Month: November 2004

In spite of a court ruling that halted the military trial of a Guantanamo detainee last week, the military is continuing to conduct another kind of controversial hearing for prisoners held at the U.S. base in Cuba. On Monday, a prisoner accused of delivering money to the Taliban stood before a Combat Status Review Tribunal … Continue reading “Gitmo Trials Continue Despite Ruling”

In the wake of the apparent extrajudicial execution by a U.S. soldier of a wounded Iraqi prisoner in Fallujah, caught on videotape by NBC, Amnesty International is calling on the U.S. authorities to issue “unequivocal orders” for the proper treatment of unarmed or wounded insurgents. The appeal, issued by Amnesty from its London headquarters Tuesday, … Continue reading “Amnesty Calls for Prevention of War Crimes in Iraq”

She lays dazed in the crowded hospital room, languidly waving her bruised arm at the flies. Her shins, shattered by bullets from U.S. soldiers when they fired through the front door of her house, are both covered by casts. Small plastic drainage bags filled with red fluid sit upon her abdomen, where she took shrapnel … Continue reading “Slash and Burn”

He trolled for teenagers in North Carolina high schools, barked orders at recruits in boot camp, and pulled charred civilian corpses out of cars in Iraq. Now Jimmy Massey is making good on his promise to tell the whole world what he learned as a Marine. For the first 10 years, Massey loved being in … Continue reading “Sign Here, Kid”

NEW DELHI – Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ruled out Wednesday any change in the status of Kashmir and indicated that he would not agree to a redrawing of India’s borders with Pakistan as a solution to the long-disputed territory. Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf suggested last month that parts of Kashmir, now divided between … Continue reading “India Firm on Status Quo in Kashmir”

After their jerry-built justifications – 1. WMD. 2. Saddam and Osama sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G – fell apart, the neoconservatives had a problem. Why, exactly, did we invade Iraq? It seems we invaded not so much for us as for them. The Iraqi people, that is. How very altruistic. Saddam was a killer, and … Continue reading “Liberation Has a Body Count”

The neoconservatives won’t have Colin Powell to kick around anymore, who’s leaving along with his sidekick Richard Armitage: with them go the last vestiges of sanity in this war-maddened administration. The general purge of Republican "realists" from the Bush cabinet is a great victory for the War Party, but that’s only half the battle. The … Continue reading “Triumph of the Neocons”

U.S. President George W. Bush’s nomination of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to replace Secretary of State Colin Powell consolidates the control over U.S. foreign policy of the coalition of hawks that promoted the war in Iraq, led by Vice President Dick Cheney. The promotion of Rice’s deputy, Stephen Hadley, to take her place in … Continue reading “Hawks Flying High With Rice Posting”

If [America] becomes militant, it will be because its people choose to become such; it will be because they think that war and warlikeness are desirable. – William Graham Sumner (1903) Americans have come to notice, through all the smoke from burning American flags, sacked McDonald’s, and falling skyscrapers that the rest of the globe … Continue reading “They’re Gonna Like Us, Really Like Us”

BAGHDAD – At least 800 civilians have been killed during the U.S. military siege of Fallujah, a Red Cross official estimates. Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of U.S. military reprisal, a high-ranking official with the Red Cross in Baghdad told IPS that "at least 800 civilians" have been killed in Fallujah so far. … Continue reading “800 Civilians Feared Dead in Fallujah”