Morrissey: Mellifluous Terror Threat »
UPI
British rocker says agents from the FBI and Britain's Special Branch picked him up for questioning after he labeled President Bush a "terrorist." ... He said his experience proves freedom of speech is an illusion. "My view is that neither England or America are democratic societies. You can't really speak your mind and if you do you're investigated."

Human Rights Watch report: U.S. Anti-Terror Efforts Hurting Minorities Worldwide »
OneWorld US
U.S. antiterrorism strategy have undermined human rights worldwide ... fueling terrorist recruitment, discouraging public assistance of counterterrorism efforts, and creating a pool of unprosecutable detainees ... Around the world, civilians from minority communities are being prosecuted, tortured, and killed where governments justify these practices as their contribution to the war on terror.

The Gulag Americano
CIA Holds Suspects in Secret Prisons »
Washington Post
The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement
Bush operating secret detention facilities beyond reach of the law, oversight »
Independent UK
Distinguishing ourselves from the enemy »
David Cole / The Nation
If we are to prevail in the war on terror, we must do so by distinguishing ourselves from our enemy. Terrorism is a moral evil because to achieve its ends it brutally disregards the value of human life. Torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment are evil for the same reason. As John McCain said, this is not about who they are, "this is about who we are."
Wrongful Incarceration Not Unusual in Iraq »
Knight Ridder

Bush declares war on the world »
TomPaine.com
The Bush administration has given the United Nations what it believes to be a stark choice: adopt the U.S. changes and acquiesce to becoming an adjunct of Washington and a tool of empire, or reject the changes and be consigned to insignificance.

Sadly, the US has lost its prestige abroad »
Byron Williams / Working for Change
However one defines prestige, it should be clear to all that the United States no longer has the moral capital to sway governments by its word.

U.S. Image Abroad Still Sinking »
Inter Press Service
Two years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Washington's image in Europe, Canada and much of the Islamic world remains broadly negative, according to the latest in a series of surveys of public opinion in 16 countries sponsored by the Pew Global Attitudes Project (PGAP).

While some of the hostility, particularly in Muslim countries immediately after the 2003 invasion, has abated somewhat, the overall opinion of the U.S. public voiced by the citizens of Washington's traditional allies and in the Islamic world has continued to fall over the past two years, according to the survey and accompanying analysis.

Consistent with pre-U.S. election surveys of foreign countries last fall, the re-election of U.S. President George W. Bush is seen almost universally as tarnishing the country's image abroad.

In all other countries -- Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Russia, Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia, Lebanon, Jordan, India -- pluralities or majorities said Bush's re-election made them feel worse about the U.S. by margins that ranged from three to one to as more than five to one.

The Flight From America »
AlterNet
New book warns that an isolated and hostile post-9/11 America may find itself on the losing end of the global competition for the ultimate economic prize: creative talent.

Senators: US Moral Authority in Free Fall »
Inter Press Service
U.S. detention policies are undermining the nation's moral authority and inflaming the Islamic world. The situation "is an international embarrassment to our nation and to our ideals, and it remains a festering threat to our security."

Amnesty International:
US leaders could face prosecution for war crimes

"When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a license to others to commit abuse with impunity and audacity"

US Amnesty Chief:
Give Rumsfeld the Pinochet Treatment »
lnter Press Service
If the administration of President George W. Bush fails to conduct a truly independent investigation of U.S. abuses against detainees in Iraq and elsewhere, foreign governments should investigate and prosecute those senior officials who bear responsibility for them.

Washington has become ''a leading purveyor and practitioner'' of torture and ill-treatment and that senior officials should face prosecution by other governments for violations of the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

Among those officials, Schulz named Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director George Tenet, and senior officers at U.S. detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Abu Ghraib, Iraq.

Rights group says Bush administration is running the `gulag of our times' »
Newsday
Amnesty International Thursday called the U.S. military's anti-terror prison at Guantanamo Bay the "gulag of our times" and warned that American leaders may face international prosecution for mistreating prisoners.

The influential human-rights monitoring group has criticized U.S. detention practices before. But Tuesday's blistering, 308-page survey marked its first call to close Guantanamo, and the group used unusually sharp language in demanding an independent investigation of torture and abuse of prisoners there and at detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If U.S. officials don't act, other countries will, warned Amnesty's U.S. director, William Schultz. "The apparent high-level architects of torture should think twice before planning their next vacation to places like Acapulco or the French Riviera, because they may find themselves under arrest," he said.

Bush Calls Report by Nobel Prize Winning Human Rights Organization 'Absurd' »
AP

The Gitmo Diet:
Rich in Carbs,
Lean on Rights »
Carl Hiaasen, Miami Herald
The menu was made public to reassure the Islamic world and concerned Americans that the Guantánamo facility isn't such a bad place, compared to other lockups.

Nutritionally, that certainly seems true. The $12.68 spent on each detainee's daily meals at Camp Delta is about five times what it costs to feed a prisoner in Florida.

On the other hand, all prisoners in Florida get a few things that the Guantánamo inmates do not. For starters, they get charged with an actual crime. Then they get a lawyer.

That's a lot of #3s ... or maybe a lot of #2

Yet another previously unknown #3 al-Qaeda leader is pulled out of the war on terror hat »
Sheila Samples
... terrorism experts pointed out that al-Libbi was nowhere to be found on the FBI's most wanted list nor on the State Department's rewards for justice.

A former close associate of Osama Bin Laden now living in London laughed – "What I remember of him is he used to make the coffee and do the photocopying"

US Soldier Lifts Lid on Guantánamo »
Observer/UK
For the first time, an army insider blows the whistle on human rights abuses at Camp Delta. The American soldier has revealed shocking new details of abuse and sexual torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay in the first high-profile whistleblowing account to emerge from inside the top-secret base.
see also:
Torture, Cover-Up At Gitmo? »
CBS / 60 Minutes

Records give voice to Guantanamo detainees »
AP / Seattle Post-Intelligencer
A terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay asked his U.S. military judge a pointed question: "Is it possible to see the evidence in order to refute it?" In another case, a judge blurted out: "I don't care about international law."

Court documents reviewed by The Associated Press are giving dozens of Guantanamo detainees what the Bush administration had sought to keep from public view: identities and voices.

more on detainees:
see Prisoner Abuse Intl - at left

Goodbye Uncle Sam,
Hello Team Europe »
AlterNet
Not only does the world hate us, a new poll shows that for the first time most countries want us to get the hell out of the driver's seat.

international issues archive »

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