A Spanish court has taken the first steps toward opening a criminal investigation into allegations that six former high-level Bush administration officials violated international law by providing the legal framework to justify the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, an official close to the case said.Right on right on. Because not only were these War Crimes and betrayals of American tradition and reputation, these were ineffective, harmful measures:Judge Garzón, however, has built an international reputation by bringing high-profile cases against human rights violators as well as international terrorist networks like Al Qaeda. The arrest warrant for General Pinochet led to his detention in Britain, although he never faced a trial. The judge has also been outspoken about the treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay.
Spain can claim jurisdiction in the case because five citizens or residents of Spain who were prisoners at Guantánamo Bay have said they were tortured there. The five had been indicted in Spain, but their cases were dismissed after the Spanish Supreme Court ruled that evidence obtained under torture was not admissible.
The massive incompetence of the Cheney Administration is matched only by it's venality and corruption, Okay, that's two things it's matched by. It was a very, very dark time, and it only ended a few months ago.When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him.
The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.
In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said...
...Abu Zubaida was not even an official member of al-Qaeda...
Emergency officials more than doubled the number of ships and cleanup workers attacking the massive oil spill throughout the Bay Area on Saturday - while hundreds of frustrated citizens who tried to help were turned away from contaminated beaches and so-called training sessions.
The armada of governmental and private boats on the water either searching for oily messes or mopping them up grew from 11 to 46, the Coast Guard reported, and the number of people working cleanup shifts increased from 300 to 770. Three helicopters did flyovers all day to pinpoint the worst contamination spots.
"I assure you, that's not where we're stopping," said Coast Guard Rear Adm. Craig Bone, who for days has been fending off criticism of his agency's response to the crisis. "In the next few days you'll see hundreds more people arriving on these beaches."
The 65,131-ton ship hit the second tower west of Yerba Buena Island at 8:30 a.m., causing a gash more than 100 feet long in the ship's hull and releasing 58,000 gallons of fuel into the bay. The resulting oil slick has spread as far north as Tomales Bay, fouling or killing more than 100 birds.
It was the first time a commercial ship had hit the bridge and is the worst oil spill in the bay since 1996.
Immediately after the accident, Capt. Peter McIsaac, president of the San Francisco Bar Pilots, boarded a boat and headed for the Cosco Busan, then just off Treasure Island. He said oil was pouring out of a gash in the ship.
"I've never seen oil going into the water like that," he said.
The Cosco Busan struck a tower of the Bay Bridge on Wednesday morning in dense fog, creating a long slash along the ship that allowed bunker fuel to spill into the water.
The Coast Guard initially called the spill minor but later realized the amount of fuel was greater than first thought. Environmentalists criticized the Coast Guard for not notifying other agencies fast enough and for being slow to put inflatable booms on the water's surface to prevent oil from spreading...
...Tides carried the bunker fuel towards the Pacific Ocean under the Golden Gate Bridge and people near the spill on Wednesday reported headaches and nausea. The spill reached the famed former prison island of Alcatraz and as far north as Marin County, environmentalists said.
Eighteen years later and still not paid. Who says you can't buy justice?Many people remember that the Exxon Valdez tanker went aground and gushed 200,000 gallons of oil a minute into the waters of Alaska's Prince William Sound. And that its captain allegedly was drunk. It is harder to recall just how long ago that was — March 1989, more than 18 years ago.
It was the largest oil spill in the United States. It dominated the news and became part of the national culture.
But in the United States every really big story happens twice — first the thing itself, and then the trial.
The Exxon Valdez trial occurred five years later, in federal district court in Alaska. The plaintiffs were fishermen and natives claiming that their livelihoods had been destroyed by the spill, and the principal defendant was Exxon, which owned the now-immortal tanker.
It was a jury trial. It lasted for months. And then the 12 jurors deliberated and debated. And decided. They came in with a punitive damage award of $5 billion against Exxon. (Compensatory damages of $286 million had been awarded in another phase of the trial.)
That decision was on Sept. 16, 1994. Exxon quickly filed an appeal on the punitive award.
That was more than 13 years ago.
And for those 13 years, the case has remained in the seamless limbo known as appeal. It is as if time stopped. The matter went to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and there it stayed, shrouded by mystery and fog, like Skull Island. From time to time small fleets of litigants tried to approach and were themselves enveloped in the eerie mists.
Many plaintiffs died. No matter. Advantage moved from one side to the other, with no end in sight.
Then last week, the fog thickened. The Supreme Court granted certiorari, and so those plaintiffs still clinging to life will have to keep on waiting to see whether they get their money — the pot is now about $4.7 billion, because during the appeals process the sum was lowered but interest has kicked in.
Mitchum hired the hottest lawyer in Hollywood, Jerry Geisler, who managed to get his trial postponed until January 10, when he was found guilty of 'conspiracy to possess' marijuana. Despite submitting a written plea for probation - in which he did crawl somewhat to the judge - on 9 February, 1949, Mitchum was obliged to spend the next two months in the county jail. Laconic Bob wasn't too put out by it, though. A famous photograph records his reaction and Bob's sardonic expression says something like, 'Don't confuse me with someone who gives a shit'. He later described prison as being "like Palm Springs without the riff raff."
Mitchum was to cool to care. Photographs from the jail showed prisoner 91234 mopping floors, his quiff flopping over his famously lidded eyes. He did his time without complaining and emerged with his career miraculously intact after Howard Hughes of RKO bought out his contract and put out a shelved Mitchum movie, Rachel And The Stranger, to test public opinion. Audiences cheered and applauded whenever he appeared on the screen.
It is an impressive show of public service when twelve prominent and distinguished current and former law professors of well-respected schools are able to amass their collective wisdom in the course of only several days to provide their legal expertise to the Court on behalf of a criminal defendant. The Court trusts that this is an indication of these eminent academics' willingness in the future to step to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this Court and throughout the courts of our nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions even in instances where failure to do so could result in monetary penalties, incarceration, or worse. The Court will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries, as necessary in the interests of justice and equity, whenever similar questions arise in the cases that come before it.
Judge Bork was scheduled to give a speech at the club, but he fell when mounting the dais, and injured his head and left leg. He alleges that the Yale Club is liable for the $1m plus punitive damages because they "wantonly, willfully, and recklessly" failed to provide staging which he could climb safely.More evidence that we're living in the post-ironic age? Or just run-of-the-mill Conservative hypocrisy?
