John Peeler: The transition to democracy, now 30 years old, has passed a major test with the trial and conviction of Ríos Montt. The impediments to full democratization remain huge, but there is still good cause for Guatemalans to celebrate.
Argo Apostasy
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Gary Corseri: Movies like “Argo” have nothing to do with “freedom of speech” and everything to do with suppressing free speech and the truth for the sake of profits, promoting wars and hatred and slaughter.
Ten Years After
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Tom Degan: On Saturday, December 30, 2006, Saddam Hussein was hanged for his crimes against humanity. On Tuesday, April 2, 2013, George Walker Bush, Richard Bruce Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld live in comfortable retirement. Isn’t life strange?
Prince of Darkness Gets a Heart
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Denis Campbell: Dick Cheney is the poster child for the 2% (Romney is the 1%’s king) and are we really to believe that Cheney’s money, power and connections had zero influence in the decision for him to receive a donor heart at age 71?
Ending California’s Wasteful Tinkering With The Machinery Of Death
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Andy Love: California’s death penalty needs to be abolished. Putting aside the philosophical and spiritual questions about the immorality of the death penalty, it is costly, arbitrary, discriminatory, and unworkable.
Fight to End the Most Base Form of Exploitation
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Brian McAfee: The men and the occasional women who participate in the abuse and victimization of children are unconscionable people whether serving as their rapists, pimps or enablers.
Turkey: Game On
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Nikki Junker: One group of people I am also hoping to meet up with are NGOs working in the human trafficking field.
Sometimes Ya Just Gotta Lighten Up
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Nikki Junker: If I can make light out of what happened to me and have some fun with the purpose it led me to, then I don’t see a problem with it. So we shall go with our tutus to raise $1000 to fight sexual exploitation of children
“Very Young Girls” — I Had Answers!
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Nikki Junker: I was able to tell them that one of San Diego’s law enforcement agents had begun that very day training all of the judges in California on sex trafficking.
Slavery and the Civil War
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John Gripentrog: Was the Civil War fought over states’ rights? Yes, but states’ rights for what? Over property rights? Sure, but property rights regarding what? The answer to each of those questions is clear: The core issue was slavery.
AARP’s Magazine Plays Softball in the Bush League
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Sherwood Ross: Next to the happy, smiling face of this clueless warmonger are the words: “What he regrets, what he wants next (grandkids!)” — as if Bush is some typical retiree who hadn’t started two wars over resounding global protests and brought misery and death to millions.
Beyond the Grim Sleeper: Cut Death Penalty to Fund Criminal Investigations
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Aqeela Sherrills: Why do we continue to waste hundreds of millions of dollars on the death penalty even though it has never been proven to deter murderers and even though 1,000 killers get away with murder each year?
The Israel/Gaza Face-Off In Los Angeles
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Linda Milazzo: Monday night, in remembrance of the one-year anniversary of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead that killed 1,400 Gazans, and in solidarity with the 1,400 international peace pilgrims converging in Egypt from 42 countries for the planned Gaza Freedom March, Los Angelenos gathered in front of the Israeli Consulate for a solemn candlelight vigil.
HRW Report on Congo: Fetuses Ripped From Wombs and Children Burned
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“Continued killing and rape by all sides in eastern Congo shows that the UN Security Council needs a new approach to protect civilians,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Security Council should send a group of experts to Congo to kick-start a serious civilian protection plan.”
The Siege on Gaza Continues
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While Israel bears direct responsibility for the persecution of the Gaza Palestinians, many others are complicit. Most complicit is the Obama Administration, which has done nothing to end the siege, and has no visible plans to do so
Stop “Crimes Against Humanity and Geological Scandals”: Give AFRICOM a Chance In Congo
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linton’s uncompromising condemnation of perpetrators of sexual violence has not been thoroughly emphasized or analyzed, but sniping has already begun about AFRICOM’s involvement in her initiative.
CIA Crucified Captive in Abu Ghraib Prison
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The Central Intelligence Agency crucified a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, according to a report published in The New Yorker magazine. “A forensic examiner found that he (the prisoner) had essentially been crucified; he died from asphyxiation after having been hung by his arms, in a hood, and suffering broken ribs,” the magazine’s [...]
A Growing Sense of Anger at Obama – and Others
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I’m so angry I feel like concealing a loaded hand gun and walking into a national park. No, I’m not going postal. Once President Obama signs the new credit card law, it will be legal for anyone to march around Yellowstone packing heat just for the fun of it. Although it’s usually angry, bitter, little [...]
Tortured Reasoning and Tortured Results
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Each day the evidence piles up – highlighted by the unconvincing rants of Dick Cheney. Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, said, “the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002 — well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion — its principal priority for intelligence was not [...]
Suppressed Abu Ghraib Photos Published Down Under; Pentagon Has Videos of Children Screaming While Being Sodomized
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Somehow, the Sydney Morning Herald obtained some of the additional Abu Ghraib photos that the Obama administration is in US court trying to keep hidden as it fights an ACLU Freedom of Information lawsuit. Fifteen of the 60 are published on-line Saturday (Sydney time) by the newspaper. Is it because we’ve become inured to photos [...]
American Torture: No Knowledge of History, No Sense of Tragedy
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Recently in the New York Times, Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti showed that the Bush Administration, the CIA, and the Senate and House Intelligence Committees failed to ask for any historical context before approving so-called “harsh interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding, in 2002. No one apparently knew, or wanted to know, that the U.S. had defined [...]
Is Oil Worth More Than Blood In Nigeria?
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On May 26, 2009, a potentially historic human rights trial will take place in a federal court in New York. At issue: What did Royal Dutch/Shell, the multinational oil giant, do in Nigeria? The case is over a decade in the making. The suit, filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and EarthRights International, [...]
Ruth Marcus Should Know Better
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by Charley James – Last Saturday, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus came up with an unusually convoluted bit of punditspeak about forgiving Dick Cheney his self-admitted war crimes and crimes against humanity including lying the country into war, illegal wiretapping, outing Valerie Plame-Wilson, torturing prisoners of war and – oh, right – telling Fox News’ [...]
WANTED: Richard Bruce Cheney, Self-Confessed War Criminal
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by Charley James – Overlooked in the frothing about Dick Cheney’s interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl is a simple truth. Shotgun Dick, Darth Vadar, The Man Who Never Was, Richard Bruce Cheney confessed freely and openly to committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Vice President who spent eight years avoiding interviews used what [...]
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More Torture, Please
Steve Hendricks: I derive immense comfort, for example, from the similarity between the pro-torture 70 percent and the 68 percent of Americans who believe “angels and demons are active in the world.” Surely many of my pro-torture countrymen just need a little more education about torture. Well, a lot more.