Donald Rumsfeld Can Be Sued?

While we had our eye on the train wreck of Wall Street following the downgrade of the credit rating of the United States, THIS happened:

'Tortured' US citizens allowed to sue Donald Rumsfeld

Two former US security contractors may sue former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for his role in their alleged torture in Iraq, a court has ruled.

US citizens Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel said they were held for months by US troops under harsh conditions.

They said they were detained in retaliation for efforts to reveal illegal activities by their employer.

A federal appeals court on Monday ruled that former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld had no immunity in the case.

"Plaintiffs have alleged sufficient facts to show that Secretary Rumsfeld personally established the relevant policies that caused the alleged violations of their constitutional rights during detention," the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Chicago, ruled in a 2-1 decision on Monday that upheld a decision by a lower US district court.

'Nightmarish scene'

The decision is the second this month in which US judges have ruled Mr Rumsfeld may be sued by US citizens who alleged torture in Iraq at the hands of US troops.

Last week, a US district judge in Washington ruled separately that a former American military contractor who also claims he was tortured in Iraq could sue Mr Rumsfeld.

The government said the contractor was suspected of helping pass information to the enemy, although he was never charged....

[...]

War 'second-guessed'

But the court said it remained to be seen whether Mr Rumsfeld had actually done so.

In a statement, a lawyer for Mr Rumsfeld said the decision to allow the suit "saps the effectiveness of the military, puts American soldiers at risk, and shackles federal officials who have a constitutional duty to protect America".

"Having judges second-guess the decisions made by the armed forces halfway around the world is no way to wage a war," David Rivkin said in a statement.

The US justice department could appeal against the ruling to the full panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals or to the US Supreme Court.

Can attempted litigation against George W. Bush be far behind?

Investigative Reporter Joe Kaufman Targeted For Silencing

I occasionally get email notifications of donations-needed from the David Horowitz Freedom Center. One such email arrived to me yesterday. Rather than posting an excerpt, here is the whole thing:

Radical Muslims Target Investigative Reporter!

An urgent message from David Horowitz

Dear Friend,

Radical Muslims are using our court system to try to silence those who expose their terrorist connections. They've done it in Europe and Canada - and now they're trying it here in America.

In the case of investigative reporter Joe Kaufman, so far they've been successful.

Seven Muslim groups claim that Joe is a threat. They convinced a court that Joe "intends to threaten to take unlawful action...cause bodily injury...or threaten Plaintiffs or their members with immediate bodily injury."

On those grounds the court imposed a restraining order on him. And they are suing Joe for defamation to stop him from writing about Muslims in the future and to close down his web sites [here].

Joe reports and writes for my web site FrontPageMagazine [index to Joe's articles here] and for his own web sites. He has never threatened a Muslim in his life. But he has exposed facts they want to hide.

If Joe Kaufman loses, radical Muslims will know they can stop anyone from investigating and writing about any Muslim groups and individuals.

This is why I am urgently asking you to help the Freedom Center pay for Joe's defense.

The reason Joe Kaufman is being targeted by these Muslim groups is that he monitors web sites run by Muslim charitable organizations, and he has identified money trails leading from some of these groups to terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

He discovered that funds from a group called the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) were going to Hamas, and he wrote about this on FrontPageMagazine. He also wrote that this group was sponsoring "Muslim Family Fun Day" at Six Flags Over Texas.

And he announced that he was going to hold a peaceful demonstration outside Six Flags on that day to expose this terrorist financing to the public.

Joe went ahead with his protest. It was peaceful and he broke no laws. He carried a sign which read, "Six Flags Over Terrorists," and he gave a speech to a small group of fellow demonstrators.

Within minutes of arriving at the park Joe was served with a restraining order, the result of a lawsuit brought by seven mosques and Muslim organizations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

ICNA - the group he was protesting - was not even one of the groups. These seven organizations claim that they were defamed by Kaufman's reports simply because their members are Muslim. Their lawsuit alleges that by reporting ICNA's financial activities and its links to terrorism, Kaufman harmed their reputations and the reputations of their members.

That was a year-and-a-half ago. But the court refused to throw out the lawsuit, so the case continues. Joe is being represented by a team of lawyers who are generously donating their time. But the other legal costs are considerable.

My Freedom Center has provided almost $20,000 towards these costs already. But now Joe's lawyers are trying to end the case in the appellate court. We need to raise an additional $25,000 for the immediate upcoming costs of Joe's defense. Please help us fight this case by clicking here to give.

Joe Kaufman has no money to spend on his defense. He has made a career of investigative journalism focusing on terrorism - something the mainstream media doesn't want to touch with a 10-foot pole, and therefore not a high-paying profession. He needs our help.

And there are other good reasons to support Joe's legal defense: all the other people working to fight Islamic terrorism - including me and my colleagues, other writers at FrontPageMagazine, and many other people who are doing this out of their passion for freedom and their desire to help protect America from the Islamo-Fascist threat.

A victory by the Muslim groups would be the first step in silencing all of us. This is a free speech issue and nothing more: Joe has not lied about, threatened, or touched any of the Muslims who are suing him, or any other Muslims for that matter. He simply reported the truth, and for that these groups are doing their best to silence him - and to intimidate the rest of us.

The lawsuit against Joe Kaufman is part of a strategy by these Muslim groups to bully us into silence. That's why we cannot let them win.

I am asking you to make a contribution of $25, $50, $100 or even more if you can, to help us raise the $25,000 we need right away to pay for Joe Kaufman's defense. Any amount you can send will help. Just click here to give. It's urgent!

Thanks in advance for your help.

Sincerely,

David Horowitz
President and Founder

P.S. The outcome of this case is by no means predictable. Too many judges have shown themselves to care more about not offending Muslims than about free speech. We must raise the money to fight this case to the end!

So, you see, the threat to freedom of speech doesn't apply only to Geert Wilders, about whom many of us are blogging with a frenzy. The threat is right here in America, and Joe, with whom I am registered to co-blog, is on the front lines of this battle. Here. In the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Never mind the First Amendment to our Constitution.

This posting isn't a plea for donations, though contributing to Joe's defense fund is a good and important action to take.

What I want to point out is this....Right now, it is Geert Wilders who is being muzzled. Tomorrow, or another day not far in the future, the muzzle will be fastened upon us. Who will contribute to our defense funds?

Follow-Up: Alms for Jihad

To this and this.

From this source (emphases mine):

Here’s a story with huge implications for freedom of speech (all negative), and it’s apparently gone almost entirely unreported in the mainstream press. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required), under threat of a law suit, Cambridge University Press has just agreed to pulp all unsold copies of the 2006 book, Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World. According to the Chronicle, this is the fourth such book on terrorism funding to be pursued by a libel action. The Chronicle quotes Rachel Ehrenfeld, director of the American Center for Democracy, whose own book, Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed–and How to Stop It is one of the four books.

In an interview on Monday, Ms. Ehrenfeld characterized as "despicable" Cambridge's decision to settle this week, a move the press has defended as necessary and just. Ms. Ehrenfeld, who is a friend of Mr. Burr's [one of the authors of Alms for Jihad], said that, as she understands it, press officials "caved immediately."

"They didn't even consider the evidence that the authors had given them," she said. "They received a threatening letter, and they immediately caved in and said, Do whatever it takes. Pay them whatever they want. Ban the book, destroy the book, we don't want this lawsuit."

Go HERE for internal links.

So, was there an actual law suit or the THREAT of one? If the latter, then legal discovery and consideration of the evidence in the book were not involved.

Twenty-first Century Book Burning

In his 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury published a story about a dystopian society in which all books are burned. According to one review at Amazon.com,

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen don't put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury's vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place where trivial information is good, and knowledge and ideas are bad. Fire Captain Beatty explains it this way, "Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs.... Don't give them slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy."

Another review states the following:

The disturbing thing about the book is that, unlike many other books that deal with the distant future, "Fahrenheit 451" (written in 1953) hasn't been proved wrong simply by time itself. Not at all. Actually, what is shocking to realize is that we've come quite close to the society Bradbury writes about. Perhaps books haven't been banned yet, but it is indeed the entertainment industry that controls people's minds, the political correctness has reached ridiculous levels

Coincidentally, early last spring I chose Fahrenheit 451 as one of the readings for my World Literature class for the 2007-2008 school term. At the time, I didn't realize just how important the reading of Bradbury's classic was going to be.

Now comes the story about the recall and destruction of Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World, a book published just last year and now becoming scarce at the behest of Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz. From this source:

I’ve gotten numerous reports from readers who have attempted to purchase Alms for Jihad from Books a Million and elsewhere, only to have the purchase denied because that title is currently unavailable....

Read the rest at Always On Watch.