TV News LIES

General David Petraeus and 'dirty wars' veteran behind commando units implicated in detainee abuse.

The Pentagon sent a US veteran of the "dirty wars" in Central America to oversee sectarian police commando units in Iraq that set up secret detention and torture centres to get information from insurgents. These units conducted some of the worst acts of torture during the US occupation and accelerated the country's descent into full-scale civil war.

A United Nations investigator called on the United States on Monday to publish its findings on the CIA's Bush-era program of rendition and secret detention of terrorism suspects.

Ben Emmerson, U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism, voiced concern that while President Barack Obama's administration has rejected Central Intelligence Agency practices conducted under his predecessor George W. Bush, there have been no prosecutions.

On the evening of Feb. 18, Israeli authorities arrested Arafat Jaradat, 30, on suspicion that he had thrown stones at Israeli soldiers. Five days later, he was dead. Now his story has come to symbolize what many Palestinians and human rights groups say are the torturous interrogation methods used by Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet.

A spokeswoman for Israel Prison Services, Sivan Weizman, originally said that Jaradat had died in Meggido Prison of a heart attack. But a different picture emerged when Israel’s Ministry of Health released a statement describing what doctors found during their autopsy.

The Obama administration implored the Supreme Court on Friday to strike out a section from the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as unconstitutional discrimination.

"Section 3 of DOMA violates the fundamental constitutional guarantee of equal protection," the U.S. said in a brief.

Security forces in Mexico have participated in the disappearances of hundreds of people from 2006-12, Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch issued a 176-page report, "Mexico's Disappeared: The Enduring Cost of a Crisis Ignored" Wednesday, documenting nearly 250 enforced disappearances during the administration of former President Felipe Calderon.

Toward the end of his presidency, Calderon promised to act on reports of enforced disappearances by the army, navy, and federal and local police, though he failed to do so, a release from Human Rights Watch said.

"Emad Burnat, Palestinian director of Oscar nominated '5 Broken Cameras,' was held tonight by immigration at LAX as he landed to attend the Oscars," documentary filmmaker and Academy branch governor Michael Moore Tweeted to his 1.4 million followers this evening. "Emad, his wife and 8-year-old son were placed in a holding area and told they didn't have the proper invitation on them to attend the Oscars."

According to Moore, Burnat texted him for help after being detained. "Apparently the Immigration & Customs officers couldn't understand how a Palestinian could be an Oscar nominee," Moore continued. "I called Academy officials who called lawyers. I told Emad to give the officers my phone number and to say my name a couple of times."