William Fisher

The five elderly women stood in front of a U.S. Army recruiting office in Tucson, Arizona, and began to sing. To the tune of "There’s No Business Like Show Business," they belted out the lyrics they had written: "There’s no business like war business The worst business we know Never mind the homeless and the … Continue reading “Grannies Rage Against the Machine”

As Washington prepares to resume military trials of "war on terror" detainees, a debate over their status is heating up in the U.S. Congress, with even some prominent Republicans demanding higher standards for interrogations and a ban on "cruel, degrading, and inhumane treatment." Brian J. Foley is a professor at Florida Coastal School of Law … Continue reading “Navigating Gitmo’s Legal Labyrinth”

As the Pentagon appointed a former lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to head the defense team representing detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, it took steps to throw a roadblock into the release of a new batch of photos from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The ACLU charged that the government was attempting … Continue reading “Legal Battle Erupts Over New Abu Ghraib Photos”

Those who remember recent history will not be surprised to learn that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been amassing files on the American Civil Liberties Union, Greenpeace, and other critics of the George W. Bush administration. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, and … Continue reading “FBI Targets Bush Critics”

For the past few years, U.S. citizens have lived with an increasingly secretive government. More official documents are being classified than ever before – at least 16 million last year alone – while the declassification process, which made millions of historical documents available annually in the 1990s, has slowed to a relative crawl. And federal … Continue reading “Watching the Watchdogs”

The U.S. Army general widely considered the architect of abusive prisoner interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and detention centers in Afghanistan used "creative" and "aggressive" tactics, but did not practice torture or violate law or Pentagon policy, the head of the U.S. Southern Command has determined. Despite the recommendations of military investigators, Maj. … Continue reading “Abuse Probes End With Single Reprimand”

Many people will remember Janice Karpinsky, the U.S. Army Reserve brigadier general who was reprimanded and demoted for failing to stop the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. But few will remember Brig. Gen. Rick Baccus, who was sacked in October 2002 as commander of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (Gitmo), for … Continue reading “‘Coddling’ at Gitmo, or Just Humane Treatment?”

Though it happened just over 20 years ago, today’s media has all but forgotten that Afghanistan’s Taliban was largely the creation of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a hard-drinking, party-loving Texas congressman who helped funnel billions of dollars in arms to "freedom fighters" like Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar. The congressman … Continue reading “Charlie Wilson’s War, Act Two”

The American Civil Liberties Union receives thousands of pages of reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation about prisoner abuse at the US military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Documents from the Environmental Protection Agency reveal that months after the collapse of the World Trade Center, Ground Zero is still contaminated with asbestos. And when … Continue reading “Parting the Veil of Government Secrecy”

The U.S. Air Force continued to carry out damage control Tuesday before a congressional committee looking into religious intolerance at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., which trains future officers. A military task force reported last week that there was no overt religious discrimination at the academy but that it found insensitivity by … Continue reading “Jesus Is Not Our Co-Pilot, Academy Insists”