Dive into the archives.
- Glenn Greenwald on American Hypocrisy
One of the taboo topics in the American media is how the U.S. Government routinely violates the principles we espouse for, and try to impose on, the rest of the world. We systematically torture Muslims and then cover it up and protect our torturers while preaching accountability and the rule of law; we condemn deprivations [...]
- And If This Happened to Gilad Shalit?
Yousef Abu Zuhri, a Hamas member and brother of the movement’s spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri, died in an Egyptian jail. Hamas is outraged, claiming he was tortured to death. (full article…)
- The Downside of American Torture
Prolonged stress from the CIA’s harsh interrogations could have impaired the memories of terrorist suspects, diminishing their ability to recall and provide the detailed information the spy agency sought, according to a scientific paper published Monday. (full article…)
- This is “Change”
In a troubling legal brief filed last week, the Obama administration followed the disreputable example of the Bush White House by opposing judicial review of military detentions, even for a discrete segment of prisoners: the 30 or so non-Afghan Bagram prisoners who were seized outside Afghanistan, far from any recognizable battlefield, and who have been [...]
- Apologists For Torture
But we have a political culture which believes, literally, that the CIA must operate above and beyond the law (recall Joe Klein’s argument against torture prosecutions: CIA agents “behave extra-legally for the greater good of the nation”). Even though the American people have enacted numerous laws through their Congress which explicitly criminalize certain behavior on [...]
- Demoralized
On Friday, seven former CIA directors urged President Obama to end the inquiry, arguing that it would inhibit intelligence operations in the future and demoralize agency employees who believed they had been cleared by previous investigators. (full article…)
- This is “Change”
The two candidates’ starkly different reactions to that ruling was supposed to underscore one of the true differences between them: that Obama, the Constitutional Law Professor, would insist on adherence to core Constitutional liberties even while prosecuting the War on Terror, but McCain wouldn’t. Yet here we are, barely more than a year later, and [...]
- The Price of Giving Bush What He Deserved
The Iraqi television journalist who hurled his shoes at then-President George W. Bush was released Tuesday after nine months in prison, claiming Iraqi authorities had tortured him. (more…)
- Moral Depravity
There is no question that many of the detainees who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo — and still are imprisoned there — are innocent. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that they have the constitutional right to a habeas corpus hearing, federal judges in 28 out of 33 cases have found insufficient evidence [...]
- How To Kill an International Student Program
A decision by the University of Wyoming to name a new center for international students for former Vice President Dick Cheney is drawing criticism from people who say Cheney’s support for the Iraq war and harsh interrogation techniques should disqualify him from the distinction. The former vice president and wife Lynne are expected to attend [...]
- Personal Intervention
Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, personally intervened to suppress evidence of CIA collusion in the torture of a British resident, the high court heard today. (more…)
- British Torture
Ls services secrets britaniques sont une nouvelle fois secoués par une affaire de torture. Un citoyen britannique, condamné pour terrorisme, assure qu’un agent des services secrets lui a offert d’abandonner ses accusations pour torture en échange d’une somme d’argent ou d’une réduction de peine. (more…)
- This is “Change”
The government will agree to preserve the secret overseas sites where a defendant in a terror case was once held and, his lawyers say, subjected to harsh interrogation techniques after his capture in 2004, a prosecutor indicated in court in New York on Thursday. (more…)
- Israeli Torture
The report, ‘Shackling as a Form of Torture and Abuse’, based on the evidence of over 500 prisoners, was released in advance of the UN International Day in Support of Torture Victims Friday, Jun. 26. It follows a report published in May by the UN Committee Against Torture that had criticised the continued mistreatment of [...]
- American Torture
“People who order or inflict torture cannot be exonerated, and the roles of certain lawyers, as well as doctors who have attended torture sessions, should also be scrutinized,” Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement dedicated to victims of torture. (more…)
- Raji Sourani on Inter-Palestinian Repression
“We as Palestinians have experienced political detention and abuse for 41 years under the Israeli occupation, and now we are doing it to ourselves.” (more…)
- This is Zionism
The army and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) shackle Palestinian security detainees as a form of torture and abuse, the Public Committee against Torture in Israel (PCATI) charged in a report issued early Tuesday morning. (more…)
- American Torture
To date, the highest-ranking officer to be prosecuted for detainee abuse is a lieutenant colonel who was acquitted by a court-martial panel. Yet there is simply too much evidence of high-level orders and authorization for the use of torture and abuse to justify limiting criminal investigations to those in the field. What does it say [...]
- Back To the Future (On Torture)
If, like me, you’ve been following America’s torture policies not just for the last few years but for decades, you can’t help but experience that eerie feeling of déjà vu these days. With the departure of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney from Washington and the arrival of Barack Obama, it may just be back [...]
- Israel’s Crimes
Ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children (more…)
- This is “Change”
Obama said he was “very much looking forward” to that part of his trip, but that he wanted to meet with Mubarak first because he is someone “who obviously has decades of experience” on a range of issues. (more…) Yeah, a whole range of issues: torture, censorship, eradication of political opponents, etc.
- Medically Approved Torture
Evidence is emerging that medical personnel monitored the medical effects of the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah, the al-Qaida operative who was, according to government reports, subjected to the near-drowning at least 83 times in August 2002. (more…)
- So Much For Universal Jurisdiction
The Supreme Court ruled today that former attorney general John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller may not be sued by Arab Muslims who were seized in this country after the 2001 terrorist attacks and allege harsh treatment because of their religion and ethnicity. The court ruled 5 to 4 that the top officials are [...]
- Noam Chomsky: Our Unending War of Terror
The torture memos released by the White House elicited shock, indignation and surprise. The shock and indignation are understandable. The surprise, less so. For one thing, even without inquiry, it was reasonable to suppose that Guantánamo was a torture chamber. Why else send prisoners where they would be beyond the reach of the law — [...]
- Obama’s Methods
They come in with their Darth Vader outfits, and they literally gang-beat prisoners. There are five men, generally, that are sent in. Each of them is assigned to one body part of the prisoner: the head, the left arm, the right arm, the left leg, the right leg. They go in, and they hogtie the [...]
- This is “Change”
US President Barack Obama had thought he could clean up the Bush administration’s questionable human rights legacy on his own terms. Recent decisions regarding Abu Ghraib pictures and military tribunals show that he was mistaken. His message of “change” is at risk. (more…)
- This is “Change”
President Obama’s decisions this week to retain important elements of the Bush-era system for trying terrorism suspects and to block the release of pictures showing abuse of American-held prisoners abroad are the most graphic examples yet of how he has backtracked, in substantial if often nuanced ways, from the approach to national security that he [...]
- Toture, American Style
As the Obama administration continues to fight the release of some 2,000 photos that graphically document U.S. military abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, an ongoing Spanish investigation is adding harrowing details to the ever-emerging portrait of the torture inside and outside Guantánamo. Among them: “blows to [the] testicles;” “detention underground in total darkness [...]
- Why An Independent Commission is Needed
“It is an embarrassment,” said Ross K. Baker, an expert on Congress at Rutgers University, “and clearly nobody wants to be embarrassed, particularly a speaker of the House. But other than that, there is nothing here that threatens her job.” (more…)
- The Fabrications of Jay S. Bybee
Few people know how to avoid, evade, beat around the bush, beg the question, bypass, circumvent, fudge, sidestep, prevaricate, equivocate, dodge, duck, avoid and ignore as well as Federal Judge Jay S. Bybee, the author of a torture memorandum given to the Central Intelligence Agency. Few people know how to be as skillfully dishonest while [...]
- Except For When I Didn’t, That Is
Throughout my career, I have been proud to have worked on human rights and against torture around the world. (more…)
- This is “Change”
“This tragic, misguided, and unprincipled reversal seems to be consistent with the fact that instead of getting a real ‘change’ on policies under the Obama administration, the American people are experiencing continuity across the board with those of the discredited and criminal Bush administration when it comes to international law, human rights, and U.S. constitutional [...]
- Outsourcing Torture
The torture practices used in interrogations of al-Qaida prisoners were not developed by government officials in Washington, but by private security experts. In return for a daily consulting fee, they personally supervised the program at the CIA’s secret prisons from the very beginning. (more…)
- This is “Change”
The president is seeking to overturn a deal made last month between the Pentagon and the American Civil Liberties Union to make public the pictures from Abu Ghraib and other prisons after a court ruled they should be released. Obama instructed the White House legal office to argue in court against the immediate release of [...]
- This is “Change”
The Obama administration says it may curtail Anglo-American intelligence sharing if the British High Court discloses new details of the treatment of a former Guantanamo detainee. (more…)
- Torture, American Style
More than 25 of the CIA’s war-on-terror prisoners were subjected to sleep deprivation for as long as 11 days at a time during the administration of former president George Bush, according to The Los Angeles Times. (more…)
- Neither Democrats Nor Republicans
A top aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attended a CIA briefing in early 2003 in which it was made clear that waterboarding and other harsh techniques were being used in the interrogation of an alleged al-Qaeda operative, according to documents the CIA released to Congress on Thursday. (more…)
- American War Criminals
Yet it is clear from a recently released and well-documented report by the Senate Armed Services Committee that such abuses were not committed by rogue service members or CIA agents who took matters into their own hands. The extreme interrogation methods were, according to the report, sought out and authorized by administration officials at the [...]
- American Torture
In other words, the CIA’s own internal investigation could not confirm that “enhanced interrogation” had in any instance achieved the single goal that supposedly justified violations of American and international law: the disruption of a “ticking bomb” plot. (more…)
- King Abdullah
The clown of Jordan is very concerned about torture… in the United States. (more…)
- Juan Cole on U.S. Torture
[N]ote that the March waterboardings were not for the purpose of increasing national security; they were intended to provide a propaganda victory for an illegal war plan. That is not just wrong, it is evil. (more…)
- U.S. Torture
According to a recently released Justice Department memo, CIA operatives subjected two al-Qaeda leaders — alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and high-level lieutenant Abu Zubaida — to 266 episodes of waterboarding. Mr. Mohammed is said to have been waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 — for an average of six episodes a day [...]
- U.S. Torture (Even Before the Legal Memos)
“The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees.” The report undercuts the Obama administration’s case for leniency against the CIA, since the agency was pursuing abusive techniques even [...]
- Visions of Nuremberg
The administration announced that it would not seek to press criminal charges against CIA operatives who participated in enhanced interrogations of terrorism suspects during the Bush administration. “It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department,” Attorney General Eric [...]
- From the NYT Letters Section
I find it hard to believe that a man as intelligent as Mr. Obama, who once taught constitutional law, would equate the pursuit of justice with retribution. It makes it appear as if his decision is one of political expediency. If holding the C.I.A. operatives accountable for violating federal or international laws is retribution, then [...]
- Immunity for Torturers
“The release of CIA memos on interrogation methods by the US department of justice appears to have offered a get-out-of-jail-free card to people involved in torture,” Amnesty International said. “Torture is never acceptable and those who conduct it should not escape justice.” (more…)
- Anglo-American Torture
Another way of putting it would be to say that the co-conspirators agreed to cover each other’s backs so that they could collectively enjoy legal impunity. Now that that impunity is in jeopardy, the lawbreakers are upping the ante by implying that exposing torture practices poses a national security threat. (more…)
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How the Press, the Pentagon, and Even Human Rights Groups Sold Us an Army Field Manual that (Still) Sanctions Torture (more…)
- This Should Only Be the Beginning
Barack Obama, the US president, today signed an executive order to shut down the US military prison at Guantánamo Bay, the most potent symbol of excess in George Bush’s “war on terror”. (more…)
- We’re Waiting, Mr. Obama
But Mr. Obama must be mindful not to delay too much. Through no fault of his own, he has inherited a system in which many detainees have been held for years without a meaningful review of their cases. They have been denied the opportunity to scrutinize the evidence against them or to gather and present [...]
- We’re Waiting, Mr. Obama
When Barack Obama signs the draft order to tear down the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, he will end at a stroke one of most shameful chapters in American foreign policy history. (more…)
- American War Crimes
“Judicially speaking,” Nowak told the German broadcaster ZDF, “the United States has a clear obligation” to prosecute Rumsfeld and Bush for ordering interrogation methods at Guantanamo that contravened a UN convention on torture.” He added that there were publicly available documents “that prove that these methods of interrogation were intentionally ordered by Rumsfeld.” (more…)
- The Green Light
Bush reveals that he personally authorized torture on Khaled Sheikh Mohammed. (more…)
- Seven Years of Torture and Lies
[A]t least 30 prisoners – mostly Yemenis, who now comprise 40 percent of the prison’s population – have recently embarked on hunger strikes at Guantánamo. They are, understandably, incensed that Salim Hamdan, a driver for Osama bin Laden, was repatriated in November, to serve out the last month of the meager sentence he received after [...]
- Torture, American Style
Last week, a report by the US senate armed services committee involving both Republicans and Democrats said the abuse of detainees in Guantanamo Bay “cannot simply be attributed to the actions of ‘a few bad apples’ acting on their own”. (more…)
- Israeli Torture
Rights groups B’Tselem and Hamoked released a report last year entitled “Absolute Prohibition: The Torture and Ill-Treatment of Palestinian Detainees” in which they accused the court ruling of “legitimizing severe acts, contrary to international law, which does not acknowledge any exceptions to the prohibition on torture and ill-treatment.” (more…)
- Time to Close
Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, has ordered his staff to draw up plans to close the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba. (more…)
- Matthias Gebauer: Touring Guantánamo
The weeds are already growing rampant at the notorious “Camp X-Ray,” and President-elect Barack Obama plans to shut down the entire detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Now the Pentagon is inviting journalists to tour the camp one last time. One would imagine a trip to the world’s best-known and most notorious prison could be an [...]
- Torture, American Style
We can understand that Americans may be eager to put these dark chapters behind them, but it would be irresponsible for the nation and a new administration to ignore what has happened — and may still be happening in secret C.I.A. prisons that are not covered by the military’s current ban on activities like waterboarding. [...]
- Cheney’s Scowling Visage
Over the last eight years, Cheney’s scowling visage has been the more true and honest face of the Bush administration. Unlike Bush, when discussing the national security policies of the US Cheney rarely bothered with transparently disingenuous appeals to democracy-building, dealing instead in appeals to fear and raw assertions of power. (more…)
- The Taste of Freedom
Torture and other forms of abuse in Iraqi detention facilities, frequently to elicit confessions in early stages of detention, are well documented. The reliance on confessions in the court’s proceedings, coupled with the absence of physical or other corroborating evidence, raises the possibility of serious miscarriages of justice. In at least 10 investigative hearings and [...]
- Another Success for the Bush Doctrine
The brother of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US President George W Bush has said that the reporter has been beaten in custody. (more…) I’m sure this is what Bush intended when he promised to bring democracy to Iraq. Ah, freedom smells great!
- Metallica as a Method of Torture
In a radio interview in November 2004, [James Hetfield of Metallica] said that he was “proud” that the military had used his music (even though they “hadn’t asked his permission or paid him royalties”). “For me, the lyrics are a form of expression, a freedom to express my insanity,” he explained, adding, “If the Iraqis [...]
- A Man of Many Words
Waterboarding is used in interrogation to make a detainee feel as if he is drowning. Asked whether he thought it was appropriate, Cheney replied: “I do.” Asked if he thought, in hindsight, any of the tactics went too far, Cheney said, “I don’t.” (more…)
- Rumsfeld’s Legacy
A US Senate committee has accused the former defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, of being directly responsible for the abusive interrogations of detainees at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. (more…)
- Paul Craig Roberts: If Only US Law Applied to the US Government
The U.S. government does not have a monopoly on hypocrisy, but no other government can match the hypocrisy of the U.S. government. It is now well documented and known all over the world that the U.S. government tortured detainees at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and that the U.S. government has had people kidnaped and “renditioned,” [...]
- Jeremy Scahill: This Is Change? 20 Hawks, Clintonites & Neocons to Watch for in Obama’s White House
U.S. policy is not about one individual, and no matter how much faith people place in President-elect Barack Obama, the policies he enacts will be fruit of a tree with many roots. Among them: his personal politics and views, the disastrous realities his administration will inherit, and, of course, unpredictable future crises. But the best [...]
- Justin Raimondo: Torture—Yes We Can?
Most politicians wait at least until they’ve been sworn in before they start breaking their campaign promises. In this sense, as in so many others, Barack Obama represents an entirely new phenomenon: the politician who preemptively reneges. A recent Wall Street Journal piece describing the transition process as it relates to intelligence-gathering reveals we aren’t [...]
- Robert Fisk: Secrets of Iraq’s Death Chamber
Like all wars, the dark, untold stories of the Iraqi conflict drain from its shattered landscape like the filthy waters of the Tigris. And still the revelations come. The Independent has learnt that secret executions are being carried out in the prisons run by Nouri al-Maliki’s “democratic” government. The hangings are carried out regularly – [...]
- Mohammed Omer: IOF Was “Trying to Torture Me”
When I was coming back from my award ceremony and also a speaking engagement, I was stopped for nearly one hour and a half before an Israeli Shin Bet officer came to me and started collecting my bags, which were securely checked already. I kept waiting for some time until they got my luggage and [...]
- My Friend, Mohammed Omer, Assaulted by the Israeli Occupation Forces
I would like to share some rather disturbing news regarding a friend of mine from Gaza. Mohammed Omer, an award winning journalist, was recently assaulted by the Israeli Occupation forces without justification as he attempted to return to Gaza via the Allenby Bridge crossing on the Jordanian-West Bank border. Mohammed, whom I came to know [...]
- Donald Macintyre: Our Reign of Terror, by the Israeli Army
The dark-haired 22-year-old in black T-shirt, blue jeans and red Crocs is understandably hesitant as he sits at a picnic table in the incongruous setting of a beauty spot somewhere in Israel. We know his name and if we used it he would face a criminal investigation and a probable prison sentence. The birds are [...]
- Ralph Nader: An Open Letter To John Conyers
Chairman John Conyers House Judiciary Committee U.S. House of Representatives U.S. Congress Washington, DC 20510 Dear Chairman Conyers: Prominent Constitutional law experts believe President Bush has engaged in at least, five categories of repeated, defiant “high crimes and misdemeanors”, which separately or together would allow Congress to subject the President to impeachment under Article II, [...]
- Half a Decade of War: Five Years After Iraq Invasion, Soldiers Testify at Winter Soldier Hearings
AMY GOODMAN: [Five years ago] on March 19th, 2003, the US began bombing Baghdad. The invasion was on. Six weeks later, President Bush stood under a banner reading “Mission Accomplished” and declared an end to major military combat operations in Iraq. Now, half a decade later, the war continues with no end in sight. In [...]
- Winter Soldier CONT’D: US Vets, Active-Duty Soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan Testify About the Horrors of War
AMY GOODMAN: [Tonight] the US invasion and occupation of Iraq will enter its sixth year. On Monday, at least seventy-two Iraqis were killed in violence around Iraq, including forty-two Shiite worshippers in a suicide bombing in Karbala. Two US troops were also killed, bringing the US death toll to 3,990, ten deaths away from the [...]
- Winter Soldier: US Vets, Active-Duty Soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan Testify About the Horrors of War
AMY GOODMAN: Iraq and Afghanistan veterans gathered in Maryland this past weekend to testify at Winter Soldier, an eyewitness indictment of atrocities committed by US troops during the ongoing occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War, the event was modeled after the historic 1971 Winter Soldier hearings held during the [...]
- Robert Fantina: In Torture We Trust
The U.S. Congress sent President Bush a bill that would have banned the CIA from using ‘harsh interrogation methods,’ which most of the world sees as torture and which even the military is forbidden to use. Said Mr. Bush: “The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the [...]
