DhafirTrial

The U.S. government is preparing to hike the number of private mercenary forces in Iraq, as part of the expanding war in that country and neighboring Syria, an anonymous senior U.S. official told Reuters. (more…)

The National Security Agency quietly released a heavily redacted report late Wednesday night showing that its mass surveillance program targeting U.S. citizens went on for more than 10 years. (more…)

Five days ago, Moazzam Begg was asked if he was surprised at the revelations in the Senate’s report. “Every torture technique they described, we’ve been talking about till we were blue in the face,” he said of himself and other former prisoners. “The only thing that surprised me was that they released it.” (more…)

Nation

Reframing the CIA’s interrogation techniques as a violation of scientific and medical ethics may be the best way to achieve accountability. (more…)

Truthout

The United States is addicted to torture. Not only does this savage addiction run through its history like an overheated electric current, but it has become intensified as part of a broader national psychosis of fear, war and violence. A post 9/11 obsession with security and revenge has buttressed a militarized culture in which violence becomes a first principle (more…)

Salon

After Donald Rumsfeld testified on the Hill about Abu Ghraib in May, there was talk of more photos and video in the Pentagon’s custody more horrific than anything made public so far. “If these are released to the public, obviously it’s going to make matters worse,” Rumsfeld said. (more…)

Robert Parry Consortium News

Fox News may be the poster child of this infantile anti-intellectualism but the same sentiments can be found on the Washington Post’s neocon editorial pages or in the higher-brow New Republic. If you dare point out that America or one of its favored “allies” has done some wrong around the world, you’re an enemy “apologist.” If you regularly adopt a critical stance, you will be marginalized. (more…)

Clive Stafford Smith Guardian U.K.

Few of us really understand the reality of the US torture outlined in this week’s Senate report. Among those who do is the Londoner, Guantánamo prisoner and Reprieve client Shaker Aamer. I saw him this week. Unlike the assorted people who offer themselves as experts to comment on CIA torture, Shaker is a true (if involuntary) expert in the field. Yet he is unable to share his views. (more…)