US

This article opens up a contradiction that is hard to fathom:

Link to IHT Article

By Carlotta Gall
Tuesday, December 18, 2007

. . . .

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies, apparently trying to avoid acknowledging an elaborate secret detention system, have quietly set free nearly 100 men suspected of links to terrorism, human rights groups and lawyers say.
. . . . .
The issue of the missing had become one of the most contentious between Musharraf and the Supreme Court under its former chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry.

At QeRN, we have been following this story for some time now. As their book is about to be published, we take a look at the latest twist in their saga.

The following is a piece by the blogger 'Gary' and a reproduction of a letter by Walt and Mearsheimer themselves:

'Devastating' Moyers Probe of Press and Iraq
By Greg Mitchell

The most powerful indictment of the news media for falling down in its duties in the run-up to the war in Iraq will appear next Wednesday, a 90-minute PBS broadcast called "Buying the War," which marks the return of "Bill Moyers Journal." E&P was sent a preview DVD and a draft transcript for the program this week.

While much of the evidence of the media's role as cheerleaders for the war presented here is not new, it is skillfully assembled, with many fresh quotes from interviews (with the likes of Tim Russert and Walter Pincus) along with numerous embarrassing examples of past statements by journalists and pundits that proved grossly misleading or wrong. Several prominent media figures, prodded by Moyers, admit the media failed miserably, though few take personal responsibility.

By Terry Jones - The Guardian -- March 31, 2007

I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this -- allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world -- have the Iranians no concept of civilized behaviour?

For God's sake, what's wrong with putting a bag over her head? That's what we do with the Muslims we capture: we put bags over their heads, so it's hard to breathe. Then it's perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate them to the press because the captives can't be recognized and humiliated in the way these unfortunate British service people are.

Gerald Ford was almost alone in understanding that there can be no healing without pardon."

-- Dick Cheney, 30 December 2006, eulogizing Gerald Ford.

* * *

One of the executioners asked "Are you afraid?"

He answered "I am not afraid of anyone. I have been a mujahid and a political activist all my life, and I expected death at any moment. "

He added, "Down with the Americans and the Persians. Long live the Arab nation and Palestine"

-- Saddam Hussein Al-Tikriti, 30 December 2006 (morning of the Muslim Festival of Sacrifice), just before his death.

The war on terror as initially envisioned by the US is lost – today Bush effectively declared the CIA 'torture' program illegal, upheld the Geneva conventions, promised to eventually close down Guantanamo and try the captured 9/11 terrorist leaders in military tribunals with defence attorneys provided. Now it is just an intelligence and police problem, what it should have been all along. Also in today's speech, George W. Bush was petulantly bitter about the decision of the US Supreme Court in Hamdan vs Rumsfeld

The Hizbullah-Lebanon war has permanently tipped the delicate balance. Israel's aura was defeated, and together with it – the last vestiges of American moral and military credibility.

1. Best way to escape the media-sound-bytes-silly-issues agenda of MCC is to make a pro-active agenda for community participation.

2. There is no religion without a clergy. Instead of bothering ourselves with clergy in Iran or Afghanistan or Saudi or Egypt, we should have our academics talking to Canadian Muslim clergy.

3. If a malicious or ignorant accuser accuses us of condoning 'terrorism' and is unaware of the issues surrounding 'terrorism' and prefers to adopt the neocon non-definition which makes every anti-US/Israel militant group a terrorist - it is best to ignore the question. It is much better to use the phrase, 'we are absolutely