The Bush Administration appears intent to go out on a low note. The United States has asked for as many as 15,000 Iraqi prisoners to be held without charge in Iraq even though the authority to hold the prisoners expired at the beginning of the New Year. I discussed the plan as well as the investigation of war crimes on Rachel Maddow in this segment.
Category: Military
A very disturbing story had emerged from Gaza after the shooting of a child. People are not only alarmed at the shooting of 13–year-old Iman al-Hams, but by the attitude and lack of remorse of an Israeli officer who killedher. When confronted by other soldiers, the officer said that he did not care if she was a child and would have killed her even if she was three under the standing orders given to soldiers in the campaign. Yet, the officer, identified only a Captain R, was charged with only minor offenses after emptying all 10 bullets from his gun’s magazine into Iman when she walked into a “security area” on the edge of Rafah refugee camp last month.
Continue reading “Death in Gaza: Tape Reveals How Israeli Captain Pursued and Shot to Death a Fleeing Thirteen-Year-Old Girl”
Well, the results are in and weeks of defamatory attacks on our opposing bloggers and the unrestrained use of the politics of personal destruction have paid off: the Turley blog was voted the Number One law professor blog and legal theory blog in the annual survey of the American Bar Association’s survey. Earlier, it was selected as one of the top 100 legal blogs overall. That is not bad for a blog that is only roughly a year old and it is entirely due to our regulars at the cyber bar we called the Turley blog. Your overindulgence, obsessive compulsiveness, and general lack of restraint have made us what we are today, a group of dysfunctional miscreants. But we are now the Number One dysfunctional miscreants in our category. Well done Team Turley (if I may be so bold). Not to overplay the victory, but this is the first key step to total blogosphere domination and eventual control of the time space continuum.
Continue reading “TURLEY BLOG WINS TOP SPOT IN ABA JOURNAL SURVEY”
Happy New Year to everyone on the Turley blog. This has been an extraordinary first year of the blog which is approaching two million hits annually. The success of the blog is due largely to our regulars who continue to make this one of the smartest and most fun blogs on the web. Even with the invasion by trolls and a few uncivil moments, the blog has remained a special forum for intelligent, civil, and often witty discourse. Our impressive monthly growth (and the obvious irritation of trolls) is a testament to the fact that there remains many people who want to engage in such dialogue. 2008 was our first full year in operation and I am very grateful for the contributions of all of the regulars on this blog.
My recent interview on Legal Times on prosecuting Bush Administration officials for crimes committed in the torture program and unlawful surveillance program has attracted the ire of some conservative law faculty. My colleague Orin Kerr has raised this question on the conservative legal website Volokh Conspiracy. It is not without a good faith basis for such academic debate but, in my view, it should not be a barrier to prosecution.
The voting continues on the top blogs. The Turley blog was selected as one of the 100 top legal blogs by the good people at the ABA Journal. It currently holds the number one spot for law professor and legal theory blogs. The tally shows the Turley blog with 387 votes with Mirror of Justice with 234 votes. The voting ends on January 2nd. You have done well Turley bloggers.
Continue reading “The Turley Blog Leads in Vote on Best Law Professor and Legal Theory Blogs”
Best wishes to everyone celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah. Our kids get to double dip on both holidays in a play to spread our bets between the two religions of the parents. We have just finished placing the last present under the tree in Chicago. We can now look forward to three hours of sleep before the C-Day invasion. As my gift to you, I have linked a truly inspirational holiday video: Jingle Bells played on microwave ovens below.
Continue reading “Happy Holidays!”
In an important vote, the Supreme Court has granted review in al-Marri v. Pucciarelli, 08-368. The case will return the issue of enemy combatants back before the Court with a new twist. The case would have to be argued by the Obama Administration, which will be given a clear opportunity to show whether all of the talk about change and civil liberties was just a pitch or true principle.
I will be discussing this case tonight on Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.
Continue reading “Supreme Court Grants Review in Al-Marri Enemy Combatant Case”
The video below is highly disturbing. It shows adults egging on two crying infant boys to get them to fight each other. An unidentified soldier at Fort Bragg, North Carolina is now under investigation. Alicia Scheideger, the boy’s mother, told ABC News her ex-husband, had custody of her son and she reported him after finding the video.
Continue reading “Soldier Under Investigation for “Baby Cockfight””
The commander of an Israeli Air Force base has sentenced a soldier to 21 days in jail for yawning during his memorial speech to mark the anniversary of the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. It appears that the yawn unbecoming a soldier was aggravated by his failure to cover his mouth.
Continue reading “Yawn Unbecoming: Israeli Soldier Sentenced to 21 Days in Jail for Yawning at Memorial Service”
When the military tribunals were being created at Guantanamo Bay, some of us publicly stated that we would not take cases because the rules written by the Administration were fundamentally unfair and did not recognize core principles of due process. Since then, there have been a steady stream of prosecutors and defense lawyers in the military who have resigned in protest. The latest is Lt. Col. Darrel J. Vandeveld, who decided that he could no longer live with himself as a person or an attorney to participate in such a sham legal system.
Today, the New York Times ran a book review that I wrote on The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight Over Presidential Power by Jonathan Mahler. The book details the development of the Hamdan case, which ultimately ended in the Supreme Court with a defeat for the Bush Administration.
Continue reading “How a Jihadist Curtailed a President’s Authority”
A military panel of six officers shocked the Administration by giving Osama bin Laden’s ex-driver, Salim Hamdan, only five and a half years. In a demonstration of the Administration’s contempt for even judicial rulings from its own tribunals, the Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman stated that, after serving his time, Hamdan would revert back to being an “enemy combatant” and could be held indefinitely. So, after proclaiming to the world that he received a “fair trial,” here,the Administration is now saying that the trial and sentence are meaningless.
As President George Bush is in China lecturing his counterparts on human rights and detainee rights, pictures have emerged of the U.S. military’s use of small crates to hold detainees in Iraq. The wooden boxes are only 3 feet by 3 feet by 6 feet tall, but the Bush Administration insists that it is a perfectly humane way to hold detainees. That is no doubt something that Chinese will find instructive.
Continue reading “Shocking Pictures: U.S. Military Holding Detainees in Small Crates”
As expected, Osama Bin Laden’s former driver Salim Hamdan was found guilty of five counts of material support to a terror organization in the September 11, 2001, attacks. He was tried before the military tribunal and found not guilty of conspiracy to aid a terror organization by a panel of six military officers. The verdict is likely to be dismissed around the world due to the means used to secure it. The tribunals have been rightly ridiculed as kangaroo courts, even by conservatives.
Continue reading “Bin Laden’s Driver Convicted in Military Tribunal”