As I write at 5pm on Monday, May 31, all day has passed since the early morning reports of the Israeli commando attack on the unarmed ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, and there has been no response from President Obama except to say that he needed to learn "all the facts about this morning’s …
Continue reading “America’s Complicity in Evil”
Legal experts and civil libertarians are attacking the administration of President Barack Obama for resuscitating what they regard as "deeply flawed" military commissions to try detainees at Guantánamo Bay — and their choice of a "child soldier" as the first defendant. They are particularly incensed that Omar Khadr — a Canadian captured in Afghanistan seven …
Continue reading “Child Soldier Case to Kick Off Guantánamo Trials”
John Feffer on the endless boondoggles
Targeted killings, including those using drones, are increasingly being applied in ways that violate international law, according to a report issued Wednesday by a United Nations expert on extrajudicial killings. The report by special rapporteur Philip Alston will be presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on Thursday. It says that while targeted …
Continue reading “UN Expert Calls On US To Halt CIA Targeted Killings”
Philip Giraldi says the aid-boat hasbara is spinning
Every time Israel’s right-wing government engages in yet another outrageous violation of international legal norms, it is easy to think, "No way are they going to get away with it this time!" And yet, thanks to the White House, Congress and leading American pundits, somehow, they do. Israel’s attack on an unarmed flotilla of humanitarian …
Continue reading “Israel’s Latest Violation”
Faced with what the Wall Street Journal calls "one of Israel’s worst international relations disasters in years," the right-wing leadership of the so-called "Israel Lobby" has been pulling out all the stops to defend the Jewish state against global outrage over its deadly seizure of a Gaza-bound vessel in international waters carrying humanitarian supplies early …
Continue reading “Israel’s Defenders Mobilize, Threaten”
At least two Iraqis were killed and five others were wounded in light violence. Back in Texas, a U.S. soldier died of injuries received in a non-combat event that occurred in April. Also, U.S. Commander in Iraq General Ray Odierno presented U.S. President Barack Obama with a positive report on Iraqi security, and a new development in the hunt for a new prime minister has taken a turn that could end the impasse and help the security situation.
Not many atrocities can be less controversial than Israel’s attack on the Turkish-based flotilla heading to Gaza yesterday. Like Somali pirates, Israel attacked the boats in international waters. Like the darkest regimes, Israeli forces opened fire on unarmed civilians who had not posed a threat to anybody, except to the siege that Israel (with Egyptian …
Continue reading “The Flotilla in the Israeli Press”
A new U.S. government report is recommending that 48 men currently detained at Guantanamo Bay should be held indefinitely without trial because “for many of the detainees, there are no witnesses who are available to testify in any proceeding against them.”But authorities who follow the tortuous fortunes of Guantanamo say there is another reason: The …
Continue reading “Indefinite Detention at Gitmo Criticized as ‘Legal Nihilism’” 
