The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged syria

Rubio taking a tough stance with Syria

By | 05.11.11 | 1:50 pm | More from The Florida Independent

Sen. Marco Rubio has scheduled a press conference this morning alongside Sen. Joe Lieberman, reportedly to call for the U.S. to get tougher on Syria. #


Rubio appeared on CBS’s “The Early Show” this morning, and said the two senators would More…

Obama makes recess appointments, House members complain

By | 12.30.10 | 11:58 am

President Obama made six recess appointments Wednesday, allowing officials to bypass Senate confirmation to serve for approximately one year. One of those appointments was an ambassador to Syria, a position that had been vacant since 2005 after the Bush administration withdrew the ambassador over suspected Syrian involvement in the More…

When Rendition Victims Can’t Seek Justice

By | 06.14.10 | 1:29 pm

Via Kevin Drum, the Toronto Star reports that Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen captured in 2002 by U.S. officials and sent to Syria for a year’s worth of torture, has lost his appeal for a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Center for Constitutional Rights’s Maria LaHood More…

An Obama Plan for Mideast Peace?

By | 04.07.10 | 9:41 am

An anonymous administration official runs an idea up David Ignatius’ flagpole: Frustrated with the poor-to-intransigent pace of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which are barely at the “indirect” phase, President Obama is considering proposing his own Mideast-peace plan. That’s something the two-state-solution community urged him and Secretary of State Hillary More…

Rendition Case Tests FBI Immunity

By | 11.10.09 | 6:00 am

Twenty-four-year-old Amir Meshal, the son of Muslim immigrants from Egypt, was a lifelong resident of New Jersey when, after living briefly in Cairo with extended family members, in 2006 he decided to go to Somalia to study Islam and experience living under Islamic law. The country appeared to have stabilized More…

Appeals Court Dismisses Canadian Torture Victim’s Case

By | 11.02.09 | 3:13 pm

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals just dismissed a landmark lawsuit filed by a Canadian victim of “extraordinary rendition” against former U.S. officials, ruling that torture victims have no right to compensation from the U.S. government, even if U.S. officials were complicit in their treatment.

Maher Arar is a More…

Pressure to Close GTMO Puts Some Prisoners at Risk

By | 10.01.09 | 1:11 pm

As the pressure grows on the Obama administration to close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay by January, so too does the risk that some of the Guantanamo detainees cleared for release could be returned to countries where they’ll face persecution or torture, More…

Iran Beyond Its Borders

By | 06.23.09 | 10:44 am

This post is going to get filled, really fast, with irresponsible speculation. So let’s have some fun.

This Washington Post story about the Washington debate over Iran is revealing for two reasons. First, the administration doesn’t seem to be phased by Manichean, inwardly focused arguments through analogy about why President More…

Canadian MPs Call for Compensation for Torture Victims

By | 06.18.09 | 10:41 am

Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but Canadians seem so much more willing to apologize for their mistakes than Americans do.

According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a committee in Parliament is planning to recommend that the Canadian government compensate and apologize to three Arab-Canadian men who were imprisoned and tortured More…

Syria Sanctions Remain in Place

By | 05.11.09 | 12:22 pm

Not much will stop the right from insisting that the Obama administration’s outreach to Syria is undone by the Syria insurgent “pipeline” to Iraq re-opening, but take a look at this Friday late-afternoon message from the White House about continuing “the blocking of property More…