waiting

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

still waiting….

Going on now… (in the Senate), sorta …

DREAM Act … ?

A vote on the legislation, which could happen Tuesday, would clear the way for a floor debate in the Senate about it. read more

DADT Repeal … ?

In another blow to the bill, Obama’s pick to lead the Marine Corps told a Senate panel on Tuesday that he worried that changing the policy would serve as a “distraction” to Marines fighting in Afghanistan.

“My primary concern with proposed repeal is the potential disruption to cohesion that may be caused by significant change during a period of extended combat operations,” Gen. James Amos said in a written statement provided to the panel for his confirmation hearing.

But wait… there’s more… things we’re still waiting for…

THE FINAL HOUR: Waiting With Aafia…. 24 HOUR VIGIL ON EVE OF AAFIA SIDDIQUI’S SENTENCING

Dr Aafia Siddiqui will be sentenced on Thursday 23rd September 2010, at 9am. The hearing will be held in Judge Berman’s court at 500 Pearl Street in Manhattan, New York. Protesters in the UK will mark this with a 24 hour vigil from the eve of her sentencing.

Wait. Who ? ? ?

The verdict of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was never in doubt.

Aafia Siddiqui, the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) graduate, first caught the media’s eye on 18 July 2008, in the city of Ghazni, Afghanistan, where under detention in an Afghan police compound, she became a U.S household name, dubbed as “Lady Al Qaeda”.

[in 2003] It was alleged her Afghan captors found a number of items in her possession, including notes detailing a mass attack in the U.S.A. The following day, a U.S interrogation team of army and FBI investigators interviewed, Aafia Siddiqui. But, what followed, condemned her to both notoriety and the affectionate status as the, ‘daughter of the nation’.

In the second-floor meeting room, her U.S interrogators accused, Aafia Siddiqui, of grabbing a U.S. Army officer’s rifle from behind a curtain, (where she was left unattended), and fired the weapon at another U.S. Army officer and other members of the interrogation team.

On August 4, 2008, the U.S government decided to indict, Aafia Siddiqui [a Pakistani woman], on counts of attempted murder and armed assault and brought her to the U.S to face charges.

During the trial, the U.S government realised the script wasn’t going according to plan. The problem was, the innocence of Aafia Siddiqui, was just too overwhelming.

The prosecution’s allegations that, Aafia Siddiqui, tried to kill FBI agents and U.S. Army officers, had one glaring omission – there was no evidence to substantiate the claim that shots had been fired by the accused. There were no bullets, shell casing, fingerprints or DNA of any kind.

Even the alleged shooting incident having ever taken place was thrown into doubt. Prosecutors showed a picture of two bullet holes in the wall of the police compound as proof that shots were fired by the accused, but defense attorneys refuted this claim by presenting a video that had been taken before the alleged shooting, clearly showing the same holes.

What is agreed, by both counsels, is that, Aafia Siddiqui, was shot twice in the stomach by U.S officials in Ghazni, and then taken to Bagram, where she barely survived. But, it is what happened during the so called, ‘lost years’, of 2003-2008, that the U.S, Pakistan and Afghan governments are determined to conceal.

Her story is somewhat confusing {wow, really?} and impossible to capture in a snapshot view. As is the case with virtually all the people that Worthington and others still write about.  The nightmare she has endured from 2003 onward is further compounded when you ask “Where are her children?”.

Suleman Fatih Muhammad is the son of Pakistani neuroscientist, Aafia, who disappeared along with her three children in Karachi in March 2003. Their whereabouts remained unknown for the next five years. The CIA and the US Department of Justice have denied that the United States had held Siddiqui or her children during the period of her disappearance. However, Aafia, her family and campaigners assert that Siddiqui and her children were held in secret US detention, a claim that is supported by the testimonies of former Bagram prisoners, who heard horrific screams from a female Pakistani prisoner, with the serial number ‘650’, identified later as Siddiqui.

Following demands for her recovery by human rights organisations and the Pakistani public, Aafia resurfaced with her eldest son Ahmed, in Afghanistan in August 2008, framed with the attempted murder of US personnel. Transferred to the US, Aafia was convicted in a shocking miscarriage of justice, despite the conflicting testimony of the soldiers and lack of evidence – no gun residue from the rifle, no trace of fingerprints on the rifle, no bullet shells in the room or bullet holes on the walls. Despite the prosecution admitting Aafia was not a member of al-Qaeda or linked to any terrorist group, she was for all intents and purposes, tried as such. She will be sentenced on 16th August [reset  to September 23] and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison – never to see her children again.  Following her conviction, she has been denied all visitation and communication rights in the interests of ‘national security’.

Little is known about what the children endured in the years they were missing.  During her trial, Aafia twice mentioned that she had been held “in secret prisons” where “(her) children were tortured” and in another statement, “they see their children tortured in front of them.” Suleman’s brother, Ahmed was released in 2008, having spent time in the custody of the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS), the country’s intelligence agency, notorious for its brutal treatment of detainees; although it was not until April 2010 that Siddiqui’s daughter Maryam was finally recovered, reportedly from the US airbase at Bagram, Afghanistan where she had been held in a ‘cold, dark room’ for seven years. However for the past seven years there has been a deafening silence as far as Suleman – only six months old at the time of his disappearance – is concerned.  Following her trial, one of Aafia’s legal team, Elaine Sharpe described how Suleman had been bleeding at the time of his abduction and that Siddiqui was later shown photos of him, lying in a pool of blood, giving rise grave concerns that Suleman may not have survived.  In March 2010 President Karzai promised that “the children of Aafia Siddiqui will be sent home soon”, the use of the plural instilling hope that Suleman may indeed be alive.

source

Back to the previous link above, an OpEd by Ridwan Shaikh:

Shockingly, Judge Richard Berman, blocked five crucial years of Aafia Siddiqui’s life, from being used at the trial, – the time of kidnapping [2003] up until 18 July 2008. Inevitably this meant key issues surrounding rendition, torture and kidnapping were excluded from the trial.

This pattern mirrors the previous Bush administration. Although, Barack Obama, has pledged to clean up its inhuman practices in the ‘war on terror’, the ‘black’ sites policy is alive and well. U.S prisons around the world, including Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and Bagram, continue to operate illegally, safe in the knowledge that it’s directed from the top-down. When, Aafia Siddiqui, tried to address this point to the jury, by saying: ‘If you were in a secret prison, or your children were tortured…,” she was stopped in mid sentence, as guards immediately removed her from the courtroom.

Sound familiar? It should.

buhdydharma, yesterday, talked about these, and other, things on a whole ‘nother level.

It will be up to US to find ways to come together despite them.

It will be up to us to Weave a new world tapestry, bringing together the best of ALL religions and philosophies, to Weave together the best parts of ALL political systems, to Weave together some form of economic equality and justice, based on the new reality of limited resources, that we as humans face for the first time on the planetary scale.

This IS the Political, Moral, and Spiritual Challenge of the 21st Century.

Everything has changed, since the age old, top down, imposition of the nearly obsolete systems we still live under today.

I don’t know what we’re waiting for. Seems to me they are obsolete already. At least for Aafia, Omar, and another 175 still imprisoned in G’mo.

More background, articles and action items at Justice for Aafia Coalition website

.

President Barack Obama

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington,

DC 20500

Tel: 202-456-1111

Fax: 202-456-246

Email at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Eric Holder,

Attorney General,

U.S. Department of Justice,

950 Pennsylvania Avenue,

NW Washington,

DC 20530-0001

Tel: 202-353-1555

Email: [email protected] This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

.