The Vietnam War was a turning point in U.S. history but not as many people may think. In defeat, the national security state changed the narrative into one that made American soldiers the victims and made anti-war activists into traitors who spat…
Tag: Marjorie Cohn
Death to the Death Penalty
Oklahoma’s ghoulish killing of convicted murderer Clayton Lockett on April 29 has brought new attention to America’s continued use of the death penalty, a politically popular issue in some states but a practice that has many reasons justifying its abolition, writes…
Israel’s War Against ‘BDS’ Movement
The boycott aimed at Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands emerged as a peaceful way to challenge Israel’s abuse of Palestinians, replacing violent acts that killed civilians. But Israel’s lobby has now made the so-called BDS movement a target of its…
Worse Than Orwell
President Obama has promised reform of the NSA’s mass collection of data on virtually all Americans and much of the world. But his proposals are limited and his speech failed to offer clemency to Edward Snowden who made the public…
US Judges Square Off over NSA Spying
President Obama is expected to impose new but fairly modest constraints on the NSA’s vast surveillance program, leaving open the legal issue, moving through the federal courts, whether the metadata collection violates the Fourth Amendment, writes Marjorie Cohn.
In Case You Missed…
Some of our special stories in August focused on the worsening crisis in Syria, the injustice of the Manning case, the history of U.S. war crimes using nukes and chemical weapons, and the Right’s disdain for reality.
US Hypocrisy on Laws of War
U.S. government officials concede that a barrage of cruise missiles against Syria could result in collateral civilian deaths, possibly exceeding the numbers allegedly killed by chemical weapons. Such an assault also would violate international law and risk widening the Syrian…
No Reckoning over Agent Orange
Official Washington often lectures other countries on the need for accountability, especially when governments have engaged in war crimes. Yet, one of the clearest cases of a U.S. war crime the mass spraying of Vietnam with Agent Orange has escaped…
Manning’s Upside-Down Punishment
The cruel irony of how the United States has addressed post-9/11 war crimes, including President Bush’s invasion of Iraq and his use of torture, is that no major government official has been held accountable, yet whistleblowers have faced harsh reprisals,…
Gitmo’s Kafkaesque Kangaroo Courts
The Military Commissions for trying alleged al-Qaeda terrorists always had the risk of becoming Kafkaesque kangaroo courts with little credibility among people around the world, a danger that has become more and more acute as the process moves forward, Marjorie…