Rights

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – So Trump intervened with Chinese authorities to release three UCLA basketball players guilty of shoplifting from a mall in Hangzhou while playing in China. They thanked him, he told them to change their ways. Then Levar Ball, the father of LiAngelo Ball–one of the three freed […]

African-Americans

Which Lives Matter?: Fresh St. Louis Protests over Acquittal of Accused Killer

contributors

By TeleSur | – – Saturday’s demonstrations were markedly calmer after nearly three dozen people were arrested the day before. Protests have continued for a second day in St. Louis, Missouri following the acquittal of former cop Jason Stockley, who had been charged with first-degree murder for the killing of Anthony Lamar Smith in 2011. […]

Featured

Torture works . . . to produce Fake News (and that’s how we Got into Iraq)

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – I told this story back in 2005 but it is a good story, has held up, and bears repeating now that President Trump is again promoting torture as “effective.” Torture is a good way to get people to tell you what they think you want to […]

Donald Trump

Will Donald Trump bring back torture? Can Foreign leaders stop him?

contributors

By Vincent Charles Keating | (The Conversation) | – – There can be no doubt that the swearing in of Donald Trump on January 20 will usher in a new era for the United States. But the president-elect’s open support for torture and waterboarding could mean his inauguration also marks a return to what President […]

Donald Trump

Donald Trump claims torture ‘works’ – but what does the science say?

contributors

By Coral Dando | (The Conversation) | – – The US president-elect Donald Trump has on several occasions insisted that torture is a good idea and that procedures such as water-boarding are not “tough enough” when dealing with terrorist groups like Islamic State. The view is clearly morally and ethically questionable. But if we put […]

Bill of Rights

Will Trump Bring in a New Era of Surveillance and Torture?

contributors

TeleSur | – – Trump’s picks for important security positions look intent on rolling back civil liberties. While there are many questions about what U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will change once he officially takes office on Jan. 20, one of the biggest questions, and indeed concerns, is what a Trump administration will bring in terms […]

BDS Occupied Territories

Israel-First McCarthyism: Cuomo’s vow to spy on, punish BDS Activists in long Tradition

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – After New York governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order directing the state to monitor and sanction activists in the Boycott, Sanctions and Divest Movement (BDS) against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, critics complained that the order is McCarthyism. They objected that […]

Bill of Rights

Snowden on Torture Report: “When the CIA destroys s.th., it’s never a Mistake”

contributors

TeleSur | — After the CIA inspector general admitted it destroyed a 6,700 page report on torture, the famed whistleblower said the CIA does not destroy by “accident.” Edward Snowden commented this week on the CIA inspector general office’s “mistaken” destruction of its only copy of a top secret torture report: ““When the CIA destroys […]

Bush

Not al-Qaeda: Abu Zubayda as Bush’s Mengele Experiment

contributors

By Rebecca Gordon | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Intro: Rebecca Gordon catches the nightmarish quality of those [Bush] years, now largely buried, in the grim case of a single mistreated human being. It should make Americans shudder. She has also just published a new book, American Nuremberg: The U.S. Officials Who Should Stand Trial […]