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Children tortured at Abu Ghraib
July 23, 2004The biggest story of the Iraq war is not about missing weapons of mass destruction, or about deep-cover CIA officers getting their covers blown by vengeful White House agents, or even about 900 dead American soldiers.
Read moreAbu Ghraib abuse part of larger pattern
July 23, 2004I was not surprised at the torture atrocities by United States soldiers in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at Guantanamo. I have traveled to Guatemala many times to be with returning refugees, the survivors of massacres and torture. I was in Guatemala in November of 1989 when Sister Diana Ortiz, a nun from the United States, was seized and subjected to unbelievable torture there. I was also there...
Read moreUS hides sexual abuse in Abu Ghraib
May 30, 2009Washington, May 28 (Prensa Latina) The Pentagon sought to publish pictures on torture applied by the CIA in the prison of Abu Ghraib during the administration of George W. Bush, but President Barack Obama revoked its decision. In spite of the order, a former official of the US Army in charge of the investigation of the scandal in the Iraqi prison stated that the pictures showed sexual abuses, Democracy Now...
Read moreEDITORIAL: Still more torture revelations
March 18, 2005Mounting evidence is making it clear that torture and a pattern of human rights abuse is standard operating procedure for the Bush administration and its surrogates in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, where over 600 people of about 38 different nationalities are still being held. Though pictures of torture at Abu Ghraib brought wide exposure to such practices, the duration and vast scope of these...
Read moreA brutal prison culture
May 21, 2004Opinion We have all seen the Abu Ghraib pictures, and steeled ourselves for worse to come. The brass are trying to fob this off as an aberration created by a few sadistic guards. Is this so? Control over the prisoners was placed in the hands of a shadowy mix of military intelligence, “civilian contractors” and the CIA. The CIA has never been called to account for decades of mayhem and...
Read moreEditorial: Torture authorized at the top
October 07, 2005A collective sigh of relief must have rippled through the Pentagon and the White House Sept. 26 when 22-year old Army Private Lynndie England was convicted and sentenced for her despicable torture of detainees at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. Her superiors, including the commander in chief, were off the hook. It would seem the embarrassing episode of U.S. Army personnel who were photographed humiliating and torturing Iraqi prisoners has slid...
Read moreWhat America stands for
June 04, 2004Opinion “That isn’t what America stands for” has been the refrain of Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, et al., as the horrifying Abu Ghraib prison atrocities hit the eyes of the world. Maybe it isn’t what America should stand for, but it is very often standard practice in the U.S. prison system to deny human rights to its “own” prisoners. Capitalists are unable to control struggling human beings without the tools of...
Read moreLawmakers try to block new abuse photos
May 12, 2009NEW YORK, May 11 (IPS) - Civil libertarians are condemning a call by two influential U.S. senators for the White House to block the impending release of photographs showing detainees being abused by U.S. military personnel at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at other U.S. detention facilities in the Middle East and elsewhere. The plea to intervene to stop the expected May 28 release of the photos...
Read moreThe evils of war
June 18, 2004“War may sometimes be a necessary evil, but no matter how necessary, it is always evil, never good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.” Those were the words of President Jimmy Carter in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize. War is always evil. The words of a former Navy officer and veteran, former U.S. President and world peace maker....
Read moreProtest now! Iraqi government attacks teacher trade union
March 03, 2009(Reposted from strongerunions.org) I’m in Erbil (Iraqi Kurdistan) for a TUC workshop for Iraqi and Kurdish trade unionists, and Iraqi Teachers’ Union President Jasim al-Lami has reported an astounding attack on his union’s leadership by the Iraqi Government. The Iraqi Government has proved itself time and time again to be hostile to free trade unionism, and has been censured by the ILO for its restrictive use of Saddam Hussein’s labour...
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