War on Terrorism

Spanish Torture Investigation into Gitmo to Continue

by Andy Worthington February 28, 2011

On Friday, the Spanish National Court gave hope to those seeking to hold accountable the Bush administration officials and lawyers who authorized torture by agreeing to continue investigating allegations made by a Moroccan-born Spanish resident, Lahcen Ikassrien, that he was tortured at Guantánamo, where he was held from 2002 to 2005. Spanish courts are empowered to hear certain types of ...

Military Commissions and the Case of Bin Laden’s Cook

by Andy Worthington February 22, 2011

On February 10, it was reported that Ibrahim al-Qosi, a 50-year old Sudanese prisoner in Guantánamo who accepted a plea deal in his trial by military commission last July, had the 14-year sentence that was subsequently handed down by a military jury reduced to two years by Retired Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald, the convening authority of the ...

George W. Bush, War Criminal, Is Not Welcome in Europe

by Andy Worthington February 15, 2011

Last week I was in Poland, touring the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (which I co-directed with filmmaker Polly Nash), and discussing the importance of an ongoing investigation into the complicity of the Polish government in the establishment of a secret CIA torture prison in Poland in the early years of the ...

C4L Panel at CPAC: Repeal the PATRIOT Act (Video)

by Future of Freedom Foundation February 14, 2011

On Saturday, February 12, 2011, the Campaign for Liberty sponsored a panel entitled 'Repeal the PATRIOT Act' at CPAC 2011. Panelists included Jacob G. Hornberger and James Bovard with moderator Ivan Eland. FFF "Repeal the PATRIOT Act!" Roundtable from CPAC 2011 from The Future of Freedom Foundation on Vimeo.

Revolution in Egypt and Hypocrisy in the U.S.

by Andy Worthington January 31, 2011

For the United States and other Western countries, the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt (which threaten to spread to other countries, including Yemen and Algeria) are something of a nightmare. Just as the authorities in these countries are struggling — and failing — to cope with popular uprisings, so too the United States and other Western countries are ...

Obama’s Collapse: The Return of the Military Commissions

by Andy Worthington January 25, 2011

For T.S. Eliot, April was the cruelest month, but for the prisoners at Guantánamo it is January — from the dashed hopes of January 2009, when President Obama swept into office issuing an executive order in which he promised to close the prison within a year, to January 2010, when, having failed to do so, he ...

Obama Has Nothing to Teach China’s Hu

by Sheldon Richman January 24, 2011

“President Obama ... gently but pointedly prodded China to make progress on human rights,” reports the New York Times. The irony should not escape us. The head of the U.S. empire, which for years has committed a variety of atrocities abroad and widespread surveillance at home, lectured President Hu Jintao of China about human rights. You can’t make this stuff ...

Pentagon Propaganda on Gitmo Prisoners Releases

by Andy Worthington January 18, 2011

For several years now, one organization in the U.S. government has persistently undermined attempts to have a grown-up debate about the perceived dangerousness of prisoners at Guantánamo, and the need to bear security concerns in mind whilst also trying to empty the prison and to bring to an end this particularly malign icon of the Bush administration's ill-conceived response ...

Guantánamo Forever?

by Andy Worthington January 10, 2011

On the 9th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, it may sound uncharitable to President Obama to be asking whether all plans to close the prison have failed, and to be asking whether it might remain in operation for as long as anyone can foresee. After all, the president may have failed to close it within a year ...

Thank Goodness for WikiLeaks

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 2011

WikiLeaks has released close to 400,000 U.S. classified military documents relating to the Iraq war. The American people, the theoretical masters of the government, were not supposed to see them. So, just as it was when the website released 77,000 documents on the Afghan war in August, WikiLeaks was roundly condemned. Unnamed officials in the Obama administration are reported ...

Plumbing New Depths on Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington December 27, 2010

With just two weeks to go before the ninth anniversary of the opening of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo, almost everyone in a position of authority in the United States has failed to resolve, in a satisfactory manner, the bitter legacy left by the Bush administration. In fact, to judge by two recent developments, anything resembling progress ...

Guantánamo Prisoners Sacrificed in Political Horse-Trading

by Andy Worthington December 20, 2010

How messed up is American politics? Well, here are a few clues. Two weeks ago, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a $1.1 trillion continuing resolution, which funds the government through to September 30 next year. As The Hill explained, the resolution was needed “because Congress failed to pass any of the 12 regular appropriations bills for 2011, ...