Ward Churchill becomes lightning rod for 911 grief
by Paul Wolf, 3 Feb 2005
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2005 12:26:35 -0500
From: Paul Wolf <paulwolf@icdc.com>
Subject: Ward Churchill becomes lightning rod for 911 grief
Introduction
1. Churchill a lightning rod
2. Professor Is Assailed by Legislature and Vandals
3. American Indian Movement Press Release
4. CU prof affirms Indian heritage
5. New Republic Calls for Death and Torture of Arundhati Roy and Stan Goff
6. Graham Defense Update, Feb. 2, 2005
7. Did September 11 Cause a Constitutional Paradigm Shift?
Introduction
A media frenzy has developed surrounding a 2001 Ward Churchill article
entitled "Some People Push Back: On the Justice Of Roosting Chickens," in
which Dr. Churchill compares the World Trade Center victims to nazis, and
suggests that if there was any better way to punish them for their
complicity in the 1991 gulf war, he'd like to hear about it. This was indeed
a foolish and unscholarly theme for an essay, dismissing the distinction
between civilians and combatants set out in the Geneva Conventions half a
century ago. By Churchill's logic, his own death in such an attack would be
justified.
But that's beside the point. Churchill's article was obviously intended to
be offensive. What's amazing is the ability of Bill O'Reilly to pull this
scandal out of the dustbin. It must have been a slow news day at Fox for Mr
O'Reilly to have seized on this three year old article. O'Reilly is an
expert character assassin, and should be held accountable in a court of law
for the death threats and other harms Churchill has suffered. He's been
doing this a long time and is well aware of the reprecussions of his work.
While the media has seized on Churchill's "hate speech", how else can we
classify a show like "The O'Reilly Factor"?
I had some dealings with Dr Churchill a few years ago when we agreed I'd
promote his book, The COINTELPRO Papers, on my website. I soon learned of
the bizarre and conspiratorial world of the largely-defunct American Indian
Movement. On its website, AIM's leaders accuse Ward Churchill of working as
a counterintelligence agent in the Vietnam war, of recruiting mercenaries
for the contras in the 80's, of working for Soldier of Fortune Magazine (a
CIA-connected publication, back issues of which have been purged from all
libraries near Washington DC), and of sabotaging AIM's negotiations with
Saddam Hussein. (see http://www.aimovement.org/csi/, and BBrown_Rmeans memo
for AIM-Baath Party negotiations). AIM is also upset about Churchill's AIM
splinter group in Colorado. In return, Colorado Autonomous AIM accuses the
AIM leadership of espionage, drug dealing, and complicy in the murder of
Anna Mae Aquash. (http://www.coloradoaim.org/history.htm) Arlo Looking Cloud
was recently convicted of complicity in the Aquash murder, but Leonard
Peltier insists he was framed. John Graham may soon be extradicted from
Canada to face charges for the same murder, on the barest of evidence, much
like Peltier was. AIM's politics are incomprehensible to me, except to
conclude that the fight is to the death.
Those unimpressed by media frenzies and ultra-radical death politics make
skip immediately to article #7 below. Ed Lazarus has the unique ability to
see what is happening and put it into historical, if somewhat lawyerly,
perspective. Here he explains the 911 paradigm shift and wonders where our
legal system is heading.
- Paul
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Churchill a lightning rod
CU prof at center of 9/11 dispute has been there before
By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News, January 28, 2005
So, people are mad at Ward Churchill. What else is new?
For a man who has weathered anonymous death threats telephoned to his home,
the latest turmoil is comparatively tame.
Churchill, chairman of the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of
Colorado, is at the center of controversy -- again. This time it's students
at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., upset about his scheduled appearance
there next week.
They are disturbed by an essay Churchill wrote in the wake of the Sept. 11,
2001, terrorist attacks suggesting they were justified.
In an essay written the day after the attacks, Some People Push Back: On the
Justice Of Roosting Chickens, he said America was merely reaping what it had
sown through a long history of violent domination and assault upon
indigenous people.
"There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed
on September 11 fill that bill" as innocent victims, Churchill wrote.
"The building and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple.
As to those in the World Trade Center . . . Well, really.
"Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians, of a
sort. But innocent? Gimme a break."
Among those spitting mad is Debra Burlingame of Westchester, N.Y., sister of
a pilot who died on Sept. 11. She said the CU professor's remarks are
"beyond the pale."
To find himself outside the mainstream is not a novel experience for
Churchill; this is the same man who, in an interview last year, said "it may
be that more 9/11s are necessary."
U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez, R-Colo., has called for Churchill's resignation
because of his 3-year-old Sept. 11 essay. And U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, an
Eldorado Springs Democrat whose district includes Boulder, said Churchill's
essay "grossly defames those who were murdered in the attack on the World
Trade Center. Mr. Churchill owes the 9/11 families an apology."
Churchill, 57, was one of eight defendants acquitted in Denver on Jan. 20
for blocking the Oct. 9 Columbus Day parade, which he and his co-defendants
consider an act of hate speech and ethnic intimidation.
He also was arrested in a 1991 Columbus Day parade protest, but the charges
in that case were dismissed a few months later.
This semester, Churchill is teaching three classes at CU: Topical Issues in
Native North America, American Indians in Film, and Indian/ Government
Conflicts.
He is currently out of state on a speaking tour. But his wife, fellow CU
ethnic studies professor Natsu Saito -- also one of those acquitted in the
Columbus Day parade trial -- spoke highly of her husband as an academic.
"Students love him. His classes are always filled to overflowing, and he
sets a standard for teaching and scholarship that is inspiring for all of
us," she said.
"He has written more books than most academics even think about writing. I
think he inspires the students with respect to how to put one's teachings
into practice, and applies it to the world."
This is not the first time Churchill has come under fire for his alternative
viewpoint on Sept. 11.
He stirred a hornet's nest of opposition during a visit on Dec. 1, 2001 --
less than three months after nearly 3,000 were killed in the attacks -- to
the University of Vermont.
Situated in the liberal enclave of Burlington, Vt., the university lost 13
alumni in the attacks.
"The stuff was so outrageous and the timing was so bad because it (the Sept.
11 trauma) was so fresh," said Sam Hemingway, a columnist for the Burlington
Free Press who wrote about Churchill's visit. "Everybody was so worked up."
Many still are.
Debra Burlingame is the sister of Charles "Chick" Burlingame III, the
captain of American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon the
day before his 52nd birthday.
Using the same argument Churchill has used against the Columbus Day parade,
she said of his writings: "I consider it hate speech, which isn't protected
at all by the First Amendment.
"What (Hamilton College) is doing is paying him money, sponsoring him, an
individual who is calling for the murder of innocent people. That is hate
speech."
Saito said those who have read her husband's writings -- which include at
least 15 books -- should have a good sense of who he is.
"I think the part that a lot of people miss -- because he says things in a
way that makes people uncomfortable, because he forces people to confront
truths they don't want to deal with, that they would rather ignore -- is why
he does it," said Saito.
On Thursday, interim CU Chancellor Phil DiStefano issued a statement
emphasizing that Churchill's views are his own and not representative of the
university.
"While I may personally find his views offensive, I also must support his
right (guaranteed by the First Amendment) as an American citizen to hold and
express his views, no matter how repugnant," he said.
Professor at the center of controversy
* Name: Ward Churchill (which he terms his "colonial" name;
Keezjunnahbeh, meaning "kind-hearted man." is his given Native American
name)
* Age: 57
* Education: Bachelor's degree (1974) and master's degree (1975) from
Sangamon State University, which is now the University of
Illinois-Springfield
* Employment: Chairman of the Ethnic Studies Department, University of
Colorado
* Personal: Married, with one stepdaughter; lives in unincorporated
Boulder County
Copyright © 2005 Rocky Mountain News
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Professor Is Assailed by Legislature and Vandals
By Michelle York, The New York Times, February 3, 2005
Colorado lawmakers yesterday denounced an embattled professor whose
scheduled appearance at an upstate New York college was canceled amid
protests over his writings on the Sept. 11 attacks, in which he compared the
victims to Nazis.
The professor, Ward Churchill, meanwhile, rebuffed calls to resign and said
yesterday that his truck had been painted with swastikas overnight as it sat
in his driveway. The Boulder County Sheriff's Department said it was
investigating.
Calling his written remarks an "evil and inflammatory blow to the healing
process," the Colorado House of Representatives unanimously approved a
resolution condemning Professor Churchill. "The victims of the World Trade
Center were innocent in every sense of the word and should always be
remembered as innocent," the resolution states.
The uproar concerns a three-year-old essay by Professor Churchill, who
teaches ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In it, he
called the workers killed in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 "little
Eichmanns," technocrats who had a role in their country's economic power and
its foreign policy, which included the 1991 gulf war.
The Colorado governor, Bill Owens, has called for the university to fire
Professor Churchill, but yesterday, Michael Carrigan, a newly elected member
of the University of Colorado Board of Regents, said it was unlikely that
any action would be taken when the board holds an emergency meeting today.
"He can be fired, but not tomorrow," Mr. Carrigan said yesterday.
Professor Churchill said in an interview yesterday that he would sue if
fired. "I am on firm legal ground," he said, adding that several lawyers who
specialize in free speech have already contacted him. He said he had
received more than 100 death threats.
The essay surfaced only after Professor Churchill accepted an invitation to
speak at Hamilton College, near Utica, N.Y., about his area of expertise,
American Indian activism.
After the essay was brought to light, Hamilton College said it had to honor
its invitation in the interests of free speech, though the college
president, Joan Hinde Stewart, said she found the remarks personally
repugnant.
The college received thousands of e-mail messages and telephone calls
protesting the planned panel discussion. On Tuesday, it abruptly canceled
the discussion, which had been scheduled for tonight, after a caller
threatened to bring a gun to the event and the local police said they could
not guarantee Professor Churchill's safety.
At the University of Colorado, Professor Churchill resigned as chairman of
the ethnic studies department on Monday but remains a teacher. Some students
have protested his remarks, though he said more support him.
In his essay, Professor Churchill wrote of what he saw as the tie between
the trade center victims and the deaths of Iraqis in the 1991 war, and
after. "They were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into
their cellphones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of
which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance,
into the starved and rotting flesh of infants," he wrote.
"If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting
some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns
inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be
interested in hearing about it," he added.
Some Colorado lawmakers called on the Legislature yesterday to cut financing
for the ethnic studies department at the university, saying that Professor
Churchill has a right to free speech but that taxpayers do not have to
subsidize his views.
The conservative news commentator Bill O'Reilly, who repeatedly urged
viewers to send e-mail protests to Hamilton College, was running a poll on
his Web site yesterday asking viewers if Professor Churchill should be
fired. On his program last night, Mr. O'Reilly called the vandalism and
death threats an "unfortunate plight."
At Hamilton, students scheduled a meeting called "Academic Freedom" for next
Wednesday to discuss all the issues that swirled around campus, said a
spokeswoman, Vige Barrie.
Copyright © 2005 New York Times
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AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT GRAND GOVERNING COUNCIL
MINISTRY FOR INFORMATION
P.O. Box 13521
Minneapolis MN 55414
612/ 721-3914 . fax 612/ 721-7826
Email: aimggc@worldnet.att.net
Web Address: www.aimovement.org
Ward Churchill was scheduled to speak at Hamilton College in Clinton, New
York on February 3, 2005. His appearance was canceled by the college after
he caused a public furor over his loathsome remarks about the 9-11 tragedy
in New York. AIM's Grand Governing Council has been dealing with Churchill's
hateful attitude and rip-off of Indian people for years.
The American Indian Movement Grand Governing Council representing the
National and International leadership of the American Indian Movement once
again is vehemently and emphatically repudiating and condemning the
outrageous statements made by academic literary and Indian fraud, Ward
Churchill in relationship to the 9-11 tragedy in New York City that claimed
thousands of innocent people's lives.
Churchill's statement that these people deserved what happened to them, and
calling them little Eichmanns, comparing them to Nazi war criminal Adolf
Eichmann, who implemented Adolf Hitler's plan to exterminate European Jews
and others, should be condemned by all.
The sorry part of this is Ward Churchill has fraudulently represented
himself as an Indian, and a member of the American Indian Movement, a
situation that has lifted him into the position of a lecturer on Indian
activism. He has used the American Indian Movement's chapter in Denver to
attack the leadership of the official American Indian Movement with his
misinformation and propaganda campaigns.
Ward Churchill has been masquerading as an Indian for years behind his dark
glasses and beaded headband. He waves around an honorary membership card
that at one time was issued to anyone by the Keetoowah Tribe of Oklahoma.
Former President Bill Clinton and many others received these cards, but
these cards do not qualify the holder a member of any tribe. He has
deceitfully and treacherously fooled innocent and naïve Indian community
members in Denver, Colorado, as well as many other people worldwide.
Churchill does not represent, nor does he speak on behalf of the American
Indian Movement.
New York's Hamilton College Kirklands Project should be aware that in their
search for truth and justice, the idea that they have hired a fraud to speak
on Indian activism is in itself a betrayal of their goals.
Dennis J. Banks, Ojibwa Nation
Chairman of the Board
American Indian Movement
Phone: 218-654-5885
Nee Gon Nway Wee Dung, aka, Clyde H. Bellecourt, Ojibwa Nation
National Executive Director
American Indian Movement
Cell: 612-251-5836
Office: 612-724-3129
Press Contact:
WaBun-Inini, aka, Vernon Bellecourt, Ojibwa Nation
Executive Committee Member
Director Council on Foreign Relations
American Indian Movement
Office: 612-721-3914
Cell: 612-889-0796
See the following:
Us vs AIM
Us vs AIM Backgound
Indian Country Today: Editors' Report
Keetoowah Tribe Response
The Public's Response
Churchill Cartoon
For more information regarding Churchill's fraudulent enrollment:
United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians of Oklahoma
Enrollment officer: 918-431-0385 or 918-456-8698
Copyright © 2005 American Indian Movement Grand Governing Council
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CU prof affirms Indian heritage
Tribe says he's not full member
By Howard Pankratz, Denver Post, Feb 3, 2005
The Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians said Wednesday that University of
Colorado professor Ward Churchill is an associate member of the tribe but
not a full member, which requires a person to have at least one-fourth
Cherokee blood.
"He was trying to get recognized as an Indian. He could not prove he was an
Indian (Cherokee) at all," said Ernestine Berry, who was on the tribe's
enrollment committee and served on the tribal council for four years.
Churchill, who resigned as chairman of CU's ethnic studies department on
Monday, has been condemned for comparing victims of the 2001 terrorist
attacks to Nazis.
He has described himself as an Indian and has said that shaped many of his
opinions. But over the last week, as Churchill's comments made news, his
critics have claimed he is a fraud.
On Wednesday, Churchill steadfastly maintained that he is an Indian,
claiming he is three-sixteenths Cherokee. But he acknowledged that he is an
associate member, not a full member, of the Keetoowah.
"I don't vote, I don't hold office, I don't collect benefits," Churchill
said. He said he was enrolled as an associate member of the Keetoowah after
a genealogical investigation showed his Cherokee lineage.
Click here to see Ward Churchill's essay, "Some People Push Back: On the
Justice of Roosting Chickens," as posted on a third-party website. Todd
Gleeson, dean of the University of Colorado's College of Arts and Sciences,
which oversees Churchill's department, has indicated to The Denver Post that
this posting is an authentic copy of Churchill's essay. He said he could
have become a full member of the larger, 240,000-member Cherokee Nation
because it has no "blood quantum threshold." But he chose the Keetoowah
because they are a more "hard- line" group.
Berry, of the Keetoowah Band, said Churchill was given an associate
membership in the 10,000-member tribe, based in Tahlequah, Okla., in the
early 1990s.
"Mr. Churchill started coming around in 1992 or 1993, said he wrote some
books and was a big-time author, and convinced us he could help our people,"
Berry said.
On that basis, he was given an associate membership, said Berry, who was on
the tribe's enrollment committee and has served on the tribal council.
Berry said Churchill never fulfilled his promise to help the tribe, which
she said is an extremely poor offshoot of the Cherokee Nation.
"After he received his associate card, we never heard from him again," Berry
said.
The tribe no longer offers associate memberships, although it didn't revoke
any existing memberships, Berry said.
In addition to questioning Churchill's Indian heritage, some people have
raised questions about his duties in Vietnam, where he said he fought in
that country's highlands and then moved to coastal regions, where he was
assigned to "gun trucks" similar to today's Humvees.
One of the skeptics is Vernon Bellecourt, director of the Council on Foreign
Relations for the American Indian Movement.
Bellecourt says he believes Churchill worked counter-intelligence in Vietnam
while also claiming to be an "information specialist" there.
"According to research by one of our people, he has had two military
records. There is something very strange which we have not been able to get
into," Bellecourt said.
In 1995, News From Indian Country, an Indian-owned, reservation-based
Wisconsin newspaper for Native Americans, said it had "observed many
interesting things about (Churchill) including contrary military records.
... "
Churchill's service record was not available from the Pentagon. But one
private group that tracks Vietnam veterans has obtained some data.
Mary Schantag, a researcher for the POW Network, said Department of Defense
records that she has show Churchill was a "heavy-vehicle driver."
But she acknowledged that those records indicate only his last assignment.
The POW Network is dedicated to compiling the biographies of prisoners of
war and those missing in action from the Vietnam conflict. In recent years,
it has also exposed people making phony claims about Vietnam service.
Copyright © 2005 Denver Post
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Mr. Frank's Fatwah
New Republic Calls for Death and Torture of Arundhati Roy and Stan Goff
By Dave Zirin, CounterPunch, Jan 31, 2005
The words "libelous" and "the New Republic" have a proud history of walking
arm-in-arm. Now, in the esteemed tradition of [former TNR writer who passed
fiction as fact] Stephen Glass, The New Republic has stooped to a new low,
publishing a piece that calls for violence, torture, and even death for
leading leftists who dare oppose Bush's war on terror and the slaughter in
Iraq.
Author Tom Frank -- clearly from the Glass School of Journalism the New
Republic has made famous -- described sitting in on an anti-war panel
sponsored by the International Socialist Organization, the Washington Peace
Center, the DC Anti-War Network and other groups.
After having heard the 100 plus attendees cheer sentiments like "Money for
Jobs and Education Not For War and Occupation," Frank became so riled up, he
unloaded a deranged harangue about the suffering he would like to rain upon
people daring to organize against this war. After Stan Goff, a former Delta
Forces soldier and current organizer for Military Families Speak Out,
expressed sentiments like "We ain't never resolved nothing through an
election," Frank's jag began. Clearly too doughy to do it himself, Frank
started to fantasize about a Teutonic strongman who could shut Goff up.
Frank writes, "What I needed was a Republican like Arnold [Schwarzenegger]
who would walk up to [Goff] and punch him in the face."
As the panel continued, every cheer and standing ovation seemed to set Frank
deeper down a path of psychosis. After International Socialist Review
editorial board member Sherry Wolf asserted that Iraqis had a "right" to
rebel against occupation, Frank upped the ante in his efforts to intimidate
anyone considering entry into the anti-war movement.
He wrote, "these weren't harmless lefties. I didn't want Nancy Pelosi
talking sense to them; I wanted John Ashcroft to come busting through the
wall with a submachine gun to round everyone up for an immediate trip to
Gitmo, with Charles Graner on hand for interrogation."
Later, when Wolf quoted Booker Prize winning author Arundhati Roy's defense
of the right to resist, Frank was sent into such a state of panic, he once
again dreamed of the mighty hand of state repression, writing, "Maybe
sometimes you just want to be on the side of whoever is more likely to take
a bunker buster to Arundhati Roy."
Interestingly, Frank didn't have the guts to slander another one of the
panel speakers, exonerated death row inmate Shujaa Graham. Graham, who has
been moved to speak out against the torture of Iraqi prisoners by intimately
connecting their pain with his own experience of torture in California's
death row, escaped Frank's pen. I guess it's hard to pose fantasy threats of
torture and death toward someone who has actually looked it in the face.
We can write this piece off as just another one of the smarmy New Republic
20-something writers getting his jollies slamming the left. We can say that
Frank -- his entire piece an exercise in poorly executed humor, ill-written
grammar, and awkward phrasing -- just forgot to break his Prozac in half
that morning. But there is something far more insidious at work here.
This piece is yet another effort to intimidate and silence people who aren't
willing to toe the "party line" espoused by Democrats and Republicans alike
that the death of 1,400 US troops and 100,000 Iraqi civilians is somehow
justified. Frank's piece is an exercise in hate and intimidation. To be
quiet in its face is to give ground in a period when we have precious little
to give.
Therefore, this is a call for people to e-mail The New Republic and let them
know what you think about humorous musings on killing Arundhati Roy or
torturing Stan Goff. Let them know that a disgraced magazine will not
intimidate us, especially one with the credibility of The National Enquirer.
Let them know that we will publicly debate Tom Frank or any of their 20
something post-graduate hacks on the merits of this war anytime and any
place. This is the only way to deal with darkness: shine as bright a light
as possible -- right in it's face.
E-mail letters@tnr.com to let them know what you think. We are also
considering a picket of the New Republic Offices, for those interested.
Copyright © 2005 CounterPunch
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Graham Defense Update, Feb. 2, 2005
By Matthew Lien, John Graham Defense Committee, info@grahamdefense.org,
www.grahamdefense.org
Update Wednesday, February 2, 2005
Dear friends and supporters,
John's defence attorneys submitted their final arguments today, and Supreme
Court Justice Elizabeth Bennett announced she would deliver her final
decision on Monday, February 21.
In closing, John's attorney Terry LaLiberte discussed two points: one, that
the certified evidence has been shown to be unreliable, and two, that the
U.S. has not established the identification of John Graham as the
perpetrator of the murder of Anna Mae Aquash.
Mr. LaLiberte said the certified evidence of identification is "full of
holes" in describing the person the U.S. is looking for, and does not match
the booking sheet from John's arrest in Vancouver. The U.S. information as
certified by U.S. Attorney Robert Mandel, states that they are looking for a
Caucasian, 188cm tall, weighing 87 kg.
"They cannot get around the fundamental fact," said LaLiberte, "that the guy
they want is six inches taller than Mr. Graham," said LaLiberte, "and there
is a problem with the weight and the racial description."
The U.S. claims John was also known as John Boy Patton. "Also known by
whom?" asked LaLiberte. "We have requested that they clarify these points,
and they have not proffered that evidence."
Mr. LaLiberte stated that "there is no link" between the witnesses'
identification of a "John Boy Patton" and the photos of John Graham. "This
is totally inadequate," said Mr. LaLiberte. "Witness John Trudell claims a
John Boy Patton shot Aquash, but identifies Mr. Graham's photo as John
Graham. There is nothing to link our citizen in Canada to this person in
South Dakota."
"They have not proven the identity," said LaLiberte, "and that should be the
end of it."
John's co-counsel Gregory DelBigio, also spoke to the issue of the
photographs. He pointed out that the certified summary of evidence
attributes testimony to witnesses "by saying, for example, the witness 'is
able' to identify a photo. They do not say that the witness actually
identified the photo." Mr. DelBigio pointed out that this is significant,
because it appears the U.S. Attorney is speaking on behalf of witnesses by
claiming they are able to provide evidence that they have not actually
provided. "It is not a concrete assertion," said Mr. DelBigio. "They do not
even say the witness made the testimony to the investigators, they only say
the witness is able to make the identification."
Mr. DelBigio argued that on the critical point of identifying a suspect,
"There should be evidence that witnesses have positively identified the
photo."
Mr. LaLiberte pointed out again that U.S. Attorney Mandel certified evidence
that does not exist. He argued that the body of evidence is inadequate,
since one alleged witness, Al Gates, was dead for nine months when he was
certified as being "available to testify;" another witness, Frank Dillon,
has said he did not make the statements attributed to him; and the only
alleged eyewitness, Arlo Looking Cloud, has stated he will not testify
against Graham, as the U.S. claims.
"We have provided cogent evidence that he will not testify against Graham,"
said LaLiberte. "His lawyer says he will not testify. And the proof is in
the pudding. In a recent Grand Jury investigation, Mr. Looking Cloud did not
testify against Mr. Graham, and even refused immunity."
Mr. LaLiberte also stated that evidence submitted is not attributed to
anyone. "Some of this appears to be speculation by Mr. Mandel," said Mr.
LaLiberte, referring to the U.S. Attorney who certified the evidence.
"We want to believe our neighbour," said LaLiberte, referring to the U.S.,
"but there is some threshold at which so many holes have been punched in the
certified evidence, that we can no longer presume it is reliable."
Gregory DelBigio addressed the impact of the erosion of evidence, the dead
witness, recanted testimony, and the failure to identify John Graham. He
pointed out that whenever John's attorneys demonstrated that evidence was
not available as originally claimed by the U.S., they respond that they "did
not rely on that piece of evidence." Regarding witness Al Gates, who is
dead, Mr. DelBigio said, "They now say they don't rely on the Gates
testimony." But he said the court must consider the entire body of evidence
together. "The certification refers to the entire package of evidence," said
Mr. DelBigio. "The Court can no longer be sure the evidence is sufficient
for committal."
Mr. DelBigio said the Court has a duty to impose some minimum requirements
on the quality of evidence from the U.S. "This is not a rubber stamp or
meaningless ritual," he told Justice Bennett. "There is some bare minimum of
protection for a Canadian citizen."
Mr. LaLiberte agreed. "There is no due process here," he said. "We've shown
big holes in the evidence. They say 'trust me, I'm an Attorney General.' The
certified evidence is totally inadequate. They are hiding behind the law,
making bold assertions that are not true. The process is flawed. Who are
these people -- the Ecoffeys and Alonzos and Graff -- these people who are
claiming witnesses are able to testify to these things?"
"Whenever we show their evidence is wrong," said Mr. LaLiberte, "they say it
doesn't matter. Well, it does matter."
Crown Attorney Deborah Strachan, representing the U.S. said, "The
extradition judge is not to be concerned about reliability of evidence." She
insisted the Extradition Act requires the court to presume the evidence
supplied is accurate and presented in good faith. "Fairness of the process
is irrelevant," she told the court. Justice Bennett recessed the hearing,
announcing that her final decision will be read at 9:00 a.m. on Monday,
February 21. If she does commit John Graham for extradition, he will appeal.
John's case is very similar to the 2003 case of U.K. vs. Tarantino, in which
the Court stayed the proceedings due to the unreliability of the evidence
supplied by the U.K. As in John's case, a witnesses was shown to have died,
another witness had absconded, and a third witness was shown to be
unreliable. The Judge in that case ruled that although our Extradition Act
requires courts to trust the foreign state, there is some minimum threshold
of reliability that the Canadian courts must uphold.
"The court has the power to control its own process," the judge ruled. "It
is for the court to guard its own integrity." This certainly would sound
like the Court of a sovereign nation.
If the order to extradite is issued, John's final appeal will be to the
Minister of Justice, Irwin Cotler, which will commence promptly.
We thank you once again from deep within our hearts, for your interest and
support of John Graham in this struggle for truth and justice. We will keep
you informed as we prepare ourselves for the coming developments.
Most sincerely,
Matthew Lien
John Graham Defense Committee
Copyright © 2005 John Graham Defense Committee
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Did September 11 Cause a Constitutional Paradigm Shift?
Why Conservatives Argue that It Did, and Why Their Views Are Likely to Have
Some Lasting Effect
By Edward Lazarus, Findlaw.com, February 3, 2005
Recently, a former member of Alberto Gonzales's White House staff described
to the press the incredible "sense of mission" he and others felt post-9/11.
They believed they were serving their country, to the best of their
abilities, as they strained to find legalistic justifications for using
extreme interrogation techniques against Guantanamo detainees.
Now, the Administration is backing away from the so-called "torture memos."
A new memo has been publicly revealed, which expressly supersedes the old.
And in his confirmation hearings, incoming Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
bobbed and weaved before the Senate Judiciary Committee to avoid taking
responsibility for the memos. But it was not always so.
At the time the memos were written, talented young, conservative lawyers
felt they were merely responding to the necessities of a post-9/11 world by
trying to liberate the Executive branch from the legal constraints of
anti-torture laws and international human rights conventions.
Their zeal feels completely foreign to me -- enthusiasm for enabling torture
is a hard emotion to imagine. But in some sense, in their view, that was the
point: It was supposed to feel foreign: The world had changed -- their memos
made that very explicit -- and the law needed to change with it. They would
now be the agents of that necessary change, using their talents to protect
the nation by stripping away the legal constraints on what it could do to,
and with, enemies of the state.
In their eyes, the terrorist attacks had created a "paradigm shift" -- one
that rendered obsolete a host of accepted wisdom regarding the scope of
Executive Power, and the balance between liberty and national security.
Certain legal constraints on governmental conduct, they thought, had been
rendered, at best, quaint and, at worst, counterproductive given the new
exigencies facing the government.
Whatever the merits view, there can be no doubt that it is sincerely felt by
many people inside and outside the government. Nor can there be doubt that
the "9/11 effect," as it might be called, will exercise a grip on the law --
in particular, on constitutional law -- for some time to come.
With 9/11 and its aftermath, a new generational perspective may well be
taking hold. And it would be foolhardy for any of us -- even those who wish
it were not so -- to ignore this development.
How Generations Reshape Constitutional Law: The "Greatest Generation"
Every generation of judges, scholars, and lawyers tries to bequeath to the
next generation in line its own understanding of legal traditions and
necessities. But, inevitably, they are only partially successful. The next
generation inevitably revises the traditions it receives, and constructs new
ones, in light of the experiences that have formed the new generation's
world view. And so it goes.
Consider the generation of lawyers that counted among its leaders Alexander
Bickel, who championed a modest and pragmatic approach to judging. As Yale
Law professor Robert Burt has explained in a tribute to Bickel, Bickel's
views of the legal world were constantly informed by two experiences -- both
arising from the history that shaped the generation to which he belonged.
In 1939, a fourteen-year-old Bickel emigrated to the United States from
Romania. Within five years, the Nazis had killed 60% of the Romanian Jews.
The whole world Bickel, who was Jewish, had grown up in, had been destroyed
by the repellent ideology of Mein Kampf.
The 1930s had also seen the epochal clash between FDR and the Supreme Court
over New Deal Legislation. The Court's old guard had tried to squelch
President Roosevelt's economic reforms in the name of freedom of contract;
for a time, they were successful, but eventually, Roosevelt prevailed. But
in the eyes of Bickel, and many others, "freedom of contract" ideology had
delayed recovery from the Great Depression, causing terrible human suffering
along the way.
As Burt describes it, Bickel, like many judges, scholars, and lawyers of his
generation, derived a single overarching lesson from the disparate phenomena
of World War II and the New Deal Court: They came to despise sweeping
abstractions and ideologies as the engines of policy-making, whether legal
or political.
To them, high principles were potential tools of oppression, the stuff that
drove courts to rule by fiat or, even more important, gave a moral force to
totalitarianism. For the Bickelian generation, the proper purpose of law and
of courts was not to definitively adjudicate right from wrong, or to
otherwise impose their will. It was much more modest -- and more specific --
than that.
Instead, Bickel urged courts to simply do their jobs of mediating between
contesting litigants to solve particular disputes. Through legal diplomacy
and pragmatic thinking, Bickel believed, courts could promote the ability of
society to find political accommodations to solve large legal problems --
but in many cases, to do this, court had to step aside to let legislatures
and executives do their work.
Based on these ideas, Bickel would craft one of the most important
constitutional law books ever written, The Least Dangerous Branch. There, he
explained the virtues of a "passive" judiciary. Such a judiciary, as he
described it, would decide even great issues -- such as the issue of race
discrimination encountered in Brown v. Board of Education -- in small steps.
Another Generation Reshapes the Law: The Civil Rights Era
No wonder, then, that the 1960s generation -- which sought the very kind of
sweeping, ideological change that frightened Bickel -- dissented strongly
from Bickel's approach.
For them, Brown v. Board of Education changed everything. Bickel's
generation may have crafted the decision as an incremental blow against the
ideology of racism -- one that did not force the executive to act in any
special hurry. But the next generation of lawyers received Brown as a
triumphant statement of legal morality -- focusing on its broad right, and
not its problematic remedies.
If the courts were the least dangerous branch, this generation thought, then
they ought to get a lot more dangerous, fast. How else could they counter
pernicious foes like racism?
These lawyers optimistically placed their faith in the power of courts and
of law to right old wrongs and impose a new moral order on the nation. And
in a host of Warren Court era decisions, they were not disappointed.
Ultimately, though, their optimism was challenged -- even eclipsed -- by
Vietnam and Watergate. In a way, the skepticism that these scandals spawned
has been with many of us who grew up during that time -- and with lawyers,
especially -- ever since.
The Next Generation: Shaped by a Blizzard of Political Scandals
Just this week, I happened to catch "All the President's Men" on cable. Lots
of things about the movie felt dated: the clothes, the cars, the ridiculous
sideburns and, oh yes, the idea of two obscure metro reporters breaking a
government scandal of unprecedented proportion without computers or
cellphones.
But to someone of my vintage, lots about the movie still feels deeply
important and relevant. I came of political age in an era marked by dirty
tricks and campaign slush funds, a secret war in Cambodia and Laos,
COINTELPRO and other illegal domestic spying, enemies lists, shredded
documents, widespread obstructions of justice, and a slew of Executive
branch denials -- all of which turned out to be false.
In my house, as in millions of others, the world was divided into the heroes
(Sam Ervin, Sam Dash, Liz Holtzman, Judge Sirica, the Supreme Court) and the
villains (Richard Nixon, H.R. Haldeman, John Mitchell, Chuck Colson, G.
Gordon Liddy). Bred into my bones was the idea that governments, even
democratic ones, are capable of enormous wrongs and enormous lies -- and
that subverting democratic governance requires neither an army nor
particular genius, but simply the concentration of power into the hands of
too many true believers of one stripe or another.
My memories of the Watergate era and the impressions indelibly etched then
inevitably shaped my view of politics and of the law. They have bequeathed
to me a presumptive skepticism towards claims of executive power and
privilege; they have made me wary of government's increasing power to
surveil its own citizens; and they have led me to a belief in the
possibility (and necessity) of an activist, principled, non-partisan
judiciary -- to reign in executive excesses, among other things.
Naturally, other historical events -- the fall of the Berlin Wall, Bush v.
Gore, September 11 -- have influenced my world view, sometimes considerably.
But these events stick to a template of perspective-shaping experience where
Watergate and the end of the Vietnam War reside at the first and deepest
level.
The New Generation's World View: How Much Will It Reshape Constitutional
Law?
For the current generation of young lawyers, Vietnam and Watergate are
intellectual abstractions, not lived experience -- just as Brown was for me,
and just as the New Deal fights were for the generation that grew up in
Brown's glow.
This generation saw scandal, but it was sexual, not political, scandal
(though it had high political stakes). Remember, those attorneys who are in
their early thirties today probably have no personal memories relating to
Vietnam or Watergate to look back on. But they were in high school or
college when Justice Clarence Thomas's confirmation hearings, with Anita
Hill's accusations, occurred. And they were in their twenties when the Paula
Jones/Lewinsky scandal broke, leading to President Clinton's impeachment and
ultimate acquittal.
This generation didn't learn from lived experience to fear excessive, and
abusive presidential power. Instead, it learned, perhaps, to worry a bit
about sexual harassment claims, and to distrust special prosecutors. But
special prosecutors are now a thing of the past, and we are increasingly
more comfortable with, and less alarmist about, the law of sexual
harassment.
So what did this generation distrust and fear? The answer may be: Nothing,
until September 11. They grew up in peace and prosperity. September 11
shattered it. How could they view it as anything but profoundly
transformative? How could they not be tempted to use the law to protect
themselves, and their country, by any means necessary? Their experience
testified to the damage terrorists can do to America -- but not to the
damage America, and its Presidents, can do to people in and outside our
country.
It is too soon to know whether the events of September 11 will have the
power deeply and broadly to shape the next generation's view of the law. But
as the torture memo incident brought starkly home, there is a new world view
in the making.
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