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| Taking a Closer Look at the Stories Ignored by the Corporate Media |
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Archive for the Month of December, 2005.
Viewing War on Terrorism NEWS articles 1 through 38 of 38.
- A leading human rights monitor published the names of 26 "ghost detainees" that it accused the United States of holding and possibly torturing in secret overseas locations.
- "The lawsuit will charge that CIA officials at the highest level violated US and universal human rights laws when they authorised agents to abduct an innocent man, detain him incommunicado, beat him, drug and transport him to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan," the ACLU said in a news release. The release identified the jail as the "Salt Pit". - Military autopsy reports provide indisputable proof that detainees are being tortured to death while in US military custody. Yet the US corporate media are covering it with the seriousness of a garage sale for the local Baptist Church.
- ...the message was sent—the CIA posse got their man, never mind independent confirmation (or for that matter a body to show off), the corporate media faithfully repeats the Bushcon line (we will "smoke ‘em out”), and the American people will have at least a momentary glimmer of hope that we are making headway in the “war on terror” promised to last a couple generations, at least a hundred years, to the glee of Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, Bechtel, and of course the Israeli and Pentagon Zionists who want the Muslim and Arab Middle East sliced up into bite-sized pieces. - DHS hotline a hotbed of weak tips. - Officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation mishandled a Florida terror investigation, falsified documents in the case in an effort to cover repeated missteps and retaliated against an agent who first complained about the problems... - CIA agents have broken ranks to reveal the 'cruel and inhuman' interrogation techniques they are ordered to use at secret prisons around the world, including freezing and near-drowning.
- ...the United States wanted German officials to keep silent because of fears of exposing a covert U.S. program...
- ...according to Italian court documents and interviews with investigators, the CIA's tip was a deliberate lie, part of a ruse designed to stymie efforts by the Italian anti-terrorism police to track down the cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, an Egyptian refugee known as Abu Omar.
- In a case closely watched as a key test of the Patriot Act, a former university professor accused of helping lead a Palestinian terrorist organization was acquitted Tuesday on nearly half of the charges against him, and the jury deadlocked on the rest. - The CIA last month emptied two secret prisons in Eastern Europe of terrorist suspects in a frantic effort to defuse the "rendition" controversy ahead of Condoleezza Rice's visit to Europe, sources in the agency have claimed. - ACLU Files Landmark Lawsuit Challenging CIA’s “Extraordinary Rendition” of Innocent Man - Companies that Owned and Operated Airplanes Used in CIA Kidnapping Also Named in Lawsuit.
- Torture Doublethink At All Time High - "I never heard the word 'bomb' on the plane," McAlhany told TIME in a telephone interview. "I never heard the word bomb until the FBI asked me did you hear the word bomb. That is ridiculous." Even the authorities didn't come out and say bomb, McAlhany says. "They asked, 'Did you hear anything about the b-word?'" he says. "That's what they called it." - Many of the prisoners are being held at remote prisons established by former King Hassan II to torture political prisoners.
- Eyewitness says Alpizar never mentioned bomb, passengers were more afraid of Air Marshals putting guns to their heads. - The police can now snatch or shoot anyone, without recourse, to protect the public. Bag-carrying, running and sweating are just a few examples of suspicious behaviour, which could cost you your life in the war against terror, on home soil. If you interfere in these operations, you too will be threatened, like the witnesses to events on AA flight 924, who had pistols aimed at their head by angry air marshals, while Alpizar was being murdered. - The list contains a strict "no fly" section, which requires airline staff to contact police, and a "selectee" section, which requires passengers to undergo further security checks. - There have been some interesting recent developments in the CIA's Italian kidnapping caper.
- What those like...the Bush White House welcome in this bloodletting is that the "war on terror" has come home. They see in the killing of Rigoberto Alpizar an act that will serve to intimidate the public at large and an affirmation of the unfettered powers of the state and its security forces to act as judge, jury and executioner. - The US has admitted for the first time that it has not given the Red Cross access to all detainees in its custody. - Nowicki said Bondsteel was "totally out of control," and added: "In truth, we have no idea what goes on in there."
- "How can the American public understand the gravity of the torture that is currently being committed in our name when the issue is being reported with no reference to the extent to which these crimes against humanity have gone?" - Binyam Mohammed, 27, says he spent nearly three years in the CIA's network of 'black sites'. In Morocco he claims he underwent the strappado torture of being hung for hours from his wrists, and scalpel cuts to his chest and penis and that a CIA officer was a regular interrogator.
- "YOOIFICATION AND GITMOIZATION"
- It was called the "water cure." But it was dosed out liberally to those who weren't sick. Unfortunate recipients were held by the neck beneath a water tank. The tap was turned on, and they were forced to swallow the gushing stream - or to choke within an inch of death while trying. Another variation used tubing to siphon water from a kerosene can into a detainee's nostril. Sworn testimony records the use of this tactic in the presence of a doctor. It was, after all, a "cure." When the detainee still refused to talk, the doctor would ratchet up the treatment... - The only commentary some stories require is the sound of one's head striking the desk. For instance: Zarqawi "captured, but let go"
- The U.S. policy of "extraordinary rendition" has a human face, and it is mine.
- America operated a secret prison in Afghanistan as recently as last year and tortured inmates there, according to a human rights organisation. - "...he wanted to kill himself so that he could send a message to the world that conditions at Guantanamo are intolerable."
- The World is at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. In the largest display of military might since the Second World War, the United States and its indefectible British ally have embarked upon a military adventure, which threatens the future of humanity.
- Of course, an idiot patsy of al-Libi’s caliber would never get near Bush in a zillion years, but never mind—we are to be reminded, ad nauseam, of the viciousness of "al-Qaeda" (not the database but the myth), especially when Bush’s popularity ratings are at an all-time low.
- When the CIA decides to "render" a terrorism suspect living abroad for interrogation in Egypt or another friendly Middle East nation, it spares no expense.
- "African oil is of national strategic interest to us, and it will increase and become more important as we go forward..." Nigeria is the fifth-largest source of U.S. oil imports. Algeria has at least 9 billion barrels of reserves, and Mauritania has begun offshore pumping that could make it Africa's No. 4 oil supplier by 2007.
- If you're sitting in an airport waiting area, and some stranger strikes up a random conversation, you might want to put on your best smile and answer cheerfully...that stranger might be a Transportation Security Administration "screener" looking to single you out as a terrorist threat. - The DOJ is asking to vacate a ruling that it just won after a grueling 4 year struggle and its spokesman says that there is "nothing sinister" about that?
- The number of Guantanamo Bay prisoners taking part in a nearly five-month-long hunger strike has surged to 84 since Christmas Day, the US military says. - The US Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) controversial "rendition" program was launched under US president Bill Clinton, a former US counter-terrorism agent has told a German newspaper.
Pages for December, 2005
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