The United States publicly denied the drone campaign until January, when President Obama decided to use that most dignified of media venues — a Google Hangout — to tell his Pakistani allies in war that his country had, in fact, been bombing them for years. They should not worry, he said, because America was being careful about whom it killed.
Showing posts with label war crimes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war crimes. Show all posts
Monday, March 19, 2012
Our immoral drone war - Salon.com
Our immoral drone war - Salon.com:
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Saturday, January 21, 2012
George W. Bush, War Crimes, and the Mayor of London
The Mayor of London talks about George W. Bush and war crimes:
Keith Olberman interviews Jonathan Turley on the Mayor's article:
How is some tired and frightened American officer supposed to make head or tail of this sophistry, late at night in some bleak Iraqi jail? How is he supposed to calibrate the pain that comes from an organ failure or death? It is no wonder, with orders like that coming from the top, that the troopers misbehaved so tragically in Abu Ghraib. They failed to see any moral difference between waterboarding their suspects and putting hoods over their heads. They failed to see any moral difference between waterboarding them and terrifying them with alsatian dogs or attaching electrodes to their genitals. They failed to see any moral difference, that is, because there isn’t any moral difference.
That is the real disaster of the waterboarding policy — that we are left with the impression that the entire US military are skidding their heels on the slippery slope towards barbarism. And that is emphatically not the case. Yesterday at the Cenotaph we remembered the sacrifice of men and women not just in two world wars, but also in Iraq and Afghanistan. The purpose of these conflicts is not so much to defeat “the enemy”, but to defend things we believe to be inalienable goods — freedom, democracy and, above all, the rule of law.
I believe that, of all nations, America still best upholds and guarantees those things. It would be ludicrous to suggest that the waterboarding disaster, or the evils of Abu Ghraib, have set up some kind of moral equivalence between America and – say – the murderous Taliban regime, let alone Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. If you want to appreciate the difference, remember that the perpetrators of Abu Ghraib were court-martialled, and we know about US interrogation techniques because of rules on freedom of information. But if your end is the spread of freedom and the rule of law, you cannot hope to achieve that end by means that are patently vile and illegal.
Keith Olberman interviews Jonathan Turley on the Mayor's article:
Monday, January 16, 2012
The marines urination video doesn't show the real war crime | Ross Caputi | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
This young ex-Marine bravely tells the world about the mentality behind war crimes, how horrific they are, and notes that the corporate media reports on them with indifference.
The marines urination video doesn't show the real war crime | Ross Caputi | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
The marines urination video doesn't show the real war crime | Ross Caputi | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
After September 11: Our State of Exception, Mark Danner
After September 11: Our State of Exception
"For the overwhelming majority of Americans the changes have come to seem subtle, certainly when set beside how daily life was altered during World War II or World War I, not to mention during the Civil War. Officially sanctioned torture, or enhanced interrogation, however dramatic a departure it may be from our history, happens not to Americans but to others, as do extraordinary rendition and indefinite detention; the particular burdens of our exception seem mostly to be borne by someone else—by someone other. It is possible for most to live their lives without taking note of these practices at all except as phrases in the news—until, every once in a while, like a blind man who lives, all unknowingly, in a very large cage, one or another of us stumbles into the bars.
"Whoever takes the time to peer closely at the space enclosed within those bars can see that our country has been altered in fundamental ways."
"For the overwhelming majority of Americans the changes have come to seem subtle, certainly when set beside how daily life was altered during World War II or World War I, not to mention during the Civil War. Officially sanctioned torture, or enhanced interrogation, however dramatic a departure it may be from our history, happens not to Americans but to others, as do extraordinary rendition and indefinite detention; the particular burdens of our exception seem mostly to be borne by someone else—by someone other. It is possible for most to live their lives without taking note of these practices at all except as phrases in the news—until, every once in a while, like a blind man who lives, all unknowingly, in a very large cage, one or another of us stumbles into the bars.
"Whoever takes the time to peer closely at the space enclosed within those bars can see that our country has been altered in fundamental ways."
Mark Danner We Are All Torturers Now
Mark Danner: We Are All Torturers Now
"The system of torture has, after all, survived its disclosure. We have entered a new era; the traditional story line in which scandal leads to investigation and investigation leads to punishment has been supplanted by something else. Wrongdoing is still exposed; we gaze at the photographs and read the documents, and then we listen to the president’s spokesman 'reiterate,' as he did last week, 'the president’s determination that the United States never engage in torture.' And there the story ends."
"The system of torture has, after all, survived its disclosure. We have entered a new era; the traditional story line in which scandal leads to investigation and investigation leads to punishment has been supplanted by something else. Wrongdoing is still exposed; we gaze at the photographs and read the documents, and then we listen to the president’s spokesman 'reiterate,' as he did last week, 'the president’s determination that the United States never engage in torture.' And there the story ends."
Mark Danner Torture and Truth
Mark Danner Torture and Truth:
Mark Danner writes, the real scandal here is political: it "is not about revelation or disclosure but about the failure, once wrongdoing is disclosed, of politicians, officials, the press, and, ultimately, citizens to act."
Mark Danner writes, the real scandal here is political: it "is not about revelation or disclosure but about the failure, once wrongdoing is disclosed, of politicians, officials, the press, and, ultimately, citizens to act."
The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > Atrocities in Plain Sight
"I'm not saying that those who unwittingly made this torture possible are as guilty as those who inflicted it. I am saying that when the results are this horrifying, it's worth a thorough reassessment of rhetoric and war methods. Perhaps the saddest evidence of our communal denial in this respect was the election campaign. The fact that American soldiers were guilty of torturing inmates to death barely came up. It went unmentioned in every one of the three presidential debates. John F. Kerry, the ''heroic'' protester of Vietnam, ducked the issue out of what? Fear? Ignorance? Or a belief that the American public ultimately did not care, that the consequences of seeming to criticize the conduct of troops would be more of an electoral liability than holding a president accountable for enabling the torture of innocents? I fear it was the last of these. Worse, I fear he may have been right."
The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > Atrocities in Plain Sight
The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > Atrocities in Plain Sight
Thursday, September 22, 2011
In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths - New York Times
In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths - New York Times
A few years old. Why is this not being prosecuted? How can have gone on? And what is going on now?
A few years old. Why is this not being prosecuted? How can have gone on? And what is going on now?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)