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Tag Archives: Torture
ICC and Darfur
Today the International Criminal Courts (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, President of Sudan, for crimes related to Darfur.The indictment did not include genocide but did list murder, rape, forcible transfer, torture, pillaging, attacks on civilians, and extermination. It is possible that genocide could be added to the charges if more evidence becomes available. The move is largely just symbolic since Sudan is refusing to give up Al-Bashir and the courts authority is quite limited. Since the inception of the ICC in 2002, the court has only pursued cases in Africa and has only just began its first trial in January against former Congolese Warlord Thomas Lubanga.  Al-Bashir is the first sitting head of state to be charged by the ICC and while he may not be standing trial anytime soon some hope that the case will change the dynamics of Sudanese politics. Chris Hall of Amnesty International said,
“You have a President of your country who is subject to an international arrest warrant, a fugitive from justice, and the implications for the country will be enormous. My guess is that there will be some very serious thinking among the senior members of the Cabinet about whether Sudan would be better off enforcing the arrest warrant.”
It will be interesting to see if the action by the ICC causes any noticeable difference to the millions of displaced people and those still in the Darfur region of Sudan. While it would be nice to see Sudan turn over a new left, I think it is far more likely that this move by the ICC and through association the UN will cause an escalation in the violence in the region.
Posted in Africa, Blog, Foreign Affairs, Progress, Social Justice
Tagged Darfur, genocide, Torture, UN
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Quote of the Day
“First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo wrote, adding later: “The current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.”
~ Deputy Assitant Attorney General John Yoo in Bush Administration memos released day concerning DOJ policies after 9/11. The memos reveal that the Bush Administration has considered broadly rolling back certain constitutional rights – wiretapping, search and seizure, torture, and our First Amendment Rights.
You can read the memos here.
Posted in Blog, Domestic Affairs, Quote of the Day, Torture
Tagged free speech, John Yoo, justice, memos, Torture, wiretapping
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Still A Germ-Main Event by Rebecca Egler
It’s difficult to think that these practices exist
Within our national projection one of unfair resist
And the gates soon will close
Don’t silence the crows
Of unjustifiable events within our own mist.
Posted in Blog, Liberal Blog, Limerick, Social Justice, Torture
Tagged Guantanamo Bay, Limerick, Social Justice, Torture
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A Few Bad Apples, My Ass
“We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani… His treatment met the legal definition of torture” – Susan Crawford, overseer of military commissions, appointed by Bush
“The United States does not torture” -George W. Bush
Mohammed al-Qahtani, a detainee held at Guantanamo Bay, who has not been charged with a crime, who has never been proven guilty, was threatened with a dog, put on a leash with chains and forced to perform tricks, subject to forty-eight of 54 consecutive days of 18-to-20-hour interrogations, stripped naked in front of female guards, forced to wear a bra with a thong on his head, subjected to long term freezing conditions, waterboarded, and beaten according to the Washington Post and abridged by the AP. This doesn’t come from a detainee, or from the ACLU, it comes from a Bush-appointed life-long Republican who is so insensitive to the torture issue that she wouldn’t have even called this torture but for the fact that the combination of these de-humanizing attacks left Mr. Qahtani in a “life-threatening position” where he was repeatedly hospitalized for low heart-rate.
It’s Abu Gharaib all over again, but this time the defense isn’t so robust from the White House. “A few bad apples” has been replaced by a statement saying that the torture techniques were legal when they were performed. That’s a war crime, authorized by the Bush Administration, right here in the United States of America. And, the good-will this will buy us in the Muslim world is a fitting farewell for an administration who has spent eight years burning bridges.
Posted in America, Blog, Foreign Affairs, George W. Bush, Social Justice, Torture, Uncategorized
Tagged Bob Woodward, gitmo, Guantanamo Bay, SUsan Crawford, Torture, war crimes, washington post
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Young and in jail
I’m sure regular readers of this blog (both of them!) are tired of my periodic rants about American torture policy. Well, I’m tired of living in a country with a human rights record that can be compared unfavorably with that of communist China, so we’re even.
I do want to write about something else someday, but when something so sickening, so despicable, so grotesque as the torture of a young, and possibly innocent, child is revealed as a possibility in the United States of America, I can’t help but rant. (more…)
Posted in Blog, Rants, Torture
Tagged criminal justice, guantanamo, juvenile justice, kids, Torture
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Introducing… the Approval Matrix
A new weekly feature brought to you by my lack of motivation to study.
The complete matrix is behind the jump.
(Best if viewed in Large format. Look at “options” in the blog’s upper right corner. Click Large. Good.)
Posted in Ann Arbor, Blog, China, College Democrats, Congress, Democratic Party, Detroit, Domestic Affairs, Hillary Clinton, Humor, Institutions, International, Liberal Blog, Republican Party, Scandals, State Legislature, Torture
Tagged 30 Rock, College Ass, college blog, democrat blog, Jingle, Kanye West, Liberal Blog, LOL Cats, Michigan OTR, Milf Island, New York Magazine, olympics, Pop Culture, The Hills, The Office, Tina Fey, Torture
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The Fraud of the Surge
This is how Bush/McCain define peace.
Recent violence in Iraq has proven one thing – The Bush/McCain surge is a failure.
The news recently has been rife with news that the Shiite militias in Iraq are starting their old feuds and the militias are being activated. At the same time, top commanders in the field have made statements that there will be no immediate drawdown of a surge. The last time I checked a surge comes…. and then goes, which was the original plan. After a year of peace by force is now straining and about to burst.
The problem, it once again seems, is who the Bush Administration decided to back. The Prime Minister, a Shiite, bases his coalition around the political part Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). This party has been around for years in various forms. They are important because their armed win is the Iranian trained Badr Corps… Let us think for a moment. Bush backs the Prime Minister. The PM backs SCIRI. SCIRI backs the Badr Corps. The Badr Corps are backed by Iran. Right. I should also mention that the majority of our monies are going to back the PM, his government, and his security forces (which happen to have similar membership lists as the Badr Corps).
On the other side of the fence is Muqtada al-Sadr… the most recent incarnation of the boogeyman – if you believe the media. His power base is in the urban and poor regions of the nation – especially Sadr City in Baghdad. His Mahdi Army is the militia that is taking control of entire town throughout the nation and is clashing with both Iraqi and American troops.
What does this mean for America? It means that over 4,000 troops have died. It means that we have committed ourselves to a intra-Shiite, intra-Iraqi tango being danced with US financing. Iraq is still experiencing terrorist bombs, the Green Zone has come under constant rocket fire, and country is still in fear. This surge has failed. Accept this fact… It is time for the media to recognize this and stop drooling over this Bush/McCain fraud.
Posted in Blog, Iraq, John McCain
Tagged 4000 troops, Badr, Iraq, Liberal Blog, mahdi, mccain, Nathaniel Styer, politics, Sadr, Surge, Torture, University of Michigan
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The Torturer-in-Chief
If Kyle didn’t have a monopoly on “douche of the time-period,” I would be tempted to label this post “douche of the half-millennium” given that its been more than 500 years since the death of President Bush’s intellectual father Tomás de Torquemada. Saturday Bush vetoed, and Tuesday the House upheld, a bill that would have banned waterboarding, beating, electrocuting, burning, forced sex-acts (aka rape), withholding food and water and numerous other barbarisms
Posted in Blog, George W. Bush, Torture
Tagged bush, interrogation, Torture, waterboarding
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