‘Aiding and Abetting’ Crimes is Unlawful, Sometimes
The International Criminal Court has sentenced Charles G. Taylor, the former president of Liberia "to 50 years in prison over his role in atrocities committed in Sierra Leone during its civil war in the 1990s," reports the New York Times. As is common for heads of...
There’s No Such Thing as Civilians in the Drone War
Via Glenn Greenwald, this New York Times report on the Obama administration's drone wars: Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants,...
The BBC’s Photo Fib of a Syrian Massacre
A few days have passed since the BBC irresponsibly passed off this 2003 picture of dead Iraqis as depicting dead Syrians in last week's Houla massacre. The original photographer, who works for Getty Images, said “Someone is using someone else's picture for propaganda...
A Decade of War ‘Not Worth the Effort’
As jingoists condemn critiques that the veterans have not been fighting for our freedoms (much the opposite) on this here Memorial Day, consider this passage surprisingly printed on the front page of today's New York Times: Broadly, the question is what the United...
Questioning State Doctrine on Memorial Day
Apparently yesterday's MSNBC show Up with Chris Hayes is getting a lot of attention. And by attention I mean vitriol. His crime? questioning the martial civic religion and the morality of mindless soldier worship on Memorial Day. I can't decide whether or not I'm...
US Iran Policy Intended to Leave Open ‘Avenues for Regime Change’
Joshua Landis, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies and Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma, posted on his blog last week a letter from a friend who witnessed an encounter between an Iranian opposition activist and U.S. State Department...
Mexican Troops Commit Crimes with US Support. The DEA Hears No Evil.
The State Department report on human rights says that U.S.-trained security forces in Mexico have "engaged in unlawful killings, forced disappearances, and instances of physical abuse and torture" in the U.S.-led war on drugs. Mike Riggs at Reason contacted the DEA...
The Surveillance State: Trust Us, It’s Legal
Julian Sanchez at the Cato Institute on the renewal of the FISA Amendment Act and the lawless surveillance state: It’s been almost four years since the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 put President Bush’s warrantless wiretap program on legal footing by authorizing broad,...
Western Schizophrenia and the P5+1 Iran Talks
The long-awaited P5+1 talks with Iran took place today in Baghdad, with disappointing results. While the U.S. and its allies called for Iran to stop enriching uranium at 20 percent levels in exchange for delivery of the medical isotopes Iran is creating with the 20...
