March 19, 2010 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
A prominent muslim scholar and cleric has issued a 600-page fatwa, or religious edict, drawing from authoritative historical sources and scripture, to rule that true Islam bars any form of bloodshed. Dr. Tahir ul-Qadri, a muslim theologian from Pakistan, who lives and teaches in Britain, said an honest examination of the teachings and doctrines of Islam demonstrates an absolute prohibition on the shedding of blood for political or religious purposes.
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January 9, 2010 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
Former Vice President Dick Cheney has been a relentless defender of the most aggressive tacts used during the Bush era to combat terrorism. The word aggressive applies to the attitude, of course, not the thoroughgoing nature or effectiveness of those policies. He is now attacking Pres. Obama for his response to the alleged terror plot that involved a Christmas Day bombing over Detroit, which was foiled. Yet Senator Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate foreign relations committee, has called Cheney’s criticism unfair, and says Obama’s response has been “strong” and “decisive”.
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October 15, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
School taxes are soaring, but schools are losing funding. States are going bankrupt and teachers are being threatened with mass layoffs. Property taxes are high, but property values are falling, and banks won’t refinance and won’t make new loans. The federal government is working to foster economic recovery through targeted investment, lending and community-building projects. But states are dealing with the budget crisis by hiking property taxes and shifting more responsibility to municipalities.
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September 29, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
In Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus’ advanced counter-insurgency strategy worked because a large key population, in Anbar province, wanted it to work. Petraeus, the leading counter-insurgency intellectual among the American military brass, was elevated to Iraq operations commander, because there was a need to use his know-how in community-building-linked counter-insurgency. The Anbar Awakening, however, was a grassroots, local movement among clergy, police and communities that wanted to push insurgents out.
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July 11, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Former US vice president Dick Cheney has been linked to the 8-year long cover-up of a secret CIA project about which Congress was never briefed, until last month. The current director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, only learned of the secret project —details of which have still not been released— last month. He immediately ordered its closure. Now, it has been revealed that in a closed-door briefing last month with members of Congress, Panetta revealed that former vice-president Cheney ordered the project be concealed from Congress.
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July 11, 2009 :: Anjika Sridhar :: No Comment Yet
As part of its deal to transition major security operations in Iraq to the Iraqi military and civil authorities, the United States has released 5 Iranian officials it had been holding on charges of engaging in covert operations inside Iraq. The officials —whom Iran calls diplomats— were released into the custody of Iraqi authorities, were met personally by prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, and were officially freed by Iraq.
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June 12, 2009 :: staff :: 24 Comments
After a long day of voting and possibly record voter turnout, Iran’s presidential election has ended in deep uncertainty. Reformist challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi has reportedly announced that he has won by a substantial margin, while state media are reporting that incumbent Pres. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has won, with over 67% of the votes counted so far. Both candidates say they will contest the results if they are not declared winner.
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June 2, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
Former vice president Dick Cheney told a gathering at the National Press Club on Monday that Saddam Hussein had no ties to al Qaeda and no link to the attacks of 11 September 2001. He had previously been a committed proponent of intelligence reports (never published) he claimed demonstrated such a link.
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May 16, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Pres. Barack Obama yesterday announced he would reinstate the military tribunals system implemented by the Bush administration to try suspects held at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp. The new round of tribunals would apply only to a handful of suspects and will require modifications to the process, as voted by Congress.
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May 15, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
There are questions about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her having revealed only recently that she had been briefed about harsh interrogation techniques. She has said the briefings were classified and that the contents were not permitted to be discussed, even with members of Congress who were not present. The CIA and some Republicans opposing the push for hearings, an independent investigation or a truth commission, have said Pelosi was briefed thoroughly on the nature and application of “enhanced interrogation techniques”.
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May 13, 2009 :: Webb Tisch :: No Comment Yet
A former FBI interrogator today told the first Congressional hearing into “enhanced interrogation techniques” —an alleged regime of systematic torture— that waterboarding was slow, ineffective and unnecessary. He told the hearings, from behind a screen used to protect his identity, that after he had used non-abusive legal interrogation techniques to elicit useful information from Abu Zubaydah, CIA ‘contractors’ took over, waterboarded him, and the suspect “shut down” and refused to talk.
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May 12, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
The release of Roxana Saberi —an Iranian-American journalist sentenced to 8 years for espionage by an Iranian court allowing her little due process and with no known credible evidence against her— is an important victory for advocates of both fair trial and press freedom. But as her story, which played out on a global stage, has highlighted the need for action to curb persecution of journalists, questions are being raised about the treatment of journalists in the US ‘war on terror’.
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May 6, 2009 :: Webb Tisch :: No Comment Yet
Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State, was national security adviser to Pres. George W. Bush throughout his first term. She was there when decisions were made about how to change US counterterrorism policy, in the wake of the attacks of 11 September 2001, and during the planning for the global ‘war on terror’. She was asked last week by a university student, with video cameras rolling, whether she authorized torture. That set off a wave of such interrogations, to which Dr. Rice has responded nervously and erratically.
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May 2, 2009 :: Riga Listin :: 5 Comments
UNESCO Committee on Communication and Information representative presents award for research into press freedom. Debate discusses anti-press actions that have impeded the free flow of information about civilian suffering in war-zones ranging from Gaza to Sri Lanka to Iraq. The debate is hosted and moderated by William Horsley, of the Association of European Journalists.
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April 30, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzón is now reported to be opening a preliminary investigation to the acts involved in creating the Guantánamo Bay prison camp where the Bush administration held hundreds of alleged terror suspects without charge for up to 7 years. The investigation will target “any of those that executed and/or designed a systematic plan of torture or cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of the prisoners [at Guantánamo] that were under their custody”.
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April 30, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Countless families and communities touched by our auto industry still face tough times ahead. Our projected long-term deficits are still too high, and government is still not as efficient as it needs to be. We still confront threats ranging from terrorism to nuclear proliferation, as well as pandemic flu. And all this means you can expect an unrelenting, unyielding effort from this administration to strengthen our prosperity and our security in the second hundred days, in the third hundred days and all of the days after that.
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April 29, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The US-based watchdog group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has released a report on the 1st 100 days of Pres. Barack Obama’s first term in office. The report praises Obama for key reforms banning abusive treatment and moving toward a system of due process for detainees, but is critical of some holdover policies from the Bush era, which Obama has yet to reform or plans to keep in place. On the whole, Obama is rated by HRW as having “got off to a great start when he issued executive orders to close Guantanamo and ban CIA prisons on his second full day in office,” while “failure to reject the substance of the Bush-era ‘war on terror’ framework was a tremendous disappointment.”
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April 24, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The Pentagon is releasing today as many as 2,000 photos never before seen, some showing prisoner abuse at Guantánamo Bay. The photos were tied up in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU, calling for evidence of Defense Department actions at the prison camp to be made public. According to The Washington Post, the release will contain “21 images depicting detainee abuse in facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan other than the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, as well as 23 other detainee abuse photos”.
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April 23, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Must we, one by one, analyze and deconstruct every last bit of refuse floating in the seething drift of waste left by the Bush administration? Apparently, yes. John Bolton has now opined on his belief that the US should dictate to other nations whether or not they can investigate crimes allegedly committed against their citizens. He wants the US to tell Spain to stop meddling in US treatment of Spanish citizens, while defending the US right to detain whomever it pleases, even without charge.
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April 22, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
While clearly showing caution, taking care to repeat his position that prosecutions of former officials could be counterproductive, Pres. Obama today signaled that he does not rule out that some legal avenues may exist by which former Bush officials could face charges in relation to “enhanced interrogation” policy. The president did not, however, endorse any process of prosecution or call for action against any officials, saying instead “I don’t want to prejudge” what the attorney general might find legally necessary.
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April 21, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 4 Comments
Today comes the news that the Taliban have taken more territory in Pakistan’s Buner district, just 100 km from the capital Islamabad. The shockingly weak government of Pres. Zardari has already ceded the Swat Valley to the Taliban, allowing harsh shari’a law to be imposed. The local government has been forced out of Buner, and the area is becoming a stronghold. If the Taliban reach Islamabad, they may be able to seize control of the one of the world’s 9 known arsenals of nuclear weapons.
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April 20, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
A court in Iran has jailed Iranian-American journalist, Roxana Saberi, to 8 years in prison, alleging that she spied for the US. Saberi had been detained originally on charges she violated Iranian law by reporting without an official press license. The charges were later raised to espionage, and within one week, she was found guilty, after a one-day closed-door trial.
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February 27, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
CitiGroup announces deal to let US government take 36% stake in firm, up from 8% stake, a move that will intensify regulatory scrutiny and possibly move firm toward solvency by way of nationalization. Move is third rescue in five months in ongoing effort to save massive banking operation.
Obama announces plan to remove most US combat [...]
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January 21, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
Pres. Obama immediately began the hard work of governing, and perhaps the even harder work of fulfilling his highly ambitious and principled campaign promises. On the morning of his first full day as chief executive of the United States government, Pres. Obama phoned four heads of state across the Middle East —Israel, Palestinian Authority, Egypt and Jordan— to discuss his feeling that there is an urgent need to start a practical and viable process of sustainable peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
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January 16, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
China has sentenced a would-be Olympic protester to 3 years in prison. The Beijing government set up a process whereby protests could be held only in specifically designated zones, and only with a permit; Ji Zizun appears to be victim of a deliberate strategy of using the application process to ferret out protest leaders, then jail them.
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January 15, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Eric Holder today told the Senate judiciary committee he views the practice known as ‘waterboarding’ as torture. That makes the ‘enhanced interrogation’ technique illegal under a number of US laws and international treaties, and Holder’s view —in keeping with those of the committee chair, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Pres.-elect Obama— raises the question as to whether he would seek to prosecute individuals in the outgoing administration who engaged in or ordered such practices.
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January 15, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Always, and especially in the crucible of these global challenges, our overriding duty is to protect and advance America’s security, interests and values: First, we must keep our people, our nation and our allies secure. Second, we must promote economic growth and shared prosperity at home and abroad. Finally, we must strengthen America’s position of global leadership — ensuring that we remain a positive force in the world, whether in working to preserve the health of our planet or expanding dignity and opportunity for people on the margins whose progress and prosperity will add to our own.
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December 25, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The global aid group, Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF / Doctors Without Borders) has released its 11th annual report on the ten most severe humanitarian crises around the world. This years list cites mass poverty, resource scarcity and ungovernability in Somalia, Ethiopia and DR Congo, severe health risks to the populations of Zimbabwe, Burma (Myanmar) and DR Congo, and the constant danger of violence against civilians in Iraq, DR Congo, and Sudan’s Darfur region, along the Chad border.
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November 17, 2008 :: staff :: Comments Off
The Iraqi cabinet has approved a security deal with the US, governing the role of US forces in the country. According to the deal, the US will withdraw its soldiers from Iraqi streets sometime in 2009 and will withdraw entirely from Iraq by the end of 2011. The Associated Press has circulated a photo of Iraqi police dancing with a US soldier in apparent celebration of the withdrawal agreement.
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November 6, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: 5 Comments
Sen. Barack Obama, as president-elect, now faces the daunting task of staging a transition from campaign to governing, and from the Bush years to the Obama years, in what must be the most artful and adroit performance of the task seen in decades. Facing two wars, looming multifaceted economic crisis, and the need to overhaul national energy policy and fight environmental degradation on an unprecedented scale, Obama is faced not just with forming a cabinet and White House team, but formulating a strategy for enacting the change he has promised in a time of historic difficulty.
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August 25, 2008 :: staff :: Comments Off
After years of protesting that withdrawal of troops was surrender, that it was opposed by Iraqis, and that a timetable was a “tool for terrorists”, the US government is now formulating an agreement scheduling withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, with the last forces out by 2011. The advance is largely based on political motivations of Iraqi officials, facing reelection, who have called for withdrawal sooner rather than later, many alleging the mere presence of foreign forces increases the risk of violence.
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July 2, 2008 :: admin :: Comments Off
A 3-judge panel on the DC-circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against the evidentiary grounds on which the Pentagon has held Huzaifa Parhat, a Uighur Muslim from western China, for 6 years as an enemy combatant. The government argued it had grounds to hold Parhat because the charges they allege against him had been repeated in three secret documents; evidence supporting the claims has not been made public.
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June 29, 2008 :: staff :: Comments Off
New Yorker investigative reporter Seymour Hersh reports this week that US joint special operations forces are intensifying “covert military operations” inside Iran. A US State Dept. spokesperson told CNN that US forces are “not operating across the Iraqi border into Iran”, though he did not deny there were operations organized and executed from inside Iran.
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June 15, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The US Supreme Court has taken its fourth serious action in limiting the expanded war powers claimed by the administration of Pres. George W. Bush. Observers who favor the president’s views have sought to accuse the court of “liberal” behavior, but 7 of the 9 justices were appointed by Republican presidents. In fact, the Court has moved to scale back revolutionary expansions of legal authority claimed by the executive branch. And, the four rebukes to White House claims in this time of war, are a historic intensification of the Court’s role in protecting the Constitution’s basic principles.
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June 13, 2008 :: staff :: Comments Off
The United States Supreme Court has ruled 5 to 4 that individuals held in detention at the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, can appeal their detention in US civilian courts. The ruling cites the intended permanence of Constitutional safeguards and their relevance to all US government prosecutions. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy explains “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times”.
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April 8, 2008 :: staff :: Comments Off
Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), candidate for the US presidency, questions Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker about progress in the Iraq conflict toward a security threshold where significant troop reductions could be made responsibly. The hearing is vital to the future of American policy in Iraq, in part because Sen. Obama has pledged to end the war in Iraq upon taking office, if elected to the presidency, and because US policy —under pressure from the Iraqi political climate and increasing unpopularity of the war at home— is moving toward a plan for full withdrawal of combat troops…
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January 23, 2008 :: admin :: Comments Off
“President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Nearly five years after the [...]
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September 8, 2006 :: jr3o :: Comments Off
SPEECH IS FIRST PUBLIC ADMISSION TO NETWORK OF COVERT DETENTION FACILITIES, PREVIOUSLY DENIED BY ADMINISTRATION
Pres. Bush has acknowledged the existence of a secret network of CIA-run prisons, where an “alternative set of procedures” was used to extract information given up “unwillingly” by top terror suspects. The revelation suggests that some facilities existed [...]
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