Rupert Murdoch pressured Tony Blair over Iraq, says Alastair Campbell. Rupert Murdoch joined in an "over-crude" attempt by US Republicans to force Tony Blair to accelerate British involvement in the Iraq war a week before a crucial House of Commons vote in 2003, according to the final volumes of Alastair Campbell's government diaries. Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal. Bush Convicted in Absentia: IT’S OFFICIAL - George W Bush is a war criminal. In what is the first ever conviction of its kind anywhere in the world, the former US President and seven key members of his administration were today (Friday) found guilty of war crimes.
Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in absentia in Malaysia. The trial held in Kuala Lumpur heard harrowing witness accounts from victims of torture who suffered at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. They included testimony from British man Moazzam Begg, an ex-Guantanamo detainee and Iraqi woman Jameelah Abbas Hameedi who was tortured in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.
At the end of the week-long hearing, the five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered guilty verdicts against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their key legal advisors who were all convicted as war criminals for torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. The court heard how. Rumsfeld scrapped raid - 6 years before calling OBL kill 'easy call' (Reuters) My colleague Mackenzie Weinger just posted a comment from former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld questioning just how tough a call President Obama made when he gave the kill order to the SEAL team targeting Osama bin Laden.
Al Qaeda Porn Video: Terrorist Attack Plot Hidden In Pornographic Movie File. Documents reveal al Qaeda's plans for seizing cruise ships, carnage in Europe. German officials discovered al Qaeda documents encoded on porn videoCNN obtained access to details of the documentsMany shed light on future plots the terror group had planned, including on cruise ships Editor's note: This story is based on internal al Qaeda documents, details of which were obtained by CNN.
German cryptologists discovered hundreds of documents embedded inside a pornographic movie on a memory disk belonging to a suspected al Qaeda operative arrested in Berlin last year. The German newspaper Die Zeit was the first to report on the documents. (CNN) -- On May 16 last year, a 22-year-old Austrian named Maqsood Lodin was being questioned by police in Berlin. He had recently returned from Pakistan via Budapest, Hungary, and then traveled overland to Germany. Major questions surrounding the Afghan war. A look at major questions surrounding the decade-long Afghan war:
U.S. support for attacking Iran would be illegal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington has provoked a broad debate over the military and political wisdom of an attack on Iran.
But so far, there has been little attention to the legal issues involved, which are crucial. American support for a preemptive strike would be a violation of both international law and the U.S. Constitution. Article II of the Constitution requires the president to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed," and Article VI says that treaties are part of the "supreme law of the land. " Since the Senate overwhelmingly ratified the United Nations Charter as a treaty in 1945, the president is constitutionally required to abide by Article 51 of the charter.
In 1981, the United States joined in the U.N. U.S. Soldier Opens Fire On Civilians In Afghanistan. (Adds details about suspect) * One or more U.S. troops opens fire on civilians * Witnesses say women and children killed in homes * Killings further inflame ties between Kabul and West.
Is The Army Responsible for the Afghan Massacre. With the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan already at unprecedented lows, news on Sunday threatened to push U.S.
-Afghanistan relations to a new crisis: a U.S. Army staff sergeant stationed in southern Kandahar, a married father of two children, had allegedly shot and killed 16 civilians, including 9 children, during a harrowing house-to-house killing spree. US soldier kills 16 Afghans, deepening crisis. BALANDI, Afghanistan (AP) — An American soldier opened fire on villagers near his base in southern Afghanistan Sunday and killed 16 civilians, according to President Hamid Karzai, who called it an "assassination" and furiously demanded an explanation from Washington.
Panetta arrives in Afghanistan amid uproar over killings of civilians. Afghan official: Video shows soldier surrendering. Suspect in killing of Afghan civilians identified. CIA seeks new authority to expand Yemen drone campaign. The practice has been a core element of the CIA’s drone program in Pakistan for several years.
CIA Director David H. Petraeus has requested permission to use the tactic against the al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen, which has emerged as the most pressing terrorism threat to the United States, officials said. If approved, the change would probably accelerate a campaign of U.S. airstrikes in Yemen that is already on a record pace, with at least eight attacks in the past four months. For President Obama, an endorsement of signature strikes would mean a significant, and potentially risky, policy shift. The administration has placed tight limits on drone operations in Yemen to avoid being drawn into an often murky regional conflict and risk turning militants with local agendas into al-Qaeda recruits.