I Am Speechless: America, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON???

This is way, way beyond ridiculous:

The Pentagon has drafted a manual for upcoming detainee trials that would allow suspected terrorists to be convicted on hearsay evidence and coerced testimony and imprisoned or put to death.

According to a copy of the manual obtained by The Associated Press, a terror suspect's defense lawyer cannot reveal classified evidence in the person's defense until the government has a chance to review it.

The manual, sent to Capitol Hill on Thursday and scheduled to be released later by the Pentagon, is intended to track a law passed last fall by Congress restoring
President Bush's plans to have special military commissions try terror-war prisoners. Those commissions had been struck down earlier in the year by the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, people like David Hicks remain in Gitmo waiting for this interminable legal farce to end. And our government here in Australia still has the gall to pretend that - after more than five years! - they are still waiting for due legal process in the USA to be carried out.

I am just speechless this time. The only good thing that can be said about this Pentagon itiative is that, at this stage anyway, it is just a draft. But it clearly indicates that there is no good will at all on the Pentagon's part when it comes to working within the established legal framework. And given the Bush administration's continued and wholehearted identification with such illegal, unethical manouevering, that means that the USA is tantamount to an outlaw state.

Think about it, folks. If any other nation on the globe proposed such laws, they would be facing sanctions and international isolation.

This is where we are at.