On the eve of the Iraq war, Pentagon lawyers gave license to torturing suspected terrorists in custody. Use of drugs on prisoners wasn’t banned in all cases. Even killing in some cases was justified. That’s the gist of a March 6, 2003, draft Pentagon report titled, “Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations in the Global …
Continue reading “The Torture Working Group”
Nebojsa Malic is on vacation this week. Five years after the NATO occupation of Kosovo began, the Balkans remains as restive as ever. Serbs in the occupied province have just suffered another terror attack, even as the UN occupiers fuss about gender quotas. Tensions are mounting in Bosnia, as viceroy Ashdown, NATO and the Hague …
Continue reading “The Pointless Poll”
UNITED NATIONS, June 9 (IPS) – After securing a unanimous U.N. Security Council resolution supposedly granting "full sovereignty" to Iraqis, the United States is shifting its focus to winning a second decision that would protect its troops from possible war crimes prosecution. The original resolution granting immunity to U.S. peacekeepers was first adopted by the …
Continue reading “One Down, US Seeks Second UN Resolution”
Lawyers for Iraqis tortured while in U.S. custody have sued two private security companies for allegedly abusing prisoners to extract information from them with the goal of winning more contracts from the U.S. government. According to the class action lawsuit filed Wednesday by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and a Philadelphia law …
Continue reading “Torture Victims Sue US Security Companies”
At their board meeting in Vienna next week, the directors of the International Atomic Energy Agency will consider whether a scenario that has long haunted Western capitals has now become an unmistakable reality – the pursuit by the mullah’s regime in Iran of a nuclear warhead that would radically alter the balance of power in …
Continue reading “Defusing Tension in the Middle East”
DARWIN (IPS) – Peace activists plan massive protests if the federal and Northern Territory governments allow a deal to go ahead between the United States and Australia to station U.S. troops and equipment in the so-called Australian Top End. The Northern Territory, which enjoys a long familiarity and friendliness with its Asian neighbors, is branding …
Continue reading “Some Aussies Say No to US Bases”
The United Nations Security Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a new resolution on Iraq granting legitimacy to the caretaker government of Iyad Allawi. The resolution gives the new Iraqi government substantially more sovereignty than had been envisaged by the U.S. in the initial draft, and the Bush administration essentially compromised in order to have an …
Continue reading “Sistani the Big Winner; Kurds Furious”
PARIS (IPS) – France has finally rallied behind the United States and Britain over Iraq despite earlier insistence on an independent foreign policy. France has backed the U.S.-British proposal for a new United Nations Security Council resolution on Iraq even though it ignores its demand to give an Iraqi administration veto right in military matters. …
Continue reading “Chirac Caves to Bush and Blair”
The Wall Street Journal has released the text of the now-infamous March 6, 2003 Defense Department memo regarding legal liability for torture. The conclusions reached advised President Bush and Pentagon officials that prohibitions against torture do not apply to the "war on terrorism." The file is available here in .pdf format.
Amid the near-unanimity of the panegyrics for Ronald Reagan – emanating from both the left and the right – the few dissenters stand out in their utter wrongheadedness. Christopher Hitchens, the Trotskyite-turned-warmonger, has a reputation to live up to, and his attempted demolition has about it the exhibitionistic aura of his tiresome takedown of Mother …
Continue reading “The Reagan-Haters” 
