Antiwar.com

International human rights groups are raising new questions about US counterinsurgency tactics in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In a letter sent to Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld late last week, London-based Amnesty International asked whether the US military has adopted a policy of demolishing houses of the families of suspected insurgents in Iraq. At the same … Continue reading “US War Tactics Slammed by Rights Groups”

As the demonstrations last week in Miami over an effort to establish something resembling free trade in the Western hemisphere show us, those who are opposed to military war – or at least this military war conducted by this administration – do not always agree on every issue. Our coalition includes people who find the … Continue reading “Any Trade That’s Peaceful”

Four former heads of Israeli security, speaking in Israel, have warned the government that failure to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians will lead to catastrophe. These men are not some starry-eyed peaceniks. They are all former heads of Shin Bet, Israel’s secret police, which makes the FBI look like the Boy Scouts. You … Continue reading “Four Former Heads Of Israeli Security Speak Out”

Washington is just full of “confidential” memoranda that, somehow, get published in the newspapers; they waft down the boulevards of the Imperial City like snowflakes in a storm, until the city is knee-deep in them. There was Rummy’s supposedly super-secret missive expressing something less than breezy optimism about the war he and his neocon buddies … Continue reading “FBI EYE ON THE ANTIWAR GUY”

Congress is poised to approve new legislation that amounts to the first substantive expansion of the controversial USA Patriot Act since it was approved just after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Acting at the Bush administration’s behest, a joint House-Senate conference committee has approved a provision in the 2004 … Continue reading “Patriot Act Expansion
Moves Through Congress”

Balkan Express I have been reading the Balkan Express for a long time and it has been difficult to watch the downward spiral of the Balkans along with the lives and liberties of its Slavic peoples. History has shown that a nation can only extricate itself from under the jackboot of empires when that empire … Continue reading “”

The naming of an officer accused of longstanding ties to right-wing paramilitary forces as Colombia’s new armed forces commander is a "slap in the face" of the US administration, which has pressed Bogotá to improve its human rights record, says Amnesty International USA (AIUSA). The group’s condemnation of the appointment of Gen. Carlos Ospina Ovalle … Continue reading “New Colombian Military Chief’s ‘Slap’ in US’ Face”

Unsurprisingly, the mainstream media’s coverage of upwards of 30,000 people marching in Miami in protest against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) decontextualizes the act of protest itself. To the average person watching Wolf Blitzer hem and haw over the footage of baton-wielding police regulating an unpredictable crowd, the protests mean very little. … Continue reading “A Tale of Two Americas”

The neocons, we are told by the Telegraph, are “unfazed despite war in Iraq,” as the headline put it. The occasion for this reassuring news was an interview with the combative Dark Prince of the neoconservatives, Richard Perle, who complained about all the nasty name-calling on the part of his enemies: “Fascist. Warmongerer. Imperialist. With … Continue reading “Conrad Black and the Corruption of Empire”

p align=”left”>This week’s blockbuster leak of a secret memorandum from a senior Pentagon official to the Senate Intelligence Committee has spurred speculation that neo-conservative hawks in the Bush administration are on the defensive and growing more desperate. Both the committee and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have asked the Justice Department to launch an investigation … Continue reading “New Leak Smells of Neocon Desperation”