Added material at the end - 5/15/09

Obama: "the publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals. In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further… Read full post »

The Democratic and Republican Parties are able to govern mainly because most of the population take their cues from the two parties about what is going on and what to do about it. The parties (and each parties’ leaders especially) define the boundaries of what is “possible.”

The pr… Read full post »

By  Andy Worthington  [1]

At a press conference to mark his first 100 days in office, President Obama declared, “We have rejected the false choice between our security and our ideals by closing the detention center at Guantánamo Bay and banning torture without excep… Read full post »

When beekeepers work with bees they wear, as everyone knows, white outfits because bees are hardwired in their DNA to attack any being that gets close to them wearing brown or black. Their greatest natural enemy is bears who are, of course, hardwired brown or black.

Humans, one would hope,… Read full post »

From Raw Story: "In an interview posted Monday, former Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said that because use of torture 'may be necessary' in the future, the Obama administration erred in disclosing the Bush administration’s 'enhanced interrogation' techniques.

"Gonzales was… Read full post »

Item: Katharine Mieszkowski writes in today’s Salon: “In her new book, Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts With Worry, [Lenore] Skenazy suggests that many American parents are in the grips of a national hysteria about child safety … fed by sen/… Read full post »

As Debra Sweet notes in her report below, this White House demonstration was unique in that the Gitmo detainees were told ahead of time by their lawyers that this protest was going to be held on their behalf, and in the name of the five who have already died in… Read full post »

 This picture's making the rounds. I couldn't resist.  Read full post »

The New York Times' David Brooks has an Op-Ed in the April 30, 2009 issue entitled "Genius: The Modern View." In it he relates the recent work of researchers looking at how genius is developed, rather than born. 

“What Mozart had, we now believe, was the same thing Tiger Woods… Read full post »

“Our aim is to put you in hell so you will tell the truth. These are the orders we have from our superiors, to turn your lives into hell.”

  — US soldier to Abu Ghraib detainee[i]

Coming out of the woodwork … as if from the woodcut of… Read full post »

From Stuff.co.nz:

A Spanish judge has started a criminal investigation into suspected torture of detainees in the base at Guantanamo and said he would target both US military personnel and those who issued their orders.

Judge Baltasar Garzon, who once tried to extradite former Chilean dic… Read full post »

(The photo above is from a collection of photos turned over to Dr. Philip Zimbardo (chief investigator of the famous Stanford Prison Experiment). It is among the photos from Abu Ghraib that have not been released to the public.)

This post is in response to a criticism of my last… Read full post »

Update: I have posted much further documentation for the following post in a new post "Follow-up on Sources for Gitmo Prisoners Aren't 'Persons.'"

I recommend that you read "Tugging on the Torture Thread" also if you haven't already done so in addition to what follows:

If you ask most peopl… Read full post »

At least that's the way the headline should read based on the latest news:

The New York Times reported today in “Obama Resisting Push for Interrogation Panel:”

“The White House and the Democratic leadership in the Senate signaled on Thursday that they would block for now any effor… Read full post »

 
Chris Floyd writes at Empire Burlesque “The Fatal Thread: Torture, War and the Imperial Project:”
 
“You cannot disentangle the torture program from the war of aggression in Iraq – nor from the illegal wiretapping program, the corrupt war profiteering, an… Read full post »

(Additional material at the end) 

In CQ:  

Nancy Pelosi, in stating that she's known for years about the wiretap on Rep. Jane Harman (a story that now has legs and threatens precious Harman's career and that of Pelosi, poor dears), unintentionally revealed yesterday why Congress h… Read full post »

Now comes Dick Cheney, the guy everyone thinks is the Prince of Principles and Teller of Truths, reacting to the storm around the torture memos and saying that torture worked.

Dennis Blair, the Obama Director of National Intelligence, echoes this sentiment before revising it and acknowledging that… Read full post »

This is a follow-up on my last posting. Today's NY Times reports that the Obama administration is experiencing growing pressure to investigate and prosecute the torturers of the Bush years:

"In the end, aides said, Mr. Obama opted to disclose the memos because his lawyers worried that they… Read full post »

UPDATE BELOW:

Glenn Greenwald, whose work I greatly admire, wrote something on Friday that I'm going to contest. He said that Obama should be congratulated for releasing the Torture Memos:

"[The significance of Obama's decision to release those memos -- and the political courage it took --… Read full post »

You have, on the one hand, a frumpy, kind of funny looking, unimpressive, middle-aged woman with an extraordinary voice and incredible internal beauty and nuance of phrasing who is still trying to get her break in life as a singer.

You have, on the other hand, a dapper, hip-looking, brilliant and… Read full post »

From the Harvard Law Record: 

"Major General Antonio Taguba called for an independent commission to investigate war crimes committed by senior members of the Bush Administration in remarks in Ames Courtroom on Tuesday, April 14. The event was sponsored by Physicians for Human Rights and th… Read full post »

"Someone must have traduced Joseph K. for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning." (Franz Kafka’s The Trial)

“These memos I wrote were not for public consumption. They lack a certain polish, I think.” (John Yoo, 3/4/09)

&ldq… Read full post »

I did expect that Obama upon becoming president would not actually usher in the state of change that he so famously promised.

His actions as a Senator and Nancy Pelosi’s endorsement of him, the same woman who shielded - and continues to shield - the Bush White House from any… Read full post »

In the April 13, 2009 edition of Consortium News, Robert Parry, founder and key contributor to Consortiumnews, writes “US Media Fails America, Again.” Parry, whose work I find very useful, left mainstream journalism  - he was one of the AP reporters who helped to uncover the Iran-Con/… Read full post »

Excerpts from an article by Morgan Strong, a former Middle Eastern History professor and adviser to CBS's 60 Minutes, at Consortiumnews:

"In When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?, Dr. [Shlomo] Sand, an expert on European history at the University of Tel Aviv, says the Diaspora w/… Read full post »