Angry Letters to the One Member of Congress Who Voted Against the War on Terror. Barbara Lee was the lone dissenter in the post-9/11 vote authorizing military force.
Many called her a traitor. But her constituents shared her concerns—and history has vindicated them. Enrique De La Osa/Reuters OAKLAND, Calif. —The people here were out of step with America. Government Recants Major Terror Claims Against High-Value Detainee Abu Zubaydah. Editor's note: This report was originally published on March 30, 2010.
We have reposted it due to some technical issues with the original version. The Justice Department has quietly recanted nearly every major claim the Bush administration made about Abu Zubaydah the alleged al-Qaeda leader who was the first suspected terrorist subjected to the torture of waterboarding and other White House-approved “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
Obama's war by drone. Doing well by doing good: The high price of working in war zones. In 1998, an ordained minister with the United Church of Christ and his wife from the war-wrecked region of Bosnia-Herzegovina began a humble international humanitarian effort out of a modest office in downtown Washington.
After the United States launched the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the mom-and-pop nonprofit corporation boldly ramped up, undertaking some of the federal government’s biggest and most ambitious projects in the battle zones, everything from building roads to funding wheat production. In doing so, International Relief and Development increased its annual revenue from $1.2 million to $706 million, most of it from one corner of the federal government — the U.S. Agency for International Development. How We Lost Yemen - By Gregory D. Johnsen. For much of the past four years the United States has been firing missiles into Yemen.
Drones, ships, and planes have all taken part in the bombardment, carrying out at least 75 strikes -- including an alleged drone attack that killed five on the night of Monday, Aug. 5, bringing the death toll to a minimum of 600 souls, according to the best estimates. But for all that, for all the strikes and all the dead, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) continues to attract more members, growing from 300 in 2009 to well over a thousand today. U.S. officials almost invariably refer to it as the most dangerous branch of al Qaeda's network, a designation that has remained constant since the United States started bombing Yemen in 2009. And the group, as the ongoing terrorism alert that has closed U.S. embassies has shown in dramatic fashion, remains capable of paralyzing U.S. diplomatic efforts across an entire region.
All this raises a rather simple question: Why? Are US drone killings in Yemen working? Earlier today two US drone attacks killed nine alleged militants in Yemen, part of a recent intensification in the undeclared US air war against jihadis in that country.
Skip to next paragraph Dan Murphy Staff writer Dan Murphy is a staff writer for the Monitor's international desk, focused on the Middle East. Murphy, who has reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, and more than a dozen other countries, writes and edits Backchannels. Recent posts Subscribe Today to the Monitor Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS ofThe Christian Science MonitorWeekly Digital Edition. Document: Pakistan's Bin Laden Dossier - Pakistan's Bin Laden Dossier. Pakistan attacks target two police patrols#link# member killed in Somalia attack#link# Korea ferry crew forced to explain actions#link# backs Kiev against 'humiliating threats'#link# Sudan rebel leader rejects massacre claims#link# shift': Palestinians join treaties#link# Jazeera journalists due back in court#link# MPs visit controversial war shrine#link# remember author Garcia Marquez#link# executions on hold over lethal drug secret#link# gang member killed in Salt Lake City court#link# Korea ferry disaster death toll passes 100 #link# condemns ethnic killings in South Sudan#link# Arabia sentences Qaeda members to death#link# killed in Iraq attacks and bombings#link#
US imprisonment in the "war on terror" US official points to end of 'war on terror' - Americas. The US military campaign against al-Qaeda should not be seen as a conflict without end, the Pentagon's chief lawyer has said in a speech that broached a rarely discussed subject among US officials.
The address by Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson on Thursday marked the first time a senior US official publicly raised the possibility of an end to the so-called "war on terror," launched by former president George W Bush in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. The US government points to the existence of an armed conflict as the legal underpinning for the indefinite detention of the global armed group's members and allies and for drone strikes in places such as Pakistan.
Johnson's remarks, which were released by the Pentagon on Friday, could ignite a global political debate with arguments from both the left and the right. EXCLUSIVE: Department of Defense Declassifies Report on Alleged Drugging of Detainees. (Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout)Detainees in custody of the US military were interrogated while drugged with powerful antipsychotic and other medications that "could impair an individual's ability to provide accurate information," according to a declassified Department of Defense (DoD) inspector general's report that probed the alleged use of "mind altering drugs" during interrogations.
In addition, detainees were subjected to "chemical restraints," hydrated with intravenous (IV) fluids while they were being interrogated and, in what appears to be a form of psychological manipulation, the inspector general's probe confirmed at least one detainee - convicted terrorist supporter Jose Padilla - was the subject of a "deliberate ruse" in which his interrogator led him to believe he was given an injection of "truth serum. " However, the watchdog's report provides startling new details about the treatment of detainees by US military personnel. Lt. Col. Media Report Sparked Probe. DoD Report Confirms Interrogators Pulled "Deliberate Ruse" on Jose Padilla; Convinced Him Flu Shot Was "Truth Serum" Jose Padilla at the Navy Consolidated Brig, Charleston, South Carolina.
(Photo: Courtesy U.S. Navy)In 2006, a lawyer for Jose Padilla, the accused dirty-bomb plotter, made an explosive claim in a federal court filing: the "enemy combatant" was "given drugs against his will, believed to be some form of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or phencyclidine (PCP), to act as a sort of truth serum during his interrogations. " Jeremy Scahill Reveals CIA Facility, Prison in Somalia as U.S. Expands Covert Ops in Stricken Nation. This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. Dirty Wars. Gagged FBI & CIA Officials on 9/11 Terrorist Attack: What Really Happened on September 11th? 9/11 Commission Admits It Never Got The Facts … But No One Wants to Hear From the People Who Know What Happened 9/11 Commission: We Never Got All of the Facts 9/11 Commissioners admit that they never got to the bottom of 9/11.
For example: 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton says “I don’t believe for a minute we got everything right”, that the Commission was set up to fail, that people should keep asking questions about 9/11, and that the 9/11 debate should continue9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey said that “There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version . . . We didn’t have access . . . .” The Best, Most Damning Reporting of the 9/11 Era. An American Missing in Iraq and 9/11. The longest missing American in Iraq is a contractor by the name of Kirk von Ackermann.
Von Ackermann was a former intelligence officer, who served in the Asymmetric Threat Division, or DO5, at Joint Forces Command while in the US Air Force. While questions surround his disappearance, its his former work in counter terrorism that provides a sharp contrast to what can only be described as bizarre behavior on the day he disappeared. In August of 2003, von Ackermann went to Turkey to work for a logistics company serving US military bases in the Tikrit region of Iraq. Several hours after a meeting at Camp Anaconda just outside of Balad, Iraq, von Ackermann's vehicle was found abandoned on an isolated road between Tikrit and Kirkuk. He was never heard from again.
CID likes to believe Kirk von Ackermann deliberately chose to drive alone over 160 miles, without a translator, on a bad tire through Saddam Hussein's tribal territory with $40,000 in cash. Americans Missing in Iraq Spc.
US "war on terror" - ISIS. US "war on terror" - Afghanistan & Pakistan. Whistleblower Report: Leaked Video Shows U.S. ‘Coverup’ WikiLeaks typically posts leaked documents, and lets reporters and readers reach their own conclusions. Now, the whistleblowing website has unveiled an in-depth report based on what it claims to be classified footage of a 2007 U.S. helicopter attack in Baghdad that claimed the lives of two Reuters employees, Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen.
On July 12, 2007, Chmagh and Noor-Eldeen, members of the Reuters Baghdad bureau were killed on a reporting assignment in the neighborhood of New Baghdad. Witnesses said they were struck by gunfire from U.S. attack helicopters; at least nine other people were reportedly killed in the incident, and two children were wounded. Reuters had sought to obtain gunsight video shot by the Apache attack helicopters and other incident reports, but the U.S. military has not released the footage to the news organization.
WikiLeaks has also claimed this video furnishes evidence of a Pentagon “coverup.” New Documents Claim Intelligence on Bin Laden, al-Qaeda Targets Withheld From Congress' 9/11 Probe. Former Counterterrorism Czar Accuses Tenet, Other CIA Officials of Cover-Up. Shock, awe and Hobbes have backfired on America's neocons - by Richard Drayton. NOW with Bill Moyers. Politics: Christian Parenti.