Saturday, December 10, 2005

Voices of Concern Over the Abrogation of Human Rights by Americans

Project Kuwaiti Freedom Throughout the United States, and around the world, wide spread indignation continues to be voiced about the illegal detention of the Guantanamo prisoners.

It is now clear that to deny anyone a fair trial is to deny the American system itself.

Each new day brings fresh expressions of profound concern from world leaders and the world’s most respected humanitarians.

The voices of concern over the abrogation of American rights have been heard from all parts of America…and from all political persuasions.
Posted by Ben at 9:20 AM 0 comments

The US Has Been Torturing Prisoners

If you were like me, you were so surprised and revolted by the spectacle of human suffering and abuse in Abu-grahib, that you were ready to be conforted with the 'few bad apples' excuse.

Now it has become increasingly clear that the problem goes much more deeper than that. Torture was sanctioned by the Bush administration at the highest level. War Crimes have been committed the question now is how the criminals will be held accountable. The following article has been documenting these facts since 2004, but you would not know it unless you actively search for this information as the popular media outlets appear to leave this information from coming to the fore-front because of fear of political and economic sanctions. Here it is:
Mark Danner: The Logic of Torture: "What is difficult is separating what we now know from what we have long known but have mostly refused to admit. Though the events and disclosures of the last weeks have taken on the familiar clothing of a Washington scandal — complete with full-dress congressional hearings, daily leaks to reporters from victim and accused alike, and of course the garish, spectacular photographs and videos from Abu Ghraib — beyond that bright glare of revelation lies a dark area of unacknowledged clarity. Behind the exotic brutality so painstakingly recorded in Abu Ghraib, and the multiple tangled plotlines that will be teased out in the coming weeks and months about responsibility, knowledge, and culpability, lies a simple truth, well known but not yet publicly admitted in Washington: that since the attacks of September 11, 2001, officials of the United States, at various locations around the world, from Bagram in Afghanistan to Guantanamo in Cuba to Abu Ghraib in Iraq, have been torturing prisoners. They did this, in the felicitous phrasing of General Taguba's report, in order to 'exploit [them] for actionable intelligence' and they did it, insofar as this is possible, with the institutional approval of the United States government, complete with memoranda from the President's counsel and officially promulgated decisions, in the case of Afghanistan and Guantanamo, about the nonapplicability of the Geneva Conventions and, in the case of Iraq, about at least three different sets of interrogation policies, two of them modeled on earlier practice in Afghanistan and Cuba."
Posted by Ben at 8:39 AM 0 comments

Friday, December 09, 2005

The Uncomfortable Truth

Early Warning by William M. Arkin - washingtonpost.com: "The uncomfortable truth for Americans should be that our own secret services, including military special operations, equally operate outside of a reasonable level of control and oversight. The President and high government officials direct the activities of the secret services, but when it comes to any potentially controversial or illegal calls in the war on terrorism, more often than not the secret organizations make their own calls, after obsessively writing memos and legal rulings and internally discussing 'sensitive' practices and policies. They then dutifully inform each other and like-minded affiliates, but no one else, of their goings on.

Since 9/11, the aperture between the secret agencies and Congressional and public oversight has gotten smaller and smaller. The secret agencies hide behind hyper routine secrecy, where even their overall budget is kept from the public. The secret agencies practice "plausible deniability," where political leaders are intentionally shielded from the dirty or illegal work.

Even internally, the secret agencies increasingly employ promiscuous compartmentalization to avoid discussion and oversight. Here "special access" labels proliferate to hide questionable activities from either potentially questioning or dissenting officials and bureaucrats as much as from Congressional overseers.

The good news here is that there seems to be little that the secret agencies can actually do that the news media and thus the public doesn't find out about. I know that many supporters of the Bush administration and the war on terrorism think this is the media's fault, but the truth is that revelations about questionable practices and standards are being leaked, and "secrets" are being compromised by dozens of intelligence and special operations officers and officials who are motivated by their concern for the growing incompatibilities between the war on terrorism and American values.

Can we continue to fight the war on terrorism this way? My guess is that the secret agencies themselves would frustratingly answer this question by saying no.

The problem for America is that we seem stuck in habits and practices in which we only find out about all of this after the damage is already done."
Posted by Ben at 1:36 PM 0 comments

Dark Days- Los Angeles Times

Dark Days in Prisons at Home and Abroad - Los Angeles Times: "Mokayev said his brother told him of being forced to kneel with his hands cuffed to his ankles, being sprayed with a gel that caused a painful rash, then carried out, still shackled, and hosed down with a stream of water. Kudayev and several other prisoners said Guantanamo guards would turn up the air conditioning to the freezing point, then turn it off until breathing became difficult.

He was forced to take unidentified pills that gave him chest pains and made his muscles feel like stone.

'They beat them if they didn't want to take these pills, and they would administer them by force to them,' Tekayeva said. 'Afterward, he would just hunch into a fetal position.'

The U.S. has denied forcing medication or any other abuse at Guantanamo but as a matter of policy does not comment on individual cases.

'All detainees in custody at Guantanamo, without exception, are treated humanely and are provided excellent medical care by dedicated medical professionals,' said Lt. Col. Jeremy M. Martin, director of public affairs for the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay.
"
Posted by Ben at 12:47 PM 0 comments

A Fatal Mistake: The War on Terror

When Terror Defines the Methods to War Against Terror. . . Innocent People (you also)Pay the Price

Newsday.com: Witnesses heard no talk of bomb:
"With all the advances that the U.S. has supposedly made in their war against terrorism, I can't conceive that the marshals wouldn't be able to overpower an unarmed, single man, especially knowing he had already cleared every security check,' Carlos Alpizar said Thursday of his brother's death, in a telephone interview from Costa Rica.
And He is exactly right. What good is all the check points if Marshalls still think that a passanger is by definition a suspect? Are you feeling more secure. How many times there have been hysterical people on air planes? But now every citizen is a target. We are living in dangerous times.
'I will never accept that it was necessary to kill him as if he was some dangerous criminal. And I want to make this distinction: He did not die. He was killed.'

But to federal authorities and security experts, Alpizar -- mentally ill or not -- was responsible for his own death.
Yeah, sure, blame the victim. The authorities who wrongly killed him are responsible for his death.

This is the same deceit of the preemptive rational for war, where the perception of a threat is moral ground enough to trigger a 'defense' when no offense has been committed. This rational of fear is extremly dangerous, and now we know that it works against 'us' as well as it worked against 'them'. We did nt care when preemption was use for our 'security' against other nations. But do you see, preemption can be used against you as well, one the mechanism and justification are in place. Nothing will save us from suffering the abuse of power.

The 'war on terror' itself is the most terroristic menace we face today
'This threat presented itself, and we believe it was necessary to use deadly force. . . . There's no time in making these split-second decisions to analyze their mental health,' said James E. Bauer, special agent in charge of the Federal Air Marshal Service's Miami field office."
Yes, there is.
If there is no time, then no decision should be taken. Either way they are morally responsible for the wrong choice. That is their job. Unless we are willing to give circumstantial 'carte blanche' to Law enforcement and be living 'secure' in the Brave New world under a dangerous police state.
Posted by Ben at 11:55 AM 0 comments

Thursday, December 08, 2005

More on Bush and Torture | by Lawrence R. Velvel

Velvel on National Affairs: Re: Blogs, Bush and Torture: "In the view of some of us -- and the number of people holding this view is, one thinks, vastly increasing -- for about 52 years this country, for its own purposes, has been fomenting wars, coups, right wing revolutions and assassinations all over the globe, and for decades has been pursuing a form of globalization that has wreaked harm on hundreds of millions of people. These things have been done, in major part, for the benefit of the large corporate interests and the wealthy people of this country (like the Bush family). George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and other Bushies are the very embodiment of the American views and conduct which have led the country to fight war after war since 1965 and to build an economic global empire that largely benefits them and their kind while economically crucifying so many others, both here and abroad. The Bushies have even been willing to destroy the constitutional system in pursuit of their goals by secretly pretending, for as long as they could get away with it, that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, can override the laws passed by Congress, specifically the law against torture, secretly pretending for as long as possible, in order to try to negate a law passed by Congress, that the most abominable torture isn't torture, and claiming that, as Commander-in-Chief, the President can enter warfare just about whenever, and against just about whomever, he chooses. If people like George Bush and his cohort continue in power, and continue doing what has been done since about 1953, the country will one day face disaster. Every empire in world history has ultimately been destroyed. Sooner or later, in one way or another, much of the world will gang up on us, as Muslims are already doing within the still confined limits of their own power. As rich as we are, and as powerful as we are, continuing down Bush's imperial path will one day bring us down. So it is essential for the long run health of the nation to put an end to the hubristic and often hypocritical policies we have followed for over 50 years and, in order to accomplish this, to bring low the architects and proponents of the hubristic policies. If Bush and his crowd were found guilty of a felony because of horrid abuses in the course of their imperial project, and were accordingly impeached and convicted, this would almost certainly go far towards discrediting hubristic imperial actions and those who desire and order such policies.

Yet another very important, politically non-partisan (but intellectually partisan) reason why liberal bloggers should act relates to what has been occurring in the halls of governmental and corporate power for 40 years. I speak of horrible abuses of power that often amount to serious crime. From Johnson, McNamara, Rostow and Rusk to Nixon and Kissinger, to Clinton, to George Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, from Billy Sol Estes to Michael Milken and Charles Keating, to Bernie Ebbers, the Enron crowd, the Tyco crowd, the Worldcom crowd and the Arthur Andersen crowd, this country and its economy have been filled with criminals, some convicted, some not even put on trial. These people and their dishonesty have caused economic and international disasters. We will never put a stop to this until we start putting them all in the slammer, no ifs, ands or buts. But the way things have worked for years, many of them do not go to the slammer, and none of the government officials ever do. Most of them, and all the government officials, retire to a life of wealth and prestige, McNamara, Nixon and Kissinger, for example. The criminal conduct and the gross abuses will be with us until all miscreants of this type get put in the slammer, so that jail, not wealth and prestige, awaits them.

George Bush and his cohorts are only the latest example of people who are willing to commit criminal evil because they are confident that no punishment possibly awaits them. For this reason, and others, liberal bloggers should begin to discuss, investigate and make a concerted effort to bring to public attention what Bush and his buddies have done, so that there will be impeachment, conviction and subsequent criminal liability if, as one suspects, serious crimes have been committed."
Posted by Ben at 11:37 PM 0 comments

Bush and Torture | by Lawrence R. Velvel

Velvel on National Affairs: Re: Blogs, Bush and Torture: "The article further said that this technique was approved under a new 'set of secret rules for the interrogation of high-level Qaeda prisoners,' that these rules were 'among the first adopted by the Bush administration' for handling detainees after Sept. 11th 'and may have helped establish a new understanding throughout the government that officials would have greater freedom to deal harshly with detainees.' (Emphasis added.) 'The C.I.A. detention program for Qaeda leaders,' says the article, 'is the most secretive component of an intensive regime of detention and interrogation,' and 'The secret detention system houses a group of 12 to 20 prisoners, government officials said, some under direct American control, others ostensibly under the supervision of foreign governments.' (Emphasis added.) Moreover, the 'high-level detainees . . . have been held in strict secrecy. Their whereabouts are such closely guarded secrets that one official said he had been told that Mr. Bush had informed the CIA that he did not want to know where they were.' (Emphasis added.)

Now, I ask you, does all of this sound like George Bush had no idea that prisoners were being held abroad for torture and were being handed over to foreign governments for torture? Why do I think the answer to this is negative? If the article is correct, what we have here is a super secret program to get information out of the Qaeda leaders by any means necessary at foreign locations, with the whole business being so secret that Bush doesn't even want to know where the prisoners are being held. Does this sound like a guy who has no idea what is going on, or like a guy who knows perfectly well what is going on, desires it so that we will obtain information, and is trying to set up a false claim of lack of knowledge by being able to say, if the you know what ever hits the fan, that he didn't even know where the pertinent events"
Posted by Ben at 11:13 PM 0 comments

Art, Truth & Politics | by Harold Pinter | Is your government not guilty of supporting acts of murder upon the citizens of a sovereign state?

Since few people are highlighting this part of this important lecture. I want to call your attention upon it. Here it is:

Harold Pinter – Nobel Lecture | Art, Truth & Politics
: "I was present at a meeting at the US embassy in London in the late 1980s.

The United States Congress was about to decide whether to give more money to the Contras in their campaign against the state of Nicaragua. I was a member of a delegation speaking on behalf of Nicaragua but the most important member of this delegation was a Father John Metcalf. The leader of the US body was Raymond Seitz (then number two to the ambassador, later ambassador himself). Father Metcalf said: 'Sir, I am in charge of a parish in the north of Nicaragua. My parishioners built a school, a health centre, a cultural centre. We have lived in peace. A few months ago a Contra force attacked the parish. They destroyed everything: the school, the health centre, the cultural centre. They raped nurses and teachers, slaughtered doctors, in the most brutal manner. They behaved like savages. Please demand that the US government withdraw its support from this shocking terrorist activity.'

Raymond Seitz had a very good reputation as a rational, responsible and highly sophisticated man. He was greatly respected in diplomatic circles. He listened, paused and then spoke with some gravity. 'Father,' he said, 'let me tell you something. In war, innocent people always suffer.' There was a frozen silence. We stared at him. He did not flinch.

Innocent people, indeed, always suffer.

Finally somebody said: 'But in this case “innocent people” were the victims of a gruesome atrocity subsidised by your government, one among many. If Congress allows the Contras more money further atrocities of this kind will take place. Is this not the case? Is your government not therefore guilty of supporting acts of murder and destruction upon the citizens of a sovereign state?'

Seitz was imperturbable. 'I don't agree that the facts as presented support your assertions,' he said.

As we were leaving the Embassy a US aide told me that he enjoyed my plays. I did not reply.

I should remind you that at the time President Reagan made the following statement: 'The Contras are the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.'
Posted by Ben at 10:36 AM 0 comments

Soma Is Working

The Australian: So much talk and so few people listening by Miriam Cosic[December 09, 2005]: "'Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any of this territory since the majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power,' Pinter will say. (The text was published in London newspaper The Guardian yesterday.)

''To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.'

There is the rub. We hardly need to be deceived any more because people are so uninterested in politics, no matter how far-reachingly it affects their lives. Aldous Huxley's soma is working."
Posted by Ben at 10:07 AM 2 comments

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Nobel Lecture - | Art, Truth & Politics | by Harold Pinter

Here follows the beginning of the truth that every American needs to hear:

Nobel Lecture - Literature 2005 | Art, Truth & Politics | by Harold Pinter: "Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any of this territory since the majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.

As every single person here knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq had a relationship with Al Quaeda and shared responsibility for the atrocity in New York of September 11th 2001. We were assured that this was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq threatened the security of the world. We were assured it was true. It was not true.

The truth is something entirely different. The truth is to do with how the United States understands its role in the world and how it chooses to embody it.

But before I come back to the present I would like to look at the recent past, by which I mean United States foreign policy since the end of the Second World War. I believe it is obligatory upon us to subject this period to at least some kind of even limited scrutiny, which is all that time will allow here.

Everyone knows what happened in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe during the post-war period: the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought. All this has been fully documented and verified.

But my contention here is that the US crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognised as crimes at all. I believe this must be addressed and that the truth has considerable bearing on where the world stands now. Although constrained, to a certain extent, by the existence of the Soviet Union, the United States' actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked.

Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been America's favoured method. In the main, it has preferred what it has described as 'low intensity conflict'. Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you dropped a bomb on them in one fell swoop. It means that you infect the heart of the country, that you establish a malignant growth and watch the gangrene bloom. When the populace has been subdued – or beaten to death – the same thing – and your own friends, the military and the great corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go before the camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This was a commonplace in US foreign policy in the years to which I refer.

The tragedy of Nicaragua was a highly significant case. I choose to offer it here as a potent example of America's view of its role in the world, both then and now.

Read the whole lecture here:

http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture-e.html
Posted by Ben at 10:22 PM 0 comments

Another Mis-calculation, The Invasion Has Strenghtened Iran

Iraqi Letters: Iran and Iraq: War and Politics: "
In the simplest possible terms, I cannot understand the following: Iran is a declared enemy of America. America invades Iraq. America consistently strengthens the hand of pro-Iranian political parties and their influence on the future shape of Iraq!

The latest source of amusement is that both the US administration and the regime in Iran are enthusiastic supporters of the new draft constitution.

There are too many murmurs coming from the Iraqi politicians taking part in the political process that Iran has too much influence on Iraqi politics… to ignore!
"
Posted by Ben at 10:48 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Condi to Europe: 'Trust Me' by Paul Craig Roberts

Condi to Europe: 'Trust Me' by Paul Craig Roberts: "In the run-up to the Iraqi invasion, this critical information was withheld from Congress and the American people. Instead, the Bush administration worked to create the belief that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the September 11 attacks.

The Bush administration has made it abundantly clear that it believes, with no apologies, that the ends justify the means. Lying is simply a means to an end. What Condi Rice is telling Europeans is 'pay no attention to our lies; just accept that we are liars for a good and proper cause.'

What other proof do we need of the Bush administration’s low esteem for truth than the fact, revealed by the Los Angeles Times, that the Bush administration has been caught paying journalists to write favorable stories about the war in Iraq? First they rigged the 'intelligence' used to start a war; then they rigged the news reports about the war.

And these people think they should be trusted?"
Posted by Ben at 9:21 PM 1 comments

The Grave Threat Is the Bush Administration by Paul Craig Roberts

The Grave Threat Is the Bush Administration by Paul Craig Roberts: "What kind of a country have we become when we put a citizen on trial on the basis of a confession obtained under torture by a foreign government? Is the case against this student anything other than an attempt to enlist the sympathy factor for Bush in order to repair his standing in the polls?

Americans need to understand that a police state has to produce results in order to justify its budget and its powers. It doesn’t really care who it catches. Stalin’s police state caught the wife of Stalin’s foreign minister in one of its street sweeps.

The Bush administration justifies torture and threatens to veto congressional attempts to restrain its use. The Bush administration justifies indefinite detention of American citizens without charges. It asserts the power of indefinite detention based on its subjective judgment about who is a threat. An American government that preaches 'freedom and democracy' to the world claims the powers of tyrants as its own.

Americans need to wake up. The only danger to Americans in Iraq is the one Bush created by invading the country. The grave threat that Americans face is the Bush administration’s police state mentality."
Posted by Ben at 9:16 PM 0 comments

Journalist Helen Thomas condemns Bush administration - MIT News Office | She Got It Right

Journalist Helen Thomas condemns Bush administration - MIT News Office: "'I have never covered a president who actually wanted to go to war. Bush's policy of pre-emptive war is immoral - such a policy would legitimize Pearl Harbor. It's as if they learned none of the lessons from Vietnam,' she said to enthusiastic applause.

Thomas ignored the clapping just as she once ignored the camera flashes and shouting matches of the Washington press corps.

'Where is the outrage?' she demanded. 'Where is Congress? They're supine! Bush has held only six press conferences, the only forum in our society where a president can be questioned. I'm on the phone to [press secretary] Ari Fleischer every day, asking will he ever hold another one? The international world is wondering what happened to America's great heart and soul.'"
Posted by Ben at 9:03 PM 0 comments

Another Condi Lie for the Record

German Sues Over Abduction Said to Be at Hands of C.I.A. - New York Times: "Mr. Romero of the A.C.L.U. said the lawsuit was an attempt to counter the 'culture of impunity' in the Bush administration for human rights violations and to force the C.I.A. to abandon practices in conflict with American values. The organization has obtained 77,000 pages of government documents on detention and interrogation under the Freedom of Information Act that have been the basis for thousands of news reports.

Mr. Romero took issue with a statement Ms. Rice made on Monday before leaving for Germany denying accusations of human rights violations and declaring that 'the United States does not transport, and has not transported, detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture.'

'Unfortunately, as our lawsuit shows today, those statements are patently false,' Mr. Romero said."
Posted by Ben at 7:35 PM 0 comments

No, Thank You, Mrs. Rice. | Do You Really Think All the World is That Stupid?

U.S. Interrogations Are Saving European Lives, Rice Says - New York Times: "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice chastised European leaders on Monday, saying that before they complain about secret jails for terror suspects in European nations, they should realize that interrogations of these suspects have produced information that helped 'save European lives.'"
Look who's talking!

The obvious irony is that those 'European lives', (as if the value of human life was relative to the ethnicity of the group one prefers) like those who perished in Spain's bomb attack, would not have suffered but because of the US war of aggression.

How many more attacks will be encouraged by the ideological rationalization of the American torture policy? Do not they realize that the case inflaming 'terrorists' is a sense of moral outrage because of the abuse of power of a decadent and ruthless regime? How smart is it to 'stay the course' in the wrong direction?

No thank you, Mrs. Rice. But there is more on this insult to our intelligence:
Intelligence gathered from these interrogations, she said, "has stopped terrorist attacks and saved innocent lives in Europe as well as the United States." But she declined to offer examples or provide any specific information to support her assertions. She said any information related to the prisons was classified. Ms. Rice did not explicitly confirm the existence of the detention centers, first described in news reports early last month. But acknowledgment of them was implicit in her remarks. Without the debate over the covert jails, there would have been no reason for her statement.

"We must bring terrorists to justice wherever possible," she said, "but there have been many cases where the local government cannot detain or prosecute a suspect, and traditional extradition is not a good option."
Why? Because, you say so? or because the terrorist have by definition no human rights? No, Thank You, Mrs. Rice.
Administration officials, including Ms. Rice on Monday, have repeatedly maintained since the reports about the secret prisons began that the government is abiding by American law and international agreements. "We are respecting U.S. law and U.S. treaty obligations," she said several times on Monday. "And we are respecting other nations' sovereignty."

That is a change in the position of the Bush administration, which has repeatedly maintained in recent years that American law does not apply to prisoners held abroad. That is one reason some terror suspects were taken to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and to other foreign locations.

Asked about that conflict while speaking to reporters on her plane, Ms. Rice did not answer directly and instead repeated her statement about respecting American laws and obligations.
Her silence is much more eloquent than her crafted deceitful statement.
Following the reports of a secret detention policy, the administration has come under criticism from the United Nations, at least two arms of the European Union and several European countries. The Europeans say the secret detention centers would be illegal in their countries. Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, wrote Ms. Rice on behalf of the European Union last week, seeking an explanation.

In Congress, Democrats are calling for an investigation of the prisons and the treatment of suspects held there, while Republicans are pushing for an inquiry to determine who in the government leaked the information to the news media.
The great patriots are fulfilling their duty of persecuting the messenger while ignoring the evil policy of the administration
News reports over the last month have said the C.I.A. began holding dozens of terror suspects in secret prisons in Europe shortly after Sept. 11. While the administration has not confirmed the reports, it has also not denied them.

The mistreatment of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq as well as the ongoing debate over the imprisonment of terror suspects at Guantanamo, have raised questions among Europeans and human rights organizations
And any one with any sense of decency not blinded by American Imperial ideology

about the treatment of suspects held in the C.I.A. facilities, where no one can visit them or check on their treatment.

Ms. Rice insisted she could not confirm the existence of secret prisons because that would involve discussion of classified activities. "One of the difficult issues in this new kind of conflict is what to do with captured individuals who we know or believe to be terrorists," she said. Many are "essentially stateless, owing their allegiance to the extremist cause of transnational terrorism."
She could find a few pointers in the Geneva convention regarding prisoners of war. After all it is America who claims to be waging a 'war on terror' but it is obvious from the start that the US is committed to the rules for other countries but not when it is them perpetrating the crimes.
On her plane later, Ms. Rice expressed impatience with the spiraling investigations and inquiries.
May I express impatience with the spiraling nonsense she propagates on behalf of this rotten administration?
"Democracies are going to debate these things," she said. "But they need to debate them not just on one side of the issue - that is, how the actual activities are being carried out." They should also consider, "are we doing everything we can to protect innocent lives?"
O yes, Do not mind the reality of actual abuse carried out by my administration. It is all for a good cause, there are always abstract 'innocent' lives to justify our abuses of actual real people. If you want to sleep while knowing part of the truth just do what I do, repeat to yourself that they are 'terrorist' and we are just defending 'innocent' people.

Thank you for reminding me once more that all your crimes are perpetrated in the name of a good cause. But, No, thank you, Mrs. Rice.
Posted by Ben at 8:06 AM 0 comments

Monday, December 05, 2005

Wasted Lives; Why 'Staying the Course' Does not Work

The Peking Duck: Bob Herbert: Black Hole in Iraq: "In Mr. Shroeder's view, President Bush's war policies have been both tragic and futile. 'Staying the course,' he said, is like continuing to pour water into a hole in the sand at the beach, 'a process that gets you nowhere.'

'My son told us two weeks before he died that he felt the war was not worth it,' Mr. Shroeder said. 'His complaint was about having to go back repeatedly into the same towns, to sweep the same insurgents, or other insurgents, out of these same towns without being able to hold them, secure them. It just was not working, and that's what he wanted to get across.'

Mr. Shroeder dismissed the idea that criticism of the administration and the war was evidence of a lack of support for the men and women fighting in Iraq. 'You can support the troops and be critical of the policy that put them there,' he said.

He took issue with the public officials who insist that his son died for a 'noble cause,' however comforting that might be to believe. On the contrary, he feels that Augie's life 'was wasted.'

Recalling his last conversation with his son, Mr. Schroeder said, 'I asked him, 'Do you feel like you're protecting your family and other Americans back here?' And he said, 'No. Not at all.' '

He said Augie felt that he was not accomplishing anything. 'He thought it was a waste.'"
Posted by Ben at 8:01 AM 0 comments

Sunday, December 04, 2005

How The Press Was and May Be Manipulated

Open Source » Blog Archive » Knight-Ridder on Getting It Right: "I also think it was the case that people didn’t want to jepoardize their access. This administration is incredibly vengeful in going after people that it considers critics, people who ask the wrong questions, who write things this administration dislikes.
Jonathan Landay"
Posted by Ben at 10:23 PM 0 comments

Bush's Administration: Keeping Us Ill Informed

KR Washington Bureau | 04/15/2005 | Bush administration eliminating 19-year-old international terrorism report| by By Jonathan S. Landay: "WASHINGTON - The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.

Several U.S. officials defended the abrupt decision, saying the methodology the National Counterterrorism Center used to generate statistics for the report may have been faulty, such as the inclusion of incidents that may not have been terrorism.

Last year, the number of incidents in 2003 was undercounted, forcing a revision of the report, 'Patterns of Global Terrorism.'

But other current and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered 'Patterns of Global Terrorism' eliminated several weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism.

'Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public,' charged Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal."
Posted by Ben at 10:12 PM 0 comments

Saturday, December 03, 2005

'BBC NEWS | Americas | US civil rights group to sue CIA

BBC NEWS | Americas | US civil rights group to sue CIA: "'Extraordinary rendition'

'The lawsuit will charge that CIA officials at the highest level violated US and universal human rights laws when they authorised agents to abduct an innocent man, detain him incommunicado, beat him, drug and transport him to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan,' the ACLU said in a news release.

The release identified the jail as the 'Salt Pit'.

The group did not provide the name or nationality of the plaintiff, saying only that he would appear at a news conference next week to reveal details of the lawsuit.

The ACLU also wants to name corporations which it accuses of owning and operating the aircraft used to transport detainees secretly from country to country.

The highly secretive process is known as 'extraordinary rendition' whereby intelligence agencies move and interrogate terrorism suspects outside the US, where they have no American legal protection.

It has become extremely controversial, the BBC's Adam Brookes in Washington reports.

Some individuals have claimed they were flown by the CIA to countries like Syria and Egypt, where they were tortured.

The US government and its intelligence agencies maintain that all their operations are conducted within the law and they will no doubt fight this case vigorously, our correspondent says.

He says they will not want to see US intelligence officers forced publicly to defend their actions and they will not want to see one of their most secret procedures laid bare in open court. "
Posted by Ben at 4:38 AM 0 comments

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Who Owns Iraq?

Hope Over History By Richard Cohen:
"I am not -- not yet, anyway -- a pulloutnik. In the apt Pottery Barn analogy, we broke Iraq and we own it.
How presumptuous! USA did not 'broke' Iraq. 'It tried to 'steal' Iraq and messed it up in the process, and now thinks it owns it.
The National Security Council's 'National Strategy for Victory in Iraq' -- a numbingly repetitive document -- nevertheless makes a convincing case that chaos, a civil war, a bloodbath, and a precipitous loss of American prestige and influence would follow an abrupt U.S. withdrawal. A repeat of the shameful exit from Vietnam has to be avoided -- if only because Iraq is in the center of the Middle East, not a small country on the periphery of Asia."
Please wake up, 'chaos, 'civil war' bloodbath and overal loss of American pretige and influence cannot follow withdrawal, because it preceeds it.

There is no more 'American prestige' in the middle east -or the world- the only place that exist is in the egotistic minds of some blindfolded Americans.
What needs to happen is a complete change of strategy, from aggression to defense. Back off. Empower the Iraquis to take care of themselves and only help when and if asked. let the Iraquis sort it out, after all it is their country. Get UN peace keeping forces as USA steps off the scene. Renounce American military bases, (which is probably the 'reason' for the war if there was any 'reason' for it. I am tempted to think, there was no 'reason', it was just a presumptuous abuse of power in service of ideological imperialism.
Posted by Ben at 10:21 AM 0 comments
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