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”
Almost three years after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the United States is still falling short in its ability to deal with weak, failing or failed states, which increasingly threaten U.S. national security, says a major report released here Tuesday by a bipartisan commission. Washington must do far …
Continue reading “Weak States Are ‘Sleeping Giants’ for US Security”
I was nonplussed by all the Reagan encomia until I caught his address to the ’92 GOP convention on C-Span late Sunday night. He was showing his age, but that essential glimmer still came through. I was actually there in Houston when Reagan spoke, though I don’t remember if I was in the Astrodome that …
Continue reading “What Would Reagan Do?”
After declaring a war on terrorism, the Bush Administration has gotten us into two unwinnable wars, Afghanistan and Iraq. The war on terrorism is not a war; it is a state of affairs. There is no one enemy to conquer, no land to capture, no way to know when we have won the war. Basically, …
Continue reading “Pride, Patriotism, and Propaganda” 
