The King of Pointland

Space

Sad.

The mother of [International Space Station] Flight Engineer Dan Tani was killed in car collision on Wednesday afternoon. He was told of her death by his wife Jane, and a flight surgeon later that afternoon. Tani is continuing with his normal duties. NASA officials said Tani will get whatever psychological and other assistance he needs.

Justice, Justice, Shall You Pursue

During this celebration of my people's liberation, I would like to reflect on how my country treats my fellow human beings:

Just months after U.S. Army troops whisked a German man from Pakistan to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2002, his American captors concluded that he was not a terrorist.

"USA considers Murat Kurnaz's innocence to be proven," a German intelligence officer wrote that year in a memo to his colleagues. "He is to be released in approximately six to eight weeks."

But the 19-year-old student was not freed. Instead, over the next four years, two U.S. military tribunals that were responsible for determining whether Guantanamo Bay detainees were enemy fighters declared him a dangerous al-Qaeda ally who should remain in prison.

...

In December 2001, Pakistani police pulled Kurnaz and missionaries off a bus and handed him to U.S. troops. Four weeks later, he was flown to Guantanamo Bay -- one of the first detainees to arrive in the newly opened prison.

German and American intelligence officers interviewed Kurnaz in September 2002, records show. They jointly concluded that nothing was linking the man from Bremen to terrorist cells or enemy fighters and that he should be freed. In a memo dated May 19, 2003, the commanding general of the Criminal Investigation Task Force, a Pentagon intelligence unit that interrogates detainees and collects evidence about them, wrote that "CITF is not aware of evidence that Kurnaz was or is a member of al-Qaeda. CITF is not aware of any evidence that Kurnaz may have aided or abetted, or conspired to commit acts of terrorism."

...

After a public uproar in Germany over the German government's role in Kurnaz's continuing imprisonment, [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel pressed Bush at a private meeting that January to release him. In July 2006, an unusual second review board convened.

The FBI's counterterrorism division, new records show, wrote in a memo dated May 31, 2006, for that board that "the FBI has no investigative interest in this detainee" and that "there is no information that Kurnaz received any military training or is associated with the Taliban or al-Qa'ida." The wording of its brief conclusion about whether Kurnaz posed any threat was redacted.

...

Not until August 2006, nearly five years after his imprisonment began, was Kurnaz flown home, goggled, masked and bound, as he had been when he was flown to Guantanamo Bay. As U.S. military officials led him out of Ramstein Air Base, and as he was about to take his first steps onto German soil, the Americans offered to leave plastic wrist cuffs on their former prisoner. German federal police declined.

The Combatant Status Review Tribunals are a disgraceful mockery of justice. The treatment of the detainees at Guantanamo (not to mention the CIA "black site" prisons) is shameful. Are these the actions of a "shining city upon a hill"?

Happy Hanukkah!

It's the 25th of Kislev, 5768! Happy Hanukkah to all my friends, Jew and Gentile alike.