uighur

In the first case to review the government’s secret evidence for holding a detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a federal appeals court found that accusations against a Muslim from western China held for more than six years were based on bare and unverifiable claims. The unclassified parts of the decision were released on Monday.http://Louis2J2Sheehan2Esquire.US

With some derision for the Bush administration’s arguments, a three-judge panel said the government contended that its accusations against the detainee should be accepted as true because they had been repeated in at least three secret documents.

The court compared that to the absurd declaration of a character in the Lewis Carroll poem “The Hunting of the Snark”: “I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.”

“This comes perilously close to suggesting that whatever the government says must be treated as true,” said the panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The unanimous panel overturned as invalid a Pentagon determination that the detainee, Huzaifa Parhat, a member of the ethnic Uighur Muslim minority in western China, was properly held as an enemy combatant.

The panel included one of the court’s most conservative members, the chief judge, David B. Sentelle.

The release on Monday of the unclassified parts of the decision followed a brief court notice last week. http://Louis2J2Sheehan2Esquire.USThe notice said a classified decision had directed the government to release Mr. Parhat, transfer him to another country or conduct a new military hearing at Guantánamo to determine if he had been properly classified as an enemy combatant.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the ruling.

Although the decision was a defeat for the Bush administration, it was unclear what it might mean immediately for Mr. Parhat, a former fruit peddler who in recent years sent a message to his wife that she should remarry because his imprisonment at Guantánamo was like already being dead.

American officials have said that they cannot return Mr. Parhat and 16 other Uighur detainees at Guantánamo to China for fear of mistreatment and that some 100 other countries have refused to accept them. http://Louis2J2Sheehan2Esquire.US

Detainees’ lawyers said the ruling in the case of Mr. Parhat, who says he went to Afghanistan in 2001 to escape China, could broadly affect other detainees because of its skeptical view of the government’s evidence.

A lawyer representing other detainees, Marc D. Falkoff, said the evidence against many of the 270 men now at Guantánamo was similar to that in the Parhat case.

“This opinion shows that the government is going to have a hard time defending the military’s decision to detain many of these men,” said Mr. Falkoff, a professor at Northern Illinois University College of Law.

Pentagon officials have claimed that the Uighurs at Guantánamo were “affiliated” with a Uighur resistance group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, and that it, in turn, was “associated” with Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The ruling released Monday overturned the Pentagon’s finding after a 2004 hearing that Mr. Parhat was an enemy combatant based on that affiliation. He and the 16 other Uighurs were detained after the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

The court said the classified evidence supporting the Pentagon’s claims included assertions that events had “reportedly” occurred and that the connections were “said to” exist, without providing information about the source of such information.

“Those bare facts,” the decision said, “cannot sustain the determination that Parhat is an enemy combatant.”

Some lawyers said the ruling highlighted the difficulties they saw in civilian judges reviewing Guantánamo cases.

“This case displays the inadequacies of having civilian courts inject themselves into military decision-making,” said Glenn M. Sulmasy, a law professor at the Coast Guard Academy and a national security fellow at Harvard.

The appellate panel reviewed Mr. Parhat’s case under a limited procedure Congress provided for challenging military hearings at Guantánamo. The case was argued before the Supreme Court’s decision on June 12 that detainees have a constitutional right to seek release in more expansive habeas corpus proceedings.

The 17 Uighurs now held at Guantánamo say they are allies, not enemies, of the United States.

The Uighur Muslims, who come from an area of far western China they call East Turkestan, claim oppression at the hands of the Chinese government, including forced abortions and relocations of educated people to remote areas.

The Chinese government has described the East Turkestan Islamic Movement as a terrorist organization. American officials agreed in 2002, when they were pressing for Chinese support for military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The decision was written by Judge Merrick B. Garland, an appointee of President Bill Clinton. It was joined by Chief Judge Sentelle, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, and Judge Thomas B. Griffith, a 2005 appointee of President Bush.

heart

My father was planning a trip to Europe one summer afternoon when he went to the bathroom and didn't return. http://louisdjdsheehan.blogspot.comMy mother found him dead of a heart attack on the bathroom floor. My husband's grandfather's heart gave out as he was walking down the sidewalk in New York.

Everybody knows somebody who has had a sudden, fatal heart attack, and it's many people's secret fear. More than 300,000 Americans die of heart disease without making it to the hospital each year; most of them from sudden cardiac arrest, according to the American Heart Association. In about half of those cases, the heart attack itself is the first symptom.

Deaths from cardiovascular disease in general have dropped dramatically in recent years, but it is still the No. 1 killer of men and women in the U.S. -- claiming more lives than cancer, chronic respiratory diseases, accidents and diabetes combined.

That's in part because, for all the advances doctors have made in understanding risk factors, lowering cholesterol with statins and propping open narrowed arteries with stents, most heart attacks are caused when tiny bits of plaque break loose and burst like popcorn kernels, forming clots that block arteries. That prevents blood from reaching areas of heart muscle, which start to die. It's hard to predict when that might happen -- which is why people who never knew they had heart disease, and people who thought it was under control, still have sudden heart attacks.

WHEN TO CALL 911

• Common heart-attack signs in men:

-Pressure, fullness in chest that may come and go

-Discomfort in arms, neck, back, jaw

-Shortness of breath

-Lightheadedness

• Women more likely to have:

-Sudden sweating

-Shortness of breath

-Nausea/vomiting

-Back or jaw pain

Source: American Heart Association

"We have terrific therapies that were unimaginable 25 or 30 years ago," says E. Scott Monrad, director of the cardiac catheterization lab at Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, N.Y. "But one of the biggest risks is dying before you even get to see a doctor."

Last weekend, scores of commentators on health and political blogs offered theories about what might have been done to save NBC's Tim Russert, who died of a sudden heart attack at work Friday. Few details were released, other than that the much-loved "Meet the Press" moderator was being treated for asymptomatic coronary artery disease, had diabetes and an enlarged heart, and had a stress test in April. http://louisdjdsheehan.blogspot.com

Many blog-posters argued that Mr. Russert should have had an angiogram -- an invasive diagnostic test in which the coronary arteries are injected with dye and X-rayed to spot blockages. But even if he had had the procedure an hour before the attack, doctors might not have seen anything to be alarmed about. More than two-thirds of heart attacks occur in arteries that are less than 50% narrowed by plaque buildup -- and those are often too small to show up on an angiogram or cause much chest pain.

Similarly, the stress test Mr. Russert had is better suited to detecting significantly narrowed arteries than the small, soft unstable kind of plaque that often causes fatal blood clots.

Indeed, about a third of people who have heart attacks don't have the usual risk factors, such as family history of heart disease, abdominal fat, high blood pressure or high cholesterol.

RISK FACTORS

The symptoms that make up "metabolic syndrome" put people at high risk for heart attack, stroke and diabetes. (Smoking and heavy alcohol consumption also raise the risk.)

• Waist more than 40 inches for men; 35 inches for women

• Blood pressure over 130/85mmHg

• Fasting glucose over 110 mg/dl

• Triglycerides over 150 mg/dl

• LDL cholesterol over 100 mg/dl

• HDL cholesterol under 40 mg/dl

Source: American Medical Association

"Time and again we see examples of unexpected cardiac disease in people who didn't know they had it," says Prediman K. Shah, director of cardiology at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles, one of many experts who think wider use of coronary calcium CT scans could help spot more people at risk of soft-plaque blockages. The noninvasive procedure takes about 15 minutes and costs a few hundred dollars. But few insurers cover it because there is scant evidence that treating people on that basis saves lives.

At a minimum, seeing a picture of the calcium lining their arteries can be a wake-up call for patients to take their coronary-artery disease seriously and to be diligent in taking medication, exercising and making other healthy lifestyle changes.

Mr. Russert's family and physicians haven't disclosed how his coronary artery disease was diagnosed, or how he was being treated. NBC colleagues said the 58-year-old journalist had been working to control his condition with exercise and diet, though his weight was an ongoing struggle. He had also returned from a family trip to Italy the day before, following a grueling -- but exhilarating -- political primary season.

Not all heart attacks are fatal. Most of the 1.2 million Americans who had one last year survived. If the area of oxygen-starved heart muscle is small, or in the right ventricle, the heart can often keep pumping, allowing the patient to make it to a hospital, where doctors can break up the blockage with a clot-dissolving drug or catheterization. The situation becomes rapidly fatal if the heart starts beating wildly, and ineffectively, as it struggles to keep pumping. Unless it is jolted back into a normal rhythm within a few minutes, the patient's brain will starve for oxygen and shut down.

Some patients with enlarged hearts like Mr. Russert's are candidates for internal defibrillators that can continuously monitor heart rhythm and keep it regular automatically. Vice President Dick Cheney, who has survived four heart attacks, has one.

Many airports, shopping malls, schools and offices have portable Automatic External Defibrillators, or AEDs, on hand as well. They're designed to automatically assess a victim's heart rhythm and administer an electrical jolt as needed. The NBC office reportedly didn't have an AED, but an intern performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Mr. Russert until paramedics arrived with a defibrillator.

"The earlier CPR is started, the higher the rate of success," says Dr. Monrad, who says he has had several cases in which vigorous CPR in the field bought precious time and saved a life. On average, however, only a small percentage of people in full cardiac arrests are successfully revived.

More widespread use of AEDs and wider CPR training could save some future victims' lives. Some bloggers suggested that more-aggressive treatment of Mr. Russert's artery disease might have bought him some time, though most experts declined to speculate.

But stents, angioplasty and bypass surgery are only stop-gap measures that don't do anything to halt the progress of the underlying disease. "Everytime I do a procedure on a patient, the family comes up and says, 'Now we don't have to worry anymore,' but that's the wrong message," says Dr. Monrad. "Physicians have to be tough on the standards we set for patients, and patients have to be tougher about the kind of lifestyle choices they make."

The heart has many mysteries that scientists are still unraveling, such as what causes those killer bits of plaque to rupture, the role of inflammation, the complex interplay of diet, vitamins and amino acids like homocysteine. Even the size of cholesterol particles is under scrutiny. "The more small LDL particles you have, the higher your risk of heart disease," says Larry McCleary, a former pediatric neurosurgeon at Denver Children's Hospital who had a heart attack while on rounds at age 46, and has since lost weight, reduced his blood pressure and triglycerides, and exercises daily.http://louisdjdsheehan.blogspot.com

"It's important that each person take responsibility for taking care of themselves," says Edmund Herrold, a clinical cardiologist in New York City and professor at Weill Cornell Medical College. "Get a regular checkup. Watch your weight and your blood pressure and your cholesterol and if you have diabetes, keep that under control. Exercise. Take an aspirin every day. Eliminate meat. There's no guarantee, but you can dramatically lower the risk of a cardiac event if you pay attention to these issues."

German 5th Light Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

On 30 April, the Axis forces second attack attempting to push through the perimeter at post S.1 and push through into the centre of Tobruk. http://louis1j1sheehan.usThe attack captured an 8 km wide by 3km deep section of territory. However, the battle caused heavy losses to Rommel's forces, and he did not attempt another major attack in the immediate future.

At about 2000 hours tanks moved up to the perimeter wire in front of S.1 and, using grappling hooks, pulled it away. Tanks from 5 Panzerkompanie and supporting infantry from the 2nd Machine-Gun Battalion and a Pioneer Battalion proceeded to clear up the bunkers manned by Captain Fell's 'A' Company, 2/24th Battalion. Post S1 was the first to succumb. Two panzers drove to 100-200 yards of the post, and opened fire, and, after a brief fight (in which three men were killed and four wounded), Lieutenant Walker and his men surrendered. These tanks then proceeded to attack S.2 (Major Fell), which contained the Company HQ and 7 Platoon. Getting to within 200 yards, the panzers opened fire, shredding sandbags on the parapets and blowing up sangars. On each tank were riding German infantrymen, who under cover of the tanks' fire, ran forwards with grenades. S.2 then surrendered.^[16]

Then was the turn of 9 Platoon dug in posts R.0 and R.1 – after a fight in which three were killed and four wounded, the posts surrendered. The crews of two RHA 2-pounders put up a fight, knocking out some of the panzers, but when the guns tried to turn to engage panzers moving to their flank, they exposed themselves to German machine-gunners, with the gunners either killed or wounded. http://louis1j1sheehan.usThe bunkered platoons from the neighbouring C Company from 2/24th Battalion were also attacked. Post S.5 was taken at first light on 1 May, but Posts S.4 (Corporal Deering) and S.6 (Captain Canty) held out grimly until the morning. Post S.7 (Corporal Thomson) stubbornly resisted, inflicting heavy casualties on the attacking Italians, before the attackers were able to throw in grenades.^[17] Attacks by Italian infantry, on posts S.8, S.9 and S.10 were repelled. Nevertheless 'C' Company suffered 20 men killed and wounded, and another 44 taken prisoner in the fighting in the northern sector that largely employed troops from the "Brescia" Infantry Division.

The attack in the southern sector also involved Italian troops and Lieutenant Mair's 16 Platoon from 'D' Company defending Posts R.2 and R.3 and R.4 were overrun. According to an Australian defender, "That night the slightest move would bring a flare over our position and the area would be lit like day. We passed a night of merry hell as the pounding went on."^[18] Italian infantry were then able to close in, and stick grenades were thrown into the bunkers. Nevertheless, Posts R.5 (Sergeant Poidevin), R.6 (Captain Bird) and R.7 (Corporal Jones) were taken only after stubborn resistance, and fought on until they had run out of ammunition or had stick grenades tossed into the firing pits. After they had been taken prisoner, General Rommel spoke to them"for you the war is over and I wish you good luck", recalled Corporal Jones.^[18]

The 51st Field Regiment had been constantly firing, causing an entire German battalion to go to ground and, according to Rommel, creating panic in the Italian infantry. Seven British Cruiser and five Matilda tanks also appeared in the Italian area of penetration, to engage in an inconclusive tank battle with Italian tankers.

The attack faltered when the Panzers leading the assault ran into a minefield placed by Morsehead to stop any breaches of the blue line. A Panzer officer recalled: "Two companies get off their motor lorries and extend in battle order. All sorts of light signals go up - green, white, red. The flares hiss down near our own MGs. It is already too late to take aim. Well, the attack is a failure. The little Fiat-Ansaldos go up in front with flame-throwers in order to clean up the triangle. Long streaks of flame, thick smoke, filthy stink. We provide cover until 2345 hours, then retire through the gap. It is a mad drive through the dust. At 0300 hours have snack beside tank. 24 hours shut up in the tank, with frightful cramp as a result - and thirsty!"^[19] After several tanks lost their tracks the remaining Panzers retreated.

Rommel's troops had captured fifteen posts on an arc of three-and-a-half miles of the perimeter, including its highest fort. But the Australians had largely contained this Italo-German thrust. One German POW said: "I cannot understand you Australians. In Poland, France, and Belgium, once the tanks got through the soldiers took it for granted that they were beaten. But you are like demons. The tanks break through and your infantry still keep fighting."^[20] Rommel wrote of seeing "a batch of some fifty or sixty Australian prisoners [largely from C Company of the 2/24th Battalion that had been taken prisoner by the Italians]... marched off close behind us—immensely big and powerful men, who without question represented an elite formation of the British Empire, a fact that was also evident in battle."^[20]

Nevertheless Australian losses had been considerable.The 2/24th Battalion alone had lost nearly half its strength killed, wounded or taken prisoner.^[21]

Rommel placed the blame for the failure to capture Tobruk squarely on the Italians.^{[citation needed]} However, it was the 19th and 20th Infantry Regiments of the 27th "Brescia" Division along with the 5th and 12th Bersaglieri Battalions of the 8th Bersaglieri Regiment, the 3rd Company, 32nd Combat Sappers Battalion and "Ariete" Armoured Division who after much hard fighting, had possession of most of the positions which the Australians had lost^[22] The 7th Bersaglieri Regiment soldiers bunkered along the newly captured concrete bunkers. The Australians fought hard to win back their positions. Much fierce hand-to-hand fighting took place from 1 May till the end of August 1941 when finally the weary soldiers of the 7th Bersaglieri were ordered move to Ain Gazala to rest and refit.^[23] According to an Australian soldier, "In Tobruk we became part of the 9th Division with the 28th and 16th Battalions. Each Platoon had to do two or three weeks in the Salient, which was a section of ‘no man’s land’ where the enemy had driven us back from fortifications that skirted Tobruk from sea to sea. Time up there wasn’t exactly pleasurable. We were in dugouts with interconnecting trenches about a foot or so deep (hence becoming known as the ‘rats of Tobruk’). The Germans pummelled us with trench mortar bombs and also had fixed machine guns firing on us."http://louis1j1sheehan.us

Rommel was impressed by the conduct of the Australians. The heavy losses incurred by the attackers led the commanders of the Italian divisions and the German 5th Light Division to argue against further attacks until better preparations could be made. Rommel decided to hold off further major attacks until the end of November 1941, awaiting the arrival of more German forces and allowing more training of his forces in the art of siege warfare.

Reisig Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire 949499

Gerhard Herbert Richard Reisig Rocket engineer. Born 3 March 1910. Died 14 March 2005. Member of the German Rocket Team in the United States after World War II.

Personal: Male.

German expert in guided missile guidance, telemetry, and control during World War II. He was educated at the University of Dresden in engineering physics, obtaining his doctorate in 1934. He worked for Siemens from 1935- October 1937, then was hired by Von Braun to work with the rocket team at Kummersdorf as chief of measuring devices. From 1939 he became involved in development of the A3 and then A5 subscale versions of the V-2. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire He was technical liaison with Regener in development of a scientific package for sounding rocket missions by the V-2. In 1943 he joined Dornberger's staff and was involved with the Wasserfall surface-to-air missile. As of January 1947, hired by the Americans under Project Paperclip and working at Fort Bliss, Texas. Worked his entire life with the rocket team, at Fort Bliss, White Stands, and then at Huntsville. Still living in Huntsville, Alabama in 2004. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

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