links for 2006-09-18

• Lawless ‘Compromises’

  The key midyear election issue is that torture and eavesdropping are illegal. We are a nation founded on the rule of law.

  (tags: politics torture elections surveillance)

• Paul Rogers: Al-Qaida’s new terrain

  The successes of a new generation of jihadi militants in Iraq and Afghanistan suggest that the United States is losing the first phase of its long war.

  (tags: politics terrorism al-qaeda iraq-war afghanistan war)

• Meeting Murat Kurnaz: A Visit with a Man Wrongly Detained at Guantanamo

  Murat Kurnaz was detained in the United States detention camp at Guantánamo, Cuba, for almost five years and released three weeks ago.

  (tags: terrorism law war guantanamo detainees)

• Revolving Door to Blackwater Causes Alarm at CIA

  Blackwater USA, the private security contractor that has operated in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, and New Orleans, has been booming the past few years.

  (tags: politics contractors blackwater military iraq-war afghanistan azerbaijan cia)

• Ellsberg Calls on Insiders to Leak Details of Alleged War Plans

  When Daniel Ellsberg, the defense analyst, leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971, it created one of the most significant newspaper stories — and battles — of the century. One thing it did not do was prevent the Vietnam War…

  (tags: politics activism daniel-ellsberg war iraq-war)

• Won’t deploy? Can’t deploy.

  There are no more troops to send to Iraq. Earlier this week, in a Washington Post op-ed, William Kristol and Rich Lowry called on the Bush administration to send more troops to Iraq.

  (tags: military war iraq-war donald-rumsfeld politics)

• ‘Alternative’ CIA tactics complicate Padilla case

  Evidence against the American terror suspect was obtained through torture, his lawyers say.

  (tags: politics torture cia jose-padilla law)

• Bush defends demands for CIA ‘torture’ power

  President Bush launched an impassioned counterattack on critics of his proposals to give CIA interrogators a free rein in their treatment of terror suspects yesterday,…

  (tags: politics george-w-bush cia torture iraq-war afghanistan)

• Heather Gerken and Others: Six Ways to Reform Democracy

  What can happen when members of Congress sit down with scholars. As the Supreme Court has observed, the right to vote is the guarantor of all other rights.

  (tags: activism scholars academia politics politics-democracy)

• Editorial: A Defining Moment for America

  The president goes to Capitol Hill to lobby for torture. President Bush rarely visits Congress.

  (tags: politics george-w-bush torture cia detainees)

• Clinton aides had hand in Dubai deal

  In the spring, when Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was denouncing the Dubai Ports World deal, a consulting firm run by her top advisers was quietly lobbying for a Dubai takeover of two U.S. defense plants.

  (tags: politics hillary-clinton contractors dubai military)

• Powell wades into detainee dispute

  With no more than 170 words spread over three paragraphs, Colin Powell returned to haunt George W Bush yesterday, seeking to plunge a dagger through the US president’s bid to weaken international standards on the treatment of prisoners.

  (tags: politics colin-powell detainees torture geneva-conventions law)

• Republican Voters Dismayed by Biggest Spending Rise Since 1990

  Republican voters are angry, not for the first time, at big-spending politicians in Washington. This year, their wrath is aimed at their own party.

  (tags: politics republicans budget spending elections)

• Darfur toll ‘at least 200,000′

  A scientifically rigorous estimate of the numbers killed in the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region suggests that well over 200,000 people have died.

  (tags: africa darfur sudan genocide)

• John Lennon and the Politics of Deportation, From Nixon to Bush

  Jon Wiener, a Lennon historian who consulted on the film, writes that President Bush has gone much further than Nixon in using immigration law to get rid of noncitizens whom the White House doesn’t like.

  (tags: politics richard-nixon deportation george-w-bush john-lennon)

• Europe’s foreign policy: saying “no” to the US?

  The European Union’s foreign and security policy in the middle east may be on the brink of a historic shift, says John Palmer.

  (tags: politics foreign-policy eu europe middle-east)

• The Royal Society

  The complete archive of the Royal Society journals, including some of the most significant scientific papers ever published since 1665, is to be made freely available electronically for a two month period (until December 2006).

  (tags: science royal-society archives journals)

• Media ownership study ordered destroyed

  The Federal Communications Commission ordered its staff to destroy all copies of a draft study that suggested greater concentration of media ownership would hurt local TV news coverage, a former lawyer at the agency says.

  (tags: politics media FCC corruption television)

• Beyond DeLay :: 13 Ethically Challenged Members of Congress

  Rep. DeLay is not the only Member of Congress whose behavior merits scrutiny. There are a significant number of other members who have engaged in similarly egregious conduct, thus the name of the report: Beyond DeLay.

  (tags: politics corruption congress)

• U.S. War Prisons Legal Vacuum for 14,000

  In the few short years since the first shackled Afghan shuffled off to Guantanamo, the U.S. military has created a global network of overseas prisons, its islands of high security keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law.

  (tags: politics detainees guantanamo secret-prisons law)

• Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq

  Early U.S. Missteps in the Green Zone

  (tags: corruption politics iraq-war republicans corporatism)

• Editorial: The Ghosts of Corruption Present

  One of the shabbiest shell games under way in Congress is the attempt to convince voters that lawmakers are curbing their corrupt relations with power lobbyists.

  (tags: politics corruption congress culture-of-corruption lobbyists corporatism)

• Reading for Radicals

  A listing of some of the most accessible and insightful material available in history, psychology and other important topic areas.

  (tags: politics activism literature culture)

• How to install ANYTHING in Ubuntu!

  This guide will help you understand with screenshots, instructional videos and to-the-point language.

  (tags: ubuntu reference tutorials howto)

• Who Rules America? Power, Politics, & Social Change

  What social scientists have to say about power and power structure research.

  (tags: politics government sociology bohemian-grove)

• George Bush, Skull and Bones and the New World Order

  A glimpse into the most powerful organization in America - the Order of Skull and Bones.

  (tags: politics skull-and-bones george-w-bush george-h-w-bush new-world-order)