Month: October 2004

Talaat Fouad Qassem

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(4th post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)

(a.k.a. Talat Fouad Qassem, Abu Talal Al-Qasimy, Talat Fouad Kasem).

Summary
This is the first case I have found of extraordinary rendition.* Qassem was arrested in Zagreb, Croatia. U.S. officials questioned him for two days on a ship in the Adriatic Sea, focusing on an alleged assassination plot against President Clinton. Then they sent him to Egypt, where he had been sentenced to death in absentia by a military tribunal in 1992.

There is some question about the date when this took place. The Washington Post has reported that it happened in 1998, but the four other sources I’ve found (a 1995 Toronto Star article, a 2001 Boston Globe article, and two 2000 articles in the Arab press) say it was 1995, and I believe that is the correct date.

According to Islamic militant sources in Egypt, Egypt took Qassem to their intelligence headquarters in al-Mansoura, then moved him to Cairo in October 1995. He has not been seen since. Egypt has refused to comment on his whereabouts or on whether he is dead or alive.

His wife believes that they executed him several years ago.

*this is actually one of those grey area cases between rendition and extradition—Egypt had charges against him. They had imprisoned him for seven years in the past before his suspected role in the plot against Anwar Sadat before he escaped from prison, and had tried to get Pakistan to extradite him in 1992, so these were not charges made only at the request of the U.S.

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Author’s Note

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(3rd post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.) I’m about to begin a series of post summarizing specific examples of extraordinary rendition. I will go in chronological order, more or less. One of the more difficult … Read more

A note for lawyers (and open thread)

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I used to litigate “complex commerical” disputes, but, through five years of whittling-it-down (and maybe getting a bit whittled in the process), I’ve pretty much reduced myself to two fields — patent law (65%) and RICO litigation (25%) (the other 10% is everything else — mostly trademark and copyright work, though I do love a … Read more

More Debate Responses

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But first, shameless collective-self promotion: Obsidian Wings has been nominated for ‘Best Group Blog’ in Rox Populi’s Best Political Bloggers Contest. OK: On to the reactions, which I have chosen on the basis not of profundity or erudition, but of how much I enjoyed them. Michael Berube has a lovely post that begins: Well, Wolf, … Read more

Torture Outsourcing Update

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(2nd post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.) Updates on the House Republicans’ attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”: 1. The Justice Department supports it.: Hastert spokesman John Feehery said the Justice Department “really wants and supports” … Read more

Checking the spin

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It’s starting to look like the right-wing blogosphere has decided that Kerry’s “global test” blunder is gonna be their talking point from the debate. As I’ve blogged, it’s a good one. Kerry deserves the heat. But the Left — they’ve pretty much been all over the map. Self-congratulatory in Kerry’s apparent victory, they’ve lost focus. … Read more

A.Q. Khan and “Justice”

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In last night’s debate, Bush stated (on more than one occasion): The A.Q. Khan network has been brought to justice. (Transcript, courtesy of the Washington Post.) I’m hardly a Kerry-tine, but this truly irks me. The A.Q. Khan network has not been brought to justice. A.Q. Khan was caught, immediately pardoned by President Musharraf of … Read more

NK Solution: Bilateral or Team Effort?

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Via Brad DeLong One of the clearest points of disagreement between President Bush and Senator Kerry in the debate last night was their views on how best to work toward eliminating North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. The President argued that bilateral talks were a mistake, that by expanding the dialog to include China, South Korea, … Read more

I-I-I-I’ve got no strings to…huh…wha-…What’s This??

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The Washington Post is reporting that the speech Allawi gave before Congress was in part prepared by the Bush campaign: The unusual public-relations effort by the Pentagon and the U.S. Agency for International Development comes as details have emerged showing the U.S. government and a representative of President Bush’s reelection campaign had been heavily involved … Read more

Despite Dire Warnings, Civilization Seems Stable

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Even with its shiny new facade, the FMA (now the Marriage Protection Amendment) was soundly defeated in the House yesterday. The 227-186 vote in the House Thursday was well short of the two-thirds majority needed to advance a constitutional amendment, but fulfilled a promise by backers to get lawmakers on the record on the highly … Read more

Debate roundup

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“Let me look you in the eye and tell you, very directly and forthrightly and firmly, and with a not-insubstantial-amount of vigor and vim, exactly what it is that I am about to say.” Which is: despite occasional crap like the above, Kerry won the debate. Judge it not by the substance (we’ve all made … Read more

mcmasterchef Memorial Recipe Thread

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…because we listen to the requests and needs of our valued cus… ah, readers here at Obsidian Wings. Because we care. And because it’s fall, which has always been the time of year in my family when pies are baked. As a loyal member of the Pax Gibletsia I say, let us have recipes for … Read more

Quick Factchecking: Homeland Security

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There were a few points in the debate where I thought Bush said something that was just wrong. For instance, he said that “There are 100,000 troops trained, police, guard, special units, border patrol.” Last Friday Reuters reported that “The Pentagon also said on Monday that only about 53,000 of the 100,000 Iraqis on duty now have undergone training.” However, rather than going over lots of statements, I want to focus on one that I worry will be passed over, namely Bush’s claim, on a question about homeland security, that “Of course we’re doing everything we can to protect America.” This statement is clearly, flatly false.

I wrote about this several weeks ago here. The quickest way to find a list of things that we have not done to make our country safer is to download a GAO report on the status of key recommendations made by the GAO to the Department of Homeland Security, and flip to p. 30, where you will find a list of recommendations that have not yet been implemented. And the quickest way to show that Bush did not tell the truth is to note that in eight of the cases where DHS provided an explanation of delays in implementing recommendations, it cited funding problems. Those recommendations include, among other things, deploying isotope identifiers to detect radiation in ports, finding people whose visas have been revoked because the government suspects them of involvement in terrorism, and controls over foreign military sales. These are all things that would have made our country safer, and that we did not do simply because we were unwilling to commit the necessary funds.

Below the fold I go over some areas in which this administration has failed to secure our country. Many of them are shortened versions of points I made my earlier post; sorry for the repetition. But I think it’s important to ask, about each of the items listed (and the list is far from exhaustive): is this something that Bush thinks his administration cannot do? If so, what does that say about the capabilities of his administration? If not, how does he square this with his claim that “we’re doing everything we can to protect America”?

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