Criminal Proceedings against the Torture-Memo Lawyers by Jacob G. Hornberger May 27, 2009 U.S. defenders of the war on terrorism are agog over the fact that a Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzon, has initiated a criminal investigation of the Justice Department lawyers who prepared the infamous torture memos. Garzon is the same judge who initiated criminal proceedings in Spain against Chilean military strongman Augusto Pinochet for torture, murder, ...
Was Rape an Enhanced Interrogation Technique? by Jacob G. Hornberger May 26, 2009 There are those who argue that U.S. officials who authorized waterboarding and who performed waterboarding should not be held criminally accountable, notwithstanding the fact that the U.S. government prosecuted Japanese military personnel who waterboarded U.S. POWs during World War II. Their reasoning goes as follows: Since the president’s attorneys redefined torture to mean ...
The Empire Is Bankrupting America by Jacob G. Hornberger May 22, 2009 While Barack Obama was delivering his flowery speech justifying the indefinite imprisonment without trial of people suspected of violating laws against terrorism, the New York Times and Bloomberg were reporting on the financial consequences of out-of-control federal spending. You’ll recall that the Bush administration, which was insistent on continuing the brutal embargo against Cuba, ...
Tyranny in Burma Holds Lessons for Americans by Jacob G. Hornberger May 20, 2009 An editorial in yesterday’s New York Times entitled “Myanmar’s Cowardly Generals” excoriates the brutal military regime in Myanmar, aka Burma, for threatening the country’s pro-democracy leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, with additional criminal charges for letting an uninvited American visitor spend the night in her home. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Prize ...
Where is the Change on Indefinite Detention? by Jacob G. Hornberger May 19, 2009 As part of the much-vaunted change that Barack Obama said that he was bringing to America as president, Obama has announced that he is dropping President Bush’s use of the term “enemy combatant” from his lexicon. At the same time, he has announced that he will continue the Bush administration’s post-911 assumption of power ...
Justifying Iraq with Torture by Jacob G. Hornberger May 18, 2009 An increasing number of articles (see here and here and here and here) are pointing to evidence that U.S. officials tortured detainees to force them to disclose a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. The evidence includes an allegation by Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff ...
Illegal Aliens: Welfare or Work? by Jacob G. Hornberger May 15, 2009 According to an article in yesterday’s New York Times, illegal immigration from Mexico into the United States has plummeted, to the tune of about a quarter-million people, a 25 percent decline. The article states: “The trend emerged clearly with the onset of the recession and, demographers say, provides new evidence that illegal immigrants ...
Will They Hate Us for the Secret Photographs? by Jacob G. Hornberger May 14, 2009 Recall that immediately after 9/11, U.S. officials put out the official version of what had motivated the terrorists. “They hate America for its freedom and values,” they cried. The anger and hatred that had motivated the attackers had nothing to do with U.S. foreign policy, U.S. officials claimed. Yet, today we have President Obama, ...
Lt. Erin Watada and a Standing Army by Jacob G. Hornberger May 13, 2009 The case of Lt. Erin Watada provides a good example of why our American ancestors opposed a standing army. You’ll recall that Watada is the U.S. military officer who refused orders to deploy to Iraq on the ground that to do so would constitute the war crime of waging a war of aggression. The U.S. ...
The Charade of Left and Right by Jacob G. Hornberger May 12, 2009 The soul-searching and handwringing within the conservative movement continues apace. Dick Cheney has entered the controversy by suggesting that Colin Powell should leave the Republican Party owing to Powell’s pre-election campaign endorsement of Barack Obama. Cheney’s view echoed that of conservative icon Rush Limbaugh, who Powell suggested was part of the reason that ...
The Parasite by Jacob G. Hornberger May 11, 2009 Desperate for money and exposing the naked force of government, the socialist regime of Hugo Chavez is seizing the assets of foreign oil companies operating in Venezuela. At the same time, Chavez is implicitly acknowledging that socialism doesn’t work because he’s simultaneously soliciting bids from private oil companies in the West for new oil ...
Moving toward Drug Legalization by Jacob G. Hornberger May 7, 2009 While he says he remains opposed to legalizing marijuana, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger just declared that he would welcome a debate on the issue. In the 20 years Ive been running The Future of Freedom Foundation, I have never seen as many pro-drug-legalization articles, editorials, and op-eds in the mainstream press as I have during the past year. During 2008, ...