be just

The Guantánamo “Suicides”: A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle—By Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine) : "Late in the evening on June 9 that year, three prisoners at Guantánamo died suddenly and violently. Salah Ahmed Al-Salami, from Yemen, was thirty-seven. Mani Shaman Al-Utaybi, from Saudi Arabia, was thirty. Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani, also from Saudi Arabia, was twenty-two, and had been imprisoned at Guantánamo since he was captured at the age of seventeen. None of the men had been charged with a crime, though all three had been engaged in hunger strikes to protest the conditions of their imprisonment. They were being held in a cell block, known as Alpha Block, reserved for particularly troublesome or high-value prisoners. As news of the deaths emerged the following day, the camp quickly went into lockdown. The authorities ordered nearly all the reporters at Guantánamo to leave and those en route to turn back. The commander at Guantánamo, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, then decla...

Pat Robertson: Haiti 'Cursed' By 'Pact To The Devil' : Information Clearing House - ICH : "January 13, 2010 - - 'Huffington Post' - By Danny Shea -- Televangelist Pat Robertson said Wednesday that earthquake-ravaged Haiti has been 'cursed' by a 'pact to the devil.' 'Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it,' he said on Christian Broadcasting Network's 'The 700 Club.' 'They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal.'"

Help Haiti: The Unforgiven Country Cries Out : Information Clearing House - ICH : "Exactly two hundred years ago, Haitian slaves overthrew their French masters -- the first successful national slave revolt in history. What Spartacus dreamed of doing, the Haitian slaves actually accomplished. It was a tremendous achievement -- and the white West has never forgiven them for it. In order to win international recognition for their new country, Haiti was forced to pay 'reparations' to the slaveowners -- a crushing burden of debt they were still paying off at the end of the 19th century. The United States, which refused to recognize the country for more than 60 years, invaded Haiti in 1915, primarily to open it up to 'foreign ownership of local concerns.' After 19 years of occupation, the Americans backed a series of bloodthirsty dictatorships to protect these 'foreign owners.' And still it goes on."

Q+A: Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan tops $1 trillion | Reuters : "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The cost to U.S. taxpayers of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 has topped $1 trillion, and President Barack Obama is expected to request another $33 billion to fund more troops this year."

NATO: US Troops Shot Civilian Protesters in Afghanistan’s Garmsir District -- News from Antiwar.com : "In the second NATO shooting incident in a little over 24 hours in the Garmsir District of Afghanistan’s restive Helmand Province, US Publish Post troops opened fire on a crowd of civilian protesters on Wednesday, wounding five."

AU Forces Shell Playground in Somalia, Kill Seven Children -- News from Antiwar.com : "In the second high profile killing of civilians by the ostensible “peacekeeping” body in less than a week, African Union forces shelled a playground in the Somali capital city of Mogadishu, killing 10 people including seven children who were playing soccer."

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Saudi troops killed at Yemen border : "Four Saudi soldiers have been killed in an operation to seize back a border post from Yemeni Houthi fighters, Saudi Arabia's state television has said. Following the clashes, Saudi forces seized the position back from the fighters and 'destroyed' them, the report added on Tuesday. The latest casualties bring the death toll of Saudi soldiers in the border conflict with the Yemeni fighters to 82. Twenty-one others are reported missing."