Since the days of Alexander the Great, binge drinking has been a very popular past time - leading to him apparently killing a friend and burning down Persepolis while drunk.

Those are some Great shoes to fill.

Yet, governments, schools and the media have repeatedly tried to teach us of binge drinking's dangers. 

Dartmouth University has taken the lead, instigating a new nationwide policy to curb heavy drinking by their students.

Pour me another glass.

Binge drinking is defined as "the consumption of five or more drinks in a row by men — or four or more drinks in a row by women — at least once in the previous 2 weeks. Heavy binge drinking includes three or more such episodes in 2 weeks."

Seems I don't know anyone who isn't a heavy binge drinker.

Do you think this definition should be changed or should we change people's attitudes? Or should you follow HPD's no fools guide to drinking a lot but not dying?  . . read more

U.S. courts have long held that waterboarding, where water is poured into someone's nose and mouth until he nearly drowns, constitutes torture. Our federal War Crimes Act defines torture as a war crime punishable by life imprisonment or even the death penalty if the victim dies.

Under the doctrine of command responsibility, enshrined in U.S. law, commanders all the way up the chain of command to the commander-in-chief can be held liable for war crimes if they knew or should have known their subordinates would commit them and they did nothing to stop or prevent it.

Why is Cheney so sanguine about admitting he is a war criminal? Because he's confident that either President Bush will preemptively pardon him or President-elect Obama won't prosecute him.

Both of those courses of action would be illegal.

First, a president cannot immunize himself or his subordinates for committing crimes that he himself authorized. On February 7, 2002, Bush signed a memo erroneously stating that the Geneva Conventions, which require humane treatment, did not apply to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. But the Supreme Court made clear that Geneva protects all prisoners. Bush also admitted that he approved of high level meetings where waterboarding was authorized by Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld and George Tenet.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey says there's no need for Bush to issue blanket pardons since there is no evidence that anyone developed the policies "for any reason other than to protect the security in the country and in the belief that he or she was doing something lawful." But noble motives are not defenses to the commission of crimes.

Lt. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, said, "There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

Second, the Constitution requires President Obama to faithfully execute the laws. That means prosecuting lawbreakers. When the United States ratified the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, thereby making them part of U.S. law, we agreed to prosecute those who violate their prohibitions.

The bipartisan December 11 report of the Senate Armed Services Committee concluded that "senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees."

Lawyers who wrote the memos that purported to immunize government officials from war crimes liability include John Yoo, Jay Bybee, William Haynes, David Addington and Alberto Gonzales. There is precedent in our law for holding lawyers criminally liable for participating in a common plan to violate the law.

Committee chairman Senator Carl Levin told Rachel Maddow that you cannot legalize what's illegal by having a lawyer write an opinion.

The committee's report also found that "Rumsfeld's authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantánamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there." Those techniques migrated to Iraq and Afghanistan, where prisoners in U.S. custody were also tortured.

Pardons or failures to prosecute the officials who planned and authorized torture would also be immoral. Former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee in June 2008 that "there are serving U.S. flag-rank officers who maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq - as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat - are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo."

During the campaign, Obama promised to promptly review actions by Bush officials to determine whether "genuine crimes" were committed. He said, "If crimes have been committed, they should be investigated," but "I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of the Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve."

Two Obama advisors told the Associated Press that "there's little-if any - chance that the incoming president's Justice Department will go after anyone involved in authorizing or carrying out interrogations that provoked worldwide outrage."

When he takes office, Obama should order his new attorney general to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate and prosecute those who ordered and authorized the commission of war crimes.

Obama has promised to bring real change. This must be legal and moral change, where those at the highest levels of government are held accountable for their heinous crimes. The new president should move swiftly to set an important precedent that you can't authorize war crimes and get away with it.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and President of the National Lawyers Guild. 

However, for Arabs and Muslims who have faced racism, religious discrimination, and unjustified arrests and detention under the auspices of "fighting terrorism," the Obama's administration's commitment to the "war on terror" would seem to be in contradiction with that idea.

This contradiction is exemplified in cases like Fahad Hashmi.

Hashmi is a 29-year-old Pakistani man who received his bachelor's degree in political science from Brooklyn College in 2003 and his master's degree in international relations from London Metropolitan University in 2006.

In 2004, he allowed an acquaintance, Junaid Babar, to stay at his London apartment for two weeks. While there, Babar kept raincoats and waterproof socks in his luggage, which the U.S. alleges he later gave to a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda.

Simply because of this--raincoats and socks--Hashmi was arrested by British police at London's Heathrow Airport on June 6, 2006, and charged with providing material support to al-Qaeda. He was not accused of providing money or resources to al-Qaeda, or personally giving anything at all to any member of al-Qaeda, or o being a terrorist himself. Yet he was held in the general prison population of Belmarsh Prison in England for 11 months, and then extradited to the United States, where he has been held in solitary confinement for over a year.

Fahad has been subject to Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), which are designed to prevent crimes from being planned from within prisons. Although he is not charged with any acts of violence, nor has he been accused of attempting to contact any terrorists while in prison, he has been forced to endure a 23-hour-a-day lockdown; is only allowed one visit from an immediate family member per week, with no physical contact permitted; and is not allowed contact with anyone else other than his lawyer and prison officials.

The SAMs also prohibit Fahad's family members from passing any messages between him and his friends, restrict what reading material he is permitted to see, and dictate that he may not listen to or watch the news or participate in group prayer.

At a hearing on January 23, a judge heard a motion to improve the conditions of Fahad's imprisonment by increasing his visitation rights to two hours per week, allowing him to participate in communal prayer, and granting him access to exercise and recreation facilities.

Negotiations about visitation rights are ongoing, but the other requests were denied since the court had already ruled that the government's "security concerns" were justified, and the SAMs have already been extended for a second year.

During this hearing, the prosecution claimed that Fahad was practicing shadow-boxing and martial arts in his cell, and that, when asked by a guard what he was doing, Fahad replied, "Practicing for you." Prosecutors said that when he was asked to stop, he refused. This example was used to demonstrate that Fahad is, in fact, a "security risk."

However, Fahad says that he was never told to stop, and that he didn't say that he was practicing to attack the guards--but instead, that the guards taunted him by asking if he was practicing for them. There are videotapes of this incident that could easily be used to clarify what really happened, but the tapes are not being made available to the court.

Around 40 supporters attended Fahad's latest hearing, including members of the Brooklyn College Islamic Society, the Muslim Justice Initiative/Free Fahad Campaign, Fahad's family and friends, and political activists.

Given the court's intransigence in spite of the weak evidence against Fahad and strong support for him, it is clear that we must raise the profile of this case and amplify our outrage. Even while we celebrate victories like the closing of the U.S. prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, it is crucial that we fight the domestic repercussions of the "war on terror," which are still ongoing.

Taking a stand against the profiling of Arabs and Muslims is more urgent than ever, and justice for Fahad Hashmi is a fight we should be able to win.

Alana Smith writes for the Socialist Worker. Doug Singsen contributed to this article. . . read more

Terrorism, plain and simple. The American Taliban.   . . read more

My small role in the "Global War on Terror" started in November 2001, with a rousing farewell party in my home town of Erie, Pa. I was going off to avenge the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, with a sense of pride and moral purpose.
Over the next seven years, I served in Bosnia, Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq as a military lawyer. They were not easy assignments. I witnessed the horrifying effects of roadside bombs. Some of my friends were killed. Others took their own lives. Still others have suffered wounds from which they will never fully recover. All of us fought because we believed that we were protecting America and its ideals.

But my final tour of duty made me question everything we had done... . . read more

The founding fathers of the military/industrial complex needed a perpetual enemy such as the warring super powers of George Orwell's "1984" classic. The National Security Agency [1947] was a good start quickly adding the CIA. The Communists in the USSR and China proved excellent villains. The Korean War 'proved' a perpetual war footing was necessary. This ensured a stable level of profits for the war industry.

By 1950 it was apparent that the USA had to cease as a Republic. The new Federalism demanded a huge increase in taxes. To get it, Harry Truman had to scare the public with tales of the Red Menace. Since the CIA could not brain wash everybody, it relied on information control from the TV and print media.  They promoted the fear of outside Communist forces and then turned on domestic lefties [whether or not they were Communists]. The HUAC produced an endless stream of domestic threats the enemy within. 

After 60 years of being ruled by fear, the US population will require many years to kick a number of bad habits [preemptive war and torture for example]. To inspire the population, Obama had to insert Cold War rhetoric into his Inauguration speech. This is the language the public understands and the Progressives fear.

In his campaign Obama distributed his leftist thoughts in bits and drabs. In the few times he was totally candid, he took a beating from his political and media foes. The US public remains too afraid to assume the burdens of self-rule.

Jason Paz born was a month before Pearl Harbor and attended world events from an early age. His first words included Mussolini, Sahara and Patton.

It didn't turn out that way. "Mancow," in fact, lasted just six or seven seconds before crying foul.  . . read more