Tag: diplomacy

Posted on

Remaining Peace Activist Hostages Released

Less than two weeks after reports of the brutal torture and killing of Tom Fox, the sole American member of the Christian Peacemaker Team that had been held hostage in Iraq since November, the three remaining hostages are being reported as rescued on the streets of Baghdad.

BBC News reports:

One British and two Canadian peace activists held hostage in Iraq have been freed in an operation by multinational forces.Norman Kember, 74, of Pinner, north-west London, was seized in Baghdad with two Canadians and an American in November.

Canadians James Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden were also freed in the operation on Thursday.

Posted on

Operation ‘Swarmer’ — ‘Swonderful???

AP photoThe largest air assault on occupied Iraq since the invasion three years ago.

Proof for one and all, that our flag is still there. Quickly, the story of the new Iraqi parliament being sworn in without hardly looking each other in the eye, much less resembling anything government-like, is overshadowed.

Some write today that the war in Iraq is still a good idea. President Bush released his new national security strategy (.pdf) which suggests a second war — with Iran — looms in the near future. John Bolton, our man at the UN, is already ramping up war rhetoric to the assembly. Will we ever learn?

Posted on

Who is Responsible for Torture?

According to Amnesty International — we all are. They just released a Flash presentation on Extraordinary Rendition and its worth watching. Additionally, Amnesty featured the first of three online discussions today entitled “Lives torn apart,” which examines the experiences of Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Following the broadcast of more incriminating photos of U.S. and British forces torturing detainees at Abu Ghraib, the U.S. is finally realizing that they have created “Jihad University,” — a breeding ground for terror.

It should be noted that these videos were among those presented to the Pentagon nearly two years ago but have only now become publicly available.

Eccentric Star compares international press coverage of the release of these videos.

And wouldya believe? the U.S. is declaring that the UN draft report (download the .pdf) released this week is ?flawed, unbalanced.? The report defines the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay as torture.

Posted on

Riverbend: Raided in Baghdad

The teenage Iraqi blogger known as Riverbend, author of Baghdad Burning, a series of blog-posts at NYTimes.com and her own blog, posts anectodal details of a raid by Iraqi police this week on her house and neighborhood.

Riverbend concludes:

It’s almost funny- only a month ago, we were watching a commercial on some Arabic satellite channel- Arabiya perhaps. They were showing a commercial for Iraqi security forces and giving a list of numbers Iraqis were supposed to dial in the case of a terrorist attack? You call THIS number if you need the police to protect you from burglars or abductors? You call THAT number if you need the National Guard or special forces to protect you from terrorists? But?

Who do you call to protect you from the New Iraq?s security forces?

Breathtaking. Read it.