The Ahmed Ghailani Verdict

The Ghailani indictment is one more that originated in the Southern District of New York (SDNY). If you have read some of my past posts here, you're familiar with my opinion of the federal prosecutors in the SDNY. Ahmed Ghailani was indicted in December of 1998 on a total of 308 counts and with a list of co-defendants that includes Usama bin Laden. To summarize the charges, Ghailani was accused of being a participant in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa. He was apprehended in 2004 in Pakistan.

I do not pretend to know the real facts in the case and to be honest, I have not read the 149 page indictment, but this isn't really about the details of the case anyway; it is about the extreme overkill and sensationalism exhibited by prosecutors in this case and most all other War on Terror cases and the use of torture to obtain a false confession. It is also about the future of War on Terror prosecutions. The indictment can be read HERE.

News articles state that Ghailani was charged with 285 counts, and not 308, so I must believe that 1) 23 counts were dismissed prior to trial; or 2) Ghailani was not charged with all of the counts that his co-defendants were charged with.

The New York jury acquitted Ahmed Ghailani on all counts except for one: Conspiracy to destroy U.S. property.

While this sounds like a victory of sorts, he will end-up receiving the lengthiest possible sentence on the one count and is unlikely to ever be released from U.S. custody anyway. What is significant in the case is that the jurors were instructed to throw out any evidence that the court deemed inadmissible because it was obtained through illegal torture. Is there legal torture? Hell, I am just using the court's wording.

The victory in this case is that a New York court, and obviously the presiding judge, has stated clearly that evidence obtained through torture is not evidence at all. False confessions will not be accepted!

I'm not even going to name the judge as the angry, torture-happy warmongers out there will need to find it on their own.

What U.S. military interrogators and U.S. prosecutors must have done to this man is unimaginable to me. We must appreciate the jury for acquitting Ghailani on all but the one count. I am only sorry that they couldn't acquit him on that one count also to send a clear message to U.S. prosecutors and the U.S. military forces that torture will not get them what they want and it is 100% unacceptable in a so-called free country. I only wish they had considered how important that message would have been to the entire world – forget the blood-thirsty warmongers I seem to encounter all too frequently. Just forget them because they do not deserve a minute of my valuable time.


Now for the real problem with the verdict:

The usual hard-liners will fight tooth and nail to make sure that there will never be another War on Terror trial in U.S. courts again. Every future case will be tried by a military commission. As with the Omar Khadr case and so many others torture will be absolutely acceptable to the warmongers in a military commission trial. And I have little doubt that the Obama administration and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will help the military keep the cases in its kangaroo courtrooms.

I feel good that a New York federal judge and a jury have decided that torture is not acceptable. The rest of it is another story…


Image: Old globe and Iraq 2007 © Marty Heitner / 2010 © iStockPhoto.com

At a Loss for Words

It is noticeable that I haven't been posting lately on this blog, but I am really at a loss for words these days. There is so much injustice to write about that I am unable to pick what is most important anymore. I feel that much of the U.S. population is on mind altering prescription drugs and any possibility of interactive discussion on any forum is out.

I started a thread on Amazon's forums to solicit donations for the Bradley Manning Defense Fund and that was beyond a total failure. I have come to the realization that the majority are pro-war and back the military and the U.S. government regardless of evidence of complicity or war crimes committed by soldiers. Stated simply, these people do not give a rat's ass and back their boys and girls in anything. It is all about the mission to them.

I encountered several responders that found pleasure in creating straw man arguments – as if anyone asked what they thought; it was a thread to remind people of Manning's plight. All they did was attack, call me names, and state things like, "I'd volunteer for the firing squad...." And yet another claimed to have bounties on Manning's and Julian Assange's heads – dead or alive. One peppered me with one stupid question after the other, demanded that I respond, and then attacked me when I did. He had back-up. Several twisted every little thing I stated, and of course I stated plenty in responding to the bullshit questions.

On the other hand, these straw man attackers had no issue with donation to a for-profit coffee company that services canteens for the military throughout the Middle East. The company claims to give a soldier a "cup of joe" for each donation of $2 and encourages contributors to pay for 5 or 10 cups. These morons would actually prefer to contribute to a war profiteer than to help a fellow soldier that is facing life in prison have a real defense, and all except one of the attackers actually convicted Manning already.

Does anyone in their right mind believe that Manning will have any semblance of a fair trial in a military court of justice? These hard-line military personnel and their families want Manning dead, so weighing the evidence is clearly out.

I haven't addressed the plight of Bradley Manning on this blog yet, but I do intend to within a few days. If he did turn over the documents and the Collateral Murder video, he is a real hero in this false War on Terror. Anything released by Wikileaks is merely a confirmation of statements I have made since late 2001, but the video did enlighten a few that were still in the dark, for what that's worth. Really – let's not pretend that Americans will get off their asses and demand accountability or anything close to it. It is so much easier to ride down the middle of the road claiming not to support war, but to support troops. Face it – if you support an all-volunteer force in wars then you support those wars.

I am just sick and tired of the hypocrisy that I encounter in this country. But I will be gathering my thoughts and words and posting more on the topic in short time.

Over the Counter (OTC) Teen Cold Medication Abuse

DXM is a cough suppressor found in more than 120 over-the-counter (OTC) cold medications, either alone or in combination with other drugs such as analgesics (e.g. acetaminophen), antihistamines (e.g. chlorpheniramine), decongestants (e.g. pseudoephedrine) and/or expectorants (e.g. guaifenesin). The typical adult dose for cough is 15 or 30 mg taken three to four times daily. The cough-suppressing effects of DXM persist for 5 to 6 hours after taken. When taken as directed, side-effects are rarely observed.

DXM when abused in high doses causes euphoria and visual and auditory hallucinations. Some of the many psychoactive effects associated with high-dose DXM include confusion, inappropriate laughter, agitation, paranoia, hallucinations and other sensory changes, including the feeling of floating and changes in hearing and touch.

Abusers take various amounts depending on their body weight and the effect they are attempting to achieve. Some abusers ingest 250 to 1,500 milligrams in a single dosage, far more than the recommended therapeutic dosages described above. Illicit use of DXM is referred to on the street as "Robo-tripping," "skittling” or “dexing." The first two terms are derived from the products that are most commonly abused, Robitussin and Coricidin HBP. DXM abuse has traditionally involved drinking large volumes of the OTC liquid cough preparations. More recently, however, abuse of tablet and gel capsule preparations has increased. These newer, high-dose DXM products have particular appeal for abusers: They are much easier to consume; they eliminate the need to drink large volumes of unpleasant-tasting syrup; and they are easily portable and concealed, allowing an abuser to continue to abuse DXM throughout the day, whether at school or work. DXM powder, sold over the Internet, is also a source of DXM for abuse. (The powdered form of DXM poses additional risks to the abuser due to the uncertainty of composition and dose.) DXM is also distributed in illicitly manufactured tablets containing only DXM or mixed with other drugs such as pseudoephedrine and/or methamphetamine. DXM is abused by individuals of all ages but its abuse by teenagers and young adults is of particular concern. This abuse is fueled by DXM’s OTC availability and extensive "how to" abuse information on various web sites. The 2006 Monitoring the Future (MTF) showed that 4%, 5%, and 7% of 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students, respectively, reported nonmedical use of DXM during the previous year. This was the first year MTF added DXM to the survey for students.

Long-term abuse of DXM is associated with severe psychological dependence. Abusers of DXM describe the following four dose-dependent "plateaus:"

Plateau Dose (mg) Behavioral Effects
1st 100–200 Mild stimulation
2nd 200–400 Euphoria and hallucinations
3rd 300– 600 Distorted visual perceptions Loss of motor coordination
4th 500-1500 Out-of-body sensations.

Most DXM-related deaths are caused by ingesting the drug in combination with other drugs. DXM-related deaths also occur from impairment of the senses, which can lead to accidents.

Teen Drug Treatment for OTC drug abuse and addiction is found in a teen drug rehab that incorporates an individual treatment plan and an educational component for Over The Counter drug abuse, in the teen drug rehabilitation program. The purpose of choosing to send a teen to a teen drug rehab is to address the drug abuse behavior immediately and prevent permanent damage to the teen. In teen rehab, teens will learn the skills necessary to live a fun sober life. Teens will gain an understanding of the cycle of addiction, gain knowledge of the 12 steps to recovery, cultivate individual accountability for daily life responsibilities, and begin to focus on family life and participation in the family, respecting and adhering to family structure, rules, boundaries, and guidelines. Teen rehab also provides numerous therapies to address issues that may have led to a teen “self medicating”. Therapies include individual, group, family, trauma, coping skills, education, music and art therapy, as well as a variety of experiential and holistic therapies.

If you know or suspect a teen is abusing or addicted to Over The Counter drugs, call for help. Inspirations Teen Rehab is a nationally recognized adolescent drug treatment center, designed to meet the needs of teens and their families.

Reach out to us. Recovery from addiction is just a click or a phone call away. If the information you are looking for is not found here contact us:

Teen Addiction Help: 1-888-757-6237
http://www.inspirationsyouth.com/
http://www.inspirationsteenrehab.com/

Addiction Treatment for Young Adults and Adults :
1-888-387-6237
http://www.covecenterforrecovery.com

Why do people cut? - Cutting Treatment / Self Harm

Although cutting may provide some temporary relief from a terrible feeling, even people who cut agree that it isn't a good way to get that relief. For one thing, the relief doesn't last. The troubles that triggered the cutting remain — they're just masked over.

People don't usually intend to hurt themselves permanently when they cut. And they don't usually mean to keep cutting once they start. But both can happen. It's possible to misjudge the depth of a cut, making it so deep that it requires stitches (or, in extreme cases, hospitalization). Cuts can become infected if a person uses non-sterile or dirty cutting instruments — razors, scissors, pins, or even the sharp edge of the tab on a can of soda.

Most people who cut aren't attempting suicide. Cutting is usually a person's attempt at feeling better, not ending it all. Although some people who cut do attempt suicide, it's usually because of the emotional problems and pain that lie behind their desire to self-harm, not the cutting itself.

Cutting can be habit forming. It can become a compulsive behavior — meaning that the more a person does it, the more he or she feels the need to do it. The brain starts to connect the false sense of relief from bad feelings to the act of cutting, and it craves this relief the next time tension builds. When cutting becomes a compulsive behavior, it can seem impossible to stop. So cutting can seem almost like an addiction, where the urge to cut can seem too hard to resist. A behavior that starts as an attempt to feel more in control can end up controlling you.

There are better ways to deal with troubles than cutting — healthier, long-lasting ways that don't leave a person with emotional and physical scars. The first step is to get help with the troubles that led to the cutting in the first place.

Tell someone about your cutting problem. People who have stopped cutting often say the first step is the hardest — admitting to or talking about cutting. But they also say that after they open up about it, they often feel a great sense of relief. Choose someone you trust to talk to at first (a parent, school counselor, teacher, coach, doctor, or nurse). If it's too difficult to bring up the topic in person, write a note. Identify the trouble that's triggering the cutting. Cutting is a way of reacting to emotional tension or pain. Try to figure out what feelings or situations are causing you to cut. Is it anger? Pressure to be perfect? Relationship trouble? A painful loss or trauma? Mean criticism or mistreatment? Identify the trouble you're having, then tell someone about it. Many people have trouble figuring this part out on their own. This is where a mental health professional can be helpful.

Ask for help. Tell someone that you want help dealing with your troubles and the cutting. If the person you ask doesn't help you get the assistance you need, ask someone else. Sometimes adults try to downplay the problems teens have or think they're just a phase. If you get the feeling this is happening to you, find another adult (such as a school counselor or nurse) who can make your case for you.

Contact professionals/facilities that will help you with your cutting problem. Most people with deep emotional pain or distress need to work with a counselor or mental health professional to sort through strong feelings, heal past hurts, and to learn better ways to cope with life's stresses. Although cutting can be a difficult pattern to break, it is possible. Getting professional help to overcome the problem doesn't mean that a person is weak or crazy.

Inspirations Teen Rehab Therapists and counselors are trained to help people discover inner strengths that help them heal. These inner strengths can then be used to cope with life's other problems in a healthy way.

Reach out to us. Recovery from cutting is just a click or a phone call away. If the information you are looking for is not found here please contact us.

Teen Addiction Help: 1-888-757-6237
http://www.inspirationsyouth.com/
http://www.inspirationsteenrehab.com/

Addiction Treatment for Young Adults and Adults : 1-888-387-6237 http://www.covecenterforrecovery.com%20/

New Censorship Trends in the US

I am in disbelief over the various new ways that any outlets that distribute and/or publish any adult material are currently under attack. Indeed, it is a new trend in censorship in the United States. It didn't start with the attack on Amazon yesterday and it sure won't end there.

Anderson Cooper is running again on CNN as I type. It is Anderson Cooper and his sidekick Amber Lyons that bashed Craigslist all over the place and succeeded in getting the online publisher to remove the "adult services" and the "adult gigs" categories as I described in Censorship by False Light. Well now the censors are after Backpage.com with the same reasoning of a 14 year-old runaway being pimped on the website. They have titled this attack "Children Sold for Sex on the Internet".

Some lousy bimbo (a woman in Missouri) pimps this 14 year-old runaway and the entire world of adult business in the US is under attack. The reality is that this girl ran away from home and met a bad person – this happens every day everywhere. How does this give Anderson Cooper and Amber Lyons the right or the platform to pursue any online publisher that offers adult businesses ad space?

As with Craigslist, the people at Backpage are being harassed and pursued with a vengeance. The target is really adult business though, and that is obvious. I posted a few days ago about a new form of censorship in Google Maps on my Blueprint Blog. When did the words sexy and stripper become "naughty" words according to Google? I am picturing some ancient prune in the background deciding what is good for all of us, and let's face it – the US depends on Google these days.

Now Anderson Cooper is back to attacking Amazon. Well, my books are distributed by Amazon and my company is the publisher. Granted, the book described by Cooper is abhorrent, but now the show is going after Amazon to remove other books.

They have really gone crazy with this. I have never heard of any pedophile reading a book for instructions so in my opinion this is being blown way out of proportion. It is a flippin' book for crying outloud! There are people posting on forums everywhere demanding a list of books be removed from Amazon or threatening that the company would be boycotted. So now we have the censors controlling what books will be sold where. Why not just burn them all – I'm sure these groups can find something wrong with lots of books, and that includes many classics and the Bible.

What I am really sick of hearing is the crowd that claims to not want to ban any books, but finds reason to ban that particular pedophile book. Well it looks like they've now expanded that but to include other books in the demands of banishment to Amazon, again under threat of boycott.

Do you really believe it will stop with a couple of pedophile books? Not a chance, and the earlier pursuits of the show prove that.

Teen Huffing/Inhalant Abuse and Treatment

If you’ve ever come across a smelly marker, you’ve experienced an inhalant. They seem harmless, but they can actually be quite dangerous. Inhalants are chemical vapors that people inhale on purpose to get “high.” The vapors produce mind-altering, and sometimes disastrous, effects. These vapors are in a variety of products common in almost any home or workplace. Examples are some paints, glues, gasoline, and cleaning fluids. Many people do not think of these products as drugs because they were never meant to be used to achieve an intoxicating effect. But when they are intentionally inhaled to produce a “high,” they can cause serious harm.

Although inhalants differ in their effects, they generally fall into the following categories:

[b]Volatile Solvents[/b], liquids that vaporize at room temperature
[b]Aerosols[/b], sprays that contain propellants and solvents
[b]Gases[/b], that may be in household or commercial products, or used as medical anesthetics
[b]Nitrites[/b], a class of inhalants used primarily as sexual enhancers. Organic nitrites include amyl, butyl, and cyclohexyl nitrites and other related compounds.

[b]What Are the Common Street Names?[/b]
Common slang for inhalants includes "laughing gas" (nitrous oxide), "snappers" (amyl nitrite), "poppers" (amyl nitrite and butyl nitrite), "whippets" (fluorinated hydrocarbons, found in whipped cream dispensers), "bold" (nitrites), and "rush" (nitrites).

Statistics show that one in five students in America has used an inhalant to get high by the time he or she reaches the eighth grade. The largest demographic to abuse are teenagers ages 12 to 17. The next group that follows them is the 18 to 25 age group. Huffing is extremely dangerous. Huffing involves inhaling volatile substances, in order to get high.

Huffing is an addictive behavior and a growing addiction among the adolescent/teen population. Seek professional assistance immediately. Inspiration’s Teen Rehab specializes in residential adolescent addiction treatment with individualized treatment for “huffing” abuse and/or addiction. A call today can save your teen’s life.

Reach out to us. Recovery from addiction is just a click or a phone call away. If the information you are looking for is not found here and you need immediate attention you may contact us:

Addiction Treatment for Teens: 1-888-757-6237
http://www.inspirationsyouth.com

Addiction Treatment for Young Adults and Adults : 1-888-387-6237
http://www.covecenterforrecovery.com

Teen Marijuana Abuse, Addiction and Treatment

Teens use Marijuana in many ways. The most common method is smoking loose marijuana rolled into a cigarette called a “joint” or “nail.” Sometimes marijuana is smoked through a water pipe called a “bong.” Others smoke “blunts”—cigars hollowed out and filled with the drug. And some users brew it as tea or mix it with food.

Some people mistakenly believe that “everybody's doing it” and use that as an excuse to start using marijuana themselves. Well, they need to check the facts, because that’s just not true. According to a 2009 survey called Monitoring the Future, about 7 percent of 8th-graders, 16 percent of 10th-graders, and 21 percent of 12th-graders had used marijuana in the month before the survey. In fact, marijuana use declined from the late 1990s through 2007, with a decrease in past-year use of more than 20 percent in all three grades combined from 2000 to 2007. Unfortunately, this trend appears to be slowing, and marijuana use remains at unacceptably high levels, as the most commonly used illegal drug.

When people smoke marijuana for years they can suffer some pretty negative consequences. For example, because marijuana affects brain function, your ability to do complex tasks could be compromised, as well as your pursuit of academic, athletic, or other life goals that require you to be 100 percent focused and alert. In fact, long-term users self-report less life satisfaction, poorer education, and job achievement, and more interpersonal and mental health problems compared to non-users.

Many people don’t think of marijuana as addictive—they are wrong. In 2007, the majority of youth (age 17 or younger) entering drug abuse treatment reported marijuana as their primary drug abused. Marijuana increases dopamine, which creates the good feelings or “high” associated with its use. A user may feel the urge to smoke marijuana again, and again, and again to re-create that experience. Repeated use could lead to addiction—a disease where people continue to do something, even when they are aware of the severe negative consequences at the personal, social, academic, and professional levels.

If you are a friend or family member of a teen struggling with marijuana abuse and or addiction, call now for help.It is never too late to prevent and/or stop an addiction. You as a parent of a family member can prevent a tragic outcome. Don't let your child become a statistic.

Teen Addiction Help: 1-888-757-6237
http://www.inspirationsyouth.com
http://www.inspirationsteenrehab.com

Addiction Treatment for Young Adults and Adults : 1-888-387-6237
http://www.covecenterforrecovery.com