MAQzine

Obama unlikely to close Guantanamo as 'War on Terror' continues Some Guantanamo inmates will continue to be indefinitely detained The politics of war and terrorism have put President Obama's order to close Guantanamo on hold. In America , the indefinite detention of suspected terrorists remains an accepted cost of waging a global war. Just two days into his first term, US President Barack Obama ordered the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to be closed. However, his initial earnestness has given way to a painstaking implementation process fraught by the politics of war and terrorism. Last December, Congress blocked funding to transfer detainees out of Guantanamo . The move came a month after the surprisingly narrow conviction of Ahmed Ghailani for his role in the 1998 US embassy bombings in East Africa . Ghailani's controversial trial raised concern about the unpredictability of prosecuting terrorism suspects in civilian courts. This politically charged environmen...

FACT CHECK: Islam already part of WTC neighborhood By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer  –  34 mins ago WASHINGTON – A  New  York  imam  and his proposed mosque near ground zero are being demonized by political candidates — mostly Republicans — despite the fact that Islam is already very much a part of the World Trade Center neighborhood. And that Muslims pray inside the Pentagon, too, less than 80 feet from where terrorists attacked. And that the imam who's being branded an extremist has been valued by both Republican and Democratic administrations as a moderate face of the faith. Even so, the project stirs complicated emotions, and  Imam  Feisal Abdul  Rauf  is a complex figure who defies easy categorization in the American Muslim world. He's devoted much of his career to working closely with Christians, Jews and secular leaders to advance interfaith understanding. He's scolded his own religion for being in some ways i...

Obama Speech Resurrects Jimmy Carter Era   About two-thirds of the way through President Obama’s speech, leaves and twigs twitched erratically amid late-spring gusts of wind outside the windows of the Oval Office. Symbolism is integral to a presidential address, and Tuesday night was no exception, with solemn flags standing behind the history-heavy and timber-laden   Resolute desk . But faltering branches was not the imagery desired for the moment. In his opening comments, the president reassured the public: From the very beginning of this crisis, the federal government has been in charge of the largest environmental cleanup effort in our nation’s history. It hasn’t felt that way. Obama didn’t personally visit the Gulf until May 2 , more than 10 days after the Deepwater Horizon explosion and the catastrophic mile-deep oil gusher. Original estimates on the extent of the oil spill drastically underestimated the enormity of the damage: in late April the National Oceanic and Atmos...

Weekend Edition May 21 - 23, 2010 Obama's Afghan Torture Center and the American Psychological Association By STEPHEN SOLDZ A   recent pair of articles by Marc Ambinder of the   Atlantic   has shed new light upon activities in the secret so-called “black jail” on the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan . Among other aspects, these new revelations suggest that psychologists may be playing a major role inside the facility, raising questions about the reasons for American Psychological Association (APA) lobbying activities in support of the agency that Ambinder reports is running the detention center.   In recent months the   Washington Post ,   New York Times , and   BBC   reported on a secret prison on fringes of the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan . Referred to by former prisoners as the “black jail,” this institution is reportedly a site where prisoner abuse is regular and systematic. The   BBC   reported that all nine former prisoners...