Art from the Past
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 7:17 PM
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Saturday, May 21, 2005
Saddam Photos Prompt U.S. Military Investigation "PA"
The US military and the Red Cross has launched an investigation after photos were published in British and American newspapers of an imprisoned Saddam Hussein clad only in his underwear.
The probe was launched over fears the photos may violate the Geneva Convention
Britain’s The Sun and the New York Post said the photos were provided by an unidentified US military official.
The photos not only angered the US military, which issued a condemnation rare for its immediacy, but also were expected to further fuel anti-American sentiment in a country edging toward open sectarian conflict.
Saddam’s chief lawyer, Ziad al-Khasawneh, said his legal team was preparing a lawsuit against The Sun for publishing what he said represented “an insult to humanity, Arabs and the Iraqi people.”
“It is clear that the pictures were taken inside the prison which means that American soldiers have leaked the pictures,” he said. “We will sue the newspaper and everyone who helped in showing these pictures.”
He said they were part “of a comprehensive war against the Islamic and Arab nations” that included the abuse at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison and allegations about a Quran desecration at an American prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Sun managing editor Graham Dudman defended the decision to print the pictures and defied any media outlet to have withheld publication.
“They are a fantastic, iconic set of news pictures that I defy any newspaper, magazine, or television station who were presented with them not to have published,” he said.
Asked to respond to criticism of the decision to publish the photos, Dudman said: “This is a man who has murdered a minimum of 300,000 people and we’re supposed to feel sorry for him because someone’s taken his picture?”
“He’s not been mistreated. He’s washing his trousers. This is the modern-day Adolf Hitler. Please don’t ask us to feel sorry for him.”
The sentiments of people on the streets of Baghdad seemed to reflect the divisions now plaguing Iraq.
“This is an insult to show the former president in such a condition. Saddam is from the past now, so what is the reason for this? It is bad work from the media. Do they want to degrade the Iraqi people? Or they want to provoke their feelings,” said Baghdad businessman Abu Barick, 45.
US President George Bush was briefed by senior aides this morning about the photos’ existence and “strongly supports the aggressive and thorough investigation that is already underway” that seeks to find who took them, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said.
With that inquiry ongoing, he would not comment on how the pictures may affect the US image abroad.
“The investigation needs to take place and the president supports that,” Duffy said.
Iraqis gathered in coffee shops in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq watched as some Arab satellite networks showed the front page of The Sun, with its picture of Saddam standing in his underwear. Other photos show him clothed and seated on a chair doing some washing, sleeping and walking in what is described as his prison yard.
In northern Kirkuk, Marwan Ibrahim, a 31-year-old civil servant, said the pictures were a “humiliation for a man who in the near past was the leader of Iraq and a top Arab leader in the region.”
Others, however, were not so kind.
“Saddam Hussein and his regime were bloody and practised mass killing against the people, therefore, whatever happens to Saddam, whether he is photographed naked or washing his clothes, it means nothing to me. That’s the least he deserves,” Hawre Saliee, a 38-year-old Kurd, said.
The US military in Baghdad said the photos violated military guidelines “and possibly Geneva Convention guidelines for the humane treatment of detained individuals.”
“The specific issue here is that these images are against (Department of Defence) policy. It’s not the content of the photo that is the issue at hand, but it is the existence or release of the photos,” US military spokesman Staff Sgt Don Dees said.
He added that the military would question the troops holding Saddam as part of its investigation.
“We take seriously our responsibility to ensure the safety and security of all detainees,” a military statement said.
The military said the source of the photos was not immediately known, but they were believed to have been taken more than a year ago.
The International Committee for the Red Cross, which is responsible for monitoring prisoners of war and detainees, said the photographs violated Saddam’s right to privacy.
“Taking and using photographs of him is clearly forbidden,” ICRC Middle East spokeswoman Dorothea Krimitsas said. US forces are obliged to “preserve the privacy of the detainee.”
Aside from US soldiers, the only others with access to Saddam are his legal team, prosecuting judge Raed Johyee and the ICRC.
Khalil al-Duleimi, Saddam’s defence lawyer in Iraq, criticised the American handling of Saddam but said he would not comment on the photographs until he learned whether they were genuine.
“I don’t doubt such behaviour from the American forces because they don’t respect the law.
They impose the law of force and the law of the jungle,” al-Duleimi said about the pictures being taken. “They don’t respect human rights and I expect them to do anything.”
Saddam was captured in December 2003 while hiding in a concealed hole in the ground near his hometown of Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad. He is charged with war crimes, but no date has been set for his trial.
It is not the first time there has been an outcry over images of Saddam.
Pictures and video images of Saddam being examined by a medic after his arrest were widely criticised – even by the Vatican. A top Vatican cardinal said at the time that American forces treated the captured Iraqi leader “like a cow.”
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4582548
They have no comprehension what so ever what they have committed us to
The US military and the Red Cross has launched an investigation after photos were published in British and American newspapers of an imprisoned Saddam Hussein clad only in his underwear.
The probe was launched over fears the photos may violate the Geneva Convention
Britain’s The Sun and the New York Post said the photos were provided by an unidentified US military official.
The photos not only angered the US military, which issued a condemnation rare for its immediacy, but also were expected to further fuel anti-American sentiment in a country edging toward open sectarian conflict.
Saddam’s chief lawyer, Ziad al-Khasawneh, said his legal team was preparing a lawsuit against The Sun for publishing what he said represented “an insult to humanity, Arabs and the Iraqi people.”
“It is clear that the pictures were taken inside the prison which means that American soldiers have leaked the pictures,” he said. “We will sue the newspaper and everyone who helped in showing these pictures.”
He said they were part “of a comprehensive war against the Islamic and Arab nations” that included the abuse at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison and allegations about a Quran desecration at an American prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Sun managing editor Graham Dudman defended the decision to print the pictures and defied any media outlet to have withheld publication.
“They are a fantastic, iconic set of news pictures that I defy any newspaper, magazine, or television station who were presented with them not to have published,” he said.
Asked to respond to criticism of the decision to publish the photos, Dudman said: “This is a man who has murdered a minimum of 300,000 people and we’re supposed to feel sorry for him because someone’s taken his picture?”
“He’s not been mistreated. He’s washing his trousers. This is the modern-day Adolf Hitler. Please don’t ask us to feel sorry for him.”
The sentiments of people on the streets of Baghdad seemed to reflect the divisions now plaguing Iraq.
“This is an insult to show the former president in such a condition. Saddam is from the past now, so what is the reason for this? It is bad work from the media. Do they want to degrade the Iraqi people? Or they want to provoke their feelings,” said Baghdad businessman Abu Barick, 45.
US President George Bush was briefed by senior aides this morning about the photos’ existence and “strongly supports the aggressive and thorough investigation that is already underway” that seeks to find who took them, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said.
With that inquiry ongoing, he would not comment on how the pictures may affect the US image abroad.
“The investigation needs to take place and the president supports that,” Duffy said.
Iraqis gathered in coffee shops in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq watched as some Arab satellite networks showed the front page of The Sun, with its picture of Saddam standing in his underwear. Other photos show him clothed and seated on a chair doing some washing, sleeping and walking in what is described as his prison yard.
In northern Kirkuk, Marwan Ibrahim, a 31-year-old civil servant, said the pictures were a “humiliation for a man who in the near past was the leader of Iraq and a top Arab leader in the region.”
Others, however, were not so kind.
“Saddam Hussein and his regime were bloody and practised mass killing against the people, therefore, whatever happens to Saddam, whether he is photographed naked or washing his clothes, it means nothing to me. That’s the least he deserves,” Hawre Saliee, a 38-year-old Kurd, said.
The US military in Baghdad said the photos violated military guidelines “and possibly Geneva Convention guidelines for the humane treatment of detained individuals.”
“The specific issue here is that these images are against (Department of Defence) policy. It’s not the content of the photo that is the issue at hand, but it is the existence or release of the photos,” US military spokesman Staff Sgt Don Dees said.
He added that the military would question the troops holding Saddam as part of its investigation.
“We take seriously our responsibility to ensure the safety and security of all detainees,” a military statement said.
The military said the source of the photos was not immediately known, but they were believed to have been taken more than a year ago.
The International Committee for the Red Cross, which is responsible for monitoring prisoners of war and detainees, said the photographs violated Saddam’s right to privacy.
“Taking and using photographs of him is clearly forbidden,” ICRC Middle East spokeswoman Dorothea Krimitsas said. US forces are obliged to “preserve the privacy of the detainee.”
Aside from US soldiers, the only others with access to Saddam are his legal team, prosecuting judge Raed Johyee and the ICRC.
Khalil al-Duleimi, Saddam’s defence lawyer in Iraq, criticised the American handling of Saddam but said he would not comment on the photographs until he learned whether they were genuine.
“I don’t doubt such behaviour from the American forces because they don’t respect the law.
They impose the law of force and the law of the jungle,” al-Duleimi said about the pictures being taken. “They don’t respect human rights and I expect them to do anything.”
Saddam was captured in December 2003 while hiding in a concealed hole in the ground near his hometown of Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad. He is charged with war crimes, but no date has been set for his trial.
It is not the first time there has been an outcry over images of Saddam.
Pictures and video images of Saddam being examined by a medic after his arrest were widely criticised – even by the Vatican. A top Vatican cardinal said at the time that American forces treated the captured Iraqi leader “like a cow.”
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4582548
They have no comprehension what so ever what they have committed us to
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 6:42 PM
0 comments
Britain's Galloway Turns Into Media Hero
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 19, 2005
Filed at 3:42 p.m. ET
LONDON (AP) -- There is usually no love lost between George Galloway and the British press.
But after the maverick lawmaker's blistering performance before a U.S. Senate committee this week in which he excoriated the Bush administration over Iraq, not even his biggest critics could contain their grudging admiration.
''Galloway: the man who took on America,'' ran a headline in The Independent newspaper on Thursday.
Galloway's combative appearance Tuesday before senators who accused him of taking kickbacks from Saddam Hussein enhanced his status as folk hero among his supporters.
The lawmaker is known, even in the highly articulate world of British politics, for his memorable turns of phrase. On Tuesday, he called the panel of senators a ''lickspittle Republican committee'' and accused them of ''the mother of all smoke screens.''
Upon his return Wednesday, he was given a standing ovation by hundreds of people at a rally in London.
''He blasted the whole of the U.S. Senate,'' said Abdul Khaliq Mian, a member of Respect, the anti-war party founded by Galloway.
Galloway's no-holds-barred testimony won widespread praise in a country where many accuse Prime Minister Tony Blair's government of taking a supine approach to relations with the United States.
''In one hour, George Galloway has shown how to do what a succession of British ministers ... have conspicuously failed to do: to stand up to American bullying and mendacity,'' reader Andy Bailey wrote in a letter to the editor of the Guardian.
Last week, the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs investigation subcommittee released documents that it said showed that Galloway and other international figures received valuable oil allocations -- in Galloway's case, allegedly 20 million barrels' worth between 2000 and 2003 -- from Saddam as a reward for opposition to U.N. sanctions on Iraq.
In his testimony in Washington, Galloway vehemently denied the accusations and accused the committee of maligning him before giving him a chance to defend himself.
''Now I know that standards have slipped over the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer, you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice,'' Galloway told committee chairman Sen. Norm Coleman.
Even observers skeptical of Galloway's belligerent manner and talent for self-promotion acknowledged the skill of his hard-hitting attack.
The Times marveled at Galloway's ''gift of the Glasgow gab, a love of the stage and an inexhaustible fund of self-belief.''
Galloway's testimony was also picked up by the Arab press, with Egypt's pro-government Al-Ahram newspaper giving front-page treatment to his declaration that he had met Saddam ''exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld.''
A former factory worker and amateur boxer, the pugnacious Glaswegian nicknamed ''Gorgeous George'' has spent decades honing his man-of-the-people image.
In 1994 he told Saddam: ''Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability.'' Galloway later said he had been referring to the Iraqi people, not their leader.
As a left-leaning Labour legislator, he opposed sanctions and then military action against Iraq. He was expelled from the party in 2003 after urging British soldiers not to fight.
He responded by launching his anti-war party and running again for Parliament, unseating Labour lawmaker Oona King in the London constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow on May 5.
''I think I won the battle of public opinion and I am going to continue my work,'' Galloway told The Associated Press on Wednesday. ''My battle continues to try and force the British government to withdraw our soldiers from Iraq, where they should never have been, where too many have been killed and where they are in grave danger.''
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Rebel-Lawmaker.html
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 19, 2005
Filed at 3:42 p.m. ET
LONDON (AP) -- There is usually no love lost between George Galloway and the British press.
But after the maverick lawmaker's blistering performance before a U.S. Senate committee this week in which he excoriated the Bush administration over Iraq, not even his biggest critics could contain their grudging admiration.
''Galloway: the man who took on America,'' ran a headline in The Independent newspaper on Thursday.
Galloway's combative appearance Tuesday before senators who accused him of taking kickbacks from Saddam Hussein enhanced his status as folk hero among his supporters.
The lawmaker is known, even in the highly articulate world of British politics, for his memorable turns of phrase. On Tuesday, he called the panel of senators a ''lickspittle Republican committee'' and accused them of ''the mother of all smoke screens.''
Upon his return Wednesday, he was given a standing ovation by hundreds of people at a rally in London.
''He blasted the whole of the U.S. Senate,'' said Abdul Khaliq Mian, a member of Respect, the anti-war party founded by Galloway.
Galloway's no-holds-barred testimony won widespread praise in a country where many accuse Prime Minister Tony Blair's government of taking a supine approach to relations with the United States.
''In one hour, George Galloway has shown how to do what a succession of British ministers ... have conspicuously failed to do: to stand up to American bullying and mendacity,'' reader Andy Bailey wrote in a letter to the editor of the Guardian.
Last week, the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs investigation subcommittee released documents that it said showed that Galloway and other international figures received valuable oil allocations -- in Galloway's case, allegedly 20 million barrels' worth between 2000 and 2003 -- from Saddam as a reward for opposition to U.N. sanctions on Iraq.
In his testimony in Washington, Galloway vehemently denied the accusations and accused the committee of maligning him before giving him a chance to defend himself.
''Now I know that standards have slipped over the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer, you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice,'' Galloway told committee chairman Sen. Norm Coleman.
Even observers skeptical of Galloway's belligerent manner and talent for self-promotion acknowledged the skill of his hard-hitting attack.
The Times marveled at Galloway's ''gift of the Glasgow gab, a love of the stage and an inexhaustible fund of self-belief.''
Galloway's testimony was also picked up by the Arab press, with Egypt's pro-government Al-Ahram newspaper giving front-page treatment to his declaration that he had met Saddam ''exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld.''
A former factory worker and amateur boxer, the pugnacious Glaswegian nicknamed ''Gorgeous George'' has spent decades honing his man-of-the-people image.
In 1994 he told Saddam: ''Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability.'' Galloway later said he had been referring to the Iraqi people, not their leader.
As a left-leaning Labour legislator, he opposed sanctions and then military action against Iraq. He was expelled from the party in 2003 after urging British soldiers not to fight.
He responded by launching his anti-war party and running again for Parliament, unseating Labour lawmaker Oona King in the London constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow on May 5.
''I think I won the battle of public opinion and I am going to continue my work,'' Galloway told The Associated Press on Wednesday. ''My battle continues to try and force the British government to withdraw our soldiers from Iraq, where they should never have been, where too many have been killed and where they are in grave danger.''
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Rebel-Lawmaker.html
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 6:24 PM
0 comments
Ohhhhhhh for those prices again: Art from the past
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 6:20 PM
0 comments
U.S. Faces Questions Over 'kidnappings' In Europe
By REUTERS
Published: May 20, 2005
Filed at 2:33 p.m. ET
BERLIN (Reuters) - Pressure is growing on the United States to respond to allegations that its agents were involved in spiriting terrorist suspects out of three European countries and sending them to nations where they may have been tortured.
Skip to next paragraph
In Italy, a judge said this week that foreign intelligence officials ``kidnapped'' an Egyptian suspect in Milan two years ago and took him to a U.S. base from where he was flown home.
In Germany, a Munich prosecutor is preparing a batch of questions to U.S. authorities on the case of a Lebanese-born German who says he was arrested in Macedonia on New Year's Eve 2003 and flown by U.S. agents to a jail in Afghanistan.
And in Sweden, a parliamentary ombudsman has criticized the security services over the expulsion of two Egyptian terrorism suspects who were handed over to U.S. agents and flown home aboard a U.S. government-leased plane in 2001.
Campaign group Human Rights Watch said there was credible evidence the pair had been tortured while being held incommunicado for five weeks after their return. One was later convicted in a ``patently unfair'' trial.
``We know it's not right to send people back to torture. That's criminal. That's the one factor that ties all these cases together right now,'' Julia Hall of Human Rights Watch said in a telephone interview.
``But whether they're kidnappings, whether they're abductions, whether they occur always with the collaboration of security services in the host country -- these are things that still have yet to be determined.''
ASSURANCES AGAINST TORTURE
Secret transfers of suspects to foreign states for interrogation are an acknowledged tool of the United States in the war on terrorism, but it denies charges that the practice -- known as rendition -- amounts to outsourcing torture.
``(In) the post-9/11 world, the United States must make sure we protect our people and our friends from attack ... And one way to do so is to arrest people and send them back to their country of origin with the promise that they won't be tortured,'' President Bush said in March.
``We seek assurances that nobody will be tortured when we render a person back to their home country.''
Human Rights Watch argues such assurances are worthless.
The latest twist came in the case of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, who disappeared from a Milan street in February 2003.
Italian judge Guido Salvini said in a court document, obtained by Reuters: ``It is now possible to affirm with certainty that he was kidnapped by people belonging to foreign intelligence networks interested in interrogating him and neutralising him, to then hand him over to Egyptian authorities.''
Although he did not identify the foreign agents responsible, Salvini said Nasr had been ``taken to an American base, interrogated and beaten and taken the next day on board a U.S. military plane'' to Egypt.
It was not until a year later, Salvini said, that Nasr was heard from again in phone calls, including one to his wife. Italian media have reported he told her he was tortured in Egypt and partially lost his hearing.
Salvini is investigating suspects linked to Nasr and is not responsible for the probe into his disappearance. That case is being handled by the Milan prosecutor's office, which said Salvini did not have access to all the documents and expressed surprise at his conclusions.
But his comments were the hardest yet by judicial authorities in Europe on the alleged renditions.
GERMAN PROBE
In Germany, Munich prosecutor Martin Hofmann said he was finalising an official request to the United States for information on the case of Khaled el-Masri.
The German citizen says he was arrested in Macedonia on Dec. 31, 2003 and flown by U.S. agents to an Afghan jail. Only five months after being seized was he flown back to Europe and dumped without explanation in Albania, from where he made his way home.
NBC News reported last month that Masri was snatched because he shared the same name as an al Qaeda suspect. It said even when investigators realized the error, he was held another six weeks in an Afghan jail dubbed the Salt Pit before being freed.
``I'm investigating kidnapping, physical injury, duress and deprivation of freedom,'' said Hofmann, who is also seeking information from Macedonia and Albania.
But investigators face formidable obstacles to prove what happened and hold anyone to account. Hofmann said he could not bring any charges unless he could identify those individuals involved in Masri's alleged abduction.
``The problem is, I need the persons responsible. So far the investigation is into 'unknown persons','' he told Reuters.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-security-usa-renditions.html?
By REUTERS
Published: May 20, 2005
Filed at 2:33 p.m. ET
BERLIN (Reuters) - Pressure is growing on the United States to respond to allegations that its agents were involved in spiriting terrorist suspects out of three European countries and sending them to nations where they may have been tortured.
Skip to next paragraph
In Italy, a judge said this week that foreign intelligence officials ``kidnapped'' an Egyptian suspect in Milan two years ago and took him to a U.S. base from where he was flown home.
In Germany, a Munich prosecutor is preparing a batch of questions to U.S. authorities on the case of a Lebanese-born German who says he was arrested in Macedonia on New Year's Eve 2003 and flown by U.S. agents to a jail in Afghanistan.
And in Sweden, a parliamentary ombudsman has criticized the security services over the expulsion of two Egyptian terrorism suspects who were handed over to U.S. agents and flown home aboard a U.S. government-leased plane in 2001.
Campaign group Human Rights Watch said there was credible evidence the pair had been tortured while being held incommunicado for five weeks after their return. One was later convicted in a ``patently unfair'' trial.
``We know it's not right to send people back to torture. That's criminal. That's the one factor that ties all these cases together right now,'' Julia Hall of Human Rights Watch said in a telephone interview.
``But whether they're kidnappings, whether they're abductions, whether they occur always with the collaboration of security services in the host country -- these are things that still have yet to be determined.''
ASSURANCES AGAINST TORTURE
Secret transfers of suspects to foreign states for interrogation are an acknowledged tool of the United States in the war on terrorism, but it denies charges that the practice -- known as rendition -- amounts to outsourcing torture.
``(In) the post-9/11 world, the United States must make sure we protect our people and our friends from attack ... And one way to do so is to arrest people and send them back to their country of origin with the promise that they won't be tortured,'' President Bush said in March.
``We seek assurances that nobody will be tortured when we render a person back to their home country.''
Human Rights Watch argues such assurances are worthless.
The latest twist came in the case of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, who disappeared from a Milan street in February 2003.
Italian judge Guido Salvini said in a court document, obtained by Reuters: ``It is now possible to affirm with certainty that he was kidnapped by people belonging to foreign intelligence networks interested in interrogating him and neutralising him, to then hand him over to Egyptian authorities.''
Although he did not identify the foreign agents responsible, Salvini said Nasr had been ``taken to an American base, interrogated and beaten and taken the next day on board a U.S. military plane'' to Egypt.
It was not until a year later, Salvini said, that Nasr was heard from again in phone calls, including one to his wife. Italian media have reported he told her he was tortured in Egypt and partially lost his hearing.
Salvini is investigating suspects linked to Nasr and is not responsible for the probe into his disappearance. That case is being handled by the Milan prosecutor's office, which said Salvini did not have access to all the documents and expressed surprise at his conclusions.
But his comments were the hardest yet by judicial authorities in Europe on the alleged renditions.
GERMAN PROBE
In Germany, Munich prosecutor Martin Hofmann said he was finalising an official request to the United States for information on the case of Khaled el-Masri.
The German citizen says he was arrested in Macedonia on Dec. 31, 2003 and flown by U.S. agents to an Afghan jail. Only five months after being seized was he flown back to Europe and dumped without explanation in Albania, from where he made his way home.
NBC News reported last month that Masri was snatched because he shared the same name as an al Qaeda suspect. It said even when investigators realized the error, he was held another six weeks in an Afghan jail dubbed the Salt Pit before being freed.
``I'm investigating kidnapping, physical injury, duress and deprivation of freedom,'' said Hofmann, who is also seeking information from Macedonia and Albania.
But investigators face formidable obstacles to prove what happened and hold anyone to account. Hofmann said he could not bring any charges unless he could identify those individuals involved in Masri's alleged abduction.
``The problem is, I need the persons responsible. So far the investigation is into 'unknown persons','' he told Reuters.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-security-usa-renditions.html?
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 6:11 PM
0 comments
It reported that one of the two Afghans, a 22-year old taxi driver called Dilawar, had been pummeled by guards for several days and chained with his arms to the ceiling. Most of the interrogators believed he was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the base at the wrong time, the newspaper said.
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 6:05 PM
0 comments
Karzai 'Shocked' over US Abuse Report
By Daniel Cooney The Associated Press
Saturday 21 May 2005
Kabul - Afghanistan's president on Saturday demanded "very, very strong" action by the United States against any military personnel found to be abusing prisoners, after a newspaper report alleged maltreatment of detainees at the main US base here.
President Hamid Karzai said he will bring up the issue when he meets American leaders during a four-day visit to the United States starting Saturday.
The abuse allegations were in a New York Times report Friday that cited a 2,000-page confidential file on the Army's criminal investigation into the deaths of two Afghans at the Bagram base north of the capital, Kabul, in December 2002.
"It has shocked me totally. We condemn it. We want the US government to take very, very strong action to take away people like that working with their forces in Afghanistan," he told reporters before leaving Kabul. "Definitely ... I will see about that when I am in the United States."
But he added that the actions of those responsible for the abuse should not be seen as reflective of all Americans.
"The people of the United States are very kind people," he said. "It is only one or two individuals who are bad and such individuals are found in any military in any society everywhere, including Afghanistan."
The US military, responding to the allegations, defended its treatment of detainees, saying it would not tolerate maltreatment.
The military's spokesman in Kabul, Col. James Yonts, said, "Military and civilian members are expected to abide by the highest standards and when their actions contradict these standards appropriate action will be taken. The command has made it very clear that any incidents of abuse will not be tolerated."
In Washington, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said President Bush was "alarmed by the reports of prisoner abuse," and wants them thoroughly investigated. He said seven people are being investigated about abuse at Bagram Air Base.
"What the military and what the president supported is investigations, holding people to account," Duffy said. "We've taken steps, we've taken new policies to ensure that this doesn't happen again, and we're holding people to account."
The Times reported that the file of the criminal investigation "depicts poorly trained soldiers in repeated incidents of abuse," which in some instances "was directed or carried out by interrogators to extract information."
It reported that one of the two Afghans, a 22-year old taxi driver called Dilawar, had been pummeled by guards for several days and chained with his arms to the ceiling. Most of the interrogators believed he was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the base at the wrong time, the newspaper said.
The Army has publicly acknowledged the two deaths and announced in October that up to 28 US soldiers face possible charges in connection with what were ruled homicides.
In December, Pentagon officials confirmed that eight deaths of detainees in Afghanistan have been investigated since mid-2002. Hundreds of people were detained during and after the campaign by US-led forces to oust the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001.
Following the outcry over abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the military also initiated a review of its detention facilities in Afghanistan and later said it had modified some of its procedures, although the review's findings have yet to be made public.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/052105Y.shtml
By Daniel Cooney The Associated Press
Saturday 21 May 2005
Kabul - Afghanistan's president on Saturday demanded "very, very strong" action by the United States against any military personnel found to be abusing prisoners, after a newspaper report alleged maltreatment of detainees at the main US base here.
President Hamid Karzai said he will bring up the issue when he meets American leaders during a four-day visit to the United States starting Saturday.
The abuse allegations were in a New York Times report Friday that cited a 2,000-page confidential file on the Army's criminal investigation into the deaths of two Afghans at the Bagram base north of the capital, Kabul, in December 2002.
"It has shocked me totally. We condemn it. We want the US government to take very, very strong action to take away people like that working with their forces in Afghanistan," he told reporters before leaving Kabul. "Definitely ... I will see about that when I am in the United States."
But he added that the actions of those responsible for the abuse should not be seen as reflective of all Americans.
"The people of the United States are very kind people," he said. "It is only one or two individuals who are bad and such individuals are found in any military in any society everywhere, including Afghanistan."
The US military, responding to the allegations, defended its treatment of detainees, saying it would not tolerate maltreatment.
The military's spokesman in Kabul, Col. James Yonts, said, "Military and civilian members are expected to abide by the highest standards and when their actions contradict these standards appropriate action will be taken. The command has made it very clear that any incidents of abuse will not be tolerated."
In Washington, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said President Bush was "alarmed by the reports of prisoner abuse," and wants them thoroughly investigated. He said seven people are being investigated about abuse at Bagram Air Base.
"What the military and what the president supported is investigations, holding people to account," Duffy said. "We've taken steps, we've taken new policies to ensure that this doesn't happen again, and we're holding people to account."
The Times reported that the file of the criminal investigation "depicts poorly trained soldiers in repeated incidents of abuse," which in some instances "was directed or carried out by interrogators to extract information."
It reported that one of the two Afghans, a 22-year old taxi driver called Dilawar, had been pummeled by guards for several days and chained with his arms to the ceiling. Most of the interrogators believed he was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the base at the wrong time, the newspaper said.
The Army has publicly acknowledged the two deaths and announced in October that up to 28 US soldiers face possible charges in connection with what were ruled homicides.
In December, Pentagon officials confirmed that eight deaths of detainees in Afghanistan have been investigated since mid-2002. Hundreds of people were detained during and after the campaign by US-led forces to oust the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001.
Following the outcry over abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the military also initiated a review of its detention facilities in Afghanistan and later said it had modified some of its procedures, although the review's findings have yet to be made public.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/052105Y.shtml
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 6:00 PM
0 comments
You Don't Say...
More Evidence Of Bush Aides' Doubts on Iraq
Analysts Questioned Most Intelligence
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 22, 2005; Page A01
On Jan. 24, 2003, four days before President Bush delivered his State of the Union address presenting the case for war against Iraq, the National Security Council staff put out a call for new intelligence to bolster claims that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear, chemical and biological weapons or programs.
The person receiving the request, Robert Walpole, then the national intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs, would later tell investigators that "the NSC believed the nuclear case was weak," according to a 500-page report released last year by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
It has been clear since the September report of the Iraq Survey Group -- a CIA-sponsored weapons search in Iraq -- that the United States would not find the weapons of mass destruction cited by Bush as the rationale for going to war against Saddam Hussein. But as the Walpole episode suggests, it now appears that even before the war many senior intelligence officials in the government had doubts about the case that was being trumpeted in public by the president and his senior advisers.
The question of prewar intelligence has been thrust back into the public eye with the disclosure of a secret British memo showing that, eight months before the March 2003 start of the war, a senior British intelligence official reported to Prime Minister Tony Blair that U.S. intelligence was being shaped to support a policy of invading Iraq.
Moreover, a close reading of the recent 600-page report by the president's commission on intelligence, and the previous report by the Senate panel, shows that as the war approached many U.S. intelligence analysts were internally questioning almost every major piece of prewar intelligence about Hussein's alleged weapons programs.
These included claims that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium in Africa for its nuclear program, had mobile labs for producing biological weapons, ran an active chemical weapons program and possessed unmanned aircraft that could deliver weapons of mass destruction. All these claims were made by Bush or then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in public addresses even though, the reports made clear, they had yet to be verified by U.S. intelligence agencies.
Continues, if you can stand it. Link in headline.
Analysts Questioned Most Intelligence
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 22, 2005; Page A01
On Jan. 24, 2003, four days before President Bush delivered his State of the Union address presenting the case for war against Iraq, the National Security Council staff put out a call for new intelligence to bolster claims that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear, chemical and biological weapons or programs.
The person receiving the request, Robert Walpole, then the national intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs, would later tell investigators that "the NSC believed the nuclear case was weak," according to a 500-page report released last year by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
It has been clear since the September report of the Iraq Survey Group -- a CIA-sponsored weapons search in Iraq -- that the United States would not find the weapons of mass destruction cited by Bush as the rationale for going to war against Saddam Hussein. But as the Walpole episode suggests, it now appears that even before the war many senior intelligence officials in the government had doubts about the case that was being trumpeted in public by the president and his senior advisers.
The question of prewar intelligence has been thrust back into the public eye with the disclosure of a secret British memo showing that, eight months before the March 2003 start of the war, a senior British intelligence official reported to Prime Minister Tony Blair that U.S. intelligence was being shaped to support a policy of invading Iraq.
Moreover, a close reading of the recent 600-page report by the president's commission on intelligence, and the previous report by the Senate panel, shows that as the war approached many U.S. intelligence analysts were internally questioning almost every major piece of prewar intelligence about Hussein's alleged weapons programs.
These included claims that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium in Africa for its nuclear program, had mobile labs for producing biological weapons, ran an active chemical weapons program and possessed unmanned aircraft that could deliver weapons of mass destruction. All these claims were made by Bush or then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in public addresses even though, the reports made clear, they had yet to be verified by U.S. intelligence agencies.
Continues, if you can stand it. Link in headline.
posted by Christy at 5:37 PM
0 comments
Pregnant grad defies ban from ceremony
Pomp and special circumstances: Student announces her own name
The Associated Press
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - A pregnant student who was banned from graduation at her Roman Catholic high school announced her own name and walked across the stage anyway at the close of the program.
Alysha Cosby’s decision prompted cheers and applause Tuesday from many of her fellow seniors at St. Jude Educational Institute.
But her mother and aunt were escorted out of the church by police after Cosby headed back to her seat.
“I can’t believe something like this is happening in 2005,” said her mother, Sheila Cosby. “My daughter has been through a lot and I am proud of her. She deserved to walk, and she did.”
The school’s guidance counselor delivered Cosby’s degree to her house earlier Tuesday, but she still wanted to participate.
“I worked hard throughout high school and I wanted to walk with my class,” she said.
Cosby was told in March that she could no longer attend school because of safety concerns, and her name was not listed in the graduation program.
The father of Cosby’s child, also a senior at the school, was allowed to participate in graduation
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7901344/
Pomp and special circumstances: Student announces her own name
The Associated Press
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - A pregnant student who was banned from graduation at her Roman Catholic high school announced her own name and walked across the stage anyway at the close of the program.
Alysha Cosby’s decision prompted cheers and applause Tuesday from many of her fellow seniors at St. Jude Educational Institute.
But her mother and aunt were escorted out of the church by police after Cosby headed back to her seat.
“I can’t believe something like this is happening in 2005,” said her mother, Sheila Cosby. “My daughter has been through a lot and I am proud of her. She deserved to walk, and she did.”
The school’s guidance counselor delivered Cosby’s degree to her house earlier Tuesday, but she still wanted to participate.
“I worked hard throughout high school and I wanted to walk with my class,” she said.
Cosby was told in March that she could no longer attend school because of safety concerns, and her name was not listed in the graduation program.
The father of Cosby’s child, also a senior at the school, was allowed to participate in graduation
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7901344/
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 5:10 PM
0 comments
Helen Thomas, Strikes Again.
Who's To Blame For Anger At U.S.?
Invasion, Not Article, Causes Hatred
Helen Thomas, Hearst White House columnist
POSTED: 4:34 pm EDT May 20, 2005
It was a act of desperation when the White House tried to blame Newsweek magazine for America's low esteem around the world, particularly in the Middle East.
The Bush administration could look in the mirror and see that the real cause for rampant anti-Americanism is the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Newsweek has apologized for and retracted its report that a copy of the Koran was flushed down the toilet at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the U.S. is holding some 500 prisoners, though released prisoners have in recent months told interviewers that they had witnessed similar acts of desecration.
The Newsweek report is being blamed for inciting riots in Pakistan and Afghanistan and the l7 deaths that ensued.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan -- who has fobbed off questions about mistreatment of U.S.-held prisoners in the past -- told reporters that the Newsweek report "caused serious damage to the United States abroad."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she was appalled that the story about the Koran got out.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- of all people -- said: "People need to be very careful about what they say, just as they need to be careful about what they do."
This is the same Rumsfeld who ignored for months the first of the devastating reports about abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
You don't have to draw a diagram for the Arab world to know what country invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003 -- against the wishes of every nation in the region -- and tried to justify the attack with a rationale that shifted each time the previous version was shown to be false.
There's a sense of hypocrisy that pervades the huffing and puffing by Bush administration officials as they rush to criticize Newsweek. Where was their outrage when they saw the photographs of the shameful mistreatment of the prisoners of war at the Abu Ghraib facility, with forced nudity, humiliation, sexual harassment, brutal interrogation and dogs?
After those shocking photos were published around the world, Rumsfeld banned cameras from military prisons.
--He banned the CAMERAS...But did not stop the TORTURE..? Yeah ok.-
Daoud Kuttab, a news media critic and professor in Bethlehem, referring to claims by former prisoners of Koran desecration, told The New York Times:
"Newsweek can recant as long as they want, but as long as people are coming out of prison and telling the same story, it will not matter."
The Pentagon is still investigating the charges contained in the Newsweek account.
Former broadcaster Marvin Kalb, now at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, said, "This is hardly the first time the administration has sought to portray the American media as inadequately patriotic."
Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., said the administration is chastising Newsweek "for a story that contained a fact that turned out to be false. This is the same administration that lied to the Congress, the United Nations and the American people by fabricating reasons to send us to war."
One reporter asked McClellan what further, beyond an apology, Newsweek could do.
He had no suggestions except that the magazine should "move forward and do all it can to help repair the damage that has been done by this report."
Sorry, Scott. The damage was done with the unprovoked invasion of Iraq in defiance of all international law.
For some time the administration has been worried enough about its current standing in the world to appoint yet another woman to conduct a "public diplomacy" campaign to repair the U.S. image. The newcomer, Karen Hughes, takes the job after two other women quit.
My suggestion is to allow reporters to go to Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, as well as the U.S. prisons in Afghanistan, and let them question prisoners about their treatment. Then we may get a truly impartial picture of the situation.
But don't hold your breath on that happening.
(Helen Thomas can be reached at the e-mail address hthomas@hearstdc.com).
Invasion, Not Article, Causes Hatred
Helen Thomas, Hearst White House columnist
POSTED: 4:34 pm EDT May 20, 2005
It was a act of desperation when the White House tried to blame Newsweek magazine for America's low esteem around the world, particularly in the Middle East.
The Bush administration could look in the mirror and see that the real cause for rampant anti-Americanism is the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Newsweek has apologized for and retracted its report that a copy of the Koran was flushed down the toilet at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the U.S. is holding some 500 prisoners, though released prisoners have in recent months told interviewers that they had witnessed similar acts of desecration.
The Newsweek report is being blamed for inciting riots in Pakistan and Afghanistan and the l7 deaths that ensued.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan -- who has fobbed off questions about mistreatment of U.S.-held prisoners in the past -- told reporters that the Newsweek report "caused serious damage to the United States abroad."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she was appalled that the story about the Koran got out.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- of all people -- said: "People need to be very careful about what they say, just as they need to be careful about what they do."
This is the same Rumsfeld who ignored for months the first of the devastating reports about abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
You don't have to draw a diagram for the Arab world to know what country invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003 -- against the wishes of every nation in the region -- and tried to justify the attack with a rationale that shifted each time the previous version was shown to be false.
There's a sense of hypocrisy that pervades the huffing and puffing by Bush administration officials as they rush to criticize Newsweek. Where was their outrage when they saw the photographs of the shameful mistreatment of the prisoners of war at the Abu Ghraib facility, with forced nudity, humiliation, sexual harassment, brutal interrogation and dogs?
After those shocking photos were published around the world, Rumsfeld banned cameras from military prisons.
--He banned the CAMERAS...But did not stop the TORTURE..? Yeah ok.-
Daoud Kuttab, a news media critic and professor in Bethlehem, referring to claims by former prisoners of Koran desecration, told The New York Times:
"Newsweek can recant as long as they want, but as long as people are coming out of prison and telling the same story, it will not matter."
The Pentagon is still investigating the charges contained in the Newsweek account.
Former broadcaster Marvin Kalb, now at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, said, "This is hardly the first time the administration has sought to portray the American media as inadequately patriotic."
Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., said the administration is chastising Newsweek "for a story that contained a fact that turned out to be false. This is the same administration that lied to the Congress, the United Nations and the American people by fabricating reasons to send us to war."
One reporter asked McClellan what further, beyond an apology, Newsweek could do.
He had no suggestions except that the magazine should "move forward and do all it can to help repair the damage that has been done by this report."
Sorry, Scott. The damage was done with the unprovoked invasion of Iraq in defiance of all international law.
For some time the administration has been worried enough about its current standing in the world to appoint yet another woman to conduct a "public diplomacy" campaign to repair the U.S. image. The newcomer, Karen Hughes, takes the job after two other women quit.
My suggestion is to allow reporters to go to Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, as well as the U.S. prisons in Afghanistan, and let them question prisoners about their treatment. Then we may get a truly impartial picture of the situation.
But don't hold your breath on that happening.
(Helen Thomas can be reached at the e-mail address hthomas@hearstdc.com).
posted by Christy at 2:55 PM
0 comments
The Devil In The Details.
WASHINGTON -- Planning for the Iraq war was hobbled by tensions between Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and military planners over the staying power of Saddam Hussein's regime, by leaks of highly classified war plans and by little attention to the war's aftermath, according to a new insider account.
A top intelligence analyst at the U.S. military's Central Command writes that demands from Rumsfeld and his aides for new versions of the war plan using fewer American troops wasted time and diverted attention from fleshing out a blueprint for the March 2003 invasion.
Civilians in Washington, convinced that Hussein's regime would topple easily, "injected numerous ideas into the dialogue, many of which were amateurish and unrealistic," wrote the analyst, Gregory Hooker.
Many of those ideas were discarded, but the conflicting approaches never were resolved before the invasion, he says.
---OHHHH REALLY..?---
Hooker's account was published this week by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The cover of the study identifies Hooker as CENTCOM's senior intelligence analyst for Iraq. He has done several stints in the country, including as a U.N. weapons inspector in the 1990s.
Hooker's account echoes other assessments of the run-up to the war, but it's one of the first on-the-record accounts by someone in his position as a military intelligence analyst, and comes amid renewed debate over Iraq's future.
Hooker adds some new details.
For example, he says some officers at Florida-based CENTCOM were so stunned by leaks of the classified war plans that they assumed they must have been part of a U.S. propaganda campaign to unsettle Hussein.
"To some planners, this theory seemed the only logical way to explain the seemingly outrageous and reckless revelations of classified material by senior officials," he wrote.
In fact, the leaks were apparently part of a battle among top policymakers in Washington over whether to invade Iraq with a relatively small force and lightening-quick maneuvers, or a larger, more traditional force.
A top intelligence analyst at the U.S. military's Central Command writes that demands from Rumsfeld and his aides for new versions of the war plan using fewer American troops wasted time and diverted attention from fleshing out a blueprint for the March 2003 invasion.
Civilians in Washington, convinced that Hussein's regime would topple easily, "injected numerous ideas into the dialogue, many of which were amateurish and unrealistic," wrote the analyst, Gregory Hooker.
Many of those ideas were discarded, but the conflicting approaches never were resolved before the invasion, he says.
---OHHHH REALLY..?---
Hooker's account was published this week by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The cover of the study identifies Hooker as CENTCOM's senior intelligence analyst for Iraq. He has done several stints in the country, including as a U.N. weapons inspector in the 1990s.
Hooker's account echoes other assessments of the run-up to the war, but it's one of the first on-the-record accounts by someone in his position as a military intelligence analyst, and comes amid renewed debate over Iraq's future.
Hooker adds some new details.
For example, he says some officers at Florida-based CENTCOM were so stunned by leaks of the classified war plans that they assumed they must have been part of a U.S. propaganda campaign to unsettle Hussein.
"To some planners, this theory seemed the only logical way to explain the seemingly outrageous and reckless revelations of classified material by senior officials," he wrote.
In fact, the leaks were apparently part of a battle among top policymakers in Washington over whether to invade Iraq with a relatively small force and lightening-quick maneuvers, or a larger, more traditional force.
posted by Christy at 2:49 PM
0 comments
Tillman's brother: 'Pat isn't with God. He's fucking dead'
The hagiography of NFL/war veteran Pat Tillman hit a snag during his funeral services Monday when his brother Rich took the microphone:
Tillman's youngest brother, Rich, wore a rumpled white T-shirt, no jacket, no tie, no collar, and immediately swore into the microphone. He hadn't written anything, he said, and with the starkest honesty, he asked mourners to hold their spiritual bromides.
"Pat isn't with God,'' he said. "He's fucking dead. He wasn't religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he's fucking dead.''
The Arizona Republic coverage of the event, attended by 3,000 people and broadcast live, indicates how these comments were received:
Tillman's younger brother, Rich, created a sensation by toasting his older brother with a pint of Guinness stout, Tillman's favorite beer, and spicing up his brief comments with several obscenities of the kind Tillman himself was known to let fly with abandon.
The locker-room language prompted some live television broadcasts to cut away from the memorial.
http://www.drudge.com/weblog/3297/tillmans_brother_pat_isnt_with_god_hes_.html
The Television Broadcasts didn't like it when Tillmans Brother Rich gave them a little bit of truth for a change instead of their constant barrage of garbage.
The hagiography of NFL/war veteran Pat Tillman hit a snag during his funeral services Monday when his brother Rich took the microphone:
Tillman's youngest brother, Rich, wore a rumpled white T-shirt, no jacket, no tie, no collar, and immediately swore into the microphone. He hadn't written anything, he said, and with the starkest honesty, he asked mourners to hold their spiritual bromides.
"Pat isn't with God,'' he said. "He's fucking dead. He wasn't religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he's fucking dead.''
The Arizona Republic coverage of the event, attended by 3,000 people and broadcast live, indicates how these comments were received:
Tillman's younger brother, Rich, created a sensation by toasting his older brother with a pint of Guinness stout, Tillman's favorite beer, and spicing up his brief comments with several obscenities of the kind Tillman himself was known to let fly with abandon.
The locker-room language prompted some live television broadcasts to cut away from the memorial.
http://www.drudge.com/weblog/3297/tillmans_brother_pat_isnt_with_god_hes_.html
The Television Broadcasts didn't like it when Tillmans Brother Rich gave them a little bit of truth for a change instead of their constant barrage of garbage.
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 12:15 PM
0 comments
OOOPPs. Bigtime.
10 IRAQIS KILLED 'IN US BUNGLE'
BUNGLING US forces were accused of killing guards protecting an Iraqi politician yesterday.
National Assembly member Fawaz al-Jarba said the guards opened fire at insurgents who shot at his house in Mosul.
US Apache helicopters joined the battle. Al-Jarba, a Sunni and recent candidate for parliament speaker, said 10 guards died and claimed his home was bombed. He asked: "The terrorists were firing at me. Why did the Americans?"
In further violence, Baghdad Oil Ministry official Ali Hameed was gunned down outside his home.
Also in Baghdad, three gunmen killed a university professor near his house. North of the capital, a roadside bomb killed two policemen in Baquba. A police officer and his father were shot dead in their car in Samarra.
Link in headline...
BUNGLING US forces were accused of killing guards protecting an Iraqi politician yesterday.
National Assembly member Fawaz al-Jarba said the guards opened fire at insurgents who shot at his house in Mosul.
US Apache helicopters joined the battle. Al-Jarba, a Sunni and recent candidate for parliament speaker, said 10 guards died and claimed his home was bombed. He asked: "The terrorists were firing at me. Why did the Americans?"
In further violence, Baghdad Oil Ministry official Ali Hameed was gunned down outside his home.
Also in Baghdad, three gunmen killed a university professor near his house. North of the capital, a roadside bomb killed two policemen in Baquba. A police officer and his father were shot dead in their car in Samarra.
Link in headline...
posted by Christy at 10:10 AM
0 comments
Uh Oh.
US Faces Questions Over 'Kidnappings' In Europe
Reuters
Friday 20 May 2005
Berlin - Pressure is growing on the United States to respond to allegations that its agents were involved in spiriting terrorist suspects out of three European countries and sending them to nations where they may have been tortured.
In Italy, a judge said this week that foreign intelligence officials "kidnapped" an Egyptian suspect in Milan two years ago and took him to a US base from where he was flown home.
In Germany, a Munich prosecutor is preparing a batch of questions to US authorities on the case of a Lebanese-born German who says he was arrested in Macedonia on New Year's Eve 2003 and flown by US agents to a jail in Afghanistan.
And in Sweden, a parliamentary ombudsman has criticized the security services over the expulsion of two Egyptian terrorism suspects who were handed over to US agents and flown home aboard a US government-leased plane in 2001.
Campaign group Human Rights Watch said there was credible evidence the pair had been tortured while being held incommunicado for five weeks after their return. One was later convicted in a "patently unfair" trial.
"We know it's not right to send people back to torture. That's criminal. That's the one factor that ties all these cases together right now," Julia Hall of Human Rights Watch said in a telephone interview.
"But whether they're kidnappings, whether they're abductions, whether they occur always with the collaboration of security services in the host country - these are things that still have yet to be determined."
Assurances Against Torture
Secret transfers of suspects to foreign states for interrogation are an acknowledged tool of the United States in the war on terrorism, but it denies charges that the practice - known as rendition - amounts to outsourcing torture.
"(In) the post-9/11 world, the United States must make sure we protect our people and our friends from attack ... And one way to do so is to arrest people and send them back to their country of origin with the promise that they won't be tortured," President Bush said in March.
"We seek assurances that nobody will be tortured when we render a person back to their home country."
Human Rights Watch argues such assurances are worthless.
The latest twist came in the case of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, who disappeared from a Milan street in February 2003.
Italian judge Guido Salvini said in a court document, obtained by Reuters: "It is now possible to affirm with certainty that he was kidnapped by people belonging to foreign intelligence networks interested in interrogating him and neutralising him, to then hand him over to Egyptian authorities."
Although he did not identify the foreign agents responsible, Salvini said Nasr had been "taken to an American base, interrogated and beaten and taken the next day on board a US military plane" to Egypt.
It was not until a year later, Salvini said, that Nasr was heard from again in phone calls, including one to his wife. Italian media have reported he told her he was tortured in Egypt and partially lost his hearing.
Salvini is investigating suspects linked to Nasr and is not responsible for the probe into his disappearance. That case is being handled by the Milan prosecutor's office, which said Salvini did not have access to all the documents and expressed surprise at his conclusions.
But his comments were the hardest yet by judicial authorities in Europe on the alleged renditions.
German Probe
In Germany, Munich prosecutor Martin Hofmann said he was finalising an official request to the United States for information on the case of Khaled el-Masri.
The German citizen says he was arrested in Macedonia on Dec. 31, 2003 and flown by US agents to an Afghan jail. Only five months after being seized was he flown back to Europe and dumped without explanation in Albania, from where he made his way home.
NBC News reported last month that Masri was snatched because he shared the same name as an al Qaeda suspect. It said even when investigators realized the error, he was held another six weeks in an Afghan jail dubbed the Salt Pit before being freed.
"I'm investigating kidnapping, physical injury, duress and deprivation of freedom," said Hofmann, who is also seeking information from Macedonia and Albania.
But investigators face formidable obstacles to prove what happened and hold anyone to account. Hofmann said he could not bring any charges unless he could identify those individuals involved in Masri's alleged abduction.
"The problem is, I need the persons responsible. So far the investigation is into 'unknown persons'," he told Reuters.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/052105Z.shtml
Reuters
Friday 20 May 2005
Berlin - Pressure is growing on the United States to respond to allegations that its agents were involved in spiriting terrorist suspects out of three European countries and sending them to nations where they may have been tortured.
In Italy, a judge said this week that foreign intelligence officials "kidnapped" an Egyptian suspect in Milan two years ago and took him to a US base from where he was flown home.
In Germany, a Munich prosecutor is preparing a batch of questions to US authorities on the case of a Lebanese-born German who says he was arrested in Macedonia on New Year's Eve 2003 and flown by US agents to a jail in Afghanistan.
And in Sweden, a parliamentary ombudsman has criticized the security services over the expulsion of two Egyptian terrorism suspects who were handed over to US agents and flown home aboard a US government-leased plane in 2001.
Campaign group Human Rights Watch said there was credible evidence the pair had been tortured while being held incommunicado for five weeks after their return. One was later convicted in a "patently unfair" trial.
"We know it's not right to send people back to torture. That's criminal. That's the one factor that ties all these cases together right now," Julia Hall of Human Rights Watch said in a telephone interview.
"But whether they're kidnappings, whether they're abductions, whether they occur always with the collaboration of security services in the host country - these are things that still have yet to be determined."
Assurances Against Torture
Secret transfers of suspects to foreign states for interrogation are an acknowledged tool of the United States in the war on terrorism, but it denies charges that the practice - known as rendition - amounts to outsourcing torture.
"(In) the post-9/11 world, the United States must make sure we protect our people and our friends from attack ... And one way to do so is to arrest people and send them back to their country of origin with the promise that they won't be tortured," President Bush said in March.
"We seek assurances that nobody will be tortured when we render a person back to their home country."
Human Rights Watch argues such assurances are worthless.
The latest twist came in the case of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, who disappeared from a Milan street in February 2003.
Italian judge Guido Salvini said in a court document, obtained by Reuters: "It is now possible to affirm with certainty that he was kidnapped by people belonging to foreign intelligence networks interested in interrogating him and neutralising him, to then hand him over to Egyptian authorities."
Although he did not identify the foreign agents responsible, Salvini said Nasr had been "taken to an American base, interrogated and beaten and taken the next day on board a US military plane" to Egypt.
It was not until a year later, Salvini said, that Nasr was heard from again in phone calls, including one to his wife. Italian media have reported he told her he was tortured in Egypt and partially lost his hearing.
Salvini is investigating suspects linked to Nasr and is not responsible for the probe into his disappearance. That case is being handled by the Milan prosecutor's office, which said Salvini did not have access to all the documents and expressed surprise at his conclusions.
But his comments were the hardest yet by judicial authorities in Europe on the alleged renditions.
German Probe
In Germany, Munich prosecutor Martin Hofmann said he was finalising an official request to the United States for information on the case of Khaled el-Masri.
The German citizen says he was arrested in Macedonia on Dec. 31, 2003 and flown by US agents to an Afghan jail. Only five months after being seized was he flown back to Europe and dumped without explanation in Albania, from where he made his way home.
NBC News reported last month that Masri was snatched because he shared the same name as an al Qaeda suspect. It said even when investigators realized the error, he was held another six weeks in an Afghan jail dubbed the Salt Pit before being freed.
"I'm investigating kidnapping, physical injury, duress and deprivation of freedom," said Hofmann, who is also seeking information from Macedonia and Albania.
But investigators face formidable obstacles to prove what happened and hold anyone to account. Hofmann said he could not bring any charges unless he could identify those individuals involved in Masri's alleged abduction.
"The problem is, I need the persons responsible. So far the investigation is into 'unknown persons'," he told Reuters.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/052105Z.shtml
posted by Christy at 9:07 AM
0 comments
ANOTHER Batch of Bad Apples.
Live Link Above.
Two death certificates, one death: Did U.S. med staff cover-up abuse?
RAW STORY
Dr. Steven Miles, aMinnesota bioethicist who has been investigating alleged human rights abuses by U.S. military medical staff has found a prisoner with two death certificates, according to the (registration-restricted) Minnesota Star-Tribune.
snip..
The two death certificates, dated 17 months apart, both document the death of a 22-year-old taxi driver who was arrested by Afghan militiamen in December 2002. He was turned over to a U.S. detention center in Bagram, where he apparently died under interrogation a week later.
Both classify Dilawar's death as a homicide. But in one death certificate, he is a Caucasian of unspecified age and religion. In the other, he is a Muslim of "approximately 35 years," who was "found unresponsive in his cell while in custody."
Miles believes the twin death certificates -- one of them clearly altered -- are evidence of a cover-up. Pentagon officials say they've investigated Dilawar's death, along with at least two dozen other suspected criminal homicides, and have charged seven people.
A Defense Department spokesman said Friday that they are looking into the discrepancy of the two death certificates. "It's possible one was a report done out in the field, and the other was a final report based on the final autopsy," said Perry Bishop, a Health Affairs spokesman at the Pentagon.
Miles, however, contends that both death certificates bear signatures indicating a doctor's final approval. Neither is marked as preliminary, nor as pending an investigation.
The Pentagon has acknowledged that in a few cases, including Dilawar's, there had been false reports of natural deaths involving detainees. In March, Vice Admiral Albert Church found that Dilawar's case was one of three in which medical personnel may have attempted to misrepresent the circumstances of death.
Two death certificates, one death: Did U.S. med staff cover-up abuse?
RAW STORY
Dr. Steven Miles, aMinnesota bioethicist who has been investigating alleged human rights abuses by U.S. military medical staff has found a prisoner with two death certificates, according to the (registration-restricted) Minnesota Star-Tribune.
snip..
The two death certificates, dated 17 months apart, both document the death of a 22-year-old taxi driver who was arrested by Afghan militiamen in December 2002. He was turned over to a U.S. detention center in Bagram, where he apparently died under interrogation a week later.
Both classify Dilawar's death as a homicide. But in one death certificate, he is a Caucasian of unspecified age and religion. In the other, he is a Muslim of "approximately 35 years," who was "found unresponsive in his cell while in custody."
Miles believes the twin death certificates -- one of them clearly altered -- are evidence of a cover-up. Pentagon officials say they've investigated Dilawar's death, along with at least two dozen other suspected criminal homicides, and have charged seven people.
A Defense Department spokesman said Friday that they are looking into the discrepancy of the two death certificates. "It's possible one was a report done out in the field, and the other was a final report based on the final autopsy," said Perry Bishop, a Health Affairs spokesman at the Pentagon.
Miles, however, contends that both death certificates bear signatures indicating a doctor's final approval. Neither is marked as preliminary, nor as pending an investigation.
The Pentagon has acknowledged that in a few cases, including Dilawar's, there had been false reports of natural deaths involving detainees. In March, Vice Admiral Albert Church found that Dilawar's case was one of three in which medical personnel may have attempted to misrepresent the circumstances of death.
posted by Christy at 8:27 AM
0 comments
Friday, May 20, 2005
You Said WHAT!!!???
Snip..
Among other things, the memorandum reported that Richard Dearlove, the chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, reporting back from talks in Washington, had told other senior British officials that Bush "wanted to remove" Saddam, "through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD," or weapons of mass destruction.
"But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," Dearlove was reported in the memorandum to have told his colleagues. One of them, Foreign Minister Jack Straw, was reported to have described the case for war as "thin" because "Saddam was not threatening his neighbors and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."
The British government has not disputed the authenticity of the British memorandum, written by Matthew Rycroft, a top foreign policy aide to Blair. A spokesman for Blair has said that the memorandum does not add significantly to previous accounts of decision-making before the war.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters on Tuesday that the White House saw "no need" to respond to the Democratic letter. Current and former Bush administration officials have sought to minimize the significance of the memorandum, saying it is based on circumstantial observations.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/225072_memo20.html
---Un. Freaking. Believable.---
Among other things, the memorandum reported that Richard Dearlove, the chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, reporting back from talks in Washington, had told other senior British officials that Bush "wanted to remove" Saddam, "through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD," or weapons of mass destruction.
"But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," Dearlove was reported in the memorandum to have told his colleagues. One of them, Foreign Minister Jack Straw, was reported to have described the case for war as "thin" because "Saddam was not threatening his neighbors and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."
The British government has not disputed the authenticity of the British memorandum, written by Matthew Rycroft, a top foreign policy aide to Blair. A spokesman for Blair has said that the memorandum does not add significantly to previous accounts of decision-making before the war.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters on Tuesday that the White House saw "no need" to respond to the Democratic letter. Current and former Bush administration officials have sought to minimize the significance of the memorandum, saying it is based on circumstantial observations.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/225072_memo20.html
---Un. Freaking. Believable.---
posted by Christy at 11:03 PM
0 comments
What the Smart People are Saying.
The Latest From Paul Craig Roberts.
Paul Craig Roberts is
the John M. Olin fellow
at the Institute for Political
Economy, a research
fellow at the Independent
Institute, and senior
research fellow at the
Hoover Institution.
A Reputation in Tatters
George W. Bush and his gang of neocon warmongers have destroyed America’s reputation. It is likely to stay destroyed, because at this point the only way to restore America’s reputation would be to impeach and convict President Bush for intentionally deceiving Congress and the American people in order to start a war of aggression against a country that posed no threat to the United States.
America can redeem itself only by holding Bush accountable.
As intent as Republicans were to impeach President Bill Clinton for lying about a sexual affair, they have a blind eye for President Bush’s far more serious lies. Bush’s lies have caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people, injured and maimed tens of thousands more, devastated a country, destroyed America’s reputation, caused 1 billion Muslims to hate America, ruined our alliances with Europe, created a police state at home, and squandered $300 billion dollars and counting.
America’s reputation is so damaged that not even our puppets can stand the heat. Anti-American riots, which have left Afghan cities and towns in flames and hospitals overflowing with casualties, have forced Bush’s Afghan puppet, “President” Hamid Karzai, to assert his independence from his U.S. overlords. In a belated act of sovereignty, Karzai asserted authority over heavy-handed U.S. troops whose brutal and stupid ways sparked the devastating riots. Karzai demanded control of U.S. military activities in Afghanistan and called for the return of the Afghan detainees who are being held at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
--Karzi controls our soldiers..hmmmmmm---
Abundant evidence now exists in the public domain to convict George W. Bush of the crime of the century. The secret British government memo (dated July 23, 2002, and available here), leaked to the Sunday Times (which printed it on May 1, 2005), reports that Bush wanted “to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. . . . But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. . . . The (United Kingdom) attorney general said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defense, humanitarian intervention or UNSC (U.N. Security Council) authorization. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult.”
This memo is the mother of all smoking guns. Why isn’t Bush in the dock?
Has American democracy failed at home?
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/cgi-bin/roberts.cgi
Paul Craig Roberts is
the John M. Olin fellow
at the Institute for Political
Economy, a research
fellow at the Independent
Institute, and senior
research fellow at the
Hoover Institution.
A Reputation in Tatters
George W. Bush and his gang of neocon warmongers have destroyed America’s reputation. It is likely to stay destroyed, because at this point the only way to restore America’s reputation would be to impeach and convict President Bush for intentionally deceiving Congress and the American people in order to start a war of aggression against a country that posed no threat to the United States.
America can redeem itself only by holding Bush accountable.
As intent as Republicans were to impeach President Bill Clinton for lying about a sexual affair, they have a blind eye for President Bush’s far more serious lies. Bush’s lies have caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people, injured and maimed tens of thousands more, devastated a country, destroyed America’s reputation, caused 1 billion Muslims to hate America, ruined our alliances with Europe, created a police state at home, and squandered $300 billion dollars and counting.
America’s reputation is so damaged that not even our puppets can stand the heat. Anti-American riots, which have left Afghan cities and towns in flames and hospitals overflowing with casualties, have forced Bush’s Afghan puppet, “President” Hamid Karzai, to assert his independence from his U.S. overlords. In a belated act of sovereignty, Karzai asserted authority over heavy-handed U.S. troops whose brutal and stupid ways sparked the devastating riots. Karzai demanded control of U.S. military activities in Afghanistan and called for the return of the Afghan detainees who are being held at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
--Karzi controls our soldiers..hmmmmmm---
Abundant evidence now exists in the public domain to convict George W. Bush of the crime of the century. The secret British government memo (dated July 23, 2002, and available here), leaked to the Sunday Times (which printed it on May 1, 2005), reports that Bush wanted “to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. . . . But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. . . . The (United Kingdom) attorney general said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defense, humanitarian intervention or UNSC (U.N. Security Council) authorization. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult.”
This memo is the mother of all smoking guns. Why isn’t Bush in the dock?
Has American democracy failed at home?
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/cgi-bin/roberts.cgi
posted by Christy at 3:58 PM
0 comments
Go to Original
In US Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths By Tim Golden The New York Times
Friday 20 May 2005
Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him.
The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.
Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar's face.
"Come on, drink!" the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. "Drink!"
At the interrogators' behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.
"Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.
Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.
The story of Mr. Dilawar's brutal death at the Bagram Collection Point - and that of another detainee, Habibullah, who died there six days earlier in December 2002 - emerge from a nearly 2,000-page confidential file of the Army's criminal investigation into the case, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.
Like a narrative counterpart to the digital images from Abu Ghraib, the Bagram file depicts young, poorly trained soldiers in repeated incidents of abuse. The harsh treatment, which has resulted in criminal charges against seven soldiers, went well beyond the two deaths.
In some instances, testimony shows, it was directed or carried out by interrogators to extract information. In others, it was punishment meted out by military police guards. Sometimes, the torment seems to have been driven by little more than boredom or cruelty, or both.
In sworn statements to Army investigators, soldiers describe one female interrogator with a taste for humiliation stepping on the neck of one prostrate detainee and kicking another in the genitals. They tell of a shackled prisoner being forced to roll back and forth on the floor of a cell, kissing the boots of his two interrogators as he went. Yet another prisoner is made to pick plastic bottle caps out of a drum mixed with excrement and water as part of a strategy to soften him up for questioning.
The Times obtained a copy of the file from a person involved in the investigation who was critical of the methods used at Bagram and the military's response to the deaths.
Although incidents of prisoner abuse at Bagram in 2002, including some details of the two men's deaths, have been previously reported, American officials have characterized them as isolated problems that were thoroughly investigated. And many of the officers and soldiers interviewed in the Dilawar investigation said the large majority of detainees at Bagram were compliant and reasonably well treated.
"What we have learned through the course of all these investigations is that there were people who clearly violated anyone's standard for humane treatment," said the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Larry Di Rita. "We're finding some cases that were not close calls."
Yet the Bagram file includes ample testimony that harsh treatment by some interrogators was routine and that guards could strike shackled detainees with virtual impunity. Prisoners considered important or troublesome were also handcuffed and chained to the ceilings and doors of their cells, sometimes for long periods, an action Army prosecutors recently classified as criminal assault.
Some of the mistreatment was quite obvious, the file suggests. Senior officers frequently toured the detention center, and several of them acknowledged seeing prisoners chained up for punishment or to deprive them of sleep. Shortly before the two deaths, observers from the International Committee of the Red Cross specifically complained to the military authorities at Bagram about the shackling of prisoners in "fixed positions," documents show.
Even though military investigators learned soon after Mr. Dilawar's death that he had been abused by at least two interrogators, the Army's criminal inquiry moved slowly. Meanwhile, many of the Bagram interrogators, led by the same operations officer, Capt. Carolyn A. Wood, were redeployed to Iraq and in July 2003 took charge of interrogations at the Abu Ghraib prison. According to a high-level Army inquiry last year, Captain Wood applied techniques there that were "remarkably similar" to those used at Bagram.
Last October, the Army's Criminal Investigation Command concluded that there was probable cause to charge 27 officers and enlisted personnel with criminal offenses in the Dilawar case ranging from dereliction of duty to maiming and involuntary manslaughter. Fifteen of the same soldiers were also cited for probable criminal responsibility in the Habibullah case.
So far, only the seven soldiers have been charged, including four last week. No one has been convicted in either death. Two Army interrogators were also reprimanded, a military spokesman said. Most of those who could still face legal action have denied wrongdoing, either in statements to investigators or in comments to a reporter.
"The whole situation is unfair," Sgt. Selena M. Salcedo, a former Bagram interrogator who was charged with assaulting Mr. Dilawar, dereliction of duty and lying to investigators, said in a telephone interview. "It's all going to come out when everything is said and done."
With most of the legal action pending, the story of abuses at Bagram remains incomplete. But documents and interviews reveal a striking disparity between the findings of Army investigators and what military officials said in the aftermath of the deaths.
Military spokesmen maintained that both men had died of natural causes, even after military coroners had ruled the deaths homicides. Two months after those autopsies, the American commander in Afghanistan, then-Lt. Gen. Daniel K. McNeill, said he had no indication that abuse by soldiers had contributed to the two deaths. The methods used at Bagram, he said, were "in accordance with what is generally accepted as interrogation techniques.">>>>continued
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/international/asia/20abuse.html?
In US Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths By Tim Golden The New York Times
Friday 20 May 2005
Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him.
The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.
Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar's face.
"Come on, drink!" the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. "Drink!"
At the interrogators' behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.
"Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.
Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.
The story of Mr. Dilawar's brutal death at the Bagram Collection Point - and that of another detainee, Habibullah, who died there six days earlier in December 2002 - emerge from a nearly 2,000-page confidential file of the Army's criminal investigation into the case, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.
Like a narrative counterpart to the digital images from Abu Ghraib, the Bagram file depicts young, poorly trained soldiers in repeated incidents of abuse. The harsh treatment, which has resulted in criminal charges against seven soldiers, went well beyond the two deaths.
In some instances, testimony shows, it was directed or carried out by interrogators to extract information. In others, it was punishment meted out by military police guards. Sometimes, the torment seems to have been driven by little more than boredom or cruelty, or both.
In sworn statements to Army investigators, soldiers describe one female interrogator with a taste for humiliation stepping on the neck of one prostrate detainee and kicking another in the genitals. They tell of a shackled prisoner being forced to roll back and forth on the floor of a cell, kissing the boots of his two interrogators as he went. Yet another prisoner is made to pick plastic bottle caps out of a drum mixed with excrement and water as part of a strategy to soften him up for questioning.
The Times obtained a copy of the file from a person involved in the investigation who was critical of the methods used at Bagram and the military's response to the deaths.
Although incidents of prisoner abuse at Bagram in 2002, including some details of the two men's deaths, have been previously reported, American officials have characterized them as isolated problems that were thoroughly investigated. And many of the officers and soldiers interviewed in the Dilawar investigation said the large majority of detainees at Bagram were compliant and reasonably well treated.
"What we have learned through the course of all these investigations is that there were people who clearly violated anyone's standard for humane treatment," said the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Larry Di Rita. "We're finding some cases that were not close calls."
Yet the Bagram file includes ample testimony that harsh treatment by some interrogators was routine and that guards could strike shackled detainees with virtual impunity. Prisoners considered important or troublesome were also handcuffed and chained to the ceilings and doors of their cells, sometimes for long periods, an action Army prosecutors recently classified as criminal assault.
Some of the mistreatment was quite obvious, the file suggests. Senior officers frequently toured the detention center, and several of them acknowledged seeing prisoners chained up for punishment or to deprive them of sleep. Shortly before the two deaths, observers from the International Committee of the Red Cross specifically complained to the military authorities at Bagram about the shackling of prisoners in "fixed positions," documents show.
Even though military investigators learned soon after Mr. Dilawar's death that he had been abused by at least two interrogators, the Army's criminal inquiry moved slowly. Meanwhile, many of the Bagram interrogators, led by the same operations officer, Capt. Carolyn A. Wood, were redeployed to Iraq and in July 2003 took charge of interrogations at the Abu Ghraib prison. According to a high-level Army inquiry last year, Captain Wood applied techniques there that were "remarkably similar" to those used at Bagram.
Last October, the Army's Criminal Investigation Command concluded that there was probable cause to charge 27 officers and enlisted personnel with criminal offenses in the Dilawar case ranging from dereliction of duty to maiming and involuntary manslaughter. Fifteen of the same soldiers were also cited for probable criminal responsibility in the Habibullah case.
So far, only the seven soldiers have been charged, including four last week. No one has been convicted in either death. Two Army interrogators were also reprimanded, a military spokesman said. Most of those who could still face legal action have denied wrongdoing, either in statements to investigators or in comments to a reporter.
"The whole situation is unfair," Sgt. Selena M. Salcedo, a former Bagram interrogator who was charged with assaulting Mr. Dilawar, dereliction of duty and lying to investigators, said in a telephone interview. "It's all going to come out when everything is said and done."
With most of the legal action pending, the story of abuses at Bagram remains incomplete. But documents and interviews reveal a striking disparity between the findings of Army investigators and what military officials said in the aftermath of the deaths.
Military spokesmen maintained that both men had died of natural causes, even after military coroners had ruled the deaths homicides. Two months after those autopsies, the American commander in Afghanistan, then-Lt. Gen. Daniel K. McNeill, said he had no indication that abuse by soldiers had contributed to the two deaths. The methods used at Bagram, he said, were "in accordance with what is generally accepted as interrogation techniques.">>>>continued
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/international/asia/20abuse.html?
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 3:48 PM
0 comments
Saddam Suing Bush
The BBC is reporting that Saddam will immediately launch a lawsuit against G.W. Bush for his underwear photos.
AND GUESS WHATS COMING.....?
Since those pics are a VIOLATION of the Geneva Convention Saddam will ALSO have ALL THOSE ABU GHRAIB PHOTOS to back up his claim of a SYSTEMATIC ABUSE of the GENEVA CONVENTIONS.
Ever wonder WHY Georgie HAS NOT CHARGED Saddam with a crime yet?
Because as soon as he does, SOMEONE, Like oh..Chevez, Fidel whoever... WILL INSIST on the same charges for BUSH...and they have the photographic evidence to back it up.
But charging him now is a moot point. Saddam is about to get his day in court either way. Congratulations Bush you have to be the single dumbest leader ever to walk the earth.
AND GUESS WHATS COMING.....?
Since those pics are a VIOLATION of the Geneva Convention Saddam will ALSO have ALL THOSE ABU GHRAIB PHOTOS to back up his claim of a SYSTEMATIC ABUSE of the GENEVA CONVENTIONS.
Ever wonder WHY Georgie HAS NOT CHARGED Saddam with a crime yet?
Because as soon as he does, SOMEONE, Like oh..Chevez, Fidel whoever... WILL INSIST on the same charges for BUSH...and they have the photographic evidence to back it up.
But charging him now is a moot point. Saddam is about to get his day in court either way. Congratulations Bush you have to be the single dumbest leader ever to walk the earth.
posted by Christy at 2:43 PM
0 comments
Bush Takes Revenge on Blue States.
U.S. ARMED FORCES
Senator concerned politics played role in base closings; Pentagon denies any outside role
By John Byrne
A Democratic senator has raised questions on whether politics played a role in a Pentagon proposal to close and transfer jobs from U.S. military bases in a report analyzing the net job loss/gains, RAW STORY has learned.
In a carefully worded statement, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) questioned why states that supported President Bush's reelection (red states) had a net job gain of 11,000, while states that opposed Bush (blue states) lost nearly 25,000 positions.
"My hope was that [Base Realignment and Closure] decisions were completely removed from politics but the total numbers do raise some questions," Lautenberg said.
The Pentagon denies politics played any role.
"That's not true," said Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood. "It's based on the law that Congress passed given us the authority. The internal deliberations of the Pentagon are not based on any outside influences."
Flood cited a structure report, a classified document that is available to senators concerning the process of base realignment, saying it "gives a basis on what forces will be [like] on down the road."
"It's all there," Flood added. "It's a process that has worked four times in the past. In the fifth round, it's patterned on those successful rounds. Our process has been free from outside politics all along so this is no different."
The most notable political losses in red states has largely been considered South Dakota. South Dakota will lose 3,797 jobs, a strange gift to Sen. John Thune (R-SD), who defeated former Democratic leader Sen. Tom Daschle last year.
The heaviest hemorrhaging of service jobs—8,586—are in Connecticut, home of Democratic Sens. Joe Lieberman and Chris Dodd.
The largest gains, meanwhile, are in President Bush's home state of Texas, which will see a net increase in military jobs by 6,150 under the plan.
Senator concerned politics played role in base closings; Pentagon denies any outside role
By John Byrne
A Democratic senator has raised questions on whether politics played a role in a Pentagon proposal to close and transfer jobs from U.S. military bases in a report analyzing the net job loss/gains, RAW STORY has learned.
In a carefully worded statement, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) questioned why states that supported President Bush's reelection (red states) had a net job gain of 11,000, while states that opposed Bush (blue states) lost nearly 25,000 positions.
"My hope was that [Base Realignment and Closure] decisions were completely removed from politics but the total numbers do raise some questions," Lautenberg said.
The Pentagon denies politics played any role.
"That's not true," said Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood. "It's based on the law that Congress passed given us the authority. The internal deliberations of the Pentagon are not based on any outside influences."
Flood cited a structure report, a classified document that is available to senators concerning the process of base realignment, saying it "gives a basis on what forces will be [like] on down the road."
"It's all there," Flood added. "It's a process that has worked four times in the past. In the fifth round, it's patterned on those successful rounds. Our process has been free from outside politics all along so this is no different."
The most notable political losses in red states has largely been considered South Dakota. South Dakota will lose 3,797 jobs, a strange gift to Sen. John Thune (R-SD), who defeated former Democratic leader Sen. Tom Daschle last year.
The heaviest hemorrhaging of service jobs—8,586—are in Connecticut, home of Democratic Sens. Joe Lieberman and Chris Dodd.
The largest gains, meanwhile, are in President Bush's home state of Texas, which will see a net increase in military jobs by 6,150 under the plan.
posted by Christy at 1:58 PM
0 comments
Are You Ready To Rumble..?
Constitutional Crisis 101
A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Wes Owens
* * *
As I sit here watching the Senate on CSPAN, I see we have arrived at a constitutional crisis.
Because I have made my living working as either a contractor or on the direct payroll of the US Federal Government since 1974, the business of the US Govt has been an interest of mine.
I never really appreciated the US Senate as an institution until about 1985 when I became friends with a staffer of ex-Senator Roth (R-Delaware, you remember the Roth IRA?) and was concurrently reading Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson. If I recall, some critics of Caro's work dismissed the 2nd volume of Caro's bio., "Master of the Senate," as a rehash of high school civics. Not so. You see, just today, I was led to re-read the Constitution of the United States (the internet is a wonderful thing).
This reading of our Constitution reminded me of the fact that in the original document, the founding fathers designed the Senate as a forum where tradition, stability and the rights of the minority have not only a voice, but the means to speak dissent to the power and passions of the current majority. This is fundamental, basic and necessary to our system of checks and balances in the governance of the United States.
This was done by the Constitution of the United States defining the Senate as 3 classes, each class to consist of 1/3 of the Senate, to be subject to elections every two years. Therefore it should take at least six to eight years for any transient event or passion to fundamentally change the balance of power in the US Senate. Not to mention that Rhode Island and California have the same weight in the Senate.
The Senate is not and has never been a purely "Democratic" institution. It was designed to be a vessel where passions may be cooled and considered.
Think about it, why does the United States Constitution require the "Advice and Consent" of the Senate for "Lifetime Tenure" on the Federal Judicial Bench? Them founding fathers were very smart.
To further this principle of checks and balances, the framers and founders of the Senate adopted the filibuster rule. Why would they do such a thing? To protect the rights of the minority? To ensure fairness in the administration of Democracy?
Now I tell you true: In my United States of America, the minority has a voice, and the Senate filibuster ensures that voice is heard. This fundamental right of giving a voice to the minority ... a right that is enshrined in our constitution ... and this is very important: May only be changed by THREE election cycles OR by a super majority of the US Senate to end debate. Less than that ... look up "fascism" in your Funk & Wagnall's, my fellow Americans.
To change or discard this concept is a repudiation of the principles of this country that I have worked my adult life to support. This makes me angry.
And I want EVERY US Senator to know how I feel: If the current Republicans do manage to eliminate the filibuster on this issue, I will urge every Democratic Senator to fight. Not only to fight but to bring the business of the Government of the United States to a halt. Yes, shut it down as much as possible. No spending bills passed, no highway money spent. All of it to a halt.
And I will spread the word to the best of my ability that the Republicans have destroyed our democracy and they must be repudiated and voted out of office. Because in pursuit of raw naked power, they have abandoned the principles that have guided this nation for the past 200 plus years. The nation that I have worked for, the nation I served my military service, the government that has paid my freight all my adult life ...
And then, on that unhappy day when I call Countrywide Mortgage Company, & tell them that the congress is paralyzed and not paying my salary ... so how can I pay my mortgage? Ah, well, then we will see who blinks first Mr. Frist.
Bring it on Mr. Frist, we are tired of your bullying and I for one, am ready to fight.
Wes Owens
Bowie, Maryland
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/05/con05179.html
A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Wes Owens
* * *
As I sit here watching the Senate on CSPAN, I see we have arrived at a constitutional crisis.
Because I have made my living working as either a contractor or on the direct payroll of the US Federal Government since 1974, the business of the US Govt has been an interest of mine.
I never really appreciated the US Senate as an institution until about 1985 when I became friends with a staffer of ex-Senator Roth (R-Delaware, you remember the Roth IRA?) and was concurrently reading Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson. If I recall, some critics of Caro's work dismissed the 2nd volume of Caro's bio., "Master of the Senate," as a rehash of high school civics. Not so. You see, just today, I was led to re-read the Constitution of the United States (the internet is a wonderful thing).
This reading of our Constitution reminded me of the fact that in the original document, the founding fathers designed the Senate as a forum where tradition, stability and the rights of the minority have not only a voice, but the means to speak dissent to the power and passions of the current majority. This is fundamental, basic and necessary to our system of checks and balances in the governance of the United States.
This was done by the Constitution of the United States defining the Senate as 3 classes, each class to consist of 1/3 of the Senate, to be subject to elections every two years. Therefore it should take at least six to eight years for any transient event or passion to fundamentally change the balance of power in the US Senate. Not to mention that Rhode Island and California have the same weight in the Senate.
The Senate is not and has never been a purely "Democratic" institution. It was designed to be a vessel where passions may be cooled and considered.
Think about it, why does the United States Constitution require the "Advice and Consent" of the Senate for "Lifetime Tenure" on the Federal Judicial Bench? Them founding fathers were very smart.
To further this principle of checks and balances, the framers and founders of the Senate adopted the filibuster rule. Why would they do such a thing? To protect the rights of the minority? To ensure fairness in the administration of Democracy?
Now I tell you true: In my United States of America, the minority has a voice, and the Senate filibuster ensures that voice is heard. This fundamental right of giving a voice to the minority ... a right that is enshrined in our constitution ... and this is very important: May only be changed by THREE election cycles OR by a super majority of the US Senate to end debate. Less than that ... look up "fascism" in your Funk & Wagnall's, my fellow Americans.
To change or discard this concept is a repudiation of the principles of this country that I have worked my adult life to support. This makes me angry.
And I want EVERY US Senator to know how I feel: If the current Republicans do manage to eliminate the filibuster on this issue, I will urge every Democratic Senator to fight. Not only to fight but to bring the business of the Government of the United States to a halt. Yes, shut it down as much as possible. No spending bills passed, no highway money spent. All of it to a halt.
And I will spread the word to the best of my ability that the Republicans have destroyed our democracy and they must be repudiated and voted out of office. Because in pursuit of raw naked power, they have abandoned the principles that have guided this nation for the past 200 plus years. The nation that I have worked for, the nation I served my military service, the government that has paid my freight all my adult life ...
And then, on that unhappy day when I call Countrywide Mortgage Company, & tell them that the congress is paralyzed and not paying my salary ... so how can I pay my mortgage? Ah, well, then we will see who blinks first Mr. Frist.
Bring it on Mr. Frist, we are tired of your bullying and I for one, am ready to fight.
Wes Owens
Bowie, Maryland
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/05/con05179.html
posted by Christy at 8:12 AM
0 comments
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Mohammed Adnan/Associated Press
In Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, wreckage marked a car-bomb attack on a police convoy Wednesday. Such attacks are more numerous this year.
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 4:18 PM
0 comments
Generals Offer a Sober Outlook on Iraqi War
By JOHN F. BURNS and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: May 19, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 19 - American military commanders in Baghdad and Washington gave a sobering new assessment on Wednesday of the war in Iraq, adding to the mood of anxiety that prompted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to come to Baghdad last weekend to consult with the new government
In interviews and briefings this week, some of the generals pulled back from recent suggestions, some by the same officers, that positive trends in Iraq could allow a major drawdown in the 138,000 American troops late this year or early in 2006. One officer suggested Wednesday that American military involvement could last "many years."
Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top American officer in the Middle East, said in a briefing in Washington that one problem was the disappointing progress in developing Iraqi police units cohesive enough to mount an effective challenge to insurgents and allow American forces to begin stepping back from the fighting. General Abizaid, who speaks with President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld regularly, was in Washington this week for a meeting of regional commanders.
In Baghdad, a senior officer said Wednesday in a background briefing that the 21 car bombings in Baghdad so far this month almost matched the total of 25 in all of last year.
Against this, he said, there has been a lull in insurgents' activity in Baghdad in recent days after months of some of the bloodiest attacks, a trend that suggested that American pressure, including the capture of important bomb makers, had left the insurgents incapable of mounting protracted offensives. But the officer said that despite Americans' recent successes in disrupting insurgent cells, which have resulted in the arrest of 1,100 suspects in Baghdad alone in the past 80 days, the success of American goals in Iraq was not assured.
"I think that this could still fail," the officer said at the briefing, referring to the American enterprise in Iraq. "It's much more likely to succeed, but it could still fail.">>>continued
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/19/international/middleeast/19cnd-iraq.html?hp&ex=1116561600&en=03fb911eac4e06e0&ei=5094&partner=homepage
By JOHN F. BURNS and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: May 19, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 19 - American military commanders in Baghdad and Washington gave a sobering new assessment on Wednesday of the war in Iraq, adding to the mood of anxiety that prompted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to come to Baghdad last weekend to consult with the new government
In interviews and briefings this week, some of the generals pulled back from recent suggestions, some by the same officers, that positive trends in Iraq could allow a major drawdown in the 138,000 American troops late this year or early in 2006. One officer suggested Wednesday that American military involvement could last "many years."
Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top American officer in the Middle East, said in a briefing in Washington that one problem was the disappointing progress in developing Iraqi police units cohesive enough to mount an effective challenge to insurgents and allow American forces to begin stepping back from the fighting. General Abizaid, who speaks with President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld regularly, was in Washington this week for a meeting of regional commanders.
In Baghdad, a senior officer said Wednesday in a background briefing that the 21 car bombings in Baghdad so far this month almost matched the total of 25 in all of last year.
Against this, he said, there has been a lull in insurgents' activity in Baghdad in recent days after months of some of the bloodiest attacks, a trend that suggested that American pressure, including the capture of important bomb makers, had left the insurgents incapable of mounting protracted offensives. But the officer said that despite Americans' recent successes in disrupting insurgent cells, which have resulted in the arrest of 1,100 suspects in Baghdad alone in the past 80 days, the success of American goals in Iraq was not assured.
"I think that this could still fail," the officer said at the briefing, referring to the American enterprise in Iraq. "It's much more likely to succeed, but it could still fail.">>>continued
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/19/international/middleeast/19cnd-iraq.html?hp&ex=1116561600&en=03fb911eac4e06e0&ei=5094&partner=homepage
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 4:13 PM
0 comments
Art from the past Down Under: Australian Bushrangers
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 4:00 PM
0 comments
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi not happy with insurgency.
Photo: AP
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 3:57 PM
0 comments
Zarqawi gets his way with carnage
By Liz Sly and John Burns in BaghdadMay 20, 2005
Al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, personally ordered the onslaught of suicide bombings that has resulted in the deaths of more than 500 people in the past three weeks during a meeting with his top lieutenants in Syria last month, a senior US military official claims.
Zarqawi "wasn't happy with how the insurgency was going", the official said.
The claim came as US military commanders in Baghdad and Washington gave a sobering new assessment of the war on Wednesday, with one senior officer saying US military involvement could last years. However, they pulled back from recent suggestions that there could be a reduction in the 138,000 US troops in Iraq later this year or early in 2006.
General John Abizaid, the senior officer in the Middle East, said one problem was the disappointing progress in training Iraqi paramilitary police units able to mount an effective challenge to the insurgents and allow the US to reduce its troop numbers.
The total of 21 car bombings in Baghdad so far this month was creeping close to the 25 for all of last year. Just in that city, there have been 126 suicide bombs since the end of February.
In further violence yesterday an aide of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and an oil ministry official were assassinated in separate incidents in Baghdad.
Sayid Mohammed al-Allaf, Ayatollah Sistani's representative in the Sadr City area of Baghdad, was killed when gunmen broke into his house. The police also said Ali Hameed, a senior oil ministry official, was killed when leaving for work yesterday morning.
In an audiotape released on Wednesday, someone, purportedly Zarqawi, justified the killing of civilians, saying it was permitted under Islamic law to kill Muslims who collaborate with Americans.
At a time of mounting tensions between Iraq's Sunni minority and Shiite majority, the man said members of the Shiite community, who now dominate the Government, have been singled out for attack.
"What Sunnis have suffered and are still suffering from the Shiites is far worse than what they have suffered from the Americans," the voice said.
The head of the influential Sunni Muslim Clerics Association, Harith al-Dhari, further inflamed sectarian tensions and fear of civil war on Wednesday when he accused the militia of the main Shiite political party of assassinating Sunni preachers.
A senior Badr official, Hadi al-Amiri, denied the accusations.
In London, the Ministry of Defence said the army was investigating allegations that British soldiers tortured nine Iraqi men on a military base in Basra two years ago.
Four British soldiers have already been court-martialled for abusing soldiers at Camp Breadbasket, receiving prison sentences of up to two years.
■ President George Bush suggested in a speech in Washington on Wednesday that the US had not moved civilian workers into Iraq quickly enough to stabilise the country following the military invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.
"One of the lessons we learned from … Iraq is while military personnel can be rapidly deployed anywhere in the world, the same is not true of US government civilians," Mr Bush said.
The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The Guardian
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/05/19/1116361678338.html
By Liz Sly and John Burns in BaghdadMay 20, 2005
Al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, personally ordered the onslaught of suicide bombings that has resulted in the deaths of more than 500 people in the past three weeks during a meeting with his top lieutenants in Syria last month, a senior US military official claims.
Zarqawi "wasn't happy with how the insurgency was going", the official said.
The claim came as US military commanders in Baghdad and Washington gave a sobering new assessment of the war on Wednesday, with one senior officer saying US military involvement could last years. However, they pulled back from recent suggestions that there could be a reduction in the 138,000 US troops in Iraq later this year or early in 2006.
General John Abizaid, the senior officer in the Middle East, said one problem was the disappointing progress in training Iraqi paramilitary police units able to mount an effective challenge to the insurgents and allow the US to reduce its troop numbers.
The total of 21 car bombings in Baghdad so far this month was creeping close to the 25 for all of last year. Just in that city, there have been 126 suicide bombs since the end of February.
In further violence yesterday an aide of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and an oil ministry official were assassinated in separate incidents in Baghdad.
Sayid Mohammed al-Allaf, Ayatollah Sistani's representative in the Sadr City area of Baghdad, was killed when gunmen broke into his house. The police also said Ali Hameed, a senior oil ministry official, was killed when leaving for work yesterday morning.
In an audiotape released on Wednesday, someone, purportedly Zarqawi, justified the killing of civilians, saying it was permitted under Islamic law to kill Muslims who collaborate with Americans.
At a time of mounting tensions between Iraq's Sunni minority and Shiite majority, the man said members of the Shiite community, who now dominate the Government, have been singled out for attack.
"What Sunnis have suffered and are still suffering from the Shiites is far worse than what they have suffered from the Americans," the voice said.
The head of the influential Sunni Muslim Clerics Association, Harith al-Dhari, further inflamed sectarian tensions and fear of civil war on Wednesday when he accused the militia of the main Shiite political party of assassinating Sunni preachers.
A senior Badr official, Hadi al-Amiri, denied the accusations.
In London, the Ministry of Defence said the army was investigating allegations that British soldiers tortured nine Iraqi men on a military base in Basra two years ago.
Four British soldiers have already been court-martialled for abusing soldiers at Camp Breadbasket, receiving prison sentences of up to two years.
■ President George Bush suggested in a speech in Washington on Wednesday that the US had not moved civilian workers into Iraq quickly enough to stabilise the country following the military invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.
"One of the lessons we learned from … Iraq is while military personnel can be rapidly deployed anywhere in the world, the same is not true of US government civilians," Mr Bush said.
The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The Guardian
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/05/19/1116361678338.html
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 3:49 PM
0 comments
Hey guys NEWSFLASH NEWSFLASH
I dont know if this has been reported but Randy Rhodes has just announced that Fox news has lost 58% of it Audience in the last 6 monoths can you imagine that, YEAHHHHHHHH the best news I have heard since we lost the election,and it started since October just at election time YEAHHHHHHH, Oct 100,740,000 Nov 891,000 Dec 568,000 Jan 564,000 Feb 526,000 sorry I missed the las 2 months and 50% of republicans dissapprove of their darling lying WANKER MORON PRESIDENT. ARE AMERICANS FINIALLY AWAKING FROM THEIR DEEP SLUMBER,
LESS THAN 1/2 MILLION VIEWERS, THANK THE LORD I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD SEE THE DAY.
I dont know if this has been reported but Randy Rhodes has just announced that Fox news has lost 58% of it Audience in the last 6 monoths can you imagine that, YEAHHHHHHHH the best news I have heard since we lost the election,and it started since October just at election time YEAHHHHHHH, Oct 100,740,000 Nov 891,000 Dec 568,000 Jan 564,000 Feb 526,000 sorry I missed the las 2 months and 50% of republicans dissapprove of their darling lying WANKER MORON PRESIDENT. ARE AMERICANS FINIALLY AWAKING FROM THEIR DEEP SLUMBER,
LESS THAN 1/2 MILLION VIEWERS, THANK THE LORD I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD SEE THE DAY.
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 2:52 PM
2 comments
They Did It !
Scientists clone stem cells from human patients
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - South Korean scientists who cloned the first human embryo to use for research said on Thursday they have used the same technology to create batches of embryonic stem cells from nine patients.
Their study fulfills one of the basic promises of using cloning technology in stem cell research -- that a piece of skin could be taken from a patient and used to grow the stem cells.
Researchers believe the cells could one day be trained to provide tailored tissue and organ transplants to cure juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's disease and even to repair severed spinal cords. Unlike so-called adult stem cells, embryonic stem cells have the potential from the beginning to form any cell or tissue in the body.
Woo Suk Hwang and colleagues at Seoul National University report their process is much more efficient than they hoped, and yielded 11 stem cell batches, called lines, from six adults and three children with spinal cord injuries, juvenile diabetes and a rare immune disorder.
More..Link in Headliner...
---We can heal ourselves. In this life time. ---
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - South Korean scientists who cloned the first human embryo to use for research said on Thursday they have used the same technology to create batches of embryonic stem cells from nine patients.
Their study fulfills one of the basic promises of using cloning technology in stem cell research -- that a piece of skin could be taken from a patient and used to grow the stem cells.
Researchers believe the cells could one day be trained to provide tailored tissue and organ transplants to cure juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's disease and even to repair severed spinal cords. Unlike so-called adult stem cells, embryonic stem cells have the potential from the beginning to form any cell or tissue in the body.
Woo Suk Hwang and colleagues at Seoul National University report their process is much more efficient than they hoped, and yielded 11 stem cell batches, called lines, from six adults and three children with spinal cord injuries, juvenile diabetes and a rare immune disorder.
More..Link in Headliner...
---We can heal ourselves. In this life time. ---
posted by Christy at 2:42 PM
0 comments
VATICAN CITY
- In a turn of events that stunned Vatican officials, U.S. President George W. Bush has been named to succeed John Paul II as the next leader of the Catholic Church.
For the first time in history, the College of Cardinals employed electronic voting machines to select the next Supreme Pontiff.
Bush won by a margin of 2,528 votes,despite the fact that only 115 Cardinals took part in the process. The machines, which were last used in the 2004 Ohio presidential election, also registered minus 27 votes for Democratic candidate John Kerry.
"It's a miracle!" cried Kenneth Blackwell, spokesperson for voting machine manufacturer Diebold Corporation.
"God has spoken.
"Supporters of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, whom early exit polls had leading by a comfortable marginin the voting, demanded a recount.
But Blackwell said the voting machines, which had been modified to emit a plume of white smoke when a plurality was reached, are unable to produce a paper audit trail, rendering a recount impossible.
When informed of his victory, President Bush expressed surprise. "I was not aware I was running for the popecy," he said.
"I wish people would tell me these things."However, he added that he would be "honored and privileged to serve as Supreme Pontoon for the rest of my natural life, or until I die, whichever comes first.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I am passing this on to you because it definitely worked for me.
We could all use a little more calm in our lives.
By following the simple advice I heard on a Dr. Phil show, I have finally found inner peace.
Dr. Phil proclaimed the way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started.
So I looked around my house to see things I started and hadn't finished; and, before leaving the house this morning I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle of Baileys, a bottle of Kahlua, a package of Oreos, the remainder of both Prozac and Valium prescriptions, the rest of the Cheesecake, some Saltines and a box of Godiva Chocolates.
You have no idea how friggin' good I feel.
Please pass this on to those you feel are in need of inner peace.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- In a turn of events that stunned Vatican officials, U.S. President George W. Bush has been named to succeed John Paul II as the next leader of the Catholic Church.
For the first time in history, the College of Cardinals employed electronic voting machines to select the next Supreme Pontiff.
Bush won by a margin of 2,528 votes,despite the fact that only 115 Cardinals took part in the process. The machines, which were last used in the 2004 Ohio presidential election, also registered minus 27 votes for Democratic candidate John Kerry.
"It's a miracle!" cried Kenneth Blackwell, spokesperson for voting machine manufacturer Diebold Corporation.
"God has spoken.
"Supporters of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, whom early exit polls had leading by a comfortable marginin the voting, demanded a recount.
But Blackwell said the voting machines, which had been modified to emit a plume of white smoke when a plurality was reached, are unable to produce a paper audit trail, rendering a recount impossible.
When informed of his victory, President Bush expressed surprise. "I was not aware I was running for the popecy," he said.
"I wish people would tell me these things."However, he added that he would be "honored and privileged to serve as Supreme Pontoon for the rest of my natural life, or until I die, whichever comes first.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I am passing this on to you because it definitely worked for me.
We could all use a little more calm in our lives.
By following the simple advice I heard on a Dr. Phil show, I have finally found inner peace.
Dr. Phil proclaimed the way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started.
So I looked around my house to see things I started and hadn't finished; and, before leaving the house this morning I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle of Baileys, a bottle of Kahlua, a package of Oreos, the remainder of both Prozac and Valium prescriptions, the rest of the Cheesecake, some Saltines and a box of Godiva Chocolates.
You have no idea how friggin' good I feel.
Please pass this on to those you feel are in need of inner peace.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 12:12 AM
1 comments
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Greg Palast, nails it again.
www.gregpalast.com
COWARDICE IN JOURNALISM AWARD FOR NEWSWEEK
Goebbels Award for Condi
by Greg Palast
"It's appalling that this story got out there," Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said on her way back from Iraq.
What's NOT appalling to Condi is that the US is holding prisoners at
Guantanamo under conditions termed "torture" by the Red Cross. What's not appalling to Condi is that prisoners of the Afghan war are held in
violation of international law after that conflict has supposedly ended.
What is NOT appalling to Condi is that prisoner witnesses have reported
several instances of the Koran's desecration.
What is appalling to her is that these things were REPORTED. So to
Condi goes to the Joseph Goebbels Ministry of Propaganda Iron Cross.
But I don't want to leave out our President. His aides report that
George Bush is "angry" about the report -- not the desecration of the
Koran, but the REPORTING of it.
And so long as George is angry and Condi appalled, Newsweek knows what to do: swiftly grab its corporate ankles and ask the White House for
mercy.
But there was no mercy. Donald Rumsfeld pointed the finger at Newsweek and said, "People lost their lives. People are dead." Maybe Rumsfeld was upset that Newsweek was taking away his job. After all, it's hard to beat Rummy when it comes to making people dead.
And just for the record: Newsweek, unlike Rumsfeld, did not kill
anyone -- nor did its report cause killings. Afghans protested when they
heard the Koran desecration story (as Christians have protested crucifix
desecrations). The Muslim demonstrators were gunned down by the Afghan military police -- who operate under Rumsfeld's command.
Our Secretary of Defense, in his darkest Big Brother voice, added a
warning for journalists and citizens alike, "People need to be very
careful about what they say."
And Newsweek has now promised to be very, very good, and very, very
careful not to offend Rumsfeld, appall Condi or anger George.
For their good behavior, I'm giving Newsweek and its owner, the
Washington Post, this week's Yellow Streak Award for Craven Cowardice in Journalism.
As always, the competition is fierce, but Newsweek takes the honors by
backing down on Mike Isakoff's expose of cruelity, racism and just
plain bone-headed incompetence by the US military at the Guantanamo prison camp.
Isakoff cited a reliable source that among the neat little "interrogation" techniques used to break down Muslim prisoners was putting a copy
of the Koran into a toilet.
In the old days, Isakoff's discovery would have led to Congressional
investigations of the perpetrators of such official offence. The
Koran-flushers would have been flushed from the military, panels would have been impaneled and Isakoff would have collected his Pulitzer.
No more. Instead of nailing the wrong-doers, the Bush Administration went after the guy who REPORTED the crime, Isakoff.
Was there a problem with the story? Certainly. If you want to split
hairs, the inside-government source of the Koran desecration story now
says he can't confirm which military report it appeared in. But he saw it
in one report and a witnesses has confirmed that the Koran was defiled.
Of course, there's an easy way to get at the truth. RELEASE THE
REPORTS NOW. Hand them over, Mr. Rumsfeld, and let's see for ourselves what's in them.
But Newsweek and the Post are too polite to ask Rumsfeld to make the
investigative reports public. Rather, the corporate babysitter for
Newsweek, editor Mark Whitaker, said, "Top administration officials have promised to continue looking into the charges and so will we." In other words, we'll take the Bush Administration's word that there is no
evidence of Koran-dunking in the draft reports on Guantanamo.
It used to be that the Washington Post permitted journalism in its
newsrooms. No more. But, frankly, that's an old story.
Every time I say investigative reporting is dead or barely breathing in
the USA, some little smartass will challenge me, "What about Watergate?
Huh?" Hey, buddy, the Watergate investigation was 32 years ago -- that
means it's been nearly a third of a century since the Washington Post
has printed a big investigative scoop.
The Post today would never run the Watergate story: a hidden source
versus official denial. Let's face it, Bob Woodward, now managing editor
at the Post, has gone from "All the President's Men" to becoming the
President's Man -- "Bush at War." Ugh!
And now the Post company is considering further restrictions on the use
of confidential sources -- no more "Deep Throats."
Despite its supposed new concern for hidden sources, let's note that
Newsweek and the Post have no trouble providing, even in the midst of
this story, cover for secret Administration sources that are FAVORABLE to Bush. Editor Whitaker's retraction relies on "Administration
officials" whose names he kindly withholds.
In other words, unnamed sources are OK if they defend Bush,
unacceptable if they expose the Administration's mendacity or evil.
A lot of my readers don't like the Koran-story reporter Mike Isakoff
because of his goofy fixation with Monica Lewinsky and Mr. Clinton's
cigar. Have some sympathy for Isakoff: Mike's one darn good reporter, but as an inmate at the Post/Newsweek facilities, his ability to send out
serious communications to the rest of the world are limited.
A few years ago, while I was tracking the influence of the power
industry on Washington, Isakoff gave me some hard, hot stuff on Bill Clinton -- not the cheap intern-under-the-desk gossip -- but an FBI report for me to publish in The Guardian of Britain.
I asked Isakoff why he didn't put it in Newsweek or in the Post.
He said, when it comes to issues of substance, "No one gives a sh--,"
not the readers, and especially not the editors who assume that their US
target audience is small-minded, ignorant and wants to stay that way.
That doesn't leave a lot of time, money or courage for real reporting.
And woe to those who practice investigative journalism. As with CBS's
retraction of Dan Rather's report on Bush's draft-dodging, Newsweek's
diving to the mat on Guantanamo acts as a warning to all journalists who
step out of line.
Newsweek has now publicly committed to having its reports vetted by
Rumsfeld's Defense Department before publication. Why not just print
Rumsfeld's press releases and eliminate the middleman, the reporter?
However, not all of us poor scribblers will adhere to this New News
Order. In the meantime, however, for my future security and comfort, I'm having myself measured for a custom-made orange suit.
COWARDICE IN JOURNALISM AWARD FOR NEWSWEEK
Goebbels Award for Condi
by Greg Palast
"It's appalling that this story got out there," Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said on her way back from Iraq.
What's NOT appalling to Condi is that the US is holding prisoners at
Guantanamo under conditions termed "torture" by the Red Cross. What's not appalling to Condi is that prisoners of the Afghan war are held in
violation of international law after that conflict has supposedly ended.
What is NOT appalling to Condi is that prisoner witnesses have reported
several instances of the Koran's desecration.
What is appalling to her is that these things were REPORTED. So to
Condi goes to the Joseph Goebbels Ministry of Propaganda Iron Cross.
But I don't want to leave out our President. His aides report that
George Bush is "angry" about the report -- not the desecration of the
Koran, but the REPORTING of it.
And so long as George is angry and Condi appalled, Newsweek knows what to do: swiftly grab its corporate ankles and ask the White House for
mercy.
But there was no mercy. Donald Rumsfeld pointed the finger at Newsweek and said, "People lost their lives. People are dead." Maybe Rumsfeld was upset that Newsweek was taking away his job. After all, it's hard to beat Rummy when it comes to making people dead.
And just for the record: Newsweek, unlike Rumsfeld, did not kill
anyone -- nor did its report cause killings. Afghans protested when they
heard the Koran desecration story (as Christians have protested crucifix
desecrations). The Muslim demonstrators were gunned down by the Afghan military police -- who operate under Rumsfeld's command.
Our Secretary of Defense, in his darkest Big Brother voice, added a
warning for journalists and citizens alike, "People need to be very
careful about what they say."
And Newsweek has now promised to be very, very good, and very, very
careful not to offend Rumsfeld, appall Condi or anger George.
For their good behavior, I'm giving Newsweek and its owner, the
Washington Post, this week's Yellow Streak Award for Craven Cowardice in Journalism.
As always, the competition is fierce, but Newsweek takes the honors by
backing down on Mike Isakoff's expose of cruelity, racism and just
plain bone-headed incompetence by the US military at the Guantanamo prison camp.
Isakoff cited a reliable source that among the neat little "interrogation" techniques used to break down Muslim prisoners was putting a copy
of the Koran into a toilet.
In the old days, Isakoff's discovery would have led to Congressional
investigations of the perpetrators of such official offence. The
Koran-flushers would have been flushed from the military, panels would have been impaneled and Isakoff would have collected his Pulitzer.
No more. Instead of nailing the wrong-doers, the Bush Administration went after the guy who REPORTED the crime, Isakoff.
Was there a problem with the story? Certainly. If you want to split
hairs, the inside-government source of the Koran desecration story now
says he can't confirm which military report it appeared in. But he saw it
in one report and a witnesses has confirmed that the Koran was defiled.
Of course, there's an easy way to get at the truth. RELEASE THE
REPORTS NOW. Hand them over, Mr. Rumsfeld, and let's see for ourselves what's in them.
But Newsweek and the Post are too polite to ask Rumsfeld to make the
investigative reports public. Rather, the corporate babysitter for
Newsweek, editor Mark Whitaker, said, "Top administration officials have promised to continue looking into the charges and so will we." In other words, we'll take the Bush Administration's word that there is no
evidence of Koran-dunking in the draft reports on Guantanamo.
It used to be that the Washington Post permitted journalism in its
newsrooms. No more. But, frankly, that's an old story.
Every time I say investigative reporting is dead or barely breathing in
the USA, some little smartass will challenge me, "What about Watergate?
Huh?" Hey, buddy, the Watergate investigation was 32 years ago -- that
means it's been nearly a third of a century since the Washington Post
has printed a big investigative scoop.
The Post today would never run the Watergate story: a hidden source
versus official denial. Let's face it, Bob Woodward, now managing editor
at the Post, has gone from "All the President's Men" to becoming the
President's Man -- "Bush at War." Ugh!
And now the Post company is considering further restrictions on the use
of confidential sources -- no more "Deep Throats."
Despite its supposed new concern for hidden sources, let's note that
Newsweek and the Post have no trouble providing, even in the midst of
this story, cover for secret Administration sources that are FAVORABLE to Bush. Editor Whitaker's retraction relies on "Administration
officials" whose names he kindly withholds.
In other words, unnamed sources are OK if they defend Bush,
unacceptable if they expose the Administration's mendacity or evil.
A lot of my readers don't like the Koran-story reporter Mike Isakoff
because of his goofy fixation with Monica Lewinsky and Mr. Clinton's
cigar. Have some sympathy for Isakoff: Mike's one darn good reporter, but as an inmate at the Post/Newsweek facilities, his ability to send out
serious communications to the rest of the world are limited.
A few years ago, while I was tracking the influence of the power
industry on Washington, Isakoff gave me some hard, hot stuff on Bill Clinton -- not the cheap intern-under-the-desk gossip -- but an FBI report for me to publish in The Guardian of Britain.
I asked Isakoff why he didn't put it in Newsweek or in the Post.
He said, when it comes to issues of substance, "No one gives a sh--,"
not the readers, and especially not the editors who assume that their US
target audience is small-minded, ignorant and wants to stay that way.
That doesn't leave a lot of time, money or courage for real reporting.
And woe to those who practice investigative journalism. As with CBS's
retraction of Dan Rather's report on Bush's draft-dodging, Newsweek's
diving to the mat on Guantanamo acts as a warning to all journalists who
step out of line.
Newsweek has now publicly committed to having its reports vetted by
Rumsfeld's Defense Department before publication. Why not just print
Rumsfeld's press releases and eliminate the middleman, the reporter?
However, not all of us poor scribblers will adhere to this New News
Order. In the meantime, however, for my future security and comfort, I'm having myself measured for a custom-made orange suit.
posted by Christy at 10:58 PM
0 comments
WAKE UP PEOPLE
This is bullshit.
GOP Aides Say New Patriot Act Obliges Bush By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 55 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is working on a bill that would renew the Patriot Act and expand government powers in the name of fighting terrorism, letting the FBI subpoena records without permission from a judge or grand jury.
Much of the debate in Congress has concerned possibly limiting some of the powers in the anti-terrorism law passed 45 days after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
But the measure being written by Sen. Pat Roberts (news, bio, voting record), R-Kan., would give the FBI new power to issue administrative subpoenas, which are not reviewed by a judge or grand jury, for quickly obtaining records, electronic data or other evidence in terrorism investigations, according to aides for the GOP majority on the committee who briefed reporters Wednesday
More..
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050519/ap_on_go_co/patriot_act_1
---They are eliminating Judges because THIS kind of power under the US Constitution is ILLEGAL.
The REPUBLICAN NEOCONS are trying to destroy the rule of LAW itself. And if they do, Our nation is effectively DEAD.---
GOP Aides Say New Patriot Act Obliges Bush By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 55 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is working on a bill that would renew the Patriot Act and expand government powers in the name of fighting terrorism, letting the FBI subpoena records without permission from a judge or grand jury.
Much of the debate in Congress has concerned possibly limiting some of the powers in the anti-terrorism law passed 45 days after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
But the measure being written by Sen. Pat Roberts (news, bio, voting record), R-Kan., would give the FBI new power to issue administrative subpoenas, which are not reviewed by a judge or grand jury, for quickly obtaining records, electronic data or other evidence in terrorism investigations, according to aides for the GOP majority on the committee who briefed reporters Wednesday
More..
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050519/ap_on_go_co/patriot_act_1
---They are eliminating Judges because THIS kind of power under the US Constitution is ILLEGAL.
The REPUBLICAN NEOCONS are trying to destroy the rule of LAW itself. And if they do, Our nation is effectively DEAD.---
posted by Christy at 10:01 PM
0 comments
Lunch with Toyota.
Link Above.
Senate rejects better mileage for gas guzzlers
May 18th, 2005 6:39 pm
Senate rejects better mileage for gas guzzlers
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate Energy Committee on Wednesday rejected a Democratic plan to require sport utility vehicles and minivans to become more fuel efficient and achieve the same gasoline mileage as passenger cars in six years.
Under the failed proposal, SUVs and other light trucks would have to meet the same 27.5 mile-per-gallon rule for passenger cars by 2011, up from a current 21 mpg for light trucks.
Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California tried to add the plan to a broad energy bill being debated by the committee. The panel voted against it, 15 to 7.
Supporters said closing the so-called "SUV loophole" would reduce U.S crude oil imports, cut down on polluting emissions spewed by vehicles and save consumers money at the pump.
Opponents said imposing a higher fuel standard would place further burdens on U.S. automakers that are already suffering financially, endangering thousands of high-paying jobs. They also said the government should not dictate what vehicles consumers buy.
"I think mothers and fathers can make those decisions themselves," said Republican George Allen of Virginia.
--Say huh Repellican...?--
However, Feinstein pointed out that consumers are on waiting lists to buy more fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles made by Japanese automakers, while U.S. companies are stuck with growing inventories of gas-guzzling SUVs.
"They (U.S. automakers) have essentially refused to listen to the marketplace," she said. "Toyota is going to eat their lunch."
more...
Senate rejects better mileage for gas guzzlers
May 18th, 2005 6:39 pm
Senate rejects better mileage for gas guzzlers
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate Energy Committee on Wednesday rejected a Democratic plan to require sport utility vehicles and minivans to become more fuel efficient and achieve the same gasoline mileage as passenger cars in six years.
Under the failed proposal, SUVs and other light trucks would have to meet the same 27.5 mile-per-gallon rule for passenger cars by 2011, up from a current 21 mpg for light trucks.
Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California tried to add the plan to a broad energy bill being debated by the committee. The panel voted against it, 15 to 7.
Supporters said closing the so-called "SUV loophole" would reduce U.S crude oil imports, cut down on polluting emissions spewed by vehicles and save consumers money at the pump.
Opponents said imposing a higher fuel standard would place further burdens on U.S. automakers that are already suffering financially, endangering thousands of high-paying jobs. They also said the government should not dictate what vehicles consumers buy.
"I think mothers and fathers can make those decisions themselves," said Republican George Allen of Virginia.
--Say huh Repellican...?--
However, Feinstein pointed out that consumers are on waiting lists to buy more fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles made by Japanese automakers, while U.S. companies are stuck with growing inventories of gas-guzzling SUVs.
"They (U.S. automakers) have essentially refused to listen to the marketplace," she said. "Toyota is going to eat their lunch."
more...
posted by Christy at 9:39 PM
0 comments
When my kids ask...
-This is what I will tell them I believe of War.-
The opposite of war is not peace, It's creation --Jonathan Larson Rent
Either war is obsolete or men are. --R. Buckminster Fuller
The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war --Ralph Waldo Emerson
One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. --Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
If you want world peace, fight for justice. --bumper sticker
Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one. --John Lennon
There are no warlike people, just warlike leaders --Ralph Bunche
---To my only son Christian. And my 4 daughters, Shelby, Morgan, Ana, And Kaylee... If you ever read this, know that I love you like the wind loves the trees. Choose ONLY life, and you will never have regret.---
I taught you how to fight, and I taught you how to fly. What more is there?
Peter Pan
The opposite of war is not peace, It's creation --Jonathan Larson Rent
Either war is obsolete or men are. --R. Buckminster Fuller
The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war --Ralph Waldo Emerson
One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. --Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
If you want world peace, fight for justice. --bumper sticker
Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one. --John Lennon
There are no warlike people, just warlike leaders --Ralph Bunche
---To my only son Christian. And my 4 daughters, Shelby, Morgan, Ana, And Kaylee... If you ever read this, know that I love you like the wind loves the trees. Choose ONLY life, and you will never have regret.---
I taught you how to fight, and I taught you how to fly. What more is there?
Peter Pan
posted by Christy at 7:50 PM
0 comments
My Unanswered Question.
I just so happened upon this pic again, and I quite accidently answered my own long standing question...As for, OK who in the White House was being 'topped' by Mr. Bulldog?...WHY ANYONE willing to pay 200 an hour or 1600 a weekend, of course. I think we should demand Scotty McClellans ATM records!!! oh what fun! To those of you late to the scene, this man is PROOF GW Bush has turned our White House into a WHORE HOUSE. Try this google Jeff Gannon and welcome to hell.
posted by Christy at 7:26 PM
0 comments
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