Islamists have threatened a Christian Bishop in the Philippines… (H/T: UP Pompeii)

Philippine bishop reports receiving threat to convert to Islam

MANILA, Philippines (CNS) — A bishop in the southern Philippines reported receiving a letter threatening him with harm if he does not convert to Islam or pay “Islamic taxes.”

Such brazenness in a country where over 86% of the population is Christian, 9% is Muslim and the remaining 5% is divided among various groups such as: Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, animists and non-believers.

Even if those who sent these letters are no more than common criminals who use religion as a mere tool, the fact that they chose to represent themselves as Muslims is in itself significant. But Muslim brazenness does not stop there, unfortunately, this one is far from an isolated case! Remember the kidnapped and murdered Chaldean archbishop of Mosul, Mgr Faraj Rahho? What about the plight of Assyrian Christians in Iraq? What about the Sabian Mandaeans? Or the plight of Christians girls kidnapped in Nigeria by practitioners of the Religion of Peace? What about the treatment of Christian Copts in Egypt? Ot the threats against Western politicians like Geert Wilders or Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi? The list, gentle reader, goes on and on ad nauseum…

You may read the rest at: Freedom’s Cost

In today’s NYT, A Living-Room Crusade via Blogging

And yet Ms. Novak has become so well known in Yemen that newspaper editors say they sell more copies if her photograph - blond and smiling - is on the cover. Her blog, an outspoken news bulletin on Yemeni affairs, is banned there. The government’s allies routinely vilify her in print as an American agent, a Shiite monarchist, a member of Al Qaeda, or “the Zionist Novak.”The worst of her many offenses is her dogged campaign on behalf of a Yemeni journalist, Abdul Karim al-Khaiwani, who incurred his government’s wrath by writing about a bloody rebellion in the far north of the country. He is on trial on sedition charges that could bring the death penalty, with a verdict expected Wednesday.

I have the honor of having met Jane and regard her as a friend.

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 Andrew Sullivan on America’s slippery torture slope:

And so abuse and torture are entirely dependent, we are told, on the apparent motives of the abusers and torturers. But torture is actually defined in the law as an illegal tool devised not for sadism’s sake but as a means to extract information. And notice the extremely slippery slope. We no longer have torture as an extreme last resort in the face of a ticking time-bomb; we have authorized it simply “to prevent a threatened terrorist attack.” That means any time anywhere by anyone authorized by the government after 9/11, no? And if a foreign government were to use such a standard? What do we say then?

Not only do such practices stand in stark defiance of the values we espouse in this war, but they ultimately prove counterproductive in a war that transcends bullets and bombs.  If we’re to fight a war on ideology–one chock-full of caliphates, Jihads and insurgents–than we need to remember that maintaining our own ideals is part of such a war.  When pressed on closing Guantanamo, or the extreme (if not illegal) tactics being used by Americans there, the Right often responds incredulously.  To them, this unacceptable measure would be like the offering of quarter to those who’d likely deny us the very same.    

And I think that’s precisely the idea.

Cross posted at Independent Liberal

You know, there was a time when Presidents lied about this kind of thing. Plausible deniability it’s called, if I’m not mistaken. Not so George W. Bush, the man knows no shame when it comes to torture: (more…)

John Yoo and the Bush administration have brought shame upon America, as a result of their attempt to legally justify the torture of prisoners, writes Rick Moran. (more…)

In a session that just happened to fall on a day when media is 100% focused on the primary elections, CIA Chief Michael Hayden acknowledged finally that the agency has used waterboarding, though he would only admit to 3 instances (if you sense any doubt in my writing it’s entirely because it’s there). So a US agency has admitted to using an abhorrent torture favored by evil regimes throughout time.

Doesn’t it make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

At Pharyngula, PZ Meyers lets off a blast of anti-torture steam that must have been building up for some time:

Here is all that torture is good for: inspiring fear in a population.

…

When the US government announces it’s support for torture, they aren’t talking about intelligence gathering: they are simply saying “Fear us.” They are taking the first step on the road to tyranny. (more…)

Just in case anyone was wondering…Yes, there is a war on and no, the other side isn’t exactly playing according to the Marquis of Queensbury rules of warfare. From the NY Times:

A powerful car bomb killed a senior Lebanese army general and his guard in an eastern suburb of Beirut on Wednesday, army officials said.

The general, Brig. Gen. Francois al-Hajj, was in charge of military operations during the battle against Islamic militants at the Nahr al Bared Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon last summer.

(more…)

It aren’t just Democrats who are hypocrites on this issue: the US government as a whole is.

From the WaPo: “[I]n 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.”

He was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. Something those who argue that waterboarding isn’t torture and should be allowed should keep in mind. H/t reader Chris.

I understand and respect the views of those who argue that torture — more specifically, waterboarding — is immoral and should never, under any circumstances whatsoever, be employed. Yes, torture is a form of immorality. But it is not the only form of immorality, and there are instances in which the forms conflict with each other.

Before dealing with the current issue — which has been brought into sharp focus by John Kiriakou’s interview on ABC News, let us look back some seventy years. As the war clouds gathered over Europe, pacifists were as devoted to avoiding war — or perhaps better said, to peace at any price — as are those who today affirm that torture should never be employed. While never representing the majority opinion in either the United States or England, pacifism was a force to be reckoned with in both countries.

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The Houston Chronicle reports:

Eight detainees were transferred from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the custody of Afghanistan and Middle Eastern governments, a Pentagon spokesman said today.

Six detainees were transferred to Afghanistan, and one each to Libya and Yemen, said Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Defense Department spokesman. Their identities were not released. (more…)

Children have become victims of the war on terror, according to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and four other human rights organizations. They describe, among other examples, the fate of Yusuf al-Khalid and Abed al-Khalid, sons of Al-Akadiabrein Sheikh Mohammed al-Khalid. They were arrested in Pakistan, in 2002, together with their mother, where they were interrogated: the interrogators asked questions about their father (who they couldn’t find). According to a fellow inmate, the two little boys will badly treated: sometimes they didn’t receive water and / or food. “They were mentally tortured, by letting ants and other animals crawl on their legs to scare them.”

In March 2003, after Sheikh Mohammed was arrested, were the two boys handed over to the CIA. It remains unclear whether the CIA was involved in earlier interrogations. Of course, the CIA denied torturing them back then:

“We are handling them with kid gloves. After all, they are only little children,” said one official, “but we need to know as much about their father’s recent activities as possible. We have child psychologists on hand at all times and they are given the best of care.”

For those who are wondering about who Sheikh Mohammed is, he is the person who, not too long ago, admitted to be responsible for just about every terrorist attack in the last decade or so. He made this confession after being held in Gitmo for four years and after the CIA used his sons against him (from that 2003 article):

Their father, Mohammed, 37, is being interrogated at the Bagram US military base in Afghanistan. He is being held in solitary confinement and subjected to “stress and duress”-style interrogation techniques.

He has been told that his sons are being held and he is being encouraged to divulge future attacks against the West and talk about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.

“He has said very little so far,” one CIA official said yesterday. “He sits in a trance-like state and recites verses from the Koran. But while he may claim to be a devout Muslim, we know he is fond of the Western-style fast life.

“His sons are important to him. The promise of their release and their return to Pakistan may be the psychological lever we need to break him.”

Trouw reports that, by now, the sons have been released. I am trying to find information about when they exactly were released. I am asking you to help me find more information about that: how long were they held? When were they released? I get the impression, from this sentence: “They arrested my kids intentionally. They are kids. They been arrested for four months they had been abused,” that they were being held for four months… at least. Again, can anyone help me find more information about that? How were they treated? Can the CIA get away with this?

You can read more about this at the Amnesty International website. Amnesty is concerned about 39 individuals who were taken prisoner by the US and have disappeared since then. Nothing has been heard about their whereabouts.

You can read the report here.

The US should have the moral highground here. Sadly, this is not so. When the CIA makes people disappear, when the CIA holds children to put pressure on their father… the CIA has lost the moral highground (and thus the US as well).

I do not quite understand why there is not a massive movement in the US to do something about this. Not only is it highly immoral, it is also incredibly bad for America’s reputation. Do you really expect Europeans to defend and to support you if you do not respect human rights? Do you expect us to defend and support you when you are holding and interrogating children? Do you expect us to defend and support you when you make people disappear like the KGB once did?

I’m a hawk, I’m a supporter of the US, but the US has to change its policies ASAP. This is highly unacceptable.

UPDATE
Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for linking to this post. Andrew comments:

I tend to think that even Bush’s CIA would not abuse children, apart from imprisoning them for the crimes of their father.

I tend to think the same.

On the other hand, once I also thought that Bush et al. would oppose taking children of terrorists prisoner, just so the CIA can pressure the father into a confession.

But I have learned the bad way that Bush and Cheney cannot be trusted with the humane tradition of American warfare. These children belong, like many others, in the black hole of the Bush-Cheney torture and detention regime, beyond the reach of the law, treaties or civilization. Just as Cheney likes it.

Exactly, and that is an incredbily sad thing.

To Andrew’s readers: if you want to help find out more about this, please send me an e-mail.