Christopher Hitchens found out for himself, submitting to a brutal waterboarding session in an effort to understand the human cost of Americas use of harsh tactics at Guantnamo and elsewhere.

Bright Young Hollywood The Jonas Brothers on the beach! The Gossip gang on the boardwalk! McLovin in … a tree? Mark Seliger photographs the class of 2008 as Krista Smith tests their tastes.

Hitchens, his head hooded, was subjected to this most terrifying of ordeals by veterans of the US Special Forces. Did the experience feel like torture? The “official lie” about waterboarding, Hitchens says, is that it “simulates the feeling of drowning”. In fact, “you are drowning - or rather, being drowned. Believe me, it's torture.”

So what did it feel like? Hitchens recounts how he was lashed tightly to a sloping board, then, “on top of the hood, three layers of enveloping towel were added. In this pregnant darkness, head downward, I waited until I abruptly felt a slow…

The man who broke the My Lai and Abu Ghraib stories says we’re closer to war with Iran than anyone knows.

During the Vietnam War, Hersh was the first to report on the My Lai massacre. He has been the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, five George Polk Awards, two National Magazine Awards, and a dozen other prizes. He is also the author of eight books,…

Breaking months of acrimonious deadlock, House and Senate leaders from both parties have agreed to a bill that gives nation’s spy agencies the power to turn a wide swath of domestic communication companies into intelligence gathering operations, and that puts an end to court challenges to telecoms.

Here is the scary part, GWB is in no doubt guilty of treason by failing to uphold the constitution under his oath in taking office, in fact he has literally destroyed it, and his spying was going on long before 9/11 though the legislature making…

Keith Olberman is changing the news.

It was nearly midnight before Keith Olbermann left the NBC News election studio on May 13th, having spent five hours on the air, co-anchoring coverage of the West Virginia Democratic primary. Olbermann had a short ride home from Rockefeller…

In a major rebuke to the Bush administration’s theories of presidential power — and in an equally stinging rebuke to the bipartisan political class which has supported the Bush detention policies — the U.S. Supreme Court today, in a 5-4 decision (.pdf), declared Section 7 of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court today did what the Founders envisioned it should do: it protected our basic constitutional guarantees from erosion and assault by a corrupt majority within the political class. In so doing, the Court took a mild though important…

President Bush has admitted to The Times that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a guy really anxious for war? in Iraq.

Americans must remember that we are a truly blessed nation of freedom, human and natural resources that past generations worked and lived hard to establish and insure. Pointing fingers and diverting from true issues of concern seem to be the…

Which presidential candidate would be better for the economy? Barack Obama or John “I don’t know much about economics” McCain? Bomb the poll.

? Fox News has?confirmed that?Senator John McCain will?visit Colombia in July. He will be meeting with? Colombian president Alvaro Uribe during his visit to the South American country. El Tiempo, Colombia’s largest daily, first…

“You just don’t shoot at a ship at sea without identifying it, making sure of your target!”
Four decades later, many of the more than two dozen Liberty survivors located and interviewed by the Tribune cannot talk about the attack without shouting or weeping.

“They tried to lie their way out of it!” Lockwood shouts. “I don't believe that for a minute! You just don't shoot at a ship at sea without identifying it, making sure of your target!” Four decades later, many of the…

“You implied in your meltdown that the Democratic Party is making a calculated effort to prevent a woman from winning the nomination because she's a woman. News flash: it's possible to support Obama and not be a misogynistic goon. ”

Tags: recommended, politics, feminism, Hillary Clinton, president, 2008 elections, primaries, Democrats, Republicans, women's rights, women, conservatism (all tags) :: Previous Tag Versions

Twenty-five former U.S. military officers have severely criticized the official account of 9/11 and called for a new investigation. They are among the rapidly growing number of military and intelligence service veterans, scientists, engineers, and architects challenging the governments story.

of your derisive complaints has been well answered elsewhere. See, for example, 911truth.org, Jim Hoffman's excellent site 911research.com, architects and engineers for 911truth (ae911truth dot org) or the journal of 911 studies…

The author claims that activities such as web surfing and video games, along with a shift from a 'print culture' to a 'video culture', has led to a culture of anti-rationalism and anti-intellectualism, where people cannot concentrate for long periods of time and lack knowledge of basic geography, science and history.

This is the last subject that any candidate would dare raise on the long and winding road to the White House. It is almost impossible to talk about the manner in which public ignorance contributes to grave national problems without being labeled…

“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. “Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me”
One word: Iowa

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said that in Indiana, Obama split working-class voters with Clinton and won a higher percentage of white voters than in Ohio in March. He said Obama will be the strongest nominee because he appeals “to…

A complete archive of newscasts from just about every major US network on that fateful day, beginning around 8:30am 9/11 and ending on the evening of 9/13. Interesting to see the footage in its raw form. Networks included are: ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, FOX, and NBC.

You can view the televisionarchive.org site in the Wayback Machine - although not all of the links are intact, you can still read analysis of the events that were posted on the site: Therapeutic Patriotism and Beyond Terrorism, Television and…

Hillary Clinton has pledged to obliterate? Iran if it strikes Israel with nuclear weapons (it doesn't yet have).Israel has the world's sixth largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, behind only the US, Russia, China, the UK and (maybe) France. It can handle ANY Iranian threat on its own, thank you very much.

This is a sophisticated command and control system. Blue-green, sea-piercing lasers, developed, in part, at a U.S. weapons lab, can be used to communicate with the subs in so-called “bell ringer” operations. In situations in…

The world we could be living in…

Bernays’s version of a “democratic society,” in which political decisions are marketed to consumers, has many modern proponents. Consider a comment by Andrew Card, George W. Bush’s former chief of staff….

It’s true China is booming, Russia is growing more assertive, terrorism is a threat. But if America is losing the ability to dictate to this new world

Comment: If there was such a thing known as Unified Field Theory in geo-political axioms, this article would be it. Years ago i personally used to believe globalisation was anti-american. however, if you really look at who is doing the…

Each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics gathers 84,000 prices in about 200 categories to form the Consumer Price Index, one measure of inflation. Its among the statistics that the Federal Reserve considered when it cut interest rates on Wednesday. The categories are weighted according to an estimate of what the average American spends, as shown

It?s among the statistics that the Federal Reserve considered when it cut interest rates on Wednesday. The categories are weighted according to an estimate of what the average American spends, as shown below.

HR 1955 - The definition of violent radicalization uses vague language to define this term of promoting any belief system that the government considers to be an extremist agenda. Since the bill doesn’t specifically define what an extremist belief system is, it is entirely up to the interpretation of the government.

H.R. 1955 would direct the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to establish a university-based Center of Excellence for the Study of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism in the United States. The bill also would establish a…

At least 20,000 U.S. troops who were not classified as wounded during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan have been found with signs of brain injuries, according to military and veterans records compiled by USA TODAY.

• VA hospitals, where Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have been screened for combat brain injuries since April. The VA found about 20% of 61,285 surveyed — or 11,804 veterans — with signs of brain injury,…