Lisa Hajjar

Al­though heav­i­ly im­plied, one thing Oba­ma didn’t di­rect­ly men­tion in his State of the Union speech was drones.

Is­rael’s lat­est as­sault on Gaza has no le­gal ba­sis as an oc­cu­py­ing pow­er and con­sti­tutes a set of war crimes.

If the gov­ern­ment pre­vails, ob­servers at any of the 9/11 hear­ings would see, but not hear those on tri­al, writes Ha­j­jar.

A re­cent­ly un­cov­ered FBI ‘primer’ doc­u­ment on in­ter­ro­ga­tion tech­niques cites man­u­als from the CIA’s dark past.

The lega­cy of tor­ture and cru­el treat­ment in de­ten­tion op­er­a­tions has not been ex­punged un­der US pres­i­dent Oba­ma.

From Guan­tanamo to Bagram prison in Afghanistan, Oba­ma has bro­ken his promise to end tor­ture and il­le­gal de­ten­tion.

For a ma­jor­i­ty of Guan­tanamo de­tainees, US judges have found flim­sy ev­i­dence link­ing the sus­pects to ‘ter­ror’ groups.

Dur­ing George W Bush’s first term, the US tor­tured many ‘War on Ter­ror’ pris­on­ers, in­clud­ing a 15-year-old boy.

The Bush ad­min­is­tra­tion made a se­ries of de­ci­sions au­tho­ris­ing tor­ture and se­cret pris­ons just days af­ter 9/11.

US de­ten­tion cen­tre can re­main open as long as the “war on ter­ror” con­tin­ues, with no end in sight.