WAR DEPARTMENT

CHINA'S NEW SATELLITE ZAPPER IS SERIOUS

DEFENSE TECH - China has shown it can destroy a satellite in orbit. What
could the U.S. do to stop Beijing, if it decided to attack an American
orbiter next? Short answer: nothing.

It takes about 20 minutes to fire a ballistic missile into space, and
have its "kill vehicle" strike a satellite at hypersonic speed -- over
15,000 miles per hour -- in low-earth orbit. That's far too quick for
anything in the American arsenal to respond, in time. There's "no
possibility of shielding" a relatively-fragile satellite against such a
strike. "And it is impractical [for a satellite] to carry enough fuel to
maneuver away even if you had specific and timely warning of an attack,"
Center for Defense Information analyst Theresea Hitchens notes.

http://www.defensetech.org/

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PENTAGON SAYS IT WAS OKAY TO TORTURE BEFORE NEW YEAR'S 2006

CNN - Defense Secretary Robert Gates is submitting to Congress a manual
for trials of detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay that would allow
the admission of hearsay evidence and coerced testimony, a Pentagon
official told reporters Thursday. The manual was drafted to comply with
a law passed last year that restored the Bush administration's military
commissions created to try terrorist suspects. . . The procedures
outlined in the manual "will ensure that unlawful enemy combatants
suspected of war crimes and certain other offenses are prosecuted before
regularly constituted courts affording all the judicial guarantees which
are recognized as indispensable by civilized people," said Principal
Deputy General Counsel Dan Dell'Orto. . . Dell'Orto said the manual
calls for the accused to be presumed innocent and requires that
convictions be based on guilt proven beyond a reasonable doubt.. . . The
statute provides for the admissibility of hearsay evidence. . . Brig.
Gen. Thomas Hemingway, a legal adviser to the Office of Military
Commissions, told reporters that the manual provides for a "clear
prohibition of evidence obtained by torture" if it was obtained after
December 30, 2005.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/01/18/detainee.trials/index.html

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