Category: Uncategorized

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a major advocacy group, has filed the first challenge to "rendition," known by critics as "outsourcing torture," a practice used by U.S. intelligence agencies to deliver detainees to prisons in countries known to practice abuse. "Torture is against the law in the United States," said Ron Daniels, CCRs’ executive … Continue reading “Rendition, or Outsourcing Torture?”

In The Image, Daniel Boorstin’s ground-breaking and magisterial study of the rise of the modern media and the public relations profession, the renowned historian coined the term "pseudo-event." He was referring to a "happening" that is designed to be covered by the news. It is not spontaneous, but comes about because someone has planned, planted … Continue reading “‘Pseudo-Events’ Stir Mideast Pot”

An institutional climate of "Islamophobia" and wariness among many U.S. Arabs and Muslims of the federal government are proving to be substantial barriers to recruiting Arabic speakers into the United States’ counterterrorism agencies, observers say. Applications are being received in record numbers, but submissions from those who might be choice picks in the fight against … Continue reading “Distrust Festers Between US Muslims, Intel Agencies”

Sadly, it has come to this. Two years after the invasion of Iraq, the online powerhouse MoveOn.org – which built most of its member base with a strong antiwar message – is not pushing for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. With a network of more than 3 million "online activists," the MoveOn leadership has … Continue reading “MoveOn.org Makes Peace With War”

The news that the American government fabricated the story of Saddam Hussein’s capture – that he wasn’t found hiding in a hole, that he did fight back, and that one Marine was killed during the encounter – may or may not be true, but the former wouldn’t surprise me at all. Every time someone in … Continue reading “The Wonderful Wizard
of Washington”

President Bush was uncharacteristically slow to take credit, in his speech this week at the National Defense University, for what appear to be democratic-like changes in the Middle East. This might have been in part because if you’re just counting numbers, which to some extent is what democracy as such boils down to, the 500,000-strong … Continue reading “Parsing the President”

CANBERRA, Mar 10 (IPS) – The father of the only Australian prisoner held in the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba has renewed his plea that his son be brought home to face any charges following the return by the U.S. government of three French men to Paris this week. Attending the screening of a film, … Continue reading “‘Bring My Son Home,’ Pleads Guantanamo Bay Detainee’s Father”

The Syrian government must put an immediate end to human rights abuses against Syrian Kurds, Amnesty International said in a report published Thursday on the eve of the anniversary of the Qamishli clashes. More than 30 Kurds were killed in clashes that spread from a football match between Kurdish and Arab teams in Qamishli in … Continue reading “Torture and Oppression of Kurds in Syria”

Throughout much of the Cold War, people feared above all else a global hot war, the third great one in a century of devastating world wars; and we crept up to it more than once – most desperately, there can be no doubt, at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. For … Continue reading “Which War Is This Again?”

Kosovo “Prime Minister” Indicted Three months after he was appointed “prime minister” in the “provisional government” of the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo, Ramush Haradinaj has stepped down and surrendered to the Hague Inquisition. He did so after receiving a sealed indictment, whose contents had not been made public as of Tuesday night. Haradinaj’s surrender … Continue reading “The Haradinaj Affair”