During the presidential campaign, one of Donald Trump's big applause lines was about the use of torture on our enemies, particularly terror suspects. During a February 2016 GOP debate he said, I would bring back waterboarding. And I would bring back a hell of a lot worse than ...read more

If you wanted a single statement from Donald Trump that conclusively illustrates why he is completely unqualified to run for office, this would be it. Speaking with New Hampshire’s NH1, Trump said this about the United State's duty to commit war crimes: Well it’s not the ...read more

One of the major rallying cries of Donald Trump's campaign for President is his pledge to commit war crimes against America's enemies. Not only has Trump promised to murder the families of suspected terrorists, he has stated that he will bring back waterboarding - a torture ...read more

This week, the New York Times published a bombshell of an op-ed demanding that the Obama administration "prosecute torturers and their bosses," specifically Bush officials up to and including former Vice President Dick Cheney. It's probably the first time in recent history that ...read more

There are certain policy decisions that should never be left up to the American people. I'm not necessarily saying we're stupid. Actually, come to think of it, I'm absolutely saying too many of us are stupid. 29 percent of us can't name the vice president. Roughly 45 percent of ...read more

Miraculously, Dick Cheney is still alive. He's still alive and still the former Bush administration's most visible and tenacious historical revisionist when it comes to the tactics it employed in the Global War on Terror. So, naturally, Cheney was thawed from his cryo-chamber ...read more

Cable news is nothing if not predictable, and whenever there's a major news story about terrorism or the Global War on Terror, the segment producers at CNN and MSNBC speed-dial Rep. Pete King (R-NY) and helicopter him in to say terrifying things about the evildoers and why we ...read more

Yes, torture them like animals. Law enforcement should be keeping a closer eye on former congressman Joe Walsh. We'll circle back to that presently. The tea party Republican, current talk radio host and short-fusedex-deadbeat-dad was in the news again yesterday after tweeting ...read more

This issue is one of those cases where no matter how much contrary evidence you produce -- no matter how unimpeachable your sources are, the other side will simply plug their ears, sing "la-la-la-not-listening!" then regurgitate the same response over and over. In this case, ...read more

At Friday's impromptu presidential press conference, President Obama went a few extra innings, taking several shouted questions after he had announced the end of the presser, and one of those responses is generating a lot of wet heat in the news hole. While expressing support ...read more

By now you're probably familiar with the slow-motion train wreck that is former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL). He used to be a leading member of both the tea party caucus and, in my own mind, the House Crazy Caucus. He also one-upped Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock and a long list of ...read more

Sarah Palin's line about waterboarding terrorists in order to baptize them was ridiculous and incoherent, but her Facebook post in response to the backlash is hysterically unintelligible. Many of her posts are ghost-written, but this new Facebook item is all her. How can I tell? ...read more

A smart man doesn't blindly leap to the support of questionable characters twice in a row. Then again, Sean Hannity isn't a very smart man. After totally hosing himself with his ebullient support for Cliven Bundy, who ended up being an unapologetic racist, you'd think Hannity ...read more

Yasiin Bey, formerly known as rapper and actor Mos Def, voluntarily underwent the standard force feeding procedure at Gitmo for detainees on hunger strike. The video was made to draw attention to the treatment of Guantanamo Bay prisoners. According to Gawker: The video was ...read more

Quick: There's a big-budget Hollywood movie that's nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture this year, a drama about a real-life event from America's history, that's currently being raked over the coals by some very vocal critics for what they claim is its lack of ...read more

By Robert Parry When I watched the get-bin-Laden movie Zero Dark Thirty at a theater just outside Washington D.C., I was struck by how silent the audience was from beginning to end with almost no reaction to the climatic killing of the terrorist leader or to the film’s lame ...read more

Depiction of torture methods in the 16th Century. By Lawrence Davidson In 2005, I wrote an essay, published in the journal Logos, entitled “Torture in our Time.” In it I laid out the historical evidence for the conclusion that torture rarely works. This position goes back at ...read more

Just before the limited release of Zero Dark Thirty, I wrote a column for this site that took to task those who hadn't seen the film yet but were already howling about its portrayal of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques -- torture by any other name -- and their ...read more

Spoiler alert: There are images of torture in Zero Dark Thirty. The new film by Oscar-winner Katherine Bigelow about the manhunt for Osama bin Laden apparently features at least a few scenes of the CIA performing "enhanced interrogation techniques" on an Al Qaeda prisoner and, ...read more

By Ivan Eland: One of the most important issues in the 2012 election is a non-issue because both parties want to ignore it: punishment for Bush-era human rights violations by torture. Nevertheless, in a country where the rule of law (that is, we are all supposed to be equal ...read more

By Marjorie Cohn: The Obama administration has closed the books on prosecutions of those who violated U.S. and international laws by authorizing and conducting the torture and abuse of prisoners in U.S. custody. Last year, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that his office ...read more

A top U.N. human rights official accused Syria Thursday of engaging in crimes against humanity. "They are both widespread and they are being committed in a systematic manner," said Ivan Simonovic, assistant secretary-general of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human ...read more