Congress: Stop Funding Torture
In an open letter to Senator Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, lawyers, clergy and human rights activists voice alarm at mounting evidence of torture and human rights violations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Where Is the Outrage Over Torture?
Robert Scheer : Guantanamo Bay
The muted response to revelations of torture raises the question of whether Americans are truly savages or simply tone-deaf on matters of morality.
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The Torture Memo
Stephen Gillers : Attorney General
How could two really smart government lawyers authorize torture in arguments that have no foundation in law?
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Reviving Vietnam War Tactics
Tom Hayden : Vietnam War
One of Gen. Petraeus's top advisors advocates a return to the global Phoenix program used during the Vietnam War.
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The Torture Veto
David Cole : George W. Bush
Bush has made history by being the first American President to use his veto power to preserve torture.
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The CIA's Jose: Case Study in Cynicism
Ted Gup : Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Long before a top bureaucrat was exposed for destroying secret interrogation tapes, the CIA shrouded his identity, making the press corps complicit in practices that would offend the nation's conscience.
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The Bush Legacy: Journey to the Dark Side
Tom Engelhardt : Civil Rights & Liberties
We have not come to grips with how centrally the Bush Administration has planted torture, abuse, kidnapping, and illegal imprisonment at the heart of governmental practice, the news, and everyday life.
2007
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Congress to CIA Torturers: 'If Only You'd Told Us'
Alexander Cockburn : Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
The agency's secret destruction of tapes is a parable of the futility of oversight.
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Crime and Cover-Up
: Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
The CIA tapes' destruction and violation of anti-torture statutes they recorded require a special prosecutor.
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Waterboarding Democracy
Robert Scheer : Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Why did four key members of Congress failed to inform the public and the 9/11 Commission about the use of torture on terror suspects?
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Torture Tapes: Failure at All Levels
Aziz Huq : Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
CIA, Department of Justice, White House--and members of Congress--ran through every legal and procedural red light designed to prevent criminal conduct and its cover-up.
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Voting for Torture
By approving Michael Mukasey's nomination for Attorney General despite his evasions on waterboarding, the Senate has led us all across a dangerous line.
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The Secret State of Torture
After professing to abhor torture, the Bush Justice Department secretly authorized it. And the consequences for us all are grave.
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The Real Lesson of the Padilla Conviction
David Cole : US Intelligence/Covert Ops
If it had followed the rule of law from the outset, the Bush Administration could have brought many terrorists to justice by now.
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When Did Bush Know About Abu Ghraib?
A close reading of L. Paul Bremer's memoir shows the President knew details about torture far earlier than he has acknowledged.
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US Justice, Euro Prisons
The Council of Europe and courts at home are calling the Bush Administration to account for secret torture outposts in Poland and Romania.
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Leave Your Morals at the Border
A Supreme Court ruling turns a blind eye to torture and human rights violations, as long as they're done offshore.
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The CIA's Italian Job
The story of Hassan Nasr, a victim of "extraordinary rendition" who was interrogated and tortured in Egypt for four years, is finally being told.
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A Trial for Thousands Denied Trial
Naomi Klein : War on Terrorism
As Jose Padilla's trial unfolds in Miami, the cruel methods of US interrogators are finally being put on trial.
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Tracking the Ghost Pilots
Court challenges gain steam as news organizations identify pilots of planes transporting terror suspects to secret prisons.
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Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
Rory Kennedy's new documentary examines the plight of torture victims in Iraq and stirs political passions at home.
2006
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Jose Padilla's Ordeal
Robert Scheer : War on Terrorism
The systematic abuse of an American citizen charged with vague crimes related to terror has destroyed his sanity and made us into what we despise.
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No Blank Checks on Torture
Jonathan Hafetz : Supreme Court
As the fight against the Administration's policies on torture and the terror detainees shifts to the Supreme Court, there is reason to be confident that the Justices will again rein in Bush's power grab.
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Sanctioning Lawlessness
David Cole : Constitutional Questions
What's more important to Congress: America's standing in the world and the rule of law, or partisan advantage in the midterm elections?
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Accessories to Torture
The only thing compromised in the Senate's catastrophic "compromise" of the enemy combatants bill is the rule of law and our democracy's basic principles.
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Torture is a Moral Issue
Will we be a nation that abides by our own Constitution and upholds international law? Or will we become a nation that punishes those who follow the orders while exonerating those who give them?
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Senate Vote Advances President's Effort to Kill War Crimes Act
Jeremy Brecher & Brendan Smith : US Military
The 109th Congress, led by Republican Senators McCain, Warner, and Graham and with the acquiescence of many Democrats, is poised to legalize torture, trials with secret evidence, and annulment of the right of habeas corpus
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Lawless 'Compromises'
Prime midyear election issues: Torture and eavesdropping are illegal. We are a nation founded on the rule of law.
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Confronting the Truth about Torture
Despite mounting evidence, Americans remain willfully blind to the government's barbaric treatment of terror suspects. Now, human rights groups and religious organizations are using testimonies from victims to awaken moral revulsion at what is being done in our name.
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Where Are the Good Americans?
Jeremy Brecher & Brendan Smith : Dissent After 9/11
When the day comes for America to be judged for its war on terror and the human rights crimes that have been done in the name of its citizens, who can say they stood up and said no?
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Tortured Exceptionalism
Despite a recent federal district court ruling, the prohibition on torture knows no geographical boundaries and applies to all, no matter what passport they hold--even Americans.
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George W. Bush Explains the 'Signing Statement' Issued When He Signed John McCain's Anti-Torture Amendment Into Law
Using special "signing" language, the torturer-in-chief shows the world who's boss.
2005
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Fixing the Torture Fix
Jeremy Brecher & Brendan Smith : Congress
Congress has passed legislation allowing evidence obtained through torture to be used against terror suspects in court. But human rights groups and some Congressional leaders will fight back in 2006, with court challenges, hearings and tough questions on executive privilege for Samuel Alito and other Bush nominees.
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Human Rights, Rendered Meaningless
Robert Scheer : Geneva Convention
The outsourcing of torture to other countries is a devilishly clever legalistic fiction that allows the Bush Administration to systematically violate basic human rights of terror suspects while claiming it does not condone or practice torture.
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Pilgrimage to Guantánamo
Twenty-five members of the Catholic Worker movement are walking across Cuba to the US Naval prison at Guantánamo Bay in hopes of meeting with more than 500 detainees, the first time peace activists have brought their protests to the tropical gulag. If they are turned away, the pilgrims plan on conducting a vigil outside.
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Wrongly Held, Never Tried, Fighting Back
Sarah Goldstein : Donald Rumsfeld
The Tipton Three embody a nightmare scenario of the "war on terror": Young British men visiting Pakistan for a wedding wound up accused of terrorism in Afghanistan, imprisoned and tortured at Guantánamo Bay, then released with no charges. Now they're telling their story in the docu-drama, The Road to Guantánamo.
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Torture Tree
The new torture complex cannot be attributed to just a few rotten apples. Rooted in the White House and Pentagon, its branches extend to the Justice Department, political leaders, academics, medical professionals, media and ordinary soldiers.
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'Never Before!' Our Amnesiac Torture Debate
Naomi Klein : Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Does it lessen the horror to admit that this is not the first time the US government has used torture to wipe out political opponents? The exclusion of the impact of the School of the Americas on war crimes in El Salvador, Argentina and Panama from our current debate on torture is evidence of our collective amnesia.
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Conspiracy to Torture
No nation is immune from the insidious downward spiral signified by torture. In this special issue, The Nation confronts the sweeping moral seriousness what the torture conspiracy will do to America and its democratic institutions. The facts are known: Now it's time to hold the conspirators accountable.
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An Army of Lawyers
Human rights organizations have coordinated an investigation into torture and an extensive defense of detainees, organizing lawyers who represent clients from nonprofits to oil and gas companies. But the issue of torture needs to transcend the legal world.
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Secrets and Lies
Karen J. Greenberg : George W. Bush Administration
By the time the first prisoners were taken in Iraq, a green light to abuse had been issued in writing. Now torture is cloaked in a veil of secrecy, with obscured statistics, dismissal of human rights reports and outright denial. Torture has proved to be a window into the Bush Administration's pursuit of the war on terror.
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Pop Torture
Pop culture does more than validate the claim that torture could help foil bombs seconds before detonation. In shows like 24, where scenes of sensory deprivation are mixed with family melodrama, torture is so routine that it seems one more plot device to create intimacy in characters. The reality is that torture isolates its victims from any sense of intimacy.
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Rogue Scholars
Defenders of torture dwell not only in the White House and Pentagon, but in the halls of academia. When prominent law professors and academics cite the fantastic "ticking-bomb theory," they not only spread misinformation and foster a perpetual state of fear, but they use their credentials to legitimize a culture of torture.
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Disco Inferno
Military detainees have been subjected to starvation, sleep deprivation and now Metallica and Britney Spears. Blasted at high volume, torture music has become a weapon of war, used to destroy the minds of Muslim detainees. It's time for musicians to speak up.
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The Silence of the Doctors
Jonathan H. Marks : US Military
The overlooked players in the torture scandal are the medical personnel who supervise--and often participate in--acts of torture. Military medical professionals have reportedly tailored torture sessions to the personalities of detainees, at a time when their professional conscience should have told them to take an ethical stand. Though they're not the usual suspects, they should be investigated as well.
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Seeds of Abu Ghraib
Sasha Abramsky : Jails & Prisons
Americans wondered how Army Specialist Charles Graner could torture detainees in the gruesome Abu Ghraib scandal. In war, people do things that would otherwise be unthinkable. But this former corrections officer with a record of spousal abuse has always been at war.
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Brass Tacks
"Do what has to be done" is the motto of the investigative arm of the US military. But when the understaffed institution regularly loses evidence and delays autopsies, it does too little. When it attempts to protect evidence by detaining witnesses, it does too much. A look at the inherently flawed investigations of detainees.
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The Torture Administration
Despite what we know of history, it comes as a shock to discover that American leaders would open the way for torture of prisoners, that the President would fight legislation prohibiting inhumane treatment, and that Congress would barely react. A moment of historical reckoning has come: It is time to establish an independent commission with a special prosecutor and bring executors of abuse to justice.
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Ban Torture or Protect Torturers?
Jeremy Brecher & Brendan Smith : Jails & Prisons
A showdown looms in Congress this week over two competing measures involving bedrock human and legal rights: John McCain's legislation to ban all forms of torture and Lindsey Graham's proposal to strip federal courts of the power to hear habeas corpus appeals by terror suspects.
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SOA Protests to Focus on Torture
Patrick Mulvaney : US Military
As demonstrators gather at Fort Benning, Georgia, this weekend for an annual protest against the School of the Americas, the spotlight will be on increasing dismay in Congress and among the American public over the Bush Administration's policies on torture.
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Right to Trial Imperiled by Senate Vote
Jeremy Brecher & Brendan Smith : Senate
The Senate last week approved a measure that would allow government officials to essentially bypass the courts and lock up people suspected of terrorism without trial. Will cooler heads prevail?
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Intolerable Cruelty
If the US is to prevail in the war on terror, we must do it by distinguishing ourselves from the enemy. Torture and degrading treatment are as morally evil as terrorism, because they brutally disregard the value of human life.
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Torture on the Hill
: Senate
War crimes are the darkest expression of the moral degradation that permeates the White House. Bush's threat to veto the Senate's anti-torture measure frames a crisis of law and legitimacy.
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From Lynndie England to Shaquille O'Neal
Alexander Cockburn : Democratic Party
Americans are becoming more hostile by the day to the war in Iraq, the nation is demoralized over official abandonment of the victims of the Gulf Coast storm, but the Democratic Party is missing in action.
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Torture and Accountability
Elizabeth Holtzman : US Military
Senior government officials can be held responsible for the horrors at Abu Ghraib.
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MIA: News of Prison Toll
The media has ignored prisoner deaths suffered at American hands.
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In Re Newsweek: Which Side Are You On?
Eric Alterman : Media Analysis
In its campaign against Newsweek, the Bush Administration seeks to undermine already faltering public confidence.
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Torture's Dirty Secret: It Works
When it comes to social control, nothing works quite like torture.
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Backing Gonzales Is Backing Torture
Robert Scheer : Attorney General
Is there bipartisan Congressional support for torture?
2004
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Show & Tell in Abu Ghraib
The fact is, whatever the reason or excuse, the United States has just lost its last remaining rationale for the misbegotten invasion of Iraq.
2003
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In Torture We Trust?
Eyal Press : US Intelligence/Covert Ops
In these jittery times, many Americans see torture as justified.
This Week: Katrina vanden Heuvel on the meaning of patriotism this July 4th. Plus, some of our most compelling interviews from the first half of 2008: Victor Navasky on the experts getting it wrong about Iraq; Stuart Klawans on Romanian film; and Arthur Danto on the state of contemporary art. (13mb mp3)
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