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Mary Riddell
The symbol of this Christmas is the noose. Hang my son, says Ian Huntley’s mother. Hang Saddam, says almost everyone. As the great Judaeo-Christian feast approaches, the polarity between good and evil is stark. In modern replays of the Book of Genesis, conducted in settings as diverse as the Old Bailey, a spider hole near Tikrit and your local Odeon, light does not often vanquish darkness.
Manuel Valenzuela
Deep in the halls of Washington a putrid wind of sweeping ideology festers, swirling like a hurricane from the Atlantic seaboard, becoming a tornado in the frozen tundras of the Midwest, an impenetrable and monstrous fire wall consuming vast tracts of open expanse in the West and a sweltering drought drying up the nation?s future. Like a virus that was given new life, the once dormant group, for years denied the claws of power, suddenly awoke and spread through all levels of the US government with the appointment of George W. Bush in 2000. This cabal of Machiavelli and autocratic-style believers of power is now deeply entrenched in the highest positions of our government, determining policy and the direction our government and by consequence our nation is headed in.
Manuel Valenzuela
We are the lifeblood of the conglomerate, of vital importance, and, as such, it is in its best interest to control as much of our lives as possible, transforming us into obedient servants of obliviousness. We have allowed the oligarchy to hide the keys of democracy while we carelessly follow it on the road to fascism, where the elite have control of all aspects of our lives, including our mind.
Robyn E. Blumner
The quotes from retired General Tommy Franks, warning of dangers to freedom in the USA during the ‘war on terror’, bounced around faster than a Paris Hilton sex video. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman repeated the alarm when he said that virulent terrorism “is the most serious threat to open societies, because one more 9/11 and we’ll really see an erosion of our civil liberties.” These pundits and prognosticators are saying out loud what anyone who has been following the government’s actions since 9/11 already senses.
Nick Sommerlad
Earlier this year, for seven weeks the investigative reporter Nik Sommerlad was given the job of a security officer at the UK?s controversial ?Yarl?s Wood Detention Centre? for asylum seekers, in Bedfordshire. The brutal, racist, and violent nature of the regime that he saw on his assignment is a damning indictment of the UK Government’s human rights policy, and its public claim that it provides a “safe and caring” environment for those claiming refugee status in the country.
Nat Hentoff
After the USA Senate exposed FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s relentless violations of the Bill of Rights, Attorney General Edward Levi established new FBI guidelines to keep its agents within the bounds of the Constitution. The chairman of the relevant Select Committee on Intelligence Activities, pledged that “the American people need to be reassured that never again will an agency of the government be permitted to conduct a secret war against those citizens it considers a threat to the established order.” Attorney General John Ashcroft has broken that pledge more times than I can count.
Pueng Vongs
You may assume that, mindful of the widespread claim that the ?war on terror? is really a war against Islam, the military authorities would be especially careful to give all the respect they could to their own Muslim Chaplain serving at Guantanamo Bay. You would be wrong. Captain James Yee has been arrested, placed in the now trademark ?restraints?, interrogated at length, and accused of being an Al-Qaeda spy. After the charges were finally proved groundless last week, the military authorities are attempting to justify their actions by substituting new claims in an attempt to portray Yee as a perpetrator of sex-crimes.
Justin Raimondo
Oh, man, you wouldn’t believe what those antiwar “extremists” are up to! According to our intrepid G-men: “Protesters have sometimes used ‘training camps’ to rehearse for demonstrations, the Internet to raise money and gas masks to defend against tear gas.”
Robert Fisk
It’s the price of joining George Bush’s “war on terror”. Al-Qa’ida was quite specific. The Saudis would pay. The Australians would pay. The Italians would pay. The British would pay. They have. Canada is still on the list. Until, I suppose, it is our turn again.
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