WOMAN GANG-RAPED, THEN GIVEN 200 LASHES AND JAIL SENTENCE

After a nineteen-year-old young woman was gang-raped and then complained about it to the courts, the judges decided to increase her punishment to 200 lashes and adding a jail sentence, the BBC reports. Guess the country where this occurred.

SAUDI ARABIA!

Bush & Co. love to complain about Iran not granting women full rights and penalizing them for not covering their hair. Iran is a regime ruled by the Shiite ayatollahs. Bush and Cheney would like nothing better than to bomb it.

But Saudi Arabia, predominantly Sunni, is the "friend" of the United States. Witness Bush walking hand-in-hand with the Saudi King at Crawford.

Yet Saudi Arabia is even more backward than Iran when it comes to personal rights, especially those of women.

The whole world needs to rise up and condemn Saudi Arabia for this cruel and unjustified sentence for this young victimized woman. If it carries out this sentence, Saudi Arabia should be viewed as a barbaric pariah and tossed out of the United Nations.

WALK IN BAGHDAD'S NEIGHBORHOODS IF SURGE IS WORKING

Republicans in Congress like to argue against a time table for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. They say the surge is working and Gen. David Petraeus is a mastermind who needs more time to "finish" the job.

But this argument goes against reality. Juan Cole recites the figures:

"The House of Representatives attempted to put strings on Bush's latest supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan, including a timetable for US military withdrawal. The bill they passed is expected to be defeated in the Senate and would in any case be vetoed by Bush. The Republican representatives are claiming things are just great now in Iraq (nearly 1000 persons a month are still being killed there even by the sketchy official statistics; as late as this September, the number of displaced persons increased by 16%; there is now active fighting on a new front, between Turkey and the Kurds holed up in northern Iraq; security is apparently collapsing in the port city of Basra; and Baghdad has in the past 10 months gone from 65% Shiite to 75% Shiite). Democrats warned against another 10 years of war at the cost of trillions of dollars."

There is no functioning Iraqi government outside the Green Zone. In neighborhoods in and around Baghdad, it is the law of the street and rule by war lords. Anything goes. As Juan Cole points out, there are still over 1,000 people killed per month. Iraqis are still streaming out of their neighborhoods. And Baghdad has witnessed ethnic cleansing on an enormous scale.

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad writes in The Guardian on his personal observations and experiences in one Baghdad neighborhood.

Here is one vignette from this must-read account by Adul-Ahad:

"Ameriya is a closed zone, surrounded by high concrete walls. Only pedestrians are allowed through the two Iraqi army checkpoints out of the suburb. The "knights" are the only authority inside.

"When we arrived at the house where the alleged al-Qaida commander was hiding, Bakr was already in action. He was dragging a plump man into a car, grabbing his neck with one hand and his BKC machine gun with the other.

"The horrified man begged them not to take him. "By Allah, I didn't say Qaida is better than you, you are our brothers, just let me go!" A gunman kicked the man and pushed him into a car.

"The suspect's brother, still in his pyjamas, pleaded, and women in nightgowns stood in the street wailing and begging the gunmen to release him.

"The gunmen pointed their guns at the people and pushed them back. A young fighter carrying an old British sub-machine gun fired a burst into the air."

Read Adul-Ahad's report and then compare it with the Republicans and their vacuous pie-in-the-sky comments on the "surge is working" theme.

MUSHARRAF CONTINUES TO ATTACK CHIEF JUSTICE FOR NOT LETTING HIM BE BOTH ARMY LEADER AND PRESIDENT

Gen. Pervez Musharraf continues to attack Ifthikar Chaudhry, Chief Justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court. The BBC reports:

"Military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf will not entertain letting former Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry back into his job.

"On Sunday he lashed out at Mr Chaudhry again, calling him corrupt and a hurdle in the way of the smooth working of the government.

"He told journalists in Islamabad that the entire problem of the judiciary boiled down to one individual, Mr Chaudhry, who he sacked as part of the state of emergency introduced on 3 November. "

Talk about subverting the rule of law! Is there a quicker way than dismissing the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? Musharraf cannot get the Pakistan courts to go along with letting him be at the same time head of the Pakistan Army and also President. So Musharraf, in effect, cuts the head off of Pakistan's judicial system.

All lawyers from around the world, from whatever country, ought to feel revulsion at what Musharraf is doing. And where is Bush and Cheney and Rice? They should be condemning this assault on Pakistan's rule of law.

VALUES OF LEADING THREE REPUBLICANS OFFEND AMERICAN VALUES

I cannot see voting for any of the Republican candidates. Consider the three leaders, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and John McCain. All three would give us a redux Bush, maybe a little smarter than W but maybe even more extreme.

John McCain seems the least crazy as well as the most likeable. McCain comes off as genuine, what you see is what you get. On the plus side, he is against torture and water-boarding. But his big negative is that he continues to support this unjustified and illegal war in Iraq.

Mitt Romney comes off as duplicitous and willing to say anything to help his chances. Mitt generates an unlimited amount of political cynicism. By saying that he would double the size of Guantanamo, he tries to out-do Bush in his cruelty towards suspects caught in Afghanistan and Iraq. We know that Guantanamo is the black hole where once you end up there, whether guilty or not guilty, you lose all right to appeal. You have no right to a trial, you have no right to a lawyer, you have no right to appeal to a federal court for relief under the Great Writ of habeas corpus. And Mitt would double Guantanamo? Has he no decency?

As to Rudy Giuliani, it is clear he has no decency. Rudy comes right out and endorses waterboarding and says he inflicted "harsh" interrogation methods on mafia suspects when he was federal prosecutor in NYC. Rudy never served in the army, has no combat experience, but endorses torture. Maybe his forebears utilized torture during the years of the Inquisition.

I cannot imagine how Republicans or anyone else could vote for any of the above. Unless this is how a person wanted life and society in today's United States - one where war was always the answer, constitutional rights for prisoners did not exist, and torture was the modus operandi du jour.

GEN. MUSHARRAF - FREE PAKISTANI LAWYERS AND JUDGES

As a lawyer I am incensed by the jailing of protesting Pakistani lawyers and judges by Gen. Pervez Musharraf. I read Musharraf's autobiography, In the Line of Fire, and I was impressed by his seeming intelligence and good judgment. What a let down!

You cannot have a rule of law if you imprison a judge because the decision goes against you. How is Musharraf any better than those parties who lose a case and then threaten the judge or the opposing lawyer? The answer is, there is no difference. Musharraf is as bad as anyone who has ever taken revenge on the court because of an unfavorable decision.

All lawyers should rise up and protest Musharraf's illegal detention of members of the Pakistani legal profession.

HARRY TRUMAN ORDERS PAUL TIBBETS TO DROP ATOMIC BOMB ON HIROSHIMA KILLING OVER 100,000

Bob Greene writes an op-ed in today's The New York Times on Paul Tibbets who piloted the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima resulting in the fiery deaths of more than 100,000 inhabitants. Tibbets recently passed away.

Greene expresses no revulsion with Tibbetts or his actions. He writes that Harry Truman met with Tibbets at the White House and asked him if he got any criticism for dropping the bomb on innocent civilians. Just tell anybody who objects that I was the one who sent you, Truman reportedly said.

Greene writes Tibbets had peace of mind:

"It was reported that he claimed never to have lost a night’s sleep after the mission, and some saw this as a show of indifference. It was the opposite. He slept well, he told me, because “we stopped the killing.” He was at peace, he said, because “I know how many people got to live full lives because of what we did.”"

Harry Truman should have been tried as a war criminal. He claimed he ordered the bomb dropped in order to shorten the war and save American lives. Nice sentiment, but you are not allowed to kill civilians intentionally, no matter how noble the ends. And Bob Greene needs to get his values in right order. Instead of lionizing the late Paul Tibbets, he should think carefully about the 100,000 Japanese civilians, men, women, children, young, old, who Harry Truman through Paul Tibbets incinerated that terrible morning in August some 63 years ago.

DON'T LET BUSH START A WAR WITH IRAN

Hooray for Gordon Brown. The British Prime Minister is refusing to toe the Bush/Cheney line that Iran should never be allowed a nuclear weapon. In contrast to those push-overs, Nicolas Sarkozy and German Minister Angela Merkel, Brown is resisting the march of Bush and Cheney towards war with Iran. Thanks to ThinkProgress.com for discovering the story in The Telegram.

Tim Shipman and Philip Sherwell write in the Telegram.co.uk that Bush is becoming impatient with Brown.

"Allies of Condoleeza Rice, the US Secretary of State, have told The Sunday Telegraph that the Prime Minister should emulate France's President Nicolas Sarkozy and warn that Iran may face military action, in order to help avert a new war in the Middle East. . . .

"The concerns reflect growing irritation in Washington, from the White House down, that Mr Brown will not match his more robust private conversations on Iran with hard-hitting public statements that would put pressure on the Teheran regime."

It seems that all Bush, Cheney, Lieberman, Rice and the rest of the neo-cons want is to drum up support for bombing Iran. ThinkProgress.com reports on John Bolton's smear today of Mohamed El Baradei , head of the International Atomic Energy Agency of the United Nations, for saying that Iran does not have an active nuclear weapon program:

"Two weeks ago, Mohamed El Baradei, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on CNN that an attack on Iran would “lead absolutely to disaster.” He added that there is no evidence of a “concrete, active nuclear weapon program” going on inside Iran.

"Today on CNN’s Late Edition, neconservative warhawk John Bolton responded by smearing ElBaradei as “an apologist for Iran” and said the United States is “paying the price” for not opposing him more vociferously."

By the way, we are hearing too much from John Bolton lately. Bolton is always trying to incite a war someplace in the world. He would like nothing better than to bomb North Korea and Iran at the same time.

WHY DID THE SENATE CONFIRM MUKASEY?

Why the U.S. Senate confirmed Judge Michael Mukasey as Attorney General by 53 to 40 is still an enigma. Especially the votes of Senators Schumer and Feinstein. I have read their op-eds justifying their votes. They fail to convince, especially when they try to say that Mukasey would be better than some recess appointment or acting AG appointed by Bush without Senate confirmation.

Mukasey is not sure that waterboarding is torture. Nevertheless the Senate confirms him as head law enforcement officer of the United States. It is all too improbable. There must be some other reason why Feinstein and Schumer voted for his confirmation, and unfortunately we are not getting the underlying real reason from the main stream media.

Furthermore, what happened to Sen. Harry Reid? As majority leader, he could have and should have threatened a filibuster. In which case, Mukasey would need 60 votes to have the Senate vote on him. The Republicans do this all the time, witness the vote on S-CHIP in which Democrats obtained a majority but not enough to stop the Republican filibuster. So why did Harry Reid allow the Mukasey confirmation vote to go forward without a veto? Again, this explanation is not something that we are getting from most newspapers and TV.

BUSH SAYS HE SUPPORTS MUSHARRAF, SAYS NOTHING ABOUT ARRRESTED JUDGES AND LAWYERS

I thought George W. Bush was the "democracy president." He seemed to have a mission from above to foster democracy throughout the world.

Of course democracy means a rule of law implicit in the power of the people to determine their own government. How come then today Michael Abramowitz reports in The Washington Post that George Bush as well as Condoleeza Rice made it a point to emphasize how much they support Gen. Pervez Musharraf, notwithstanding his suspension of the Pakistani Constitution and notwithstanding his locking up of the justices of the Pakistan Supreme Court as well as innumerable other judges and lawyers?

If Bush wants to support a dictator who is trying to stay in power by force of the Pakistan army, then how can he preach the gospel of democracy from here to the end of his term, in another 14 months?

In articulating his support for Musharraf, Bush did not mention the judges and the lawyers who were beaten and arrested. Before Bush or Rice dare to come out and signal support for the Pakistani dictator, they should first insist that the lawyers be freed.

BHUTTO CALLS FOR RELEASE OF JUDGES, LAWYERS - IT'S ABOUT TIME

It is about time that Benazir Bhutto has come out with an appeal to free Pakistani Supreme Court Justice Chaudhry and the other Pakistani judges and lawyers who have been arrested by that dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Bhutto has been back in Pakistan for several weeks, yet only today did I read on the website of the BBC where she calls for the jurists' release. Without the freeing of the judges, Pakistan will exist without the rule of law.

This whole sordid affair shows the shallowness of U.S. foreign policy towards Musharraf and Pakistan. The U.S. policy centers on Musharraf whereas it should center on Pakistan and its people. Instead of arming Musharraf and the Pakistan army, the U.S. should be assisting the hoi polloi, the common peoeple, with roads, schools and hospitals.