contributions

JAMES SILVER
THE grisly revelations of torture and human rights abuses by American forces in Iraq have come as no surprise to Alan Dershowitz, the most famous civil liberties and criminal defence attorney in the United States.
A year ago, he said American personnel were torturing suspected terrorists in Guantánamo Bay, Bagram air base in Afghanistan and the US itself.
Now, he says: "Of course it would be best if we didn’t use torture at all, but if the United States is going to (…)

US general linked to Abu Ghraib abuse Julian Borger, The Guardian
Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, head of coalition forces in Iraq, issued an order last October giving military intelligence control over almost every aspect of prison conditions at Abu Ghraib with the explicit aim of manipulating the detainees’ "emotions and weaknesses", it was reported yesterday.
The October 12 memorandum, reported in the Washington Post, is a potential "smoking gun" linking prisoner abuse to the US (…)

Dogs and Other Harsh Tactics Linked to Military Intelligence DOUGLAS JEHL and ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON, May 21 — The use of dogs to intimidate prisoners during interrogation at Abu Ghraib in Iraq was approved by military intelligence officers at the prison, and was one of several aggressive tactics they adopted even without approval from senior military commanders, according to interviews gathered by Army investigators.
Intelligence officers also demanded strict limits on Red Cross access (…)

Anti-Iraq war US soldier jailed Aljazeera.net
A US army sergeant who refuses to return to Iraq because, he says, the war is illegal has been convicted of desertion by a court martial.
Camilo Mejia, 28, born in Nicaragua and raised in Miami, was given a bad conduct discharge and sentenced to a year in jail on Friday.
He was convicted by a special court martial at Fort Stewart army base near Savannah, Georgia.
Last October, while on a two-week home leave, Mejia refused to return to his (…)

by Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate
http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=miv
AUSTIN, Texas — It’s pretty easy to get to the point where you don’t want to hear any more about Abu Ghraib prison and what went on there. But there are some really good reasons why Americans should take a look at why this happened.
I suspect the division here is not between liberals and conservatives (except for a few inane comments made by some trying to be flippant), but between those who (…)

The New York Times
Dog Eat Dog Films
"But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it’s gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it’s, it’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? And watch him suffer." Barbara Bush on "Good Morning America," March 18, 2003
SHE needn’t have worried. Her son wasn’t suffering. In one of the several pieces of startling video exhibited for the first time in (…)

In everything from course management to big enterprise systems, universities must choose between monopolies and the open approach
BY JOHN M. UNSWORTH
http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v50/i21/21b01601.htm>
The Chronicle of Higher Education
If the nineties were the e-decade (e-com-merce, e- business, e-publishing, eBay, E*Trade, etc.), the aughties are the o- decade (open source, open systems, open standards, open access, open archives, open everything). This trend, now (…)

President Bush has installed more than 100 top officials who were once lobbyists, attorneys or spokespeople for the industries they oversee.
By Anne C. Mulkern
The Denver Post
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%7E11676%7E2164693,00.html#
WASHINGTON — In a New York City ballroom days before Christmas, a powerful Bush administration lawyer made an unprecedented offer to drug companies, one likely to protect their profits and potentially hurt consumers.
Daniel E. Troy, (…)

By Steve Croft
by 60 Minutes / CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/21/60minutes/main618896.shtml
Retired General Anthony Zinni is one of the most respected and outspoken military leaders of the past two decades.
>From 1997 to 2000, he was commander-in-chief of the United States Central Command, in charge of all American troops in the Middle East. That was the same job held by Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf before him, and Gen. Tommy Franks after.
Following his retirement from (…)

Michael Moore on Saturday won the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize for his controversial documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11".
It was the first documentary to win the Palme d’Or since Jacques Cousteau’s 1956 film "The Silent World".
"Fahrenheit 9/11" is a scathing commentary on White House actions before and after the September 11 attacks.
Michael Moore’s film satirically skewers George W. Bush for stealing the 2000 presidential election and then being on perpetual sporting holidays (…)