Truthout roundup 6/24

Top McCain adviser says new terrorist attack would give the Republican presidential campaign a boost; federal appeals court rejects "enemy combatant" label for Guantanamo detainee; Robert Parry tackles the underlying troubles with campaign finance reform; executive privilege suit argued in court; Tom Engelhardt comments on the influx of foreign oil company contracts in Iraq; and more ... Browse our continually updating front page at http://www.truthout.org

Aide: Terror Attacks "Big Advantage" to McCain
http://www.truthout.org/article/aide-terror-attacks-big-advantage-mccain Edward Luce and Andrew Ward report for The Financial Times: "John McCain's right-hand man hit a raw nerve on Monday when he said another terrorist attack on US soil would prove a 'big advantage' to the Republican nominee's general election chances. The comments by Charlie Black, who is arguably Mr McCain's most experienced adviser, put into words what many Republicans and Democrats have privately been stating for months."

In a First, Court Overturns Guantanamo Hearing
http://www.truthout.org/article/in-a-first-court-overturns-guantanamo-hearing For McClatchy Newspapers, Marisa Taylor reports: "A federal appeals court for the first time has rejected the military's designation of a Guantanamo detainee as an enemy combatant. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned as 'invalid' a military tribunal's conclusion that prisoner Huzaifa Parhat is an enemy combatant. The court directed the Pentagon either to release or transfer Parhat or to hold a new tribunal hearing 'consistent with the court's opinion.'"

Robert Parry Campaign Finance Reform Has Failed
http://www.truthout.org/article/campaign-finance-reform-has-failed Robert Parry, editor of Consortium News, writes: "Barack Obama's decision to opt out of federal campaign financing has riled newspaper editorialists, TV pundits and even some progressives who view regulating 'money in politics' as the silver bullet to kill the special-interest domination of Washington. But the fury over Obama's choice to rely on his Internet-based small donors - rather than take nearly $85 million in federal funding - misses a difficult truth that may be especially heretical on the Left: campaign-finance reform has been, by and large, a failure."

Court Hears Arguments in Executive Privilege Case Involving Bolten, Miers
http://www.truthout.org/article/court-hears-arguments-executive-privilege-case-involving-bolten-miers Susan Crabtree reports for The Hill: "Congressional Democrats could have had White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers arrested by the House sergeant at arms instead of filing suit to enforce subpoenas against them, the House general counsel argued Monday. District Judge John Bates heard nearly three hours of oral arguments Monday in a lawsuit over the limits of executive privilege."

Tom Engelhardt No Blood for... er... um...
http://www.truthout.org/article/no-blood-er-um For TomDispatch.com, Tom Engelhardt writes: "More than five years after the invasion of Iraq - just in case you were still waiting - the oil giants finally hit the front page. Last Thursday, the New York Times with this headline: 'Deals with Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back.' (Subhead: 'Rare No-bid Contracts, A Foothold for Western Companies Seeking Future Rewards.') And who were these four giants? ExxonMobil, Shell, the French company Total and BP (formerly British Petroleum). What these firms got were mere 'service contracts' - as in servicing Iraq's oil fields - not the sort of 'production sharing agreements' that President Bush's representatives in Baghdad once dreamed of, and that would have left them in charge of those fields. Still, it was clearly a start."