welcome argentina to the land of marriage equality
Argentina has become the first Latin American country to legalize same-sex marriage. Way cool! The same law also allows same-sex couples to adopt children. BBC story here.
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u.s. war resister claims asylum in germany
On November 26, 2008, former US Army Specialist André Shepherd became the first Iraq War veteran to apply for refugee status in Germany. Shepherd, who enlisted in the military in 2004, served six months on a forward operating base near Tikrit. About the Iraqis, Shepherd says, "Some had the look of fear, while others looked outright angry and resentful. . . . I began to feel like a cruel oppressor who had destroyed the lives of these proud people. "Our unit did a lot of good things, giving schools books and bringing clothes to children. These actions helped my conscience a bit, but I kept thinking to myself, 'Had we not invaded, would these people need this aid now?'" Shepherd began researching the causes of the Iraq War, and the wider so-called War on Terror. Eventually, perhaps inevitably, he lost faith in the mission. He says: "Saddam Hussein was admittedly a dictator. However, he was not leading his country to produce any sort of weapon that could be used...
war crimes = war crimes
While we're thinking about Canada treading a path independent of the United States, we should take a careful look at what road the US is actually on. If you haven't seen this column by Scott Horton in Harper's , and the Andrew Sullivan post it references, please read both. They've been sitting in my inbox for more than a month, but it's never too late to see clearly. Thanks to both James and Allan for sending this on the same day. One of the truly disturbing aspects of the Bush Administration's program of "enhanced interrogation techniques" is that there's nothing new about them. Each of the techniques is well known; each has a very long legacy. The practice of waterboarding, for instance, was closely associated with the Spanish Inquisition, and appears diagramed and explained in woodcut prints from the early sixteenth century. Similarly, the practice we know as the "cold cell" – or hypothermia – was carefully developed by the Soviet N...
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