posted                         

quote:

---

Padilla was arrested in May at Chicago's O'Hare airport after disembarking from his plane from Pakistan and taken to a prison in New York City. Sunday, he was handed over to the military and labeled an "enemy combatant" — someone, in the Pentagon's words, "who does not adhere to the rules of war; someone without weapons, without ties to recognized governments." An enemy combatant may also be detained by a government for any length of time without ever being charged with a crime. This means Padilla, who is currently in military custody in South Carolina, is in a sort of legal limbo, where not even his lawyer knows exactly what his rights are. He has not yet been charged with a crime, and the government is in no hurry to do so; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says they are more interested in what Padilla knows about al-Qaeda than in prosecuting him.

This utter ambiguity distinguishes Padilla's circumstances from those of John Walker Lindh and Zacarias Moussaoui. Walker Lindh, also a U.S. citizen, was captured while fighting alongside Taliban forces in Afghanistan, in an obvious "war zone." Since his detention last fall, he has been transferred over from the military court system to the federal system; a step that will lend a new degree of transparency to Lindh's legal proceedings. Moussaoui, the suspected "20th hijacker," will also be tried in federal court, although he is not a U.S. citizen.

---

posted                      

quote:

---

The day you show up at a US airport and you are arrested and handed over to a bunch of rowdy soldiers because you have an Arab (sorry African) accent and nappy hair, that is when you will wake up from your dreamy lack of comprehension.

---

quote:

---

An Interesting Time to Be in America

By
Ndiribe A. A. Ndiribe

Suppose you meet an imaginary American from the
suburbs, affluent and frightened, and then in course
of a friendly conversation the question of security of
America arises.

“They hate us” she says, “all of them, very envious of
our power, and prestige, and wealth, and fame …”
You smile and say to her “ma’am, I don’t think anyone
hates America”

“You mean nobody hates America? You mean nobody hates
us for our money. You mean nobody hates us for what
America stands for. You mean nobody hates us for our
love of freedom? You mean nobody hates us for our love
of democracy? You mean nobody envies us as the only
remaining superpower in the world? Tell me seriously,
you mean all those Iranians don’t hate us? You mean
all those Iraqis like us? You mean all those North
Koreans, and Chinese, and Somalians, and Sudanese, and
Yemenis, and Libyans, and Cubans, and Egyptians, and
Saudi Arabians, and Kuwaitis, and Pakistanis, and
Afghanis and Moroccans, and Malaysians, and
Colombians, and Venezuelans, and Mexicans, and
Algerians, and Tunisians, and Turkish, and
Indonesians, and Philippinos, and Burmese, and
Argentians, and Africans (she thinks Africa is a
country)? You mean none of these hates America? Did
you see the attack on the twin towers? And the
Pentagon? And the loss of more than three thousand
lives? And you still say that nobody hates America?
Then you really hate America. Yes, you are the real
enemy.”

Angrily she walks away and soon fishes a cellular
phone out of her handbag. She makes a call. To whom?
Of course to the FBI (the Federal Bureau of
Investigation). She has found another enemy of
America. She has found another potential threat to
America. She has found a potential terrorist.

This little drama shows that America doesn’t want to
know that she is loved. American leaders want to
believe America is hated. And President Bush said,
Either you are with us or you are against us” Either
you believe with these Americans that America is hated
or you are the real enemy for preaching that America
is actually loved. As a matter of fact, this is what
the British Council found on its recent survey of Arab
Moslem youths. I made the same argument in
September/October 2001. If ou still don’t believe me,
ask Brian Lehrer of WNYC Radio in New York.
Sometimes I ask myself what life will be like if one
morning Americans wake up and their leaders stop
telling them that they are the most hated creatures on
earth.

Before I go any further, let me narrate an experience
I had this past Wednesday 12 June. I had gone to the
Hoboken Municipal Court (New Jersey) for reasons I
will fully describe in a future article. I walked into
the courtroom and sat down. I soon noticed a flurry of
activities. Soon a gun trotting orderly emerged where
there had been none. An FBI agent soon stood very
close to the wall. As if all these were not enough,
the trial judge, a young woman, left the bench in
perceptible haste. She was running, without the usual
grace with which the judge leaves the courtroom.

Earlier on when I arrived at the court, I had noticed
a young boy of about seven years leave the judge’s
chambers. Although it crossed my mind that this might
be the judge’s son, I did not make anything out of it.
So when the judge began to run, I looked and saw her
quickly evacuate her son from the building. Either the
building was at the risk of imminent collapse or
something very catastrophic was about to happen.

We waited for about fifteen minutes before the judge
returned after removing her son. As a woman sitting to
my left commented, ”this is ridiculous”. I agreed with
her.

What was the cause of this commotion? My presence in
that courtroom! I have been branded a threat to
America. I am now the enemy of American people, ready
to do them the most harm at the least opportunity.
This woman was therefore trying to save her son from
“a really bad guy”, to use the words of president Bush
and that “really bad guy” is me. For advising that
America should not use violence to solve acts of
violence, I have been blacklisted. I was furious but
this goes to show the mindset of the people we are
dealing with.

So in addition to the Lebanese, the Sudanese, the
Saudi Arabians, the Egyptians, the Palestinians, the
Kuwaitis, the Iranians, the Moroccans, the British,
the North Koreans, the Russians, the Libyans, and the
list goes on, America has one more enemy; the
Nigerians (for I am a Nigerian). Please tell me, where
does silliness end and stupidity begin? When does
stupidity become absurdity?

I have come to accept that prominence comes with some
collateral cost. I have come to accept official
eavesdropping into my conversations, the stealing of
my mails, the surreptitious investigation of my
dwelling place in the name of broken pipes and so on
and so forth, as part of the cost of owning public
opinion. That the FBI has a file on me (file #
388,99-- -- -- ) does not bother me because that is
part of nature here. There is a file on Martin Luther
King. There is a file on John F. Kennedy. There is a
file on Frank Sinatra. There is one on Malcolm X, as
there is on Albert Einstein, Paul Robeson, Mohamed
Ali, Nelson Mandela and every known leader in the
world today from the Pope to the Queen. As you can
see, my number is almost four million. Isn’t that a
large number of people? So if these people still live
their lives fully aware of the shadows, I always tell
myself, why not me?

But to think that of all people, I am going around
trying to blow up a municipal court is the height of
paranoia impelled by astonishing ignorance.
You will be tempted to ask: “Do you mean Americans,
all Americans, are ignorant? My answer is unqualified
NO. I have seen in this country the best of the human
person. I have seen in this country, people whose
heads and heart work together. I have met in this
country, in course of my daily routine some of the
finest and most dignified men and women of all races.
I have met in this country some of the most
responsible men and women God deigned to create. In
America, I have met men and women who have the courage
to say no to the reckless use of position or
privilege. I will give you some examples right away.

In 2000, I came across a cabal that was extorting
money from poor minorities in real estate
transactions. This cabal comprised of some of the
richest law firms in my state (New Jersey), court
officers and even judges. I brought this matter to the
attention of the relevant authorities in New Jersey.

The ‘cover office was closed won, and the cabal was
broken. The judges involved were sanctioned and the
supreme court of New Jersey developed new canons of
professional ethics for all judges in the State. The
system has been working fairly well ever since. Am I
now to condemn these public officers or these poor
victims of the cabal simply because they are
Americans? That will amount to stupidity embracing
ignorance.

When Governor Davis of California felt that energy
companies were gauching his people, he complained
aloud. But instead of ears he got boos. He was the
ignorant person who did not know what he was talking
about. That was almost two years ago. Today we know
better. We know that Governor Davis knew what he was
saying. Price fixing and scamming have become public
knowledge in the energy sector. Should I now condemn
Governor Davis and the good people of California
simply because they are Americans?

Move to predatory lending. I was one of the first
persons in this country to observe that the poor black
and minority families are losing their homes in great
number because of predatory lending. Today governments
at federal, state and local government levels are
making efforts to protect the general public from
these crooks. Am I now to blame these honorable men
and women who are doing the best for the poor and
exploited, simply because they are Americans?

Questionable accounting practices? The world knows my
views about this because in April of last year I said
it loud and clear at a UN sponsored conference. That
was long before the Enron debacle. Does every American
work for Arthur Anderson? Should I castigate even
those employees of Enron who lost their lives’ savings
in its bankruptcy?

Don’t think that I’m alone in the company of the
harried and heckled. Consider the current director of
the FBI, Mr. Bob Mueller. If you were in his position
and are being made to look so incompetent and
unorganized before the world, how would you feel? This
is a man who began his job seven days before the
September 11 carnage, who is now treated as a lazy
person who could not see through the glass wall. I
don’t know what his personal situation is, but he will
be agonizing daily over this calculated blackmail.

And for every Ndiribe and Robert Mueller, there are
tens of thousand of ordinary Americans who are being
intimidated and dragged along by a small, morbid
cabal. I know many Germans who have been forced to
changed their names because there is a strong interest
in branding every German a Nazist or a Nazi
sympathizer. Neither Italians nor Irish are faring
better. The situation is really getting sad and
sordid. The Catholic church knows too well the
political origins of its current travails.

So who is behind this politics of blackmail,
intimidation and smear campaign? Sure, America needs
more analysts. So test your skills in analysis. Pull a
piece of paper and write down the names of the CEOs,
CFO, COO, Treasurers and major decision-makers for
such companies as Enron, Dynergy, Arthur Anderson,
Xerox, Merrill Lynch, etc. Write down the names of the
managers of some of the most important predatory
lending companies in the United States.

Write down the names of the principal officers of
those involved in real estate fraud and the names of
those financial analysts that give strong buy rating
to junk stocks. Write down the names of the principal
officers of most of the companies that have filed for
bankruptcy since 1999. Find out what they have in
common and you would have started your journey in real
analytical thinking.

Don’t stop here. Find out about key decision makers in
many of the agencies and see what they have in common
with the group you have just identified. You will now
understand why the federal Government is in such a
state of legal conundrum. You will now understand the
remote sources of these ‘illegal’ laws. Remember that
the judges that were part of a racket in New Jersey
were using their positions to protect a cabal while
pretending that they were protecting the public. They
seemed holier than the Pope!

That is what is happening now at a grander level. You
can also see why we cannot blame Ashcroft, or
President Bush or Donald Rumsfeld. These people are
too far-removed to see and feel the game being played
by this cabal.

Become (for a moment) a student of history and start
looking for explanations. Look at what the Protocol
has to say. (protocol Number 10, paras 16&17)

16. “The president will, at our discretion, interpret
the sense of such of the existing laws as admit of
various interpretation; he will further annul them
when we indicate to him the necessity to do so,
besides this, he will have the right to propose
temporary laws, and even new departures in the
government constitutional working, the pretext both
for the one and the other being the requirements for
the supreme welfare of the State.

17. By such measure we shall obtain the power of
destroying little by little, step by step, all that at
the outset when we enter on our rights, we are
compelled to introduce into the constitutions of
States to prepare for the transition to an
imperceptible abolition of every kind of constitution,
and then the time is come to turn every form of
government into OUR DESPOTISM.(emphasis in original)
”
There are crooks in every race. There are crooks in
Africa. There are crooks in Asia. We have blacks who
abuse the system and we condemn them. We have whites
who abuse the system, and fellow whites condemn them.
What appears different is that amongst some Jewish
people, the mere criticism of the crooks amongst them
is seen as anti-semitism.

There is nothing anti-semitic about observing that
some Jews fall into the same category as some blacks
or whites. Even the Torah recognizes that there could
be ‘bad people’ amongst Jews. Respectable Jewish
leaders are beginning to question the image these
crooks create for fellow Jews, the same way Africans
battle the bad image African scammers create about
Africans worldwide.

Finally, this brood of robbers anchor themselves in
the Middle East conflict. They tend to pretend that
they support the State of Israel and so whoever
criticizes them is therefore against the State of
Israel. This is simply nonsense. I support the State
of Israel and have been working tirelessly for peace
in that sacred part of the globe.

Mayor Ed Koch supports the State of Israel but doesn’t
go to rob a bank in order to show his support. Support
for Israel should not be a cover for unethical
behavior, much of which has nothing to do with Israel.
What is the correlation between gambling with
depositors’ money and the State of Israel?

You will notice that I have not mentioned Al Qaedda
once in this article. This is because the term has
become a term for blackmail. It is no longer the real
word for a real group intent at attacking civilized
world. It is now a tool in the hands of some people
and their protectors for blackmailing dissidents.

Whenever I hear the word ‘al quaedda operative’ I
translate it to mean ‘this is a person the cabal does
not like’ and must be dealt with in an extra-judicial
manner. The term is synonymous with “We don’t want to
explain why we are maltreating him”

Americans and others living in America must understand
that this tactic is not new. It is used all over the
word by despots and tyrants. Anything could be done in
the name of national security as the protocol quoted
above clearly articulates. What is different and
sometimes baffling to some of us is that a nation with
a shining history of ferocious defense of freedom
should succumb to such a ploy.

Again this is because many of us fail to do our job as
keepers of tradition.

In Giles v Maryland 386 U.S 83(1963) Mr. Justice
Fortas made the point about secret evidence as
follows:
“A criminal trial is not a game in which the State’s
function is to outwit and entrap it’s quarry. The
State’s pursuit is justice not victim. If it has in
its exclusive possession specific concrete evidence …
which may exonerate the defendant or be of material
importance to the defense—regardless of whether it
relates to the testimony which the State has caused to
be given at trial—the State is obliged to bring it to
the attention of the Court and the defense”

I hope the above settles the wrong-headed argument on
secret evidence.

I want us to recognize that there are two groups of
aliens in this country; those fleeing justice and
those fleeing oppression. Some of the people in the
latter group are not here because they cannot be
presidents, ministers, governors, commissioners,
directors etc in their home countries thereby having
powers over the life, limbs and liberty of other
people. They are here because they value freedom more
than power, liberty more than wealth, and justice more
than creature comfort.

Therefore to see America decay to the same level of
‘extra-judicial’ lawlessness is very painful. Of
course I am going to challenge these faceless people
to prove their case. Meanwhile my petition to the
Director of the FBI, the Attorney General and other
key government officials is already on its way.

Finally, let us return to the question of security
for Americans and other citizens wherever they are. I
am convinced that common criminals will continue to
use focr and violence in order to prosecute their
narrow ambitions. But the solution is not one nation
rising against the other, nor the polemic of the clash
of cultures.

The solution, I am persuaded to believe is that good
men and women wherever they may be rally together to
manage the forces of evil. It cannot be done any other
way. Let the builder’s continue to build and the
destroyers continue to attempt to destroy. I am
confident that ultimately, good will overcome evil.
This is why I have always chosen to be a builder not a
destroyer.
In Light and Peace
Ndiribe A. A. Ndiribe

---

posted                      

quote:

---

And how many Universities or groups are protesting the governments undue legal treatment to them. I say, none.

---

quote:

---

Charges should be brought, a trial should be scheduled, and he should be allowed to see a lawyer. "They're maintaining they can hold him for the duration of the war on terror — which could easily be years, or even decades — without ever charging him with a crime."

---