"Extraordinary rendition" is White House-speak for kidnapping. Just ask Maher Arar. He's a Canadian citizen who was "rendered" by the U.S. to Syria, where he was tortured for almost a year.
bush administration
Taking liberties: 22 years behind bars for a 'crime of compassion'
When former U.S. president George W. Bush descended on the Regional Economic Summit in suburban Vancouver last October, there was, understandably, no shortage of protesters, pleas for indictments and cries of "war criminal." Left out of most news coverage as well as activist communiqués, however, was any focus on another former U.S. president who was tagging along, someone equally deserving of such protest but who seems, remarkably, to get off fairly lightly these days: Bill Clinton.
Guantanamo Bay after 10 years
Ten years ago, Omar Deghayes and Morris Davis would have struck anyone as an odd pair. While they have never met, they now share a profound connection, cemented through their time at the notorious U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Deghayes was a prisoner there. Air Force Col. Morris Davis was chief prosecutor of the military commissions there from 2005 to 2007.
Deghayes was arrested in Pakistan and handed over to the U.S. military. He told me: "There was a payment made for every person who was handed to the Americans. ... We were chained, head covered, then sent to Bagram [Afghanistan] -- we were tortured in Bagram -- and then from Bagram to Guantanamo."
Day of Action Against Guantanamo Bay
On January 11th, 2002 the first twenty five prisonners arrived at Guantanamo Bay. The detention centre, located on the southeastern edge of Cuba, was created during the Bush regime earlier that year to hold captives from the Afganistan (and later the Iraq) war. It contains three camps, Delta, Iguana and X-ray. Only camp X-ray has been closed, as it was a temporary holding area. Since the war in Afganistan began, more than 700 people have been detained at Guantanamo. The majority of prisoners have been held without charges being laid or the option of a criminal trial.
Human rights abuses
The Obama presidency: Expansion of Bush era or new 'push era'
Back when Barack Obama was still just a U.S. senator running for president, he told a group of donors in a New Jersey suburb, "Make me do it." He was borrowing from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who used the same phrase (according to Harry Belafonte, who heard the story directly from Eleanor Roosevelt) when responding to legendary union organizer A. Philip Randolph's demand for civil rights for African-Americans.
While President Obama has made concession after concession to both the corporate-funded tea party and his Wall Street donors, now that he is again in campaign mode, his progressive critics are being warned not to attack him, as that might aid and abet the Republican bid for the White House.
9/11 and the illusion of war without casualties
In a September 2001 essay titled "Game Over: The End of Warfare as Play," Klein noted that the United States had fought a series of wars in which it had experienced few casualties. "This is a country that has come to believe in the ultimate oxymoron: a safe war," she wrote. The attacks of 9/11 would change that, she believed. "The illusion of war without casualties has been forever shattered." Today, she's not so sure.
Richard III, 9/11 and the relentless drive for political power
Last Sunday in Stratford I saw Seana McKenna play Shakespeare's Richard III in a stunning version of that amazing play. It was also deeply relevant to us politically. Much of that has to do with casting an actress as a king.
Blowback: What did Tony Blair expect?
Tony Blair has published his memoirs, A Journey. He is getting a lot of publicity for it, though probably not the kind that he was looking for. In Dublin at a book signing he was pelted with eggs and shoes by protesters who see him as a war criminal. His next event in London was cancelled for fear of more of the same. What did he expect? He involved the U.K. in an act of aggression against Iraq based on lies and is an accessory to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people, including his own soldiers. Never mind the unnecessary invasion of Afghanistan which he is also a party to.
Yoo's views make Philly news
The Philadelphia Inquirer, one of that city's two major daily newspapers, is in the news itself these days after hiring controversial former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo as a monthly columnist.