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By Ellen Goodman, Patricia O'Brien
$18.85
By Mike Rose
$22
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Rudy Giuliani was widely praised for his demagogic smackdown of Ron Paul during the second Republican debate, feigning shock and outrage at Paul’s explanation of “blowback.” But Giuliani’s performance, while a crowd-pleaser, exposed the superficiality of his terror-fighting credentials. As CNN’s Roland Martin writes: “Giuliani must be an idiot to not have heard Paul’s rationale before.”
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While speaking with Fox News about his debate confrontation with Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani trotted out that tired old slogan that utterly fails to explain anything. Also, Giuliani tells Sean Hannity, “If you can’t face reality, you can’t lead.” We couldn’t agree more.
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Despite fighting them “over there,” terrorism has grown more frequent and bloody. According to the State Department’s latest assessment of terrorist activity, Iraq contained nearly half of all attacks in 2006. The number of attacks worldwide went up 28.5 percent from the previous year, claiming 40.2 percent more lives.
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Imagine enduring five years of imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay, finally winning your release and then learning you had no place to go. Eighty-two detainees have been cleared for release by the U.S., but remain at the facility, either because their home countries refuse to take them or they would face torture if repatriated. What’s worse, the U.S., Europe and other allies have all but washed their hands of the situation.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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A car bomb explosion in the holy city of Karbala has killed 68 people. After the attack, an angry crowd gathered and began attacking Iraqi police, accusing them of failing to protect the population. Elsewhere in Iraq, nine U.S. soldiers have been killed in the last two days.
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Saudi Arabian authorities say they have captured 172 militants who were planning a series of attacks around the country. The royal family began a more aggressive approach toward extremists, which it calls a “deviant group,” four years ago after attacks targeted the nation’s oil industry.
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AP Photo / Mark Wilson, Pool
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Jumana Musa, advocacy director for domestic human rights and international justice at Amnesty International, speaks with Truthdig about the war on human rights, why conditions at Guantanamo have only gotten worse and why she has hope for the future.
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By Amy Goodman — A terrorist lives in Miami. He is not in hiding, or part of some sleeper cell. He’s an escaped convict, wanted internationally for blowing up a jetliner. His name is Luis Posada Carriles. As the nation was focused on the Virginia Tech shooting, the Bush administration quietly allowed Posada’s release from a federal immigration detention center.
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Months before 9/11, French intelligence warned the CIA that al-Qaida was planning an attack involving airplanes, according to classified documents and former French intelligence officials. The information was vague and possibly misleading, but it speaks to the intelligence community’s inability to coalesce fragmentary warnings into something concrete and comprehensive.
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The British government has officially quit using the term “war on terror,” arguing that Bush’s slogan has backfired and, instead of weakening the world’s polyglot bands of terrorists, has in fact strengthened them.
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By Andy Borowitz — The satirist says the embattled shock jock has found the perfect venue for his hate-filled rhetoric.
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A bomb killed two Iraqi government officials and six other people and injured at least 23 when it exploded in the Iraqi parliament building’s cafeteria inside Baghdad’s Green Zone. This first bombing of the government building came just after the speaker of parliament condemned the bombing of Baghdad’s Sarafiya bridge, which partially collapsed into the Tigris River on Thursday, killing at least eight people. So much for the “surge.”
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By Marie Cocco — Like a terminally ill animal, the Guantanamo prison is soon to be put to death. It will be an ugly execution, played out against the sophomoric non sequiturs that are the unofficial soundtrack of the war on terror.
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The handling of Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks’ war-crimes trial has triggered widespread criticism and speculation about politically motivated maneuverings that could undermine the entire legal operation at the Cuban prison camp.
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A growing number of experts and analysts now agree that George W. Bush’s war on terror has been nothing short of a disaster, and not just for the obvious reasons. For instance, one might question the wisdom of designating a Midwestern apple festival a potential terrorism target.
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usip.org
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Robert Gates urged Congress on Thursday to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, acknowledging that the international community was likely to doubt the credibility of tribunals held there: “My own view is that because of things that happened earlier at Guantanamo there is a taint about it.”
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By Amy Goodman — David Hicks pleaded guilty Monday to supporting terrorism, probably to escape the living hell of Guantanamo Bay, with its show trials and “interrogation” chambers that continue to shame America at home and abroad.
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By Zbigniew Brzezinski — The culture of fear is like a genie that has been let out of its bottle. It acquires a life of its own—and can become demoralizing.
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By Amy Goodman — What do Osama bin Laden and Chiquita bananas have in common? Both have used their millions to finance terrorism.
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J.J. Goldberg, editor in chief of the venerable progressive Jewish daily the Forward, joins the podcast this week to talk about the complexity of Zionism, the misguided intentions of neoconservatism and why AIPAC isn’t quite as sinister as you might think. Above, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with President Bush.
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Our collection of favorite videos this week includes Sen. Chuck Schumer nailing the Bush administration on the firing of U.S. attorneys, the Discovery Channel drooling over a weapon that kills Americans, and “The Simpsons” dressing down Fox News.
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film.queensu.ca
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Chiquita has agreed to pay $25 million in fines for bribing Colombian terrorist groups to safeguard its banana plantations. One of the groups, a right-wing paramilitary organization, has been guilty of some of Colombia’s worst atrocities.
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The military has released a confession attributed to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the supposed mastermind of 9/11. According to the partially redacted transcript of his secret hearing, Mohammed claimed responsibility for 28 attacks, including 9/11, the Bali bombing, a number of operations that were never carried out and some that were not thought to be closely related to al-Qaida.
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One of the weapons used with devastating effect against U.S. forces in Iraq is the so-called explosively formed penetrator, which the administration has accused Iran of producing. Astonishingly, the Discovery Channel recently aired a puff piece that delightedly showed off such a bomb, complete with a demonstration of how effective the compact device was against armored military targets.
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eagleemblems.com
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The country’s largest firefighters union has taken presidential candidate and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to task over his “egregious acts” following 9/11. Giuliani, now the front-runner for the GOP nomination, draws almost all of his popularity from his post-9/11 performance.
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An internal Justice Department investigation has documented multiple abuses by the FBI in obtaining the private records of U.S. residents. Even with the broad powers of the Patriot Act in place, the bureau is still required to certify that the phone, e-mail and financial documents it seeks are at least related to investigations of terrorism or intelligence activities.
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howstuffworks.com
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An anti-terrorism bill making its way through the Senate would allow airport screeners to unionize. Republicans in Congress, ever the friends of working men and women, have fought against the provision, arguing that a screener union would threaten security and safety.
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Jose Padilla has been ruled competent to stand trial, a rebuke to his lawyers. The defense had sought to have him treated for PTSD before the trial began. Padilla has been held in isolation for three and a half years, during which time he was subjected to varying kinds of interrogation and, very likely, torture.
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Despite spending billions of dollars, the United States is woefully unprepared for an attack involving either chemical or biological weapons, according to a report recently declassified by the Government Accountability Office. The strain of the Iraq war has contributed to problems with staffing, equipping and training the military units expected to respond in the event of such a crisis.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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A suicide bomber attacked a U.S. military base in Afghanistan on Tuesday in a failed attempt to blow up Vice President Dick Cheney. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing, which killed between nine and 14 people.
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By Amy Goodman — The senator’s attitude toward critics is reminiscent of Bush’s famous invitation to terrorists, and may prove to be just as big a blunder.
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A federal appeals court has upheld the Military Commissions Act, denying Guantanamo detainees access to the U.S. judicial system. Attorneys for the detainees said they would appeal the 2-1 decision, which fell along party lines, to the Supreme Court.
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A series of explosions around the world has killed more than 120 people. A train bombing in northern India left at least 64 people dead, while three car bombs in Baghdad—the bloodiest violence since a security crackdown began—killed more than 60 and injured at least 131. A bomb also exploded at a McDonald’s in St. Petersburg, Russia, in an act of “hooliganism,” according to police. There was no indication that each nation’s violence was related to the explosions in the other countries.
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spyflight.co.uk
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The European Parliament has condemned 14 member states for either ignoring or assisting the U.S. policy of “extraordinary rendition.” The report, which won approval by a wide margin, says the CIA carried out 1,245 flights of abducted suspects, sometimes to nations where the detainees could expect torture.
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wikipedia.org
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The Navy is hoping to deploy a group of dolphins and sea lions to protect a base on the Puget Sound from the risk of scuba-diving terrorists. Seriously. Not surprisingly, PETA thinks it’s a bad plan.
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usamotalarian.no
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By Chris Hedges — Despite spending an estimated $80 million, the government was unable to prove that Dr. Sami Al-Arian was a terrorist, yet he remains in prison and his sentence will probably be extended. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges warns that the abusive imprisonment of this nonviolent Palestinian dissenter does not bode well for the rest of us.
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The head of the Cartoon Network has stepped down because of the recent terror scare in Boston, which was caused by the city’s overreaction to an advertising ploy—nine other cities managed not to descend into hysterics when the Lite-Brite-like advertisements began appearing. Jim Samples shouldn’t have to lose his job because authorities in Boston mistook a blinking cartoon character for an act of terrorism.
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secureidnews.com
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The Real ID Act of 2005 requires all states to meet a national standard for identification cards and participate in a shared database, but some have objected, citing privacy and budget concerns. Maine has led the charge of about a dozen states that may pass laws objecting to and opting out of the federal mandate.
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The Cartoon Network has apologized for causing the biggest security scare in Boston since 9/11. City police thought several battery-powered advertisements placed on behalf of the cable channel might be bombs, a misunderstanding that crippled Boston’s infrastructure after authorities placed the city on high alert.
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law.fordham.edu
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A judge has ruled that a Florida doctor can be prosecuted under federal law for vowing to treat members of al-Qaida. Dr. Rafiq Abdus Sabir argued unsuccessfully that the Constitution protects a doctor’s right to perform medical services.
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msnbc.com
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A damning report making its way through the European Union Parliament says a number of EU countries knew of CIA abductions and operations in Europe related to the practice of extraordinary rendition, including more than 1,000 covert flights over European airspace. The report also says the UK, Italy and Poland resisted the investigation.
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By Nicholas Schmidle — Pakistan’s “madrassas” have been described as “jihad universities” because of their ties to the Taliban and Islamic extremists, but a small-scale indigenous effort to reform the religious schools could be making more progress than the combined forces of the American, British and Pakistani governments.
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