Free Republic

NEW YORK — Amnesty International is currently touring the country with a life-sized replica of a maximum security prison cell at Guantánamo Bay. But critics say the cell, which is an attempt to call attention to alleged human rights abuses at the camp, is missing basic amenities provided to prisoners. The 7x10-foot cell, on display on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., lacks amenities like bedding, toiletries and a copy of the Koran, and it has nothing to illustrate that regular meals are served to inmates three times a day.

Olympics 'worsening China rights' China's human rights record is getting worse, not better, because of the Beijing Olympics, a rights group says. According to Amnesty International, China is clamping down on dissent in a bid to portray a stable and harmonious image ahead of the Games in August. It urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and world leaders to speak out against abuses, including China's handling of protests in Tibet. US President George W Bush is facing calls to boycott the Games' opening. "It would be clearly inappropriate for you to attend the Olympic Games in China, given the increasingly...

Politicians and human rights groups want to go on board US-registered planes that are believed to be carrying terror suspects when they land in Norway for refueling. Planes believed to be chartered by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have landed at the Sola Airport outside Stavanger as many as 15 times since 2003, reports local newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad. It's also believed that the planes, officially owned by Aviation Specialties Inc of the US, have landed for refueling at airports in Bergen and Evenes as well. A report to the European Parliament in 2006 claimed that Aviation Specialties is a...

The London-based human rights organization Amnesty International has condemned Israel's attacks on Gaza, claiming they are "being carried out with reckless disregard for civilian life." "Israeli military attacks over the past few days have killed more than 75 Palestinians in Gaza, including at least 10 children, and other unarmed civilian bystanders not involved in the confrontations" Malcolm Smart, director of Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa program, said Sunday. "Israel has a legal obligation to protect the civilian population of Gaza. Such attacks are disproportionate and go beyond lawful measures which Israeli forces may take in response to rocket attacks...

Amnesty International today issued an urgent action calling for the protection of several Kenyan human rights defenders and activists who have received serious death threats. The group, which includes six men and three women -- some of whom are prominent members of human rights organizations -- have received a number of anonymous threats in the form of SMS messages, phone calls and emails. They are now taking precautions for their safety, such as moving house and not making any public statements. The threats include accusations that they are ”traitors” to their ethnicity. All but one of the activists are of...

Australian Archdiocese Directs 328 Catholic Schools to Withdraw Support from Amnesty International By Meg Jalsevac MELBOURNE, September 25, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Amnesty International is facing yet another national backlash after its recent policy decision to promote the decriminalization of abortion world-wide.  All 328 Catholic schools in the Australia archdiocese of Melbourne have been counseled to withdraw all aid to Amnesty and close their school sponsored Amnesty support groups. Mr. Stephen Elders, director of the Catholic Education Office in Melbourne, sent a letter to all the schools encouraging them to "convey their disappointment" to Amnesty regarding the new pro-abortion policy.  Elders...

Amnesty International Organizes Worldwide Gay Protest Against Nicaragua By Peter J. Smith MANAGUA, Nicaragua, September 19, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - After enshrining abortion as a human right in its humanitarian mission, Amnesty International has now stepped up its campaign to target nations that criminalize sodomy as grave violators of human rights, beginning with Nicaragua. Last week Amnesty International through its affiliates orchestrated international protests outside Nicaraguan embassies and consulates in Germany, Canada, Chile, Iceland, Mexico, Paraguay, Sweden and Taiwan, demanding the repeal of Nicaragua's sodomy ban. "Article 204 contradicts numerous provisions in international human rights law," said an Amnesty press release....

Irish Diocese Advises Catholic School to Suspend Amnesty Chapter Irish Bishops scheduled next month to address issue of now pro-abortion AI in Catholic schools By Meg Jalsevac BELFAST, Ireland, September 18, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - According to the Irish newspaper, The Guardian, Ireland's bishops have begun to advise Catholic schools to terminate their Amnesty International support groups due to the organization's new pro-abortion policy. Amnesty International (AI), known as the world's most extensive human rights organization, has recently faced a worldwide backlash resulting from a recent policy decision to promote the decriminalization of the killing of unborn children. Much of the...

Despite Pleas, Ontario Bishop Refuses to Direct Catholic School on Amnesty International Local branch of AI still meets regularly in St. Sault Marie Catholic High School Hilary White SAULT STE. MARIE, Ontario, September 7, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Despite ratifying its parent organization's decision to support abortion as a human right, the local branch of Amnesty International in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario still meets regularly at St. Basil Secondary Catholic school.  Since the AI decision was announced this spring, two Catholic bishops in the UK have joined the Vatican in condemning the move. Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council...

Sault Ste. Marie Bishop Leaves Decision to Support Amnesty to School Trustees In comments to local media Bishop used strong words to advise against support By Hilary White SAULT STE. MARIE, Ontario, September 4, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Catholic school trustees of Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario have been all but instructed by their bishop, Jean-Louis Plouffe, to drop support for Amnesty International because of the human rights group's recent adoption of abortion as a "human right". In comments to local media, while leaving the decision whether to support Amnesty up to trustees, Bishop Plouffe...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorAugust 30, 2007London, England (LifeNews.com) -- The London Guardian caused an international sensation last week when it reported that a leading pro-life advocate who monitors music group and artists indicated singers Christina Aguilera and Avril Lavigne were pro-life. However, LifeNews.com has learned the activist never told the newspaper that.The singers were in the news because Erik Whittington, director of Rock for Life, was upset that Amnesty International put out a CD featuring them and other artists.The album's purpose was purportedly to raise funds for the victims of Darfur but money going to Amnesty International would now fund...

Rock for Life Corrects Times of London: Christina Aguilera Actually Supports Abortion By Hilary White LONDON, August 30, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Times of London has been corrected by US pro-life group Rock for Life after it claimed that a US pop singer is pro-life. On August 25, the Times newspaper ran the headline "Pro-life Rockers Clash with Amnesty," and claimed that the decision of the international rights organisation to support abortion as a "human right" was clashing with some well-known rock and pop stars who opposed abortion. The pop singers, Christina Aguilera and Avril Lavigne, the Times claimed, had...

Abortion Fallout: Scottish Cardinal is 2nd Bishop to Quit Amnesty International EDINBURGH, August 28, 2007 - (CWNews.com/LifeSiteNews.com) - Cardinal Keith O'Brien of Edinburgh, Scotland, has become the latest Catholic leader to drop his membership in Amnesty International to protest the group's support for legal abortion. The Scottish cardinal wrote to Amnesty International leaders explaining that after 40 years of involvement he felt obliged to sever his links with the human-rights group. "As a matter of conscience and great sadness," he wrote, he could no longer support what he had long considered "this noble organization."

Bishops to Amnesty International: We work with orgs who "do not oppose the fundamental right to life" By John-Henry Westen WASHINGTON, D.C., August 27, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has decried Amnesty International's recent decision to - as the bishops put it - "promote worldwide access to abortion," telling the organization that the Bishops' Conference will work with other organizations rather than with Amnesty International (AI) to carry out the good ends which AI was traditionally associated with. Bishop William S. Skylstad, the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement to...

 Amnesty International, which formally announced two weeks ago a new worldwide policy backing women's right to abortion in some cases, is being charged with having "duped" pro-life pop stars who contributed their time and talents to a CD released to raise money by the anti-torture group for victims of violence in Darfur. "The human suffering going on right now in Darfur is horrific," said Erik Whittington, American Life League's youth outreach director and director of Rock for Life, an organization of anti-abortion musicians. "To add insult to injury, however, using this tragic abuse of human rights to raise money for...

In 1999 the CEDAW Committee, which regulates the operation of CEDAW in countries that ratify and domesticate it, told Columbia that the provision of its law outlawing abortion was a violation of the rights of women to health enshrined in article 12 of CEDAW. On July 1, 1999 the CEDAW lambasted Nepal for criminalizing abortion. On July 9, 1999, CEDAW Committee told Chile that the Chilean laws punishing abortion were violating the rights of Chilean women. In 2000, CEDAW told Burkina Faso to review its laws on abortion and provide for coverage by social security. In 2000 also, CEDAW...

Amnesty International Ireland Says It Has Not Opted Out of Organization's Abortion Advocacy Contrary to Reports By Elizabeth O'Brien DUBLIN, Ireland, August 21, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Despite some misleading media headlines, the Ireland branch of Amnesty International has not opted out of the organization's recent position of abortion advocacy. Funding International Ireland will mean funding the pro-abortion Amnesty International as a whole. LifeSiteNews.com contacted Noeleen Hartigan, program director for Amnesty International's Irish Section, to confirm the branch's official standing on the abortion policy. LifeSiteNews.com asked whether Amnesty International Ireland is opting out of the abortion policy and whether, "the Ireland...

It's Official - Amnesty International is Now An Abortion Lobby Group - Catholics Boycott Bishop Resigns from Board By Elizabeth O'Brien UNITED KINGDOM, August 20, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Since Amnesty International officially reaffirmed its pro-abortion policy last weekend, an English bishop has withdrawn his support, thereby signaling that Catholics should begin a boycott of the organization. Amnesty International, the world's largest human rights organization, definitively threw away its last chance to rescind its recent abortion advocacy policy at the International Council meeting in Mexico City last weekend. At the end of the meeting on Friday, the organization said that it...

Bishop: Tomorrow is Last Chance for AI on Abortion or Catholics Will Boycott By Elizabeth O'BrienUNITED KINGDOM, August 10, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A British Bishop has given Amnesty International (AI) a final warning, saying that tomorrow the organization faces its last chance reject its pro-abortion stance, or else face a boycott from individual Catholics and the Catholic Church.East Anglia Bishop Michael Evens, a long-time member of AI, clearly stated that tomorrow's meeting of the AI International Council in Mexico City is the last opportunity for AI to revoke its position on abortion, the Guardian Unlimited reports. Evans stated, "Catholics and...

Amnesty International defiant on abortion Despite objections from Catholic leaders, human rights group won’t back down (CNA) -- Amnesty International remains defiant about its new pro-abortion stance despite receiving worldwide criticism for its decision to abandon the group’s long standing neutrality on the issue, and has decided instead to embrace abortion as a human right. Amnesty was founded in 1961 by a Catholic convert, the late Peter Benenson, and has enjoyed the support of Catholic organizations and individuals in its campaigns against torture and capital punishment. It has also received praise in the past for staying clear of the abortion...

New York, NY (LifeNews.com) -- Amnesty International upset millions of pro-life supporters months ago when it decided to take a pro-abortion position after decades of neutrality. Any decision on abortion was supposed to come at an AI leadership conference in August in Mexico City -- but with the meeting on the horizon, a change of heart isn't expected. The biennial meeting of the world's foremost human rights group begins August 11 but one of its leaders says its unlikely AI will backtrack on the abortion decision. "I think it's improbable," Kate Gilmore, AI's deputy secretary general, told the Associated Press....

It is a tragedy when a force for good becomes a force for evil. But such is the case with Amnesty International. In April, the 1.8 million-member human-rights organization announced its support for abortion. Amnesty International (AI), in a press release, made it clear that it stood by “the rights of women and girls to be free from threat, force, or coercion as they exercise their sexual and reproductive rights.” I certainly don’t want women and girls to be sexually or reproductively forced or coerced into anything. But if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, would Amnesty International...

The authors of the war that nearly everybody thought was necessary at the time seem genuinely puzzled that so many Americans think all of Arabia isn't worth the life of a single American soldier. If they're curious about why, the folks at the White House should read the stories that occasionally make it only to the back pages of the newspapers. Item (London Daily Telegraph): "The imminent execution of a teenage maid in Saudi Arabia drew fierce criticism yesterday and provoked condemnation of the kingdom's prolific use of capital punishment. The case has brought fresh attention to the draconian Saudi...

WASHINGTON, July 10, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a letter to William S. Skylstad, Bishop of Spokane, Washington and sitting president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Amnesty International has "corrected" the statement put out by the Conference earlier this month criticising the human rights group for their recently adopted support for abortion as an international human right. Until recently, Amnesty's position on abortion was official neutrality. In April, however, Amnesty joined the ranks of the world's abortion-promoting organizations by a series of decisions to consider abortion - in the cases of rape and incest and when the "life or...

WASHINGTON, DC, July 4, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has urged Amnesty International (AI) to return to its neutral position on abortion when the AI International Council meets in Mexico this August. The President of the USCCB, Bishop William S. Skylstad, urged AI to renounce its position on abortion in a July 2 statement. He wrote, "The action of the Executive Council undermines Amnesty's longstanding moral credibility, diverts its mission, divides its own members (many of whom are Catholic or defend the rights of unborn children), and jeopardizes Amnesty's support by people in many...

It is a tragedy when a force for good becomes a force for evil. But such is the case with Amnesty International. In April, the 1.8 million-member human-rights organization announced its support for abortion. Amnesty International (AI), in a press release, made it clear that it stood by "the rights of women and girls to be free from threat, force, or coercion as they exercise their sexual and reproductive rights." I certainly don't want women and girls to be sexually or reproductively forced or coerced into anything. But if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, would Amnesty International...

Islamisation of David Keene, American Conservative Union June 27, 2007 David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU), has been moving, along with several other paleo-conservatives like Dinesh D’Souza, towards a partnership with Saudi-funded, pro-Hamas institutions. A forewarning was the appointment of Grover Norquist to the ACU board. A second forewarning was the appointment of Suhail Khan to the ACU board. Then Tuesday, David Keene joined United for Peace and Justice, the ACLU, the Communist Party-USA, as a speaker in the “Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice” to “…call on Congress to restore habeas corpus, fix the...

Abortion – The First Human Rights Abuse Torture, political imprisonment, sexual slavery, genocide – these are a few of the examples one would think of when it comes to human rights abuses. These are heinous abuses that not only Catholics, but all people of good will should fight. But in this list of atrocities, many people can forget that abortion is the earliest and most fundamental attack on human rights. Until recently, Amnesty International documented and decried China’s policy of coercive abortion as a human rights abuse. But earlier this year, Amnesty International changed its generally neutral stance on abortion...

Vatican: Catholics and Catholic Organizations "Must" Withdraw Support of Amnesty International over Abortion ROME, June 14, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for justice and Peace, has called on all Catholics to stop funding Amnesty International because of its recent support of abortion. The nearly 50 year-old human rights organization gave its official stamp of approval to abortion in cases of "rape, incest and extreme risk to the health of the mother". However, the new policy, which AI had attempted without success to keep from the public, calls for the universal decriminalization of abortion, thereby...

London,England (LifeNews.com) -- Amnesty International responded Thursday to criticism from the Catholic Church, which said the human rights organization would lose money because of its recent decision to support abortion. This week, Cardinal Renato Martino, a top Vatican spokesman, said the Catholic Church would call on a boycott of Amnesty International and urge Catholic organizations to stop sending donations to the group. In a statement sent to LifeNews.com, AI doesn't appear to be concerned about the boycott and says it receives no direct funding from the Vatican. "We have not accepted funds from the Vatican and do not accept funds...

The Vatican has urged all Catholics to stop donating money to Amnesty International, accusing the human rights group of promoting abortion.The Vatican described abortion as "murder" The Vatican, which regards life as sacred from the moment of conception, said it was an "inevitable consequence" of the group's policy change.  Amnesty said it was not promoting abortion as a universal right.  But the group said that women had a right to choose, particularly in cases of rape or incest.   "No more financing of Amnesty International after the organisation's pro-abortion about-turn," said a statement from the Roman Catholic Church's Pontifical...

Telling Each Other What to Do Gateway Pundit notes the Vatican has urged Catholics not to donate to Amnesty International over AI's endorsement of abortion. Opinio Juris says "Whether the Vatican is right to do this is a question for another day, but what I'm interested in is the ability of one NGO (the Vatican) to pressure another (Amnesty International)."Although nongovernment organizations have existed for millenia, the modern NGO really burst onto the public scene in the last 30 years as it assumed a new role quite different than that implied by its name. Unlike old-time nongovernment organizations like...

Canberra, Australia (LifeNews.com) -- The Catholic Church in Australia has always been a strong supporter of the human rights aims and goal of Amnesty International. But, now that AI has adopted a pro-abortion position that runs counter to the Church's pro-life teaching, that long-standing relationship may be over. If so, Amnesty International will pay the price as thousands of its Australia members are Catholic and it has numerous campus affiliate groups on Catholic high school and college campuses. Amnesty estimates that 500 Catholic schools have affiliate groups and those organization may cut their ties with the international parent organization.Last month,...

May 28, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Amnesty International’s (AI) decision to support the worldwide decriminalization of abortion is having a huge impact on membership, with many members threatening to break, or already having broken from Amnesty, reported Australia’s The Age newspaper earlier today. The Age also speculated that many of Amnesty’s disgruntled employees and supporters may band together to found a new human rights organization.  Amnesty International publicly admitted its new policy to support the universal decriminalization of abortion earlier this month, to the dismay of many of its longtime supporters. Already numerous high-level Amnesty supporters around the world have expressed disappointment...

I'm searching for links to the news releases about Amnesty International demanding to visit the three captured American soldiers and verify that they are receiving fair treatment under the Geneva Convention.

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- Amnesty International officials finally went public about their secret decision to change their long-standing position of neutrality on abortion. AI has adopted a new policy calling for abortions to be allowed worldwide when a woman is a victim of rape or her health is threatened by the pregnancy. AI also will call on the overwhelming majority of nations around the world that have pro-life laws prohibit abortions to change them and make abortions legal.

NEW YORK, May 3, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Amnesty International US has adopted a new policy supporting a "right" to abortion, a move which the organization is attempting to keep secret from the public, according to reports this week carried by First Things and Consistent Life. Ryan T. Anderson, writing for First Things, reported on a buried policy statement he unearthed from the members-only, restricted-content page of AI's US website. The policy outlined AI's new position on Sexual and Reproductive Rights that "includes support for abortion." While the document claims AI would support abortion only in "particular circumstances," in effect the...

Law and order is President Calderon's top priority Mexico's human rights record has been severely criticised in a new report by the rights group Amnesty International.The group says that arbitrary detention and torture are systematic and that it is Mexico's poor who suffer most. It also highlights the problem suffered by millions of indigenous peoples at the hands of the authorities. The government's use of soldiers to tackle drugs gangs is criticised but the Mexican government has said that it is working to clean up the abuses. 'Systematic abuses' Amnesty International cites case after case of people who it...

Let us now praise the Iraqi legal system. Scorned by international watchdog organizations and self-credentialed legal minds since its establishment in 2003 as a newly independent institution, it has now done something that the international community’s premier courts have consistently failed to do: punished, in a reasonable timeframe, a mass murderer and delivered justice to his victims. Back in November, it may be recalled, Iraq's High Tribunal judged Saddam Hussein guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to hang for the 1982 massacre of 148 Shi’ites in the city of Dujail. Initial concerns about an interminable appeals process have...

IRAQI officers loyal to Saddam Hussain filmed their cold-blooded murder of two British bomb disposal officers who were captured after a roadside ambush.An inquest was told that Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth, 36, and Sapper Luke Allsopp, 24, thought that they were being taken to hospital for treatment, but instead they were moved to a compound run by Saddam’s military intelligence. The harrowing ordeal lasted for hours until Iraqi agents killed the pair. The soldiers were buried in a shallow grave. At the inquest yesterday the coroner, Andrew Walker, severely criticised army chiefs for failing to ensure that the soldiers avoided...

MEXICO CITY - To send a chilling message to their underworld rivals, Mexican drug cartels are adopting a method of intimidation made notorious by Middle Eastern terrorist groups. At least 26 people have been decapitated in Mexico this year, with heads stuck on fences, dumped in trash piles and -- most recently -- tossed onto a nightclub dance floor. Although beheading goes back centuries as a form of execution, it has become the latest tactical escalation of an ongoing turf war that gets nastier all the time, with hit men looking for new ways to instill fear. "Before, they tortured...

<p>Fox News reporting a new video is out. It shows two dead american soldiers burned and being dragged through the streets.</p> <p>There is a belief that they are the bodies of troopers Tucker and Menchaca.</p>

Somalia is officially an Islamic state and conversion is prohibited. The country has a population of approximately 8.3 million, nearly all of them Sunni Muslims. There is a small, extremely low-profile Christian community. According to the International Religious Freedom Report 2006 issued by the US State Department last Friday, proselytizing for any religion except Islam is prohibited in Puntland and Somaliland and effectively blocked by informal social consensus elsewhere in the country. Somalia has had no government since the fall of Siad Barre in 1991. The Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which grew out of individual courts' efforts to establish...

Just about everything Israel does to defend itself is 'illegal.' The two principal "human rights" organizations are in a race to the bottom to see which group can demonize Israel with the most absurd legal arguments and most blatant factual mis-statements. Until last week, Human Rights Watch enjoyed a prodigious lead, having "found" - contrary to what every newspaper in the world had reported and what everyone saw with their own eyes on television - "no cases in which Hizbullah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack." Those of us familiar with Amnesty International's nefarious...

A new book by David Horowitz and Richard Poe has enraged the Left and alarmed many conservatives. It exposes the machinations of a radical clique working at the highest levels of government and finance to undermine American power. That book is The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party. It hit the New York Times bestseller list in its first week in print. Here to tell us about The Shadow Partyis co-author Richard Poe, our esteemed colleague at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, where he serves as director of research. Mr....

LONDON - Amnesty International on Wednesday accused Israel of war crimes, saying it broke international law by deliberately destroying Lebanon's civilian infrastructure during its recent war with Hezbollah guerrillas. The human rights group said initial evidence, including the pattern and scope of the Israeli attacks, number of civilian casualties, widespread damage and statements by Israeli officials "indicate that such destruction was deliberate and part of a military strategy, rather than 'collateral damage.'" Amnesty International, whose delegates monitored the fighting in both Israel and Lebanon, said Israel violated international laws banning direct attacks on civilians and barring indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks....

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have undermined the rights of Chinese to freedom of expression through their actions in China, Amnesty International said in a report. “All three companies have, in one way or another, facilitated or colluded in the practice of censorship in China,” Amnesty said in the report, noting these actions contradict the companies’ stated values. This is not the first time that Amnesty has criticized the business practices of these three companies. Yahoo has taken heat for handing over user information that helped Chinese authorities identify and jail dissidents, including Shi Tao, a journalist imprisoned in 2005 for...

WELLINGTON, July 18, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Last week Brian Murphy, the International Religion Writer for the Associated Press, spoke with LifeSiteNews.com about the Amnesty International (AI) move to consider advocating for abortion as a human right. Murphy told LifeSiteNews.com that the leadership at AI in London, England are nervous about the issue as it is causing internal unrest. The matter of greatest concern to AI is the fact that donors will reconsider their support for the organization as it enters abortion advocacy. Statements by Christian church leaders, including a recent statement from the Vatican, expressing dismay at AI's proposed direction,...

Somali Muslims warned of death 06/07/2006 11:36 - (SA) Mogadishu - Somali Muslims who fail to perform daily prayers will be killed in accordance with Qur'anic law under a new edict issued by a leading cleric in the Islamic courts union that controlled the capital. The requirement for Muslims to observe the five-times daily ritual under penalty of death was announced late on Wednesday and appeared to confirm the hardline nature of the increasingly powerful Sharia courts in Mogadishu. Sheikh Abdalla Ali, a founder and high-ranking official in the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia, said: "He who does not perform...

snip…Privates Tucker and Menchaca were not simply ambushed, taken prisoner and killed. "The torture was something unnatural," said Major General Abdul Azziz Mohammed Jassim of Iraq's Defense Ministry, hinting at the state of the soldiers' remains. The corpses were so mutilated that they could be positively identified only through DNA testing. Here, then, is the enemy we face in Iraq: not nationalists or extremists or even fanatics, but something like a band of real-life Hannibal Lecters for whom human slaughter is both business and religious fulfillment. Following the killing, an Internet statement said to be from the Mujahadeen Shura Council...