I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or tear my clothes off, set my hair on fire, and run out into the street screaming obscenities when I saw an article entitled "US has become haven for war criminals, senator says."
Go ahead, read the article if you can bear the shameless duplicity of our "elected representatives." Apparently, Dick Durbin recently pulled his head out of his ass to feign outrage at the big "welcome" sign the US holds out to war criminals around the world. As one might expect, though, Dick wasted no time in shoving his smirking face right up someone else's posterior portal, namely, that of the supreme war criminal who comfortably directs his campaign of atrocities from just down the street at 1600 Pennsylania Ave.
The doctrinal system is functioning quite smoothly when a US Senator can squeal about war crimes and never even consider that the world's most dangerous and irredeemable war criminals are in fact a native species, ever-growing in the fertile soil of militarism and exceptionalism. Remember - no matter what the UN Charter says, no matter how the Nuremberg Charter reads, regardless of the clear meaning of every international law on the books - war crimes are committed by others, but never, never, never by us.
Posted: November 19, 2007 12:55 am by Joshua Jackson | 0 comments
Tags: human rights, militarism, war crimes
Here are a few books on the subject.
Universities and empire : money and politics in the social sciences during the Cold War. Edited and introduced by Christopher Simpson. New York : New Press : Distributed by W.W. Norton & Co., 1998.
Academic freedom in action: an up-to-date account of the counter-insurgency activities pursued by scholars round the world under the banner of ’academic freedom’. Hoch, Paul. London, Sheed and Ward, 1970.
The Cold War & the university : toward an intellectual history of the postwar years. Noam Chomsky ... [et al.]. New York : New Press : Distributed by W.W. Norton & Co., c1997.
The Cold War and American science : the military-industrial-academic complex at MIT and Stanford. Stuart W. Leslie. New York : Columbia University Press, 1993.
Posted: November 3, 2007 1:47 am by Joshua Jackson | 0 comments
Tags: complicity, human rights, Iraq, militarism, torture, war crimes, war on terror
Here is a list of books you may wish to consult, all dealing in some way with the history and use of torture by the US.
Torture taxi : on the trail of the CIA’s rendition flights. Trevor Paglen and A.C. Thompson. Hoboken, N.J. : Melville House, 2006.
Ghost plane : the true story of the CIA torture program. Stephen Grey. New York : St. Martin’s Press, 2006.
American torture : from the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and beyond. Michael Otterman. London ; Ann Arbor, MI : Pluto Press, 2007.
American methods : torture and the logic of domination. Kristian Williams. Cambridge, Mass. : South End Press, c2006.
Torture and truth : America, Abu Ghraib, and the war on terror. Mark Danner. New York : New York Review Books, 2004.
A question of torture : CIA interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror. Alfred W. McCoy. New York : Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Co., 2006.
Chain of command : the road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib. Seymour M. Hersh. New York : HarperCollins, 2004.
Oath betrayed : torture, medical complicity, and the war on terror. Steven H. Miles. New York : Random House, 2006.
The torture papers : the road to Abu Ghraib. Edited by Karen J. Greenberg, Joshua L. Dratel ; introduction by Anthony Lewis. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2005.
The Breaking of bodies and minds : torture, psychiatric abuse, and the health profession. Edited by Eric Stover and Elena O. Nightingale.
New York : Freeman, 1985.
Medicine betrayed : the participation of doctors in human rights abuses / report of a working party [of the] British Medical Association . London ; Atlantic Highlands, N.J. : Zed Books, 1992.
Posted: November 3, 2007 1:13 am by Joshua Jackson | 0 comments
Tags: complicity, Iraq, militarism, torture, war crimes, war on terrorism
Hey all you anthro students out there! Are you bored to death in that stifling classroom environment? Are you ready to escape from the tedious lectures of your professors and the endless course readings they assign? Sign up with Uncle Sam, grab the nearest rifle, and suit up for a real adventure in the "field" (the battlefield, that is).
That's right. As part of the Pentagon's latest counter-insurgency strategy, the War Department has been recruiting anthropologists and social scientists in the hopes of actually understanding the cultures they're trying to dominate.
Thankfully, not everyone has responded to the call, and some academics in the discipline are speaking out against this blatant manifestation of ivory-tower imperialism (see the Network of Concerned Anthropologists).
Posted: November 3, 2007 12:32 am by Joshua Jackson | 0 comments
Tags: Afghanistan, anthropology, complicity, counter-insurgency, human rights, war crimes, war on terror
Say it ain't so!
I truly do hate to bring this news to the loyal and devoted citizens of Red Sox Nation, but I'm afraid it's true: Philip H. Morse, part-owner of the Red Sox, has been lending his private Gulfstream jet to his buddies in the CIA, who have used the plane to transport illegally kidnapped "terror suspects" to third-party countries where they are tortured.
According to three articles in the Boston Globe (Mar. 20, 21, and Dec. 11, 2005), Morse's jet has been contracted out by Richmor Aviation of New York at least once, and was most likely the plane used to transport a Muslim cleric to Egypt where he was subsequently tortured.
The Dec. 11, 2005 article reads:
The case has prompted Italian prosecutors to charge 22 purported CIA operatives with kidnapping, although Italian prosecutors acknowledge they may never be able to find and arrest the agents.
Law enforcement officials in Germany, a newspaper in Portugal, and researchers with Amnesty have begun examining Richmor's flight records for signs that the flights may have violated local or international laws.
The Gulfstream jet that Richmor leased to the CIA, owned by Red Sox part-owner Phillip H. Morse,, is followed by plane-spotting hobbyists all over the world who report on the Internet when they spot the plane landing at airports and track its tail number originally N85VM in Federation Aviation Administration records. Every trip seems to spark scrutiny, said Mahlon Richards, a co- owner of the company.
"It has a very negative effect on our business," Richards said. "It is getting out of hand."
Awwww, big crocodile tears for Mr. Richards, everyone!
The ACLU and Amnesty International maintain informative pages on the CIAs euphemistically-phrased practice of "extraordinary rendition."
Posted: October 24, 2007 10:55 pm by Joshua Jackson | 0 comments
Tags: Boston Globe, CIA, extraordinary rendition, human rights, Phillip Morse, red sox, torture, war crimes
