contributions

A US perspective
Since 1944, ie. for most of the past 50 years the US of A armed and trained proxies and client states to do most of the dirty work (while we ’mostly’ advised and trained). The new wrinkle of Guantanamo Bay and Bagram AFB and Abu Ghraib and the worldwide network of black holes is conducting the torture ourselves, directly.
Is it reasonable to suggest we as a nation and people are any less guilty when we have it done, ’handsoff’, by proxies and plausably deniable direct (…)

The next phase will be exposing the, ahem, third country nationals link and ’sinister’ involvement in far too many issues for comfort...(John Israel and CACI)...
The smaller but wider in scope and activities of the CIA and proxies/contractors, both independantly and in conjunction with the DOD/WH policies resulting in exra-legal international kidnappings, tortures and murder followed by the subsequent dissapearance of the body.
What about the Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) three ? All criminal (…)

The World Won’t End When We Leave Baghdad
By Carl Bloice - submitted to portside
Spend a couple of hours as I did one day last week meandering through the ’Byzantium - Faith and Power’ exhibit at New York’s Metropolitan Museum and you will come away overwhelmed. A lot of religious iconography on display, much of it delicate and dazzling examples of the art of a place and a period circa 1261-1557. While reading the inscriptions and background notes, I was struck by the grand sweep of the (…)

Luke Harding in Baghdad
Iraq’s first human rights minister launched a blistering attack yesterday on America’s chief administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, saying that he had warned him repeatedly last year that US soldiers were abusing Iraqi detainees.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Abdel Bassat Turki, who resigned a month ago, said he informed Mr. Bremer last November and again in December of the rampant abuse in US military prisons. "He listened very well. But that was all (…)

By Dana Priest and Joe Stephens
In April 2003, the Defense Department approved interrogation techniques for use at the Guantanamo Bay prison that permit reversing the normal sleep patterns of detainees and exposing them to heat, cold and "sensory assault," including loud music and bright lights, according to defense officials.
The classified list of about 20 techniques was approved at the highest levels of the Pentagon and the Justice Department, and represents the first publicly known (…)

By A.J. Langguth
LOS ANGELES – A few months ago, I received some clippings of interviews with a former Federal Intelligence agency official. That operative, Jesse Leaf, had been involved with the agency’s activities in Iran, and well into the stories Mr. Leaf made some damning accusations.
He said that the C.I.A. sent an operative to teach interrogation methods to SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police, that the training included instructions in torture, and the techniques were copied from the (…)

An Extreme Danger:
The Neocons and Bushites are fine tuning thier ’White propaganda’ for our consumption through the domestic press.
They are trying to stop the continued viewing of any pictures with clever seeming arguments about the damage being done to the nations interests, that the pictures are purely media sensationalsism for ratings.
These arguments are very dangerous.
I believe these events create an opportunity to look beyond the torture, the crimes, and legal (…)

Sisters and Brothers in the Armed Forces: Resist! Organize! Refuse to participate in war crimes. Join us in taking action to stop the war.
May 8, 2004—Recent revelations, including hundreds of photos, numerous military reports, and testimony from military and civilian officials reveal the true nature of this war. The torture, abuse, and rape of Iraqi prisoners and civilians is not work of a few individual soldiers. It is the direct result of the Bush Administration’s decision to wage a (…)

By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS Associated Press Writer
The international Red Cross has been buffeted by demands that it drop its policy of confidentiality in dealing with prisoners in Iraq but says its quiet approach is the best protection for victims of war.
"We’re getting private e-mails. We’re getting comment from journalists. We’re seeing reports in media around the world," Antonella Notari, chief spokeswoman of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said of the response to the (…)

And Make Plans for a U.S. Troop Pullout by Next Year
William E. Odom, the head of the National Security Agency during the Reagan administration, says that President Bush should "eat a little humble pie," admit the invasion of Iraq was a mistake, and seek U.N. forces to take over for U.S. troops. Odom, who opposed the war before it began, argues that Iraq will never become a liberal democracy. He also warns that "we’ve also nearly broken the U.S. Army by over-extension and over-commitment." (…)