7.11.6 - Boston to Vermont (vacation)

Lorraine and I are off in Boston having a great time. Wish you were here.
Ran across this item in the Boston Globe. Link here.
"Sanity prevails in Vermont," said attorney David Williams.
Amen.
I hope sanity is prevailing in that nice li'l town of yours.
See ya next week,
-Tom

Vermont Judge Rejects U.S. Supreme Court Search Ruling
AP - July 11, 2006

GUILDHALL, Vt. --A Vermont District Court judge has rejected a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the power of police to search a private home, concluding that the state offers greater protections in such cases.

Judge Robert Bent said that under the state Constitution police must knock and announce themselves before conducting a search, even if they have a warrant, or face the prospect that any evidence they find could be thrown out.

The Supreme Court said June 15 that evidence obtained without first knocking could be used at trial, but Bent said that would not apply in Vermont.

"Evidence obtained in violation of the Vermont Constitution, or as the result of a violation, cannot be admitted at trial as a matter of state law," Bent wrote, citing an earlier state case as precedent. "Introduction of such evidence at trial eviscerates our most sacred rights, impinges on individual privacy, perverts our judicial process, distorts any notion of fairness and encourages official misconduct."

A defense lawyer in the Vermont case said Bent's ruling was an important statement. "Sanity prevails in Vermont," said attorney David Williams.
Bent agreed with the dissenting opinion in the federal case, which said allowing otherwise illegally obtained evidence to be used could lead law enforcement officers to ignore the law.

"The exclusionary remedy should remain in full force and effect," Bent wrote, "at least in our small corner of the nation."

Unless the attorney general's office appeals Bent's ruling to the Vermont Supreme Court, it applies only to the drug case he was hearing and would not be binding on other judges, legal experts said. But other judges are likely to take it into consideration if they have similar issues, said Cheryl Hannah, a Vermont Law School professor.

It was unclear whether the state would appeal to the high court. The prosecutor on the case was on vacation and unavailable for comment.

Williams challenged evidence the Vermont State Police Drug Task Force obtained against Ellen Sheltra last fall during a raid on her Island Pond home. She was charged with marijuana possession.

The officers were gathering in front of the home Oct. 12 when the door suddenly opened, an officer testified. The agents shouted "state police with a search warrant" and stormed inside, Bent wrote in his ruling.

The judge concluded the officer's testimony wasn't credible, noting that the three adults and two children in the house said they did not open the door.

Police seized 88 grams of marijuana and four guns.
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Information from: The Burlington Free Press, http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com
© Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

7.4.6 - Home

Photo - Joao Silva for The New York Times

I write this on Tuesday, July 4th 2006.
Happy "we are throwing out the old corrupt, irrelevant government and starting a new one" Day. One can only hope that we Americans today, can be as bold and intelligent as some of our forefathers were.

Today in Iraq, General George Casey said in an "Independence Day" speech to the troops that there were similarities between the colonists' struggle in 1776 and Iraq's struggles this year.

``It took the commitment of our Founding Fathers and the Continental Army to secure America's position in the free world, much as the Iraqi leaders and Iraqi Army are working to secure a free Iraq," Casey said. ``It also took five years of hard fighting to do it. There is no doubt in my mind that you, the current generation of Americans, have the courage and perseverance to lead our nation to victory in its most complex struggle yet, the war on terror," Casey went on. ``I am confident that we and our Iraqi colleagues will be successful in bringing security and stability here to Iraq."

Huh? Yeah, except back then, WE were the insurgents and the English were the invading, occupying army. Get it?

As I see it, when things don’t add up in Iraq, (like everything and everywhere else these days) I figure it is safe to assume that politics are involved.

Even as the insurgency worsens every day, Gen. Casey, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, astonishingly claims that security in Iraq has improved and that substantial U.S. troop withdrawals are possible by as early as September. (Casey's plan presented to Bush last week entailed bringing home about 7,000 US troops by September and another 20,000 or more by the end of 2007.)

So what's the story here? Ya think it just MIGHT be the congressional elections in 2006? This, by my standards, is unconscionable.

Although Bush administration officials have implied that demands by Democrats for a U.S. troop withdrawal timetable are “unpatriotic” and “aid the enemy,” when their own electoral politics is involved, the administration is all too willing to predict troop reductions during a specified time period. They certainly understand how the Democrats are making significant political gains from the growing unpopularity here at home of the continued occupation of Iraq. By showing some incremental and token progress toward getting out of the quagmire, the administration hopes to contain the damage Democrats could do from now until November. With popular support for the Iraqi occupation in the United States fading, the administration is running out of time.

Back to Gen. Casey for a second: the reason that U.S. forces have not been able to defeat the insurgent rebels is the continuing and astounding ignorance of counterinsurgency warfare tactics by the U.S. Army—an organization that, even after the debacle in Vietnam, has concentrated on fighting conventional wars against smaller nation/states. This ignorance was on display when Gen. Casey opined a few months back, “insurgencies need progress to survive, and this insurgency is not progressing.”

In fact, as George Washington, the North Vietnamese, and the anti-Soviet Mujahedin fighters in Afghanistan demonstrated, insurgents need only to keep an army in the field and “not lose” until the big power gets exhausted and goes home.

And given all the talk about withdrawal from both the Bush administration and Democrats, if the insurgents watch any kind of international news, they know that they are winning. By hinting at withdrawing troops, the administration is also trying to buy more time with the American public in order to negotiate with the Iraqi rebels. The insurgents are better off without the U.S. military in Iraq, however, so they have no incentive to throw down their arms and join the political process.

The Bush administration needs to give up on the fantasy of a permanent military presence—even if reduced—in Iraq and completely and rapidly withdraw its forces from that country. Actually, Republican electoral fortunes will be better off in the short-term AND long-term if the administration realizes that this war cannot be won—either by U.S. forces or the Iraqi security services—and cuts its losses.

George Washington warned us in his farewell address:

“ ...avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty.”

Happy "we’re throwing out the old corrupt, irrelevant government and starting a new one" Day everyone.

-Tom