A List Of Tyrannical States

Updates From The World's Tyrannical Outposts

It seems like only yesterday that the outposts of tyranny were free to pursue their dreams without interference. Today, however, whether your fancies run to newfangled weapons or old-fashioned planned economies, everyone--even Europe--is standing in your way. On the bright side, Iran and Syria have been bulwarks of comfort for each other; Cuba has expressed solidarity with Zimbabwe; and North Korea has showered Iran, Syria, and Cuba with praise. Belarus and Burma have kept to themselves, but their thoughts and prayers are surely with their fellow outposts of tyranny. All of them--along with Sudan, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan--deserve better. Perhaps they can console themselves with activities such as shuttering papers, staging riots against Denmark, or hiking.

Did they forget to include the United States of America where we force feed "detainees", deny access to courts, have official policies of torture and rendition, have an independent human rights group reporting deaths in our custody, and spy on our own citizens?

In fairness, our nation comes nowhere near the heinous acts that some of the truly authoritarian countries do, but we are sliding into that mentality and modality under the leadership of George W. Bush. As a Catholic, a veteran of two branches of the military, and a staunch Constitutionalist, I see that even one heinous act of torture is too many... one person incarcerated without due process is too many... one death because of a failure to protect an incarcerated person is too many... one deliberate act of infringing upon civil liberties is too many... and our nation has to strive to live up to its first principles.

My love for America is deeply engrained in my soul... and it causes me to speak out against such abuses of power, dliberation and/or incompetence. Take a look at these reports and judge for yourself if the Bush Administration is not leading us down a slippery slope to a point where genuine accusations of despotism, fascism and evil can eventually--and justifiably--be leveled against us.

Force-Feeding at Guantánamo Is Now Acknowledged

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 — The military commander responsible for the American detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, confirmed Tuesday that officials there last month turned to more aggressive methods to deter prisoners who were carrying out long-term hunger strikes to protest their incarceration.

The commander, Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, head of the United States Southern Command, said soldiers at Guantánamo began strapping some of the detainees into "restraint chairs" to force-feed them and isolate them from one another after finding that some were deliberately vomiting or siphoning out the liquid they had been fed.

Senior Lawyer at Pentagon Broke Ranks on Detainees

One of the Pentagon's top civilian lawyers repeatedly challenged the Bush administration's policy on the coercive interrogation of terror suspects, arguing that such practices violated the law, verged on torture and could ultimately expose senior officials to prosecution, a newly disclosed document shows.

The lawyer, Alberto J. Mora, a political appointee who retired Dec. 31 after more than four years as general counsel of the Navy, was one of many dissenters inside the Pentagon. Senior uniformed lawyers in all the military services also objected sharply to the interrogation policy, according to internal documents declassified last year.

But Mr. Mora's campaign against what he viewed as an official policy of cruel treatment, detailed in a memorandum he wrote in July 2004 and recounted in an article in the Feb. 27 issue of The New Yorker magazine, made public yesterday, underscored again how contrary views were often brushed aside in administration debates on the subject.

BBC News: Report Probes US Custody Deaths

Almost 100 prisoners have died in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since August 2002, according to US group Human Rights First. The details were first aired on BBC television's Newsnight programme. Of the 98 deaths, at least 34 were suspected or confirmed homicides, the programme said. The Pentagon told Newsnight it had not seen the report but took allegations of maltreatment "very seriously" and would prosecute if necessary. The report, which is to be published on Wednesday, draws on information from Pentagon and other official US sources.