dick Cheney, defense secretary under President George H.W. Bush, to be his running mate. While Matthews raised the question of whether, in his Cabinet picks, Bush "risk[ed] being overwhelmed by their maturity and veteran status," he did not suggest that Bush was mimicking "the old Soviet Union" in selecting people who had served in previous administrations. From the January 3, 2001, edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews (retrieved from the Nexis news database): MATTHEWS: Let's talk about this big fight over the Cabinet. First of all, it's -- the most impressive Cabinet appointment in the world right now is -- is Colin Powell, your friend. BILL BENNETT (secretary of education under President Reagan): Well, obviously... MATTHEWS: Clearly. BENNETT: ... hailed worldwide and everyone in America loves him. MATTHEWS: Probably the most impressive Cabinet appointment since Jefferson or whatever back in the early days of our republic. Do you think he might find his way into a vice-presidential nomination in four years? BENNETT: Sure he can. And who knows what Cheney wants to do? He could have found his way into a presidential nomination. If you remember, some of us were encouraging... MATTHEWS: But this will be the less -- this would be less dramatic. This would be a smooth transition. BENNETT: Yeah, this would be an easy transition. Exactly right. MATTHEWS: And he -- I've been thinking about this overnight. The Bush people have a tremendous ace in the hole. It's Colin Powell. He may run the next time. That ticket would be undefeatable. BENNETT: Well, it's an ace in the hole for that. It's, also, an ace in the hole, I think, for some serious issue of foreign policy. If we need an appeal to the nation, the president makes it. Colin Powell can also speak and persuade a lot of people. MATTHEWS: I had an NBC driver the other day, I was doing the TODAY show, and he said something really powerful to me, like a lot of guys you meet. You know what he said? He said people -- and he was in Vietnam for -- he said people like to be around veterans. They like to be with a guy who's been there 10 months. They don't want to be surrounded by raw recruits, and... BENNETT: That's right. MATTHEWS: ... and guys that -- you know, just guys who were brought in -- grunts, as they were called. BENNETT: Right. MATTHEWS: They want guys who've been around and survived. You've got it in this Cabinet. There's some real heavyweights in terms of experience. BENNETT: Yeah. MATTHEWS: Does your guy, the president elect, risk being overwhelmed by their maturity and veteran status? I mean, you've got Dick Cheney in the room. Don Rumsfeld, the former secretary of Defense. You've got Colin Powell, a world hero. And you're the least... BENNETT: Right. MATTHEWS: ... impressive guy in the room. BENNETT: Well, I don't think so, but very strong. I -- you know, when I went to a university once, the president of the university told me if your department chairman -- there's only one test for a good department chairman -- hire people whose -- who are -- whose light will shine brighter than his, that's a secure guy. This is a very strong bunch of people. It's also -- and a lot of people are somewhat surprised -- a conservative Cabinet. I mean, it's... MATTHEWS: Very. BENNETT: ... diverse and all this, but this is a very strong, conservative Cabinet. From the November 18 edition of Hardball: MATTHEWS: But first tonight, as President-elect Obama assembles his governing team, some of the members of the new administration charged with change look awfully familiar. Joining me, MSNBC's political analyst Pat Buchanan and American Prospect editor and author of Obama's Challenge Robert Kuttner. Pat, let's take a look at some of these faces. I mean, they are not the new kids on the block. Eric Holder tonight, for attorney general. Hillary Clinton for secretary of state. Joe Lieberman stays on as senator from Connecticut and prime member of the Democratic caucus. Look at this list. We've got Lieberman on, [John] Podesta [co-chairman of Obama's transition team], [Rahm] Emanuel [incoming White House chief of staff], Holder, Clinton -- the list goes on. I'm looking for the new face. Pat? BUCHANAN: Well, we're in -- look, we're in retread city, is what's going on. This is the Nixon -- I mean, the Clinton alumni association showing up here. MATTHEWS: No, you're a Nixon alumni association. BUCHANAN: I'm Nixon alumni. But you know, but Eric Holder is, I mean, he's a very competent, able man, but the thing he's most famous for, as you mentioned, is a pardon -- Frank Rich's pardon, which he expedited on behalf of Bill Clinton. He was going to run for mayor of D.C. He's as local as you can get. I mean, I don't see anyone from outside, real change here. I mean, these people are undeniably competent, but this is what you'd expect if someone else had won. MATTHEWS: This is what you do when you don't have elections. You simply promote the people -- Robert Kuttner -- who had the deputy jobs. You could do this in any bureaucratic state, you could do it in the old Soviet Union, do it anywhere you have a bureaucracy. You don't need to hold elections to promote deputies to the top job when it comes time, right? You don't need elections for this crap, do you? Robert? KUTTNER: Well, I was disappointed -- MATTHEWS: You just keep promoting people from within in any old, tired bureaucracy. That's what you do. You don't think. It's very Republican thinking, Pat, by the way. By the way, he didn't pardon Frank Rich of The New York Times; he pardoned Marc Rich. BUCHANAN: It was Marc Rich. MATTHEWS: I know you've got Frank on your mind. But, uh -- just kidding. We all make mistakes here.

California court urged to review gay marriage ban

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California's Attorney General on Monday urged the state Supreme Court to consider whether a gay marriage ban passed by voters this month was legal.

Top judge: US and UK acted as 'vigilantes' in Iraq invasion

One of Britain's most authoritative judicial figures last night delivered a blistering attack on the invasion of Iraq, describing it as a serious violation of international law, and accusing Britain and the US of acting like a "world vigilante".Lord Bingham, in his first major speech since retiring as the senior law lord, rejected the then attorney general's defence of the 2003 invasion as fundamentally flawed.Contradicting head-on Lord Goldsmith's advice that the invasion was lawful, Bingham stated: "It was not plain that Iraq had failed to comply in a manner justifying resort to force and there were no strong factual grounds or hard evidence to show that it had." Adding his weight to the body of international legal opinion opposed to the invasion, Bingham said that to argue, as the British government had done, that Britain and the US could unilaterally decide that Iraq had broken UN resolutions "passes belief".Governments were bound by international law as much as by their domestic laws, he said. "The current ministerial code," he added "binding on British ministers, requires them as an overarching duty to 'comply with the law, including international law and treaty obligations'."The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats continue to press for an independent inquiry into the circumstances around the invasion. The government says an inquiry would be harmful while British troops are in Iraq. Ministers say most of the remaining 4,000 will leave by mid-2009.Addressing the British Institute of International and Comparative Law last night, Bingham said: "If I am right that the invasion of Iraq by the US, the UK, and some other states was unauthorised by the security council there was, of course, a serious violation of international law and the rule of law. "For the effect of acting unilaterally was to undermine the foundation on which the post-1945 consensus had been constructed: the prohibition of force (save in self-defence, or perhaps, to avert an impending humanitarian catastrophe) unless formally authorised by the nations of the world empowered to make collective decisions in the security council ..."The moment a state treated the rules of international law as binding on others but not on itself, the compact on which the law rested was broken, Bingham argued. Quoting a comment made by a leading academic lawyer, he added: "It is, as has been said, 'the difference between the role of world policeman and world vigilante'."Bingham said he had very recently provided an advance copy of his speech to Goldsmith and to Jack Straw, foreign secretary at the time of the invasion of Iraq. He told his audience he should make it plain they challenged his conclusions.Both men emphasised that point last night by intervening to defend their views as consistent with those held at the time of the invasion. Goldsmith said in a statement: "I stand by my advice of March 2003 that it was legal for Britain to take military action in Iraq. I would not have given that advice if it were not genuinely my view. Lord Bingham is entitled to his own legal perspective five years after the event." Goldsmith defended what is known as the "revival argument" - namely that Saddam Hussein had failed to comply with previous UN resolutions which could now take effect. Goldsmith added that Tony Blair had told him it was his "unequivocal view" that Iraq was in breach of its UN obligations to give up weapons of mass destruction.Straw said last night that he shared Goldsmith's view. He continued: "However controversial the view that military action was justified in international law it was our attorney general's view that it was lawful and that view was widely shared across the world."Bingham also criticised the post-invasion record of Britain as "an occupying power in Iraq". It is "sullied by a number of incidents, most notably the shameful beating to death of Mr Baha Mousa [a hotel receptionist] in Basra [in 2003]", he said.Such breaches of the law, however, were not the result of deliberate government policy and the rights of victims had been recognised, Bingham observed. He contrasted that with the "unilateral decisions of the US government" on issues such as the detention conditions in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.After referring to mistreatment of Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib, Bingham added: "Particularly disturbing to proponents of the rule of law is the cynical lack of concern for international legality among some top officials in the Bush administration."IraqUS foreign policyLawMilitaryForeign policyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Warning to British travellers as Bali bombers are buried

Al-Qaida supporters in Indonesia may launch attacks against foreigners in retaliation for the firing-squad execution of three of the Bali bombers, the Foreign Office warned travellers yesterday.The department's travel advice website was updated after protests spread when the prisoners were taken from their death-row cells on the prison island of Nusakambagan shortly before midnight on Saturday. Amrozi Nurhasyim, 47, his brother Ali Ghufron, 48, and Imam Samudra, 38, were escorted to a nearby orange grove, tied to posts and each killed with a single shot to the heart, according to the office of Indonesia's attorney general. They had asked not to be blindfolded.The executions prompted fresh calls from relatives of the 28 Britons killed for compensation to be made available for victims of overseas terrorist attacks. In total, 202 people died on October 12 2002 when nightclubs full of western tourists on Bali's Kuta strip were hit by twin blasts.Susanna Miller, of the Bali Bombing Victims Group, feared that the executions would only encourage Islamist militancy. "It effectively provides a state-sponsored route to martyrdom," she said. Her brother Dan died in the atrocity.Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative MP for Bournemouth, who lost his brother Jonathan, 37, said that the man accused of masterminding the plot, Hambali, was now sitting in Guantánamo Bay and had not been put on trial. "British citizens affected by the Bali terrorist attack received no compensation from the British government," Ellwood added. "It remains the case that there is no compensation scheme available to Britons affected by overseas terrorism, even though the UK paid compensation to all the injured regardless of nationality following the London 7/7 bombings." In a Commons debate last month, Tessa Jowell, the minister responsible for humanitarian assistance, acknowledged that the situation was unsatisfactory. "We must find a solution - and not be prompted only by the next atrocity," she added. The Foreign Office's travel advice website for Indonesia, updated early yesterday, warned that "the executions could prompt strong reactions from [the executed men's] supporters, including violent demonstrations which could escalate without notice. Retaliatory attacks against Indonesian government or foreign targets are possible".The areas where it advised against "all but essential travel" were Central Sulawesi and Malaku provinces, the scene of continued Christian-Muslim sectarian tension. The Australian department for foreign affairs issued a starker warning to its citizens: "We advise you to reconsider your need to travel to Indonesia, including Bali, at this time due to the very high threat of terrorist attack." Thousands of Islamist supporters of the Bali bombers scuffled with police yesterday as the three executed men were given emotional funerals in their home villages on the island of Java. The three men expressed no remorse, maintaining that they wanted to die as "martyrs" for their cause of establishing an Islamic caliphate across south-east Asia.As the bodies of Nurhasyim - who was dubbed the "smiling bomber" because of his courtroom antics - and Ghufron arrived at their local mosque, supporters surged around the ambulance and clashed briefly with security forces. Many had waited for days, standing in the rain and praying. The date of the execution had been kept secret. There were similar scenes on the return of Imam Samudra's remains. His body was delivered, wrapped in a black shroud bearing Islamic inscriptions, under the gaze of around 3,000 supporters. "Looking at this I feel sad, but then I am also proud that he is a mujahid [Islamic warrior]," said Nuranda, a woman who offered her condolences to his family. Security across the country was stepped up at shopping malls and tourist haunts because of fears that radicals would heed the bombers' exhortation to carry out retaliatory attacks. In Bali an extra 3,500 police were deployed to patrol the streets. There have also been a number of bomb hoax threats aimed at the Australian and US embassies.IndonesiaGlobal terrorismguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Reprisals fear as Bali bombers executed

Three Islamic terrorists convicted for their part in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that claimed the lives of 202 people - most of them foreign tourists - were shot dead last night by firing squad. The executions, which had been widely expected, came despite last-minute pleas to the Indonesian authorities from relatives of some of the British dead for the sentences to be stayed, warning that they would be used as a propaganda coup by the militants' supporters and families.Jasman Panjaitan, a spokesman for the Attorney General's office, told a news conference last night that Imam Samudra, Amrozi Nurhasyim and Ali Ghufron had been executed on the prison island of Nusakambangan off southern Java. The executions are understood to be have been carried out in a clearing in the heavily forested island by police who had been preparing for days.According to sources the men were taken from their cells to the site about 4 kilometres from the prison, where they were strapped to wooden poles, and shot through the heart. Following negotiations with the men's families, their bodies will be flown to their home villages for burial.Amrozi had become notorious as the 'smiling bomber' for his behaviour at his trial when he was convicted of providing the van and explosives for the attack on the Sari Club in the popular resort of Kuta.The carrying out of the death sentences, passed five years ago, brings an end to a protracted period of delays. The dead men said that they carried out the twin bombings in retaliation for US-led aggression in Afghanistan.As news of the killings spread around the globe, western countries renewed warnings to their citizens to be vigilant against reprisal attacks. Although the men had said repeatedly that they were happy to die as 'martyrs', their families and legal representatives had appealed against the death sentences right up to the country's constitutional court. Speculation that the executions were imminent had intensified when the younger brother of two of the militants on death row visited the island yesterday. Ali Fauzi, a brother of bombers Amrozi and Mukhlas, left their home village in East Java earlier in the day to see them.The three men were found guilty of planning and helping to carry out the attacks on 12 October 2002 that thrust Indonesia on to the front line in the war on terrorism. They never expressed any remorse, even taunting some of the relatives of their victims at their trials five years ago.In recent months, the men publicly expressed hope their executions would trigger revenge attacks in the world's most populous Muslim nation. Police responded by stepping up security at foreign embassies, oil depots and at tourist resorts.The fate of the men has become a source of controversy, with some relatives of the victims insisting that the death penalty was 'anomalous' with what they believed. Last night relatives of the victims of the bombings said they did not believe justice had been achieved. Among them was Susanna Miller, of the Bali Bombing Victims Group, who on the eve of the reported executions told BBC Radio 4 that their deaths could provide a propaganda boost to jihadists in the south-east Asian state.Miller, whose brother Dan died in the atrocity, said: 'Capital punishment for jihadist terrorism seems particularly anomalous to me. It effectively provides a state-sponsored route to martyrdom. There are two strands to justice - one is to punish the deed and the other is to deter subsequent deeds.' Tobias Ellwood MP, who lost his brother Jonathan Ellwood, 37, in the attacks said he was unable to draw a line under the Bali bombings. He said: 'Firstly, the ringleader behind the Bali bombings, Hambali, dubbed by the CIA as the 'Osama Bin Laden' and the operations chief for the militant group Jemaah Islamiah, was arrested by Thai authorities in 2003 and handed over to the US. 'He has never been put on trial for masterminding the Bali bombings and no one will explain why.'In Australia, where 88 of the victims were from, there had been last-minute appeals for clemency from some families. Former Adelaide magistrate Brian Deegan, whose son Josh was a victim, told local media: 'I would sooner they repent for the rest of their natural lives rather than meet an unnatural death.'However, others had opposed the calls for clemency, including Australian survivor Peter Hughes, who attended the bombers' trial and has insisted that the three men's deaths would bring some sort of 'closure'.Fear that supporters of the group would use it to encourage further attacks had been prompted both by the arrival of Islamic extremists in Tenggulun, the home village of Amrozi and Mukhlas, and a statement issued by the head of Jemaah Islamiah group, Abu Bakar Bashir, who urged his followers to fight for Islam. Bashir praised the bombers as heroes adding: 'Their fighting spirit in defending Islam should be followed. We will win the fight in this world or die as martyrs. Even if they are murdered, they will die as Islamic martyrs.'Prosecutors in Indonesia had insisted that the bombers would be executed in 'early November', but had not given a date to prevent their supporters organising rallies to concide with the event.IndonesiaGlobal terrorismguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

So Little Time, So Much Damage

On the day before Election Day, the NYT ran an editorial about eleventh-hour scrambling by Bush and aides to alter rules and regulations on the environment, civil liberties, abortion rights, and other issues. There are 75 days remaining for the Bush presidency, and they're evidently hard at work on change, too. Snip: CIVIL LIBERTIES We don?t know all of the ways that the administration has violated Americans? rights in the name of fighting terrorism. Last month, Attorney General Michael Mukasey rushed out new guidelines for the F.B.I. that permit agents to use chillingly intrusive techniques to collect information on Americans even where there is no evidence of wrongdoing. Agents will be allowed to use informants to infiltrate lawful groups, engage in prolonged physical surveillance and lie about their identity while questioning a subject?s neighbors, relatives, co-workers and friends. The changes also give the F.B.I. ? which has a long history of spying on civil rights groups and others ? expanded latitude to use these techniques on people identified by racial, ethnic and religious background. The administration showed further disdain for Americans? privacy rights and for Congress?s power by making clear that it will ignore a provision in the legislation that established the Department of Homeland Security. The law requires the department?s privacy officer to account annually for any activity that could affect Americans? privacy ? and clearly stipulates that the report cannot be edited by any other officials at the department or the White House. The Justice Department?s Office of Legal Counsel has now released a memo asserting that the law ?does not prohibit? officials from homeland security or the White House from reviewing the report. The memo then argues that since the law allows the officials to review the report, it would be unconstitutional to stop them from changing it. George Orwell couldn?t have done better. So Little Time, So Much Damage (New York Times)...

Singapore says WSJ wages two-decade judicial attack

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore's attorney general accused the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday of waging a two-decade campaign to besmirch the Singapore judiciary, at the start of a contempt of court case brought against the newspaper.