“Justice Has Fled America” -- Reviewing the Holy Land Case

 By William Fisher

“Prior to this case, an anonymous expert has never been permitted in a US criminal trial as there is no genuine way to cross examine someone whose identity is unknown.”

The speaker is Michael Ratner. He is the leader emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a public service law firm that fought for the Holy Land group and in dozens of other unrelated cases.

 

The anonymous “experts” Ratner refers to were two Israelis who appeared at the trial as prosecution witnesses under assumed names. This, despite the clear and uncompromising language of the Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution, which says: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to …be confronted with the witness.”

The appellants argued that the trial judge's decision to permit the two Israeli witnesses to testify anonymously violated the Confrontation Clause of the Constitution. But in a unanimous decision, the Appeals Court ruled that, "while no trial is perfect, this one included, we conclude from our review of the record, briefs, and oral argument, that the defendants were fairly convicted."

The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right…to be confronted with the witnesses against him." Generally, the right is to have a face-to-face confrontation with witnesses who are offering testimonial evidence against the accused in the form of cross-examination during a trial.

But Ratner’s view is 180 degrees from the Government’s. He says, “As I look at history, Stalin's show trials come to mind. The denial of the last appeal by the Supreme Court confirms that justice has fled America. If you’re Muslim and especially if you are involved with humanitarian aid for Palestinians, do not expect justice; expect to be hounded, driven from your endeavors and jailed. This country is in the midst of a plague of Islamophobia.”

Thus, it was in that depressing environment that the Supreme Court last week brought the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) case to the end of its last appellate avenue. SCOTUS declined to hear their appeal.

The Government had accused HLF – once the largest Muslim-oriented charity in the US -- of providing material support in the Palestinian territories to Hamas, which the US had now designated as a terrorist organization.

HLF was shut down on December 4, 2001, by presidential executive order and without due process. The charity's offices were raided by federal agents, who seized all documents, assets and funds of the organization as well as personal property of employees.

After prosecutors found that all funds raised by the charity went to humanitarian aid and that there were no illegal financial transactions from HLF, they employed the "material support" statute as amended by the USA Patriot Act – a statute that civil liberty advocates call dangerously vague – to charge the five men with indirectly supporting terrorism through their legal charitable work.

The prosecution's argument was that the ‘zagat’committees used to distribute aid were "under the influence" of HAMAS – despite the fact that none of these committees were on the government's list of banned foreign organizations and were used by other charities to distribute humanitarian aid in the region. It is worth noting that some of these charitable committees were still receiving US funding through the USAID program as late as 2006.

The defendants faced two trials. In the first, in 2007, after 19 days of deliberations, the jury was unable to come to a definitive conclusion and the case ended in a mistrial.

During the 2007 trial, lawyers representing the Muslim Legal Fund of America said that the Justice Department fabricated quotes and modified transcripts. Critics faulted much of the evidence given during the trial. The New York Times journalist Leslie Eaton said Israeli agents using pseudonyms testified for the prosecution.

The government did not allege that the foundation paid directly for suicide bombings, but instead that the foundation supported terrorism by sending more than $12 million to charitable groups, known as ‘zakat’ committees, which build hospitals and feed the poor. The prosecution said the committees were controlled by Hamas, and contributed to terrorism by helping Hamas spread its ideology and recruit supporters.

The jurors had acquitted on some counts but were deadlocked on other charges ranging from tax violations to providing material support for terrorists. One defendant was acquitted of most of the 32 charges against him. While the first trial produced no convictions, the judge ruled it a mistrial and granted prosecutors another opportunity to put the five men on trial.

The second trial ended in harsh convictions. Again, the key witness for the prosecution was an anonymous expert who defense attorneys complained they were unable to adequately cross-examine – a fact at odds with the Sixth Amendment. 

Following the first trial, the New York Times reported: The decision today is "a stunning setback for the government, there's no other way of looking at it," said Matthew D. Orwig, a partner at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal who was, until recently, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas. "This is a message, a two-by-four in the middle of the forehead," Orwig said. "If this doesn’t get their attention, they are just in complete denial," he said of Justice Department officials, whom he said may not have recognized how difficult such cases are to prosecute."

Experts found the jury's failure to come to a definitive conclusion to be evidence of weakness in the government's ability to provide clear enough evidence against the charity. The Los Angeles Times quoted Georgetown University law professor David Cole as saying: "If the government can shut them down and then not convince a jury the group is guilty of any wrongdoing, then there is something wrong with the process.”

“The whole case was based on assumptions that were based on suspicions", said one of the jurors, who added: "If they had been a Christian or Jewish group, I don't think [prosecutors] would have brought charges against them."

The federal government began a retrial on August 18, 2008. On November 24, 2008, the jury delivered guilty verdicts against HLF and five individual defendants. Holy Land was found guilty of giving more than $12 million to support Hamas.

The jury found against HLF on all 108 charges. The charges included conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, providing material support to a foreign terrorist, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The government was ecstatic. "Today's verdicts are important milestones in America's efforts against financiers of terrorism," Patrick Rowan, assistant attorney general for national security, said after the trial. "This prosecution demonstrates our resolve to ensure that humanitarian relief efforts are not used as a mechanism to disguise and enable support for terrorist groups."

The five convicted individuals were Ghassan Elashi, former CEO Shukri Abu-Baker, Mufid Abdulqader, Abdulrahman Odeh, and Mohammad El-Mezain.

Abu-Baker was sentenced to 65 years. Elashi, also a member of the founding Board of Directors of the Texas branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), was also sentenced to 65 years. El-Mezain, former endowments director, received 15 years.

Because of the potential lengthy sentences for the criminal convictions, the individual defendants were remanded into custody without bail pending any appeal. A 2011 NPR report claimed some of the people associated with this group were being held in a new and highly restrictive prison known as the Communications Management Unit.

It has since been learned that the Communications Management Unit is a self-contained group within a facility managed by the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) that severely restricts, manages and monitors all outside communication (telephone, mail, visitation) of inmates in the unit. A substantial majority of its inmates are Muslims.

"It is a dark day for America when our nation's highest court refuses to hear a case that is affecting everyone's ability to get a fair trial in America," said Khalil Meek, Executive Director of Muslim Legal Fund. "If judges are allowed to prevent defenders from challenging the credibility of expert witnesses, then our Sixth Amendment loses its teeth and our civil liberties suffer further erosion."

The verdict and the harsh sentences outraged Holy Land supporters.

Prof. David Cole told Prism, "In this case, the government made it a crime to engage in charity, without any evidence that a single penny went to further any violent, much less terrorist, act.  The defendants now face decades in jail for having done nothing more than raising money to feed the hungry.”

Francis E, Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois, pointed out that The Holy Land Foundation was well known as being the leading source in this country for providing humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians. “For that very reason it was targeted for persecution and destruction by the pro-Israeli neoconservatives in the (George W.) Bush Administration. After a valiant Defense, the Holy Land Five lost their case in the same reactionary United States Supreme Court that gave the American people Bush Junior as President in 2000.” 

And Prof. Chip Pitts, Lecturer at Stanford Law School and Former Chair of Amnesty International USA, told Prism, “When prosecutors single out Muslim charities and effectively shut down nearly all of them in the wake of 9/11, and when courts bend the rules to prevent suspects from confronting their accusers, it’s hard not to see prejudice at work distorting the right to equal justice under law.   

“The Supreme Court’s failure to review this case and correct its many procedural and substantive errors is yet another sign of the increasingly degraded rule of law in the United States.  Similar prejudice is endangering sensible policies with respect to allies like Turkey and Egypt. 

“These are grave trends which jeopardize both domestic tranquility and authentic national security.  They should not only concern us all, but must prompt concerted and strong demands for a return to principles of fairness, reason, and justice.”

Denial of certiorari was a huge blow to the remaining charities patronized by Muslims, which for several years had been engaged in planning, reorganizing and even talking with the Government (The Treasury Department, which is in charge of ‘material support” matters) about creating a ‘white list’ of permissible charities. For a time, contributions to other Muslim-oriented charities fell off a cliff, though they have since climbed closer to past norms.

Now, supporters of The Holy Land Five will be crafting initiatives to bring what they consider a travesty of justice to broad public attention. But, in the interests of truth, it needs to be said that these kinds of campaigns, while they are valuable as public education tools, rarely succeed in changing the minds of judges.

In Defense of Richard Falk--An Analysis

The essay below was written by Lawrence Davidson, a professor of history at West Chester University. We continue to be impressed by his sharp analysis and his willlingness to speak truth to power.




By Lawrence Davidson

Part I - Who is Richard Falk and What Has He Done?

Richard Falk is the present United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories. His job is to monitor the human rights situation in the territories, with particular reference to international law, and report back to both the U.N. General Assembly and the United Nations Human Rights Council. He is professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and well qualified for his United Nations post.
Professor Falk was appointed in 2008 to a six year term in his present position. That means he has been telling the unsettling truth about Israeli behavior for four years now, with another two to go. Repeatedly he has documented Israeli violations of international law and its relentless disregard for Palestinian human rights. For instance:

-- In his 2008 report Falk documented the “desperate plight of civilians in Gaza.”
-- In his 2009 report Falk described Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip as a “war crime of the greatest magnitude.”-- In his 2010 report Falk documented Israel’s array of apartheid policies.
-- In his 2011 report Falk documented Israeli policies in Jerusalem and labelled them “ethnic cleansing.”

-- And finally, in this latest report for the year 2012, Falk has concentrated on two subjects:

First, Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners which, he concludes, is so bad as to warrant investigation by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). It should be noted that Israel does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICJ. However, condemnation by this organization would, within the context of growing awareness of Zionist crimes, help further educate public opinion.

Second, Falk documents the assistance given Israel’s expansion of colonies on the Palestinian West Bank by a number of multinational corporations, including Motorola, Hewlett-Packard and Caterpillar Inc. This assistance may be profitable, but it is also manifestly illegal. The CEOs and board members of these companies stand in violation of international laws including provisions of the Geneva Conventions. Since no nation, nor the UN itself, seems ready to prosecute them, Professor Falk has recommended a boycott of the guilty firms “in an effort to take infractions of international law seriously.”

Part II - Reactions

In a sane world this work would make Richard Falk a universally acclaimed defender of justice. But ours is not a sane world. And so you get the following sort of responses from both Israel and its supporters:

Karaen Peretz, the spokeswomen for the Israeli Mission at the United Nations, found Professor Falk’s latest report “grossly biased.” This is a sort of response used by someone who cannot dispute the evidence and so must resort to attacking the character of the one presenting the evidence. Peretz also asserted that “Israel is deeply committed to advancing human rights and firmly believes that this cause will be better served without Falk and his distasteful sideshow. While he spends pages attacking Israel, Falk fails to mention even once the horrific human rights violations and ongoing terrorist attacks by Hamas.”
Actually, this is not true. Back in 2008 Falk requested that his mandate from the UN Human Rights Council be extended to cover infringements of human rights by Palestinian governments just so he would not seen as partisan. Subsequently, Mahmoud Abbas’s pseudo Palestinian Authority called for Falk’s resignation. In this job, you just can’t win.

In any case, Falk’s documenting of Israel’s crimes puts the lie to Peretz’s claim that Israel is “deeply committed to advancing human rights” and that documentation cannot be dismissed as a “sideshow.” Relative to sixty four years of ethnic cleansing, it is the militarily insignificant missiles out of Gaza that are the “sideshow.” And, can we honestly assume that Ms Peretz’s attitude toward Professor Falk would turn for the better if in this report he had mentioned Hamas “even once”?
Then there is United States Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice. She echoed Peretz by describing Falk as being “highly biased,” Well, what sort of attitude is one suppose to have toward overwhelming evidence persisting over many years? Isn’t one supposed to be “biased” in favor of such evidence? To ignore it doesn’t make you balanced or fair. It makes you either corrupt or in a deep state of denial.
Ms Rice goes on to say that “Mr. Falk’s recommendations do nothing to further a peaceful settlement...and indeed poison the environment for peace.” These are pretty strong words, but if considered critically they make little sense. First of all, Falk’s mandate requires him to reveal the facts about human rights violations in the Palestinian territories. It makes no reference to “furthering a peaceful settlement.” That is what the U.S. government claims to be doing. And its record in this regard is pitiful. Second, just why should conclusively documenting practices that may well be standing in the way of a settlement, be equated with “poisoning the environment for peace”? That doesn’t add up at all.

There are many other spokespeople who have reacted negatively to Falk’s latest report ranging from the Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister to representatives of the companies caught on the wrong side of the law. And, remarkably, they all sing the same song: Falk is bias, ad nauseum. They can do no better because they cannot refute the professor”s evidence. Thus, all of these well positioned, well paid representatives of nations and multinational businesses are reduced to sounding like lawyers defending the mafia.

Part III - Conclusion

Professor Falk’s experience should serve as a warning to both those who would, on the one hand, make a career out of being a spokesperson for governments or companies, and on the other, those who would dedicate themselves to “speaking truth to power.” Taking on the role of the former is the equivalent of selling your soul to leadership whose sense of right and wrong goes no further than their own local interests. Taking on the role of the latter is to face seemingly endless frustration for, as Noam Chomsky once noted, power already knows the truth and doesn’t care one jot for it.

Yet, for those who would travel down this latter road, Richard Falk is as good a role model as can be found. Having dedicated himself to the role of truth teller he is to be commended for his devotion to justice and sheer durability. He is a hero who, hopefully, will have his praises sung long after Ms Peretz and Ms Rice are deservedly forgotten.




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Whaddya Mean, Don't Vote!

By William Fisher

Thank God, we are almost finished with the stupidest, least helpful, most

irrelevant, presidential contest in living memory.

Garnished with the most brainless series of "debates" in the history of

Presidential candidacy.

At least, when it began -- during the primary -- some of it was fun, in a

prurient way. Women came forward to accuse Herman Cain of crotch-grapping. Rick

Perry couldn't remember the third of the three Cabinet departments he was

promising to abolish. And so forth.

Funny? Yes, up to a point. After that, downright embarrassing. Not for the

candidates; they're free to make total fools of themselves -- and they did.

Embarrassing for the country.

Just think of it. The people who thought they would be absolutely dandy leaders

of the richest, most powerful country in the world, unable to enunciate a simple

declarative sentence!

But what there was of fun soon melted into disaster -- when people began to

realize what wasn't being debated. Climate change. Immigration. Our

off-the-charts incarceration rate. Our so-called "war on drugs.' Racial

profiling. Our military-industrial complex. Our vanishing middle-class. Our

abandon of the mentally ill. And on and on and on.

There is arguably only one other kind of issue so elemental that its omission

conceals the incendiary material that could actually bring us down.

It is our civil liberties -- the freedoms we are guaranteed in the first ten

amendments to the Constitution -- the Bill of Rights.

By which I mean such issues as prisons, extraordinary renditions, Guantanamo,

indefinite detention, military commissions, gun crime, warrantless wiretapping,

National Security Letters, the Drone Kill List, Afghan corruption, infiltrating

Muslim mosques, the rule of law, religious freedom, judges who aren't

ideologues, and on and on and on.

In hour after hour after catatonic hour, the words "civil liberties' were not

mentioned once. Not once.

Yet there are no values that come even close to constructing the picture of

America these freedoms help us build and maintain.

And on these, our candidates were silent.

To my in-box this morning came an article written by an Internet friend of mine.

It urged me to "not vote, or vote independent." Well, as Rachel Maddow likes to

say, "That would be fulfilling someone else's plan."

And indeed it would. So, no I won't sit this one out. I'll vote for Barack Obama

as far superior in everyway to the tin-man of Washington.

I'd rather vote for Gordon Gecko.

And hope we do better four years from now.

Warrantless Wiretapping and Transparency Uber Alles

By William Fisher

 

Shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush authorized the NSA to secretly wiretap Americans’ international communications without any warrant, suspicion of wrongdoing or court oversight at all.

 

The Bush administration managed to keep this secret for years, until July 2008 when – with a perfectly straight face and on the heels of some noisy media attention – the president signed the FISA amendments into law. An hour later, the American Civil Liberties Union went to court on behalf of a large number of human rights groups, journalists and attorneys seeking to have the Supreme Court declare the law unconstitutional.

 

According to testimony from two veteran NSA operatives, Bill Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe, they knew – “together with large numbers of our colleagues, we objected to the abandonment of constitutional protections.” In an article in POLITICO, they say they were told to “mind our own business.”

 

“But this is exactly the kind of intrusion into our private lives that the Founding Fathers wanted to prevent. We resigned in protest.”

 

But their first day in court was a bust. The court ruled that the two whistleblowers had no standing to sue since they couldn’t prove they were ‘impacted’ – subject to surveillance.

 

But, they ask, “how can we prove such a thing when the information about who the government monitors is secret and the process of surveillance is designed to be undetectable?”

So they’ll try again later this month, when the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case. Its decision, say the whistleblowers, could define the government’s ability to monitor innocent Americans’ international communications without a warrant.

 

The lawsuit, Amnesty International v. Clapper, argues that the Constitution bars the National Security Agency from listening to or reading Americans’ international conversations and emails without court oversight, even if Congress blesses the NSA’s actions.

 

The National Security Agency (NSA) is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense (DOD) responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S. government communications and information systems which involves information security and cryptanalysis/cryptography.

 

The NSA was created to listen to and analyze foreign communications to protect the nation from threats outside our borders. Today, it is bigger than the CIA and FBI combined.

Binney and Wiebe write, “Our touchstone was the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures and its guarantee that warrants could be issued only with probable cause and against specific targets. Whenever we suspected that an American abroad or someone inside the United States might be involved in terrorism or espionage, we carefully gathered the evidence and presented it to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which meets in secret to protect classified information. Only if that court gave us permission would we monitor an American’s communications.”

 

Then, they recount, came the horrific crimes of Sept. 11, 2001, and “we lost our moorings.” Shortly after that terrible day, “President George W. Bush authorized the NSA to wiretap Americans’ international communications without any warrant, suspicion of wrongdoing or court oversight at all.”

 

Binney and Wiebe contend that their argument is that “we have standing to challenge the law’s constitutionality because as human rights advocates, journalists and attorneys, we rely on confidentiality in our international communications with victims of human rights abuses, whistle-blowers and government officials–and our work is severely impacted by the law.”

 

And that, they say, gets at the heart of the unconstitutionality of the FISA Amendments Act. The law, they write:

 

• Violates the First (freedom of speech, freedom of the press) and Fourth (against unreasonable searches and seizures) Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.  
• Invests the National Security Agency with sweeping power to monitor Americans’ international phone calls and emails without a probable cause or warrant requirement, so its effect is to allow the NSA to conduct dragnet surveillance, not just surveillance directed at suspected terrorists and criminals.  
• Does not provide for meaningful judicial review or congressional or public oversight.  

But Binney and Wiebe caution that the Supreme Court won’t be considering any of these claims when it hears oral arguments in their case. The Court will only be pondering whether the plaintiffs have the right to bring a case at all.

 

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), enacted by Congress after the abuses of the 1960s and 70s, regulates the government’s conduct of intelligence surveillance inside the United States. It generally requires the government to seek warrants before monitoring Americans’ communications. In 2001, however, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to launch a warrantless wiretapping program, and in 2008 Congress ratified and expanded that program, giving the NSA almost unchecked power to monitor Americans’ international phone calls and emails.

 

The plaintiffs in Amnesty v. Clapper include human rights, media, and legal organizations. The government claims that the group shouldn’t be able to sue without first showing that their communications have been or will be monitored under the statute – but in a Kafkaesque move, the government refuses to reveal who has and hasn’t been spied on.

 

Binney and Wiebe conclude by explaining why the courts’ ability to review the law is so important.

 

“The framers established our independent courts to be the final bulwark of liberty. They recognized that the political branches – Congress and the president – couldn’t be relied on alone to protect our rights, particularly in times of crisis. That is as true today as it has ever been. Threats to national security cannot be an excuse to throw out the very system that has been our nation’s strength for over 200 years. We cannot allow the rhetoric of fear to justify."

“Dedication to Open Government” is another principal the NSA says it is committed to. Its web site says, “It is our goal to make NSA/CSS records available to the public in a timely manner and in accordance with applicable laws and policies.”

 

It adds, “These are our commitments to you, our fellow citizens:

 

We will act with integrity to advance the rights, goals, and values of the Nation.

 

We will adhere to the spirit and the letter of the Constitution and the laws and regulations of the United States.

 

We will combat terrorism around the globe – when necessary, putting our lives on the line to preserve the Nation.

 

We will provide our policymakers, negotiators, ambassadors, law enforcement community, and military the vital intelligence they need to protect and defend the Nation.

 

We will defend the national security networks vital to our Nation.

 

We will be a trusted steward of public resources and place prudent judgment over expediency.

 

We will continually strive for transparency in all our review, monitoring, and decision-making processes.

 

We will honor Open Government and Transparency mandates by making timely and accurate information available to the public, subject to valid privacy, confidentiality, Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

 

Meanwhile, Kafka is having one huge belly-laugh after another.

 

 

The Prince of God. Really?

By William Fisher

He is the “Prince of God” and will be seated at the “right-hand” of God after his death. His “documented history of paranoid schizophrenia” was “credible and compelling. “It is inconceivable” he would have received all those years of psychotropic medications and clinical treatment “were he not a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.”

As a teen, he was having “visual hallucinations.” One doctor said he “did not know right from wrong nor the nature and consequences of his acts.” A psychological diagnosis in 1975 warned that he “has a long-standing, severe illness which will most likely require long-term inpatient hospitalization” and that he was “dangerous and cannot be released under any circumstances.”

Another brush with the law put him in danger of doing hard time. But, taking his psychiatric illness into account, he was released after a year. He soon murdered six people, execution style, during a brutal home invasion.

In 1977, he and two accomplices fatally shot six people at a Carol City, Florida, home, then the worst mass slaying in Miami-Dade County history. Even more shocking was his murder of a teenage couple who had left a church event in Hialeah in 1978 and never met up with friends they planned to meet for ice cream.

In the 1977 case, he pretended to be an electric utility worker to gain access to the Carol City house, which police said was a local hangout for marijuana dealers whom the bandits wanted to rob of drugs and cash. Former Miami-Dade prosecutor David Waksman said most of the victims were friends who happened to drop by the house while he and the other men were there. The victims were blindfolded and bound, but the encounter turned violent after a mask worn by one of Ferguson's gang fell off and his face was spotted by a victim.

He was convicted and sentenced to death and his appeal from that ruling also found him “fit for executiion” – able to understand what was happenening to him and why.

When a federal appeals court blocked the scheduled execution,

the U.S. Supreme Court quickly upheld the stay. For the past quarter of a century, the Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment ban on “cruel and unusual punishment” to forbid the execution of an individual convicted of murder, if that person was mentally incompetent at the time of the scheduled execution. That declaration came first in 1986, in the case of Ford v. Wainwright.

At that time, the court said society would not tolerate “executing a person who has no comprehension of why he has been singled out and stripped of his fundamental right to life.”

Ever since then, the justices and judges on lower courts have been attempting to further clarify that understanding.

The Appeals' Court decision came during a flurry of legal decisions over claims that 64-year-old convict suffers from mental illness so severe he cannot be executed. A paranoid schizophrenic with delusions he's the "prince of God," he had faced a planned lethal injection at 6 p.m. Tuesday in Florida's death chamber.

The inmate, 64, had originally been scheduled to die by lethal injection this week at the Florida State Prison in Bradford. A new date and time must now be set.

On Wednesday, lawyer Christopher Handman said he was “disappointed” by the decision. He plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“No justice will be served by executing a very sick, elderly man,” Handman said.

In his order, Glant acknowledged that Ferguson has a history of schizophrenia but that he exists now trouble free in prison and “there is no evidence that he does not understand” why he is to be executed.

Christopher Handsman, Ferguson’s attorney, said, “It is impossible to fathom that the State can constitutionally put to death a man who thinks he is the Prince of God and who believes he has a destiny of being the right hand of God and returning to purify earth after the State tries to kill him. That simply is not a rational appreciation for what's about to befall him. We are confident that either the Florida Supreme Court or the U.S. Supreme Court will prevent this unconstitutional execution from going forward."

If Ferguson dances past Death Row this time, lawyers say he will not become a patient in a state-operated psychiatric hospital. He may become part of the prison’s general population. Or end up in solitary, presumably to protect other inmates.

But that still leaves the central question moot. Should mentally ill people be executed? Death obviously ends any hope of “correction,” which is what prison systems mostly call themselves (but rarely do). It also costs taxpayers a lot of money.

Should they be sent to prison? If they are, there’s always the danger of violent harm to other inmates. If they are sent to solitary to avoid that, many prisoners have said they’d rather be dead.

Even in a state psychiatric hospital – if there was one -- there’s the possibility of danger to other patients.

But in prison, or in hospital, there is some chance of personal improvement, however small.
These are just a few of the complex options facing lawyers and judges and friends of the court as they ponder the fate of a sick old man.

But it occurs to me they may be asking the wrong question. They want to know if Ferguson understands and appreciates what’s happening to him NOW. But wouldn’t a better test be whether or not he understood what was happening when he became a mass murderer?

War is Big Business

By William Fisher

When armed conflict breaks out in one of the world’s developing nations, members of the UN Security Council often sit late into the night searching for solutions. They rarely find them.

The Council members appear to be – or pretend to be -- unaware that their problem has been self-inflicted. The irony they miss is that the conflict likely began with military hardware sold to the warring factions by members of the same Security Council – with the enthusiastic government support of the sales campaign.

We can infer all this because of a report prepared annually by the Congressional Research Service to provide Congress with official, unclassified, quantitative data on conventional arms transfers to developing nations by the United States and foreign countries for the preceding eight calendar years for use in its policy oversight functions.
Ordinarily quasi-confidential, we can study this report thanks to the Federation of American Scientists, which made it available. The principal focus is the level of arms transfers by major weapons suppliers to nations in the developing world.
What do we learn from the CRS Report?

We learn from the authors, Richard F. Grimmett and Paul K. Kerr of CRS, that in 2011, the United States ranked first in arms transfer agreements with developing nations with over $56.3 billion or 78.7% of these agreements, an extraordinary increase in market share from 2010, when the United States held a 43.6% market share. In second place was Russia with $4.1 billion or 5.7% of such agreements.
We learn that in 2011, the United States ranked first in the value of arms deliveries to developing nations at $10.5 billion, or 37.6% of all such deliveries. Russia ranked second in these deliveries at $7.5 billion or 26.8%.
We learn that “developing nations continue to be the primary focus of foreign arms sales activity by weapons suppliers.” And we learn that, during the years 2004-2011, “the value of arms transfer agreements with developing nations comprised 68.6% of all such agreements worldwide.”

More recently, CRS reports that “arms transfer agreements with developing nations constituted 79.2% of all such agreements globally from 2008-2011, and 83.9% of these agreements in 2011.”

CRS added, “The value of all arms transfer agreements with developing nations in 2011 was over $71.5 billion. This was a substantial increase from $32.7 billion in 2010. In 2011, the value of all arms deliveries to developing nations was $28 billion, the highest total in these deliveries values since 2004.”

Recently, from 2008 to 2011, the United States and Russia have dominated the arms market in the developing world, with both nations either ranking first or second for each of these four years in the value of arms transfer agreements.
From 2008 to 2011, the United States made nearly $113 billion in such agreements, 54.5% of all these agreements (expressed in current dollars). Russia made $31.1 billion, 15% of these agreements. During this same period, collectively, the United States and Russia made 69.5% of all arms transfer agreements with developing nations, ($207.3 billion in current dollars) during this four-year period.
In worldwide arms transfer agreements in 2011-to both developed and developing nations-the United States dominated, ranking first with $66.3 billion in such agreements or 77.7% of all such agreements. This is the highest single year agreements total in the history of the U.S. arms export program. Russia ranked second in worldwide arms transfer agreements in 2011with $4.8 billion in such global agreements or 5.6%. The value of all arms transfer agreements worldwide in 2011 was $85.3 billion, a substantial increase over the 2010 total of $44.5 billion, and the highest worldwide arms agreements total since 2004.
In 2011, Saudi Arabia ranked first in the value of arms transfer agreements among all developing nations weapons purchasers, concluding $33.7 billion in such agreements. The Saudis concluded $33.4 billion of these agreements with the United States (99%). India ranked second with $6.9 billion in such agreements. The United Arab Emirates (U.A.E) ranked third with $4.5 billion.

The authors point out that “data in this report provides a means for Congress to identify existing supplier-purchaser relationships in conventional weapons acquisitions. Use of these data can assist Congress in its oversight role of assessing how the current nature of the international weapons trade might affect U.S. national interests.”

For most of recent American history, maintaining regional stability and ensuring the security of U.S. allies and friendly nations throughout the world have been important elements of U.S. foreign policy. Knowing the extent to which individual arms suppliers are transferring arms to individual nations or regions provides Congress with a context for evaluating policy questions it may confront. The nations of the Middle East are America’s largest customers, particularly Saudi Arabia.

The CRS report says ”the value of all arms transfer agreements worldwide (to both developed and developing nations) in 2011 was $85.3 billion. This was an extraordinary increase in arms agreements values (91.7%) over the 2010 total of $44.5 billion. This total in 2011 is by far the highest worldwide arms agreements total since 2004.”
In 2011, “the United States led in arms transfer agreements worldwide, making agreements valued at $66.3 billion (77.7% of all such agreements), an extraordinary increase from $21.4 billion in 2010. The United States worldwide agreements total in 2011 is the largest for a single year in the history of the U.S. arms export program. Russia ranked second with $4.8 billion in agreements (5.6% of these agreements globally), down significantly from $8.9 billion in 2010. The United States and Russia collectively made agreements in 2011 valued at over $71 billion, 83.3% of all international arms transfer agreements made by all suppliers,” the Report says.
For the period 2008-2011, the total value of all international arms transfer agreements ($261.8 billion in current dollars) was higher than the worldwide value during 2004-2007 ($206.1 billion in current dollars). During the period 2004-2007, developing world nations accounted for 66.7% of the value of all arms transfer agreements made worldwide. During 2008-2011, developing world nations accounted for 79.2% of all arms transfer agreements made globally. In 2011, developing nations accounted for 83.9% of all arms transfer agreements made worldwide.

In 2011, CRS ranks the United States first in the value of all arms deliveries worldwide, making nearly $16.2 billion in such deliveries or 36.5%. This is the eighth year in a row that the United States has led in global arms deliveries. Russia ranked second in worldwide arms deliveries in 2011, making $8.7 billion in such deliveries. The United Kingdom ranked third in 2011.

So the bottom line is that international arms sales are big, very big business and, rather than doing anything to discourage it, the richer nations of the world are doubling down to increase the volume and type.

So why should we have been surprised when, during the Egyptian Revolution last spring, a teargas canister marked “made in USA” turned up in the hands of Mubarak loyalists in Tahrir Square.

OK, it’s time now for Ike. Dwight David Eisenhower tends to be remembered for three things only.

He was a Republican, yet an unbending champion of Social Security. In 1952, he said:
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.”
In the same year, Ike became the father of the Federal Interstate Highway Program.
And in his 1961 Farewell Address, he delivered a stern message unusual for a plain vanilla politician, much less a 5-star general. Here’s what he said:
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

Well, our politicians got it pretty much right on Social Security, despite the privatizing efforts of George W. Bush and Republican vice presidential contender Paul Ryan.

But they all got it wrong on international arms sales. How could they resist? Manufacturing military hardware would create jobs in Congressional Districts. Abroad, military capability could help developing nations to discourage aggressors, perhaps even push them back. They could also use their shiny new toys to slaughter innocent demonstrators in Tahir Square, exactly the way Mubarak and his henchmen did.

The National Rifle Association is fond of repeating its favorite mantra, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.”

Geopolitically, they’re right. From a Washington DC perspective -- or Moscow or Tehran, or Jerusalem or Pyongyang – arms sales become a matter of survival. That’s when people kill people.

With the guns and tanks and planes and rockets we sold them.

Pamela Geller and her billboard message

The article below is the work of Prof. Lawrence Davidson, who teaches history at West Chester University.

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Back on 1 August 2012 I posted a piece entitled History on a Billboard. It reported on the placement, in the northern suburbs of New York City, of informational billboards with maps of Palestine showing the steady growth of Israeli confiscated territory and the corresponding shrinkage of territory available to the indigenous Palestinians. It also told the observer that “4.7 million Palestinians are classified by the UN as Refugees.” Although Zionists labelled the billboard as “anti-Semitic,” it was nothing of the kind. It was wholly informational, and completely accurate.


As it turns out that informational effort is now part of a growing number of ads, signs and messages which collectively make up what I call the “billboard wars.” From San Francisco to Washington D.C. and New York City, both Zionists and pro-Palestinian groups have launched competing billboard efforts. This is going on mostly in publicly owned spaces because Zionist pressure often results in private billboard companies refusing to display pro-Palestinian messages. Now, depending on how you want to read the message of the latest Zionist effort, the billboard wars battleground has widened beyond the issue of Palestine to encompass a worldwide clash between the “civilized” and the “savage.” It is to be noted that this was the sort of language used by imperial colonizers, including the U.S. in its conquest of the American Indians, to compare themselves to the indigenous populations they oppressed.

This is what has happened. There is a Zionist group calling itself “American Freedom Defense Initiative” (AFDI) led by the infamous American Islamophobe Pamela Geller. This organization has produced a sign that reads,

"In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad."

Geller and AFDI aimed at placing this message on buses, subways, and in other public venues but initially had difficulty because most transportation agencies saw it as discriminatory and provocative. However, AFDI went to court and a federal judge found that their sign was an act of “free speech” protected by the First Amendment. Therefore, in late September, those people of New York City who ride the buses and subways found Pamela Gelller’s message in their faces. Most, of course, will pay it little mind. Yet, we should not ignore it. It is part of a propaganda effort with potentially damaging consequences.

Part II - Analyzing the Message

The AFDI and Geller juxtapose Israel on the one side and Jihadists on the other. My experience with over a thousand college students since 9/11 is that, for Americans, the term Jihadists means Al-Qaeda operatives. Most Americans do not associate this term with Palestinians. And, believe it or not, while those associated with Al Qaeda have badmouthed Israel, they have yet to make war on that country. So, what are these Zionists talking about? Well, they are probably trying to broaden out the definition of a Jihadist to include not only Palestinians, but the entire Muslim world. That would be consistent with their Islamaphobe worldview. In addition, they are saying that Israel represents “the civilized man” who has declared war on the same enemy that has made war on the United States. By asking Americans to “support Israel” they are reinforcing the notion that the U.S. and Israel are allies.

Second - Is the AFDI correct in telling us that Israel is the “civilized man?” Only in their own ahistorical fantasy. If you care to live in a world driven by the facts then Israel is rendered “the savage.” There is a lot of evidence for this.

1. On 10 October 2012 the Harvard researcher Sara Roy gave a devastating critique of what Israel, backed up by the United States, has done in the Gaza Strip. Gaza, with its population approaching two million Palestinians, is now the most densely populated place on earth. It is also the world’s most crowded open air prison. The Israeli blockade, illegal under international law, has slowly but surely destroyed the water supply, the sewage systems, the economic structure as a whole. The Israelis will tell you that Hamas, which governs Gaza, wants to destroy Israel. But that is only wishful thinking on the part of Hamas for they haven’t the ability to destroy anything. Israel, on the other hand, wishes to destroy the Palestinian people and they do have that capacity. In Gaza, as well as the West Bank, they are slowly doing so. This is genocide in slow motion.

2. Sara Roy is an extremely knowledgable American Jewish academic, but there are plenty of other sources, some of them Israeli, that will back up and expand on her critique. Here are a few of them:

-- B’tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights
-- Rabbis For Human Rights
-- Palestine Center for Human Rights-- Jewish Voices for Peace

Looking at the websites of these organizations reveals a litany of on-going barbaric policies and actions perpetrated upon mostly unarmed Palestinians who have nothing at all to do with Jihadists. Indeed, to act as Israel does in this regard is to qualify a good number of its citizens (though not all) as savages. So to be true to the facts AFDI’s sign should really read as follows,

"In any war between savage one (Israel) and savage two (Al Qaeda), AFDI urges Americans to support savage number one. This is so even though Israel is not fighting Jihadists but rather genocidally destroying Palestinians."
That would be historically accurate, although it would put the situation in a distinctly different light than does Ms Geller’s propaganda.

The end of the billboard wars is not yet in sight. AFDI’s message is aimed at an American audience and thus can also be read as an attempt to promote Islamophobia just before a presidential election.
To counter the racist aspect of this message, the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has placed sixteen foot signs in the metro stations of Washington D.C. that are designed to “promote mutual understanding and challenge hate.” Their signs quote from the Quran: “show forgiveness, speak for justice and avoid the ignorant.”

Part III -- Conclusion

The unfortunate thing is that, in these sort of confrontations, Geller and her ilk have the odds on their side. This is because all the peace seekers are ultimately at the mercy of the violent and hateful extremists on both sides. However, in the U.S. the media will only tell you about the Jihadists. Therefore, all it takes is one Al-Qaeda attack on an American target to send the CAIR message into oblivion. On the other hand the Israeli government and its settler allies can act out the Zionist version of ethnic cleansing daily and the American public will rarely, if ever, hear about it.

The truth is there are fewer civilized men and women than we like to believe. The ones in power, regardless of the nationstate, only rarely behave in civilized ways. The bulk of the citizens either give support to or are indifferent toward their leader’s actions. The small remainder, who are indeed candidates for the category of civilized people, are left to struggle against a strong and consistent counter-current. This is nowhere more true than in the state of Israel.

Such then, for all of us, is the heart of darkness.