Nicholas Kristof continues his coverage of the situation in Darfur and our President and countries inaction.
I've written earlier about this and posted a link to help Save Darfur. Since he puts it much better than I could and some of you don't want to sign up for the free online New York Times, here is the main part of what he writes. I ask you, to please write your Congresspersons and tell them that we can do more to help those in Darfur....
There are several points I could make to argue that it's in our own interest to help Darfur. Turmoil in Darfur is already destabilizing all of Sudan and neighboring Chad as well, both oil-exporting countries. And failed states nurture terrorists like Osama and diseases like polio, while exporting refugees and hijackers.
But there's an even better argument: Magboula, a woman I met at the Kalma Camp here.
She lived with her husband and five children in the countryside, but then as the Arab janjaweed began to slaughter black African tribes like her own, she and her family fled to the safety of a larger town. In December, the Sudanese Army attacked that town, and they ran off to the bush. Two months ago, the janjaweed militia caught up with them.
First the raiders shot her husband dead, she said, her voice choking, and then they whipped her, taunted her with racial insults against black people and mocked her by asking why her husband was not there to help her. Then eight of them gang-raped her.
They may also have mutilated her. At one point she spoke of being slashed with a knife in the shoulder and chest, but when I asked her about it, she kept changing the subject.
"I was very, very ashamed, and very frightened," she said, leaving it at that.
After the attack, Magboula was determined to save her children. So they traipsed together on a journey across the desert to the Kalma Camp, where a small number of foreign aid workers are struggling heroically to assist 110,000 victims of the upheaval. Magboula carried her 6-month-old baby, Abdul Hani, in her arms, and the others, ranging from 2 to 9, stumbled beside her.
Magboula finally arrived at Kalma a few weeks ago. But the Sudanese government is blocking new arrivals like her from getting registered, which means they can't get food and tents. So Magboula is getting no rations and is living with her children under a straw mat on a few sticks.
Then a few days ago, Abdul Hani, Magboula's baby, died.
She and her children are surviving on handouts from other homeless people who arrived earlier and are getting U.N. food. They have almost nothing themselves, but they at least have the compassion to help those who are even needier.
The world might also respond if people could see what is going on, but Sudan has barred most reporters from the area. I'm here because I accompanied Kofi Annan on a visit - bless him for coming! - and then jumped ship while here.
Magboula and the 2.2 million other homeless people from Darfur need food and shelter, and President Bush has been good about providing that. But above all they need the international community to shame Sudan for killing and raping people on the basis of their tribe. Each time Sudan has been subjected to strong moral pressure, it has backed off somewhat - but lately the attention has subsided, and Mr. Bush even killed the Senate-passed Darfur Accountability Act, which would have condemned the genocide.
What killed Magboula's husband and child was, indirectly, the world's moral indifference.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
News stories worth sharing....
I'm still waiting to see what happens in the Jennifer Bier situation this morning. She is the Colorado Rape Counselor who the military issued an arrest warrant for on Friday. Her crime? Refusing to turn over confidential records of a rape victim so the defense could fish thru it to see if there was anything they could use to help Lieutenant Harding who is being tried for the rape of two cadets while at the Airforce Academy. Ms. Bier's attorney was going to go to court this morning to try to have the arrest warrant dropped. As I learn more I'll update.
There's been alot of talk about the US denying abuse of detainees in both Afghanistan and Gitmo, on that note, it's obvious if you report abuse you can pretty much kiss your job good bye.
From the Chicago Tribune:
Two years ago the commission asked UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to appoint an independent expert to develop a program to advise Afghanistan on human rights "and to seek and receive information about and report on the human rights situation in Afghanistan in an effort to prevent human rights violations."
Then came a one-year delay; evidently it was difficult to find an expert acceptable to the Americans, whose 18,000 troops remain the real power in Afghanistan. Finally, Annan selected DePaul law professor M. Cherif Bassiouni, who holds American and Egyptian citizenship. But Bassiouni's passport was not enough to shield him from Washington's pique.
During his 1-year term, Bassiouni traveled to Afghanistan twice, reviewed voluminous documents, and met with Afghan and international human-rights groups, officials of governments and UN agencies, and alleged victims.
He delivered two extensive reports, one to the UN General Assembly in October and a second to the commission this March. Both were sharply critical of the human-rights situation in Afghanistan--including alleged violations by U.S. forces, such as arbitrary arrests, unlawful detentions, and torture and murder of prisoners.
In April the commission held its annual meeting in Geneva. A consensus statement for the commission embraced, in general terms, most of Bassiouni's findings and recommendations.
But the statement omitted any mention of U.S. violations.
And the commission--reportedly under pressure from the U.S. ambassador in Geneva--decided it no longer needed an independent expert to monitor human rights in Afghanistan. Not only was Bassiouni in effect fired, but no one replaced him.
In addition, unlike the UN, an Afghan commission has no jurisdiction to investigate violations committed by U.S. military forces. Visiting Washington last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai pleaded with President Bush to turn over Afghan prisoners to Afghan control. He was rebuffed.
And there lies the real explanation for Bassiouni's firing: his reporting of alleged abuses by U.S. forces (which he diplomatically calls "coalition" forces, even though they are nearly all Americans).
Coalition forces, he says, should be role models for the Afghans. When they instead run roughshod over human rights, they "create a dangerous and negative political environment that threatens the success of the peace process and overall national reconstruction."
Reports of serious violations by coalition forces include "forced entry into homes, arrest and detention . . . without legal authority or judicial review . . . forced nudity, hooding and sensory deprivation, sleep and food deprivation, forced squatting and standing for long periods of time in stress positions, sexual abuse, beatings, torture, and use of force resulting in death."
These allegations are difficult to confirm, Bassiouni admits, because the U.S. refused his requests to inspect military prisons, holds prisoners in field installations not visited by the Red Cross, and has classified last year's internal Pentagon investigation by Brig. Gen. Charles Jacoby.
But enough internal Pentagon reports have been leaked to the media to substantiate key allegations, and in October, an Army task force found probable cause to indict at least 27 guards and interrogators. To date, only seven have been charged, and none tried--for crimes involving deaths of prisoners more than 2 1/2 years ago.
In Bassiouni's words, "[T]he Coalition forces' practice of placing themselves above and beyond the reach of the law must come to an end."
There is more at the link, and I've written in the past of some of the abuse mentioned by the CIC. To continue to pretend that abuse has not happened only increases the speculation that this is not random soldiers not following orders but something much more disturbing. The military needs to act now, before the speculation leads to even more anti-american feeling in the Middle East.
There's been alot of talk about the US denying abuse of detainees in both Afghanistan and Gitmo, on that note, it's obvious if you report abuse you can pretty much kiss your job good bye.
From the Chicago Tribune:
Two years ago the commission asked UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to appoint an independent expert to develop a program to advise Afghanistan on human rights "and to seek and receive information about and report on the human rights situation in Afghanistan in an effort to prevent human rights violations."
Then came a one-year delay; evidently it was difficult to find an expert acceptable to the Americans, whose 18,000 troops remain the real power in Afghanistan. Finally, Annan selected DePaul law professor M. Cherif Bassiouni, who holds American and Egyptian citizenship. But Bassiouni's passport was not enough to shield him from Washington's pique.
During his 1-year term, Bassiouni traveled to Afghanistan twice, reviewed voluminous documents, and met with Afghan and international human-rights groups, officials of governments and UN agencies, and alleged victims.
He delivered two extensive reports, one to the UN General Assembly in October and a second to the commission this March. Both were sharply critical of the human-rights situation in Afghanistan--including alleged violations by U.S. forces, such as arbitrary arrests, unlawful detentions, and torture and murder of prisoners.
In April the commission held its annual meeting in Geneva. A consensus statement for the commission embraced, in general terms, most of Bassiouni's findings and recommendations.
But the statement omitted any mention of U.S. violations.
And the commission--reportedly under pressure from the U.S. ambassador in Geneva--decided it no longer needed an independent expert to monitor human rights in Afghanistan. Not only was Bassiouni in effect fired, but no one replaced him.
In addition, unlike the UN, an Afghan commission has no jurisdiction to investigate violations committed by U.S. military forces. Visiting Washington last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai pleaded with President Bush to turn over Afghan prisoners to Afghan control. He was rebuffed.
And there lies the real explanation for Bassiouni's firing: his reporting of alleged abuses by U.S. forces (which he diplomatically calls "coalition" forces, even though they are nearly all Americans).
Coalition forces, he says, should be role models for the Afghans. When they instead run roughshod over human rights, they "create a dangerous and negative political environment that threatens the success of the peace process and overall national reconstruction."
Reports of serious violations by coalition forces include "forced entry into homes, arrest and detention . . . without legal authority or judicial review . . . forced nudity, hooding and sensory deprivation, sleep and food deprivation, forced squatting and standing for long periods of time in stress positions, sexual abuse, beatings, torture, and use of force resulting in death."
These allegations are difficult to confirm, Bassiouni admits, because the U.S. refused his requests to inspect military prisons, holds prisoners in field installations not visited by the Red Cross, and has classified last year's internal Pentagon investigation by Brig. Gen. Charles Jacoby.
But enough internal Pentagon reports have been leaked to the media to substantiate key allegations, and in October, an Army task force found probable cause to indict at least 27 guards and interrogators. To date, only seven have been charged, and none tried--for crimes involving deaths of prisoners more than 2 1/2 years ago.
In Bassiouni's words, "[T]he Coalition forces' practice of placing themselves above and beyond the reach of the law must come to an end."
There is more at the link, and I've written in the past of some of the abuse mentioned by the CIC. To continue to pretend that abuse has not happened only increases the speculation that this is not random soldiers not following orders but something much more disturbing. The military needs to act now, before the speculation leads to even more anti-american feeling in the Middle East.
Monday, May 30, 2005
Will the coins cost too much?
or will the Noe saga pass with little changed......
Call me skeptical, but the problems resulting from "Coingate" as they call it and the additional stories about Bob Ney and his gambling "luck" might not bring about the change in Republican control of Ohio. The whole reason why this has happened and why Republicans have held on to power has to do with men like Tom Noe. The huge financial backing of Republicans has created this and the Democrats to date have not been able to compete. Democrats trying to challenge Republicans don't have the same million dollar bankrolls in the majority of cases, especially when they are trying to go against an incumbant.
We've created a situation where the rich or the friends of the rich who are out of touch with our own personal lives keep getting elected and re-elected. Except in very rare situations, the regular average citizen who has a desire to make a difference never even gets up to bat. Term limits aren't enough to change this, it's going to take real finance reform, not the half-assed attempts done in the past. Expecting Congress to police itself has proven how well that works, as they don't want to lose their PAC's and various other ways they've learned how to legally skirt the rules.
It's up to us to change this, to see beyond the million dollar media presentations that hit us each election season and educate ourselves as to the candidates. Support those like Mark Dann, as an example, that have made campaign finance reform a part of his whole ideal system. Elect more like him, realizing that a few once they hit the "big time" will suddenly change because they have been affected by the dark side of the force.....However the more we send that share the belief that corporations and rich individuals should not dictate who has the power that it should be of the people by the people the odds increase that real changes will be made.
I realize my dream of government returning to the way it was designed with no one or two parties holding the majority of power in Congress will probably never happen. We waited too long to remember the warnings of George Washington and others. However, that doesn't mean we have to accept things the way the are or that we are powerless to try to make real change happen. We do still hold the power, and the trick is to get people to remember that when they are voting. To stop voting for someone because you've seen more ads on tv, and you assume since they won before they should automatically be returned to office. Take the time to find out what your representatives actually stand for before you vote.
Find out which corporations or organizations are financing them. Chances are if it is something you don't support you'll find very little luck in getting that representative to work for you. Human nature dictates they make those who provide them with power and money happy before they will you. Once they are in office? Don't let them forget you are out there. That you are still paying attention. Don't just give critiques but find time to also compliment them when they do something you do agree with. Positive reinforcement still works the best and it's most likely to get beyond their staff into their actual hands.
Each of us does hold the real power....all we have to do is use it.....
Call me skeptical, but the problems resulting from "Coingate" as they call it and the additional stories about Bob Ney and his gambling "luck" might not bring about the change in Republican control of Ohio. The whole reason why this has happened and why Republicans have held on to power has to do with men like Tom Noe. The huge financial backing of Republicans has created this and the Democrats to date have not been able to compete. Democrats trying to challenge Republicans don't have the same million dollar bankrolls in the majority of cases, especially when they are trying to go against an incumbant.
We've created a situation where the rich or the friends of the rich who are out of touch with our own personal lives keep getting elected and re-elected. Except in very rare situations, the regular average citizen who has a desire to make a difference never even gets up to bat. Term limits aren't enough to change this, it's going to take real finance reform, not the half-assed attempts done in the past. Expecting Congress to police itself has proven how well that works, as they don't want to lose their PAC's and various other ways they've learned how to legally skirt the rules.
It's up to us to change this, to see beyond the million dollar media presentations that hit us each election season and educate ourselves as to the candidates. Support those like Mark Dann, as an example, that have made campaign finance reform a part of his whole ideal system. Elect more like him, realizing that a few once they hit the "big time" will suddenly change because they have been affected by the dark side of the force.....However the more we send that share the belief that corporations and rich individuals should not dictate who has the power that it should be of the people by the people the odds increase that real changes will be made.
I realize my dream of government returning to the way it was designed with no one or two parties holding the majority of power in Congress will probably never happen. We waited too long to remember the warnings of George Washington and others. However, that doesn't mean we have to accept things the way the are or that we are powerless to try to make real change happen. We do still hold the power, and the trick is to get people to remember that when they are voting. To stop voting for someone because you've seen more ads on tv, and you assume since they won before they should automatically be returned to office. Take the time to find out what your representatives actually stand for before you vote.
Find out which corporations or organizations are financing them. Chances are if it is something you don't support you'll find very little luck in getting that representative to work for you. Human nature dictates they make those who provide them with power and money happy before they will you. Once they are in office? Don't let them forget you are out there. That you are still paying attention. Don't just give critiques but find time to also compliment them when they do something you do agree with. Positive reinforcement still works the best and it's most likely to get beyond their staff into their actual hands.
Each of us does hold the real power....all we have to do is use it.....
Rebirth of Symbols....
Most of us have become quite used to the cute little emoticons that now range from the little smiley face to much more, however, I've noticed in the world of blog a re-emergence of symbols instead of emoticons.
Sure it's possible to add emoticons, even here I could upload some to my webserver then post as an image....
But really who wants to do that extra step when the old fashion way works.
Soooo for those of you who don't know or need a refresher course on the use of symbols here we go - lol
:-) smiley face or happy
:-)) very happy
:-( sad or not happy
:-@ scream
:-* kiss
:-! foot in mouth
=) surprised
Infact there are lots of them most of them I never use....Lisa Craig has just about all of them, including some that bring back memories from the chat rooms in talkcity....
{=^;^=} meow....
(^.^) rolling my eyes...
@}~~~~~ a rose...
Sure it's possible to add emoticons, even here I could upload some to my webserver then post as an image....
But really who wants to do that extra step when the old fashion way works.
Soooo for those of you who don't know or need a refresher course on the use of symbols here we go - lol
:-) smiley face or happy
:-)) very happy
:-( sad or not happy
:-@ scream
:-* kiss
:-! foot in mouth
=) surprised
Infact there are lots of them most of them I never use....Lisa Craig has just about all of them, including some that bring back memories from the chat rooms in talkcity....
{=^;^=} meow....
(^.^) rolling my eyes...
@}~~~~~ a rose...
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Military has different idea on privacy....
Back in April I read a news story about Jennifer Bier, a Colorado Rape Crisis Counselor who was refusing to turn over confidential records to the Military in the Court Martial of airman Joseph Harding, who is accused of raping ex-cadet Jessica Brakey and another woman. Jennifer Bier was Jessica Brakey's Counselor.
Military law differs from civilian law, as I'm sure many of you are thinking, "those records are confidential". Not if you are involved in a Court Martial where confidential records like this are used by a military defense lawyer to basically to to smear the rape victim. The Military defense team's position is that Harding's constitutional right to a fair trial overrides Brakey's privacy interests.
Beir's attorney, Wendy Murphy, stated back in April: "The accused has no constitutional right to conduct a fishing expedition in the private records of a rape victim or any kind of victim. There's just no justification for them to snoop around like this."
Several lawmakers including, Sen. Wayne Allard, have asked the Air Force, which operates under its own justice system rules, to back off.
Well it appears, Military defense Team 1, Rape Counselor 0, from today's New York Times:
DENVER, May 28 (AP) - An arrest warrant has been issued for a rape counselor who refused to turn over records of her sessions with a former Air Force Academy cadet, one of the women whose allegations touched off a scandal that toppled the academy's leaders.
Ms. Bier said Saturday that she was angry that she was being forced to chose between betraying her client's trust and being arrested.
"For me to betray a client renders my whole field null and void and I refuse to do that," she said.
Ms. Bier's lawyer, Wendy Murphy, said on Saturday that she planned to seek an emergency order on Tuesday in federal court to prevent an arrest, but that she was not sure if the court would accept the case.
Ms. Bier "did the right thing that is ethically and legally demanded of her," said Ms. Murphy, who teaches at the New England School of Law in Boston.
Officials at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas, where the court-martial is taking place, did not return phone calls seeking comment on Saturday.
Ms. Bier, who is a civilian, has indicated that she is prepared to go to jail to protect the privacy of the accuser, a former cadet who sought counseling after she said she was raped by Lieutenant Harding in 2000.
As a woman, and as a rape victim, this is not only not right, but is something that should have been stopped years ago. A woman raped by a man should have the same right to confideniality in treatment in the military or in the civilian world. I admire Jennifer Bier's convicitions on this issue, and I will keep you updated as to what happens. She should not be forced to violate her ethics and I hope the Military drops the arrest warrant and the request.
Military law differs from civilian law, as I'm sure many of you are thinking, "those records are confidential". Not if you are involved in a Court Martial where confidential records like this are used by a military defense lawyer to basically to to smear the rape victim. The Military defense team's position is that Harding's constitutional right to a fair trial overrides Brakey's privacy interests.
Beir's attorney, Wendy Murphy, stated back in April: "The accused has no constitutional right to conduct a fishing expedition in the private records of a rape victim or any kind of victim. There's just no justification for them to snoop around like this."
Several lawmakers including, Sen. Wayne Allard, have asked the Air Force, which operates under its own justice system rules, to back off.
Well it appears, Military defense Team 1, Rape Counselor 0, from today's New York Times:
DENVER, May 28 (AP) - An arrest warrant has been issued for a rape counselor who refused to turn over records of her sessions with a former Air Force Academy cadet, one of the women whose allegations touched off a scandal that toppled the academy's leaders.
Ms. Bier said Saturday that she was angry that she was being forced to chose between betraying her client's trust and being arrested.
"For me to betray a client renders my whole field null and void and I refuse to do that," she said.
Ms. Bier's lawyer, Wendy Murphy, said on Saturday that she planned to seek an emergency order on Tuesday in federal court to prevent an arrest, but that she was not sure if the court would accept the case.
Ms. Bier "did the right thing that is ethically and legally demanded of her," said Ms. Murphy, who teaches at the New England School of Law in Boston.
Officials at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas, where the court-martial is taking place, did not return phone calls seeking comment on Saturday.
Ms. Bier, who is a civilian, has indicated that she is prepared to go to jail to protect the privacy of the accuser, a former cadet who sought counseling after she said she was raped by Lieutenant Harding in 2000.
As a woman, and as a rape victim, this is not only not right, but is something that should have been stopped years ago. A woman raped by a man should have the same right to confideniality in treatment in the military or in the civilian world. I admire Jennifer Bier's convicitions on this issue, and I will keep you updated as to what happens. She should not be forced to violate her ethics and I hope the Military drops the arrest warrant and the request.
Saturday, May 28, 2005
History of Memorial Day
In my never ending addiction to history, how Memorial Day came about:
After the civil war, women's groups in the South decorated the graves of their lost confederate loved ones. In 1867 the following hymn was written and dedicated to ..."To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead".
Words by G.W.R.
Music by Mrs. L. Nella Sweet
Kneel where our loves are sleeping, Dear ones days gone by,
Here we bow in holy reverence, Our bosoms heave the heartfelt sigh.
They fell like brave men, true as steel, And pour’d their blood like rain,
We feel we owe them all we have, And can but weep and kneel again.
CHORUS
Kneel where our loves are sleeping, They lost but still were good and true,
Our fathers, brothers fell still fighting, We weep, ‘tis all that we can do.
VERSE 2:
Here we find our noble dead, Their spirits soar’d to him above,
Rest they now about his throne, For God is mercy, God is love.
Then let us pray that we may live, As pure and good as they have been,
That dying we may ask of him, To open the gate and let us in.
CHORUS
Kneel where our loves are sleeping, They lost but still were good and true,
Our fathers, brothers fell still fighting, We weep, ‘tis all that we can do.
Now most of the Memorial Day history sites say it doesn't matter who started it, well yes and no. Realistically the creation of Memorial Day was started because of the Civil War. Even though General Logan declared on May 5, 1868 that May 30th would be a day to remember the Union and Confederate Soldiers who had died, most Southern States did not recognize this as their "Memorial Day" until it was changed to include all those who had died in wars past after World War I. Some Southern states still have a separate day to remember those who died for the Confederacy in addition to the Federal Memorial Day.
"Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic." General Logan - May 5, 1868
In 1915 Moina Michael created her own poem inspired by In Flanders Fields by John McCrae:
We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.
This started the wearing of a poppy on Memorial Day. It's a tradition that still lives on though isn't supported as it used to be. So when you see a Veteran selling a poppy....Buy one...
In 2000, the National Moment of Remembrance resolution was passed. All Americans at 3:00 p.m. are supposed to give a moment of silence or play taps in remembrance of those who have died in Wars.
There have been many attempts to change Memorial Day back to May 30th rather than the current last Monday in May. In 2002 during their Memorial day address the VFW stated: "Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day. No doubt, this has contributed greatly to the general public's nonchalant observance of Memorial Day."
So, at 3:00 p.m. on Monday, stop for a moment and pause to reflect on those who have died in Service of our Country. Doesn't matter whether you agree with the political motives behind any of these wars, it's about remembering men and women who are fellow Americans died. I think it's also important to remember that the creation of this day stemmed from the Civil War, and to never forget that division almost destroyed us.
If you want more information two very good sites:
US Memorial Day Org
POW/MIA history of Memorial Day
After the civil war, women's groups in the South decorated the graves of their lost confederate loved ones. In 1867 the following hymn was written and dedicated to ..."To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead".
Words by G.W.R.
Music by Mrs. L. Nella Sweet
Kneel where our loves are sleeping, Dear ones days gone by,
Here we bow in holy reverence, Our bosoms heave the heartfelt sigh.
They fell like brave men, true as steel, And pour’d their blood like rain,
We feel we owe them all we have, And can but weep and kneel again.
CHORUS
Kneel where our loves are sleeping, They lost but still were good and true,
Our fathers, brothers fell still fighting, We weep, ‘tis all that we can do.
VERSE 2:
Here we find our noble dead, Their spirits soar’d to him above,
Rest they now about his throne, For God is mercy, God is love.
Then let us pray that we may live, As pure and good as they have been,
That dying we may ask of him, To open the gate and let us in.
CHORUS
Kneel where our loves are sleeping, They lost but still were good and true,
Our fathers, brothers fell still fighting, We weep, ‘tis all that we can do.
Now most of the Memorial Day history sites say it doesn't matter who started it, well yes and no. Realistically the creation of Memorial Day was started because of the Civil War. Even though General Logan declared on May 5, 1868 that May 30th would be a day to remember the Union and Confederate Soldiers who had died, most Southern States did not recognize this as their "Memorial Day" until it was changed to include all those who had died in wars past after World War I. Some Southern states still have a separate day to remember those who died for the Confederacy in addition to the Federal Memorial Day.
"Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic." General Logan - May 5, 1868
In 1915 Moina Michael created her own poem inspired by In Flanders Fields by John McCrae:
We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.
This started the wearing of a poppy on Memorial Day. It's a tradition that still lives on though isn't supported as it used to be. So when you see a Veteran selling a poppy....Buy one...
In 2000, the National Moment of Remembrance resolution was passed. All Americans at 3:00 p.m. are supposed to give a moment of silence or play taps in remembrance of those who have died in Wars.
There have been many attempts to change Memorial Day back to May 30th rather than the current last Monday in May. In 2002 during their Memorial day address the VFW stated: "Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day. No doubt, this has contributed greatly to the general public's nonchalant observance of Memorial Day."
So, at 3:00 p.m. on Monday, stop for a moment and pause to reflect on those who have died in Service of our Country. Doesn't matter whether you agree with the political motives behind any of these wars, it's about remembering men and women who are fellow Americans died. I think it's also important to remember that the creation of this day stemmed from the Civil War, and to never forget that division almost destroyed us.
If you want more information two very good sites:
US Memorial Day Org
POW/MIA history of Memorial Day
Friday, May 27, 2005
More Noe or....
Why Lisa cannot do math
Governor Taft has announced James Conrad has resigned, been terminated, however you choose to intepret it.
However, I started thinking (yes, a dangerous thing).
The Toledo Blade reported:
Mr. Noe’s attorney, Bill Wilkinson, contacted the state to say that $10 million to $12 million of assets are “unaccounted for.”
Now bear with me for a moment okay? If the 10 to 12 million is missing from the 50 million dollar fund does that include the profits of 15 million that have been stated were made or is that in addition to the 15 million dollars in profits that has been stated were made?
If, it is including the profits then in reality as it stands right now, no money was lost but the profits were either exaggerated or mishandled. If this does not include the 15 million dollars worth of profits, five million of which was stated was reinvested then the dollar amount of the total loss is much higher because those profits are missing as well.
Even if you only count the five million that was reinvested the actual account should be 55 million. So...either more money is missing or the profit is missing, which still affects the BWC. However it is my own personal desire to be precise that makes me point this out....
There are still so many unanswered questions, and I've never seen anything that shows how much or where the profit came from or went. I do know that five million dollars of profit was supposed to be "reinvested" but so far no one has provided the full details.
Governor Taft has announced James Conrad has resigned, been terminated, however you choose to intepret it.
However, I started thinking (yes, a dangerous thing).
The Toledo Blade reported:
Mr. Noe’s attorney, Bill Wilkinson, contacted the state to say that $10 million to $12 million of assets are “unaccounted for.”
Now bear with me for a moment okay? If the 10 to 12 million is missing from the 50 million dollar fund does that include the profits of 15 million that have been stated were made or is that in addition to the 15 million dollars in profits that has been stated were made?
If, it is including the profits then in reality as it stands right now, no money was lost but the profits were either exaggerated or mishandled. If this does not include the 15 million dollars worth of profits, five million of which was stated was reinvested then the dollar amount of the total loss is much higher because those profits are missing as well.
Even if you only count the five million that was reinvested the actual account should be 55 million. So...either more money is missing or the profit is missing, which still affects the BWC. However it is my own personal desire to be precise that makes me point this out....
There are still so many unanswered questions, and I've never seen anything that shows how much or where the profit came from or went. I do know that five million dollars of profit was supposed to be "reinvested" but so far no one has provided the full details.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Noe story from before....
My previous post on this story...
There's lots of other information out there, but this doesn't seem to be still covered so for those of you looking for "all" the details...
The latest:
There are currently calls for director of BWC to step down, Petro to step down, and local news just reported our area is going to demand a special prosecuter. Local republicans have refused requests to be interviewed.
The State is still at Noe's Monclova location, looking for coins and collectibles and removing them. They state they will be there all night.
There's lots of other information out there, but this doesn't seem to be still covered so for those of you looking for "all" the details...
The latest:
There are currently calls for director of BWC to step down, Petro to step down, and local news just reported our area is going to demand a special prosecuter. Local republicans have refused requests to be interviewed.
The State is still at Noe's Monclova location, looking for coins and collectibles and removing them. They state they will be there all night.
Support the supportive.....
Ignore the ignorant
Borrowing a frequent comment from one of my fellow posters at excite.....
So in that vein, I suggest supporting Kraft Foods, because they are standing firm to the pressure from American Family Association to drop their sponsorship of the 2006 Gay Games being held in Chicago.
Disagree with the whole concept of gays having rights? Then still consider the right of an American Corporation to choose how it sees fit to help contribute in it's own hometown. Kraft Foods sponsors almost 1700 local cash in kind type grants on a yearly basis.
An organization such as American Family Association should not dictate to Kraft Foods who they can help. If the stockholders of Kraft have an issue with it then so be it. But this ever increasing system of a small yet vocal minority creating pressure should be looked at.
Personally I feel it is not my right to judge my fellow man on the basis of his or her sexual preference. Nor is it my right to tell people to stop partaking in the Kraft Mac and Cheese, as it is good.
Want more background info on this? Daily Kos...letter from Kraft
American Family Associations newsalert to boycott
Borrowing a frequent comment from one of my fellow posters at excite.....
So in that vein, I suggest supporting Kraft Foods, because they are standing firm to the pressure from American Family Association to drop their sponsorship of the 2006 Gay Games being held in Chicago.
Disagree with the whole concept of gays having rights? Then still consider the right of an American Corporation to choose how it sees fit to help contribute in it's own hometown. Kraft Foods sponsors almost 1700 local cash in kind type grants on a yearly basis.
An organization such as American Family Association should not dictate to Kraft Foods who they can help. If the stockholders of Kraft have an issue with it then so be it. But this ever increasing system of a small yet vocal minority creating pressure should be looked at.
Personally I feel it is not my right to judge my fellow man on the basis of his or her sexual preference. Nor is it my right to tell people to stop partaking in the Kraft Mac and Cheese, as it is good.
Want more background info on this? Daily Kos...letter from Kraft
American Family Associations newsalert to boycott
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Our Senator from Ohio.....
Senator Voinovich has been getting alot of attention lately. Personally I was glad to see him stand up for his own beliefs during the committee hearings on John Bolton. That's how our government is supposed to work, it's not supposed to be the party line every time upon command. He's been catching alot of heat from Republicans when instead they should be glad he is doing his job.
Today he made a very emotional plea that frankly the depth of the emotion when he stated this surprised me. The link to the video is here courtesy of dembloggers it's the only site I found out there that had it. It was quicker to save target as to my desktop rather than wait for it to load from there for those interested.
I transcribed the statement he made, for those not interested in the video, though you can't see how emotional he became via printed words.....
We're going to vote tomorrow, and I'm afraid that when we go
to the well, that too many of my colleagues, that too many of
my colleagues are not going to understand that this
appointment is very very important to our country.
At a strategic time when we need friends all over the world
we need somebody up there that's going to be able
to get the job done and I know some of my friends say,
oh let it go George it will work out,
I don't want to take the risk, I came back here and ran
for a second term because I worry about my kids
and my grandchildren. I just hope that my colleagues take the time
and before they get to this well do some serious thinking
about whether or not we should send John Bolton to the
United Nations.
I wrote him and told him thank you for having the courage to not just follow the party line in the committee. I wrote him again tonight and again thanked him for having the courage of his convictions. For George Voinovich to make that emotional of a plea to the Senate, something is driving that emotion. Let's hope the Senate listens.
Today he made a very emotional plea that frankly the depth of the emotion when he stated this surprised me. The link to the video is here courtesy of dembloggers it's the only site I found out there that had it. It was quicker to save target as to my desktop rather than wait for it to load from there for those interested.
I transcribed the statement he made, for those not interested in the video, though you can't see how emotional he became via printed words.....
We're going to vote tomorrow, and I'm afraid that when we go
to the well, that too many of my colleagues, that too many of
my colleagues are not going to understand that this
appointment is very very important to our country.
At a strategic time when we need friends all over the world
we need somebody up there that's going to be able
to get the job done and I know some of my friends say,
oh let it go George it will work out,
I don't want to take the risk, I came back here and ran
for a second term because I worry about my kids
and my grandchildren. I just hope that my colleagues take the time
and before they get to this well do some serious thinking
about whether or not we should send John Bolton to the
United Nations.
I wrote him and told him thank you for having the courage to not just follow the party line in the committee. I wrote him again tonight and again thanked him for having the courage of his convictions. For George Voinovich to make that emotional of a plea to the Senate, something is driving that emotion. Let's hope the Senate listens.
Vigilante Dad saves daughter....
If you read this article from the Toledo Blade, it states some facts but leaves out alot of important details. I realize some of the statements from the father are from his side of the story but they could have at least stated more than what they did.
The Blade states:
Police were sent to the Downing residence Monday after the father of one of the girls learned his daughter, 14, was being held there. The 38-year-old Fulton County man claimed she was being sold into prostitution from the residence and was being taken into Michigan.
He smashed in the windows of the residence with a metal pipe, forced his way inside and assaulted Mr. Willoughby with the pipe. His daughter jumped from a second-story window.
The father chased and assaulted Mr. Willoughby. Ms. Shope and Ms. Huskey tried to fight off the father and the three suspects carried him outside, where he was held until police arrived.
Court records indicate the three suspects punched and kicked the father, who was taken to Toledo Hospital. No charges have been filed against the father. The FBI is investigating.
The rest of the story according to the father who was interviewed on a local radio station yesterday:
The two girls went missing on May 13th, they were reported missing on May 14th. It was originally thought they were runaways. The family received a call from Ann Arbor that one of the girls had been held after being picked up at a truck stop by sherrifs. The father and his sister went up to get her. Evidently she did not tell police that she knew where her cousin was. Both girls according to the family had been threatened with physical harm, if one did something wrong the other one was punished. So the "found" girl was afraid to provide details to law enforcement, but did tell the father she knew which street the house was on where his daughter was held.
When the father arrived at the house, he called 911. Twenty minutes passed and he then called the FBI. His sister then called 911 again after a half an hour had passed, she was told cars had not been dispatched yet. Almost 50 minutes later, his ex-wife called 911 and was told it was a "low priority" call. With hearing that the father took a tire iron from his trunk and went up to the house. No one answered the door so he broke the window to get in after he saw his daughter's face in the upstairs window. Now the daughter either was put out the window or climbed out of the window and ran.
The "alledged" kidnapper lunged at the father who started hitting him with the tire iron, then the two women started to fight with the father as well. It ends up in the front yard, where more neighbors start calling 911. The daughter somehow sees that her father is being beaten and demands they stop beating her father. The police finally arrive.
Even if the girls really did run away and somehow got hooked up with this "pimp" you would think that knowing one of the girls was being held against her will and/or being used as a prostitute at age 14 would not be considered a "low priority" call. More proof that some of those Lucas County Sherrif's that sit around here with nothing better to could be helping Toledo if they are that shorthanded. All of the details haven't come out, however, as a parent? I don't think I could wait over 50 minutes knowing one of my daughters was in a house after hearing details of what had happened to her cousin. I also would probably go in with something stronger than a tire iron......
The Blade states:
Police were sent to the Downing residence Monday after the father of one of the girls learned his daughter, 14, was being held there. The 38-year-old Fulton County man claimed she was being sold into prostitution from the residence and was being taken into Michigan.
He smashed in the windows of the residence with a metal pipe, forced his way inside and assaulted Mr. Willoughby with the pipe. His daughter jumped from a second-story window.
The father chased and assaulted Mr. Willoughby. Ms. Shope and Ms. Huskey tried to fight off the father and the three suspects carried him outside, where he was held until police arrived.
Court records indicate the three suspects punched and kicked the father, who was taken to Toledo Hospital. No charges have been filed against the father. The FBI is investigating.
The rest of the story according to the father who was interviewed on a local radio station yesterday:
The two girls went missing on May 13th, they were reported missing on May 14th. It was originally thought they were runaways. The family received a call from Ann Arbor that one of the girls had been held after being picked up at a truck stop by sherrifs. The father and his sister went up to get her. Evidently she did not tell police that she knew where her cousin was. Both girls according to the family had been threatened with physical harm, if one did something wrong the other one was punished. So the "found" girl was afraid to provide details to law enforcement, but did tell the father she knew which street the house was on where his daughter was held.
When the father arrived at the house, he called 911. Twenty minutes passed and he then called the FBI. His sister then called 911 again after a half an hour had passed, she was told cars had not been dispatched yet. Almost 50 minutes later, his ex-wife called 911 and was told it was a "low priority" call. With hearing that the father took a tire iron from his trunk and went up to the house. No one answered the door so he broke the window to get in after he saw his daughter's face in the upstairs window. Now the daughter either was put out the window or climbed out of the window and ran.
The "alledged" kidnapper lunged at the father who started hitting him with the tire iron, then the two women started to fight with the father as well. It ends up in the front yard, where more neighbors start calling 911. The daughter somehow sees that her father is being beaten and demands they stop beating her father. The police finally arrive.
Even if the girls really did run away and somehow got hooked up with this "pimp" you would think that knowing one of the girls was being held against her will and/or being used as a prostitute at age 14 would not be considered a "low priority" call. More proof that some of those Lucas County Sherrif's that sit around here with nothing better to could be helping Toledo if they are that shorthanded. All of the details haven't come out, however, as a parent? I don't think I could wait over 50 minutes knowing one of my daughters was in a house after hearing details of what had happened to her cousin. I also would probably go in with something stronger than a tire iron......
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Driving down memory lane.....
Josh and I may be very different politically, but as is often found, sometimes you have a common interest that transcends the political stuff.
That would be cars, yes....I was a motor head, and in some ways still am at heart. I started thinking about my favorite car of all time, the 1969 Roadrunner. Almost went thru the search to be able to find all the stuff to set up my scanner, but this picture is much better than ones I have from years ago.
Now, imagine her in white, with a black vinyl top and wide black racing stripes on the hood.....yes, almost all my cars have been "hers" and yes....I talk to my cars, usually very nicely. They like that....
Ebay is a great place to find stuff, but also a way to make you go OMG I sold that car for 200.00 bucks....what an idiot I was....
This one will either make you cry or say as I did hmmmmm imagine the possibilities....
That would be cars, yes....I was a motor head, and in some ways still am at heart. I started thinking about my favorite car of all time, the 1969 Roadrunner. Almost went thru the search to be able to find all the stuff to set up my scanner, but this picture is much better than ones I have from years ago.
Now, imagine her in white, with a black vinyl top and wide black racing stripes on the hood.....yes, almost all my cars have been "hers" and yes....I talk to my cars, usually very nicely. They like that....
Ebay is a great place to find stuff, but also a way to make you go OMG I sold that car for 200.00 bucks....what an idiot I was....
This one will either make you cry or say as I did hmmmmm imagine the possibilities....
However, there are bigger monsters than us....
Not to make the below post seem less of an outrage, but to point out that in other countries, including countries we support, torture can be more extreme. From last February.....
Human rights groups are calling on the Bush administration to take a tougher line with Uzbekistan following the recent conviction in Tashkent of a 62-year-old woman for ostensibly publicizing information about the torture death of her son. The case, rights advocates argue, underscores that Uzbekistan is an unreliable ally in the campaign to contain international terrorism. Fatima Mukhadirova was sentenced to six years of hard labor in prison basically because she tried to bring attention to how her son was tortured and murdered.
Avazov, 35, was a Hizb-ut-Tahrir member who, rights advocates maintain, was tortured to death in prison in August 2002. Prison authorities claimed Avazov died after fellow inmates spilled hot tea on him. But a forensic report, based on evidence studied by pathologists at Glasgow University, determined that Avazov had been immersed in boiling water. His body also showed signs of substantial bruising around his head and neck, and his fingernails were missing.
Mukhadirova, was arrested after she called for an investigation into Avazov’s death. In an attempt to attract international support for her cause, she sent photographs of his corpse to the British Embassy – the same photos that eventually ended up being analyzed at Glasgow University. The British ambassador in Tashkent, Craig Murray, characterized the sentence as "appalling" in comments published by the London Guardian. Murray went on to suggest that Mukhadirova’s chances of her surviving in prison were "very limited."
Representatives of the New York-based Human Rights Watch HRW say the Mukhadirova case underscores the need for the Bush administration to designate Uzbekistan as a violator or religious freedom under the US International Religious Freedom act. "It is time for the United States to acknowledge that one of its key allies [in Central Asia] is systematically abusing the rights of Muslims," Rachel Denber, HRW’s the acting executive director of the group’s Europe and Central Asia Division, said in a written statement.
Thanks to HRW and other human rights organizations, Fatima Mukhadriova's sentence was reduced due to her age and she was given a fine of $280.00 and released. Yet the troubling manner in which her son died, and the fact that torture tactics such as immersing body parts or whole people in boiling water is still being used in Uzbekistan shouldn't be ignored.
Human rights groups are calling on the Bush administration to take a tougher line with Uzbekistan following the recent conviction in Tashkent of a 62-year-old woman for ostensibly publicizing information about the torture death of her son. The case, rights advocates argue, underscores that Uzbekistan is an unreliable ally in the campaign to contain international terrorism. Fatima Mukhadirova was sentenced to six years of hard labor in prison basically because she tried to bring attention to how her son was tortured and murdered.
Avazov, 35, was a Hizb-ut-Tahrir member who, rights advocates maintain, was tortured to death in prison in August 2002. Prison authorities claimed Avazov died after fellow inmates spilled hot tea on him. But a forensic report, based on evidence studied by pathologists at Glasgow University, determined that Avazov had been immersed in boiling water. His body also showed signs of substantial bruising around his head and neck, and his fingernails were missing.
Mukhadirova, was arrested after she called for an investigation into Avazov’s death. In an attempt to attract international support for her cause, she sent photographs of his corpse to the British Embassy – the same photos that eventually ended up being analyzed at Glasgow University. The British ambassador in Tashkent, Craig Murray, characterized the sentence as "appalling" in comments published by the London Guardian. Murray went on to suggest that Mukhadirova’s chances of her surviving in prison were "very limited."
Representatives of the New York-based Human Rights Watch HRW say the Mukhadirova case underscores the need for the Bush administration to designate Uzbekistan as a violator or religious freedom under the US International Religious Freedom act. "It is time for the United States to acknowledge that one of its key allies [in Central Asia] is systematically abusing the rights of Muslims," Rachel Denber, HRW’s the acting executive director of the group’s Europe and Central Asia Division, said in a written statement.
Thanks to HRW and other human rights organizations, Fatima Mukhadriova's sentence was reduced due to her age and she was given a fine of $280.00 and released. Yet the troubling manner in which her son died, and the fact that torture tactics such as immersing body parts or whole people in boiling water is still being used in Uzbekistan shouldn't be ignored.
Monday, May 23, 2005
The Shame....
While the whole "blame Newsweek" scenario has been going on the New York Times' Tim Golden has written two rather long articles concerning prisoner abuse and deaths at Bagram, ironically some of the soldiers accused of abuse here were then sent to Abu Grahib. I was already sickened earlier by finding out that the soldiers with Pat Tillman after they killed him took his uniform and armor off and burned it. After reading what fellow Americans did to Dilawar and others I felt disgust. Disgust that these men and women claim to represent and serve our Country. While most of them have escaped being charged with criminal acts, I'd like to believe if there is a God he will deal with them. The taken excerpts from Tim Golden's series is not pleasant reading.....
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.
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."
One captain nicknamed members of the Third Platoon "the Testosterone Gang." Several were devout bodybuilders. Upon arriving in Afghanistan, a group of the soldiers decorated their tent with a Confederate flag, one soldier said.
Some of the same M.P.'s took a particular interest in an emotionally disturbed Afghan detainee who was known to eat his feces and mutilate himself with concertina wire. The soldiers kneed the man repeatedly in the legs and, at one point, chained him with his arms straight up in the air, Specialist Callaway told investigators. They also nicknamed him "Timmy," after a disabled child in the animated television series "South Park." One of the guards who beat the prisoner also taught him to screech like the cartoon character, Specialist Callaway said.
Now...how Dilawar ended up in Bagram.... Mr. Dilawar's mother had asked him to gather his three sisters from their nearby villages and bring them home for the holiday. But he needed gas money and decided instead to drive to the provincial capital, Khost, about 45 minutes away, to look for fares.
At a taxi stand there, he found three men headed back toward Yakubi. On the way, they passed a base used by American troops, Camp Salerno, which had been the target of a rocket attack that morning.
The four men were detained and turned over to American soldiers at the base as suspects in the attack. Mr. Dilawar and his passengers spent their first night there handcuffed to a fence, so they would be unable to sleep. When a doctor examined them the next morning, he said later, he found Mr. Dilawar tired and suffering from headaches but otherwise fine.
Mr. Dilawar's three passengers were eventually flown to Guantánamo and held for more than a year before being sent home without charge. In interviews after their release, the men described their treatment at Bagram as far worse than at Guantánamo. While all of them said they had been beaten, they complained most bitterly of being stripped naked in front of female soldiers for showers and medical examinations, which they said included the first of several painful and humiliating rectal exams.
"They did lots and lots of bad things to me," said Abdur Rahim, a 26-year-old baker from Khost. "I was shouting and crying, and no one was listening. When I was shouting, the soldiers were slamming my head against the desk."
Mr. Dilawar was a frail man, standing only 5 feet 9 inches and weighing 122 pounds. When one of the First Platoon M.P.'s, Specialist Corey E. Jones, was sent to Mr. Dilawar's cell to give him some water, he said the prisoner spit in his face and started kicking him. Specialist Jones responded, he said, with a couple of knee strikes to the leg of the shackled man.
"He screamed out, 'Allah! Allah! Allah!' and my first reaction was that he was crying out to his god," Specialist Jones said to investigators. "Everybody heard him cry out and thought it was funny."
Other Third Platoon M.P.'s later came by the detention center and stopped at the isolation cells to see for themselves, Specialist Jones said.
It became a kind of running joke, and people kept showing up to give this detainee a common peroneal strike just to hear him scream out 'Allah,' " he said. "It went on over a 24-hour period, and I would think that it was over 100 strikes."As Mr. Dilawar grew desperate, he began crying out more loudly to be released. But even the interpreters had trouble understanding his Pashto dialect; the annoyed guards heard only noise.
"He had constantly been screaming, 'Release me; I don't want to be here,' and things like that," said the one linguist who could decipher his distress, Abdul Ahad Wardak.
The interrogators, Mr. Ahmadzai said, accused Mr. Dilawar of launching the rockets that had hit the American base. He denied that. While kneeling on the ground, he was unable to hold his cuffed hands above his head as instructed, prompting Sergeant Salcedo to slap them back up whenever they began to drop.
"Selena berated him for being weak and questioned him about being a man, which was very insulting because of his heritage," Mr. Ahmadzai said.
When Mr. Dilawar was unable to sit in the chair position against the wall because of his battered legs, the two interrogators grabbed him by the shirt and repeatedly shoved him back against the wall.
"This went on for 10 or 15 minutes," the interpreter said. "He was so tired he couldn't get up."
"They stood him up, and at one point Selena stepped on his bare foot with her boot and grabbed him by his beard and pulled him towards her," he went on. "Once Selena kicked Dilawar in the groin, private areas, with her right foot. She was standing some distance from him, and she stepped back and kicked him.
The session ended, he said, with Sergeant Salcedo instructing the M.P.'s to keep Mr. Dilawar chained to the ceiling until the next shift came on.
The next morning, Mr. Dilawar began yelling again. At around noon, the M.P.'s called over another of the interpreters, Mr. Baerde, to try to quiet Mr. Dilawar down.
"I told him, 'Look, please, if you want to be able to sit down and be released from shackles, you just need to be quiet for one more hour."
"He told me that if he was in shackles another hour, he would die," Mr. Baerde said.
Half an hour later, Mr. Baerde returned to the cell. Mr. Dilawar's hands hung limply from the cuffs, and his head, covered by the black hood, slumped forward.
"He wanted me to get a doctor, and said that he needed 'a shot,' " Mr. Baerde recalled. "He said that he didn't feel good. He said that his legs were hurting."
Mr. Baerde translated Mr. Dilawar's plea to one of the guards. The soldier took the prisoner's hand and pressed down on his fingernails to check his circulation.
"He's O.K.," Mr. Baerde quoted the M.P. as saying. "He's just trying to get out of his restraints."
By the time Mr. Dilawar was brought in for his final interrogation in the first hours of the next day, Dec. 10, he appeared exhausted and was babbling that his wife had died. He also told the interrogators that he had been beaten by the guards.
"But we didn't pursue that," said Mr. Baryalai, the interpreter.
Specialist Walls was again the lead interrogator. But his more aggressive partner, Specialist Claus, quickly took over, Mr. Baryalai said.
"Josh had a rule that the detainee had to look at him, not me," the interpreter told investigators. "He gave him three chances, and then he grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him towards him, across the table, slamming his chest into the table front."
When Mr. Dilawar was unable to kneel, the interpreter said, the interrogators pulled him to his feet and pushed him against the wall. Told to assume a stress position, the prisoner leaned his head against the wall and began to fall asleep.
"It looked to me like Dilawar was trying to cooperate, but he couldn't physically perform the tasks," Mr. Baryalai said.
Finally, Specialist Walls grabbed the prisoner and "shook him harshly," the interpreter said, telling him that if he failed to cooperate, he would be shipped to a prison in the United States, where he would be "treated like a woman, by the other men" and face the wrath of criminals who "would be very angry with anyone involved in the 9/11 attacks." (Specialist Walls was charged last week with assault, maltreatment and failure to obey a lawful order; Specialist Claus was charged with assault, maltreatment and lying to investigators. Each man declined to comment.)
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!"
Staff Sgt. W. Christopher Yonushonis, had questioned Mr. Dilawar earlier and had arranged with Specialist Claus to take over when he was done. Instead, the sergeant arrived at the interrogation room to find a large puddle of water on the floor, a wet spot on Mr. Dilawar's shirt and Specialist Claus standing behind the detainee, twisting up the back of the hood that covered the prisoner's head.
"I had the impression that Josh was actually holding the detainee upright by pulling on the hood," he said. "I was furious at this point because I had seen Josh tighten the hood of another detainee the week before. This behavior seemed completely gratuitous and unrelated to intelligence collection."
"What the hell happened with that water?" Sergeant Yonushonis said he had demanded.
"We had to make sure he stayed hydrated," he said Specialist Claus had responded.
The next morning, Sergeant Yonushonis went to the noncommissioned officer in charge of the interrogators, Sergeant Loring, to report the incident. Mr. Dilawar, however, was already dead.
The findings of Mr. Dilawar's autopsy were succinct. He had had some coronary artery disease, the medical examiner reported, but what caused his heart to fail was "blunt force injuries to the lower extremities."
One of the coroners later translated the assessment at a pre-trial hearing for Specialist Brand, saying the tissue in the young man's legs "had basically been pulpified."
"I've seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus," added Lt. Col. Elizabeth Rouse, the coroner, and a major at that time.
In February, an American military official disclosed that the Afghan guerrilla commander whose men had arrested Mr. Dilawar and his passengers had himself been detained. The commander, Jan Baz Khan, was suspected of attacking Camp Salerno himself and then turning over innocent "suspects" to the Americans in a ploy to win their trust, the military official said.
In late August of last year, shortly before the Army completed its inquiry into the deaths, Sergeant Yonushonis, who was stationed in Germany, went at his own initiative to see an agent of the Criminal Investigation Command. Until then, he had never been interviewed.
"I expected to be contacted at some point by investigators in this case," he said. "I was living a few doors down from the interrogation room, and I had been one of the last to see this detainee alive."
Sergeant Yonushonis described what he had witnessed of the detainee's last interrogation. "I remember being so mad that I had trouble speaking," he said.
He also added a detail that had been overlooked in the investigative file. By the time Mr. Dilawar was taken into his final interrogations, he said, "most of us were convinced that the detainee was innocent."
We're supposed to be the good guys...yet in this situation? We have created monsters who violated everything this country is supposed to be about.
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.
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."
One captain nicknamed members of the Third Platoon "the Testosterone Gang." Several were devout bodybuilders. Upon arriving in Afghanistan, a group of the soldiers decorated their tent with a Confederate flag, one soldier said.
Some of the same M.P.'s took a particular interest in an emotionally disturbed Afghan detainee who was known to eat his feces and mutilate himself with concertina wire. The soldiers kneed the man repeatedly in the legs and, at one point, chained him with his arms straight up in the air, Specialist Callaway told investigators. They also nicknamed him "Timmy," after a disabled child in the animated television series "South Park." One of the guards who beat the prisoner also taught him to screech like the cartoon character, Specialist Callaway said.
Now...how Dilawar ended up in Bagram.... Mr. Dilawar's mother had asked him to gather his three sisters from their nearby villages and bring them home for the holiday. But he needed gas money and decided instead to drive to the provincial capital, Khost, about 45 minutes away, to look for fares.
At a taxi stand there, he found three men headed back toward Yakubi. On the way, they passed a base used by American troops, Camp Salerno, which had been the target of a rocket attack that morning.
The four men were detained and turned over to American soldiers at the base as suspects in the attack. Mr. Dilawar and his passengers spent their first night there handcuffed to a fence, so they would be unable to sleep. When a doctor examined them the next morning, he said later, he found Mr. Dilawar tired and suffering from headaches but otherwise fine.
Mr. Dilawar's three passengers were eventually flown to Guantánamo and held for more than a year before being sent home without charge. In interviews after their release, the men described their treatment at Bagram as far worse than at Guantánamo. While all of them said they had been beaten, they complained most bitterly of being stripped naked in front of female soldiers for showers and medical examinations, which they said included the first of several painful and humiliating rectal exams.
"They did lots and lots of bad things to me," said Abdur Rahim, a 26-year-old baker from Khost. "I was shouting and crying, and no one was listening. When I was shouting, the soldiers were slamming my head against the desk."
Mr. Dilawar was a frail man, standing only 5 feet 9 inches and weighing 122 pounds. When one of the First Platoon M.P.'s, Specialist Corey E. Jones, was sent to Mr. Dilawar's cell to give him some water, he said the prisoner spit in his face and started kicking him. Specialist Jones responded, he said, with a couple of knee strikes to the leg of the shackled man.
"He screamed out, 'Allah! Allah! Allah!' and my first reaction was that he was crying out to his god," Specialist Jones said to investigators. "Everybody heard him cry out and thought it was funny."
Other Third Platoon M.P.'s later came by the detention center and stopped at the isolation cells to see for themselves, Specialist Jones said.
It became a kind of running joke, and people kept showing up to give this detainee a common peroneal strike just to hear him scream out 'Allah,' " he said. "It went on over a 24-hour period, and I would think that it was over 100 strikes."As Mr. Dilawar grew desperate, he began crying out more loudly to be released. But even the interpreters had trouble understanding his Pashto dialect; the annoyed guards heard only noise.
"He had constantly been screaming, 'Release me; I don't want to be here,' and things like that," said the one linguist who could decipher his distress, Abdul Ahad Wardak.
The interrogators, Mr. Ahmadzai said, accused Mr. Dilawar of launching the rockets that had hit the American base. He denied that. While kneeling on the ground, he was unable to hold his cuffed hands above his head as instructed, prompting Sergeant Salcedo to slap them back up whenever they began to drop.
"Selena berated him for being weak and questioned him about being a man, which was very insulting because of his heritage," Mr. Ahmadzai said.
When Mr. Dilawar was unable to sit in the chair position against the wall because of his battered legs, the two interrogators grabbed him by the shirt and repeatedly shoved him back against the wall.
"This went on for 10 or 15 minutes," the interpreter said. "He was so tired he couldn't get up."
"They stood him up, and at one point Selena stepped on his bare foot with her boot and grabbed him by his beard and pulled him towards her," he went on. "Once Selena kicked Dilawar in the groin, private areas, with her right foot. She was standing some distance from him, and she stepped back and kicked him.
The session ended, he said, with Sergeant Salcedo instructing the M.P.'s to keep Mr. Dilawar chained to the ceiling until the next shift came on.
The next morning, Mr. Dilawar began yelling again. At around noon, the M.P.'s called over another of the interpreters, Mr. Baerde, to try to quiet Mr. Dilawar down.
"I told him, 'Look, please, if you want to be able to sit down and be released from shackles, you just need to be quiet for one more hour."
"He told me that if he was in shackles another hour, he would die," Mr. Baerde said.
Half an hour later, Mr. Baerde returned to the cell. Mr. Dilawar's hands hung limply from the cuffs, and his head, covered by the black hood, slumped forward.
"He wanted me to get a doctor, and said that he needed 'a shot,' " Mr. Baerde recalled. "He said that he didn't feel good. He said that his legs were hurting."
Mr. Baerde translated Mr. Dilawar's plea to one of the guards. The soldier took the prisoner's hand and pressed down on his fingernails to check his circulation.
"He's O.K.," Mr. Baerde quoted the M.P. as saying. "He's just trying to get out of his restraints."
By the time Mr. Dilawar was brought in for his final interrogation in the first hours of the next day, Dec. 10, he appeared exhausted and was babbling that his wife had died. He also told the interrogators that he had been beaten by the guards.
"But we didn't pursue that," said Mr. Baryalai, the interpreter.
Specialist Walls was again the lead interrogator. But his more aggressive partner, Specialist Claus, quickly took over, Mr. Baryalai said.
"Josh had a rule that the detainee had to look at him, not me," the interpreter told investigators. "He gave him three chances, and then he grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him towards him, across the table, slamming his chest into the table front."
When Mr. Dilawar was unable to kneel, the interpreter said, the interrogators pulled him to his feet and pushed him against the wall. Told to assume a stress position, the prisoner leaned his head against the wall and began to fall asleep.
"It looked to me like Dilawar was trying to cooperate, but he couldn't physically perform the tasks," Mr. Baryalai said.
Finally, Specialist Walls grabbed the prisoner and "shook him harshly," the interpreter said, telling him that if he failed to cooperate, he would be shipped to a prison in the United States, where he would be "treated like a woman, by the other men" and face the wrath of criminals who "would be very angry with anyone involved in the 9/11 attacks." (Specialist Walls was charged last week with assault, maltreatment and failure to obey a lawful order; Specialist Claus was charged with assault, maltreatment and lying to investigators. Each man declined to comment.)
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!"
Staff Sgt. W. Christopher Yonushonis, had questioned Mr. Dilawar earlier and had arranged with Specialist Claus to take over when he was done. Instead, the sergeant arrived at the interrogation room to find a large puddle of water on the floor, a wet spot on Mr. Dilawar's shirt and Specialist Claus standing behind the detainee, twisting up the back of the hood that covered the prisoner's head.
"I had the impression that Josh was actually holding the detainee upright by pulling on the hood," he said. "I was furious at this point because I had seen Josh tighten the hood of another detainee the week before. This behavior seemed completely gratuitous and unrelated to intelligence collection."
"What the hell happened with that water?" Sergeant Yonushonis said he had demanded.
"We had to make sure he stayed hydrated," he said Specialist Claus had responded.
The next morning, Sergeant Yonushonis went to the noncommissioned officer in charge of the interrogators, Sergeant Loring, to report the incident. Mr. Dilawar, however, was already dead.
The findings of Mr. Dilawar's autopsy were succinct. He had had some coronary artery disease, the medical examiner reported, but what caused his heart to fail was "blunt force injuries to the lower extremities."
One of the coroners later translated the assessment at a pre-trial hearing for Specialist Brand, saying the tissue in the young man's legs "had basically been pulpified."
"I've seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus," added Lt. Col. Elizabeth Rouse, the coroner, and a major at that time.
In February, an American military official disclosed that the Afghan guerrilla commander whose men had arrested Mr. Dilawar and his passengers had himself been detained. The commander, Jan Baz Khan, was suspected of attacking Camp Salerno himself and then turning over innocent "suspects" to the Americans in a ploy to win their trust, the military official said.
In late August of last year, shortly before the Army completed its inquiry into the deaths, Sergeant Yonushonis, who was stationed in Germany, went at his own initiative to see an agent of the Criminal Investigation Command. Until then, he had never been interviewed.
"I expected to be contacted at some point by investigators in this case," he said. "I was living a few doors down from the interrogation room, and I had been one of the last to see this detainee alive."
Sergeant Yonushonis described what he had witnessed of the detainee's last interrogation. "I remember being so mad that I had trouble speaking," he said.
He also added a detail that had been overlooked in the investigative file. By the time Mr. Dilawar was taken into his final interrogations, he said, "most of us were convinced that the detainee was innocent."
We're supposed to be the good guys...yet in this situation? We have created monsters who violated everything this country is supposed to be about.
Pat Tillman was a man not a pawn...
Pat Tillman's parents are angry, and with good reason. Loosing their son was hard enough for them to deal with, but discovering that the Army lied to them and created a false story about how their son died has been devistating for them.
The Washington Post interviewed both of his parents, who are divorced. As I started to read the article, it was obvious the claims the Army has made that they've given the family updates and information is not true. They still have many questions that have not been given answers and the men who killed Pat Tillman nor anyone that covered up the manner of his death been dealt with.
Perhaps it was merely an accident of friendly fire that could not have been avoided, however finding out that they burned his uniform and body armor after they killed him was upsetting. To do that shows that they were trying to cover something up immediately after his death. The idea that not only did his own men shoot him but took off his clothing after he was dead and burned it is shocking. The fact that the Army continued to cover this up and President Bush even made a taped comment about Tillman's bravery is a slap in the face to his parents. I have no way of knowing if President Bush knew Tillman was killed by his own men or nor, however it's obvious the Army knew.
"After it happened, all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this," Patrick Tillman said. "They purposely interfered with the investigation, they covered it up. I think they thought they could control it, and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to go to hell in a handbasket if the truth about his death got out. They blew up their poster boy."
Mary Tillman says the government used her son for weeks after his death, perpetuating an untrue story to capitalize on his altruism -- just as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was erupting publicly. She said she was particularly offended when President Bush offered a taped memorial message to Tillman at a Cardinals football game shortly before the presidential election last fall. She again felt as though her son was being used, something he never would have wanted.
"Maybe lying's not a big deal anymore," he said. "Pat's dead, and this isn't going to bring him back. But these guys should have been held up to scrutiny, right up the chain of command, and no one has."
No, Mr. Tillman lying still is a big deal to some of us, and I am sorry that you not only lost your son but had to go thru this as well, it wasn't necessary and there is no excuse for it......
The Washington Post interviewed both of his parents, who are divorced. As I started to read the article, it was obvious the claims the Army has made that they've given the family updates and information is not true. They still have many questions that have not been given answers and the men who killed Pat Tillman nor anyone that covered up the manner of his death been dealt with.
Perhaps it was merely an accident of friendly fire that could not have been avoided, however finding out that they burned his uniform and body armor after they killed him was upsetting. To do that shows that they were trying to cover something up immediately after his death. The idea that not only did his own men shoot him but took off his clothing after he was dead and burned it is shocking. The fact that the Army continued to cover this up and President Bush even made a taped comment about Tillman's bravery is a slap in the face to his parents. I have no way of knowing if President Bush knew Tillman was killed by his own men or nor, however it's obvious the Army knew.
"After it happened, all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this," Patrick Tillman said. "They purposely interfered with the investigation, they covered it up. I think they thought they could control it, and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to go to hell in a handbasket if the truth about his death got out. They blew up their poster boy."
Mary Tillman says the government used her son for weeks after his death, perpetuating an untrue story to capitalize on his altruism -- just as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was erupting publicly. She said she was particularly offended when President Bush offered a taped memorial message to Tillman at a Cardinals football game shortly before the presidential election last fall. She again felt as though her son was being used, something he never would have wanted.
"Maybe lying's not a big deal anymore," he said. "Pat's dead, and this isn't going to bring him back. But these guys should have been held up to scrutiny, right up the chain of command, and no one has."
No, Mr. Tillman lying still is a big deal to some of us, and I am sorry that you not only lost your son but had to go thru this as well, it wasn't necessary and there is no excuse for it......
Op Ed piece NY Times...It's all Newsweeks fault...
If you haven't read this Op Ed article, I'd highly recommend it. Some selected portions of it for those who are not subscribers to the free online New York Times:
IN the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Fareed Zakaria wrote a 6,791-word cover story for Newsweek titled "Why Do They Hate Us?" Think how much effort he could have saved if he'd waited a few years. As we learned last week, the question of why they hate us can now be answered in just one word: Newsweek.
The administration has been so successful at bullying the news media in order to cover up its own fictions and failings in Iraq that it now believes it can get away with pinning some 17 deaths on an errant single sentence in a 10-sentence Periscope item that few noticed until days after its publication. Coming just as the latest CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll finds that only 41 percent of Americans think the war in Iraq is "worth fighting" and only 42 percent think it's going well, this smells like desperation. In its war on the press, this hubristic administration may finally have crossed a bridge too far.
Let's stipulate flatly that Newsweek made a serious error. For the sake of argument, let's even posit that the many other similar accounts of Koran desecration (with and without toilets) by American interrogators over the past two years are fantasy - even though they've been given credence by the International Committee of the Red Cross and have turned up repeatedly in legal depositions by torture victims and in newspapers as various as The Denver Post and The Financial Times. Let's also ignore the May 1 New York Times report that a former American interrogator at Guantánamo has corroborated a detainee's account of guards tossing Korans into a pile and stepping on them, thereby prompting a hunger strike. Why don't we just go all the way and erase those photographs of female guards sexually humiliating Muslims (among other heinous crimes) at Abu Ghraib?
Given this context, the administration's attempt to pass the entire buck to Newsweek for our ill odor among Muslims, including those Muslims who abhor jihadists committing murder, is laughable. Yet there's something weirdly self-incriminating about the language it uses to do it. Richard Boucher, the State Department spokesman whose previous boss, Colin Powell, delivered a fictional recitation of Saddam Hussein's weapon capabilities before the United Nations Security Council, said it's "shocking" that Newsweek used "facts that have not been substantiated." Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, attacked Newsweek for hiding "behind anonymous sources," yet it was an anonymous source, an Iraqi defector known as Curveball, who fed the fictions that Mr. Powell spouted to gin up America for war. Psychological displacement of this magnitude might give even Freud pause.
The only thing more ridiculous is the spectacle of the White House's various knee-jerk flacks on cable news shoutfests and in the blogosphere characterizing Newsweek as representative of a supposedly anti-American, military-hating "mainstream media." It wasn't long ago that the magazine and the co-author of the Periscope item, Michael Isikoff, were being cheered by the same crowd for their pursuit of Monica Lewinsky and Kathleen Willey.
As for the supposed antimilitary agenda of the so-called mainstream media, the right should look first at itself. In its eagerness to parrot the administration line, it's as ready to sell out the military as any clichéd leftist. For starters, it thought nothing of dismissing the judgment of Gen. Carl Eichenberry, our top commander in Afghanistan, who, according to Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said the riots were "not at all tied to the article in the magazine."
Just since the election, we've witnessed the unmasking of Armstrong Williams and Jeff Gannon. We've learned - thanks to Newsweek's parent publication, The Washington Post - that the Pentagon went so far as to deliberately hide the circumstances of Pat Tillman's friendly-fire death from his own family for weeks, lest the truth mar the P.R. advantages to be reaped from his memorial service. Even as Scott McClellan instructs Newsweek on just what stories it should write to atone for its sins, a professional propagandist sits as chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting: Kenneth Tomlinson, who also runs the board supervising Voice of America and other government-run media outlets. He's been hard at work meddling in the journalism on NPR and PBS.
This steady drip of subterfuge and news manipulation increasingly tells a more compelling story than the old news that Newsweek so egregiously botched.
IN the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Fareed Zakaria wrote a 6,791-word cover story for Newsweek titled "Why Do They Hate Us?" Think how much effort he could have saved if he'd waited a few years. As we learned last week, the question of why they hate us can now be answered in just one word: Newsweek.
The administration has been so successful at bullying the news media in order to cover up its own fictions and failings in Iraq that it now believes it can get away with pinning some 17 deaths on an errant single sentence in a 10-sentence Periscope item that few noticed until days after its publication. Coming just as the latest CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll finds that only 41 percent of Americans think the war in Iraq is "worth fighting" and only 42 percent think it's going well, this smells like desperation. In its war on the press, this hubristic administration may finally have crossed a bridge too far.
Let's stipulate flatly that Newsweek made a serious error. For the sake of argument, let's even posit that the many other similar accounts of Koran desecration (with and without toilets) by American interrogators over the past two years are fantasy - even though they've been given credence by the International Committee of the Red Cross and have turned up repeatedly in legal depositions by torture victims and in newspapers as various as The Denver Post and The Financial Times. Let's also ignore the May 1 New York Times report that a former American interrogator at Guantánamo has corroborated a detainee's account of guards tossing Korans into a pile and stepping on them, thereby prompting a hunger strike. Why don't we just go all the way and erase those photographs of female guards sexually humiliating Muslims (among other heinous crimes) at Abu Ghraib?
Given this context, the administration's attempt to pass the entire buck to Newsweek for our ill odor among Muslims, including those Muslims who abhor jihadists committing murder, is laughable. Yet there's something weirdly self-incriminating about the language it uses to do it. Richard Boucher, the State Department spokesman whose previous boss, Colin Powell, delivered a fictional recitation of Saddam Hussein's weapon capabilities before the United Nations Security Council, said it's "shocking" that Newsweek used "facts that have not been substantiated." Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, attacked Newsweek for hiding "behind anonymous sources," yet it was an anonymous source, an Iraqi defector known as Curveball, who fed the fictions that Mr. Powell spouted to gin up America for war. Psychological displacement of this magnitude might give even Freud pause.
The only thing more ridiculous is the spectacle of the White House's various knee-jerk flacks on cable news shoutfests and in the blogosphere characterizing Newsweek as representative of a supposedly anti-American, military-hating "mainstream media." It wasn't long ago that the magazine and the co-author of the Periscope item, Michael Isikoff, were being cheered by the same crowd for their pursuit of Monica Lewinsky and Kathleen Willey.
As for the supposed antimilitary agenda of the so-called mainstream media, the right should look first at itself. In its eagerness to parrot the administration line, it's as ready to sell out the military as any clichéd leftist. For starters, it thought nothing of dismissing the judgment of Gen. Carl Eichenberry, our top commander in Afghanistan, who, according to Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said the riots were "not at all tied to the article in the magazine."
Just since the election, we've witnessed the unmasking of Armstrong Williams and Jeff Gannon. We've learned - thanks to Newsweek's parent publication, The Washington Post - that the Pentagon went so far as to deliberately hide the circumstances of Pat Tillman's friendly-fire death from his own family for weeks, lest the truth mar the P.R. advantages to be reaped from his memorial service. Even as Scott McClellan instructs Newsweek on just what stories it should write to atone for its sins, a professional propagandist sits as chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting: Kenneth Tomlinson, who also runs the board supervising Voice of America and other government-run media outlets. He's been hard at work meddling in the journalism on NPR and PBS.
This steady drip of subterfuge and news manipulation increasingly tells a more compelling story than the old news that Newsweek so egregiously botched.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Threatening the UN or.....
Yes, we are bullies what are you going to do about it?
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - A U.S. congressional committee has drafted a bill that threatens to withhold tens of millions of dollars in dues from the United Nations unless the world body conducts wide-ranging reforms, possibly setting the stage for a funding battle like the one that plunged the U.N. into financial crisis a decade ago.
We, being the United States of America are the ones who can of course tell you what you are doing wrong and demand you obey or we will cut off funding or basically do whatever we want. If you are a country like Israel, we will protect you, using the veto to stop UN sanctions from being placed on you since 1972. Ironically the first person to cast a veto to prevent Israel from being sanctioned was none other than George Bush, Sr. when he was U.S. ambassador to the UN
The rationale for casting the first veto to protect Israel was explained by Bush at the time as a new policy to combat terrorists. The draft resolution had condemned Israel’s heavy air attacks against Lebanon and Syria, starting Sept. 6, the day after 11 Israeli athletes were killed at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games in an failed Palestinian attempt to grab them as hostages to trade for Palestinians in Israeli prisons. Between 200 and 500 Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed in the Israeli raids.
Bush complained that the resolution had failed to condemn terrorist attacks against Israel, adding: “We are implementing a new policy that is much broader than that of the question of Israel and the Jews. What is involved is the problem of terrorism, a matter that goes right to the heart of our civilized life.”
The all-time record holder of the veto was the administration of Ronald Reagan. The Reagan team used the veto 18 times to protect Israel. A record six of these vetoes were cast in 1982 alone. Nine of the Reagan vetoes resulted directly from Security Council attempts to condemn Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and Israel's refusal to surrender the territory in southern Lebanon. The other nine vetoes shielded Israel from council criticism for acts as the Feb. 4, 1986, skyjacking of a Libyan plane.
Israeli warplanes forced the executive jet to land in Israel, allegedly in an effort to capture Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal. He was not aboard and, after interrogation, the passengers were allowed to leave. The U.S. delegate explained that this act of piracy was excusable "because we believe that the ability to take such action in carefully defined and limited circumstances is an aspect of the inherent right of self-defense recognized in the U.N. Charter."
To be perfectly blunt one of the primary reasons Bin Laden was able to recruit and succeed has been our behavior when it comes to Israel and Palestine. Most of the Middle East sees this as hypocrisisy and it is. We helped sow the seeds for terrorism to continue, of course we are not totally to blame for their choice in a response to this, but to pretend we have not helped create this situation would be totally dishonest. We have demonstrated whether it was our intent or not that we don't care about arabs dying, unless it of course meets our agenda like Iraq. It has been blantantly obvious that the US and Israel can do whatever they want with or without UN support. From the very first Veto in 1972 when 11 Israelis died we basically told the Arab world that the hundreds of Arabs that died were not worth 11 Israelis. That it was acceptable for Israel to kill civilians in retailiation, and this has continued replayed over and over again.
So here we have a Congressional committee that has drafted legislation that will "tell" the UN what it has to do or we will cut tens of millions of dollars of funding. Knowing we are right now in Iraq and went without UN approval. Knowing we have used the veto more in the past 30 years than all other UN Security Council members together. This ego trip that the United States seems to have that we are the "one" causes us the very problems we have in the world. We are seen as a bully, the brat on the street corner that says "Do it my way or I'll take my marbles home".
I'd like to believe the UN would say fine "take your money and shove it" but they won't, which is part of the reason why the UN isn't effective. They are afraid of us. They've let us take control with the exception of the rare display of not supporting the war in Iraq (not that it mattered since we just did it anyway) the UN typically folds. Which in reality makes the whole UN system a farce. It was intended as a modern day League of Nations were everyone had a voice, so perhaps the demise of the UN would not be so bad. If the UN cannot stand up to us and we on the other hand do not respect the UN process, why should we expect anyone else to?
Resources for this article came from the various works of Donald Neff and UN documents.....
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - A U.S. congressional committee has drafted a bill that threatens to withhold tens of millions of dollars in dues from the United Nations unless the world body conducts wide-ranging reforms, possibly setting the stage for a funding battle like the one that plunged the U.N. into financial crisis a decade ago.
We, being the United States of America are the ones who can of course tell you what you are doing wrong and demand you obey or we will cut off funding or basically do whatever we want. If you are a country like Israel, we will protect you, using the veto to stop UN sanctions from being placed on you since 1972. Ironically the first person to cast a veto to prevent Israel from being sanctioned was none other than George Bush, Sr. when he was U.S. ambassador to the UN
The rationale for casting the first veto to protect Israel was explained by Bush at the time as a new policy to combat terrorists. The draft resolution had condemned Israel’s heavy air attacks against Lebanon and Syria, starting Sept. 6, the day after 11 Israeli athletes were killed at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games in an failed Palestinian attempt to grab them as hostages to trade for Palestinians in Israeli prisons. Between 200 and 500 Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed in the Israeli raids.
Bush complained that the resolution had failed to condemn terrorist attacks against Israel, adding: “We are implementing a new policy that is much broader than that of the question of Israel and the Jews. What is involved is the problem of terrorism, a matter that goes right to the heart of our civilized life.”
The all-time record holder of the veto was the administration of Ronald Reagan. The Reagan team used the veto 18 times to protect Israel. A record six of these vetoes were cast in 1982 alone. Nine of the Reagan vetoes resulted directly from Security Council attempts to condemn Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and Israel's refusal to surrender the territory in southern Lebanon. The other nine vetoes shielded Israel from council criticism for acts as the Feb. 4, 1986, skyjacking of a Libyan plane.
Israeli warplanes forced the executive jet to land in Israel, allegedly in an effort to capture Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal. He was not aboard and, after interrogation, the passengers were allowed to leave. The U.S. delegate explained that this act of piracy was excusable "because we believe that the ability to take such action in carefully defined and limited circumstances is an aspect of the inherent right of self-defense recognized in the U.N. Charter."
To be perfectly blunt one of the primary reasons Bin Laden was able to recruit and succeed has been our behavior when it comes to Israel and Palestine. Most of the Middle East sees this as hypocrisisy and it is. We helped sow the seeds for terrorism to continue, of course we are not totally to blame for their choice in a response to this, but to pretend we have not helped create this situation would be totally dishonest. We have demonstrated whether it was our intent or not that we don't care about arabs dying, unless it of course meets our agenda like Iraq. It has been blantantly obvious that the US and Israel can do whatever they want with or without UN support. From the very first Veto in 1972 when 11 Israelis died we basically told the Arab world that the hundreds of Arabs that died were not worth 11 Israelis. That it was acceptable for Israel to kill civilians in retailiation, and this has continued replayed over and over again.
So here we have a Congressional committee that has drafted legislation that will "tell" the UN what it has to do or we will cut tens of millions of dollars of funding. Knowing we are right now in Iraq and went without UN approval. Knowing we have used the veto more in the past 30 years than all other UN Security Council members together. This ego trip that the United States seems to have that we are the "one" causes us the very problems we have in the world. We are seen as a bully, the brat on the street corner that says "Do it my way or I'll take my marbles home".
I'd like to believe the UN would say fine "take your money and shove it" but they won't, which is part of the reason why the UN isn't effective. They are afraid of us. They've let us take control with the exception of the rare display of not supporting the war in Iraq (not that it mattered since we just did it anyway) the UN typically folds. Which in reality makes the whole UN system a farce. It was intended as a modern day League of Nations were everyone had a voice, so perhaps the demise of the UN would not be so bad. If the UN cannot stand up to us and we on the other hand do not respect the UN process, why should we expect anyone else to?
Resources for this article came from the various works of Donald Neff and UN documents.....
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Perils of the two party system...
It's pretty obvious with what is happening in Washington right now some of the major problems with the two party system. Both sides harp about the constitution and our founding fathers, yet in reality, our founding fathers never wanted nor developed our government for the two party system.
America's political system as set up by our Founding Fathers had no political parties or factions. It wasn't that they didn't know about political parties, but that they were unwanted. When looking at the factions of Europe, our Founders didn't like what they saw - political intrigue, conspiracy, and hostile divisions. They were afraid that such a system would rip apart the Union. They hoped that in free elections it would be natural for the best men to rise to the top and be elected to office. That is why before the rise of political parties the man with the most votes was president and the man with the second most was vice-president. We have been sold into believing that there are only two viable parties because it is much easier for those within those two parties to control and hold power.
Look at the steps that have been taken by those two parties to prevent a third party from gaining power both on a federal and in some states, on a state level. This is a purposeful act to prevent having competition. So the choice we are left with is, Republican or Democrat. You are told to vote third party is "just throwing your vote away" and many americans are buying that sell.
The very thing our founding fathers feared, political intrigue, conspiracy, and hostile divisions is happening right now. In addition one party has gained a clear majority of power that was never intended, and was infact one of the main things to be avoided. Money rules the outcome not who is the best man or woman anymore but in the majority of cases it is who has the most financial support. The whole system is designed to permit corporations and organizations to have more power and influence than we do. We have become for the most part a nation of sheep not willing to vote for individuals anymore, limiting our options. We also have sat back and allowed these two parties to take away our freedom of choice when it comes to political candidates.
We seem to have forgotten that we are the real source of power and have forgotten what our founding fathers warned us of.
To quote George Washington in his farwell address:
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown.
....Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
It's too bad so many of us, including those in Washington, don't remember our history or what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they created our government, perhaps it's time we reminded them......
America's political system as set up by our Founding Fathers had no political parties or factions. It wasn't that they didn't know about political parties, but that they were unwanted. When looking at the factions of Europe, our Founders didn't like what they saw - political intrigue, conspiracy, and hostile divisions. They were afraid that such a system would rip apart the Union. They hoped that in free elections it would be natural for the best men to rise to the top and be elected to office. That is why before the rise of political parties the man with the most votes was president and the man with the second most was vice-president. We have been sold into believing that there are only two viable parties because it is much easier for those within those two parties to control and hold power.
Look at the steps that have been taken by those two parties to prevent a third party from gaining power both on a federal and in some states, on a state level. This is a purposeful act to prevent having competition. So the choice we are left with is, Republican or Democrat. You are told to vote third party is "just throwing your vote away" and many americans are buying that sell.
The very thing our founding fathers feared, political intrigue, conspiracy, and hostile divisions is happening right now. In addition one party has gained a clear majority of power that was never intended, and was infact one of the main things to be avoided. Money rules the outcome not who is the best man or woman anymore but in the majority of cases it is who has the most financial support. The whole system is designed to permit corporations and organizations to have more power and influence than we do. We have become for the most part a nation of sheep not willing to vote for individuals anymore, limiting our options. We also have sat back and allowed these two parties to take away our freedom of choice when it comes to political candidates.
We seem to have forgotten that we are the real source of power and have forgotten what our founding fathers warned us of.
To quote George Washington in his farwell address:
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown.
....Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
It's too bad so many of us, including those in Washington, don't remember our history or what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they created our government, perhaps it's time we reminded them......
Friday, May 20, 2005
You've got to be kidding me....
The Sun in London shows pictures of Saddam in his underwear. The US condemns this, saying:
LONDON (AP) - The U.S. military on Friday condemned a British newspaper's decision to print photographs of a captive Saddam Hussein, including one showing him in his underwear.
A front-page picture in the tabloid Sun showed the former Iraqi dictator, clad only in white briefs, folding a pair of trousers. Another on an inside page showed Saddam hand-washing a piece of clothing.
The Sun said it obtained the photos from "U.S. military sources."
A statement by the U.S. military in Baghdad said the photos violated military guidelines "and possibly Geneva Convention guidelines for the humane treatment of detained individuals."
It said the source of the photos was unknown, but they were believed to have been taken more than a year ago. Saddam was captured in December 2003 and remains in custody. He is charged with war crimes, but no date has been set for his trial.
The military said it was "aggressively" investigating to determine who took the pictures.
"We take seriously our responsibility to ensure the safety and security of all detainees," the statement said.
So what does Drudge do? Puts the picture on his front page. Sheesh...now will they go after him too because he's doing the same exact thing the Sun did?
LONDON (AP) - The U.S. military on Friday condemned a British newspaper's decision to print photographs of a captive Saddam Hussein, including one showing him in his underwear.
A front-page picture in the tabloid Sun showed the former Iraqi dictator, clad only in white briefs, folding a pair of trousers. Another on an inside page showed Saddam hand-washing a piece of clothing.
The Sun said it obtained the photos from "U.S. military sources."
A statement by the U.S. military in Baghdad said the photos violated military guidelines "and possibly Geneva Convention guidelines for the humane treatment of detained individuals."
It said the source of the photos was unknown, but they were believed to have been taken more than a year ago. Saddam was captured in December 2003 and remains in custody. He is charged with war crimes, but no date has been set for his trial.
The military said it was "aggressively" investigating to determine who took the pictures.
"We take seriously our responsibility to ensure the safety and security of all detainees," the statement said.
So what does Drudge do? Puts the picture on his front page. Sheesh...now will they go after him too because he's doing the same exact thing the Sun did?
Pentagon admits "mishandling" of Koran
So, after the intial calls to burn Newsweek, the truth starts to come out.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said that the agency received the ICRC reports but that there is no evidence they alone prompted the new policy. Whitman said the Pentagon has acknowledged cases of unintentional mishandling of the Koran, and he predicted yesterday that a new inquiry into such allegations would probably corroborate more cases.
The committee said the U.S. government responded with "corrective measures" in 2003 and the allegations ceased. In late January 2003, the Defense Department spelled out procedures covering the respectful handling of copies of the Koran. The written guidelines say that only Muslim chaplains or Muslim interpreters could touch the Koran, and they offer instructions on how to do it.
Now what to do with this? First off rather than place all the blame on Newsweek and call them irresponsible since it is obvious the Pentagon knew there were accusations of the Koran being mishandled why not some responsiblity for a change? (edited to make it crystal clear my intention)
Most of the detainees that have stated that they personally witnessed the mishandling of the Koran stated it was prior to when the US government made those "corrective measures" from what I've been able to determine.
Some refreshing honesty would have been:
We are aware there was some "unintentional mishandling" of the Koran though not to the extreme that Newsweek reported. Once this was brought to our attention, we instituted strict corrective measures to make sure the Koran was handled appropriately within the standards of the religion of Islam. The United States, respects the practice of religion by all people and strives to ensure that these rights are protected, even for detainees involve in the War on Terror.
A statement like that would still deny responsibility on it being intentional since there is no proof nor will here probably ever be any that can be proven given the environment in which the accusations were made. Had the soldiers at Abu Ghraib not been stupid enough to photograph themselves and what they were doing, that would have been extremely difficult to prove. Yet a statement like that would serve to show that we here in the US do respect the islamic religion, even for suspected terrorists.
Now to Newsweek given this latest revelation from the Red Cross and the Pentagon. Had their reporters done a thorough job, these reports should have surfaced. Did anyone from Newsweek contact the Red Cross trying to source this story? Had they done so, and had they also included the fact that instructions were given to make sure the Koran was treated respectfully there could have been a different outcome as well.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said that the agency received the ICRC reports but that there is no evidence they alone prompted the new policy. Whitman said the Pentagon has acknowledged cases of unintentional mishandling of the Koran, and he predicted yesterday that a new inquiry into such allegations would probably corroborate more cases.
The committee said the U.S. government responded with "corrective measures" in 2003 and the allegations ceased. In late January 2003, the Defense Department spelled out procedures covering the respectful handling of copies of the Koran. The written guidelines say that only Muslim chaplains or Muslim interpreters could touch the Koran, and they offer instructions on how to do it.
Now what to do with this? First off rather than place all the blame on Newsweek and call them irresponsible since it is obvious the Pentagon knew there were accusations of the Koran being mishandled why not some responsiblity for a change? (edited to make it crystal clear my intention)
Most of the detainees that have stated that they personally witnessed the mishandling of the Koran stated it was prior to when the US government made those "corrective measures" from what I've been able to determine.
Some refreshing honesty would have been:
We are aware there was some "unintentional mishandling" of the Koran though not to the extreme that Newsweek reported. Once this was brought to our attention, we instituted strict corrective measures to make sure the Koran was handled appropriately within the standards of the religion of Islam. The United States, respects the practice of religion by all people and strives to ensure that these rights are protected, even for detainees involve in the War on Terror.
A statement like that would still deny responsibility on it being intentional since there is no proof nor will here probably ever be any that can be proven given the environment in which the accusations were made. Had the soldiers at Abu Ghraib not been stupid enough to photograph themselves and what they were doing, that would have been extremely difficult to prove. Yet a statement like that would serve to show that we here in the US do respect the islamic religion, even for suspected terrorists.
Now to Newsweek given this latest revelation from the Red Cross and the Pentagon. Had their reporters done a thorough job, these reports should have surfaced. Did anyone from Newsweek contact the Red Cross trying to source this story? Had they done so, and had they also included the fact that instructions were given to make sure the Koran was treated respectfully there could have been a different outcome as well.
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Bias towards Muslim or forgetting history.....
I've been thinking alot about what has happened with the riots by the muslims recently. One of the most common comments by people has been as an example like Woody wrote as a comment to me:
"Why can’t the Muslim world grow up? There’s no need for a temper tantrum when some little insignificant thing doesn’t go your way boys. The world community needs to stop taking this stuff seriously and start ridiculing protestors like these. They only do it because we take them seriously and if we embarrased them everytime they "act the fool" maybe they would grow up and join the civilised world. "
Now I'm not picking on Woody, just using his comment as an example of what I'm talking about. Let's think about history and riots for a moment. Our own country has a history of riots, some are over some pretty stupid reasons, like sports event outcomes. We also have a history of race riots, which in some ways are comparable to what is happening right now in the Middle East.
Dr. Martin Luther King supported non-violence. He felt that was the key to getting America to change. Time after time during the 1960's we saw Civil Rights workers being attacked, beaten, and even killed. In 1965, Elijah Mohammad published his "Message to the Black Man", in which he encourages Black men to fight back.
Some excerpts from what he wrote on Self Defense:
The so-called Negroes of Birmingham, Alabama would have been justified by the law of justice if they had killed every dog sicked upon them by the hired, tax-paid policemen, for the taxpayers did not hire dogs to police their lives and property.
And if the policemen had fired upon those who defended themselves against the bites of savage dogs that the Police Department trained expressly for the purpose of attacking so-called Negroes, they would have been justified by God and the Divine law of self-defense to fight and defend themselves against such savage dog and human attack.
But as soon as the so-called Negroes turned upon the dogs and policemen with stones, Washington, D.C., ordered the Army to intervene—not to help the so-called Negroes against the White southerners, but to help the White devils against the so-called Negroes if they tried to defend themselves. But as long as the dogs and policemen were biting and clubbing Black so-called Negroes, it was all right.
This clearly shows how much we are in dire need of unity, but the unity must be backed by a power superior to the power of our enemies. This power is in Allah and the Nation of Islam, whose arms are outstretched if we would only accept them.
The lynchers live right next door, down the street, up the alley, yet they are not brought to justice. What sane man can deny that it is now time that you and I take counsel among ourselves to the end of finding justice for ourselves?
When you stand up and speak a word in behalf of your own people, you are classified as a troublemaker, you are classified as a Communist, as a race-hater, as everything but good.
The message I bring is not for the cowards. Those of you who follow me must be ready to withstand the barbs and insults of those who come to investigate, pry, and claim that our ultimate aim is to undermine the American way of life. We have no such intentions and our critics know it.
How ironic it is that the very people who charge us with disturbing the status quo, themselves go around raping, lynching, denying citizens the right to vote and talking in the halls of Congress to call you and me everything from a beast to an amoral entity.
I have no alternative than to tell you that there is not any life beyond the grave. There is no justice in the sweet bye and bye. Immortality is NOW, HERE. We are the blessed of God and we must exert every means to protect ourselves.
"It is imperative to abandon the unconditional non-violent concept expounded by Dr King and adopt the position that for every Martin Luther King who falls, 10 white racists will go down with him. "There is no other way - America understands no other language," said United Black Front chairman Lincoln Lynch in 1968.
There have been hundreds of Race Riots, here in our own country, this one list alone can give you a picture of where we have come from and still are.
In 1776, November 1, a huge crowd marched down Broadway displaying an effigy of Cadwallader Colden, the colony's highly unpopular governor. Members of the crowd took the governor’s coach and added it to the parade; at the end of the route the coach was smashed into kindling and used as part of a great celebratory bonfire on Bowling Green.
The crowd also turned its anger on British artillery commander who had boasted that he would be able to collect the stamp tax, by force of arms if necessary. His house was pulled down by the mob. The combination of threats and violence exerted the desired impact throughout the colonies. We teach this as a part of our early American history, The Stamp Act Riots.....
This is not just unique to the United States either, inciting the anger of Mobs has happened at various times thru history. So while I am not proposing we support the muslim riots over the Koran or anti-american feeling, I am saying let's remember history before we demean their religion. Let's realize that at many times in history the Mob has been used as a political means to a end. For it to stop, the cause of the initial anger and outrage has to be addressed, and I think we all know the original source of the outrage has nothing to do with Newsweek or the Koran.
"Why can’t the Muslim world grow up? There’s no need for a temper tantrum when some little insignificant thing doesn’t go your way boys. The world community needs to stop taking this stuff seriously and start ridiculing protestors like these. They only do it because we take them seriously and if we embarrased them everytime they "act the fool" maybe they would grow up and join the civilised world. "
Now I'm not picking on Woody, just using his comment as an example of what I'm talking about. Let's think about history and riots for a moment. Our own country has a history of riots, some are over some pretty stupid reasons, like sports event outcomes. We also have a history of race riots, which in some ways are comparable to what is happening right now in the Middle East.
Dr. Martin Luther King supported non-violence. He felt that was the key to getting America to change. Time after time during the 1960's we saw Civil Rights workers being attacked, beaten, and even killed. In 1965, Elijah Mohammad published his "Message to the Black Man", in which he encourages Black men to fight back.
Some excerpts from what he wrote on Self Defense:
The so-called Negroes of Birmingham, Alabama would have been justified by the law of justice if they had killed every dog sicked upon them by the hired, tax-paid policemen, for the taxpayers did not hire dogs to police their lives and property.
And if the policemen had fired upon those who defended themselves against the bites of savage dogs that the Police Department trained expressly for the purpose of attacking so-called Negroes, they would have been justified by God and the Divine law of self-defense to fight and defend themselves against such savage dog and human attack.
But as soon as the so-called Negroes turned upon the dogs and policemen with stones, Washington, D.C., ordered the Army to intervene—not to help the so-called Negroes against the White southerners, but to help the White devils against the so-called Negroes if they tried to defend themselves. But as long as the dogs and policemen were biting and clubbing Black so-called Negroes, it was all right.
This clearly shows how much we are in dire need of unity, but the unity must be backed by a power superior to the power of our enemies. This power is in Allah and the Nation of Islam, whose arms are outstretched if we would only accept them.
The lynchers live right next door, down the street, up the alley, yet they are not brought to justice. What sane man can deny that it is now time that you and I take counsel among ourselves to the end of finding justice for ourselves?
When you stand up and speak a word in behalf of your own people, you are classified as a troublemaker, you are classified as a Communist, as a race-hater, as everything but good.
The message I bring is not for the cowards. Those of you who follow me must be ready to withstand the barbs and insults of those who come to investigate, pry, and claim that our ultimate aim is to undermine the American way of life. We have no such intentions and our critics know it.
How ironic it is that the very people who charge us with disturbing the status quo, themselves go around raping, lynching, denying citizens the right to vote and talking in the halls of Congress to call you and me everything from a beast to an amoral entity.
I have no alternative than to tell you that there is not any life beyond the grave. There is no justice in the sweet bye and bye. Immortality is NOW, HERE. We are the blessed of God and we must exert every means to protect ourselves.
"It is imperative to abandon the unconditional non-violent concept expounded by Dr King and adopt the position that for every Martin Luther King who falls, 10 white racists will go down with him. "There is no other way - America understands no other language," said United Black Front chairman Lincoln Lynch in 1968.
There have been hundreds of Race Riots, here in our own country, this one list alone can give you a picture of where we have come from and still are.
In 1776, November 1, a huge crowd marched down Broadway displaying an effigy of Cadwallader Colden, the colony's highly unpopular governor. Members of the crowd took the governor’s coach and added it to the parade; at the end of the route the coach was smashed into kindling and used as part of a great celebratory bonfire on Bowling Green.
The crowd also turned its anger on British artillery commander who had boasted that he would be able to collect the stamp tax, by force of arms if necessary. His house was pulled down by the mob. The combination of threats and violence exerted the desired impact throughout the colonies. We teach this as a part of our early American history, The Stamp Act Riots.....
This is not just unique to the United States either, inciting the anger of Mobs has happened at various times thru history. So while I am not proposing we support the muslim riots over the Koran or anti-american feeling, I am saying let's remember history before we demean their religion. Let's realize that at many times in history the Mob has been used as a political means to a end. For it to stop, the cause of the initial anger and outrage has to be addressed, and I think we all know the original source of the outrage has nothing to do with Newsweek or the Koran.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Adventures with Haloscan and blog updates...
For those of you who are fellow writers of the blog, you'll probably understand what I just put myself thru. Those of you who aren't? I'm sorry if this all seems Greek to you.
I've had trackback envy for a while now but didn't want to switch to Haloscan for comments, so I did some research and found out in theory there was a way to only use trackback for comments without loosing the comments the way I have them. So I signed up, then discovered there is no place in the instructions/codes to get just the script for trackback. After searching the FAQ's and instructions at Haloscan almost gave up. Thankfully, the forum has a thread devoted to just this very issue and after some playing around with the template was able to place it where I wanted.
I added some things to the sidebar, and updated my favorite blogs. Some of you will notice William Rivers Pitt's forum at Truthout was taken out, not because I didn't enjoy Will, but because he's taken a temporary leave from the forum. So when he comes back I'll list him again. Also, Ohio Guy is a new blog listing, for those of you who have wished I'd be more conservative? You'll like his site. I have to admit when I read his blog today and saw he linked my article about Newsweek to compare/contrast with another blog, I was pretty flattered.
But ego back to earth now...before it becomes ginormous...hehehe.... I knew I could use that word....
I've had trackback envy for a while now but didn't want to switch to Haloscan for comments, so I did some research and found out in theory there was a way to only use trackback for comments without loosing the comments the way I have them. So I signed up, then discovered there is no place in the instructions/codes to get just the script for trackback. After searching the FAQ's and instructions at Haloscan almost gave up. Thankfully, the forum has a thread devoted to just this very issue and after some playing around with the template was able to place it where I wanted.
I added some things to the sidebar, and updated my favorite blogs. Some of you will notice William Rivers Pitt's forum at Truthout was taken out, not because I didn't enjoy Will, but because he's taken a temporary leave from the forum. So when he comes back I'll list him again. Also, Ohio Guy is a new blog listing, for those of you who have wished I'd be more conservative? You'll like his site. I have to admit when I read his blog today and saw he linked my article about Newsweek to compare/contrast with another blog, I was pretty flattered.
But ego back to earth now...before it becomes ginormous...hehehe.... I knew I could use that word....
George Galloway Transcript by me....
Okay, I'm not very trusting anymore. I wrote the other day I was becoming more cynical and was told that it was just that I was loosing some of the rose colored tint on my glasses.
I read some of the selected comments the media used to quote George Galloway of saying today. There's no written transcript of his comments yet, however the video is archived thru the Senate website. So I decided I wanted to watch it -- I watched the opening comments and various parts of the other testimony without making notes, about two hours into it George Galloway appears. He's not refusing to answer questions as some of the media reports implies. He is pissed. He didn't appear to help answer questions, he wanted a chance to tell his side of the story.
I haven't transcribed all of his comments yet, but I have heard all of his testimony. Luckily I used to be a secretary or to be "pc" administrative assistant so I think I did a pretty good job in transcribing.
So here was the majority of his opening comments and I think you'll see exactly what he was trying to say.
He starts out stating he denies having any oil sold at all. That the claim made that he had "many" meetings with Saddam was false that he had only two meetings with Saddam in 1994 and 2002 -- pointed out the same numbers of visits Rumsfeld has had with Saddam selling him weapons and giving maps. States his visit in 1994 to try to end Sanctions - 2002 to get Saddam to allow Blix back in "a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam than your own Secretary of State for Defense made of his"
States the accusation that he was an outspoken supporter of Saddam is false. Provided statements back to 1990 where he condemned the Hussein dictatorship. He was an opponent when British and American gov were doing commerce. "I have rather a better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do or any member of the British or American Governments do"
This is where it became obvious the best way to do total justice was to transcribe what he said word for word. I left certain gaps....where something was repeated or not as relevant.
"You have the gall to quote a source without ever having asked me if the allegations from the source was true. That I am quote the owner of a company that has made substantial profits from trading in Iraqi oil. Senator, I do not own any companies beyond a small company whose entire purpose, whose sole purpose is to receive the income from my journalistic earnings from my employer Associated Newspapers in London. I do not own a company that's been trading in Iraqi oil and you had no business to carry a quotation utterly unsubstatiated and false implying otherwise. Now you have nothing on me Senator execept my name on lists of names from Iraq many of which had been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Baghdad. If you had any of the letters against me that you had against Zerofski(sp) and even Paskwa(sp) they would have been up there in your slide show for this committee today. You have my name on lists provided to you by the Daueffer inquiry provided to him by the convicted bank robber and fraudster and conman Achmed Chabali who many people in your country to their credit now realize had a decisive role in leading your country into the disaster in Iraq. There were 270 names on that list orginally that has somehow been filtered down to the names you chose to deal with in this committee. Some of the names on that list included the former secretary to his Holiness Pope John Paul II, the former head of the African National Presidental Conference and many others who had one defining cause in common they all stood against the policy of sanctions and war which you vociferously prosecuted and has led us to this disaster.....If you had any evidence at all that anybody ever gave me any money it would be before the public and before this committee today because I agreed with your Mr. Greenblatt, your Mr Greenblatt was absolutely correct, what counts is not the names on the paper, what counts is where's the money Senator? Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars of money? The answer to that is nobody and if you had any evidence of anybody who ever paid me a penny you would have produced them here today......and while I'm on the subject, who is the former Senior official in Iraq that you talked to yesterday? Don't you think I have a right to know? Don't you think this committee has a right to know who this Senior former regieme official you were quoting against me, interviewed yesterday actually is?
Now the neo-con websites and newspapers where you're such a hero Senator, were all cockahoot about the publications of the Chrisitan Science documents. They were all absolutely convinced of their authenticity. They were all abosultely convinced that these documents showed me receiving ten million dollars from the Saddam Hussein regieme and they were all lies. In the same week the Daily Telegraph published their articles about me the Christian Science Monitor published theirs which turned out to be forgeries and the British Mail on Sunday published a third set of documents which also on forensic examination were found out to be forgeries.....The existance of forged documents implicating me in commerical activities with the Iraqi regieme is documented it's a proven fact. It's a proven fact that these forged documents were being circulated among right wing newspapers in Iraq and around the world in the media in the aftermath of the fall of the Iraqi regieme.
Now Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political lifesblood to try to stop the mass killings of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed a million Iraqis most of them children. Most of them died before they even knew they were Iraqis but they died for no other reason than they were Iraqi with the misfortune of being born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you from committing the disaster that you did committ in invading Iraq and I told the world that your case for going to war was a pack of lies. I told the world that contrary to your claims that Iraq did not have WMD. I told the world contrary to your claims that Iraq had no connection to Al Qaeda. I told the world contrary to your claims that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world contrary to your claims that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end but merely the end of the beginning.
Senator, in everything I said about Iraq I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people have paid with their lives, 1600 of them American Soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies. If the world had listened to Kofi Annan who's dissmissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some type of a corrupt traitor; if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britian we would not be in the disaster we are in today. Senator this is the mother of all smoke screens, you are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraqs wealth. Have a look at the real oil for food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad the first 14 months when 8.8 billion dollars of Iraqs wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and the other American corporations that stole not only Iraqs money but the money of the American Taxpayer. Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter that you were shipping out of the country and selling the proceeds of which who knows went where......Have a look at the real scandal that the real sanction busters were not me or Russian politicians or French Politicians, the real sanction busters were your own companies with the conivance of your own government"
I consider myself a half way decent judge of a person on how they speak, granted George Galloway is a politican, but the undertone of emotion in his voice when he spoke made me feel either this guy is telling what he feels is the truth or he should win an Academy Award. If you want to see and hear this for yourself, Scroll down to Webcast, it plays in Real Player format. As I wrote, it's almost two hours into it when he begins speaking.
I read some of the selected comments the media used to quote George Galloway of saying today. There's no written transcript of his comments yet, however the video is archived thru the Senate website. So I decided I wanted to watch it -- I watched the opening comments and various parts of the other testimony without making notes, about two hours into it George Galloway appears. He's not refusing to answer questions as some of the media reports implies. He is pissed. He didn't appear to help answer questions, he wanted a chance to tell his side of the story.
I haven't transcribed all of his comments yet, but I have heard all of his testimony. Luckily I used to be a secretary or to be "pc" administrative assistant so I think I did a pretty good job in transcribing.
So here was the majority of his opening comments and I think you'll see exactly what he was trying to say.
He starts out stating he denies having any oil sold at all. That the claim made that he had "many" meetings with Saddam was false that he had only two meetings with Saddam in 1994 and 2002 -- pointed out the same numbers of visits Rumsfeld has had with Saddam selling him weapons and giving maps. States his visit in 1994 to try to end Sanctions - 2002 to get Saddam to allow Blix back in "a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam than your own Secretary of State for Defense made of his"
States the accusation that he was an outspoken supporter of Saddam is false. Provided statements back to 1990 where he condemned the Hussein dictatorship. He was an opponent when British and American gov were doing commerce. "I have rather a better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do or any member of the British or American Governments do"
This is where it became obvious the best way to do total justice was to transcribe what he said word for word. I left certain gaps....where something was repeated or not as relevant.
"You have the gall to quote a source without ever having asked me if the allegations from the source was true. That I am quote the owner of a company that has made substantial profits from trading in Iraqi oil. Senator, I do not own any companies beyond a small company whose entire purpose, whose sole purpose is to receive the income from my journalistic earnings from my employer Associated Newspapers in London. I do not own a company that's been trading in Iraqi oil and you had no business to carry a quotation utterly unsubstatiated and false implying otherwise. Now you have nothing on me Senator execept my name on lists of names from Iraq many of which had been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Baghdad. If you had any of the letters against me that you had against Zerofski(sp) and even Paskwa(sp) they would have been up there in your slide show for this committee today. You have my name on lists provided to you by the Daueffer inquiry provided to him by the convicted bank robber and fraudster and conman Achmed Chabali who many people in your country to their credit now realize had a decisive role in leading your country into the disaster in Iraq. There were 270 names on that list orginally that has somehow been filtered down to the names you chose to deal with in this committee. Some of the names on that list included the former secretary to his Holiness Pope John Paul II, the former head of the African National Presidental Conference and many others who had one defining cause in common they all stood against the policy of sanctions and war which you vociferously prosecuted and has led us to this disaster.....If you had any evidence at all that anybody ever gave me any money it would be before the public and before this committee today because I agreed with your Mr. Greenblatt, your Mr Greenblatt was absolutely correct, what counts is not the names on the paper, what counts is where's the money Senator? Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars of money? The answer to that is nobody and if you had any evidence of anybody who ever paid me a penny you would have produced them here today......and while I'm on the subject, who is the former Senior official in Iraq that you talked to yesterday? Don't you think I have a right to know? Don't you think this committee has a right to know who this Senior former regieme official you were quoting against me, interviewed yesterday actually is?
Now the neo-con websites and newspapers where you're such a hero Senator, were all cockahoot about the publications of the Chrisitan Science documents. They were all absolutely convinced of their authenticity. They were all abosultely convinced that these documents showed me receiving ten million dollars from the Saddam Hussein regieme and they were all lies. In the same week the Daily Telegraph published their articles about me the Christian Science Monitor published theirs which turned out to be forgeries and the British Mail on Sunday published a third set of documents which also on forensic examination were found out to be forgeries.....The existance of forged documents implicating me in commerical activities with the Iraqi regieme is documented it's a proven fact. It's a proven fact that these forged documents were being circulated among right wing newspapers in Iraq and around the world in the media in the aftermath of the fall of the Iraqi regieme.
Now Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political lifesblood to try to stop the mass killings of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed a million Iraqis most of them children. Most of them died before they even knew they were Iraqis but they died for no other reason than they were Iraqi with the misfortune of being born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you from committing the disaster that you did committ in invading Iraq and I told the world that your case for going to war was a pack of lies. I told the world that contrary to your claims that Iraq did not have WMD. I told the world contrary to your claims that Iraq had no connection to Al Qaeda. I told the world contrary to your claims that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world contrary to your claims that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end but merely the end of the beginning.
Senator, in everything I said about Iraq I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people have paid with their lives, 1600 of them American Soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies. If the world had listened to Kofi Annan who's dissmissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some type of a corrupt traitor; if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britian we would not be in the disaster we are in today. Senator this is the mother of all smoke screens, you are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraqs wealth. Have a look at the real oil for food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad the first 14 months when 8.8 billion dollars of Iraqs wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and the other American corporations that stole not only Iraqs money but the money of the American Taxpayer. Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter that you were shipping out of the country and selling the proceeds of which who knows went where......Have a look at the real scandal that the real sanction busters were not me or Russian politicians or French Politicians, the real sanction busters were your own companies with the conivance of your own government"
I consider myself a half way decent judge of a person on how they speak, granted George Galloway is a politican, but the undertone of emotion in his voice when he spoke made me feel either this guy is telling what he feels is the truth or he should win an Academy Award. If you want to see and hear this for yourself, Scroll down to Webcast, it plays in Real Player format. As I wrote, it's almost two hours into it when he begins speaking.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Freedom of Speech and the Blog....
As I've gotten this whole "blog" thing down and have started visiting more and more blogs out there I've discovered something I find interesting. I like to leave comments, because I personally enjoy it when you guys comment (hint..hint..I know how many of you read this every day - lol). So if someone makes a really good point, or has a very nice blog I feel it's appropriate to say "good point" or "nice blog".
What I have found though is alot of bloggers don't accept comments from anonymous users, and some don't accept comments unless they have been approved. I read one the other day "To prevent malicious comments your comments must be approved by the blog owner". Now this was a small blog and not even that political more personal in nature. I started wondering....wow now who would make malicious comments here?
I can understand this on some of the larger more heavy duty political blogs. I personally have had to delete a few comments during the whole Terri Schiavo case because I do allow anonymous comments and a few people made silly death threats. So, I deleted them. It is my blog and if someone wants to be a royal jerk and cross the lines of normal decency, bye bye they go. That might sound a bit hypocritical given my belief on free speech, but I don't expect people to always agree with me, just to be halfway civil about it. As I say often, if everybody agreed with me it would be a very boring world, unless I could be some type of superpower dictator of the world, then.....that might be tempting....
One of the local city council members has a blog, however he doesn't allow comments at all, he stated it was due to spam issues, and he was working on resolving it but last time I visited there were still no comments. However, he does reply to email so there is a way to contact him if you have a compliment/comment on something he wrote. I admit I was disappointed because when I first heard he had a blog I thought "Wow, he really wants to hear an exchange of ideas about what we think". Granted he's never not responded to an email, but it's not quite the same thing as seeing what other residents of our area are thinking as well.
To me, one of the primary reasons for doing this is to share with you what I think, or what I've found out there on the net that I think is interesting and to hear what you think. I have developed some pretty awesome email friendships from the blog so I get feedback from some that way, especially MFWSHAB, but my feeling is I want to make it as easy on you as possible for you to comment if you want to. While I wouldn't be happy if a whole bunch of you wrote "Lisa you suck" nor am I looking for an ego boost; to me hearing what others think about points made is part of the whole blogging fun. However, if you do comment, I might comment back, years of message board training - lol.
In fact I will relate to you in all honesty when I first started doing this I didn't think hardly anyone was reading this, because I'm such a comment happy person and I had no comments - lol. Then I added the site stat thing and was amazed at how many of you take the time to visit me. Now granted one of the main reasons I do this is for me so if there were only two or three of you out there I'd still write. While I'd love to be as popular as Brew's Robot-Invasion is, I'm happy with my little niche in the Blogosphere. I'm still new at this and to be honest again, I'd be afraid if I got too large I would start focusing on how many of you were here and how to entertain you rather than just being me.
Freedom of speech to me is important, and one of the reasons why the blog has grown because alot of us out there have quite a bit to say about all kinds of topics. I'm starting to learn, anyone can blog but to be a real blogger takes time, and I thank all of you who stop by to see me grow into that real blogger.
What I have found though is alot of bloggers don't accept comments from anonymous users, and some don't accept comments unless they have been approved. I read one the other day "To prevent malicious comments your comments must be approved by the blog owner". Now this was a small blog and not even that political more personal in nature. I started wondering....wow now who would make malicious comments here?
I can understand this on some of the larger more heavy duty political blogs. I personally have had to delete a few comments during the whole Terri Schiavo case because I do allow anonymous comments and a few people made silly death threats. So, I deleted them. It is my blog and if someone wants to be a royal jerk and cross the lines of normal decency, bye bye they go. That might sound a bit hypocritical given my belief on free speech, but I don't expect people to always agree with me, just to be halfway civil about it. As I say often, if everybody agreed with me it would be a very boring world, unless I could be some type of superpower dictator of the world, then.....that might be tempting....
One of the local city council members has a blog, however he doesn't allow comments at all, he stated it was due to spam issues, and he was working on resolving it but last time I visited there were still no comments. However, he does reply to email so there is a way to contact him if you have a compliment/comment on something he wrote. I admit I was disappointed because when I first heard he had a blog I thought "Wow, he really wants to hear an exchange of ideas about what we think". Granted he's never not responded to an email, but it's not quite the same thing as seeing what other residents of our area are thinking as well.
To me, one of the primary reasons for doing this is to share with you what I think, or what I've found out there on the net that I think is interesting and to hear what you think. I have developed some pretty awesome email friendships from the blog so I get feedback from some that way, especially MFWSHAB, but my feeling is I want to make it as easy on you as possible for you to comment if you want to. While I wouldn't be happy if a whole bunch of you wrote "Lisa you suck" nor am I looking for an ego boost; to me hearing what others think about points made is part of the whole blogging fun. However, if you do comment, I might comment back, years of message board training - lol.
In fact I will relate to you in all honesty when I first started doing this I didn't think hardly anyone was reading this, because I'm such a comment happy person and I had no comments - lol. Then I added the site stat thing and was amazed at how many of you take the time to visit me. Now granted one of the main reasons I do this is for me so if there were only two or three of you out there I'd still write. While I'd love to be as popular as Brew's Robot-Invasion is, I'm happy with my little niche in the Blogosphere. I'm still new at this and to be honest again, I'd be afraid if I got too large I would start focusing on how many of you were here and how to entertain you rather than just being me.
Freedom of speech to me is important, and one of the reasons why the blog has grown because alot of us out there have quite a bit to say about all kinds of topics. I'm starting to learn, anyone can blog but to be a real blogger takes time, and I thank all of you who stop by to see me grow into that real blogger.
Monday, May 16, 2005
Newsweek fiasco....give me a break....
Newsweek puts a small blurb in about the Quran being used as part of the mind games US soldiers played on the prisoners of Guantánamo. Other news sources have covered this but from reports from prisoners. We of course, being American don't believe the prisoners.....So Newsweek gets the information from one of those (cue datadah music) "Unnamed sources" who happens to be an American unnamed source. Now, do they just run with the article without confirmation? Nope.
In addition, the reporters, Michael Isikoff, a veteran investigative reporter, and John Barry, a national security correspondent, showed a draft of the article to the source and to a senior Pentagon official asking if it was correct. The source corrected one aspect of the article, which focused on the Southern Command's internal report on prisoner abuse.
"But he was silent about the rest of the item," Newsweek reported. "The official had not meant to mislead, but lacked detailed knowledge of the SouthCom report."
So, neither the source nor the Pentagon says "WAIT, this isn't true", so then Newsweek publishes it and all of a sudden there are uprisings, protests, demands from other countries that this be investigated and punished.
Gee big surprise that the US government is denying it happened? They claim their logs only show this:
At his news conference, General Myers said that military investigators at Guantánamo were searching their interrogation logs to find the case cited in the Newsweek article.
"They have looked through the logs, the interrogation logs, and they cannot confirm yet that there were ever the case of the toilet incident, except for one case, a log entry, which they still have to confirm, where a detainee was reported by a guard to be ripping pages out of a Koran and putting in the toilet to stop it up as a protest," he said. "But not where the U.S. did it."
Of course....a muslim would do that....What planet do they think we live on? The planet Bullshit?
I don't know which is stupider, Newsweek not realizing this would be a big deal, or our Government thinking we'd be dumb enough to believe them. The source at the Pentagon that saw this and didn't correct it? Blame him also, as he has more responsibility than Newsweek, Newsweek went to him for confirmation and by not correcting them, he gave it to them with his silence. If he thought it wasn't true he knew they were going to publish it....Look at how the cover-up still continues on Abu Ghraib, unless some type of photographic or video evidence comes out they will deny, deny, deny.
While we're at it, let's look at some other articles written last week as well on this very same issue. From the Guardian, two British detainees:
The Guardian has learned that some of the British detainees released from Guantánamo Bay have reported that they were sexually abused. There is no way to independently verify these details.
According to a source, who has interviewed them in secret since their release, they were initially too ashamed to talk about it, and are only now starting to give details. The source said: "They are embarrassed about talking about it because they feel humiliated. We have had an account that their religion was used against them, that a copy of the Koran was brought in front of them and pages torn out."
Liberty Post provides an article from the New York Times that states among other things:
Mr. al-Mutairi said there were three major hunger strikes in his more than three years of imprisonment at Guantánamo. He said that after one of them, a protest of guards' handling of copies of the Koran, which had been tossed into a pile and stepped on, a senior officer delivered an apology over the camp's loudspeaker system, pledging that such abuses would stop. Interpreters, standing outside each prison block, translated the officer's apology.
BBC reports:
In an interview last week with the BBC's Haroon Rashid, Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost, an Afghan prisoner recently released from the Cuban detention centre, said a number of Arab prisoners had still not spoken to their investigators after three years to protest at the desecration of the Koran by guards.
So let's all rally round and burn Newsweek because it was obviously only them reporting this "error".
In addition, the reporters, Michael Isikoff, a veteran investigative reporter, and John Barry, a national security correspondent, showed a draft of the article to the source and to a senior Pentagon official asking if it was correct. The source corrected one aspect of the article, which focused on the Southern Command's internal report on prisoner abuse.
"But he was silent about the rest of the item," Newsweek reported. "The official had not meant to mislead, but lacked detailed knowledge of the SouthCom report."
So, neither the source nor the Pentagon says "WAIT, this isn't true", so then Newsweek publishes it and all of a sudden there are uprisings, protests, demands from other countries that this be investigated and punished.
Gee big surprise that the US government is denying it happened? They claim their logs only show this:
At his news conference, General Myers said that military investigators at Guantánamo were searching their interrogation logs to find the case cited in the Newsweek article.
"They have looked through the logs, the interrogation logs, and they cannot confirm yet that there were ever the case of the toilet incident, except for one case, a log entry, which they still have to confirm, where a detainee was reported by a guard to be ripping pages out of a Koran and putting in the toilet to stop it up as a protest," he said. "But not where the U.S. did it."
Of course....a muslim would do that....What planet do they think we live on? The planet Bullshit?
I don't know which is stupider, Newsweek not realizing this would be a big deal, or our Government thinking we'd be dumb enough to believe them. The source at the Pentagon that saw this and didn't correct it? Blame him also, as he has more responsibility than Newsweek, Newsweek went to him for confirmation and by not correcting them, he gave it to them with his silence. If he thought it wasn't true he knew they were going to publish it....Look at how the cover-up still continues on Abu Ghraib, unless some type of photographic or video evidence comes out they will deny, deny, deny.
While we're at it, let's look at some other articles written last week as well on this very same issue. From the Guardian, two British detainees:
The Guardian has learned that some of the British detainees released from Guantánamo Bay have reported that they were sexually abused. There is no way to independently verify these details.
According to a source, who has interviewed them in secret since their release, they were initially too ashamed to talk about it, and are only now starting to give details. The source said: "They are embarrassed about talking about it because they feel humiliated. We have had an account that their religion was used against them, that a copy of the Koran was brought in front of them and pages torn out."
Liberty Post provides an article from the New York Times that states among other things:
Mr. al-Mutairi said there were three major hunger strikes in his more than three years of imprisonment at Guantánamo. He said that after one of them, a protest of guards' handling of copies of the Koran, which had been tossed into a pile and stepped on, a senior officer delivered an apology over the camp's loudspeaker system, pledging that such abuses would stop. Interpreters, standing outside each prison block, translated the officer's apology.
BBC reports:
In an interview last week with the BBC's Haroon Rashid, Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost, an Afghan prisoner recently released from the Cuban detention centre, said a number of Arab prisoners had still not spoken to their investigators after three years to protest at the desecration of the Koran by guards.
So let's all rally round and burn Newsweek because it was obviously only them reporting this "error".
Do you have a clean mind?
A florida teacher was recently fired after being placed on suspension for giving her students the following quiz:
Keep Your Mind Clean
Review critical thinking, connotation, denotation, and prefix & suffix clues, insinuation, and allusion.
Oral Instructions: this is a test to challenge your critical thinking. There are NO BAD WORDS. These are common words, used everyday. Listen for the clues. Do not yell out answers.
1. What is a four-letter word that ends in “k” and means the same as intercourse?
2. What is it that a cow has four of and a woman has only two of?
3. What can you find in a man’s pants that is about six inches long, has a head on it, and that women love so much that they often blow it?
4. What word starts with “F” and ends with “u-c-k”?
5. Name five words that are each four letters long, end in “u-n-t” one of which is a word for a woman?
6. What does a dog do that you can step into?
7. What four letter word begins with “F” and ends with “k,” and if you can’t get one you can use your hands?
8. What is hard, six inches long, has two nuts, and can make a girl fat?
9. What four-letter word ends in “i-t” and is found on the bottom of birdcages?
10. What is it that all men have one of; it’s longer on some men than on others; the pope doesn’t use his; and a man gives it to his wife after they’re married?
Here are the same questions, this time with the verbal clues the teacher said she gave, which some dispute to see if that makes a difference for you.
1. What is a four letter word that ends in k and means the same as intercourse? Hint: You do it all the time, especially when you shouldn’t, except when your parents ask what you did in school.
2. What is it that a cow has four of and a woman (or man) has only two of. Hint: It’s what makes them outstanding in their field.
3. What can you find in a man’s pants pocket that is about six inches long, has a head on it, and people love so much they often blow it. Hint: woman usually put theirs in a purse.
4. What compound word starts w/ F and ends w/uck? Hint: you always envision red.
5. Name five words, in alphabetical order, that each contain four letters, and end in u-n-t. Hint: one is the name for a female relative.
6. What does a dog do that you step into every morning? Hint: There was a time a female was restricted from this.
7. What four letter word begins w/ F and end with K and if you can’t get one, you use your hands? Hint: Think Medevial Times
8. What is hard, unless left in the heat, six inches long (in 3” increments) has two nuts, and has been said to make you fat? Hint: Think of your favorite assignment this year.
9. What four letter word begins w/ G and is found on the bottom of a birdcage? Hint: sandpaper
10.What is it that all men have one of, it’s longer on some men than on others, the pope doesn’t use his, and a woman takes it from him when they are married. Hint: Sometimes it is hyphenated if the woman wants her old one.
Okay now to see how clean you kept your minds....the answers....
1. talk
2. legs
3. a twenty dollar bill
4. firetruck
5. bunt, hunt, runt, punt, aunt
6. pants
7. fork
8. Almond Joy candy bar
9. grit
10. last name
There is some debate on whether she gave additional verbal clues, and she was at one time given the Teacher of the Year award. If the students really thought about it and followed the instructions, it would have been a good example in using creative writing skills and a similar quiz has been around since the 1960's.
FORT PIERCE — A one-time school Teacher of the Year was fired Tuesday after a year-long personnel battle with the St. Lucie County school district over an inappropriate quiz she gave high school freshmen.
Kim Littrell was fired more than one year after she gave a group of low-level Fort Pierce Westwood High School freshmen a 10-question quiz with "inappropriate" material in a creative writing class.
An administrative law judge, after a Division of Administrative Hearings process, found the content inappropriate and recommended her termination. The School Board unanimously approved the action Tuesday.
"The content of the assignment was inappropriate," Susan Ranew, top personnel official, said. "We have to consider the welfare of all students."
Littrell, who had been on unpaid suspension until Tuesday, said she used the exercise to convey critical thinking in a class designed to boost standardized test scores.
So think they were wrong? I do, especially if the verbal hints were given as she and several students have stated.
Keep Your Mind Clean
Review critical thinking, connotation, denotation, and prefix & suffix clues, insinuation, and allusion.
Oral Instructions: this is a test to challenge your critical thinking. There are NO BAD WORDS. These are common words, used everyday. Listen for the clues. Do not yell out answers.
1. What is a four-letter word that ends in “k” and means the same as intercourse?
2. What is it that a cow has four of and a woman has only two of?
3. What can you find in a man’s pants that is about six inches long, has a head on it, and that women love so much that they often blow it?
4. What word starts with “F” and ends with “u-c-k”?
5. Name five words that are each four letters long, end in “u-n-t” one of which is a word for a woman?
6. What does a dog do that you can step into?
7. What four letter word begins with “F” and ends with “k,” and if you can’t get one you can use your hands?
8. What is hard, six inches long, has two nuts, and can make a girl fat?
9. What four-letter word ends in “i-t” and is found on the bottom of birdcages?
10. What is it that all men have one of; it’s longer on some men than on others; the pope doesn’t use his; and a man gives it to his wife after they’re married?
Here are the same questions, this time with the verbal clues the teacher said she gave, which some dispute to see if that makes a difference for you.
1. What is a four letter word that ends in k and means the same as intercourse? Hint: You do it all the time, especially when you shouldn’t, except when your parents ask what you did in school.
2. What is it that a cow has four of and a woman (or man) has only two of. Hint: It’s what makes them outstanding in their field.
3. What can you find in a man’s pants pocket that is about six inches long, has a head on it, and people love so much they often blow it. Hint: woman usually put theirs in a purse.
4. What compound word starts w/ F and ends w/uck? Hint: you always envision red.
5. Name five words, in alphabetical order, that each contain four letters, and end in u-n-t. Hint: one is the name for a female relative.
6. What does a dog do that you step into every morning? Hint: There was a time a female was restricted from this.
7. What four letter word begins w/ F and end with K and if you can’t get one, you use your hands? Hint: Think Medevial Times
8. What is hard, unless left in the heat, six inches long (in 3” increments) has two nuts, and has been said to make you fat? Hint: Think of your favorite assignment this year.
9. What four letter word begins w/ G and is found on the bottom of a birdcage? Hint: sandpaper
10.What is it that all men have one of, it’s longer on some men than on others, the pope doesn’t use his, and a woman takes it from him when they are married. Hint: Sometimes it is hyphenated if the woman wants her old one.
Okay now to see how clean you kept your minds....the answers....
1. talk
2. legs
3. a twenty dollar bill
4. firetruck
5. bunt, hunt, runt, punt, aunt
6. pants
7. fork
8. Almond Joy candy bar
9. grit
10. last name
There is some debate on whether she gave additional verbal clues, and she was at one time given the Teacher of the Year award. If the students really thought about it and followed the instructions, it would have been a good example in using creative writing skills and a similar quiz has been around since the 1960's.
FORT PIERCE — A one-time school Teacher of the Year was fired Tuesday after a year-long personnel battle with the St. Lucie County school district over an inappropriate quiz she gave high school freshmen.
Kim Littrell was fired more than one year after she gave a group of low-level Fort Pierce Westwood High School freshmen a 10-question quiz with "inappropriate" material in a creative writing class.
An administrative law judge, after a Division of Administrative Hearings process, found the content inappropriate and recommended her termination. The School Board unanimously approved the action Tuesday.
"The content of the assignment was inappropriate," Susan Ranew, top personnel official, said. "We have to consider the welfare of all students."
Littrell, who had been on unpaid suspension until Tuesday, said she used the exercise to convey critical thinking in a class designed to boost standardized test scores.
So think they were wrong? I do, especially if the verbal hints were given as she and several students have stated.