The Romans had an expression for it: Nulla poena sine lege, no punishment without a law. But people sometimes forget that the opposite is also true: Without punishment for offenders, a law itself can die. The Justice Department recently announced that, of the 101...
Calls Mount to Investigate Bush Officials for Torture
Senior officials under the former George W. Bush administration knowingly authorized the torture of terrorism suspects held under United States custody, a Human Right Watch (HRW) report released Tuesday revealed. Titled "Getting Away With Torture," the 107-page report...
Yellow Journalism at Its Nastiest
Can anyone doubt that The Wall Street Journal’s opinion pages show rabid anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias? Consider early June: Fouad Ajami kicked off the month with a piece critical of Palestinian plans to obtain UN recognition for their state. Ajami asserts that when...
Gen. Sanchez: From Abu Ghraib to US Senate
Why US and NATO Fed Detainees to Afghan Torture System
Starting in late 2005, U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan began turning detainees over to the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS), despite its well-known reputation for torture. Interviews with former U.S. and NATO diplomats and other evidence now available...
Prisoner Isolation, From Jefferson Davis to Bradley Manning
One hundred and forty-five years later, the room was almost pleasant. There was an embrasure with an open window at the extreme end of the casemate, looking out over the moat and the pretty buildings of Fort Monroe beyond. The sun played over the water and sent...
Thursday: 8 Iraqis Killed, 19 Wounded
Punished for Seeking a More Perfect Union
Reports that Bradley Manning is being held nude every night at the Quantico brig and is forced to stand naked in the hallway while he waits for his clothes shows the inconsistency of Manning's treatment with basic American values of due process, fair trial, and human...
Eight Years of Abuses and Impunity in Iraq
A leading human rights group released a report Monday documenting the proliferation of human rights abuses in Iraq since the United States invasion in 2003. Among the most egregious cases, the 102-page report by Human Rights Watch identifies women, journalists,...
The Five Eyes’ Daisy Chain
So the Five Eyes' daisy chain is alive and well. I encountered this at first hand with my own application under Canada's Access to Information Act (ATIA), submitted in December 2006 and documented elsewhere. In summary, after a hideous delay not countenanced by the...