The Bush administration claims that prisoners of the U.S. “war on terror” are treated humanely. But sickening new revelations from the U.S. prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, reveal the truth.

Dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of the approximately 500 detainees at the prison camp have been on hunger strike at various times over the past several years, in protest against U.S. policies of indefinite detention and physical and psychological abuse from guards.

According to the New York Times, U.S. guards--fearing that prisoners engaging in the most recent hunger strike would succeed in committing suicide through starvation--recently begun strapping detainees into “restraint chairs” for force feedings.

The detainees have been left tied in an upright position for hours at a time to prevent them from vomiting food.

Riot-control soldiers violently force long plastic tubes down the noses and into the stomachs of hunger strikers.

Prisoners also say that guards have subjected them to extended periods of isolation, exposure to cold air and stripped them of "comfort items" like blankets and books in order to force them to end the hunger strike.   more »

Most officials thought last month's Osama bin Laden tape was no big deal—maybe even a gesture of weakness. Author and ex-CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, who founded the Agency's bin Laden unit 10 years ago, thinks they're dead wrong.

Michael Scheuer: The only thing I've tried to say to people is that this is a very serious man, and a very talented one. He's a very terse man in many ways. He doesn't say things just for the sake of saying them.

He is a man well acquainted with the power of silence, I think. When he says something, given the correlation between what he's said and what he's done in the past, I think he deserves a lot of respect and—I don't want to say fear, but respect as an enemy is something that we don't give him.

My own inclination is to say that the decks are pretty much cleared now. He would not have said what he said if he wasn't prepared to attack us.   more »

Americans will be bombarded with the propaganda that will manufacture an enemy out of Iran.

With the same manual as that used to mobilize us for the war on Iraq, the warmongers will start to instil fear into our minds, repeating lie after lie, over and over again, that the new enemy is a threat to America, our way or life, our freedoms and democracy.

Over the next few weeks and perhaps even months, the propaganda used to vilify Iran will intensify, just as it was prior to the Iraq War. We will be forced to hear, repeatedly, the evils of the regime, the wicked intentions of the new president and the manufactured threat to our security.

We will be told over and over again how Iran has been a pariah on the world stage, that they overthrew our puppet dictator a few decades back, held America’s embassy hostage, support most of the world’s terrorists.

That they are a tyrannical regime, want to destroy Israel, are a clear and present danger to our national security and, if we are lucky, that they even harbor the bogeymen of the moment, Al-Qaeda.   more »

I support and strongly sympathize with the Iraqi resistance to US occupation, Palestinian suicide bombers attacking their Israeli oppressors and radical Islam's armed struggle against Western Imperialism. If that's glorification, so be it. [Ed Strong]

Tony Blair narrowly succeeded today in winning a crucial Commons vote on anti-terror laws after accusing the Opposition of trying to "dilute and weaken" them.

Despite a backbench rebellion, cutting the Government's majority to 38, MPs voted by 315 to 277 to overturn a Lords defeat striking out Government proposals outlawing glorification of terrorism.

The result - after three testing days for ministers with key votes on ID cards and smoking - will come as a huge relief for the Prime Minister.

Earlier, at a stormy question time, he warned that to take out references to 'glorification' in the Terrorism Bill would send out a "massively counter-productive signal".   more »

In case you don't know, on January 19 the latest audiotape from Osama bin Laden was released and in it he declared:

"If you [Americans] are sincere in your desire for peace and security, we have answered you. And if Bush decides to carry on with his lies and oppression, then it would be useful for you to read the book ‛Rogue State', which states in its introduction ..."

He then goes on to quote the opening of a paragraph I wrote (which appears actually in the Foreword of the British edition only, that was later translated to Arabic), which in full reads:

If I were the president, I could stop terrorist attacks against the United States in a few days. Permanently. I would first apologize -- very publicly and very sincerely -- to all the widows and the orphans, the impoverished and the tortured, and all the many millions of other victims of American imperialism.

I would then announce that America’s global interventions -- including the awful bombings -- have come to an end. And I would inform Israel that it is no longer the 51st state of the union but -– oddly enough -– a foreign country.   more »

Keywords: radical, islam, politics, media, obl, blum

COVERING UP CHENEY'S EXTRA-MARITAL RELATIONSHIP

Sirius radio's Alex Bennett just broke a rumor that the delay in reporting the news that Cheney shot an old man in the heart was due to an effort to hide or spin Cheney's female companion.

Pamela Willeford, ambassador to Switzerland and -- yes -- Liechtenstein, was part of the hunting excursion with Cheney and Whittington. And according to Willeford's account, Cheney and the ambassador were side-by-side when the shooting of Whittington took place.

The vice president's Secret Service detail had to decide what to do with Willeford by way of perhaps covering up her relationship with Cheney, and thus the delay in reporting the news.

The rumor goes that Lynn Cheney isn't happy with Cheney's close relationship with Willeford.   more »

It wasn't Copenhagen, it was Washington and something that transpired there recently was ugly and more than a little frightening. Bigotry was on the loose.

It wasn't covered much by the country's major media, and those that did cover it seem to have missed a critical piece of the story which was reported by slate.com and the Financial Times.

Michael Scherer wrote that of the attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Omni Shoreham Hotel February 10,

"about half are overdressed college kids in pearls, blue blazers or striped ties, young Republicans who come to D.C. for the chance to flirt with each other, watch Ann Coulter act outrageous, and attempt to sneak cases of Bud Light into their hotel rooms -- the kind of students that collect internships like Mardi Gras beads."

The young'ns were treated to a lot of free Chardonnay and speeches by the likes of Vice Dick Cheney, Phyllis Shlafly, Newt Gingrich, and Lt. Colonel Oliver North. But their favorite was Coulter.   more »

Media Manipulation: The Daily Mindwash

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Whatever Happened to the Radical Left in America?

Muslims Angry at War on Terror, Not Cartoons