“Extraordinary rendition” is White House-speak for kidnapping. Just ask Maher Arar. He’s a Canadian citizen who was “rendered” by the U.S. to Syria, where he was tortured for almost a year.
Filed under Weekly Column
U.S. Army Reserve Spc. Chancellor Keesling died in Iraq on June 19, 2009, from “a non-combat related incident,” according to the Pentagon. Keesling had killed himself.
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Climate-change activists, from pranksters to presidents, are stepping up the pressure by staging elaborate stunts.
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Lt. Dan Choi doesn’t want to lie. Choi, an Iraq war veteran and a graduate of West Point, declared last March 19 on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” “I am gay.” Under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” regulations, those three words are enough to get Choi kicked out of the military.
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A social worker from New York City was arrested last week while in Pittsburgh for the G-20 protests, then subjected to an FBI raid this week at home—all for using Twitter.
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Journalist Christian Parenti responds to our interview with Kevin Bales, founder of Free The Slaves
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President Bush’s military order authorized two weeks ago, to try suspected terrorists in secret in military courts, has raised widespread concern about civil liberties. The military tribunals are the boldest initiative in a series of laws and rewritten federal regulations that, taken together, have created an alternate system of justice in the aftermath of Sept. 11, giving the government far greater power to detain, investigate and prosecute people suspected of involvement in terrorism. The order has few specific details, among them that only “non-citizens” could qualify, that they can keep secret evidence from defendants, can convict suspects and impose the death penalty with a two-thirds vote.
In recent days President Bush has expanded his threat to attack countries that harbor suspected terrorists to include those that “develop weapons of mass destruction.” Talks are currently underway in Geneva on international efforts to control a particularlydeadly weapon of mass destruction. The weapon kills hundreds of thousands in the US every year, millions more around the globe. It induces a host of deadly diseases in its victims when delivered in its most potent form, gradually attacking the body, its immune system, even its ability to breathe, and causing slow painful death. The trafficking of this weapon is a multi billion dollar industry and involves some of the world’s most powerful corporations, backed by the world’s most powerful government.
An editorial in yesterday’s New York Times reads:
‘Marines Secure Afghan Foothold’, ‘Alliance Captures Final City in North’, ‘Taliban May Surrender Key Southern Area’, ‘Afghan Leaders in Diplomatic Lock-Down’—these are a few of today’s top headlines from mainstream U.S. papers.
Since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th, the Bush Administration has relied increasingly on a rhetoric of “national security” and “public safety” to justify restrictions on civil liberties.