In the week that George Bush took to fantasising that his blood-soaked "war on terror" would lead the 21st century into a "shining age of human liberty" I went through my mail bag to find a frightening letter addressed to me by an American veteran whose son is serving as a lieutenant colonel and medical doctor with US forces in Baghdad.

Put simply, my American friend believes the change of military creed under the Bush administration--from that of "soldier" to that of "warrior"--is encouraging American troops to commit atrocities.

From Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo to Bagram, to the battlefields of Iraq and to the "black" prisons of the CIA, humiliation and beatings, rape, anal rape and murder have now become so commonplace that each new outrage is creeping into the inside pages of our newspapers.   more »

Bush used the lead-up to the anniversary of September 11 to hype a newly repackaged enemy in the “war on terror”--Islamists “driven by the values of tyranny and extremism, the right of a self-appointed few to impose their fanatical views on all the rest,” he said in a speech to the American Legion. “They’re successors to fascists, to Nazis, to communists and other totalitarians of the 20th century.”

Bush’s speeches were designed both to revive the Republicans’ declining popularity and provide a new justification for U.S. war aims in the Middle East--and his fellow GOPers climbed right on board.

“I know that’s a hard thing for us to grasp because, you know, we’re a nation that’s a tolerant nation,” Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum declared during one ignorant rant that went on to misrepresent thousands of years of world history.

“We’re at war with Islamic fascism. Afghanistan and Iraq and southern Lebanon and every country around the world is a front.”   more »

Last week, Pope Benedict XVI quoted, without qualification and with apparent approval, the words of the 14th-century Byzantine emperor Manuel II:

"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

The Vatican seemed bemused by the Muslim outrage occasioned by the Pope's words, claiming that the Holy Father had simply intended "to cultivate an attitude of respect and dialogue toward the other religions and cultures, and obviously also towards Islam".

But the Pope's good intentions seem far from obvious. Hatred of Islam is so ubiquitous and so deeply rooted in western culture that it brings together people who are usually at daggers drawn.   more »

Sudan has good reason to be suspicious of any resolution pushed by the U.S. and Britain. Britain is the brutal former colonial ruler of Sudan. It has always opposed sovereignty for Sudan.

As for Washington, regime change—the overthrow of the government—in Sudan has been on the agendas of both the Republican and Democratic parties. U.S. sanctions and bars to investment, trade, credits and loans have been in place for more than a decade.

In 1998, during the Clinton administration, 17 U.S. cruise missiles destroyed the El Shifa paramedical plant, Sudan’s major source of desperately needed basic medicines.

Sudan is well aware of how the U.S. used a 1990 UN resolution to justify bombing attacks that destroyed Iraq’s infrastructure. The 13 years of UN sanctions on Iraq, which Washington had demanded, resulted in the deaths of more than 1.5 million Iraqis.   more »