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"All truth is the same at the level of truth itself."
My blog on living and loving and how to piece it all together.
Tesserae are the small pieces of hard stone, glass, and enamel used to make mosaics. I use the term as a metaphor for my life which is made up of small, artfully (sometimes), chaotically (usually) arranged pieces of love, laughter and beauty.
Pièce de Résistance
"All truth is the same at the level of truth itself."
Putting the Pieces Together
A Piece of the Action
"It is possible for the human spirit to be broken, then to rise again, as a Phoenix from the ashes; and the power of the imaginative mind, the power of books...is one way that rising can take place." ~ Sandy Wells, "The Letters"
Here are some ways you can help: Voices to Afganistan, Books for Soldiers, Books to Prisoners
Bits and Pieces
Give the Piece a Chance: Currently Reading
Yoga and the Quest for the True Self
by Stephen Cope
The Passionate Mind: A Manual for Living Creatively with One's Self by Joel Kramer
2 comments:
From my AIDP Blog: Ruminations on Hicks’s “sentence” and reflections on Lt. Col. V. Stuart Couch’s integrity.
by Christopher Blakesley
Mark’s discussion of Hicks’s “plea deal” and his request for thoughts prompts me to post the following excerpt from a piece from the Wall Street Journal on Military Prosecutor who refused to prosecute a case, because he came to believe that the accused had been tortured: Jess Bravin, The Conscience of the Colonel, Wall Street Journal, p. A1, March 31, 2007. “Lt. Col. Stuart Couch volunteered to prosecute terrorists. Then he decided one had been tortured.”
I, like many of you, am skeptical about everything going on at Guantánamo an in the other “sites,” in which we are “holding” those we have “deemed” to be terrorists or “enemy combatants.” I wonder how we can trust anything at all that happens in or in relation to those awful examples of what we have become.
It seems that Marine Corps pilot and a veteran prosecutor, Lt. Col. V. Stuart Couch, was set to prosecute Mohamedou Ould Slahi, but nine-months after he began, Couch decided that he could not go forward, because he believed that Slahi’s “incriminating statements” (the core of the case against him) had been elicited by torture.
It is gratifying to read about individuals who have a strong moral compass and who maintain their integrity in difficult circumstances. Col. Couch stated that “Of the cases I had seen, he was the one with the most blood on his hands….”
The problem with having let ourselves fall into this miasma of evil (disappearing people, holding them “indefinitely,” and apparently torturing them) makes a mockery of our “war on terror” and of our claims that we follow the rule of law. It fails us on every front and places us directly into a “modern blood-feud,” as I write in my book, Terrorism and Anti-Terrorism, in the book section of this blog. Jess Bravin, who wrote the piece, notes that:
"These kinds of concerns will likely become more prevalent as other high-level al Qaeda detainees come before military commissions set up by the Bush administration. Guantanamo prosecutors estimate that at least 90% of cases depend on statements taken from prisoners, making the credibility of such evidence critical to any convictions. In Mr. Slahi’s case, Col. Couch would uncover evidence the prisoner had been beaten and exposed to psychological torture, including death threats and intimations that his mother would be raped in custody unless he cooperated."
When you look into the abyss, the abyss looks at you, as Nietzche said. I am gratified to read about individuals, like Col. Couch, who help us to escape falling further into the abyss.
I have pasted some relevant weblinks, below.
_________
KEY DOCUMENTS
>
Read a transcript2 of Mr. Slahi’s hearing before a Combatant Status
Review Tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
* * *
Read the unclassified summary3 of the spring 2005 Schmidt-Furlow
report presenting the results of a Pentagon investigation into
detainee abuse at Guantanamo. The section detailing Mr. Slahi’s
treatment is headed “second special interrogation plan,” on page 21.
* * *
Read a transcript4 of Mr. Slahi’s Administrative Review Board hearing
at Guantanamo Bay in December 2005.
* * *
See the Defense Meritorious Service Medal5 and citation awarded to
Col. Couch by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in September 2006.
* * *
Read a letter6 Mr. Slahi sent to his attorneys, Nancy Hollander and
Sylvia Royce, from Guantanamo Bay on Nov. 9, 2006.
* * * * [t
Saturday, March 31st, 2007 3:01 pm | Posted in: AIDP Blog, International Criminal Law, Counterterrorism, Criminal Law, International Human Rights Law | Trackback | 0 Comments
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thanks for that post, dad, they always are enlightening and on the mark. i often dwell to much on the dark side of the war...it is much nicer to celebrate the heros.
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