On Oct. 13, the New York Times ran a news story headlined “Door Opens to Health Claims Tied to Agent Orange,” which was sure to be good news to many American veterans of the Indochina War. It reported that 38 years after the Pentagon ceased spreading the deadly dioxin-laced herbicide/defoliant over much of South Vietnam, it was acknowledging what veterans have long claimed: in addition to 13 ailments already traced to exposure to the chemical, it was also responsible for three more dread diseases—Parkinson’s, ischemic hedart disease and hairy-cell leukemia.
October 15, 2009 | Filed under
Nation |
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The federal Appeals Court decision to toss a lawsuit claiming contractors tortured detainees in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison is what you’d expect from a tyranny.
The new ruling brushes off the charges by 212 Iraqis who said they or their late husbands were abused by U.S. personnel at Abu Ghraib. The suit charged private security firm [...]
September 13, 2009 | Filed under
Torture |
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David Broder, the senior op-ed writer at the Washington Post, has joined his colleagues (Fred Hiatt, David Ignatius, and Richard Cohen) in condemning Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to name a special counsel to examine possible law-breaking by CIA interrogators. And like his colleagues, Broder has put forth a list of irrelevant reasons for turning [...]
September 3, 2009 | Filed under
Commentary |
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You see, here’s the thing. When you hear about the sick, twisted things that America’s torturers have been doing, courtesy of President George W. Bush and Vice President Darth Cheney, you have to remember that the U.S. military and the CIA were not really all that reliable when it came to picking up the real [...]
August 24, 2009 | Filed under
Commentary |
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Attorney General Eric Holder appointed a special prosecutor Monday to conduct a “preliminary review” of about a dozen cases of torture involving “war on terror” detainees carried out during the Bush administration’s tenure in office. Those cases had been previously closed by Justice Department attorneys for unknown reasons.
His announcement was made shortly before the [...]
August 24, 2009 | Filed under
Torture |
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CIA Director Leon Panetta has just shown himself to be an apologist of the highest order when it comes to torture-related crimes carried out by agency interrogators and contractors.
Panetta issued a statement in advance of the release later Monday of a critical 2004 inspector general’s report on the agency’s torture program. Panetta says the horrific [...]
August 24, 2009 | Filed under
Torture |
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Congressman Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, warned Attorney General Eric Holder that if he decides to authorize a criminal investigation into torture it should not be limited to rogue CIA interrogators, but should also determine whether high-level officials of the Bush administration committed war crimes.
August 9, 2009 | Filed under
Torture |
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Congressman Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Tuesday reiterating his calls for a special prosecutor to probe the Bush administration’s use of torture against alleged “high-value” detainees captured in the “war on terror” and pressed Holder not to limit any possible investigation into interrogators who acted in “bad faith.”
It’s the [...]
August 4, 2009 | Filed under
Torture |
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Human rights groups are asking United Nations officials to investigate the case of an Italian citizen and victim of the “extraordinary rendition” program of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency who is currently being held in a Moroccan prison based on a confession coerced from him through torture.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the Geneva-based Alkarama [...]
June 26, 2009 | Filed under
Torture |
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The Senate unanimously passed a measure Wednesday evening to block the release of photographs depicting U.S. Soldiers abusing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The legislation will now be sent to the House, but it’s unclear whether Democratic lawmakers will support it. The photo ban was previously included as an amendment in a $106 billion Iraq/Afghanistan supplemental [...]
June 18, 2009 | Filed under
Torture |
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