11th century Umayyad Mosque minaret felled in Syria war

TPM:

The 11th-century minaret of a famed mosque that towered over the narrow stone alleyways of Aleppo’s old quarter collapsed Wednesday as rebels and government troops fought pitched battles in the streets around it, depriving the ancient Syrian city of one of its most important landmarks.

President Bashar Assad’s government and the rebels trying to overthrow him traded blame over the destruction to the Umayyad Mosque, a UNESCO world heritage site and centerpiece of Aleppo’s walled Old City.

 
This was one of the most important surviving sites of the Middle Ages and particularly of the Middle East. It was a historic edifice at the center of one of the greatest Islamic empires in history. People are quoted saying this is comparable in terms of world heritage to blowing up the Taj Mahal or finishing off the Parthenon.

This makes it the fifth (out of six total) UNESCO sites in Syria destroyed or severely damaged during the civil war. The famous Crac des Chevaliers crusader castle has been looted.

AFD Ep 45 – Rule of Law

“Arsenal for Democracy Ep 45 – Rule of Law”
Posted: Mon, 22 Apr 2013

Play Now
Host: Bill. Guest commentator: Sasha. Topics: Food Safety, Maine Wind Power and Paul LePage, Mark Sanford, Terrorism Prosecution, Mali, Kosovo.

Endorsement: Ed Markey for Senate

I’m endorsing Congressman Ed Markey for U.S. Senate in the Massachusetts Special Democratic Primary on Tuesday April 30, 2013. You can request an absentee ballot (due back to your local election office by 8 PM on 4/30/13) here: http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/eleifv/howabs.htm Or find your polling place here: http://www.wheredoivotema.com/bal/myelectioninfo.aspx

Ed Markey has been a committed progressive Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives for decades. He’s the best candidate to represent the state, Massachusetts Democrats, and Massachusetts working and middle class families. Like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, he will be a fighter for all Bay Staters through consumer protection efforts and banking reforms. His record shows he will stand up for gun control, better education, and stronger public health in our nation.

He has shown strong leadership on issues of climate change and environmental protections – including writing the first cap-and-trade bill for greenhouse gases and getting it passed in the House – when other officials were focusing on less important trench warfare political battles in Washington. He makes a point to discuss scientific issues in a factual manner when others are playing politics. Groups like the League of Environmental Voters are enthusiastically supporting Markey because he’s been such a champion on climate, clean energy, and science. Rep. Markey is the only person suited to take up John Kerry’s legacy in the Senate of working on climate change and environmental protections.

Markey has also proven himself as a progressive time and again on issues of reproductive freedom and health insurance reform, while his opponent has voted for choice restrictions (such as the Stupak Amendment) and against Obamacare. I believe any Massachusetts Democrat should support expanding health coverage and protecting a woman’s right to choose. That’s one reason Markey received Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s endorsement and a 100% rating. Massachusetts can’t risk electing a Senator who might vote to confirm anti-choice judges.

Congressman Markey has been for many years a committed supporter of and leader on equal rights for the entire LGBT community – not just some of its members – earning the endorsement of MassEquality and a 100% rating from them.

Additionally, Markey has made our nation safer by pushing for legislation adopting recommendations of The 9/11 Commission. I don’t always agree with some of his votes and views related to defense and foreign policy, but even so I believe we need some liberal voices counter-balancing the conservative hawks in the Senate. Too often lately, the voices in opposition to foreign policy over-reach are coming from less well reasoned and isolationist places in the libertarian part of the spectrum, which is not the same as cooperative internationalism. But I do agree with his desire to wind down the War in Afghanistan promptly and to control and reduce nuclear arms and proliferation. He worked to get us out of Iraq faster and was a supporter of efforts to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Both show a commitment to restoring the United States’ image on the world stage, which will strengthen our global leadership capacity and restore our alliances.

Learn more about Ed Markey and his positions at EdMarkey.com

On Miranda Warnings

This weekend, following the national drama of the Boston Marathon Bombings and metro area manhunt for the culprits, I’ve reposted & added notes to old posts on handling/prosecuting terrorists in the United States.

I wanted to add a note about Miranda Warnings because there’s been some hysteria over the fact that Suspect Number 2, who was taken alive, had not been “Mirandized” (read the standard notification of his legal rights under the Constitution and Bill of Rights) on the grounds of a “public safety” exemption to the Supreme Court-mandated advisory. First off, it bears repeating that there are no such things as “Miranda Rights.” This is a common misnomer. The rights, as mentioned above, come from the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They were not invented by the Supreme Court’s Miranda v. Arizona decision in 1966; the court just established guidelines for a succinct set of warnings in an advisory to those being arrested so that they don’t later try to get their conviction thrown out because they weren’t notified of their right to have an attorney present and their right not to self-incriminate. Those four warnings are the ones you hear on television all the time, beginning with “You have the right to remain silent.”

Second and more importantly, he is not losing rights and no one is trampling on the Bill of Rights because the administration has invoked a “public safety” exemption and skipped the reading of the warnings. As I understand it — the “public safety” exemption on Miranda Warnings does not mean that the government will be prosecuting based on evidence obtained by statements made prior the warnings, so rights are not infringed. They usually use the exemption when they already have plenty of evidence — in this case a video has now surfaced of Suspect Number 2 placing one of the marathon bomb backpacks and walking away … so he’s going to jail no matter what he says or doesn’t say to investigators — rather they use the exemption when they want/need to find out quickly about other stuff they don’t already know. For example — they skip the warning of the right to remain silent so that they can ask if there are other bombs set to explode later or if there are other affiliated terrorists in the area. If he admits to having placed other bombs and they haven’t read him his rights, they probably can’t use that as evidence for further convictions, but they can at least find and disarm them. And at any rate, they still can’t compel the person to answer just because they didn’t officially read them their rights. Similarly, if they ask for a lawyer without prompting, the interrogation stops until a lawyer arrives. (This happened in January 2009 with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, when he was not Mirandized, after attempting to blow up a plane to Detroit in front of hundreds of witnesses.) Your rights remain whether or not you are advised of them. Not providing Miranda Warnings doesn’t take away rights and it can actually hinder prosecution later — so the exemption is used sparingly to obtain urgent information for public safety not to obtain new evidence for trial.

I also find it hard to believe that a 19-year-old who grew up in American culture wouldn’t know the Miranda Warnings from television — even Chief Rehnquist’s 2000 decision upholding Miranda v. Arizona that he originally opposed noted that the warnings had “become embedded in routine police practice to the point where the warnings have become part of our national culture.” He is in all likelihood well aware of his rights even if they don’t mention them. And that’s all the Miranda Warnings are: a brief mention of your rights under the law & Constitution. The rights themselves don’t change or disappear if the warnings are modified or skipped.

Serbia signs Kosovo deal

If nothing else good happens today, we can at least take comfort in the amazing news that Serbia has just signed an accord recognizing the independence of Kosovo and setting up a plan for integration of ethnic Serb residents in Kosovo’s democracy, 5 years after they declared independence and 14 years after NATO had to intervene to stop Serbia’s Milosevic from an ethnic cleansing campaign there.

“AFD Ep 44 – Unpacked Court?”

Guest commentator Sasha joins Bill to talk about Republican efforts to “unpack” the court, the Paycheck Fairness Act, the Guttmacher Institute’s report on reproductive freedoms in 2013, and immigration reform efforts. Then Bill looks at stories from Venezuela, Sudan, and Portugal.