News and Analysis (4/22/08)

Experts on law and terror financing find government prosecutions of Muslim charities use McCarthyite tactics and reasoning that arrest innocent individuals, erode civil liberties and ineffective in fight terrorist networks:

• Trials of Muslim Charities Likened to a Witch-Hunt (Inter Press Service/Antiwar.com)

The declassified Yoo torture memo gave the government that has increasingly used terror tactics in the “War on Drugs” the green light to use drugs in the “War on Terror” …

• Detainees Allege Being Drugged, Questioned (Washington Post)

…meanwhile Columbia Law School professor Scott Horton argues whether Yoo was merely dispensing legal advice or providing out right protection from prosecution, the former DoJ official is legally liable for prosecution:

• Which Came First: Memos or Torture? (Los Angeles Times)

Pakistan immediately begins implementing its new counterterrorism policy by releasing a former militant leader from jail after he and his group renounced violence and agreed to peacefully engage in politics:

• Pakistan Frees Pro-Taliban Leader, Makes Peace With Group (Associated Press/Wiredispatch)

Rather than using persuasion to avoid programs they deem “not acceptable”, religious hardliners use their political clout to pressure the Afghan government into banning certain Indian soap operas:

• Afghan Ministry Bans the Broadcast of 5 Foreign Soap Operas (New York Times)

Leading Uighur human rights activist Rebiya Kadeer dismisses official Chinese claims of alleged terror plots to disrupt the Olympics:

• Uighur Rejects Terror Claims (Associated Press/New York Times)

Lebanese columnist Rami Khouri argues Bush’s democracy promotion strategy in the Middle East “…has gotten nowhere, given that American policy tends to totally discount the will of the Arab people…”

• America Through Arab Eyes (International Herald Tribune)

The personnel demands of maintaining empire force America’s prestigious all-volunteer military to increasingly rely on ex-cons to fill its ranks:

• Military Waivers for Ex-Convicts Increase (Washington Post)

Alejandro

Alejandro Beutel is program assistant for the Minaret of Freedom Institute with expertise in religious freedom, democratization and security issues.