When he notes the US is a police state:
Siddiqui has never been charged with any terrorism-related offense. A British journalist, hearing her piercing screams as she was being tortured, disclosed her presence. An embarrassed U.S. government responded to the disclosure by sending Siddiqui to the U.S. for trial on the trumped-up charge that while a captive, she grabbed a U.S. soldier’s rifle and fired two shots attempting to shoot him. The charge apparently originated as a U.S. soldier’s excuse for shooting Dr. Siddiqui twice in the stomach, resulting in her near death.
On Feb. 4, Dr. Siddiqui was convicted by a New York jury for attempted murder. The only evidence presented against her was the charge itself and an unsubstantiated claim that she had once taken a pistol-firing course at an American firing range. No evidence was presented of her fingerprints on the rifle that this frail and broken 100-pound woman had allegedly seized from an American soldier. No evidence was presented that a weapon was fired, no bullets, no shell casings, no bullet holes. Just an accusation.
Wikipedia has this to say about the trial: “The trial took an unusual turn when an FBI official asserted that the fingerprints taken from the rifle, which was purportedly used by Aafia to shoot at the U.S. interrogators, did not match hers.”
An ignorant and bigoted American jury convicted her for being a Muslim. This is the kind of “justice” that always results when the state hypes fear and demonizes a group.
Siddiqui was an American citizen, by the way. Seized and held in a secret prison, tortured and raped. This is your America.
Your America.
Anyone can be next. Indeed, on Feb. 3 Dennis Blair, director of national intelligence told the House Intelligence Committee that it was now “defined policy” that the U.S. government can murder its own citizens on the sole basis of someone in the government’s judgment that an American is a threat. No arrest, no trial, no conviction, just execution on suspicion of being a threat.
This shows how far the police state has advanced. A presidential appointee in the Obama administration tells an important committee of Congress that the executive branch has decided that it can murder American citizens abroad if it thinks they are a threat….
In no previous death of a U.S. citizen by the hands of the U.S. government has the government claimed the right to kill Americans without arrest, trial, and conviction of a capital crime.
Go read the whole thing.
And, if there is a God, may Barack Obama and Dennis Blair face him along with George Bush, because no, the difference isn’t enough to matter.
Certainly not to Siddiqui.
As Jesus said “as you do to these, the least of my children, you do to me”. I wonder how Jesus is taking being raped, bombed and tortured so regularly by Obama and Bush.
As for me, I won’t pretend that I don’t despise Obama almost as much as I despised Bush. Maybe more, since there’s evidence that George Bush is a brain damaged psyhcopath (he is known to have tortured animals as a child, one of the cardinal signs and recordings of him speaking in the early 90s show fluent speech without “Bushisms”).
Obama should know better, but if he does, he doesn’t care enough to do anything about it, to the contrary, he keeps making it worse.
S Brennan
Ian,
I disagree about Obama, I think his background, when examined, shows the core being of a sociopath. From an earlier comment:
“Pres. Obama only contact with the Afro-American community was the
servants that worked in his household and he did not think enough of them to
merit mention, so it could not have been that close of a relationship.
Now clearly his mother lacked “empathy” and was in the vernacular of day, a
“cold” mother, indifferent to the needs of a young Barry and that
was…truly a hardship. However, such hardship is not that of poverty and
does not usually create empathy, rather it has a tendency to produce
sociopaths who lack the quality of empathy.
The fact that Obama has continually obscured his wealthy background and the
despicable treatment by his mother should be seen as further evidence that
he does not wish to come to terms with it, instead he seeks the approval of
powerful people to validate himself and anneal childhood wounds which
weren’t poverty, but an uncaring mother. “
Lex
Why it’s like being in Volume 1 of The Gulag Archipelago. Those of you who’ve gotten through the whole work know that we’ve got a long, long way to go. Only in America, apparently actual juries will be happy to do the dirty work. Show trials are unnecessary.
tjfxh
The politicians and black services get away with this because it’s what a majority of Americans want. Sad but true. Very bad karma that is bound to result in huge blowback.
Mandos
Yes, it’s what the majority of Americans want. Why else would it be so controversial to try Gitmo prisoners on US soil, in normal courts?
anonymous
Sad and scary. And it makes you wonder why they are so worried about trying terrorists on US soil. I don’t think she could have got a more unfair trial anywhere else in the world.
Formerly T-Bear
Its starting to look like Clinton had the last legitimate administration. What has been presented so far of this administration certainly fails for legitimacy. There is no prospect on the horizon for a legitimate administration. It appears the Republic is dead and rotten to its core, only the afterimage of the Republic remains, an ephemeral myth.
Hairhead
That’s why I have refused to travel to the U.S. for the last five years — it is a police state, with arbitrary arrest, indefinite detention, torture, and extra-judicial execution. Even though I’m not in a “target” group, for instance, like a Muslim, or a dark-skinned person, and as such not too likely to be snatched up, the idea of supporting, with my travel or tourism dollars, such a regime, revolts me. And I wouldn’t travel to Zimbabwe either.
Badtux
What I can’t figure out is why this lady’s attorneys requested a trial by jury. I think it’s well known that if you’re innocent but a member of some detested minority, it’s better to request a trial by judge, where the decision is more likely to be made on the basis of law than on the basis of prejudice. Or was the option of a trial by judge not an option here for some reason? (Sorry, not really all that up on federal law in capital cases).
Other than that, can’t say I’m impressed any more than you by Obama’s record on state power. A civil libertarian he ain’t.
– Badtux the Disappointed Penguin
Formerly T-Bear
@ Badtux
All too often a trial by judge is an assumption of guilt w/o admission. If you look, the judicial system is as broke as California. Judges are not interested in law if it can be avoided. Justice is just a handy myth, camouflage to fool the rubes. When a judge must use the permission of police as verification for re-election to the position, equality for defendants in that court disappears. Or you can continue coding yourself.
This woman was identified as a prisoner at Bagram being tortured, her children have disappeared, she has witnessed the nadir of American Justice, and the fact she is a human being, probably innocent, seems to have escaped all.
tatere
Meanwhile the Sensible Liberals are bragging about this case:
jawbone
This may be a double post, but I can’t find my first attempt:
SBrennen, do you have a link for the quotes about Obama?