Norman Solomon

January 26, 2015

Continuing to deliberate as this week gets underway, the jurors in the CIA leak trial might ponder a notable claim from the government: “This case is not about politics.” The prosecution made that claim a few days ago in closing arguments – begun with a somber quotation from Condoleezza Rice about the crucial need to […]

Jason Ditz

January 23, 2015

The Interview wasn’t exactly a great movie. The hype surrounding the Sony Pictures hack was by far its most memorable aspect. It did include a scene showing the death of Kim Jong Un, however, and that’s pretty great from the UN point of view. UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in North Korea Marzuki Darusman […]

Kathy Kelly

January 23, 2015

The Bureau of Prisons contacted me today, assigning me a prison number and a new address: for the next 90 days, beginning tomorrow, I’ll live at FMC Lexington, in the satellite prison camp for women, adjacent to Lexington’s federal medical center for men. Very early tomorrow morning, Buddy Bell, Cassandra Dixon, and Paco and Silver, […]

Marcy Wheeler

January 22, 2015

“Jeffrey Sterling was the hero of Risen’s story,” prosecutor Eric Olshan finished his closing argument in the Jeffrey Sterling trial. “Don’t let him be the hero of this one.” “They are patriots,” prosecutor Jim Trump ended his remarks, speaking of the many CIA officers the jury had heard from. “They do their work without accolades.” […]

Dan Sanchez

January 22, 2015

“There are four types of people who join the military. For some, it’s a family trade. Others are patriots, eager to serve. Next you have those who just need a job. Then there’s the kind who want a legal means of killing other people.” – The title character of the 2012 movie Jack Reacher, played […]

Norman Solomon

January 22, 2015

Six days of testimony at the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling have proven the agency’s obsession with proclaiming its competence. Many of the two-dozen witnesses from the Central Intelligence Agency conveyed smoldering resentment that a whistleblower or journalist might depict the institution as a bungling outfit unworthy of its middle name. Some witnesses […]

Ramzy Baroud

January 21, 2015

Francois Hollande is not a popular president. No matter how hard the "socialist" leader tries to impress, there never seems to be a no solid constituency that backs him. He attempted to mask his initial lack of experience in foreign affairs with a war in Mali, after his country enthusiastically took on Libya. While he […]

Giorgio Cafiero

January 21, 2015

Last October, Saudi Arabia’s Special Criminal Court sentenced Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr – a popular Shi’ite cleric and outspoken political dissident – to death. This was not an ordinary criminal trial, even considering Saudi Arabia’s liberal use of capital punishment. Among other charges, the prosecutor sought to convict al-Nimr of “waging war on God” and […]

Marcy Wheeler

January 21, 2015

After a week of ominous language about the dangers of leaking classified documents, the 14 jurors in the Jeffrey Sterling trial Tuesday got their first look at purportedly classified documents. Martha Lutz, the CIA’s Chief of Litigation Support and the bane of anyone who has FOIAed the CIA in the last decade, was on the […]

Kathy Kelly

January 21, 2015

From January 4-12, 2015, Witness Against Torture (WAT) activists assembled in Washington D.C. for an annual time of fasting and public witness to end the United States’ use of torture and indefinite detention and to demand the closure, with immediate freedom for those long cleared for release, of the illegal U.S. prison at Guantanamo. Participants […]