War on Terrorism

The 9/11 Trial: Torturing Justice

by Andy Worthington October 22, 2012

The last time the U.S. government wheeled out Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the four other men accused of initiating and being involved in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, was in May this year, and, as is usual, the mainstream media turned out in force. That occasion was the formal arraignment of the men and it was ...

America’s Drone Terrorism

by Sheldon Richman October 19, 2012

In the United States, the dominant narrative about the use of drones in Pakistan is of a surgically precise and effective tool that makes the U.S. safer by enabling “targeted killing” of terrorists, with minimal downsides or collateral impacts. This narrative is false. Those are the understated opening words of a disturbing, though unsurprising, nine-month study of the Obama administration’s official, ...

The Malalas You Will Not Hear About

by Wendy McElroy October 18, 2012

Some news stories break your heart. On October 9, in Pakistan, 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai was shot twice in the head by Taliban gunmen. She is being treated in a hospital in Birmingham, England, where she was moved for specialized care and personal safety. Doctors say they expect a “good recovery.” Malala was targeted for assassination because ...

America’s Extradition Problem

by Andy Worthington October 12, 2012

Not content with having the largest domestic prison population in the world, both in numbers and as a percentage of the total population, the United States also imports prisoners from other countries, at vast expense. Last week, five men were extradited to the United States from the UK to face charges relating to their alleged involvement ...

Reading List for Attendees at FFF/YAL College Civil Liberties Tour

by Future of Freedom Foundation October 5, 2012

  Prepared by: Jacob Hornberger — President, The Future of Freedom Foundation Books Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire by Chalmers Johnson The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic by Chalmers Johnson Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic by Chalmers Johnson Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope by Chalmers Johnson American ...

In the U.S. Election, No Time for Guantánamo, But Torture Rears Its Ugly Head

by Andy Worthington October 5, 2012

Last week we were reminded by the Miami Herald that Guantánamo is not on the agenda for the forthcoming presidential election. In 2008, Barack Obama was preparing to order the prison’s closure, but his executive order in January 2009 promising to close it within a year failed to lead to the prison’s closure. This time around the ...

Playthings of the Gods

by Matthew Harwood October 1, 2012

The United States of Fear by Tom Engelhardt (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2011); 230 page On  the night of March 11, 2012, Sgt. Robert Bales walked a short distance to two Afghan villages in Kandahar Province from Camp Belambay. Under the cover of darkness the soldier is alleged to have gone house to house shooting and stabbing to death 16 ...

Obama Releases Names of Cleared Guantánamo Prisoners; Now It’s Time to Set Them Free

by Andy Worthington September 28, 2012

On September 21, as part of a court case, the Justice Department released the names of 55 of the 86 prisoners cleared for release from Guantánamo in 2009 by Barack Obama’s Guantánamo Review Task Force, which consisted of officials from key government departments and the intelligence agencies. The Task Force’s final report was issued in January ...

Why Does the Government So Desperately Want Indefinite Detention for Terror Suspects?

by Andy Worthington September 21, 2012

What is the government doing? Last year, when Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with its contentious passages endorsing the mandatory military detention of terror suspects, there was uproar across the political spectrum from Americans who believed that it would be used on U.S. citizens. In fact, it was unclear whether or not that was ...

Obama, the Courts, and Congress Are All Responsible for the Latest Death at Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington September 14, 2012

I felt sick when I heard that the man who died at Guantánamo this past weekend was Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a Yemeni. I had been aware of his case for six years and had followed it closely. He had been cleared for release under George W. Bush (in December 2006) and under Barack Obama (as a result of the ...

Eleven Years after 9/11, Guantánamo Is a Political Prison

by Andy Worthington September 6, 2012

Eleven years since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the majority of the remaining 168 men in Guantánamo are held not because they constitute an active threat to the United States, but because of inertia, political opportunism, and an institutional desire to hide evidence of torture by U.S. forces, sanctioned at the highest levels of government. That they ...

Ten Years of Torture: Marking the 10th Anniversary of John Yoo’s “Torture Memos”

by Andy Worthington August 3, 2012

Exactly 10 years ago, on August 1, 2002, Jay S. Bybee, who at the time was the assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, signed two memos (see here and here) that will forever be known as the “torture memos.” Also identified as the “Bybee memos,” because of Bybee’s signature on ...