5.28.2003

News we could lose

US plans death camp in Cuba: According to Major-General Geoffrey Miller, the Pentagon has been toying with the idea of turning Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay into a death camp, so that prisoners held there (680 suspects held for 18 months without charge) can be tried, convicted and executed without having to leave the country.

Amnesty International states the obvious: the "war on terror" has left people more scared than any other time in post-Cold War history. The report says: "The 'war on terror', far from making the world a safer place, has made it more dangerous by curtailing human rights, undermining the rule of international law and shielding governments from scrutiny."

Counting bodies: "We don't do body counts," Tommy Franks said famously during the war on Iraq. Others do, and the counts aren't promising. While some organizations put civilian deaths from the war as low as 1,600, others go well over 7,000. And among Iraqi soldiers, the death toll is between 13,500 and 45,000.

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