As the planned closing of the U.S. military’s detention center at Guantánamo Bay draws nearer, human rights activists are raising questions about the treatment of detainees who will be transferred to the U.S. for trial. But while the media has focused virtually all its attention on these foreign prisoners held abroad, the government is already …
Continue reading “New York ‘Terror’ Detainee in Draconian Conditions”
Ray McGovern on Tenet and Rummy in a Supermax
A federal court this week ruled for the first time that the U.S. government cannot freeze an organization’s assets under a terror financing law without a warrant based upon probable cause and without telling the organization the basis for its action and a meaningful opportunity to defend itself. If the decision of U.S. District Judge …
Continue reading “Court Reins in Terror Finance Policy”
For years the United States has used military force as a Band-Aid for a wide-range of global problems ranging from the removal of dictators to ensuring access to global trade partners. Yet it’s clear that this has not been successful. For all of the money, time, and lives we have spent to maintain a colossal …
Continue reading “Intervention Begets Insecurity”
PARIS — Little mainstream comment seems to have appeared on the latest revelations of incompetence and sadistic fantasy that have been published this week about the ways in which the American nation lost its honor and international reputation because of the Bush administration’s infatuation with torture. Or with, as Vice President Richard Cheney has put …
Continue reading “The Latest Tale From the ‘War on Terror’ Dark Side”
The Bananastans, the banana republic-style tar pits in Central Asia that we’ve stumbled into, have rapidly become a bigger cluster bomb than Iraq ever was. At his Senate confirmation hearing, Gen. Stanley McChrystal said the "measure of effectiveness" in Afghanistan "will not be enemy killed. It will be the number of Afghans shielded from violence." …
Continue reading “The Man With the Plan for Bananastan”
Charging that the U.S. government was complicit in the forced disappearance of an influential Muslim scholar four years ago, human rights groups in the U.S., the U.K., and Switzerland have asked the U.N. to investigate. In a letter to the U.N., the organizations say Mustafa Setmariam Nassar, a Spanish citizen, was arrested by Pakistani officials …
Continue reading “Rights Groups Appeal For UN Investigation of Rendition”
Imagine if you were imprisoned for seven years without charge or trial, and then a judge ruled that the government’s case against you consisted solely of unreliable allegations made by other prisoners (who were tortured, coerced, bribed, or suffering from mental health issues) and a "mosaic" of intelligence, purporting to rise to the level of …
Continue reading “Guantánamo: You Can Check Out Any Time You Like, but You Can Never Leave”
Ray McGovern on religious statism
A special report by Robert D. Kaplan
