War on Terrorism

Obama Proposes Swift Execution of Alleged 9/11 Conspirators

by Andy Worthington June 8, 2009

In a leak that seems designed to gauge public opinion — and that of lawyers and other relevant parties around the world — anonymous officials in the Obama administration have told the New York Times about a proposal, in draft legislation to be submitted to Congress, which, as the Times put it, “would clear the way for detainees facing ...

Terrorism Is a Crime

by Sheldon Richman June 2, 2009

Contrary to the U.S. government’s position, acts of terrorism are crimes that have little in common with acts of war. The terrorists whom Americans worry about are not trying to overthrow the U.S. government or conquer and occupy the United States. Instead, they are trying to obtain vengeance for U.S. government intervention in the Middle ...

A Child At Guantánamo: The Unending Torment of Mohamed Jawad

by Andy Worthington June 1, 2009

In all the recent hysteria about the supposed dangers posed by the remaining 240 prisoners at Guantánamo, it has been easy to forget that sensible appraisals of the number of individuals with any meaningful connection to terrorism have long indicated that no more than a few dozen of those still held should be regarded as any kind of significant ...

The Post–9/11 Roundup of Innocents, Part 2

by James Bovard June 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 In the weeks after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration constantly misrepresented how much power it was seeking over aliens. In a September 25 speech to FBI agents, Bush declared, “We’re asking Congress for the authority to hold suspected terrorists who are in the process of being deported until they’re deported.... We believe it’s ...

Guantánamo and the Many Failures of U.S. Politicians

by Andy Worthington May 26, 2009

In the summer of 2002, as Jane Mayer described it in her book The Dark Side, “The CIA, concerned by the paucity of valuable information emanating from , dispatched a senior intelligence analyst, who was fluent in Arabic and expert on Islamic extremism, to find out what the problem was.” After interviewing a random sample of two dozen ...

Pain at Guantánamo and Paralysis in Government

by Andy Worthington May 18, 2009

Although I reported last week about an important court case in favor of Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed, a Yemeni prisoner in Guantánamo, there was little in the way of progress, during the first 115 days of the Obama administration, for the men who are still held, despite the president’s pledge to close the prison within a year. ...

How U.S. Officials Circumvented the Bill of Rights

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 13, 2009

In another embrace of President Bush’s war-on-terrorism policies, President Obama has announced that he might retain the Pentagon’s military-commission system to try people accused of terrorism. Apparently, the president, like the U.S. military, lacks confidence in the federal judicial system established by the Framers to handle criminal cases involving terrorism. For those who still doubt ...

The Death of Rendition Victim Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi

by Andy Worthington May 11, 2009

From Libya comes news of the death of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a former “ghost prisoner” of the United States, whose false confession about a connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein — extracted under torture in Egypt — was used to justify the invasion of Iraq. The news will only add to the woes of the senior Bush administration ...

Obama Returns to Bush Era on Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington May 4, 2009

Two distressing pieces of news emerged last week regarding the Obama administration’s plans to close Guantánamo, and both were delivered by Defense Secretary Robert Gates in testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee. Discussing what would happen to the remaining 241 prisoners, Gates announced that the question was “still open” as to what the government should do with “the 50 to ...

The Post–9/11 Roundup of Innocents, Part 1

by James Bovard May 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 Many Americans have been lulled into a false sense of security by the end of the George W. Bush administration. In reality, the government continues to pose grave perils to people’s rights and liberties. And it could take only one shocking incident for the government to once again show its heavy-handed ways. Prior to the ...

CIA Torture Began In Afghanistan Eight Months before Justice Department Approval

by Andy Worthington April 27, 2009

Last December, in a typically bullish defense of the Bush administration’s conduct in the “war on terror,” Vice President Dick Cheney stated, On the question of so-called “torture,” we don’t do torture, we never have. It’s not something that this administration subscribes to. e proceeded very cautiously; we checked, we had the Justice Department issue the requisite opinions in ...

Ten Terrible Truths About The CIA Torture Memos, Part 4

by Andy Worthington April 23, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files, analyzes ten particularly disturbing facts to emerge from the four memos, purporting to justify the use of torture by the CIA, which were issued by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in August 2002 and May ...