Head of Indian Security resigns after Mumbai attacks

Which is worse – that after the sad attacks of Mumbai, Shivraj Patil, former Home Minister of India, has resigned his position – or that all of these years later, we still haven’t heard anyone in the US administration offer their resignation or take responsibility for missing the clues that could have prevented (or at least detected) the attacks on 9-11.

Accountability. Yeah – crazy idea, I know.

Look out – Guantanamo prisoners coming to South Carolina. Flee for your lives!

People seem to be jumping on the fear train in anticipation of President Obama shutting down Guantanamo prison and possibly hosting them in a military prison. You know – because these guys are going to pull a Keifer Sutherland, escape, go running around South Carolina.

Look, I get it. Terrorists are scary. But you know what’s almost as scary? A government that allows torture, imprisonment without a trial, and sets up kangaroo courts to try people.

Guy who opposed suicide dead from attack

Here’s the irony. An Afghanistan religious leader who who opposed suicide attacks has been murdered.

Yeah – that totally works. “I think suicide is immoral.” “Kill him – that will prove our morality!”

What will Obama do with Guantanamo

It’s still a big question. One of Obama’s platforms was his plan to end the shame that is Guantanamo with the torture and water boarding and lack of habeaus corpus.

But dealing with Guantanamo may be more complicated than that. The Obama transition team is pondering how to handle the detainees – how to try them when evidence may have been tainted by those harsh interrogation techniques, who to let go – and how do you handle the secret evidence in a court of law?

Any legal experts out there want to give us a clue?

Karzai reaching for New Hotness instead of Old Brokeness

Afghan president Hamid Karzai has been asking President Bush for years “Hey, could you stop the airstrikes? Guy up in a plane can’t tell the difference between a villager and a Taliban member, and you’re killing our civilians, which pisses them off, which makes them like the Taliban more.”

I guess Karzai has decided that since Bush isn’t listening and he’s on his way out, he’ll start petitioning President-Elect Obama instead and see if he knows how to listen. Considering that Obama has said in the past he wants more boots in the ground then strikes from the air, I think he’ll find a more supportive ear.

Gitmo judge: Confession via torture can not be used

This is one of those things that should be kind of obvious: testimony gathered under torture can not be used, because a person will say anything to make the torture stop. So when a judge overseeing the trial of Guantanamo prisoner Mohammed Jawad’s throws out Mr. Jawad’s confession because it was obtained over torture, I can only see that as perfectly proper.

US military starts to train Pakistan soldiers

In a move to try and track down members of the Taliban and terrorist forces within Pakistan, the US has started to train Pakistan’s Frontier Corps.

Perhaps this will actually help Pakistan take out those Taliban elements that keep bouncing between the Pakistan and the Afghanistan border. Perhaps I’ll get a pony.

This is a man who loves his country

He loves it enough to understand that the greatest strength of the United States of America, is that we are not ruled by kings – but by the Law.

Lt. Col. Darrel J. Vandeveld was a prosecutor for the United States of America, charged with prosecuting prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay prison. He finally resigned after observing that the US government was setting up the equivalent of a kangaroo court to charge “enemy combatants – people who may be guilty or innocent of crimes, but were put into a system designed to prevent any chance of justice being served.

John Adams defending British soldiers. And now Vandeveld standing up to the US government and calling corruption where he sees it.