Tag Archives: George W. Bush

Tortured Guantánamo Prisoner Ramzi bin al-Shibh Unfit for 9/11 Trial, Says Military Judge

“This decision by the military judge today does mark the first time that the United States has formally acknowledged the CIA torture program produced profound and prolonged psychological harm,” said al-Shibh’s lawyer.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 9-22-2023 by Common Dreams

Ramzi bin al-Shibh holds a document while posing for this 2010 photo.
(Photo: International Committee of the Red Cross)

A U.S. military judge on Thursday found Guantánamo Bay prisoner Ramzi bin al-Shibh—who stands accused of being a key 9/11 organizer—unfit to stand trial because he suffers from mental illness his attorney says was caused by CIA torture years ago.

Air Force Col. Matthew McCall severed al-Shibh, a 51-year-old Yemeni, from the conspiracy case involving four other defendants who allegedly organized the cell of militants in Hamburg, Germany who hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 and flew it into the north tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan on September 11, 2001. Al-Shibh had been charged as an accomplice in the case.

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‘Scathing’ Report From UN Expert’s Historic Visit Revives Calls to Close Guantánamo

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“It is well past time to demand the closure of the prison, accountability from U.S. officials, and reparations for the torture and other ill-treatment that the detainees have suffered at the hands of the U.S. government,” said one campaigner.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 6-26-2023 by Common Dreams

A couple hundred activists and supporters converged in front of the White House Sunday, January 11, 2015, the 13th anniversary of the opening of the prison camp at Guantanamo. Photo: Debra Sweet/flickr/CC

Human rights advocates on Monday renewed their calls for the swift closure of the U.S. prison at Naval Station Guantánamo Bay in Cuba after a United Nations expert released the findings from her historic trip to the infamous facility.

The prison was established in 2002, after then-President George W. Bush launched the War on Terror in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. On the campaign trail and since taking office, President Joe Biden—who is seeking reelection next year—has indicated he wants to close the facility. His administration was the first to allow a visit by a U.N. expert earlier this year.

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Could Putin’s war crimes charges give ICC more authority over Western leaders?

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Comparisons between destruction in Iraq and Ukraine could boost the International Criminal Court’s authority in the West

By Paul Rogers Published 3-25-2023 by openDemocracy

Vladimir_Putin. Photo: Kremlin/CC

In the space of a week, three very different events have occurred that have done much to shape the future of the war in Ukraine. One is the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to bring war crimes charges against Vladimir Putin; the second is the three-day visit of China’s president Xi Jingping to Moscow; and the third is the 20th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War and the end of the Saddam Hussein regime. All three are set against a background of a bitter and devastating war in Ukraine that could well continue for many months or even years.

As to the war itself, Western states – and especially the United States – continue to provide a wide range of weapons and materiel, certainly enough to make it difficult to envisage a Russian victory. Yet the degree of Western support isn’t sufficient to allow Ukraine to force the Russian military out of eastern Ukraine, still less Crimea. While Ukrainian military forces are bearing the brunt of the war, they are simply not getting sufficient military supplies to put them in a winning position. The whole pace of the war continues to be dictated by Washington. Continue reading →

20 years on, George W. Bush’s promise of democracy in Iraq and Middle East falls short

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*An Iraqi person walks down a road blocked by burning tires in Basra in August 2002.*
*Hussein Faleh/AFP via Getty Images*

Brian Urlacher, University of North Dakota

President George W. Bush and his administration put forward a variety of reasons to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

In the months before the U.S. invasion, Bush said the looming conflict was about eradicating terrorism and seizing weapons of mass destruction – but also because of a “freedom deficit” in the Middle East, a reference to the perceived lag in participatory government in the region.

Many of these arguments would emerge as poorly grounded, given later events. Continue reading →

Fearing Future Probes of US Atrocities, Pentagon Blocks ICC From Russian War Crimes Evidence

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“The Ukrainian people deserve accountability. By blocking the sharing of evidence with the ICC, the administration, contrary to its stated position, is undermining it,” said one expert.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 3-9-2023 by Common Dreams

Bucha after Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photo: rbc.ua, CC BY 4.0 GFDL, via Wikimedia Commons

The Pentagon is helping to shield Russia from International Criminal Court accountability for its atrocities in Ukraine, fearing such a reckoning could set a precedent allowing the tribunal to prosecute U.S. war crimes, a report published Wednesday revealed.

According to The New York Times, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III and other Pentagon brass are blocking the Biden administration from sharing evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies with the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the objections of officials in those agencies, as well as in the State and Justice departments. Continue reading →

’21 Years Is 21 Too Many’: 150+ Groups Urge Biden to Close Guantánamo

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“We should not be marking another year in the life of this ignominious product of U.S. imperialism and racism as we have every January since the first anniversary of its opening in 2002,” said one of the letter’s signers. “Yet we will succeed in shutting it down.”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 1-11-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: CODEPINK/Twitter

Twenty-one years after the George W. Bush administration opened the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba—and 13 years after then-President Barack Obama signed an executive order for its closure—more than 150 groups on Wednesday implored the Biden administration to “act without delay” to close the notorious lockup.

“Among a broad range of human rights violations perpetrated against predominantly Muslim communities over the last two decades, the Guantánamo detention facility—built on the same military base where the United States unconstitutionally detained Haitian refugees in deplorable conditions in the early 1990s—is the iconic example of the abandonment of the rule of law,” the groups said in a letter to President Joe Biden. “The Guantánamo detention facility was designed specifically to evade legal constraints, and Bush administration officials incubated torture there.” Continue reading →

‘Monstrous’: Federal Judge Rules HIV Drug Coverage Mandate Violates Religious Freedom

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The right-wing judge found that requiring insurers and employers to cover the HIV prevention drug violates the religious liberty of a company whose owner advocated executing LGBTQ+ people.

By Brett Wilkins Published 9-7-2022 by Common Dreams

A person pours two PrEP pills from a bottle. (Photo: NAM aidsmap/cc)

Legal, healthcare, and LGBTQ+ advocates on Wednesday denounced a ruling by a right-wing federal judge in Texas who found that the federal law requiring insurance coverage of an HIV prevention drug violates a Christian-owned company’s religious freedom.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled in Braidwood Management Inc. vs. Xavier Becerra that the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) requirement that insurers and employers cover pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, infringes upon the liberty of a company under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Continue reading →

How the NRA evolved from backing a 1934 ban on machine guns to blocking nearly all firearm restrictions today

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*NRA conventiongoers, like these at the gun group’s 2018 big meeting, browse firearms exhibits.*
*Loren Elliott/AFP via Getty Images*

Robert Spitzer, State University of New York College at Cortland

The mass shootings at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket and an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, just 10 days apart, are stirring the now-familiar national debate over guns seen after the tragic 2012 and 2018 school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, and Parkland, Florida.

Inevitably, if also understandably, many Americans are blaming the National Rifle Association for thwarting stronger gun laws that might have prevented these two recent tragedies and many others. And despite the proximity in time and location to the Texas shooting, the NRA is proceeding with its plans to hold its annual convention in Houston on May 27-29, 2022. The featured speakers include former President Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican. Continue reading →

‘Resounding Victory’: Court Rules Exxon Must Face Trial Over Climate Lies

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“We look forward to proceeding with our case and having our day in court to show how Exxon is breaking the law and to put an end to the deception once and for all,” said Massachusetts AG Maura Healey.

By Kenny Stancil Published 5-25-2022 by Common Dreams

Climate activists protested outside ExxonMobil’s annual shareholder meeting in Irving, Texas on May 29, 2019. (Photo: 350.org/Flickr/cc)

The Massachusetts high court on Tuesday rejected ExxonMobil’s attempt to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the state, meaning the biggest oil giant in the U.S. must stand trial for allegations that it lied to the public about the climate emergency and the fossil fuel industry’s role in driving it.

The lawsuit filed in 2019 by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey accuses Exxon of violating the state’s consumer protection laws through a decadeslong effort to conceal what it knew about the negative environmental impacts of burning fossil fuels. Continue reading →

Declassified Docs Show CIA Used Prisoner as a Torture Training Prop

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“Twenty years later, none of the those responsible for the CIA’s heinous regime of torture were ever prosecuted,” lamented Rep. Ilhan Omar. “Instead they got promotions.”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 3-16-2022 by Common Dreams

Guantánamo prisoner and alleged 9/11 co-plotter Ammar al-Baluchi was used as a torture training prop at a CIA “black site” in Afghanistan, documents declassified in March 2022 affirmed. (Photo: International Committee of the Red Cross)

A prisoner at a Central Intelligence Agency “black site” in Afghanistan was used as a training prop to teach U.S. operatives how to torture other prisoners, leaving him with serious brain damage and other ailments, newly declassified documents published this week affirmed.

Ammar al-Baluchi, a 44-year-old Kuwaiti national, is currently imprisoned at the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where he is one of five men awaiting trial by military commission for alleged involvement in plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. The case, which has been delayed due to disputes over the admissibility of defendant testimony extracted through torture, has been in pre-trial hearings for more than a decade. Continue reading →

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Tag Archives: George W. Bush

20 years on, George W. Bush’s promise of democracy in Iraq and Middle East falls short

‘Monstrous’: Federal Judge Rules HIV Drug Coverage Mandate Violates Religious Freedom

The right-wing judge found that requiring insurers and employers to cover the HIV prevention drug violates the religious liberty of a company whose owner advocated executing LGBTQ+ people.