Free Republic

March 03, 2011 HRW Founder Bernstein Starts Advancing Human Rights (AHR) Robert Bernstein, the founder and former chairman of Human Rights Watch who publicly renounced his ties with the organization due to distorted and disproportionate focus on free and open Israel at the expense of the rest of the Middle East -- mostly unfree -- has just launched a new human rights organization, Advancing Human Rights. Why the need for a new organization? Bernstein, 88, explains: Some human rights organizations, like Human Rights Watch, do not condemn incitement to genocide, Arab hate speech being spewed daily in Gaza, particularly, and...

A human rights groups has called on the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) to stop what it says are "the arbitrary arrests and abuse" of African migrant workers and black Libyans assumed to be mercenaries. Human Rights Watch said Sunday the NTC should release those detained as mercenaries "solely due to their dark skin color." The rights organization said the NTC should provide "prompt judicial review" to any detainees for whom there is evidence of criminal activity. Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East and North Africa director, says "it's a dangerous time to be dark-skinned in Tripoli." She said the...

NEW YORK/ISLAMABAD/KARACHI: The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Pakistan`s National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW), Insani Huqooq Ittehad (IHI) comprising 10 NGOs and other women and human rights organisation have expressed “deep shock” and “disappointment” at the Supreme Court verdict acquitting the accused who had raped Mukhtar Mai about nine years ago. “This is a setback for Mukhtar Mai, the broader struggle to end violence against women and the cause of an independent rights-respecting judiciary in Pakistan,” the HRW said in a statement and urged the government to ensure her safety. It said that any argument...

Across eastern Libya, rebel fighters and their supporters are detaining, intimidating and frequently beating African immigrants and black Libyans, accusing them of fighting as mercenaries on behalf of Kadafi, witnesses and human rights workers say. In a few instances, rebels have executed suspected mercenaries captured in battle, according to Human Rights Watch and local Libyans. The rebel-led provisional government in Benghazi denies mistreating suspected mercenaries, though it acknowledges that it is detaining some for questioning. It says it has given human rights representatives access to detainees. But rebel fighters and bands of gunmen who looted government weapons depots are reportedly...

The top oil exporter and U.S. ally is an absolute monarchy that does not tolerate any form of public dissent, does not have an elected parliament or any political parties. Saudi Islamists and opposition activists this month launched a political party called the "Islamic Umma" in a rare challenge to authority inspired by unrest triggering regime change in Tunisia and Egypt... New York-based Human Rights Watch demanded the release of the activists, some of whom have been campaigning for several years for greater political freedom in Saudi Arabia.

Several pro-government Egyptian newspapers and media outlets are attacking the United States following the Bush administration's decision not to increase financial aid to the North African nation. The Egyptian press has attacked U.S. policy and policymakers in the past, usually at low points in the oft-rocky relationship between Washington and Cairo. But the new attacks are particularly vitriolic and have even gone so far as to compare some U.S. officials to Nazi Germany's Third Reich. "[Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld is a new Hitler in America," wrote columnist Kamal Abd Al-Raouf for the government weekly Akhbar Al-Yaum last week, predicting the...

The Associated Press MADRID, Spain Sept. 18 — Police have arrested several suspects on orders of a Spanish judge who is investigating al-Qaida links, the government said Thursday, a day after he issued the first known indictment against Osama bin Laden in the Sept. 11 attacks. The Interior Ministry said the arrests were made in the southern region of Andalusia and elsewhere in Spain, but it gave no details. News agencies and the Web site of the El Pais newspaper said three men were detained and that they are linked to Tayssir Alouni, a journalist for the Arabic-language TV station...

ZOA: It's Troubling To See Jewish Leaders Defend Israel/U.S. Basher George Soros Against Glenn Beck's Criticism November 16, 2010 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Morton A. Klein Phone: 212-481-1500 http://www.zoa.org/sitedocuments/pressrelease_view.asp?pressreleaseID=1968 Soros: 1944 (Nazi occupation) “was happiest time of my life … adventure … fun” The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has expressed its concern over the strong criticism that a number of American Jewish leaders and other prominent Jews in recent days have directed at Fox broadcaster, Glenn Beck, for his criticism of Israel/U.S.-basher, financier George Soros, regarding his behavior in Nazi-occupied Budapest in 1944. In that year, George Soros’ father...

An embattled former Obama administration appointee -- who was part of a group of attorneys accused of being terrorist sympathizers for defending "enemy combatants" -- has been hired for a post at the US Attorney's Office in Brooklyn, officials confirmed today. Tali Farhadian was one of several private attorneys who created a rift between Republicans last spring when the Obama Administration assigned them to posts within the Justice Department. Although Farhadian was handling unrelated matters in Attorney General Eric Holder's office, a political watchdog group accused Obama of overloading the agency with officials sympathetic to enemy combatants. Their appointments even...

  www.thejakartapost.com Print January 23, 2002   Taliban's detention The premature and hypocritical concern voiced by otherwise reputable international organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International over detention conditions of Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba is not just utterly misplaced, but outright ridiculous. If given the choice, millions of destitute, hungry and freezing Afghan refugees would gladly change places with Taliban prisoners in their roofed, albeit open-air, wire cage accommodations with three square meals a day, medical attention, sanitary facilities, not to ...

Just to make it easier for the moonbats, google…. “David DeGerolamo” “Judson Phillips” “14th amendment” and look at all the hits, chuckle. Now the actual radio show in it’s “full” content is at link below http://www.blogtalkradio.com/tea-party-nation (Nov 16th show) (NATIONAL) — Are some Tea Party Leaders sending trial balloons up the party flagpole? Trial balloons testing the waters to see if the timing is right to bring to the table of public discourse the question of ending voting rights for those who are not property owners? Of doing away with four amendments to the U.S. Constitution? A Kansas City based...

The financier and major donor to liberal causes said Tuesday that it's become a disadvantage for the group to be primarily funded by Americans because the U.S. has lost the "moral high ground" when it comes to fighting abuses.

George Soros, the billionaire investor and philanthropist, plans to announce on Tuesday that he is giving $100 million to Human Rights Watch to expand the organization’s work globally. It is the largest gift he has made, the largest gift by far that Human Rights Watch has ever received, and only the second gift of $100 million or more made by an individual this year, according to the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. “We’re seeing noticeably fewer charitable gifts at the $100 million level from individuals reported than we did just a few years ago,” said Patrick Rooney, the center’s...

The American Civil Liberties Union, which for years has scorned the Pentagon's military commissions as "kangaroo courts," has announced that it will mount an effort to provide top civilian defense attorneys for alleged terrorists facing trial at Guantanamo, notably the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Former Attorney General Janet Reno is among top lawyers who have endorsed the $8.5 million effort, which will helpdefray the expenses of civilian defense attorneys working on the terrorism cases. Under the military commissions scheme, the Pentagon will not reimburse volunteer civilian attorneys for their expenses. ACLU executive director Anthony Romero...

The American Civil Liberties Union has an amusing full-page ad in the New York Times today (p. 8 of the Week in Review section). It morphs a photo of their onetime favorite, Barack Obama into...George W. Bush! What has President Obama done to deserve this comparison, the greatest insult the left has its disposal? “Many of us are shocked and concerned that right now, President Obama is considering reversing his attorney general’s decision to try the 9/11 defendants in criminal court.” Well, get ready for more shock and concern, ACLUers -- it’s going to happen. President Obama (aided by his...

<p>IF YOU ENJOYED the election crisis of 2000, you’re going to love what Democrat leaders are cooking up for November.</p> <p>"George Soros has purchased the Democratic Party," charges Republican National Committee spokeswoman Christine Iverson. (2) Some might dismiss Miss Iverson's comment as hyberbole. However, Soros' massive soft-money contributions have indisputably given him power over Democrat strategy.</p>

One can measure the failures of the film American Beauty in so many ways, but perhaps the best is to realize that the screenwriter was so unsure of his audience’s ability to spot a creep that he had to make Kevin Spacey’s next-door neighbor not just a sadist and a closet case but also a collector of Nazi memorabilia. I bring this up because a fetish for the baubles of fascism is generally thought to be a good way of alienating civilized company. The auction house Christie’s refuses to sell the stuff. And whatever the interpretative fallacies of the late...

The International NGO, Human Rights Watch (HRW) is once again proving once again why its top banana Ken Roth is a perennial nominee for the Self Hating Jew Awards. They have a simple strategy, Skew the Story and Advocate Terrorism, HRW is famous for inventing and/or twisting facts to slander Israel. They tend to only rely on Palestinian sources and never bother to verify. HRW refuses to recognize terrorist attacks against Israel as provocative. For example, in Jan 2008, Joe Stork of HRW wrote a 34 paragraph long letter bashing Israel (the length of one of my wife's weekend Honey-do...

Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review. The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work. "It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying 'blood money' to a girl who was injured when he raped her," the US charity Human Rights...

The International NGO, Human Rights Watch (HRW) is once again proving once again why its top banana Ken Roth is a perennial nominee for the Self Hating Jew Awards. They have a simple strategy, Advocacy not Accuracy. HRW is famous for inventing and/or twisting facts to slander Israel. They tend to use Palestinian sources only, without bothering to verify. HRW refuses to recognize terrorist attacks against Israel as provocative. For example, a year before the Gaza war they objected to Israel's limited response to the rocket attacks on Sedrot. In Jan 2008, Joe Stork of HRW wrote a 34 paragraph...

A delegation from Human Rights Watch was recently in Saudi Arabia. To investigate the mistreatment of women under Saudi Law? To campaign for the rights of homosexuals, subject to the death penalty in Saudi Arabia? To protest the lack of religious freedom in the Saudi Kingdom? To issue a report on Saudi political prisoners? No, no, no, and no. The delegation arrived to raise money from wealthy Saudis by highlighting HRW's demonization of Israel. An HRW spokesperson, Sarah Leah Whitson, highlighted HRW's battles with "pro-Israel pressure groups in the US, the European Union and the United Nations." (Was Ms. Whitson...

TEHERAN - IRAN appears to be intensifying its crackdown on opposition protesters ahead of today's official verdict on the disputed election result, with militiamen reportedly seizing injured demonstrators from hospitals.Ms Banafsheh Akhlaghi, western regional director of the human rights group, said it had collected accounts from people who have left Iran and expatriates with relatives there who say the government's paramilitary wing has been stopping hospital staff from taking identification information from wounded demonstrators who check in. And she said that once the patients have been treated, the Basij remove them to an undisclosed location. One woman, who has since...

"Hamas authorities should immediately allow Sgt. Gilad Shalit of Israel to communicate with his family and to receive visits from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)," Human Rights Watch said Wednesday, a day before the third anniversary of his captivity. "Hamas's prolonged incommunicado detention of Shalit is cruel and inhuman and may amount to torture," Human Rights Watch said. Hamas authorities are obligated by the laws of war to allow Shalit to correspond with his family, but during his three years of captivity, Hamas has passed on only three letters he has written and a voice recording. Neither...

[L]ast week, after more delays in the process, the administration called victims of the Cole, Bali and Sept. 11 attacks together again to receive an update about the work of the Detainee Review Task Force. The meeting was emotional and heart-wrenching. Each person was given the opportunity to speak about the impact the president's decisions were having on him or her and loved ones. The brave families of our heroes showed true courage in that room. Once again, they had traveled to Washington to express their frustration at seeing justice delayed. If they were truly involved, and the administration were...

The International NGO, Human Rights Watch (HRW) is once again proving once again why its top banana Ken Roth is a perennial nominee for the Self Hating Jew Awards. They have a simple strategy, Advocacy not Accuracy. HRW is famous for inventing and/or twisting facts to slander Israel. They tend to use Palestinian sources only, without bothering to verify. HRW refuses to recognize terrorist attacks against Israel as provocative. For example, a year before the Gaza war they objected to Israel's limited response to the rocket attacks on Sedrot. In Jan 2008, Joe Stork of HRW wrote a 34 paragraph...

WaMu Recognized as Top Diverse Employer—Again Washington Mutual, Inc., September 24, 2008 Washington Mutual, Inc. (NYSE:WM), one of the nation’s leading banks for consumers and small businesses, has once again been recognized as a top employer by Hispanic Business magazine and the Human Rights Campaign. Hispanic Business magazine recently ranked WaMu sixth in its annual Diversity Elite list, which names the top 60 companies for Hispanics. The company was honored specifically for its efforts to recruit Hispanic employees, reach out to Hispanic consumers and support Hispanic communities and organizations. The Human Rights Campaign, the largest national gay, lesbian, bisexual and...

Human Rights Watch on Friday condemned the expulsion from Venezuela of two of its senior staff members after releasing a report that was sharply critical of President Hugo Chavez. The staffers, Jose Miguel Vivanco and Daniel Wilkinson, were forced to leave the country late Thursday. The order came a few hours after a Caracas news conference where they presented a report describing how Chavez has weakened democratic institutions and human rights guarantees in Venezuela. "Chavez's expulsion of Human Rights Watch's team is further evidence of Venezuela's descent into intolerance," Kenneth Roth, executive director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch,...

A noted child and family psychologist says spanking a child can be an effective form of discipline, despite a recent study that states otherwise. A new report titled "A Violent Education: Corporal Punishment of Children in U.S. Public Schools" shows that more than 200,000 children received corporal punishment in U.S. schools. Texas accounted for the majority of the cases, although 21 U.S. states allow the use of corporal punishment. The study was conducted by Humans Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union. According to a Reuters article on the study, "liberal groups regard corporal punishment as a barbaric relic...

UNITED NATIONS - When the Israeli Air Force destroyed a slew of oil storage tanks and a key power station in Lebanon in July 2006, the environmental damage was described as devastating. And now, more than 15 months later, the United Nations has released a report detailing the extent of the destruction caused by that oil spill to human health, biodiversity, fisheries and tourism. The destruction has had "serious implications" for livelihoods and economy in that continuously trouble-plagued country. The Israeli bombing, which destroyed storage tanks and the El-Jiyeh power plant, triggered the release of about 15,000 tonnes of fuel...

When two Tunisian men were sent home after five years in Guantanamo, they thought they would be free. Instead, they faced imprisonment, abuse, threats and solitary confinement. Now they say things were better back in the US prison camp.Many of the detainees sitting in Guantanamo Bay hail from countries with a terrible record of torturing and abusing prisoners. While they may want to see an end to their ordeal in the US prison camp, they also have reason to dread the treatment they could face back home. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the US government is not doing enough...

An Iraqi man accused of being a key aide to Osama bin Laden and a top leader of al-Qaeda was arrested late last year on his way to Iraq and handed over to the CIA, the Pentagon announced yesterday, in what became the first secret overseas detention since President Bush acknowledged the existence of such a program last September. -snip- He spent 15 years in Afghanistan as a trainer and planner beginning in the early 1990s, the Pentagon said. Before leaving his home country to join al-Qaeda's Islamic movement, al-Iraqi served in Saddam Hussein's military, rising to the rank of...

A human rights group is asking President Bush to disclose the fates of all terror suspects held since 2001, including at least 16 it believes have been locked up in secret CIA facilities. Human Rights Watch said it compiled a report about the 16, whose whereabouts are unknown, along with 22 others possibly held by the CIA, based on interviews with former detainees, press reports and other sources. The report — "Ghost Prisoner: Two Years in Secret CIA Detention" — includes an accounting from Marwan Jabour, a Palestinian who says he was held incommunicado for more than two years by...

The rule of law is disappearing in Venezuela Marcel Granier, President of Radio Caracas Television (Inter-American Press Agency) The reaction of President Chavez is verbally violent and crude each time someone dares to have a different opinion. ____________________________________________________ President Chavez verbally announced his decision to close Radio Caracas Television, a channel which for more than 53 years and with the best facilities draws the greater audience, moreover of being the television broadcaster that employs the most people in Venezuela. Thus culminates a long chain of aggressions against journalists, employees, managers, and shareholders of the independent media. He is trying to...

NEW YORK (AFP) - Human Rights Watch urged the Iraqi government not to execute Saddam Hussein, describing the trial that convicted the former president for crimes against humanity as "deeply flawed." "Imposing the death penalty, indefensible in any case, is especially wrong after such unfair proceedings," said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch's international justice programme. "That a judicial decision was first announced by Iraq's national security adviser underlines the political interference that marred Saddam Hussein's trial," he added. Saddam was sentenced to death in November after a trial lasting more than a year for ordering the deaths of...

NEW YORK: Human Rights Watch said Monday that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was not given a fair trial, claiming in a report that attorneys and judges undermined the legitimacy of the process by staging repeated walkouts and failing to uphold standards of international law. In a 97-page report, the group called the soundness of the guilty verdict "questionable" and said the Iraqi High Tribunal was not equipped to handle such a complex case. The document was based on observation of the trial and interviews with court officials, lawyers and other key parties, the group said. The New York-based rights...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- An organization that is supposed to monitor international human rights abuses is instead furthering its pro-abortion agenda and has issued comments responding to a new report condemning various states in the U.S. for their pro-life laws that place sensible limits on abortion.Human Rights Watch condemned the laws in some states that it sways is infringing on the so-called right to an abortion."The mounting obstacles to abortion services include in some states a legal requirement to provide medically inaccurate information as part of obligatory pre-abortion counseling," Marianne Mollmann, of the group's women's rights division, told UPI.The group...

British Parliamentarian Andrew Turner of the Conservative Party was forced to apologize for equating Israel’s attacks on the Lebanese infrastructure and its citizens to the tactics carried out by the Nazis. During a panel of discussions dealing with the Palestinian problem and the recent war in Lebanon, Turner claimed that there was much condemnation of suicide bombers, but very little of Israeli attacks in Gaza against civilians. Turner slammed the British government for not calling for an immediate cease-fire during the summer conflict. He said even Human Rights Watch condemns Israel’s lawless attacks on south Lebanon that were followed by...

U.S. Troops Arrest Relative of Al-DouriBy CHRIS BRUMMITTASSOCIATED PRESS TIKRIT, Iraq (AP) - U.S. troops arrested a relative of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, and believe he may help in the hunt for the most senior former regime figure still at large, a U.S. officer said Wednesday. The man, who was not identified, was arrested late Tuesday in a raid in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown, said Lt. Col. Steven Russell, who led the operation. Russell described the suspect as a "close relative" of al-Douri, who was the vice chairman of the Baath Party's Revolutionary Command Council and a longtime confidant of Saddam....

A mass teachers' strike that is part of a growing Palestinian power struggle erupted in violence Sunday when masked militants trying to keep students away from school shot and moderately wounded a 12-year-old boy trying to go to class. Palestinian teachers began striking Saturday, the start of the school year, to demand full back pay and regular salaries from the Hamas-led government, which has been financially crippled by six months of international sanctions. The strike is being lead by leaders of the Fatah Party, a rival Palestinian group that was swept from power by Hamas earlier this year. Fatah, led...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - An Iraqi tribunal is incapable of fairly and effectively trying Saddam Hussein and six others on genocide charges stemming from an Iraqi campaign that killed an estimated 100,000 Kurds in the 1980s, a human rights group said Friday. New York-based Human Rights Watch said the Iraqi High Tribunal must "improve its practices if it is to do justice" in the trial scheduled to start Monday. The case involves Saddam's alleged role in "Operation Anfal" — Arabic for "spoils of war." The 1987-88 operation intended to crush independence-minded Kurdish militias and clear Kurds from the sensitive Iranian frontier....

Aug 18, 2006 — BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Iraqi court which will hold Saddam Hussein's second trial next week, on charges of genocide against the Kurds, has proven it is incapable of holding fair hearings, a human rights group said on Friday. "Based on extensive observations of the tribunal's conduct of its first trial … Human Rights Watch believes that the Iraqi High Tribunal is presently incapable of fairly and effectively trying a genocide case," the group said.

Human rights groups are complicit in murder, says Trimble Giles Tremlett in Madrid Thursday January 29, 2004 The Guardian The Nobel Peace laureate and Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble called human rights organisations a "great curse" yesterday and accused them of complicity in terrorist killings. "One of the great curses of this world is the human rights industry," he told the Associated Press news agency at an international conference of terrorism victims in Madrid. "They justify terrorist acts and end up being complicit in the murder of innocent victims." His words drew an angry reaction from Amnesty International and Human...

Clip and save] State Department seeks to delay supply of M-26 artillery rockets to Israel Israel Asks U.S. to Ship Rockets With Wide Blast By DAVID S. CLOUD The New York TImes August 11, 2006 www.nytimes.com/2006/08/11/world/middleeast/11military.html?hp&ex=1155355200 &en=4887d0ebeb1cdf33&ei=5094&partner=homepage WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 - Israel has asked the Bush administration to speed delivery of short-range antipersonnel rockets armed with cluster munitions, which it could use to strike Hezbollah missile sites in Lebanon, two American officials said Thursday. The request for M-26 artillery rockets, which are fired in barrages and carry hundreds of grenade-like bomblets that scatter and explode over a broad area, is...

Fox's Brian Wilson just interviewed a representative from Human Rights Watch. The HRW guy immediately launched into a high-pitched tirade against "Israeli aggression," and Israel's alleged "random and excessive violence against civilians," and its "destruction of Lebanon." When Wilson asked this guy why he wasn't also condemning the Hezbollah savages, the spokestwerp replied that HRW was also unhappy with Hezbolla's rocketing Israeli civilians but that was understandable when considering Israel's actions... This continues the incoherent and suicidal actions of the US Left -- largely composed of my fellow Jews -- in its attempt to destroy Jews. Psychotic.

Hizbullah must immediately stop firing rockets into civilian areas in Israel, Human Rights Watch said Saturday. "Lobbing rockets blindly into civilian areas is without doubt a war crime," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "Nothing can justify this assault on the most fundamental standards for sparing civilians the hazards of war." "Most of the attacks appear to have been directed at civilian areas and have hit pedestrians, hospitals, schools, homes and businesses," the humanitarian organization's website stated. Since July 12, when Hizbullah captured two IDF soldiers and killed eight, Human Rights Watch researchers have been documenting the...

There were two kinds of people who reacted with instant condemnation to the news of Israel’s strike on the building at Qana. One kind consisted of Arabs and Muslims who grew up in authoritarian countries or social frameworks and mostly had been indoctrinated in hatred of Israel and Jews. The other kind consisted of people who grew up in free and tolerant frameworks in democratic countries and supposedly absorbed ideals regarding fairness and evidence.

During these tense times in the Middle East, at least Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can have a good laugh over the pathetic July 26 letter addressed to him by the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division, Sarah Leah Whitson. “Dear President Ahmadinejad,” the letter solemnly begins, “We [at HRW] are aware that you have recently expressed great concern about the current fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, citing in particular the large numbers of Lebanese civilian victims of this conflict.” Your eyes do not deceive you. HRW believes, at least publicly, that it is communicating...

"Such tunnel vision towards its political goal not only undermines HRW's credibility as a defender of human rights, but also feeds the process of anti-Israel demonisation. Until it relinquishes its extremist political program with respect to Israel, and recognises the difference between terrorists and sovereign democratic states, HRW will continue to fuel the conflict that it condemns with such vigour."

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Human Rights Watch accused an Israeli army investigation on Wednesday of ignoring evidence that challenges its decision to clear the military of blame for a blast that killed seven Palestinians on a Gaza beach. The deaths on June 9, a day of heavy Israeli shelling designed to stop militants firing rockets from Gaza, drew international condemnation and prompted the ruling Palestinian Islamist group Hamas to call off a 16-month-old truce. Major-General Meir Califi, who led the army investigation, dismissed the accusations by the U.S.-based rights watchdog, which has carried out its own inquiry into the explosion that...

Two American soldiers, missing since an insurgent ambush at the checkpoint they were manning last Friday, were found dead Monday night on a street just south of Baghdad. An Iraqi General confirmed to the Associated Press that the soldiers’ bodies showed “signs of torture,” and that the men appeared to have been killed in a particularly “barbaric” way. This assertion appears to be backed up both by the fact that DNA tests were required to positively identify the remains, and by the claim of responsibility made by the self-titled new leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, who posted on an Islamist...