The Marri Case

Until a few days ago, a foreigner named Ali S. Marri was scheduled to go to trial in federal district court later this month. ( Read more... )

The Marri habeas corpus hearing might very well be the case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately decides whether the powers that are being wielded by Bush, the Justice Department, and the Pentagon are consistent with the Constitution.

--Crossing the Rubicon by Jacob G. Hornberger

The complete article demands your attention, and I urge you to follow the link in the previous line. The point here is not the Constitution of the United States, which permits the suspension of habeas corpus in time of war and rebellion, of which permission Mr. Lincoln notoriously availed himself. The point is the survival of the whole organic structure of ordered liberty of which the written Constitution is the fruit rather than the root.

Thanks to prester_scott for the link.

Thank God for the Asia Times

Iraq: Schemers have their way
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - With demands for a full-scale investigation of the manipulation of intelligence by the administration of President George W Bush mounting steadily, it appears increasingly clear that key officials and their allies outside the administration decided to use the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as a pretext for going to war against Iraq within hours of the attacks themselves.

I have the sickening feeling that 9/11 might well have been facilitated though not instigated by those who believed this war to be a matter of vital necessity. I say sickening because there seem to be so many who take a great deal of satisfaction in this speculation. I am not one of these. But there are questions I want to see answered.

Iraq's history already written
By K Gajendra Singh

US chief administrator L Paul Bremer unveiled Iraq's 25-member governing council in Baghdad on Sunday. It now looks like the beginnings of the rule by the British Governor Sir Percy Cox in the 1920s, after the British had carved out three provinces of the Ottoman empire after its collapse in World War I. After a long national resistance, King Feisel II - of a British-appointed dynasty - and his prime minister, Nuri-as Said, were overthrown and killed in a 1958 military takeover.

We could do worse than bring the monarchy back. Sunnis themselves, as descendants of the Prophet they are revered by the Shiites. As for myself, my heart goes out to the Assyrians, but they may well be doomed, at least in Iraq; already there are just about as many in North America, including the Catholicos of the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East.

Paz dispensers

I have joined the pronoia community. Paranoia is the idea that the universe is a vast conspiracy against us. Pronoia is the idea that the universe is a vast conspiracy for us. If each is a self-fulfilling prophecy, I know which one I would pick.

The heavenly patron of this group is a rather large white rabbit named Harvey.

PAZ? Why that's a Permanent Autonomous Zone.