 [ 12 ] [ 13 ] [ 14 ] [ 15 ] [ 16 ] [ 17 ] [ 18 ] [ 19 ] [ 20 ] [ 21 ] [ 22 ] [ 23 ] [ 24 ] [ 25 ] [ 26 ] [ 29 ] [ 30 ] [ Home ] |
November 29, 2001
Let's take away your freedom
by Dianne Donovan
At least we know what we're fighting for in this shadow war against terrorism. Imagine living in a country where government agents can break into your home at any time, question you and haul you away from family and friends, deny you the right to a private consultation with a lawyer and then secretly put you on trial and sentence you to prison, perhaps for the rest of your life.
Turns out you don't have to imagine it at all; you're already there. Welcome to the U.S.A. of 2001, even though it sounds more like the Peru of Lori Berenson. Full Article
Robert Fisk: We are the war criminals now
'Everything we have believed in since the Second World War goes by the board as we pursue our own exclusive war'
We are becoming war criminals in Afghanistan. The US Air Force bombs Mazar-i-Sharif for the Northern Alliance, and our heroic Afghan allies – who slaughtered 50,000 people in Kabul between 1992 and 1996 – move into the city and execute up to 300 Taliban fighters. The report is a footnote on the television satellite channels, a "nib" in journalistic parlance. Perfectly normal, it seems. The Afghans have a "tradition" of revenge. So, with the strategic assistance of the USAF, a war crime is committed.
Now we have the Mazar-i-Sharif prison "revolt", in which Taliban inmates opened fire on their Alliance jailers. US Special Forces – and, it has emerged, British troops – helped the Alliance to overcome the uprising and, sure enough, CNN tells us some prisoners were "executed" trying to escape. It is an atrocity. British troops are now stained with war crimes. Within days, The Independent's Justin Huggler has found more executed Taliban members in Kunduz. Full Article
Prisoners massacred, the dead plundered for boots, guns and even gold teeth
by Justin Huggler in Mazar-i-Sharif
The bodies of the dead lay everywhere. Some were laid out in roads to be taken away, others were still lying on the ground where they died, slowly beginning to decay in the morning sun.
An Afghan soldier leant over a body, his hands working intently in the dead man's mouth, clutching a long thin instrument. He was trying to wrench the fillings out of the corpse's teeth even as the flesh began to rot around them. Full Article
Most Americans Back U.S. Tactics
Washington Post
Most Americans broadly endorse steps taken by the Bush administration to investigate and prosecute suspected terrorists and express little concern that these measures may violate the rights of U.S. citizens or others caught up in the ongoing probes, according to a survey by The Washington Post and ABC News. Full Article
Re: Most Americans Back U.S. Tactics
They tightly control the mainstream media to ensure most Americans do not get views other than those of the president and the business elites. This even happens on the Internet as AOL and Yahoo limits access to views other than their preferred propaganda. After controlling the minds of the people they ask them questions when the only information most have is what was fed to them by these dishonest leaders. Full Article
The US Secret Bioweapons Program
by Michel Chossudovsky
The Bush Administration has embarked upon a carefully worded public relations campaign. The objective is to eventually justify an extension of "the campaign against international terrorism" to Iraq and other "rogue states".
Part of this PR campaign consists in fabricating reports linking Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden, --i.e. by leaking selected "intelligence" designed "to soften up the American people for a new war in Iraq":
US intelligence is looking into - but can't substantiate - reports Saddam Hussein has offered bin Laden and Taliban leaders sanctuary in his country, said a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity. While Saddam rarely passes up a chance to anger the US and its allies, taking these leaders in would have "grave consequences", the official said. 1 Full Article
The Emir and His Lieutenant
By Kareem Fahim
The world's two most sought after men have traveled a long road from being sons of privilege to mujahideen veterans of the Afghan war against the soviets to being hunted down in caves by satellites, helicopters, daisy cutters, and cameras.
The emir, Osama Bin Laden, and his lieutenant and vaunted successor, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, have shared a zeal that has brought the world to their door. Their different stories may shed light on why their capture or death may not end the threat.
The two men are seen in the U.S. as products of an Islamic religious fanaticism, with perhaps a strain of their own megalomania. Religious ideology is the perceived tie that binds these men and motivates them, and their thousands of followers. Full Article
