It might be instructive to ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic (after proper burial rites, of course). Uncontroversially, he is not a “suspect” but the “decider” who gave the orders to invade Iraq -- that is, to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: in Iraq, the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country and the national heritage, and the murderous sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region. Equally uncontroversially, these crimes vastly exceed anything attributed to bin Laden.
There is Much More to Say by Noam Chomsky.
posted by klue
on May 24, 2011 -
463 comments
"Be Prepared" A Scout understands there is strength in being gentle. He treats others as he wants to be treated. He does not hurt or kill harmless things without reason.
posted by bitmage
on May 15, 2009 -
105 comments
A
Presidential Boeing 747 along with two fighter planes continuously circled jarringly close to the tops of buildings in Lower Manhattan and Jersey City this morning. From the ground it looked as though a plane had been hijacked again, and the Air Force was attempting to force it down.
Panic ensued.
Another terrorist attack?
No, just a
top secret photo op. [more inside]
posted by stagewhisper
on Apr 27, 2009 -
207 comments
"The Department of Defense claimed in a dramatic press briefing on January 13 that “61 in all former Guantanamo detainees are confirmed or suspected of returning to the fight” of terrorism."
...troubling is the Defense Department’s listing of the released Uighurs, who were completely exonerated by an internal military hearing. They’ve done nothing wrong. However, one of them wrote an op-ed column for the New York Times proclaiming that “I was locked up and mistreated for being in the wrong place at the wrong time during America's war in Afghanistan.” He also said in the same editorial: “The United States [is] a country I deeply admire.”
That’s “suspected of going back into the battlefield”? Only if you are delusional. [more inside]
posted by 445supermag
on Jan 29, 2009 -
33 comments
In the early days of the occupation of Iraq, a "gathering of antagonists to capital and empire" known as the Retort Collective published
Afflicted Powers, a contentious analysis of September 11th and its aftermath grounded in the Situationist concepts developed by
Guy Debord in
The Society of the Spectacle. Two lengthy excerpts can be read online: an
introduction to the war as a "struggle for mastery in the realm of the image", and a
critique of the "Blood for Oil" argument.
[more inside]
posted by stammer
on Sep 24, 2008 -
26 comments
“You could almost see their dicks getting hard as they got new ideas." A
Vanity Fair reporter investigates the chain of command that tossed out the Geneva Conventions and instituted coercive interrogation techniques -- some might call them torture or even
war crimes -- in Bush's Global War on Terror. UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo's now-obsolete 81-page memo to the Pentagon in 2003 [available as PDFs
here and here] was crucial, offering a broad range of legal justifications and deniability for disregarding international law in the name of
"self-defense." Others
say that Yoo was just making "a clear point about the limits of Congress to intrude on the executive branch in its exercise of duties as Commander in Chief." [previously
here and
here.]
posted by digaman
on Apr 3, 2008 -
76 comments
On Wednesday Sept. 5
th, German police stopped a
major
terrorist
attack.
The planned bomb consisted of 730 kilogramms of hydrogen peroxide to be mixed with other chemicals.
The explosive power would have been equivalent to 550 kilogramms of TNT.
The
IHT reports the possible targets were the Ramstein US Air Force Air Base and Frankfurt International Airport.
The suspects had been under observation for 10 months, the chemicals had been
clandestinely rendered harmless
by German authorities.
What caused the final arrest?
Two things: 1) they had just recieved a call from north Pakistan urgently ordering them to follow through within 14 days.
2) a local village policeman
blew the surveillance cover by literally telling them at a routine road stop that they were on a watch-list. German intelligence immediately knew the policeman had blown their cover. How? They had bugged the car
[
Spiegel,
rough translation].
[more inside]
posted by umop-apisdn
on Sep 8, 2007 -
45 comments
In an attempt to curb the production of crystal meth, more than 30 states have now outlawed or require registration for common lab equipment. In Texas, you need to register the purchase of Erlenmeyer flasks or three-necked beakers. The same state where I do not have to register a handgun, forces me to register a glass beaker.
America's War on Science: Chemistry sets and
model rockets, the staples of any geeky childhood, have essentially become a thing of the past.
Wired has more on how a security obsessed society is robbing both children and adults of the opportunity to discover science for themelves.
posted by [expletive deleted]
on Jun 17, 2007 -
68 comments
Surprising findings in Pew study of US Muslims. The interweb is all atwitter over some of the findings of a Pew Research Center
study of the attitudes of Muslim-Americans (the most comprehensive one done yet). While most of the findings should be welcomed (US Muslims are well off, appreciate being here, have non-Muslim friends, shun extremism, etc.), there is one troubling statistic: 6% of US Muslims - and 15% of US Muslims under 30 - believe that "bombing and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians" are "often or sometimes justified". Sounds bad, but what happens when you ask the same question of non-Muslim Americans? Turns out that
24% of all Americans agreed - four times the 6% of US Muslims who share that view. So are US Muslims more peaceful than their non-Muslim neighbors?
posted by laz-e-boy
on May 23, 2007 -
63 comments
I am sullied -- no more. Colonel Ted Westhusing was a soldier's soldier -- a multilingual West Point graduate, tough as nails, who was committed to the ancient Greek warrior's ideal of
ἀρετή ("arete," excellence). He volunteered to go to Iraq, where he was commanded by another
outstanding rising-star officer, counterinsurgency expert
David Petraeus. (Westhusing's widow, Michelle, recalls that her husband thought his country was doing "a great thing" there.) After working with one of the shadowy contractors the US has relied on to train Iraqi security forces,
USIS, Westhusing became increasingly despondent. In May 2005, investigators say, he put a 9mm bullet in his brain after writing a note that said, "Reevaluate yourselves, cdrs [commanders]. You are not what you think you are and
I know it." Westhusing died, as was previously discussed
here, and his former "cdr" is now
running the war. Lots of new information in this article from the
Texas Observer.
posted by digaman
on Mar 10, 2007 -
114 comments
Apes of Wrath In October, they gained
similar rights to humans, now it seems monkeys are plotting to take over the earth. Their bid for global domination has been happening right before our eyes; it's just a matter of connecting the dots. Check out this
ominous timeline of escalating monkey aggression, drawn from real news reports. The evolution will not be televised.
posted by P-Soque
on Nov 8, 2006 -
14 comments
Now they tell us. Neocon hindsight is 20/20. War architect
Richard Perle on invading Iraq, 2002: "We have no time to lose, and I think the president understands that and it's probably taken too long already, but I don't think it'll be much longer... Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse at the first whiff of gunpowder.... Now,
it isn't going to be over in 24 hours, but it isn't going to be months either." Four years later: "If I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, 'Should we go into Iraq?,' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies'... Could we have managed that threat by means other than a direct military intervention? Well, maybe we could have."
posted by digaman
on Nov 3, 2006 -
105 comments
Not In The Newsfilter: Yesterday, two men
attended their pre-trial hearing at Preston Crown Court, accused of possession of explosive material. As previously
reported only in
local newspapers, Robert Cottage was in possession of 'what is believed to be a record haul of chemicals used in making home-made bombs', while a search of former
BNP candidate David Bolus Jackson's house 'uncovered rocket launchers, chemicals... and a nuclear biological suit'. Some
webloggers, and the
left-wing press, are wondering whether the story might have received more coverage if the suspected bomb-makers had been, say, Muslims. The BBC
blame reporting restrictions.
posted by jack_mo
on Oct 24, 2006 -
19 comments
