War on Terrorism

Wikileaks: Suppressing the Investigation of Torture

by Andy Worthington December 7, 2010

In the relatively small number of U.S. diplomatic cables released to date by WikiLeaks, from its cache of 251,287 documents, the most disturbing revelations concerning the “war on terror” deal with the pressure that the Bush administration exerted on Germany in 2007, regarding the planned prosecution of thirteen CIA agents involved in the rendition and torture of Khaled El-Masri, ...

The Irrelevance of Wikileaks’ Guantánamo Revelations

by Andy Worthington November 30, 2010

Following Wikileaks’ release of 251,287 U.S. diplomatic cables, which has, if nothing else, revealed that secrecy and the Internet appear to be mutually incompatible, a handful of media outlets have picked up on references to Guantánamo — and the Obama administration’s negotiations with other countries — in the cables. Britain’s Daily Mail led the way, claiming ...

The Rule of Law and the Ghailani Case

by Andy Worthington November 23, 2010

To listen to certain Republican critics of last week’s verdict in the federal court trial of the Tanzanian Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a former Guantánamo prisoner and a former CIA “ghost prisoner,” you would think that the jury had found him not guilty, and that he had been released onto the streets of New York. In fact, after deliberating for five ...

On Guantánamo, Obama Hits Rock Bottom

by Andy Worthington November 16, 2010

On national security issues, there are now two Americas. In the first, which existed from January to May 2009, the rule of law flickered briefly back to life after eight years of the Bush administration. In this first America, President Obama swept into office issuing executive orders promising to close Guantánamo and to uphold the absolute ban on ...

Terrorism, Habeas Corpus, and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals

by Andy Worthington November 8, 2010

In the struggle in the U.S. courts to establish who can be detained at Guantánamo, and on what basis, following the Supreme Court’s ruling, in June 2008, that the Guantánamo prisoners have constitutionally guaranteed habeas corpus rights, there are three main players: the District Court judges, who, in 57 cases over the last two years, ...

Is There No End to Republicans’ Abuse of Guantánamo Prisoners?

by Andy Worthington November 1, 2010

Every now and then I’m forcefully reminded of the extent to which Guantánamo is still used by unscrupulous lawmakers as a political plaything, even though it is a place where, by any objective measure, a small number of terrorist suspects are held alongside insignificant Taliban foot soldiers and others unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the ...

Park51 and Collective Guilt

by Sheldon Richman November 1, 2010

If a YMCA or a YMHA were planned for 51 Park Place in Lower Manhattan, two blocks from the Twin Towers’ former site, who would have noticed? Instead, the equivalent of a Muslim Y (without the implied male exclusivity) is to be built there. What’s the big deal? I can think of only one answer: Consciously or not, a majority of ...

No Justice for Omar Khadr at Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington October 25, 2010

Exactly two years ago, when I began writing a weekly column for The Future of Freedom Foundation on Guantánamo, torture, and other crimes and abuses committed as part of the Bush administration’s “war on terror,” I focused on the story of Omar Khadr, the Canadian citizen who was just 15 years old when he was seized after ...

Torture and the Ghailani Case

by Andy Worthington October 11, 2010

Terror ruling threatens civilian prosecutions,” screamed the Los Angeles Times last Thursday. “Ruling in ’98 East Africa embassy bombings is setback for US,” wailed the Washington Post. The headline writers were referring to the federal court trial, in New York, of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a former CIA “ghost prisoner” (for two years and two ...

First Guantánamo Habeas Appeal to U.S. Supreme Court

by Andy Worthington October 4, 2010

Last week, two years and three months after the U.S. Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush recognized constitutionally guaranteed habeas corpus rights for the prisoners held at Guantánamo, Fawzi al-Odah, a Kuwaiti prisoner held for nearly nine years, became the first prisoner to appeal to the Supreme Court “to protest federal court interpretations of detainees' right to ...

The Post-9/11 Feeding Frenzy

by Sheldon Richman October 1, 2010

Militarism is the one great glamorous public-works project upon which a variety of elements in the community can be brought into agreement. — John T. Flynn, As We Go Marching (1944) Those who understand the exploitative nature of big government realized that the U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks had little to do with the security of the American people and ...

Terrorist Threat Has Roots in U.S. Policy

by Sheldon Richman September 28, 2010

“While al-Qaeda continues to threaten America directly, it also inspires its affiliates and other groups and individuals who share its violent ideology.... Homegrown terrorists represent a new and changing facet of the terrorist threat. To be clear, by ‘homegrown,’ I mean terrorist operatives who are U.S. persons and who were radicalized in the United States....” With those words Homeland Security ...