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U.S. Urged To Close Guantanamo
Stephanie Nebehay | Reuters May 19, 2006
The United Nations committee against torture told the United States on Friday that any secret jails it ran for foreign terrorism suspects, including Guantanamo Bay, were illegal and should be closed. The influential body also urged President Bush to ban interrogation methods that could be regarded as torture or cruel treatment. more ...
U.S. Secretly Backing Warlords In Somalia
Wax & DeYoung | Washington Post May 17, 2006More than a decade after U.S. troops withdrew from Somalia following a disastrous military intervention, officials of Somalia's interim government and some U.S. analysts of Africa policy say the United States has returned to the African country, secretly supporting secular warlords who have been waging fierce battles against Islamic groups for control of the capital. A senior U.S. official called it a classic "enemy of our enemy" situation. more ...
NSA Secret Database Report Triggers Fierce Debate
Susan Page | USA TODAY May 11, 2006
A fierce debate has now erupted over the legality and appropriateness of a massive secret database built by the National Security Agency that contains the phone records of tens of millions of Americans.The NSA has been collecting data from AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth since the Sept. 11 attacks to search for patterns that might help identify terrorist networks. NSA collected records from landlines and cellphones at homes, businesses and government offices across the country, including calls by individuals not suspected of wrongdoing. more ...
Russ Feingold | U.S. Senator
National Press Club | May 8, 2006
Intimidated Democratic lawmakers in 2002 failed to oppose the Bush administration’s movement to war in Iraq even though they believed it was wrong. more ...
President’s Warrantless Wiretapping Program
This program is breaking the law. This President is breaking the law. He is misleading the American people in his efforts to justify this program. more ...
David Gelber & Joel Bach | CBS News April 24, 2006
When no weapons of mass destruction surfaced in Iraq, President Bush insisted that all those WMD claims before the war were the result of faulty intelligence. But a former top CIA official, Tyler Drumheller -- a 26-year veteran of the agency -- has decided to do something CIA officials at his level almost never do: Speak out. The real failure was not in the intelligence community but in the White House. He says he saw how the Bush administration welcomed intelligence that fit the determination to go to war and turned a blind eye to intelligence that did not. more ...
Iraq Three Years After "Liberation"
Stephen Zunes | Foreign Policy In Focus April 21, 2006
Three years after U.S. forces captured Baghdad, Iraqis are suffering from unprecedented violence and misery. Today, the level of violent deaths is not only far higher than during Hussein's final years in power, but the sheer randomness of the violence has left millions of Iraqis in a state of perpetual terror. At least 30,000 Iraqi civilians have died, most of them at the hands of U.S. forces but increasingly from terrorist groups and Iraqi government death squads. Thousands more soldiers and police have also been killed. Violent crime, including kidnapping, rape, and armed robbery, is at record levels. There is a proliferation of small arms, and private militias are growing rapidly. more ...
Seymour M. Hersh | New Yorker
The Iran Plans: Would President Bush Go To War To Stop Tehran From Getting The Bomb? April 17, 2006
While publicly advocating diplomacy to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, pentagon has increased clandestine troop activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. more ...
In The Air: Where Is Iraq War Headed? December 6, 2005
A key element of U.S. troop drawdown plans, not mentioned in public statements, is that departing U.S. troops will be replaced by American airpower. more ...
Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case For War
Pushed Notion Of Iraqi Weapons Despite Contrary Evidence
Joby Warrick | Washington Post April 12, 2006
Fifty days after the fall of Baghdad, Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction." The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true. more ...
John Prados | TomPaine.com April 3, 2006
New British national security adviser memo reveals that Bush and Blair agreed that military action against Iraq would begin on a stipulated date in March 2003 -- despite the fact that no weapons of mass destruction had been found. The memo reveals how the two leaders mulled over ways to supply legal justification for the invasion. Indeed this record supplies additional evidence for the view that Bush planned all along to unleash this war. more ...
Sectarian Killings Now Surpass Terrorist Bombings
Farah Stockman & Bryan Bender | Boston Globe April 2, 2006
Nearly eight times as many Iraqis died last month in execution-style sectarian killings as in terrorist bombings carried out by insurgents, new U.S. military statistics show. U.S. military officials and human rights monitors attribute much of the violence to Shi'ite militias that began targeting Sunnis to retaliate for the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine. Until now, the Sunni-led insurgency was seen as the greatest threat to U.S. plans in Iraq, killing hundreds and at times more than 1,000 Iraqi civilians per month. New figures suggest that Shi'ite militias, loyal to powerful Shi'ite politicians, are as great a threat to Iraq's security. more ...
Darfur Violence 'As Bad As Ever'
Conflict In Sudan's Darfur Region Has Forced 50,000 People From Their Homes Since The Year Began
The International Organisation for Migration said this was the highest quarterly figure in three years. The IOM warned the level of violence in Darfur had not lessened since fighting began in 2003, and was putting many areas beyond the reach of aid agencies. more ...
Uganda's Daily Rate Of Violent Deaths Three Times Iraq's
Katy Pownall | The Independent March 30, 2006
report by 50 international and local agencies. more ...
Sonali Kolhatkar & James Ingalls | AlterNet March 30, 2006
Media reports over the case of an Afghan Christian convert have revealed a sudden concern over Afghanistan's repressive human rights environment. But routine reports of the oppression of Afghan women, suppression of the media, and underlying U.S. complicity have barely been noticed. more ...
Shibley Telhami | Baltimore Sun March 26, 2006
Iraq has been the top priority for the world's only superpower for the past three years, and a central one for many regional and international powers. The U.S., intent on keeping Iraq together, has spent more resources in that country than any state ever has spent on another in the history of the world. Yet the prospect of civil war and a divided Iraq are now greater than they had been at any time. Once institutions of sovereignty are destroyed in any state, especially one with a heterogeneous society, the odds are against any effort to build a stable alternative in the same generation. In the absence of effective central authority, all it takes is a small, determined minority to prevent unity. more ...
The Situation In Iraq Is Worse Than The Media Reports
Mark Shields | PBS New sHour March 24, 2006
The last defense any time a policy has failed is shooting the messenger. "Bombings, executions, killings, kidnappings, shootings and intimidation are a daily occurrence throughout all regions and sectors of Iraqi society. An illustrative list of these attacks could scarcely reflect the broad dimension of the violence." That is from Condoleezza Rice's State Department's March report on the condition of human rights in Iraq. I recommend it to everybody. It reflects a situation far more serious than the American press has reflected, in large part because the American press has not been able, in many cases, to leave the Green Zone to comment on it. more ...
Bush's Requests For Iraqi Base Funds Make Some Wary
Peter Spiegel | Los Angeles Times March 24, 2006
Bush continues to request hundreds of millions of dollars for large bases there, raising concerns. more ...
Can You Say "Permanent Bases"? American Press Can't
Tom Engelhardt | TomDispatch February 14, 2006
In a country in such startling disarray, these bases, with some of the most expensive and advanced communications systems on the planet, are like vast spaceships landed from another solar system. more ...
On Anniversary, Bush And Cheney See Iraq Success
Sanger & Shanker | New York Times March 20, 2006
On the third anniversary of a war that they once expected to be over by now, President Bush and senior officials argued Sunday that their strategy was working despite escalating violence in Iraq. The picture painted by the administration clashed with that of the former interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, once hailed by Bush as the kind of fair-minded leader Iraq needed. "We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people through the country, if not more," said Allawi. "If this is not civil war," he added, "then God knows what civil war is." more ...
Robert Dreyfuss
| TomPaine.com
Civil War Is Here March 16, 2006
To understand Iraqi civil war, think Lebanon. more ...
Civil War-Elect January 23, 2006
Iraq now descending into full-blown civil war. more ...
Death Squads And Diplomacy October 6, 2005
Violence carried out by paramilitary forces. more ...
Reverse Ba'athism September 27, 2005
Militias conducting death-squad style attacks. more ...
Michael
Schwartz | Common Dreams & TomDispatch
Iraq's Sovereignty Vacuum March 9 & 13, 2006
Part 1 -- An already desperately weak Iraqi central government has no enforcement apparatus. more ...
Part 2 -- Country edges toward an ever-more virulent civil war. Sunni resistance, stronger than ever. more ...
American Airwar Rules Of Engagement January 12, 2006
Death rate could be dwarfed in coming year. more ...
Immediate Withdrawal Makes Sense September 22, 2005
US part of the problem, not part of the solution. more ...
U.K. Soldier Quits Army In Disgust At "Illegal"
Sean Rayment | London Telepraph March 12, 2006After three months in Baghdad, Ben Griffin told his commander that he was no longer prepared to fight alongside American forces. He said he had witnessed "dozens of illegal acts" by U.S. troops, claiming they viewed all Iraqis as "untermenschen" - a Nazi term for races viewed as sub-human. "I did not join the British Army to conduct American foreign policy." more ...
Iraq Through The Prism Of Vietnam
The Vietnam War had three phases. The War in Iraq has already completed an analogous first phase, is approaching the end of the second phase, and shows signs of entering the third. Phase 1 -- confused war aims and phony intelligence -- sound familiar? It should. Phase 2 in Vietnam was marked by a refusal to reconsider the war’s “strategic” rationale. Rather, debate focused only on “tactical” issues as the war went sour. During this phase, no major leader or opinion maker in the United States dared revisit the key strategic judgment. Instead, debate focused on how the war was being fought. Phase 3 in Vietnam was marked by “Vietnamization” and “make-believe diplomacy” in Paris, policies still ignoring the strategic realities at the war’s beginning. more ...
Intelligence, Policy, And The War In Iraq
Paul R. Pillar | Foreign Affairs March/April 2006During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, writes the intelligence community's former senior analyst for the Middle East, the Bush administration disregarded the community's expertise, politicized the intelligence process, and selected unrepresentative raw intelligence to make its public case. more ...
Afghanistan Survey: 2006 Rise In Opium Production
Afghanistan Watch | The Century Foundation March 6, 2006
A recent survey shows that Afghan farmers are planting more poppy this year than in 2005. The drug economy remains 52 percent of the country's GDP, and the country’s top export. Afghanistan now supplies 90% of world opium, and one-third of world marijuana. One million Afghans use opium. more ...
Ex-Official: Iraq Abuses Growing Worse
Ed Johnson | Associated Press March 2, 2006
Human rights abuses in Iraq are as bad now as they were under Saddam Hussein, as lawlessness and sectarian violence sweep the country. John Pace, who last month left his post as director of the human rights office at the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, said the level of extra-judicial executions and torture is soaring, and morgue workers are being threatened by both government-backed militia and insurgents. more ...
Ex-Intelligence Officials Say Iraq Warnings Ignored
U.S. intelligence agencies repeatedly warned the White House beginning more than two years ago that the insurgency in Iraq had deep local roots, was likely to worsen, and could lead to civil war, according to former senior intelligence officials who helped craft the reports. The warnings received a cool reception from Bush administration policymakers at the White House and the office of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, according to the former officials. more ...
Bush Policies Weakening National Guard, Governors Say
Robert Pear | New York Times February 27, 2006
Governors of both parties said Sunday that Bush administration policies were stripping the National Guard of equipment and personnel needed to respond to hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, forest fires and other emergencies. Tens of thousands of National Guard members have been sent to Iraq, along with much of the equipment needed to deal with natural disasters and terrorist threats here in the United States. more ...
On Iraq War: "This Is A Civil War"
George Will | ABC News February 26, 2006
A government exists when it has a reasonable monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. As long as the militias are out there, the existence of an Iraqi government is questionable. Think of Los Angeles. If Los Angeles said the Bloods and the Crips are going to be tolerated, they're going to be armed and police their areas and enforce the law in certain areas, what sense would Los Angeles have of government? more ...
William F. Buckley, Jr. | National Review Februrary 24, 2006
One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed. A fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, Mr. Reuel Marc Gerecht, backed the American intervention. He now speaks of the bombing of the especially sacred Shiite mosque in Samara and what that has precipitated in the way of revenge. He concludes that “The bombing has completely demolished” what was being attempted. more ...
The Torture Papers: How Pentagon Insiders Tried
To Ban Abuse -- And Who Stopped Them
Well before the exposure of prisoner abuse in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, in April, 2004, Alberto J. Mora, general counsel of the United States Navy, warned his superiors at the Pentagon about the consequences of President Bush’s decision, in February, 2002, to circumvent the Geneva conventions, which prohibit both torture and "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." He argued that a refusal to outlaw cruelty toward U.S.-held terrorist suspects was an implicit invitation to abuse. Mora described as “unlawful,” “dangerous,” and "erroneous” novel legal theories granting the right to authorize abuse. more ...
Invisible Men: The Not-People We're Not Holding
Dahlia Lithwick | Slate February 16, 2006
Guantanamo currently holds over 400 prisoners. The administration has described these men as "the worst of the worst." Ten have been formally charged with crimes and will someday face military tribunals. The rest wait to learn what they have done wrong. Two major studies conclude that most of them have done very little wrong. A third says they are being tortured while they wait. more ...
Billions Wasted In Iraq? War Profiteers?
Steve Kroft | CBS News February 12, 2006
The United States has spent more than a quarter of a trillion dollars during its three years in Iraq, and more than $50 billion of it has gone to private contractors hired to guard bases, drive trucks, feed and shelter the troops and rebuild the country. Much of the $50 billion, which is more than the annual budget of the Department of Homeland Security, has been handed out to companies in Iraq with little or no oversight. Billions of dollars are unaccounted for, with widespread allegations of waste, fraud and war profiteering. more ...
Ex-President Carter: Eavesdropping Illegal
Kathleen Hennessey | Associated Press February 7, 2006
Hopes the case will go to the Supreme Court. more ...
Concerned about radical government policies. more ...
The holding of terror suspects, a shameful act. more ...
The United States Is Engaged In What Will Be A Long War
White & Tyson | Washington Post February 3, 2006
The U.S. is engaged in what could be a generational conflict akin to the Cold War, the kind of struggle that might last decades as allies work to root out terrorists across the globe and battle extremists who want to rule the world, Secretary Rumsfeld said yesterday. He laid out broad strategies for what the military and the Bush administration are calling the "long war," and likened al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin, while urging Americans not to give in on the battle of wills that could stretch for years. more ...
New Poll: Iraqi Public Thinks US Plans Permanent Bases
Most Iraqis believe their lives will improve once the US-led forces leave, but are still uncertain that Iraqi security forces are ready to stand on their own. more ...
Neve Gordon | In These Times January 26, 2006
Paradoxically, Hamas' steady ascent is part of Sharon legacy, while its imminent victory in the upcoming elections will help Israel's new leader transform Sharon's political vision into reality. Sharon altered his strategic thinking in the last couple of years. more ...
Derrick
Z. Jackson | Boston
Globe
Making Enemies In Pakistan January 21, 2006
Our response: fanatical acts of needlessly invading countries, destroying a village to kill a terrorist. more ...
Pakistan Strike: No Remorse January 18, 2006
When teens show no remorse we call in a therapist, killers show no remorse we want death row. more ...
Every invoking of the innocents also reminds us of our despicable, cowardly killing of innocent Iraqis. more ...
Robert Scheer | San Francisco Chronicle January 19, 2006
Last Sunday, U.S. sources claimed to have targeted Osama's second-in-command with the bombing of a village on the Pakistan side of the border with Afghanistan. But, as is so often the case when applying air power to nonmilitary targets, the corpses left in the debris of a devastated village did not include the intended target. In the aftermath, American flags were once again burning in the region as anti-American protests swept Pakistan. more ...
'We the People' Must Save Our Constitution
Al Gore | Common Dreams January 16, 2006
We have joined together today to express our shared concern that America's Constitution is in grave danger. In spite of our differences over ideology and politics, we are in strong agreement that the American values we hold most dear have been placed at serious risk by the unprecedented claims of the administration to a truly breathtaking expansion of executive power. As we begin this new year, the Executive Branch of our government has been caught eavesdropping on huge numbers of American citizens and has brazenly declared that it has the unilateral right to continue without regard to the established law enacted by Congress to prevent such abuses. more ...
Norman Solomon
| Common Dreams & TomPaine
Media War Images Delude, Not Inform January 9, 2006
Soldier in "iconic" photo was newsworthy for a little while, with no major media coverage on his suffering from posttraumatic stress upon return home. more ...
The Fourth Estate And The Warfare State October 17, 2005
During the propaganda buildup for the invasion of Iraq, the media was a key asset of the warfare state. more ...
Don't Give Bush An Exit Strategy August 22, 2005
Public opinion against a losing war and not the war itself, leaves an obvious exit strategy: escalate. more ...
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Vietnam Veterans Against the War
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Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors
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National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund
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