The Fight Continues…

The primary season is underway. With one state under their belt, the Republican candidates squared off in another debate Saturday night on ABC. Each of the candidates still failed to grasp Ron Paul’s view of American foreign policy:

It makes you wonder if they really believe what they say. [...]

CIA Destroys Interrogation Tapes

The CIA has admitted to destroying video tapes showing interrogation methods used on suspects at secret prisons. The New York Times reports that lawyers within the clandestine branch of the CIA gave written approval to the destruction of hundreds of hours of videotapes documenting interrogations of two prisoners at secret CIA prisons. The techniques [...]

Mid-week Roundup 12/5

Here are some headlines rounded up from this week:
Is “Save Darfur” a PR Scam?
Drug giant Pfizer will boost outsourcing to Asia; also their Celebrex expert testifies in court without a license.
Private Contractors look to profit from domestic spying.
Hillary is quite tied up with Big Oil and defense contractors.
Guiliani’s ties to a terror shiek
Virginia primaries will [...]

Extraordinary Rendition

Extraordinary rendition describes the kidnapping and extrajudicial transfer of a person from one state to another. The term has become prevalent in the Bush administration’s prosecution of the “war on terror.”
Amy Goodman reports one of the many examples of this practice with the story of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen:
The U.S. government also engages [...]

Guantanamo: Standard Operating Procedure 2004

A few interesting documents have been published by Wikileaks this week.
One is a Standard Operating Procedures manual for guards at Guantanamo Bay from 2004. It details the operating instructions for treatment of detainees at Guantanamo’s Camp Delta. There was also one previously published from 2003.
Furthermore, Wikileaks also published a large document detailing instructions [...]

Al-Anbar: Progress in Iraq?

When we hear talk of progress in Iraq, administration officials often point to the success in Al-Anbar province, where attacks on US troops have declined in previous months.
They had attributed this success to Abu Risha (recently deceased), who was credited with allying Sunni tribes to fight against al Qaeda in Iraq. (shown below with Pres. [...]

Mid-week Roundup 11/28

Okay, I think I might start doing a semi-regular blog round-up. Some of the entries I’ve been making have been quite lengthy, so rather than boring you with text, I’ll occasionally make posts with a few links in them, commonly referred to as a ’round-up’. That way you can choose any stories that [...]

Doublespeak & Political Framing

In George Orwell’s 1984, we read of a totalitarian state where the government monitors all aspects of the citizens’ lives. The world of Big Brother introduces the reader to an entirely new vocabulary, including:

Doublethink – the power to hold two completely contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accept both of them.
Newspeak – a [...]

Invasion of Iraq

The supposed ‘war on terror‘ took a severe misstep with the US invasion of Iraq.
The groundwork for the preemptive invasion of Iraq was laid out by the National Security Strategy of 2002, which refined the concept of preventive war to say that the United States reserves the right to attack any country with the “intent [...]

“War on Terror”

We have all heard of the ‘War on Terror,’ re-declared by President Bush following the 9/11 attacks. I say ‘re-declared’ because pretty much the same rhetoric was used by Ronald Reagan in 1981, before much of Central America was devastated by terror with US involvement.
Anyhow, the real problem with the re-declared ‘war on terror‘ is [...]