Columnist – John Sammon
Eight heavily armed men dressed in camouflage show up at a door and knock. A servant answers the door.

“Excuse me sir, we’re working our way through college. Would you like to buy an encyclopedia?”

The servant disappears into a hallway and a bearded man appears. Bin laden.

“Would you like to buy an encyclopedia, the Saudi updated version?” the college student asks.

Bin laden nods. He reaches into his robe like he’s going for a gun.

“Get interested in this.” The college students open fire.

BLAM!

“Take that!”

BLAM!

“How about another?”

BLAM!

“How about one on the layaway plan?”

BLAM!

“Hey Marcel, watch this.”

BLAM!

“You want leaded or unleaded?”

BLAM!

“One Lump or Two?”

BLAM!

Evidently, Bin laden thought he could out-draw eight Navy Seals who already had their guns out. It would have been nice if he could have been taken alive to stand trial and demonstrate the rule of law Americans like to say they’re so fond of.

Thus opens a new phase in the soon-to-be 25th unresolved year in the war on terror, the Upscale Condo Mansion Gated Community Raid. Navy Seals disguised as college students go to exclusive residential neighborhoods and dispatch a miserable wretch.

Meanwhile, George Bush, the world’s other arch terrorist, claims credit for the operation. He feels like donning his old National Guard uniform that he wore to avoid service in Vietnam, the uniform he seldom wore because he skipped Guard meetings. Or better yet, the flight suit he paraded around in when he posted that dopey “Mission Accomplished” sign on the aircraft carrier, years before thousands of U.S. servicemen were killed.

Bush, who with his lord-high inquisitor fat-boy Dick Cheney, killed a million Iraqis to get even with Bin Laden and his handful of wretches for 9-11 even though Iraq had nothing to do with it.

Bush, who validated torture and wiretap spying on Americans and setting up an American Gulag Archipelago of secret torture camps in foreign countries and threw out the Geneva Convention to which America for decades had adhered. There would be no trials like the Nuremburg trials to demonstrate the rule of law by the civilized countries of the world.

Bush and Cheney with the apathy of the American people operated under the principal that to combat terror, you have to abandon democratic ideals and act more like the terrorists.

Such a man deserves praise.

And isn’t it fascinating in a Freudian way that the operation to get Bin laden was partly code-named Geronimo after the famous Chiracahua leader of the 1880s. Native American Indian activists were angered the government compared Bin laden to Geronimo. I get it, our government leaders, most of them paunchy white boys in their 60s, grew up watching John Wayne movies.

They can’t help compare today’s Middle Eastern terrorists with Indians. Subconscious and psychologically, it reminds them of snug safe days as five-year-olds when the world was simple, when they curled around a TV set with a cup of hot coco watching Wayne dispatch Indians and bad guys, the annihilation of our native population complimentarily called by racist America as the “Winning of the West.”

Gopher Killed: Will Ferrell Brutally Spoofs George Bush on Bin Laden

There are similarities between the Indian Wars of the 1870s and today’s struggle against terrorists. In both cases, the government spent billions of dollars and involved millions of troops going after perceived ignorant savages who never numbered more than a few thousand. In an eerily reminiscent echo of the present, in 1875, Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors were imprisoned in a prison in Ft. Augustine, Florida, erased from memory without trial or attorney, not even 100 miles from Guantanamo.

The Bin laden operation was also code-named “Neptune.” This ties in nicely because in a further bizarre twist Bin laden, who spent his life on sand dunes, was buried at sea. The fish probably felt like throwing him back.

And look at the now-famous picture of the big-shots in the Pentagon White House War Room watching the Bin laden raid results. Obama looks like a college kid who wandered into the room, which is what his Republican detractors and even some of his white subordinates probably consider him to be, a college kid on an ethnic studies scholarship temporarily occupying the White House. Hillary Clinton’s hand is to her mouth as though readying to chew her nails, as though she’s watching a favorite soap opera.

By the looks on their faces you’d think they were planning D Day.

Is this the same country that took on Nazi Germany and Japan, the most powerful military power in the history of the world terrified of a bunch of wretches who 50 years ago would have been stealing sheep?

It’s to Obama’s credit that he didn’t pose with the body for photos. You can tell a lot about the immorality of a society in the way they pose with bodies for propaganda purposes, like we did with the sons of Saddam Hussein, or even the Abu Ghraib Prison dungeon S&M pictures where the bound bodies were still alive.

As we celebrate and Obama says “We won’t forget,” how come our memory is selective?

It begs the question. Is America incapable of doing wrong? Do Americans ever study the history of events that lead up to the current situation?

Is America operating in a vacuum, or an ivory tower?

For example, Ronald Reagan, everybody’s icon and hero, backing right-wing death squads in South America that killed millions. Or giving Israel a blank check to run wild and dispossess Palestinians which fueled the current conflict and gave Bin laden the opportunity to prominence he never should have attained. Or supporting Saddam Hussein with military equipment and guarantees leading him to miscalculate he could invade Kuwait and we wouldn’t do anything about it.

Or meddling in the internal affairs for economic or natural resources gain (oil) of a dozen other countries.

Or Bush killing a million Iraqis over false weapons of mass destruction to get even with Bin laden. We love the Saudis even though the 9-11 plotters including Bin laden were Saudis.

Today, we’ve largely forgotten the Viet Cong. We have friendly relations with North Vietnam. Our tourists go there. See, we do forget in a sense. Over time.

WHY DO WE FORGET WHERE AMERICA HAS BEEN WRONG?

Has America ever been wrong?

We’re never wrong, and even if we are, it’s not wrong. That’s called being a patriot. Ask Bush and Cheney.

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High Crimes & Misdemeanors: Why Condoleezza Rice Should Be in Jail For Life – (Part 1)

Immigrants face detention, few rights
By MICHELLE ROBERTS

America’s detention system for immigrants has mushroomed in the last decade, a costly building boom that was supposed to sweep up criminals and ensure that undocumented immigrants were quickly shown the door.

Instead, an Associated Press computer analysis of every person being held on a recent Sunday night shows that most did not have a criminal record and many were not about to leave the country — voluntarily or via deportation.

An official Immigration and Customs Enforcement database, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, showed a U.S. detainee population of exactly 32,000 on the evening of Jan. 25.

The data show that 18,690 immigrants had no criminal conviction, not even for illegal entry or low-level crimes like trespassing. More than 400 of those with no criminal record had been incarcerated for at least a year. A dozen had been held for three years or more; one man from China had been locked up for more than five years.

Nearly 10,000 had been in custody longer than 31 days — the average detention stay that ICE cites as evidence of its effective detention management.

   Raymond Soeoth stands outside the federal government compound in Los Angeles’ San
   Pedro district, where he was held for over two years at the Immigration and Customs
   Enforcement facility.

Especially tough bail conditions are exacerbated by disregard or bending of the rules regarding how long immigrants can be detained.

Based on a 2001 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, ICE has about six months to deport or release immigrants after their case is decided. But immigration lawyers say that deadline is routinely missed. In the system snapshot provided to the AP, 950 people were in that category.

The detainee buildup began in the mid 1990s, long before the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Since 2003, though, Congress has doubled to $1.7 billion the amount dedicated to imprisoning immigrants, as furor over “criminal aliens” intertwined with post-9/11 fears and anti-immigrant political rhetoric.

But the dragnet has come to include not only terrorism suspects and cop killers, but an honors student who was raised in Orlando, Fla.; a convenience store clerk who begged to go back to Canada; and a Pentecostal minister who was forcibly drugged by ICE agents after he asked to contact his wife, according to court records.

Immigration lawyers note that substantial numbers of detainees, from 177 countries in the data provided, are not illegal immigrants at all. Many of the longest-term non-criminal detainees are asylum seekers fighting to stay here because they fear being killed in their home country. Others are longtime residents who may be eligible to stay under other criteria, or whose applications for permanent residency were lost or mishandled, the lawyers say.

Still other long-term detainees include people who can’t be deported because their home country won’t accept them or people who seemingly have been forgotten in the behemoth system, where 58 percent have no lawyers or anyone else advocating on their behalf.

ICE says detention is the best way to guarantee that immigrants attend court hearings and leave the country when ordered.

“It’s ensuring compliance, and if you look at the stats, for folks who are in detention, the stats are pretty darn high,” said ICE spokeswoman Cori Bassett.

By comparison though, most criminal suspects, even sometimes those accused of heinous offenses, are entitled to bail.

“We’re immigrants, and it makes it seem like it’s worse than a criminal,” said Sarjina Emy, a 20-year-old former honors student who spent nearly two years in a Florida lockup because her parents’ asylum claim was denied when she was a child. “I always thought America does so much for justice. I really thought you get a fair trial. You actually go to court. (U.S. authorities) know what they are doing. Now, I figured out that it only works for criminal citizens.”

The use of detention to ensure immigrants show up for immigration court comes at a high cost compared to alternatives like electronic ankle monitoring, which can track people for considerably less money per day.

Based on the amount budgeted for this fiscal year, U.S. taxpayers will pay about $141 a night — the equivalent of a decent hotel room — for each immigrant detained, even though paroling them on ankle monitors — at a budgeted average daily cost of $13 — has an almost perfect compliance rate, according to ICE’s own stats.

For years, ICE and its predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, had the power to detain immigrants. With little bed space or public clamor to lock people up, though, millions of foreigners quietly went about life in the United States.

In 1996, Congress passed a pair of laws requiring that immigrants who committed crimes be locked up for deportation, beginning a dramatic run-up in incarcerations. So-called “criminal aliens” — immigrants convicted of a crime, including some misdemeanors like low-level drug crimes — became mandatory detainees even if their original crime brought no prison time.

A system that housed 6,785 immigrants in 1994 now holds nearly five times that amount in 260 facilities across the country, most under contract with local governments or private companies. For this fiscal year, ICE has enough money budgeted for 33,400 people on any given night.

Emy, who was raised in Orlando, Fla., spent 20 months in a detention center even though she had no criminal record. She traded her Baby Phat clothes for a gray uniform and window-shopping at the mall for a law library behind razor wire.

Her only crime? Her parents, who feared her father’s political affiliations endangered the family, brought her and two brothers to the United States from Bangladesh when she was 5, according to court documents.

She doesn’t speak Bangla and never imagined a future without college. No one in her family realized her father’s work certificate from the Labor Department didn’t equate to legal immigration status.

Family members were rounded up in July 2007, treated as fugitives on a dated but active deportation order.

Her parents were deported first. Emy languished in custody while continuing her fight to stay.

But because the asylum application had been filed on behalf of the entire family, only the parents got a hearing. Emy never saw a judge, according to Emy and her attorney.

“Justice is not being served,” she said from a prison pay phone.

In January, a federal appeals court denied her petition to stay in the U.S. Fearing she’d celebrate another birthday behind bars, Emy agreed to be deported and left the country Feb. 18.

Immigration law “is the only United States law where we punish the children for the actions of their parents,” said Emy’s attorney, Petia Vimitrova Knowles.

Immigration violations are considered civil, something akin to a moving violation in a car, so the government can imprison immigrants without many of the rights criminals receive: No court-appointed attorney for indigent defendants, no standard habeas corpus, no protection from double jeopardy, no guarantee of a speedy trial.

“You’re locking up people without even a hearing,” said Judy Rabinovitz of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants Rights Project. “That, to me, is the outrage: basic due process. Since when do we allow the government to lock up people without even giving them a bond hearing?”

Most immigrants are navigating a complex legal system without an attorney. Fifty-eight percent went through immigration proceedings without an attorney in fiscal year 2007, according to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, a branch of the U.S. Justice Department.

But, ICE officials often argue, immigrants largely hold the keys to their own freedom. If they simply agree to return to their home country, they can go, Bassett said.

“They’re making a choice (that) they’re going to appeal, which is their right,” she said.

But even giving up, or winning a claim, doesn’t always spell freedom because ICE acts as police officer, arraignment judge, jailer and prosecutor. It has sole jurisdiction over when a detained immigrant is sent back after a deportation order is issued, and can continue to hold immigrants while it appeals a decision that didn’t go its way.

In another telling case, Ahmad Al-Shrmany, a 34-year-old Iraqi with no appeal pending, begged for a year to be deported and yet remained in detention. He wanted to be allowed to go to his native Iraq or his adopted Canada, where he had been granted asylum a decade ago. A lawyer filed a habeas corpus petition in December that went unanswered.

“Just deport me. That’s your job,” he said in a late January interview with the AP that ICE officials tried to block minutes before it was scheduled at a Houston lockup.

   [Enlarge]

Less than a week after the interview, Al-Shrmany was deported to Canada, said his lawyer, Afreen Ahmed.

Immigrant advocates say ICE prefers incarceration for non-criminal immigrants, even though alternatives are available, for one major reason: to strong-arm people.

“When you’re there for weeks and weeks or months or months, your determination to fight your charges is reduced,” said Judy Green, a policy analyst with Justice Strategies, a nonpartisan think tank on incarceration issues. The goal is “to keep intense pressure on detainees to agree to removal and not to fight on whatever grounds they have for relief.”

The Rev. Raymond Soeoth, a Pentecostal minister from Indonesia who had never been imprisoned, said his lengthy incarceration — and the uncertainty of how long it would last — wore on him as he fought his immigration case and pursued a lawsuit accusing ICE officials of forcibly drugging him and other detainees.

“We just wait. We cannot do anything,” said Soeoth, who was released after more than two years, given a special visa as part of the government’s settlement of the drugging lawsuit.

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Yusif Osman’s Body
Yusif Osman was a U.S. legal resident from Ghana and had been living in Los Angeles for five years. After a companion carrying false ID landed him in immigration detention, Osman was facing deportation on smuggling charges, an allegation he denied. While at an immigration detention center outside San Diego, he died suddenly. His story highlights the poor care some immigrants have received in the scores of immigration facilities across the United States.

As Tighter Immigration Policies Strain Federal Agencies, The Detainees in Their Care Often Pay a Heavy Cost.

The detainees have less access to lawyers than convicted murderers in maximum-security prisons and some have fewer comforts than al-Qaeda terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

But they are not terrorists. Most are working-class men and women or indigent laborers who made mistakes that seem to pose no threat to national security: a Salvadoran who bought drugs in his 20th year of poverty in Los Angeles; a U.S. legal U.S. resident from Mexico who took $50 for driving two undocumented day laborers into a border city. Or they are waiting for political asylum from danger in their own countries: a Somali without a valid visa trying to prove she would be killed had she remained in her village; a journalist who fled Congo out of fear for his life, worked as a limousine driver and fathered six American children, but never was able to get the asylum he sought.

The most vulnerable detainees, the physically sick and the mentally ill, are sometimes denied the proper treatment to which they are entitled by law and regulation. They are locked in a world of slow care, poor care and no care, with panic and coverups among employees watching it happen, according to a Post investigation.

Osman’s death is a single tragedy in a larger story of life, death and often shabby medical care within an unseen network of special prisons for foreign detainees across the country. Some 33,000 people are crammed into these overcrowded compounds on a given day, waiting to be deported or for a judge to let them stay here.

[.....Read The Post investigation's -- FULL REPORT]

1. Hidden Emergency: Yusif Osman’s Story

2. A Closer Look At 83 Deaths — Based on confidential medical records and other sources, The Washington Post identified 83 deaths of immigration detainees between March 2003, when the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was created, and March 2008. The Post found that 30 of the deaths were questionable — roll over the red triangles on the map for their details..

3. Careless Detention: Suicides Point to Gaps in Treatment | Errors in Psychiatric Diagnoses and Drugs Plague Strained Immigration System

4. VIDEO: 60 minutes Video