War on Terrorism

American Sniper: A Model American

by Gerald Celente February 5, 2015

The votes are in and the decision is overwhelmingly clear. Chris Kyle—the Navy SEAL portrayed in the blockbuster movie purported killer of some 200 Iraqis during four tours of duty—is the people’s choice. From record ticket sales to major media accolades, from the halls of Congress to the White House, the nation has spoken: “American Sniper” is all-American. Chris Kyle—the ...

The Libertarian Angle: Charlie Hebdo and Gun Control

by Future of Freedom Foundation January 20, 2015

Each week, FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the hot topics of the day. This week: that attacks in Paris and their relation to gun control. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.

Is Obama Trying to Alienate Muslim-American Youth?

by Sheldon Richman October 7, 2014

A 19-year-old Chicago-area man was arrested last weekend for attempting to help the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The U.S. government says Mohammed Hamzah Khan, an American citizen, faces 15 years in prison because he was at an airport with a ticket to Turkey and had left references to ISIS and a note to his ...

The Schizophrenic in Guantánamo Whose Lawyers Are Seeking to Have Him Sent Home

by Andy Worthington July 19, 2013

The prison at Guantánamo is such an extraordinarily lawless and unjust place that 86 prisoners who have been cleared for release by an interagency task force (established by President Obama when he took office in 2009) are still being held there. Many other prisoners who have been recommended for trials languish, year after year, with no hope of ...

Terrorism and the Bill of Rights

by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 2013

In the aftermath of the Boston bombings last spring, GOP Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham and others called on Barack Obama to treat the surviving suspect in the bombings, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, as an “enemy combatant” rather than as a criminal defendant. The episode highlighted the revolutionary change in the relationship of the American people to the federal government ...

Book Review: Jingo Democrats

by Matthew Harwood July 1, 2013

The Emergency State: America’s Pursuit of Absolute Security at All Costs by David C. Unger (New York: Penguin Press, 2012), 368 pages. During a meeting on the Bosnian crisis in the early 1990s, Madeleine Albright, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, furiously asked Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “What’s the point of having this superb ...

U.S. Military Admits Only 2.5 Percent of All Prisoners Ever Held at Guantánamo Will Be Tried

by Andy Worthington June 17, 2013

It’s official: Eleven and a half years after the “war on terror” prison opened at Guantánamo, the maximum number of prisoners that the U.S. military intends to prosecute, or has already prosecuted, is 20 — or just 2.5 percent of the 779 men held at the prison since it opened in January 2002. The news was announced on Monday, June ...

Close Guantánamo, Free the Afghans

by Andy Worthington May 29, 2013

In the coverage of the ongoing, prisonwide hunger strike at Guantánamo, which is now in its fourth month, there has been widespread recognition that it is unacceptable to indefinitely detain the 86 prisoners (out of 166 in total) who were cleared for release more than three years ago by the president’s own interagency task force. These men ...

TGIF: Criminal Government

by Sheldon Richman May 3, 2013

“A nonpartisan, independent review of interrogation and detention programs in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks concludes that ‘it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture’ and that the nation’s highest officials bore ultimate responsibility for it.” So began a page-one story in the New York Times that should have ...

Eloquent but Unconvincing: President Obama’s Response to the Guantánamo Hunger Strike

by Andy Worthington May 3, 2013

On Tuesday, Barack Obama gave his first detailed response to the prisonwide hunger strike that has been raging at Guantánamo for 12 weeks, responding to a question posed at a news conference by CBS News correspondent Bill Plante. He asked, “As you’re probably aware, there’s a growing hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay among prisoners. Is it any ...

How Drug-Courier Profiles Begot Terrorist Watch Lists

by James Bovard May 1, 2013

Friends of freedom have been chagrined over the past decade to learn that federal terrorist watch lists incorporate criteria — such as openly praising the Constitution or the Second Amendment — that put them in the crosshairs. More than a million names are now included on the catch-all terrorist watch list maintained by U.S. government agencies. The feds’ definition ...

The Prisoners Speak: Reports from the Hunger Strike in Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington April 29, 2013

On Friday, I received an alarming message from inside Guantánamo, from a reliable source who described the impact of the prisonwide hunger strike, now nearing the three-month mark. He stated that the guards were “putting people in isolation and all day long making lots of noise by speaking loudly, running on the metal stairs and leaving their ...