Human Rights
John Kiriakou led the CIA operation that arrested, or rather, kidnapped without charge, Abu Zubaydah. Joseph Hickman helped imprison Abu Zubaydah as a guard at Guantanamo and was later the lead researcher for Zubaydah’s habeas defense team.
Here are some highlights of a tale of crackpot criminality recounted by Hickman and Kiriakou in their jointly authored new book, The Convenient Terrorist:
Maher Abu Zubayda and Zain Abidin Mohammed Husain aka Abu Zubaydah are two completely different people. They and many other people use the name Abu Zubayda, with various spellings in English transliterations from Arabic. The Zubaydah family was evicted from a Palestinian village during the Nakba. The CIA, employing more torturers than Arab speakers, confused the two Zubaydahs. When the basic facts that the CIA had about the life of the man it imprisoned and tortured turned out to all be wrong, the CIA paid no attention.
The corpses pile up like sandbags along the planet’s geopolitical borders.
“Perhaps his condition deteriorated and the authorities decided it was better to release him in a coma than as a corpse.”
So said an expert on North Korea recently, quoted in the New York Times following the death of 22-year-old Otto Warmbier, six days after he had been released in a comatose state from a North Korean prison. He had been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor a year and a half ago because he had taken a propaganda poster off the wall in his hotel. He had been with a tour group.
The word, inappropriately uttered, has the news value of a bullet fired off at the mall. One word. It’s the ticking time bomb of American history. It pulsates with paradox.
I want to take a moment to honor at least that: the paradox. How come its meaning changes depending on who says it? Some Americans can say that word with a sort of joyous irony, indeed, find a triumphant sense of empowerment in its use, while others can’t say it even in solidarity without risking an avalanche of censure?
ermont, of all places, offers the latest example of how marijuana makes people crazy, the people in this case being the Republican governor and most of the Republican Party. For all the “Reefer Madness” propaganda from governments over the past century, the real madness comes from opponents of marijuana, not its users or proponents.
Vermont governor Phil Scott waited until the last possible moment on May 24 to issue his veto of the 24-page bill (Senate bill S.22) passed by both houses of the legislature (Senate 20-9, House 79-66): An Act Relating to Eliminating Penalties for Possession of Limited Amounts of Marijuana by Adults 21 Years of Age and Older. The bill stops way short of full legalization, treating marijuana like aspirin, but it represents a major shift toward sanity and scientific reality that American populations seem to be slowly insisting that their governments address.
So stop whining about Trump and Russia undermining your democracy—a cynical fabrication of the Deep State and its tentacles in the Democratic party and media. That will not get you single payer healthcare and free college. That money has already been spent on wars. They gave it to the banks, oil companies, privateers and war mongers. It is time to stop eating Cheetos, get up off the couch and hit the streets. Demand an end to wars. Demand social and economic justice. Stand up for economic freedom. Show your dignity. That is the Palestinian war.
ermont, of all places, offers the latest example of how marijuana makes people crazy, the people in this case being the Republican governor and most of the Republican Party. For all the “Reefer Madness” propaganda from governments over the past century, the real madness comes from opponents of marijuana, not its users or proponents.
Making Jeremy Corbyn the Prime Minister of the U.K. would do more for the world and everyone in it than either of the two available outcomes of any recent U.S. election could have done. Here in the U.S. I always protest that I am not against elections, I think we should have one some day. Well, now we have one — only it’s across the pond.
Corbyn’s record is no secret, and you don’t need me to tell you, but I have met him and spoken at events with him, and can assure you he’s legitimate. He’s been a dedicated leader of the peace movement right through his career. He had the decency last week to point out yet again that invading and bombing countries and overthrowing governments produces terrorism; it doesn’t somehow reduce it or eliminate it or “fight” it.
Britain is the key co-conspirator in U.S. wars. One real-life Love Actually refusal to bow before Emperor Donald, and the facade of super-hero law enforcement will begin to crumble, revealing a rogue serial killer standing naked in his golden hotel suite.
One inevitable outcome of the phenomenal violence we all suffer as children is that most of us live in a state of delusion throughout our lives. This makes it extraordinarily difficult for accurate information, including vital information about the endangered state of our world and how to respond appropriately, to penetrate the typical human mind.
'Phenomenal violence?' you might ask. 'All of us?' you wonder. Yes, although, tragically, most of this violence goes unrecognised because it is not usually identified as such. For most people, it is a straightforward task to identify the ‘visible’ violence that they have suffered and, perhaps, still suffer. However, virtually no-one is able to identify the profoundly more damaging impact of the 'invisible' and 'utterly invisible' violence that is inflicted on us mercilessly from the day we are born.
So what is this 'invisible' and 'utterly invisible' violence?
The reviews of Donald Trump’s first 100 days have generally focused on his failures, flip-flops and follies. We’ve heard a lot about what he’s failed to achieve, but far too little about what he is intent on doing.
Trump’s time in office so far has been a systematic and vicious assault on civil rights. The progress that was won with struggle, sacrifice and legislation is being subverted by ink and administrative actions and deregulation. Trump is intent on rolling back the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, and in his first 100 days the damage has already begun.
He appointed Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, a judge with a record of rulings undermining the rights of workers, women, LGBTQ community, and protections of the environment and democracy.