be just

Obama Echoes Bush Policy on Detainee Access to Courts -- News from Antiwar.com : "Following one of former President Bush’s key policies, the Obama Administration is contesting the federal ruling from earlier this month which granted some of the detainees held by the United States in Afghanistan certain legal rights, in particular habeas corpus. The administration intends to argue that giving US-held detainees the right to challenge the legitimacy of their open-ended detentions would “inhibit the future capture of Pakistani citizens for detention by US forces in Afghanistan.” The Bush Administration argued that foreign prisoners held by the US military had absolutely no legal rights, and could be held indefinitely without charges or access to courts. While the Obama Administration has said it intends to abandon the unpopular detention center at Guantanamo Bay at some point, the appeal makes it clear that President Obama intends to continue the detentions, just in a less public envi...

Officials: NATO Strike Kills Six Civilians in Afghanistan -- News from Antiwar.com : "Provincial officials say a NATO air strike carried out in the Kunar Province overnight has killed six civilians, including two children, and wounded 16 others, most of them also children. The attack destroyed three homes in the restive province, and a three year old girl and 10 year old boy were among those killed."

Al Jazeera English - Focus - 'Fallujah never leaves my mind' Five years on, he recounts the events he witnessed and filmed. "What you saw on your TV sets at home reflects only ten per cent of the reality. Also, if you watch those pictures at home, you can change the channel. But we were in the middle. We smell. We feel, see, and touch everything. We could touch the bodies, but we couldn't change the channel. We were the channel. When I think of Fallujah, I think of the smell. The smell was driving me crazy. In a dead body, there is a kind of liquid. Yellow liquid. The smell is disgusting, really. It sticks in your nose. You cannot eat anymore. And you can't get the pictures off your mind, because every day you see the same: Explosion, death, explosion, death, death. After work, you sit down and notice there are pieces of flesh on your shoes and blood on your trousers. But you don't have time to ask why. In April 2004, I remember I was in the Baghdad offic...

'Israel killed 437 kids in blockaded Gaza' : "Israel's three-week war on the Gaza Strip left 437 children dead and 1872 more wounded, the Ministry of Social Affairs in Gaza has said. Ahmad Al Kurd, Minister of Social Affairs, said on Friday that the Israeli army targeted women and children, and that its shelling targeted homes, hospitals, educational facilities and even mosques, International Middle East Media Center reported. The killing and wounding of large numbers of children proves that the Israeli forces targeted the civilian areas, he added. According to the report, Israel's offensive to the blockaded strip also left 1500 children orphans, as they lost a parent or both parents in the attacks, and thousands of them suffered psychological problems due to witnessing scenes of death and destructions. Israel has been accused of committing war crimes during the war in Gaza, including the use of deadly white phosphorus shells in densely populated civilian areas and...

Troops Stole Boxes of Iraq Reconstruction Cash ... Literally ... But There's a Lot More to the Story | War on Iraq | AlterNet : "This weekend the Los Angeles Times ran an article titled 'Some U.S. troops tempted by reconstruction cash,' reporting that the Department of Justice is pursing some 'three dozen prosecutions' of soldiers and others involving bribery for 'reconstruction' projects in Iraq and Afghanistan. The piece tells the story of one Army captain, a 28-year old graduate from West Point, who according to a federal indictment, 'managed to skim more than $690,000 in cash as the civil affairs officer overseeing millions of dollars intended for reconstruction projects and payments to private Iraqi security forces northeast of Baghdad.' In a particularly brazen move, Capt. Michael Dung Nguyen allegedly packed the cash into boxes, which he then mailed to his home in Beaverton, Oregon. According to the LA Times, 'at least 25 theft probes...