contributions

At the risk of seeming to be piling on, we, too, add our voice to the chorus of outrage over the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees by U.S. military personnel. Even though it might be argued that all war is an atrocity, the mistreatment of those in detention violates the human rights principles for which this country was supposedly fighting in Iraq. Once basic human dignity is violated, what’s left to fight for?
Although the Pentagon says those violators will be punished, so far their (…)

Julian Borger in Washington
US military policemen moved unregistered Iraqi prisoners, known as "ghost detainees", around an army-run jail at Abu Ghraib, in order to hide them from the Red Cross, according to a confidential military report. The report on abuses at Abu Ghraib prison - a copy of which was obtained by the Guardian - described the practice of hiding prisoners as "deceptive, contrary to army doctrine, and in violation of international law".
The revelations surfaced at a (…)

by Nomi Prins
Mark Twain once said: "We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding 12 men who don’t know anything and can’t read." More than 130 years later that is still true. But added to the stipulation is the requirement that the jurors live under a rock.
In America, the more complicated the crime the less likely jurors will reach a conviction. If lawyers can bamboozle them sufficiently, a mistrial (…)

By Walden Bello
A defiant slogan repeated by residents of Falluja over the last year was that their city would be "the graveyard of the Americans." The last two weeks has seen that chant become a reality, with most of the 88 US combat deaths falling in the intense fighting around Falluja. But there is a bigger sense in which the slogan is true: Falluja has become the graveyard of US policy in Iraq.
Falluja: a Strategic Dilemma
The battle for the city is not yet over, but the Iraqi (…)

By Suzanne Goldenberg
White House accused of sacrificing credibility with Arab world in US protest that mirrors assault on Blair
Fifty-three former US diplomats today accuse the White House of sacrificing America’s credibility in the Arab world - and the safety of its diplomats and soldiers - because of the Bush administration’s support for the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon.
The strongly worded rebuke, which paid tribute to last week’s broadside from more than 50 former British (…)

"We’re not the good guys any more... We are viewed as hypocritical. " Former diplomat William Rogers
About 50 retired US diplomats have written to President George W Bush to criticise current American policy towards the Middle East. The former US envoys complain that Mr Bush’s approach is losing the US "credibility, prestige and friends".
They are critical of what they say is Washington’s unabashed support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
The Middle East "Quartet" of the US, (…)

By Amnesty International
President George W. Bush The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW Washington, DC
Dear Mr. President:
We former U.S. diplomats applaud our 52 British colleagues who recently sent a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair criticizing his Middle East policy and calling on Britain to exert more influence over the United States. As retired foreign service officers we care deeply about our nation’s foreign policy and U.S. credibility in the world.
We also are (…)

by Seymour M. Hersh
American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go?
In the era of Saddam Hussein, Abu Ghraib, twenty miles west of Baghdad, was one of the world’s most notorious prisons, with torture, weekly executions, and vile living conditions. As many as fifty thousand men and women - no accurate count is possible - were jammed into Abu Ghraib at one time, in twelve-by-twelve-foot cells that were little more than human holding pits.
In the looting that (…)

When we’re the evildoers in Iraq With immoral U.S. leadership, is it so shocking to find torturers in the ranks?
by Robert Scheer
President Bush is again refusing to take responsibility for any of the horrors happening on his watch. This time it is the abuse of Iraqi prisoners carried out by low-ranking military police working under the direct guidance of military intelligence officers and shadowy civilian mercenaries. Our president launched this war with the promise to the Iraqi people (…)

NEW DELHI - A group of 20 Indians who ran away from a United States military camp in Iraq, where they worked in the kitchen, claim they were abused for nine months, it was reported on Tuesday.
The men from southern Kerala state paid 75,000 rupees (1,700 US dollars) each for visas to Kuwait last August. They were cheated by employment agents and landed in Baghdad.
One man, Hameed, said they were taken to a US military camp in Mosul where they were told that they had been bought to work in (…)