U.S. DEVELOPING NEW EXCUSE TO DELAY WITHDRAWING FROM AFGHANISTAN. The U.S. government “reluctantly” agreed to transfer detainees from Bagram prison to Afghan ones, expressing concerns about a history of detainees being tortured in local prisoners. John Glaser sees this as a false reason for prolonging the American presence in the country, as human [...]
President Obama continued with the task of fleshing out his second-term cabinet on Monday, selecting two men for important national security posts that indicate a decidedly hawkish shift in his administration. The president’s decision also ushers in a potentially two-sided political fight, with conservatives and progressives each taking issue with the men nominated for defense secretary [...]
THE DARK NIGHT OF A VIOLENT SOCIETY IS RISING IN AMERICA; AND VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES AND HOLLYWOOD MOVIES ARE CONTRIBUTING TO THAT. Movie critic Mick LaSalle comments on effects of movies like “Dark Knight Rises” and the possible causal connection between it and other media products in promoting events the likes of a movie [...]
“PLEASE TORTURE ME IN THE OLD WAY.“ (UK Independent) This is the plaintive appeal of the last Briton imprisoned at Guantanamo, Shaker Aamer, as he is about to observe the 10th anniversary of his being held as a terrorism suspect without any formal charges being filed. His complaint is that his continued separation from his [...]
DRONES OVER BAGHDAD PROVOKE IRAQI OUTRAGE. (New York Times) The troops are gone but the big U.S. Embassy and other U.S. facilities in the city and country remain, and the State Department, in an obscure report on “diplomatic security,” reveals that it is maintaining a fleet of drone aircraft to provide surveillance only (they are [...]
AN “UNCOMMODIFIED RADICAL PUBLIC SPACE RIGHT IN THE HEART OF GLOBAL CAPITAL.” (AlterNet) Writer Arun Gupta so characterizes the extraordinary encampment of protesters calling themselves Occupy Wall Street. City officials are losing patience with this “uncommodified” (free services) community which tries to provide for the sanitation and health care needs of an occupying population. The [...]
OPINION: THE RESPONSIBILITY OF TORTURE PROSECUTION (Guardian UK) fter years of promises, the Obama administration has announced that it will not be closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay any time soon. In fact, 9/11 “mastermind” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be tried their in a military tribunal, continuing the dark legacy of the Bush administration’s [...]
IS PETER KING ON MUSLIM TERRORISM ABOUT TO CHANNEL JOSEPH MCCARTHY ON COMMUNIST SUBVERSIVES? (McClatchy) When the Wisconsin Senator in 1953 became chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations he escalated his red-hunting political career into an orgy of accusations of communist infiltration of government. As the New York congressman takes the chairmanship of the [...]
U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of providing documents to WikiLeaks and held in isolated confinement in a military brig for over seven months, has been the victim of “alarming abuses of his constitutional rights and his physical health,” according to Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). Kucinich has released a letter that he sent [...]
New Egyptian vice president Omar Suleiman, appointed days ago by embattled President/dictator Hosni Mubarak as a means to quell the protests that have riveted the world and rocked the country, is well known to the United States and to those documenting American abuses in the ongoing “war on terror.” Before being tapped as the first [...]
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