Max's Politburo

"McCain's worst idea yet..."

McCain's campaign scales new absurdist heights, as described in this article.  Read it to believe it.

The other war on terror -- Somalia

Has anyone been keeping track of US offensive military activity outside the theatres of Afghanistan and Iraq?  I thought about it recently upon finding a news item -- buried deep inside one of the free tube papers -- of another, the fifth (!) US air strike on targets inside Somalia in the past 18 months.

Not so long ago, staging an attack on (or in) a foreign country required congressional approval.  In fact, not so long ago the US took the moral high ground and declared presidential assassination orders illegal.  It was a strong message to send to the world, drawing a line under the Vietnam war and assassination attemps on Castro.  It was a message that served to underpin America's position as a beacon of freedom and good intentions.  That sure does seem a long time ago now...

Who am I to doubt the veracity of US intelligence agencies tracking high-value terrorist targets around the world?  But even so, I wonder whether the ol' checks and balances shouldn't apply here too.  While not as duplicitous as the US bombing of Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam war, these attacks get scant attention from the media.  I can't assess their true value in the war on terror, but it's clear that they have a disproportionately galvanising effect on Islamic opinion against America.  But maybe because Somalia is a failed state, it doesn't matter, or at least no one cares... 

I am no doubt a cynic, and it's possible that these targets will turn out to be worthwhile, but at the moment it doesn't seem like anyone is actually keeping track. 

So here's a quick tally to date:

May 1, 2008: precision-guided missiles fired from an offshore location hit the town of Dusamareb and destroyed the home of Aden Hashi Ayro, the military leader of Somali militia al-Shabab, which controls most of the country.  Various accounts put the death toll at between 10 and 30.  The US Central Command called him a "known al-Qaeda leader".  The BBC describes al-Shahab thus:

Considered a terrorist group by the US, al-Shabab began as the youth and military wing of the Somali Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which controlled much of southern and central Somalia in 2006.

When, at the end of that year, the UIC was driven from power by Ethiopian troops supporting the country's transitional government, al-Shabab melted away into remote and distant parts of the country.

It has since re-emerged as a radicalised group of young fighters, who have been conducting an insurgency against the government and its Ethiopian allies, and attacking African Union peacekeepers.

The US has said al-Shabab is part of the al-Qaeda network, although analysts say it is impossible to accurately establish those links. Al-Shabab's leaders insist it is a purely Somali movement.

March 3, 2008: two Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from a US Navy submarine hit a house in Dhoble (Dobley), southern Somalia, possibly killing six people, variously described as "known al-Qaeda terrorists" (Pentagon spokesman) and "Islamist politicians" (local district commander).  The owner of the house claims his daughter and 4 cows were killed.  Kenyan sources later said that the real target -- Kenyan Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, wanted in connection with the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam -- had left the scene shortly before the attack.

June 21, 2007: a US Navy ship fired missiles at "Islamist fighters and foreign jihadists" in the mountains of northern Puntland.  Somali sources claimed 6 people were killed, including one carrying a British passport and one an American passport, alongside a Swede and a Yemenite.

January 8, 2007: twice in a day, a US AC-130 gunship fired on cornered Islamists fleeing from Ethiopian and Somalian troops.  Apparently a small contingent of US Special Forces followed the bombings to investigate the outcome.

Whatever happened to.... The Detroit Four?

Remember the four Arab men arrested in Detroit on terrorism charges in June 2003?  You might recall the endless replay of their home video of Disneyland and Las Vegas, which purported to prove that they were casing 'strategic' targets for an attack. 

It seemed faintly ridiculous even at the time, but three of the men were in fact convicted for 'providing material support to terrorists', primarily because they had been unlucky enough to move into an apartment previously occupied by an al-Qaeda suspect.  The government alleged that Moroccan native Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi was the ring leader of a conspiracy to provide safe houses, weapons and target information for attacks in Jordan, Turkey and the US.  The full text of the indictment is here.

The prosecution was bolstered by an informant who had lived with the men and and seemed eager to testify that they were extremists plotting an attack on the US. This recent article on Salon.com reminded me of the original story.

Following the high-profile arrests, the Bush administration held the case up as an example of a successful prevention of a terrorist attack.  So whatever happened to them?

In 2004, with little media coverage, the convictions were thrown out by a judge, and the prosecuting attorneys were tried (but not convicted) for criminal misconduct for having withheld and possibly manipulated evidence.  The DoJ complaint against the prosecutor is detailed here.

The informant in the case turned out to be "a self-described scam artist".  Prosecutor Richard Convertino claimed in a later whistleblower filing that he was pressured by Attorney General John Ashcroft to withhold exculpatory evidence from the defence. 

The Justice Department, following an internal investigation, admitted widespread prosecutorial misconduct and had the case thrown out altogether in early 2004.  The terrorism charges were dropped.  USA Today covered the story inside here, and here is a summary of New York Times coverage.

But the story did not quite end there.  Elmardoudi has remained in custody since then.  In 2007, he pleaded guilty to social security fraud, and a few months ago he was sentenced to 5 years in prison (most of which already served).  In fact, the whole crew (including the informant) appear to have been part of a minor ring falsifying documents, including social security cards (for opening bank accounts) and credit cards.  According to the Iowa McClatchy-Tribune:

Elmardoudi came to the US in 1966 as a child and has been a lawful permanent resident since 2000, living in Chicago and Dearborn.  In 2000 he caught the attention of authorities looking into "shoulder surfing" -- copying phone access numbers while callers are dialing-- at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, court records show. He fled from a Minnesota halfway house in 2001 and met up with Moroccans Brahim Sidi and Youssef Hmimssa in Chicago.  They produced fake immigration documents and brought people to Waterloo, Iowa City and Dubuque to use the bogus paperwork to apply for Social Security numbers, records state. The numbers allowed their clients to obtain jobs.

Elmardoudi is now in the custody of the US Marshals Service, and may be deported.

One of the other men, Karim Koubriti, recently sued the prosecuting attorney for $9 million, claiming his life was destroyed by the false terrorism allegation and the 3 years he spent in jail.  In the meantime the government has been creative in finding other ways to keep him locked up.  He is currently negotiating a plea bargain related to a 2001 allegation that he falsely told an insurance company he was injured in a car crash.

The disgraced prosecutor, Richard Convertino, faces continuing legal troubles of his own.  Following his grand jury indictment and subsequent acquittal, he resigned from the Detroit attorney general's office in 2005.  He then filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department effectively claiming slander.  The DoJ fired back detailing Convertino's alleged misrepresentations going back to his college days.  A lot of the gory detail can be found in the Detroit News interview excerpted here.

Recently a judge ruled that Convertino is not immune from the civil lawsuit being filed against him by Koubriti, and that the government need not pay the costs of his defense. Ouch. The local press has been making hay over Convertino for some time: "Many colleagues saw Convertino as a case-hogging cowboy who was more than due for a comeuppance." 

This being Americaaa, Convertino's private practice seems none the worse for wear, sporting the front-page testimonial from (his?) university football coach: "Rick Convertino is 'A Warrior'".

Betancourt rescued

Well, this is big news.  And oddly perfect timing too, just as Uribe is angling to change the constitution once again to enable him to run for a third term.  With approval ratings of 80% before Betancourt's release, this now seems almost a certainty.

Incredible and worrying how -- the past 10 years -- constitution-tampering seems to have become a worldwide political sport.

Teenagers at Guantanamo

For a few years post-9/11 the US had the benefit of the doubt.  Bush was given pretty wide latitude to interpret US laws aggressively in order to pursue the war on terror.  Most countries were happy to turn a blind eye -- even collaborate -- with the CIA's rendition programme and other tactics by this deeply aggrieved nation.  But this article in Salon.com reminds us just how far this has gone, and why that goodwill has been so squandered...  Here's an excerpt:

June 24, 2008 | GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba -- When Mohammed Jawad took the stand in a courtroom at the U.S. Naval base here late last week, he described a litany of abuse he has endured while detained at Guantánamo, including a sleep deprivation regime known colloquially as the "frequent flyer" program.

"Day and night, they were shifting me from one room to another room," Jawad said. "I don't remember how much time I slept, but it was only a short time before they were knocking on my door and shifting me from place to place. No one answered me why they were giving me this punishment."

Military records showed that during a 14-day period in May 2004, Jawad was moved from cell to cell 112 times, usually left in one cell for less than three hours before being shackled and moved to another. Between midnight and 2 a.m. he was moved more frequently to ensure maximum disruption of sleep.

Such tactics used against a detainee would have been severe under any circumstances -- Department of Defense guidance limits sleep deprivation to a maximum of four days -- but in the case of Jawad, they are particularly disturbing because he was a scared and suicidal teenager at the time. Jawad's military-appointed lawyer, Maj. David Frakt, described the tactics as "sadistic and pointless," and moved to dismiss the charges against his client on grounds of torture.

Jawad was arrested by Afghan police in December 2002 after allegedly throwing a grenade into a U.S. army vehicle in Afghanistan that severely injured two U.S. soldiers and their Afghan translator. Frakt argues that Jawad was drugged and forced to fight with Afghan militia. Jawad doesn't know his exact birth date, but was 16 or 17 years old at the time. In early 2003, he was brought to Guantánamo.

According to government records obtained by the Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act, more than 20 detainees under the age of 18 have been brought to the prison camp since 2002. The treatment of underage prisoners at Guantánamo, largely in defiance of international law, is one of various ways in which the Bush administration's policies have tainted prospects for Guantánamo detainees ever to be brought to justice under U.S. law.

Although most of the 20 juvenile detainees have now been released, three remain, having spent more than a quarter of their lives at Guantánamo. The other two juvenile detainees were each only 15 years old when they were apprehended. Mohammad El Gharani was arrested at a mosque in Pakistan and brought to Guantánamo in early 2002. Omar Khadr, a Canadian, was apprehended in July 2002 after a firefight in Afghanistan that resulted in the death of a U.S. soldier. Held for several months in Afghanistan, he was barely 16 when he arrived here later that same year.

Vengeful justice breeds radicals

How on earth do two wrongs make a right here??

The wife of one of the failed July 21 suicide bombers was jailed for 15 years yesterday for keeping secret details of his plot to cause carnage on the London Underground.

Yeshi Girma, 32, who has three children by the bomber Hussein Osman, wept throughout the hearing at the Old Bailey and threw her hands in the air as the sentence was handed down.

Her sister, Mulu Girma, 24, a model, and brother, Esayas Girma, 22, were each jailed for ten years for helping Osman to escape a police manhunt and withholding information from the authorities.

Judge Paul Worsley told the three siblings that the sentences he was able to pass by law were "woefully inadequate to reflect the enormity of what you were about in July 2005".

How does locking up Yeshi Girma help in any way?  All I see is three radicalised children growing up without a mother, aunt or uncle...

Is her sentence a deterrent to other young plotters' wives?  I doubt it.