World-News

CounterPunch
by David Macaray

Even though Peace Corps volunteers aren’t experts on political policy or international relations, they do know a thing or two about cross-cultural exchanges. If you were to ask any ex-volunteer who they think would be the worst possible choice for an emissary or ambassador to a foreign country — particularly one expected to mingle at the village level — they’d tell you it would be a soldier...

http://counterpunch.org/macaray10292009.html



Can human rights win the war?

The American Prospect
by Adam Serwer

10/29/09

When Marine Reserve Gen. Douglas Stone addressed New America’s Counterterrorism Conference last week, he almost sounded like a human-rights activist. Calling the Constitution a ‘Human Rights Document,’ Stone declared that the fight against terrorism wasn’t just a physical one but ‘a historic debate about the rule of law and human rights,’ taking place on ‘the battlefield of the mind.’ Stone’s battlefield was once the detention centers of Iraq, where he worked to reform the system after the Abu Ghraib scandal, reducing recidivism and therefore the flow of fighters to the insurgents. The same thing, he said, needs to happen in Afghanistan, where prison conditions and lack of due process are creating favorable conditions for the Taliban and al-Qaeda to radicalize the imprisoned. ‘What if exactly what we’re doing in detention is exactly what the enemy wants?’ Stone asked. ‘Is that not aiding and abetting the enemy?’

http://tinyurl.com/ykrfypb


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Taliban
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=al-Qaeda
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Constitution
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=ignorance
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=arrogance
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=counterterrorism
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=insurgents
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Abu+Ghraib
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=David+Macaray