After days of Republican attack ads that compared him to Britney Spears and Moses, Barack Obama celebrated his 47th birthday Aug. 4 by releasing his own TV spot accusing John McCain of being "in the pocket" of Big Oil. The ad came as Obama unveiled his energy plan to combat the US "addiction" to foreign oil, "one of the most dangerous and urgent threats" the country has ever faced. McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds responded that the ad "shows his celebrity is matched only by his hypocrisy" because Obama has also received $400,000 in campaign contributions from oil companies. (CanWest, Aug. 4)

Canadian lawyers for Guantánamo detainee Omar Khadr filed suit with the Federal Court of Canada Aug. 8 demanding that Prime Minister Stephen Harper intervene on behalf of the 22-year-old Canadian citizen, who has spent the past six years at the military camp. Lawyers are asking the court to require that Harper demand Khadr's release before his military tribunal begins in October. Khadr was 15 when he was captured in a 2002 Afghan firefight. He is alleged to have thrown a grenade during that battle that fatally wounded a US soldier.

Salim Hamdan was convicted Aug. 6 by a panel of six US military officers at Guantánamo Bay of "providing material support for terrorism," but acquitted of "conspiracy." The sentencing hearing is due to begin immediately. He faces a maximum term of life imprisonment. However, the Pentagon confirmed beforehand that Hamdan would remain in indefinite detention as an "enemy combatant" regardless of the verdict.

Five years ago we were told the Justice Department had a "short list" of suspects in the 2001 anthrax attacks, with indications of a sinister intersection of high-level military research and the neo-Nazi ultra-right. Now we learn the name of the man the government was apparently ready to indict—when it it is too late to learn anything more useful from him. From AP via the New York Times, Aug. 1:

On July 14 former US Congress member James "Jim" Courter (R-NJ, 1979-1991) resigned from the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), in which he was one of 20 national finance co-chairpeople. The resignation followed a July 9 decision by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to fine IDT—the New Jersey telecommunications company of which Courter is CEO—$1.3 million for failing to file a contract for telephone service to Haiti in 2004, during the administration of President Jean Bertrand Aristide.

The 4th Circuit US Court of Appeals in Richmond, VA, issued a 5-4 ruling July 15 finding that if the government's allegations against Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri are true, the president is empowered by Congress to hold al-Marri in a military prison without charge as an enemy combatant, under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). The ruling overturned the 4th Circuit's prior decision holding that the military cannot seize and imprison as "enemy combatants" civilians lawfully residing in the US. (Jurist, July 16)

New York's Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) protests that detainees are being deported to countries that practice torture. On July 2, two Algerians were transferred from Guantánamo to the custody of the Algerian government—the first Algerians transferred from Guantánamo to Algeria. Since then, the men have effectively "disappeared," CCR says.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who has admitted to being Osama bin Laden's chauffeur in Afghanistan, went on trial at Guantánamo Bay July 21, in the first US war crimes trial since World War II. Hamdan pleaded not guilty to the charges before the military tribunal which could send him to life in prison. (Reuters, July 22) But in a surprise move, the presiding judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, excluded as inadmissible all statements obtained from Hamdan's interrogations in Afghanistan, except his first videotaped battlefield interrogation—in which he disclosed no links to bin Laden. "The interests of justice are not served by admitting these statements because of the highly coercive environment and conditions under which they were made," Allred wrote in a 16-page ruling. (McClatchy, July 22)