Author: mara.ahmed

RETHINK AFGHANISTAN: Exclusive footage from the recent US airstrikes in Afghanistan provides a sobering look at the dire situation on the ground. The footage will be incorporated in part four of Brave New Foundation’s documentary, “Rethink Afghanistan.”

every american should watch this interview: the attack on dissent (animal rights activism, environmentalism, just being a muslim) under the guise of fighting terrorism. scary.

In a Democracy Now! exclusive interview, we speak with Andrew Stepanian, an animal rights activist who was jailed at a secretive prison known as a Communication Management Unit, or CMU. Stepanian is believed to be the first prisoner released from a CMU and will talk about his experience there for the first time. He was sentenced to three years along with six other activists for violating a controversial law known as the Animal Enterprise Protection Act. The ACLU has filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of CMUs. We also speak with Stepanian’s lawyer and a reporter covering the story. Watch the interview on Democracy Now!

Some of the banks should be allowed to die because they are so insolvent and holding so much in toxic assets that they will forever need to be on taxpayer-funded life support. The problem is, this life support is sucking the life out of the taxpayer in the process, as it weighs them down with ever-increasing debt. On top of that, the money could be used to restructure the economy in a way that is less reliant on the financial sector. Full article.

ISLAMABAD, June 22 (Reuters) – About 40,000 Pakistanis are on the move even before a military offensive begins in the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan, U.N. officials said on Monday, and are headed for communities already stretched to the limit.

Nearly 2 million people have fled fighting in northwest Pakistan, most since early May when the military began an offensive against Taliban insurgents, prompting the United Nations to launch an appeal for $543 million in aid to avert a long-term humanitarian crisis. Full article.

Obama Administration Seeks To Keep Torture Victims From Having Day In Court (6/12/2009)

Justice Department Asks Court For Rehearing In Extraordinary Rendition Lawsuit Against Boeing Subsidiary

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

NEW YORK – The Justice Department today argued that the victims of the “extraordinary rendition” program should not have their day in court, asking a federal appeals court to block a landmark case the court had earlier ruled could go forward. In April, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen DataPlan Inc., for its role in the Bush administration’s unlawful “extraordinary rendition” program could proceed, but today the government asked the appeals court’s full panel of judges to rehear that decision.

“The Obama administration has now fully embraced the Bush administration’s shameful effort to immunize torturers and their enablers from any legal consequences for their actions,” said Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, who argued the case for the plaintiffs. “The CIA’s rendition and torture program is not a ‘state secret;’ it’s an international scandal. If the Obama administration has its way, no torture victim will ever have his day in court, and future administrations will be free to pursue torture policies without any fear of liability.”

In April, the appeals court reversed a lower court dismissal of the lawsuit, brought on behalf of five men who were kidnapped, forcibly disappeared and secretly transferred to U.S.-run prisons or foreign intelligence agencies overseas where they were interrogated under torture. The Bush administration had intervened, improperly asserting the “state secrets” privilege to have the case thrown out. The appeals court ruled, as the ACLU has argued, that the government must invoke the “state secrets” privilege with respect to specific evidence, not to dismiss the entire suit.

“The extraordinary rendition program is well known throughout the world. The only place it hasn’t been discussed is where it most cries out for examination – in a U.S. court of law,” said Steven Watt, a staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program. “Attempts to keep this case from moving forward fly in the face of Obama’s promise to reaffirm our commitment to domestic and international human rights law and restore an America we can be proud of. Victims of extraordinary rendition deserve their day in court.”

In recent years, the government has asserted the “state secrets” claim with increasing regularity in an attempt to throw out lawsuits and justify withholding information from the public not only about the rendition program, but also about illegal wiretapping, torture and other breaches of U.S. and international law.

Mohamed et al. v. Jeppesen was brought on behalf of Al-Rawi, Binyam Mohamed, Abou Elkassim Britel, Ahmed Agiza and Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah.

In addition to Wizner and Watt, attorneys in the lawsuit are Steven R. Shapiro and Jameel Jaffer of the national ACLU, Ann Brick of the ACLU of Northern California, Paul Hoffman of the law firm Schonbrun DeSimone Seplow Harris & Hoffman LLP and Hope Metcalf of the Yale Law School Lowenstein Clinic. In addition, Margaret L. Satterthwaite and Amna Akbar of the International Human Rights Clinic of New York University School of Law and Clive Stafford-Smith and Zachary Katznelson represent plaintiffs in this case.

More information about the case is available online at: www.aclu.org/jeppesen

torture was never just confined to abu ghraib or guantanamo. there has to be some accounting before we can move on.

KABUL (AFP) – Former detainees of the Bagram air base in Afghanistan have alleged a catalogue of abuse at the US military facility, the BBC reported Wednesday, after a two-month investigation.

Human Rights Watch meanwhile called on the United States to investigate the death, apparently at a US air base, and alleged torture of a member of an Afghan armed faction last year. Full article.

imran khan on pakistan: when u’re in a hole, stop digging.

President Obama asked something like three-quarters of a billion dollars, $736 million, to build a new US embassy, as well as permanent housing for US officials in Islamabad. What is the effect of this? Watch entire interview.

the taliban chief we were trying to kill “dodged” us. 80 mourners at a funeral, however, got blown to pieces.

The head of Pakistan’s Taliban had joined a funeral procession targeted in a suspected U.S. missile strike, but left before the attack that killed 80 people mourning an earlier barrage on a militant training camp, intelligence officials said Wednesday. Full article.

A US drone aircraft killed at least 45 Pakistani Taliban militants in south Waziristan yesterday when it fired missiles at the funeral of an insurgent commander killed earlier in the day, Pakistani intelligence officials said. Full article.

as obama talks about daal and keema and the pleasures of urdu poetry, the murder of pakistani civilians continues.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) — US missile strikes killed dozens of people in a Pakistani tribal area controlled by Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, where the army is preparing an assault, officials said Wednesday. Full article.

excellent analysis by tariq ali (as usual). he explains how dangerous present american foreign policy is in that part of the world. a coup within the pakistan army – that seems to be what we’re asking for.