Late on June 21 the US House of Representatives voted 214-203 against an amendment to the Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill that would have closed the US Defense Department’s Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), a combat-training school for Latin… Read moreSOA survives House vote; Cuba regime change funds approved
Following the recent revelations about Ethiopia, a second African country has been named as hosting secret US detention center for terror suspects. Seymour Hersh‘s latest in the June 25 New Yorker, “The General’s Report”—a reference to Antonio Taguba, who investigated… Read moreSecret CIA prison in Mauritania?
A trial on the apparent CIA kidnapping of a Muslim cleric in Milan has been suspended to allow time for Italy’s supreme court to rule on whether prosecutors overstepped their constitutional bounds. The trial is not expected to resume until… Read moreCIA kidnapping trial suspended in Italy
In what is being hailed as a landmark decision, a 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled 2-1 that the federal Military Commissions Act doesn’t strip Ali al-Marri, a legal US resident, of his constitutional right to challenge his… Read more4th Circuit rules for “enemy combatant”
Despite recent denials by the Ethiopian regime, Der Spiegel corroborates June 11 that “terror suspects have been questioned by US officials in Ethiopia after being transferred from Somalia and Kenya. The captives included Europeans who were detained, interrogated and then released without charge.” Up… Read moreUS agents interrogate “renditioned” suspects in Ethiopian prisons
The trial began June 8 of 26 Americans and six Italians who stand accused in absentia in Italy of kidnapping an Egyptian terror suspect [Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr AKA Abu Omar], and dispatching him to Egypt, where he is said… Read more“Extraordinary rendition” on trial in Europe
Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution has a piece in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs, “Al-Qaeda Strikes Back,” which finds, “By rushing into Iraq instead of finishing off the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Washington has unwittingly helped its… Read moreAl-Qaeda to Bush: Nuke Iran!
Six human rights groups have issued a list of 39 people purportedly imprisoned by the United States in secret, the whereabouts of whom are unknown, and have called upon the Bush administration to suspend its policy of “disappearances.” US officials… Read moreRights groups condemn US “disappearances”
From the American Civil Liberties Union, June 4: GUANTÁNAMO BAY, CUBA – A United States military judge today dismissed charges in the case of Omar Khadr, a Canadian who was 15 years old when he was arrested by U.S. forces… Read moreCharges dropped in Gitmo tribunal case
The US will face worse attacks than 9-11 if it does not heed al-Qaeda demands, according to a new statement from Adam Gadahn, a California-born convert to Islam and the first US citizen to be charged with treason since the… Read more“California al-Qaeda” warns of new attacks
When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI two years ago, we pointed out that he had been the Vatican’s pointman on dialogue with the “Traditionalist” schism that rejects the Vatican II reforms. Now it seems he may be ready… Read moreBenedict XVI moves to restore Latin Mass
Every president since FDR has drawn up such plans. The most notorious were Nixon’s “Operation Garden Plot” and Reagan’s “REX 84 Alpha”—a legacy we recalled when the Homeland Security Act passed in 2002. This latest incarnation has gone unnoticed by… Read moreNSPD-51: Bush prepares martial law
