http://www.inthesetimes.com/archives/tags/war+on+terror/ In These Times features award-winning investigative reporting about corporate malfeasance and government wrongdoing, insightful analysis of national and international affairs, and sharp cultural criticism about events and ideas that matter. en-us Expression Engine jessica@inthesetimes.com seamus@inthesetimes.com Thu, 08 Jun 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2681/iran_powerless_president/ On May 31, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said negotiations with Iran could take place if Iran suspends its atomic research activities; direct negotiations between the two countries haven't occurred in 27 years. The relationship between the two countries has been particularly tense since the 2002 State of the Union address, when President Bush named Iran part of an “axis of evil,” and asserted that “Iran aggressively pursues these weapons [of mass destruction] and exports terror.” Relations between the United States and Iran deteriorated further when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran in June of 2005. Seen as an extremist, in part because of his anti-Semitic statements, Ahmadinejad has continued a policy of advancing Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, which… middle east war on terror politics international affairs Kari Lydersen Tue, 27 Jun 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2706/the_senselessness_of_guantamo/ Chicago Lawyer Joseph Marguiles' Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power (Simon & Schuster) is about as convincing an indictment of Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, and at least a few dozen civilian and military advisors as can be imagined in an atmosphere of government secrecy. Margulies, who represents some of the men incarcerated within the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, uses his position as an advocate to, well, advocate. But despite any bias he might harbor as a defense lawyer, Margulies has used his unusual access to top-secret operations to write a book that ought to persuade anybody--regardless of political ideology--that Bush has allowed immoral and probably illegal treatment of fellow human beings. Margulies… Guantanamo Civil Liberties Books War on Terror Kari Lydersen Wed, 05 Jul 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2690/europe_turns_a_blind_eye_to_the_cia/ Thirteen members of an E.U. Parliament probe arrived in Washington on May 10, seeking answers to allegations of CIA-operated secret flights and prisons in Europe. A reported 1,000 CIA flights have secretly crisscrossed Europe since 9/11, often transporting "terror suspects" to be interrogated in other countries, such as Egypt, where prisoners are routinely tortured. But when the Europeans came calling at the nation's capital, only low-level administration officials and four members of Congress (all Democrats) met with them face-to-face. Stonewalling from the Bush administration should be no surprise, but European government officials haven't been any more forthcoming. Javier Solana, the E.U.'s foreign policy chief, told the E.U. Parliament, "I have no information whatsoever that tells me with certainty that any… International Affairs War on Terror Europe Government Agencies Kari Lydersen Thu, 13 Jul 2006 05:00:01 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2728/the_persecution_of_the_american_taliban/ Remember John Walker Lindh, the 20-year-old so-called "American Taliban," who was captured in Afghanistan during the initial phases of the U.S. invasion of that nation? I've often wondered what has happened to that intriguing white American derided as a handmaiden of the radical Islamic sect that ran Afghanistan and gave haven to al-Qaeda. Lindh was on a religious quest that had taken him to Yemen and Pakistan before he entered Afghanistan. His faith-based journey echoed themes found in many stories of Westerners seeking enlightenment in exotic lands. But Lindh's spiritual quest received little sympathy. Instead, administration officials disparaged him as an al-Qaeda sympathizer; right-wing commentators portrayed him as a product of his parents' liberal permissiveness. He was demonized in much… Religion and Spirituality Civil Liberties Race War on Terror Kari Lydersen Tue, 19 Sep 2006 12:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2824/9_11_refracted/ Katie Couric, her eyes thickly lined with black kohl, seemed to have one intention on the fifth anniversary of 9/11: to make us cry. She and CBS were instantly criticized, after her debut, for turning their nightly news broadcast into a news magazine stocked with feel good, soft news features, and 9/11 was no different. After a story about how much progress there has been in Afghanistan (which directly contradicted a piece that had aired on Couric's first night about the dangerous re-arming of the Taliban), Couric turned to a tear-jerking story (repurposed from the previous night's "60 Minutes") about a boy who had lost his father on 9/11 but had found a new father figure through a program called… iraq war media movies war on terror Kari Lydersen Thu, 21 Sep 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2827/the_neocons_lexicon/ The Republicans' deployment of the term "Islamofascism" to define the enemy in the Bush administration's war on terror is clearly an attempt to improve their prospects in the midterm elections. By conflating contemporary terrorist threats with fearsome historical enemies, the GOP seeks to divert attention from the increasingly unpopular occupation of Iraq. But the adoption of this term also reveals the Bush administration's ideological disarray and the Republicans' political desperation. Many pundits trace the neologism to historian Malise Ruthven, who used it in a September 1990 article in the London Independent. But Ruthven used it to describe authoritarian Muslim states like Morocco, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Stephen Schwartz, the neocon author of Two Faces of Islam, insists that he is… war on terror politics iraq war religion and spirituality Kari Lydersen Wed, 27 Sep 2006 00:01:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2835/tracking_the_cia_torture_flights/ On September 6, President George W. Bush admitted that the United States detains suspected terrorists in secret CIA-run prisons in foreign countries. He announced that 14 individuals previously held in these secret jails had been transferred to the "detention facility" on Guantánamo Bay Naval Base. The president claimed that no other individuals were currently being held at these CIA "black sites," but refused to disclose the location of said jails. "Doing so would provide our enemies with information they could use to take retribution against our allies and harm our country." In their new book Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights, A.C. Thompson and Trevor Paglen detail how the CIA transports these "detainees" around the globe.… guantanamo criminal justice books war on terror Kari Lydersen Thu, 28 Sep 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2843/route_stepping_our_way_to_wwiii/ "Route-step, march" is a permissive military command that directs a marching formation to continue without a set cadence. So, "route-step" also is a common term of disparagement for sloppiness and indiscipline--an apt characterization, as it happens, for America's current response to world affairs. We little people, absent more vigilance and skepticism, are in danger of being route-stepped into World War III by our rulers and their ideological acolytes. If "World War III" sounds hyperbolic and alarmist, that's because it is. Precisely for that reason, it is the prevailing lingua franca of the Bush administration and those on the right who seek to solidify their hold on power by cowing the public. President Bush himself, who has unwaveringly stuck to calling… politics war and peace iraq war war on terror bush Kari Lydersen Thu, 11 Jan 2007 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2965/i_hate_to_say_e_told_you_so_but/ Now that the Bush administration has sustained massive, serial repudiations of its tragic folly in Iraq--from the Iraq Study Group, from the electorate and from the daily disasters in Iraq itself--we should note one institution that has not been given its due about being right all along: the independent press, including progressive Web sites and blogs. From the moment Bush's chief of staff Andrew Card announced in September 2002 the roll-out of their "new product"--the plan to invade Iraq--the independent press relentlessly and continuously exposed the ridiculous rationales and outright lies proffered by the administration. Remember, we were "crazy leftists" who were accused of being "with the terrorists." Turns out we also were with "reality." Let's review a tiny sample… iraq war war on terror Kari Lydersen Mon, 22 Jan 2007 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2980/love_the_warrior_hate_the_war/ When Army Col. Ike Wilson returned home in March 2004 from a 12 month deployment in Iraq, one thought remained with him: "Why such a deliberate plan to fight the war, but none to win the peace to follow?"  Wilson, a West Point professor with years of military planning experience, knew that placing this question at the the center of national security policy discussions was the only way to truly learn from Iraq and Afghanistan. He soon founded the Beyond War Project as a hub to educate both the military and the public about a new vision for war, peace and America's role in the world. Thus far, he's signed up participants ranging from Cornell University's Peace Studies Program to… military war on terror Kari Lydersen Tue, 13 Mar 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3064/for_israel_sake/ The more we examine the disaster that is the Bush administration's Middle East policy, the more apparent becomes the corrosive influence of Israel, or more accurately, of those U.S. officials acting on what they construe as Israel's best interests. Yet Congress is oddly unwilling to bring any investigative focus on the role of Israel's fervent supporters in instigating this deepening debacle. What makes this issue especially crucial is the well-established link between the Bush administration's neoconservative brain trust and Israel's right-wing government. Two members of Bush's neocon corps are now in the news for their attempts to warp intelligence to justify a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq. In the past, both men (like many neocons) publicly advanced attacking Iraq to benefit… middle east weapons war on terror Kari Lydersen Thu, 29 Mar 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3083/reading_harry_potter_in_guantamo/ The prisoners at Guantánamo Bay--or Azkaban, as one of my clients, a Harry Potter fan, calls it--have had no access to a hearing in a court of law. Instead, Guantánamo's inmates are subjected to two kangaroo procedures: Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) and Administrative Review Boards (ARBs). The CSRTs are the tribunals that determine whether an individual is an "enemy combatant." Needless to say, the cards are stacked against the prisoner from the get-go. The tribunals are allowed to rely on hearsay evidence and information acquired though coercion. Any evidence deemed "secret" is withheld from the prisoner. Can you imagine trying to defend yourself against evidence kept secret from you? Amazingly, my client Abdul Al-Ghizzawi (a Libyan national who ran… guantanamo war on terror Kari Lydersen Tue, 01 May 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3128/the_guantnamo_hunger_strike/ Guantánamo is in the grips of a hunger strike--an age-old form of protest that marked such world events as the fight for women's suffrage and Indian and Irish independence. The U.S. military's response to the hunger strike is not surprising: punitive force-feeding, a dangerous and painful approach. In March I was treated to a grisly demonstration of this procedure at a conference of Guantánamo attorneys in London and Oxford. We also met with members of the British Parliament and ambassadors from our clients' countries of origin (as well as ambassadors of countries that might be willing to offer asylum to former prisoners). But one of the main topics of the discussion was the current hunger strike, which is only now… guantanamo prison war on terror Kari Lydersen Wed, 22 Aug 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3315/perverse_justice/ Many pundits hailed the August 16 conviction of Jose Padilla on conspiracy charges as a victory for civil liberties and the rule of law. The trial, according to them, proved that a suspected terrorist could be successfully prosecuted in the civilian legal system--something the government had initially insisted was impossible. However, Padilla's case raises troubling questions about whether there can be fair trials for detainees who have been held in military prisons for extended periods of time and subjected to coercive techniques designed to destroy their sense of agency and instill dependence and trust in their interrogators. Padilla's lawyers argued that their client was not fit to stand trial because he was too impaired to assist in his own defense.… criminal justice war on terror Kari Lydersen Thu, 01 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3388/examining_the_homegrown_terrorism_prevention_act/ The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act passed the House of Representatives on Oct. 23 by a vote of 404-6. The wide margin is indicative of a growing concern among U.S. authorities about the potential for so-called "homegrown terrorism" in the United States. "The impetus is that homegrown terror is something that we now see in Western Europe. It's by far the number one threat to security in Britain," Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who introduced the bill, told In These Times. Some of the most infamous terrorist attacks in U.S. history have been carried out by citizens, including the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. Harman doesn't believe homegrown terrorism is a… civil liberties war on terror Kari Lydersen Fri, 16 Nov 2007 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3420/wingnut_awareness_week/ You know that feeling people get when they drive past a car accident? It's clear that the wreckage is terrifying, but they can't bring themselves to look away. That's how I felt wandering into DePaul University's Cortelyou Commons on a rainy Chicago night in mid-October to attend "War With Iran?" Organized by the DePaul Conservative Alliance (DCA), this panel presentation kicked off the university's opening contribution to Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week (IFAW), a nationwide campaign sponsored by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. For some masochistic reason, I had to see this wingnut carnival for myself. To describe the evening's panelists as wacky would be an understatement. Amir Abbas Fakhravar is a self-proclaimed "Iranian student dissident leader," who has been embraced by… education war on terror Kari Lydersen Fri, 30 Nov 2007 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3433/anthropologists_on_the_front_lines/ A pilot program to embed anthropologists on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan has sparked major controversy in the anthropological community. The program, known as the Human Terrain System (HTS) project, reflects a much larger trend in the national security establishment, with the military increasingly hungry for cultural expertise to fight counterinsurgencies and sustain long, low-intensity conflicts. Anthropologists are struggling to come to grips with the ethics of research on the front lines. The Human Terrain System project is a joint undertaking by the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) and U.S. Army Training and Doctrine command (TRADOC) in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Headed by Col. Steve Fondacaro, HTS assigns five-person teams of social scientists and intelligence specialists to forward-deployed combat… military war on terror Kari Lydersen Thu, 13 Dec 2007 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3465/kiriakou_and_the_kite_runner/ John Kiriakou, the CIA agent who led the team that waterboarded a high-ranking member of Al Qaeda in 2002, served as the security consultant for Paramount's soon-to-be released film, The Kite Runner. Lobbyists for Viacom arranged for Kiriakou to serve as a security consultant after concerns arose about the safety of the movie's child stars, Zekeria Ebrahimi, Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada and Ali Danish Bakhty Ari. Based in Pakistan from 1998 to 2004, Kiriakou led the team that captured Abu Zubaydah, the first high-ranking member of Al Qaeda to be captured after 9/11. On Monday, Kiriakou, now retired from the CIA, became the first person to admit publicly his involvement with the agency's coercive interrogation program for suspected terrorists. He told… asia movies torture war on terror Kari Lydersen Thu, 17 Jan 2008 04:59:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3484/musharrafs_false_dichotomy/ Pakistan's autocratic president, Pervez Musharraf, has been in power for the past eight years. In November 2007, he gave himself another five-year term as president and stepped down as the army chief, six years past his retirement date. When the country's Supreme Court objected, he removed the Chief Justice and several other judges, declared a state of emergency on Nov. 3 and suspended the constitution. Police arrested thousands of protesters, including a quarter of the nation's lawyers. The reason Musharraf stays in power after violating every norm of political decency is that he has convinced Washington that if he goes, the nuclear-armed nation of 165 million will be run over by religious fanatics. This message has resonated well with the… asia war on terror Kari Lydersen