Most Americans were shocked by the sadistic treatment of Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison. But we shouldn't have been. Not only are inmates at prisons in the U.S. frequently subjected to similarly grotesque treatment, but Congress passed a law in 1996 to ensure that in most cases they were barred from receiving any financial compensation for the abuse.
We routinely treat prisoners in the United States like animals. We brutalize and degrade them, both men and women. And we have a lousy record when it comes to protecting well-behaved, weak and mentally ill prisoners from the predators surrounding them.
Very few Americans have raised their voices in opposition to our shameful prison policies. And I'm convinced that's primarily because the inmates are viewed as less than human.
An urgent investigation has been launched in Washington into whether Iran played a role in manipulating the US into the Iraq war by passing on bogus intelligence through Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, it emerged yesterday.
Some intelligence officials now believe that Iran used the hawks in the Pentagon and the White House to get rid of a hostile neighbour, and pave the way for a Shia-ruled Iraq.
According to a US intelligence official, the CIA has hard evidence that Mr Chalabi and his intelligence chief, Aras Karim Habib, passed US secrets to Tehran, and that Mr Habib has been a paid Iranian agent for several years, involved in passing intelligence in both directions.
List of Detainee Death Inquiries Expanded to 37: The Pentagon's higher figure for Iraq and Afghanistan includes at least eight unresolved homicide cases that may have involved assaults. Michael Moore's 'Fahrenheit 9/11' Wins Top Honor at Cannes Film Festival Closing in on Tenet: The Senate may deliver a harsh assesment of the CIA directorLieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, head of coalition forces in Iraq, issued an order last October giving military intelligence control over almost every aspect of prison conditions at Abu Ghraib with the explicit aim of manipulating the detainees' "emotions and weaknesses", it was reported yesterday.
Reporters Subpoenaed in CIA LeakAnother big stack of pages is causing concern over at the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is investigating abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. Committee aides discovered belatedly that their copy of the 6,000-page report on prison abuses produced by Major General Antonio M. Taguba might not be complete. The copy they got after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's testimony on May 7 was a thick document with 106 annexes, and it was quickly arranged into separate binders. Only later did the committee stack up all the pages, compare them with a ream of 6,000 blank pages and decide that at least 2,000 pages were missing.
Panic on the HillBAGHDAD, Iraq - Fragments of musical instruments, tufts of women's hair, and a large blood stain are among the scenes in Associated Press Television News film of a destroyed house that survivors say U.S. planes bombed during a wedding party.
Continuing the Cover-Up? Military Takes Action Against Key Witness in Abu Ghraib Abuse ScandalWhat's going on is a reassessment of Bush's leadership. It's not the first time. Before the terrorist attacks, Bush was widely seen as lacking, a genial caretaker with no agenda beyond cutting taxes, a likely one-termer. After 9/11, voters saw him in a different light, and Bush's handlers have worked hard to prop up the man to match the myth. "Now they're re-evaluating the re-evaluation," says a Republican strategist. "People, particularly women, are reassessing, and what looked resolute and decisive now looks wrongheaded."
Russia's support for Kyoto delights and baffles One incident. Forty dead. Two stories. What really happened? New Details of Prison Abuse Emerge: Abu Ghraib Detainees' Statements Describe Sexual Humiliation And Savage Beatings Bev Harris: Diebold Plans To Eliminate EvidenceMay 21, 2004 -- A witness who told ABCNEWS he believed the military was covering up the extent of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison was today stripped of his security clearance and told he may face prosecution because his comments were "not in the national interest."
The other prisonersIn this case, there is more than sufficient evidence pointing to the culpability of those at the top. But at the same time, the Pentagon is putting out the word that it was "only a few bad apples," six low-level soldiers who have already been charged, with no one else involved. This just stinks of cover-up. Damned if I think these six low-level soldiers should be hung out there to take the blame for a set of explicitly written and signed policies made by people wearing expensive suits, getting paid big bucks and bearing some of the highest titles in the land.
You can read all the memos and documents for yourself. It's important to know how fascism starts.
Microsoft Cuts Worker Benefits to Save $80 Million a YearThe scandal at Abu Ghraib prison was first exposed not by a digital photograph but by a letter. In December 2003, a woman prisoner inside the jail west of Baghdad managed to smuggle out a note. Its contents were so shocking that, at first, Amal Kadham Swadi and the other Iraqi women lawyers who had been trying to gain access to the US jail found them hard to believe.
The note claimed that US guards had been raping women detainees, who were, and are, in a small minority at Abu Ghraib. Several of the women were now pregnant, it added. The women had been forced to strip naked in front of men, it said. The note urged the Iraqi resistance to bomb the jail to spare the women further shame.
Late last year, Swadi, one of seven female lawyers now representing women detainees in Abu Ghraib, began to piece together a picture of systemic abuse and torture perpetrated by US guards against Iraqi women held in detention without charge. This was not only true of Abu Ghraib, she discovered, but was, as she put it, "happening all across Iraq".
In November last year, Swadi visited a woman detainee at a US military base at al-Kharkh, a former police compound in Baghdad. "She was the only woman who would talk about her case. She was crying. She told us she had been raped," Swadi says. "Several American soldiers had raped her. She had tried to fight them off and they had hurt her arm. She showed us the stitches. She told us, 'We have daughters and husbands. For God's sake don't tell anyone about this.'"
[...]
Earlier this month it emerged that an Iraqi woman in her 70s had been harnessed and ridden like a donkey at Abu Ghraib and another coalition detention centre after being arrested last July. Labour MP Ann Clwyd, who investigated the case and found it to be true, said, "She was held for about six weeks without charge. During that time she was insulted and told she was a donkey."
In Iraq, the existence of photographs of women detainees being abused has provoked revulsion and outrage, but little surprise. Some of the women involved may since have disappeared, according to human rights activists. Professor Huda Shaker al-Nuaimi, a political scientist at Baghdad University who is researching the subject for Amnesty International, says she thinks "Noor" is now dead. "We believe she was raped and that she was pregnant by a US guard. After her release from Abu Ghraib, I went to her house. The neighbours said her family had moved away. I believe she has been killed."
[...]
As we arrived at the cellblock, the women shouted to us through the bars. An Iraqi journalist tried to talk to them; a female US soldier interrupted and pushed him away. The windows of the women's cells have been boarded up; birds nest in the outside drainpipe. Captain Dave Quantock, now in charge of prisoner detention at Abu Ghraib, confirmed that the women prisoners are in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. They have no entertainment; they do have a Koran.
[...]
Like other Iraqi prisoners, all five are classified as "security detainees" - a term invented by the Bush administration to justify the indefinite detention of prisoners without charge or legal access, as part of the war on terror. US military officials will only say that they are suspected of "anti-coalition activities".
[...]
According to Swadi, who managed to visit Abu Ghraib in late March, the allegations against the women are "absurd". "One of them is supposed to be the mistress of the former director of the Mukhabarat. In fact, she's a widow who used to own a small shop. She also worked as a taxi driver, ferrying children to and from kindergarten. If she really had a relationship with the director of the Mukhabarat, she would scarcely be running a kiosk. These are baseless charges," she adds angrily. "She is the only person who can provide for her children."
The women appear to have been arrested in violation of international law - not because of anything they have done, but merely because of who they are married to, and their potential intelligence value. US officials have previously acknowledged detaining Iraqi women in the hope of convincing male relatives to provide information; when US soldiers raid a house and fail to find a male suspect, they will frequently take away his wife or daughter instead.
Nevada Nuclear Tests Might ResumeREDMOND, Wash. (AP) - Microsoft Corp. is reducing prescription drug benefits and employee stock discounts to save at least $80 million a year, workers have been told.
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Microsoft also has more than $50 billion in cash reserves.
UN human rights expert voices 'horror' at Israeli action in Gaza SPECIAL REPORT: Wanted in Africa, Needed in IraqNew projects planned for the Nevada Test Site are raising concern that nuclear bomb testing may resume there. Local and national military watchdogs say all indications are that President Bush, if re-elected, would begin testing some types of nuclear weapons before the end of the decade at the NTS, located about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas and upwind of Utah. "You put all the pieces of the puzzle together," said Steve Erickson, director of the local Citizens Education Project, "and it leads to the conclusion that yes, we may very well be on the road to a resumption of nuclear testing."
Those concerns had Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, trying to amend the annual Defense Authorization Act this week to require clear permission from Congress before such testing could resume. The GOP-controlled Rules Committee blocked consideration of it. "If this country is going to resume the testing of nuclear weapons, the people's representatives - the U.S. Congress - should be involved," Matheson complained Wednesday in a speech to the full House.
In Iraq, key US ally falls from grace Has India Won or Lost? Israel's Gaza security dilemma Ostrich Roams Besieged Gaza Camp from Broken ZooPARIS, May 20 (IPS) - Arms dealer Viktor Bout was the merchant of death wanted for feeding conflicts in Africa - until Iraq happened.
Today the United States and Britain are using his extensive mercenary services in Iraq. The condemnation of his role in the diamond wars and other conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa over the past ten years is being silently erased.
US troops in Iraq kill more than 40 in air strike, Chalabi HQ raided American troops raid Chalabi's home; Iraqis say U.S. airstrike hit wedding party US insists it attacked fighters, not wedding party Coalition under fire in Iraq for wedding strike, new prisoner abuse photos US under fire for 'wedding party massacre' U.S. Raids Iraqi National Congress; Chalabi Cuts Coalition Ties U.S. Troops, Police Raid Chalabi's Home, HQ in Iraq Iraqis Blame U.S. for Wedding Attack, Despite Denial U.S. Soldiers Raid Chalabi's Home in Iraq Onetime U.S. ally Chalabi's home, offices raided: Sweep said tied to alleged theft of millions of dollars by associates Ahmed Chalabi's failed coup: The U.S. raids his home and headquarters in Iraq to foil his plot. Palestinians Sent Children Into War Zone 'Without Batting An Eye' UN security council condemns Israel, US refrains from votingRAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Palestinian boys chased a limping ostrich through a Gaza refugee camp Thursday after an Israeli raid spelled disaster for a zoo that was a rare amusement spot for local children.
The Israeli army, which uprooted over 1,000 Rafah residents by demolishing homes in a hunt for Palestinian militants, denied flattening the zoo and suggested its creatures had escaped because they were not being cared for.
The UN security council said yesterday in a resolution the US refrained from voting to condemn Israel over killing the Palestinian civilians in Rafah area and called on Israel to stop demolishing the houses of the Palestinian in Gaza.
The US refrained from voting for the draft resolution which was supported by 14 of the 15 UN security council members, following Algeria which represents the Arab group at the UN security council. Diplomats said that the tone of the final resolutions script was modified to avoid the US using the Veto.
Revealed: the shocking environmental cost of west's love of shrimp Sudan off U.S. 'non-cooperating' list"April is the cruelest month." Here we are; May 1st, just a little over a year ago on the bridge of an aircraft carrier close to the California coast, George W. Bush, dressed up as an aviator declared: "Mission Accomplished." One year later, the famous opening of T.S. Eliot's Wasteland applies. The month of April just past has been the cruelest of a "selected presidency" (to use Susan Sontag's expression) that owes its election more to the Supreme Court than to voters.
While he was governor of Texas, Bush, according to Richard A. Clarke in his best-seller Against All Enemies, declared: "God wants me to be President." Guided by the Almighty from the Highest Heavens, Bush has recently confirmed his Messianism by asserting that he does not obey his father, former president George H. W. Bush, but the Most High: God in person.
Annan strongly condemns killing of Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza Security Council calls on Israel to stop demolition of Palestinian homes Special Rapporteur on Occupied Territories "horrified" at Israeli action in Gaza UK set to support sanctions on arms dealer To the President from a Father: Shame on UsWASHINGTON (CNN) -- Despite concerns over its government's involvement in an aid crisis, the United States Tuesday removed Sudan from its list of countries that are not cooperating in the war on terror.
Children among 20 dead as Israeli army begins huge crackdown on Rafah Bush declines to condemn Israeli attack on Palestinian demonstrators, urges 'restraint'One of those "flaming liberals" for which Massachusetts is famous asked me, "Why are people not taking to the streets every day protesting the Iraq war like we did in the '60s?" As I thought about it, the answer is simple. The Iraq war is not being fought, for the most part, by the children of the affluent or even affluent-hopefuls. And that is because it's not being fought by the conscripted.
Israeli Attack on Gaza Protest Kills at Least 12: Palestinian Demonstrators Struck by Tank, Helicopter FirePresident Bush on Wednesday declined to condemn the deadly attack on Palestinian demonstrators by Israeli military forces, saying he wanted to get "clarification" of the incident from Israeli officials.
The president urged Palestinians and Israel for "restraint," as the White House and the U.S. ambassador asked Israel for an explanation for the attack, which killed at least 10 Palestinians, all children and teens.
"I continue to urge restraint," Bush told reporters following a Cabinet meeting in the Roosevelt Room. "It is essential that people respect innocent life in order for us to achieve peace."
Israel's military acknowledged that soldiers fired four tank shells, a missile and machine guns to stop 3,000 Palestinian demonstrators it said were heading toward a battle zone in the Gaza Strip. The demonstrators in Rafah, Gaza Strip, were protesting against the Israeli invasion of a neighboring refugee camp.
Bush pointedly refused to criticize the attack.
"We'll get clarification from the government," Bush said more than five hours after the attack. "I haven't had a chance to speak to the government."
[...]
Associated Press Television News footage showed a large explosion going off in a crowd of demonstrators, followed by Palestinians carrying the wounded -- including children and teenagers -- from the smoky scene.
10 Palestinians killed in IDF missile strike on Rafah protestOn Tuesday, in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Bush called the violence in the Gaza Strip "troubling" while also emphasizing to the nation's pro-Israel lobby that the Jewish state "has every right to defend itself from terror."
In Rafah, demonstrators protesting Israeli operations Wednesday were marching toward the Tel Sultan neighborhood, which has been sealed off by soldiers who have established a cordon about one half mile from the entrance to the neighborhood.
As they marched along the main street here, a group of demonstrators got within about 800 feet of the cordon, with some in the front throwing rocks towards an Israeli tank, witnesses said.
At that point, the tank opened fire on an electrical pylon above the crowd, hitting some of the Palestinians with shrapnel. Then the tank and an Israeli assault helicopter fired at the crowd itself, witnesses said.
Kahmis Shaer, who was in the protesting crowd, said everyone was in a state of shock. "I saw a guy with his head chopped off and another with his arm off and another hit in the stomach."
Witnesses said that while the crowd was shouting slogans, they heard no warning before the tank opened fire.
A dozen or more ambulances came screaming down the main street, picking up the victims and racing back to the nearby hospital, already overflowing with the wounded from Tuesday's battles.
Rafah missile strike prompts widespread condemnationAt least 10 Palestinians were killed and dozens were wounded Wednesday afternoon when Israel Defense Forces helicopter gunships and tanks fired missiles and shells at a crowd of protestors in Rafah refugee camp, in the southern Gaza Strip.
The IDF said in a statement that it had not targeted the crowd; military sources one of the tank shells either passed through a nearby abandoned building or went off course and hit the demonstrators.
Palestinian witnesses said most of those killed were school children, The witnesses also said that four missiles were fired from the air.
At least sixty people, including many women and children, were wounded in the incident, witnesses said. The incident brings the day's death toll in the area to 15.
For Rafah residents, the worries are all too familiarU.S. President George Bush on Wednesday urged "restraint" by Israel and Palestinians, but declined to condemn the Israel Defense Forces Rafah attack in which ten Palestinian protesters were killed and dozens were injured. Bush said he had not yet spoken to Israeli leaders.
[...]
MK Mohammed Barakeh (Hadash) termed the Rafah missile strike a "massacre" and called for international intervention.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon should face an international tribunal, MK Azmi Bishara (Balad) said, adding that they should be forced to explain their actions.
MK Ahmed Tibi (Hadash) said that the defense minister, chief of staff and the pilot who fired the missiles should all be put on trial. Tibi got so upset at the news of the events in Rafah, he had to be examined by the Knesset resident doctor.
MK Yuli Tamir (Labor) said that the operation in Rafah should be halted immediately, before it turns into another Lebanon.
Meretz MK Ran Cohen called on the IDF to stop the killing and get out of Rafah.
Fellow Meretz MK, Roman Bronfman said that the army does not discern between protesters and terrorists.
Another Meretz MK, Avshalom Vilan, said the order to fire on the protesters was illegal, while fellow party member Zahava Gal-On said the soldiers should have refused to carry out the order.
[...]
British Prime Minister Tony Blair called the Rafah operation "unacceptable and wrong" while Moscow slammed what it called a "disproportionate use of force."
New Gaza plan may include wrecking settler homes Israeli Forces Kill 10 Protesters in GazaRAFAH - In every Israel Defense Forces invasion of a Palestinian city, the population has a similar daily schedule of difficulty and anxiety. Here is a partial list:
1. The sounds are first. People wake up to the sound of bullets and explosions, trying to figure out where they are coming from - whether from the air or from the ground - and where to hide.
Yesterday at 1 A.M., the first sounds of shooting in Rafah came from the Egyptian border, and the shriek of the first shells was in the area of the Yibneh camp. Sirens indicated that there had been injuries. It turned out that the injured were three armed men trying to lay explosives and five civilians, including two women. Another armed man was killed when an explosive device that he was preparing blew up in his hands.
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) - Israeli forces fired a missile and four tank shells to hold back a large crowd of Palestinian demonstrators Wednesday, and shrapnel from the blasts killed at least 10 Palestinian children and teenagers and wounded 50 people, hospital officials said. [...]Amnesty: Israel guilty of war crimes in Rafah home demolitionsEven before Wednesday's strike, the offensive drew international condemnation. The Bush administration said it was ``very concerned'' about Wednesday's incident and asked Israel for an explanation.
``We continue to follow this closely. We urge all parties to exercise maximum restraint,'' White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair condemned the Gaza offensive as ``unacceptable and wrong,'' while Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero criticized Israel's tactics and urged a new commitment to the U.S.-backed ``road map'' peace plan.
[...]Associated Press Television News footage showed the crowd marching along a wide street when an explosion went off in their midst, sending white smoke into the air.
The wounded were evacuated by ambulance, private cars and donkey carts to the Rafah hospital. The hospital stairs and floors were drenched in blood as doctors shouted for help and blood donations. Hospital staff treated the wounded on the floors after quickly running out of beds.
Dr. Moawiya Hassanain, a senior Palestinian Health Ministry official, said 23 of the wounded were in critical condition and another 13 in ``hopeless'' condition. All the dead and most of the wounded were younger than 18, he said.
[...]
Physicians for Human Rights Israel said ambulances trying to take some of the critically wounded from Rafah to nearby Khan Younis, which has a larger hospital, were delayed at Israeli military checkpoints. The ambulances eventually were permitted to pass but were forced to take dirt roads.
[...]
The massive invasion - the largest in the Gaza Strip in years - came less than a week after Palestinian militants killed 13 soldiers, including seven in the Rafah area.
Four people, including an unarmed 14-year-old boy, were killed in the neighborhood Wednesday before the protest. A day earlier, 20 Palestinians were killed in fighting. Palestinians said most of the casualties were civilians.
Israeli troops also stormed houses in Tel Sultan, confining tens of thousands of residents to houses without electricity or water.
The invasion knocked out power in the Rafah refugee camp, home to an estimated 90,000 people, local Palestinian officials said. By Wednesday, they said, there was no water service.
Palestinians accused the army of intentionally knocking out power to the camp, an accusation the army dismissed as ``ludicrous.'' Army officials said they had restored power overnight and were working to resolve Wednesday's disruptions as well.
``There is no humanitarian crisis and we are not nearing the point where there could be a humanitarian crisis,'' said Lt. Col. Grisha Yakobowits, the army's humanitarian coordinator in the area.
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The United Nations and European Union have demanded a halt to the invasion.
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Ali Bayomi, a 55-year-old resident of Rafah, said soldiers arrested two of his cousins and were using them as human shields while searching homes. A military spokesman had no information on the incident, but said army rules prohibit the use of human shields.
At least 20 Palestinians dead in Gaza military operationThe human rights group Amnesty International charged Tuesday that Israel is guilty of war crimes and grave breaches of the Geneva Convention in its destruction of large numbers of Palestinian homes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the course of the Palestinian uprising.
[...]
The Amnesty report said that Israel has demolished more than 3,000 homes during the current three-year conflict with the Palestinians, most of them in the Gaza Strip.
The report also found that 10 percent of Gaza's agricultural land has been destroyed and more than 226,000 trees uprooted there in 2002 and 2003.
The release said the demolition and destruction are "grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention and are war crimes," calling on Israel to halt the practices immediately. Amnesty also said the house demolitions are linked to Israeli intentions to take over West Bank and Gaza land.
Texas rejects advice to halt execution of mentally ill killer Israel shrugs off international critics Israel demolishes rights along with homes Officer Says Army Tried to Curb Red Cross Visits to Prison in IraqLast week, more than 100 homes were destroyed in Rafah, and 1,064 Palestinians were left homeless, according to the U.N. agency that oversees aid to Palestinian refugees.
At least six of the 20 Palestinians killed Tuesday were civilians, including a 13-year-old boy and his 16-year-old sister who had gone to the roof of their apartment building to retrieve laundry, said Ali Moussa, an official at Rafah's Abu Youssef al Najar Hospital. At least 26 were wounded, he said. No Israelis were reported dead.
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President Bush called the violence in Gaza "troubling," but in a speech on Tuesday to an influential pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington, he said Israel had a right to security.
"The Israeli people have always had enemies at their borders and terrorists close at hand," Bush told 4,500 delegates at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. "Israel is a democracy and a friend and has every right to defend itself from terror."
Mentally ill inmate put to death after Perry declines request for stay: Decision goes against parole board recommendation Bush rebuffs calls to tap emergency oil reserves: Group of Democratic senators want to tap the nation's emergency crude oil stocks to help bring down skyrocketing gasoline pricesWASHINGTON, May 18 -- Army officials in Iraq responded late last year to a Red Cross report of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison by trying to curtail the international agency's spot inspections of the prison, a senior Army officer who served in Iraq said Tuesday.
Fund Firefighting: West May be Facing Catastrophic Fire Season The Trafficker Viktor Bout Lands U.S. Aid for Services Rendered in Iraq The Seduction: The shocking story of how AARP backed the Medicare bill Army, CIA want torture truths exposed The Jesus Landing Pad Pentagon Stops Payments to Iraq's Chalabi Amnesty International Criticizes Israel Powell Admits False WMD Claim Incendiary 'Fahrenheit 9/11' Fires Up Crowd at Cannes 'Definitely a Cover-Up': Former Abu Ghraib Intel Staffer Says Army Concealed Involvement in Abuse Scandal Enron Tapes Hint Chiefs Knew About Power PloysBaghdad - U.S. forces beat three Iraqis working for Reuters and subjected them to sexual and religious taunts and humiliation during their detention last January in a military camp near Falluja, the three said on Tuesday.
Memos Reveal War Crimes Warnings MPs attack government's lack of transparency on arms salesWASHINGTON -- Enron Corp. employees spoke of "stealing" up to $2 million a day from California during the 2000-01 energy crisis and suggested that their market-gaming ploys would be presented to top management, possibly including Jeffrey K. Skilling and Kenneth L. Lay, according to documents released Monday.
The evidence of apparent scheming -- in one recorded conversation, traders brag about taking money from "Grandma Millie" in California -- is in a filing by a utility in Snohomish County, Wash. The municipal power unit north of Seattle wants refunds for alleged overcharges made by Enron during the electricity market meltdown.
US opposes Israeli destruction of Palestinian homes, says spokesman Israelis smash into refugee camp Head-to-head: Israel demolitions Israeli demolitions 'a war crime'The government is criticised by MPs today for its lack of transparency on arms exports amid renewed concern that British military equipment had been used in the violation of human rights.
The main criticism by a cross-party parliamentary committee is of a "serious lack of clarity" in the government's dealings with the Indonesian government after it emerged that UK-built weapons were being used repressively against separatist insurgents in the province of Aceh.
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According to the report, Washington is resisting efforts by France to freeze the assets of Victor Bout, once described by Peter Hain, now leader of the Commons, as a "merchant of death" for supplying arms to rebels and government forces in several African conflicts, including Liberia. Last night the Foreign Office said the government continued to support international efforts to end Mr Bout's arms trafficking activities.
Amnesty International has condemned Israel's destruction of Palestinian homes as "war crimes".
In a new report the human rights group accuses Israel of destroying more than 3,000 Palestinian homes in the current three-and-a-half year intifada.
Tens of thousands have been left homeless as the demolition reaches "unprecedented levels", Amnesty says.
Israel Cuts Off Rafah Refugee CampIsrael says the aim of the operations, in which more than 100 homes in the camp have been destroyed since last week and more than 1,000 people left homeless, is to destroy tunnels used by Palestinian militants to smuggle weapons.
But the operations have caused an international outcry, with Amnesty International condemning them as "war crimes" and the United Nations describing them as collective punishment.
PA asks for international intervention over IDF's Rafah raidFrantic residents loaded belongings onto trucks and donkey carts and headed to the neighboring town, also named Rafah. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which helps refugees, set up emergency shelters in schools and pitched a tent camp.
UNWRA estimated it would cost $32 million to re-house the more than 18,000 people who have lost their homes throughout the Gaza Strip.
[...]
Last week, Israeli troops destroyed about 100 houses in the camp, and officials said hundreds more may be torn down. In all, more than 11,000 Palestinians in Rafah -- out of a population of 90,000 -- have been made homeless by Israeli demolitions since the outbreak of fighting in 2000.
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Israel on Monday to stop bulldozing homes in Rafah, saying the demolitions violate international law and inhibit U.N. refugee workers from doing their jobs.
"I am really distressed that the destruction of houses continues," he said.
"Israel is in grave breach of international humanitarian law," said UNWRA Commissioner-General Peter Hansen. "This collective punishment can do nothing to calm the situation in Gaza or enhance Israel's own security."
Israelis sweep through Gaza campThe Palestinian Authority is appealing to the international community to put pressure on Israel to end its massive military operation in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian Negotiations Affairs Minister Saeb Erekat said Tuesday.
U.S. Troops Moving From S. Korea to Iraq How high does it go? The more we find out about what happened at Abu Ghraib, the less it looks like a case of renegade soldiers. Moore's bash on Bush a big Cannes draw Israel kills 10 Palestinians in Gaza raid Deadly Nerve Agent Sarin Is Found in Roadside Bomb: Weapon Probably Not Part of a Stockpile, Experts Say Bomb in Iraq contained sarin agent, military says Nerve gas used for first time against US troopsAt least 19 Palestinians were killed in Rafah camp, including several gunmen and two children hanging out washing.
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Thousands of residents have fled the area, after Israeli army leaders said hundreds of homes would be torn down to widen a patrol road on the border.
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Commentators say it is the biggest armoured operation in the densely populated coastal strip since Israel captured it in the 1967 war.
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The Israeli military destroyed almost 100 houses in the camp last week, leaving 1,100 people homeless, before being stopped by a temporary court injunction.
Amnesty International has launched a campaign to stop Israeli demolition of homes which it says is a war crime.
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The Rafah hospital and local clinics were reported to be unable to cope with the flow of bodies and wounded people. Troops have encircled the camp and cut a road to a larger hospital in Khan Younis.
Wider Abuse Inquiry Sought: Lawmakers call for more investigations to find whether blame for prisoner mistreatment in Iraq goes higher up the chain of command. Gladioli or guns fair game for a sanctions busterBRITAIN had bowed to US pressure to keep the name of a notorious arms trafficker off a list of those subject to planned United Nations sanctions, the Financial Times reported today.
The man is allegedly being used by the US to help supply coalition troops in Iraq.
"London had originally supported moves to freeze Mr (Victor) Bout's assets, but appeared to have reversed its view under pressure from Washington," the newspaper said, citing evidence from several western diplomats.
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In a March resolution, the UN Security Council agreed to freeze the assets of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, now in exile.
The UN sanctions committee also suggested freezing the assets of a number of people linked to the Liberian leader overthrown last year.
The paper quoted a senior western diplomat close to the UN negotiations as saying, "We are disgusted that Bout won't be on the list, even though he is the principal arms dealer in the region. If we want peace in that region (of West Africa), it seems evident that he should be on that list."
UK snubs France over arms trafficker Editorial: A failure of leadership at the highest levels Newsweek Poll: Bad Days for Bush: With news from Iraq becoming ever bleaker, the president's numbers are way down. Still, he hasn't lost ground to John Kerry The War at Home Implausible Denial II White House used unreliable defectorGladioli and guns may seem unlikely commodities for a single company to be dealing in. But in the chaos that erupted in much of sub-Saharan Africa at the end of the cold war, the former Soviet pilot Victor Bout found that both could be lucrative.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mr Bout spent $120,000 on three Antonov cargo aircraft. Based from 1993 at Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, he used the aircraft to transport anything from weapons to the Angolan rebel movement Unita, to South African gladioli that he sold for a profit of 500 per cent in Dubai.
Powell says U.S. will atone for wrongs of prison abuse Powell admits to feeding fake report to UN on IraqWASHINGTON - The Bush administration helped rally public and congressional support for a preemptive invasion of Iraq by publicizing the claims of an Iraqi defector months after he showed deception in a lie detector test and had been rejected as unreliable by U.S. intelligence agencies.
Colin Powell Interview With Russert Is Cut Off The Reliable SourceWASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Colin Powell has admitted that the information he used in his UN Security Council address for justifying invasion of Iraq was false.
The admission, in a dramatic interview to NBC television, has assumed an added importance because of his aide's attempt to cut him off. Mr Powell, however, brushed off his deputy press secretary, Emily Miller, and went on to acknowledge that the CIA and other US agencies had received false information from their sources.
Mr Powell, who was in Jordan during the interview, was heard saying that NBC anchorman Tim Russert was "still asking me questions," to which a woman's voice answered, "No, he's not".
Mr Powell, still off camera, said: "Tim, I'm sorry, I lost you," and added: "Emily, get out of the way." Mr Russert, slightly irate, responded: "I think that was one of your staff, Mr Secretary. I don't think that's appropriate." After a few seconds the camera returned to Mr Powell and he finished the interview.
Mr Powell said the CIA and other US agencies were sometimes deliberately misled about alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the war. The comments represented the first public admission from a senior US official that Washington had fed unchecked and unreliable information to the international community about Saddam Hussein's suspected arsenal of chemical and biological weapons.
"It turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and, in some cases, deliberately misleading," Mr Powell said. "For that I am disappointed, and I regret it."
Reporting Under a Shadow Pentagon: Hersh report 'journalist malpractice' America's gulag Thousands Protest Colombian Paramilitary Presence in Venezuela: Chavez to Set up 'People's Militia' Moore Unveils Controversial 'Fahrenheit 9/11' At Cannes Sarin Nerve Gas Round Found, Partly Detonated in Iraq (Update2)In just six months on the job, Miller, 33, who controls access to Powell, seems to have made more enemies than usual among the reporters who cover the State Department. "Her manner is brusque, abrasive, demeaning," said one, asking to remain anonymous so as not to be frozen out of interviews with Powell. "She's not doing the secretary a service; she's doing him a disservice."
Miller responded: "This is much ado about nothing and overshadows the successful meetings on Mideast peace that the secretary was having. My job was to keep the trains moving so that five interviews could get done."
About six weeks ago, Boucher investigated reporters' complaints about Miller's conduct during a pool-camera shoot. "There were one or two places where she was too aggressive," he acknowledged. "We all make mistakes sometimes."
In 2001 Miller was working as press secretary to then-Majority Whip Tom DeLay when she lashed into Post Magazine writer Peter Perl while he was doing a profile of her boss, screaming: "You lied! . . . You betrayed him! You twisted his words! . . . We don't know you. You don't exist. . . . You are dead to us." A DeLay spokesman told us yesterday, "Tom thinks Emily did a fine job for him."
Related items:
US seeks to protect weapons traffickerThe political split in the US over outsourcing notwithstanding, till very recently the fund-raising and vote-seeking campaign for the Republican Party was done partly out of India. And this was handled by two call centres located in our own friendly neighbourhood in Noida and Gurgaon.
[...]
The target for the team was to get a pledge of $400 per day. Going by conservative estimates, at least funds worth $10 million were committed for President Bush through the BPO centres in India.
Knowledge of Abusive Tactics May Go Higher Atrocities in Iraq: 'I killed innocent people for our government' Senators to Press Scandal: A GOP-controlled panel, feeling slighted by the administration and obliged to look at abuse of prisoners, has no plan to drop the issue soon. US says Islamic state in Iraq is acceptable Magazine Reports That Rumsfeld OKd Interrogation Plan: Pentagon Immediately Issues a Strong Denial of the ChargesThe US is pressing for a notorious arms trafficker allegedly involved in supplying coalition forces in Iraq to be omitted from planned United Nations sanctions, in defiance of French demands.
Washington has UK support in resisting French efforts to freeze the assets of Victor Bout, once described by a UK minister as a "merchant of death" for his role as a leading arms supplier to rebel and government forces in several African conflicts, including Liberia.
Seymour M. Hersh: The Gray ZoneThe house off Salahudeen Street was home to S'ham Abu Libdeh. She lived in it for nearly 40 years, and she raised her seven children there. I spoke to her as she picked her way through the rubble that is now all that is left of her house.
Mrs Abu Libdeh said there was no warning that the bulldozers were coming.
"The Israelis gave us no time," she said. "They were shooting. We ran with nothing."
All she could grab were the children. And as they ran, she held up her headscarf like a white flag.
But it was not until the morning that she knew for sure that she had surrendered her home. When she woke up in the schoolyard where she had slept she was told that her house had been destroyed.
Guantánamo abuse same as Abu Ghraib, say Britons Wolfowitz Draws Democrats' Ire: Hearing on Iraq Spending Request Becomes Attack on Approach to WarIndeed, the single most iconic image to come out of the abuse scandal--that of a hooded man standing naked on a box, arms outspread, with wires dangling from his fingers, toes and penis--may do a lot to undercut the administration's case that this was the work of a few criminal MPs. That's because the practice shown in that photo is an arcane torture method known only to veterans of the interrogation trade. "Was that something that [an MP] dreamed up by herself? Think again," says Darius Rejali, an expert on the use of torture by democracies. "That's a standard torture. It's called 'the Vietnam.' But it's not common knowledge. Ordinary American soldiers did this, but someone taught them."
[...] But a NEWSWEEK investigation shows that, as a means of pre-empting a repeat of 9/11, Bush, along with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft, signed off on a secret system of detention and interrogation that opened the door to such methods. It was an approach that they adopted to sidestep the historical safeguards of the Geneva Conventions, which protect the rights of detainees and prisoners of war. In doing so, they overrode the objections of Secretary of State Colin Powell and America's top military lawyers--and they left underlings to sweat the details of what actually happened to prisoners in these lawless places.
[...] "There was a before-9/11 and an after-9/11," as Cofer Black, the onetime director of the CIA's counterterrorist unit, put it in testimony to Congress in early 2002. "After 9/11 the gloves came off." Many Americans thrilled to the martial rhetoric at the time, and agreed that Al Qaeda could not be fought according to traditional rules. But it is only now that we are learning what, precisely, it meant to take the gloves off.
The story begins in the months after September 11, when a small band of conservative lawyers within the Bush administration staked out a forward-leaning legal position. The attacks by Al Qaeda on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, these lawyers said, had plunged the country into a new kind of war. It was a conflict against a vast, outlaw, international enemy in which the rules of war, international treaties and even the Geneva Conventions did not apply. These positions were laid out in secret legal opinions drafted by lawyers from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, and then endorsed by the Department of Defense and ultimately by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, according to copies of the opinions and other internal legal memos obtained by NEWSWEEK.
[...] By Jan. 25, 2002, according to a memo obtained by NEWSWEEK, it was clear that Bush had already decided that the Geneva Conventions did not apply at all, either to the Taliban or Al Qaeda. In the memo, which was written to Bush by Gonzales, the White House legal counsel told the president that Powell had "requested that you reconsider that decision." Gonzales then laid out startlingly broad arguments that anticipated any objections to the conduct of U.S. soldiers or CIA interrogators in the future. "As you have said, the war against terrorism is a new kind of war," Gonzales wrote to Bush. "The nature of the new war places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians." Gonzales concluded in stark terms: "In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."
Rumsfeld suggests photos of abuse won't be shown: Making surprise trip to Iraq, defense secretary says White House lawyers advising against publicly releasing images; Geneva Convention stricture citedBEIJING - Global warming may cost China two thirds of its glaciers by mid-century, putting 300 million people at risk, state media reports.
The country's glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate, threatening the livelihoods of Chinese dependent on the water they provide, the China Daily said, citing local experts.
U.S.: Systemic Abuse of Afghan PrisonersABU GHRAIB, Iraq -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, making a surprise visit to the Iraqi prison at the center of the abuse scandal, said today that lawyers are advising the Pentagon not to publicly release any more photographs of Iraqi prisoners being treated badly by U.S. soldiers.
Harsh C.I.A. Methods Cited in Top Qaeda Interrogations(London, May 13, 2004) - Mistreatment of prisoners by U.S. military and intelligence personnel in Afghanistan is a systemic problem and not limited to a few isolated cases, Human Rights Watch said today.
[...]
"Afghans have been telling us for well over a year about mistreatment in U.S. custody," said John Sifton, Afghanistan researcher for Human Rights Watch. "We warned U.S. officials repeatedly about these problems in 2003 and 2004. It's time now for the United States to publicize the results of its investigations of abuse, fully prosecute those responsible, and provide access to independent monitors."
In a March report, "Enduring Freedom": Abuses by U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch documented numerous cases of mistreatment of detainees at various detention sites in Afghanistan, including extreme sleep deprivation, exposure to freezing temperatures, and severe beatings. Detainees complained about being stripped of their clothing and photographed while naked. Some of these abusive practices during interrogation were similar to those recently reported in Iraq. Recent media reports have also documented new cases of mistreatment in Afghanistan.
Marjorie Cohn: War CrimesWASHINGTON, May 12 -- The Central Intelligence Agency has used coercive interrogation methods against a select group of high-level leaders and operatives of Al Qaeda that have produced growing concerns inside the agency about abuses, according to current and former counterterrorism officials.
At least one agency employee has been disciplined for threatening a detainee with a gun during questioning, they said.
In the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a high-level detainee who is believed to have helped plan the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, C.I.A. interrogators used graduated levels of force, including a technique known as "water boarding," in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown.
EPA issues rules cutting pollution in construction and farming vehicles and equipmentWASHINGTON - Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday that he and other top officials kept President Bush "fully informed ... in general terms" about complaints made by the Red Cross and others over ill-treatment of detainees in U.S. custody.
Powell's statement suggests Bush may have known earlier than the White House has acknowledged about complaints raised by the International Committee of the Red Cross and human rights groups regarding abuse of detainees in Iraq.
American Beheaded on Web Video: Militants Say Killing Was Revenge for U.S. Abuses at Iraqi PrisonFred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense, called the new requirements for off-road vehicles "a breath of fresh air" and said they will "help protect millions of Americans suffering from asthma and all Americans that are hard hit by pollution from diesel exhaust."
"It's remarkable that these strong rules come from the same administration that has otherwise turned back the clock on 30 years of environmental progress," said Emily Figdor of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a grass-roots environmental advocacy group.
Accounts of Atrocities Emerge from the Rubble of Fallujah Secret World of U.S. Interrogation: Long History of Tactics in Overseas Prisons Is Coming to LightUK Armed Forces in Iraq have shot and killed Iraqi civilians, including an eight-year-old girl and a guest at a wedding celebration, in situations where there was no apparent threat to themselves or others, says a new report from Amnesty International.
In Afghanistan, the CIA's secret U.S. interrogation center in Kabul is known as "The Pit," named for its despairing conditions. In Iraq, the most important prisoners are kept in a huge hangar near the runway at Baghdad International Airport, say U.S. government officials, counterterrorism experts and others. In Qatar, U.S. forces have been ferrying some Iraqi prisoners to a remote jail on the gigantic U.S. air base in the desert.
Top Officials Hold Fake DegreesDuring his appearance before the Congressional committee questioning him about the acts of torture committed by American soldiers in Iraq, Mr. Donald Rumsfeld invokes as his sole excuse regret at failing to anticipate the media fallout from the broadcast pictures. Certainly, the impact of the image is a distortion. In this case, the deeds being condemned are overwhelming. By daring to address such a mediocre response to the members of Congress, the Defense Secretary revealed to the world the face of the team managing Washington, the face of stupidity. One trembles at the thought that so much incompetence should be the work of leaders on whom the fate of the planet has depended for the last four years, leaders who nonetheless have a chance of being reelected by a people still wounded by the shock of September 11. That news is not good, either for peace, or for democracy.
Red Cross Report Describes Abuse in Iraq Prison Abuses In Iraq: A Failure Of Leadership, Not Of Followership Red Cross Was Told Iraq Abuse 'Part of the Process'Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles Abell has a master's from Columbus University, a diploma mill Louisiana shut down. Deputy Assistant Secretary Patricia Walker lists among her degrees, a bachelor's from Pacific Western, a diploma mill banned in Oregon and under investigation in Hawaii.
[...]
But we found employees with diploma mill degrees at the new Transportation Security Administration, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Departments of Treasury and Education, where Rene Drouin sits on an advisory committee. He has degrees from two diploma mills including Kensington University.
Kensington was forced out of business by officials in California and Hawaii. Another Kensington alum, Florida State Rep. Jennifer Carroll, just stepped down from the National Commission on Presidential Scholars.
[...]
"The students are being sold a bill of goods that really don't help them at all," the insider says. "There are slick people out there, and it's happening every day, every minute probably somewhere in America."
Mandela, in Farewell Speech, Slams Iraq WarLONDON - The Red Cross saw U.S. troops keeping Iraqi prisoners naked for days in darkness at the Abu Ghraib jail in October, and was told by the intelligence officer in charge it was "part of the process," a leaked report said on Monday.
The International Committee of the Red Cross also described British troops forcing Iraqi detainees to kneel and stomping on their necks in an incident in which one prisoner died.
The Red Cross said it had repeatedly alerted U.S.-led occupation authorities to practices it described as "serious violations of international humanitarian law" and "in some cases tantamount to torture."
Robert Fisk: Racism & Torture as Entertainment: From Hollywood to Abu Ghraib"We live in a world where there is enough reason for cynicism and despair," said Mandela, a fierce critic of the U.S.-led war on Iraq, told parliament.
"We watch as two of the leading democracies, two leading nations of the free world, get involved in a war that the United Nations did not sanction," Mandela said, adding that the world had been horrified by reports of torture of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. and British forces.
"We see how the powerful countries, all of them so-called democracies, manipulate multilateral bodies to the great disadvantage and suffering of the poorer developing nations."
Wayne Madsen: The Israeli Torture TemplateThe problem is clear. The Afghans really did chop bits off young Englishmen--later historical works would make it quite clear what bits these authors were talking about--just as Iraqis kicked the head off an American mercenary in Fallujah on 30 March this year and hanged his burned remains, along with those of a colleague, from the girder of an old British railway bridge over the Euphrates river. Our enemies are savages. So are we. First we learn to hate our enemies and bestialise them--and then we bellow our wrath and take our revenge when our enemies oblige us by behaving in exactly the way we expect them to. And then we torture them and humiliate them.
The present-day equivalent of Tom Graham VC is Hollywood, with its poisonous, racist portrayal of Arabs and Muslims. True to form, our enemies turned out, on 11 September 2001, to be as terrible as our movies made them out to be. One day, some serious research might be conducted into how far the pilot killers modelled themselves on Hollywood's version of their ruthlessness.
[...] I fear the American torturers in Iraq are creatures of our century. For if you are taught to despise your enemy as inhuman, you will--if you get the chance--cease to be a human yourself.
With mounting evidence that a shadowy group of former Israeli Defense Force and General Security Service (Shin Bet) Arabic-speaking interrogators were hired by the Pentagon under a classified "carve out" sub-contract to brutally interrogate Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, one only needs to examine the record of abuse of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israel to understand what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld meant, when referring to new, yet to be released photos and videos, he said, "if these images are released to the public, obviously its going to make matters worse."
Clues about worse photos and videos of abuse may be found in Israeli files about similar abuse of Palestinian and other Arab prisoners. In March 2000, a lawyer for a Lebanese prisoner kidnapped in 1994 by the Israelis in Lebanon claimed that his client had been subjected to torture, including rape. The type of compensation offered by Rumsfeld in his testimony has its roots in cases of Israeli torture of Arabs. In the case of the Lebanese man, said to have been raped by his Israeli captors, his lawyer demanded compensation of $1.47 million. The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel documented the types of torture meted out on Arab prisoners. Many of the tactics coincide with those contained in the Taguba report: beatings and prolonged periods handcuffed to furniture. In an article in the December 1998 issue of The Progressive, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb reported on the treatment given to a 23-year old Palestinian held on "administrative detention." The prisoner was "cuffed behind a chair 17 hours a day for 120 days . . . [he] had his head covered with a sack, which was often dipped in urine or feces. Guards played loud music right next to his ears and frequently taunted him with threats of physical and sexual violence." If additional photos and videos document such practices, the Bush administration and the American people have, indeed, "seen nothing yet."
Terrorism in its most serious formNEW YORK -- For many opponents of the US occupation of Iraq, the abuses of Iraqi prisoners are symptomatic of what they believe is a wider crime that is not being investigated: the United States' violation of the international laws of war when it invaded and occupied Iraq last year.
Seymour Hersh: Chain of Command Red Cross reported Iraq abuse in February Dissension Grows In Senior Ranks On War Strategy: U.S. May Be Winning Battles in Iraq But Losing the War, Some Officers SayRichard Falk argues that American unilateralism under U.S. President George W. Bush is undermining the framework of global cooperation and is thus harmful to everyone's interests. In his view, America has targeted civilians in its Asian wars and they are victims of state terror. The body count continues to pile up. He laments the tendency to turn a blind eye to what he refers to as "the criminal nature of America's military tactics." He concludes that "the Bush administration's approach is likely to intensify reliance on state terrorism beneath the banner of antiterrorism, while at the same time the administration renounces the traditional American role as the champion of the rule of law and of international institutions as the means to improve the quality of life for all peoples."
A Prison on the Brink: Usual Military Checks and Balances Went Missing Pentagon Approved Tougher Interrogations Which War, and Whose Children?Army Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, who spent much of the year in western Iraq, said he believes that at the tactical level at which fighting occurs, the U.S. military is still winning. But when asked whether he believes the United States is losing, he said, "I think strategically, we are."
CatastropheWhen I hear people claim that they "support the war," the words ring hollow. Unless you or a loved one are prepared to put on the uniform and fight the battle, don't for a moment think that you can send me or my child to do so on your behalf.
British quizzed Iraqis at torture jail Kerry's new problem is Clinton Blair calls for Muslim troops as riots begin Fifty years on, segregation still blights US schools Summer heat will cause deadly ozone We stand in the dock with AmericaThe White House faced its biggest crisis over Iraq last week, but its origins lie in practices that may have been routine. We reveal how the abuse of prisoners began long before the sickening images which have outraged the world appeared
On the BeachesIt is right that the shock delivered by the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison should have been mostly felt on the other side of the Atlantic. The perpetrators of these acts were American and the product of the peculiar alarm and righteousness affecting US society at the moment.
Why torture must lead to defeatAs the 60th anniversary of D-Day approaches, Euan Ferguson visits the Normandy beaches where the course of the war turned. It was a day marked by huge loss of life and a high-risk strategy that, had it failed, would have altered our world irrevocably.
I was influenced by Nelson Mandela, who had seen the horrors of repression in South Africa - he was quick to condemn the terrorism, but he warned that the West must not use the same methods as the terrorists.
But the pressures to legitimise torture were soon mounting. The FBI complained that it could not extract information from terrorists in detention and asked to be allowed tougher methods for interrogation. The military in Israel, which had become adept in interrogation of suspected Palestian terrorists, encouraged Western police to be less squeamish.
An Israeli security official told the New York Times the West might have to use 'other methods' if it was serious about the war against terrorism. The Americans soon became more resigned to 'other methods' after the war in Afghanistan, which could be largely concealed from the public behind the walls at Guantanamo Bay, or in Afghan prisons.
Torture, the CIA and the Press: Who Let the Dogs Out?Denouncing increased official secrecy, Associated Press President and CEO Tom Curley unveiled a plan Friday for a media advocacy center to lobby in Washington for open government.
"The powerful have to be watched, and we are the watchers," Curley said, "and you don't need to have your notebook snatched by a policeman to know that keeping an eye on government activities has lately gotten a lot harder."
Iraq Scandal Opens U.S. to Charges of Double StandardsThis window of moment will not last for long, for even as we examine our policies and policy-makers, US Army snipers are peering out of minarets, picking off civilians on the bloody streets of Fallujah and Najaf, and a dozen other anonymous outposts in Iraq. So while the opportunity presents itself, let's be quick about this, and ask the overarching question: How did we get from 9/11 to Abu Ghoryab?
Gunned Down to Impress America: Pakistanis mourn young migrants murdered in Macedonia's quest to join war on terrorUNITED NATIONS - According to a joke circulating in Washington political circles, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's notorious torture chamber in the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad -- once held up as a symbol of barbarity -- was never shut down.
A signboard outside the prison chamber now reads: "Under New Management". U.S. management, that is.
But Fatima's son wasn't so lucky. When 20-year-old Ijaz set off for Europe early in 2002 he carried the hopes of his family. Ijaz was the second youngest of the widow's nine children. He ended up "collateral damage" in the war on terror, gunned down by police in the Balkan state of Macedonia, who claimed that he and six others killed were terrorists.
Last week Macedonian officials admitted that this was a lie, and that the shooting was a staged murder, part of a clumsy plot to try to impress the US.
"My son, my beautiful son," wailed Fatima, clutching a photograph of Ijaz. "He was a good boy who just wanted to make things better for his family. How could they shoot him down, like a dog? He was a good Muslim, but he had no time for politics." This week in the Macedonian capital, Skopje, warrants were issued for the arrest of the former interior minister, Ljube Boskovski, in relation to the shooting of Ijaz and the six others.
An Illegal and Immoral War: Betrayed by Images of Our Own RacismNo single Pentagon office tracks how many people - Americans, Iraqis or others - are on the department's payroll in Iraq.
10 Prisons; 9,000 Prisoners: US Detention Facilities in IraqFirst, our enemies created the suicide bomber. Now, we have our own digital suicide bomber, the camera. Just look at the way US army reservist Lynndie England holds the leash of the naked, bearded Iraqi. Take a close look at the leather strap, the pain on the prisoner's face. No sadistic movie could outdo the damage of this image. In September 2001, the planes smashed into the buildings; today, Lynndie smashes to pieces our entire morality with just one tug on the leash.
Casualty of War: Four years into an embattled Bush administration, Colin Powell is hard at work at something he's never had to worry about before: salvaging his legacy.Human Rights Watch has repeatedly tried to gain access to U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, but U.S. military officials in Baghdad have denied requests for visitation rights. Human Rights Watch is able to have regular access to prisons and detention centers under Kurdish control in northern Iraq.
Ernest F. Hollings: Why we're in Iraq Red Cross Says Iraq Report Confidential Red Cross Saw 'Widespread Abuse' in Iraq - WSJWhat I didn't expect from Wilkerson was the rest of the picture, a glimpse of the venom with which Powell and his staff have come to regard their adversaries in the Pentagon. But almost as soon as I asked about the relationship between Powell and the neocons, Wilkerson crouched forward in his chair and said, "I make no bones about it. I have some reservations about people who have never been in the face of battle, so to speak, who are making cavalier decisions about sending men and women out to die. A person who comes immediately to mind in that regard is Richard Perle, who, thank God, tendered his resignation and no longer will be even a semiofficial person in this administration. Richard Perle's cavalier remarks about doing this or doing that with regard to military force always, always troubled me. Because it just showed me that he didn't have the appreciation, for example, that Colin Powell has for what it means."
"I call them utopians," he said. "I don't care whether utopians are Vladimir Lenin on a sealed train to Moscow or Paul Wolfowitz. Utopians, I don't like. You're never going to bring utopia, and you're going to hurt a lot of people in the process of trying to do it."
"It's politically incorrect for me to say so," he added, "but when all you use is a stick, you're not going to get very far." He used the example of Pakistan. "The problem is, you sanction Pakistan, you lay all this stuff on Pakistan, the Pressler Amendment, and so forth, and then all of a sudden Pakistan does a nuclear test in '98. But if you stay involved with them and you keep working on them and you keep at it, over and over and over again, keep seeing what's successful and what's a failure and emphasizing what's successful, doing more of it, and quit doing what's a failure, then you can make more progress than if you just sanction somebody and walk off and say, 'That's it, I'm not dealing with you anymore.' "
"It hasn't worked in Cuba for forty years," I said.
"Dumbest policy on the face of the earth," he said. "It's crazy."
Red Cross saw "widespread abuse" in IraqGENEVA - The Red Cross discovered "serious violations" of the rights of Iraqi prisoners, with abuse so widespread it may be considered to have been tolerated by the U.S.-led coalition, the Wall Street Journal said on Friday.
Excerpts from ICRC report on Iraq A Progressive Response to the Nader CampaignGENEVA (Reuters) - Iraqi detainees were subjected to "serious violations", with abuse so widespread it may have been condoned by U.S.-led coalition forces, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says.
Rangel Introduces Impeachment Articles Against RumsfeldIn my view, Kerry vs. Bush is not Coke vs. Pepsi. It's more like Coke vs. Arsenic (quite literally, in the environmental sense). The Bush/Rumsfeld/Ashcroft regime is far more dangerous than the regimes of Nixon/Kissinger/Mitchell or Reagan/Weinberger/Meese.
[...]
Ralph Nader has long set a standard for public integrity: speaking truth to power no matter what the consequences. But in recent months, he's sounding more like a politician, making promises that he must know he can't deliver on -- like his claim that he will help defeat Bush by pulling "more votes away from Bush than the Democrats." And Nader is being ridiculed as just another politician: "Conservatives for Nader," scoffed Comedy Central's Jon Stewart. "Not a large group. About the same size as 'Retarded Death Row Texans for Bush.'"
This election is not about Kerry. Nor Nader. It's about putting Bush out to pasture before he does any more damage.
'US soldiers abused young girl at Iraqi prison'Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), a lead critic of the Bush administration's policy in Iraq, introduced eight articles of impeachment Thursday against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld amid Congressional outrage over the Pentagon's handling of charges of prison abuse by U.S. soldiers.
"I think that this rises to the point that it's a high crime and misdemeanor if he disappointed the president, kept information from the Congress and kept this information from the American people," Rangel said on the House floor.
Fourth Soldier Tells of Iraqi Prisoner 'Abuse'"She was naked and screaming and calling out to him as they beat her" - former Abu Ghraib inmate Suhaib al-Baz
U.S. Faces Lasting Damage Abroad: Moral High Ground Lost, Experts SaySoldier "D" told the paper: "There are no rules out there. I saw the man dragged into the vehicle beaten up, kicked and punched. It lasted about a minute.
"I took the picture as I opened the doors of the vehicle and could see dirt on his shirt and blood on his teeth."
And he claimed soldiers took photos and video footage to look tough and prove to friends what had happened.
He told the Daily Mirror: "You'd come back from Iraq and people wouldn't know what you've been through.
"If you had pictures you could show them. While we were out there we were told to get rid of all of them. But if they'd done a proper search they'd have found CDs and all sorts of things.
"There was one CD going round our room with about 500 shots on it. Some were before and after pictures of beatings."
Behind the demands for Rumsfeld to resign: White House prepares a fallback position to continue Iraq atrocitiesThe United States faces the prospect of a severe and enduring backlash not just in the Middle East but also among strategic allies, putting in question the Bush administration's ability to make serious headway on a range of foreign policy goals for the rest of this presidential term, according to U.S. officials and foreign policy experts.
Paul Krugman: The Oil Crunch TORTURE'S NOT NEW, BUT NOW IT'S NEWS Economist: More big hits coming to chemical industry Workers see puny pay raises: With so many unemployed Americans eager for work, people who do have jobs are reportedly afraid of asking for more money.The calls for Rumsfeld's resignation emanating from the Democratic Party and sections of the media--and privately from a section of congressional Republicans as well--have nothing to do with any genuine outrage over the hideous abuses at Abu Ghraib. Rather it represents the bubbling up of conflicts within the ruling elite--and within the Bush administration itself--over the increasingly obvious failure of the US colonial enterprise in Iraq.
Video Shows Wounded Iraqis Being Shot by US HelicoptersAny "practical" approach to the situation in Iraq, any prescription for what to do now, must start with the understanding that the present US military occupation is morally unacceptable. Amnesty International, a year after the invasion, reported: "Scores of unarmed people have been killed due to excessive or unnecessary use of lethal force by coalition forces during public demonstrations, at checkpoints and in house raids. Thousands of people have been detained [estimates range from 8,500 to 15,000, often under harsh conditions] and subjected to prolonged and often unacknowledged detention. Many have been tortured or ill-treated and some have died in custody." The prospect, if the occupation continues, whether by the United States or by an international force (as John Kerry seems to be proposing), is of continued suffering and death for both Iraqis and Americans.
The history of military occupations of Third World countries is that they bring neither democracy nor security. The laments that "we mustn't cut and run," "we must stay the course," our "reputation" will be imperiled, etc., are exactly what we heard when at the start of the Vietnam escalation some of us called for immediate withdrawal. The result of staying the course was 58,000 Americans and several million Vietnamese dead.
[...]
The one thing to be avoided is for the United States, which destroyed Iraq and caused perhaps a million deaths through two invasions and ten years of sanctions, to play any leading role in the future of that country. In that case, terrorism would surely flourish. It is for the United States to withdraw from Iraq. It is for the international community, particularly the Arab world, to try to reconstruct a nation at peace. That gives the Iraqi people a chance. Continued US occupation gives them no chance.
New Prison Images Emerge: Graphic Photos May Be More Evidence of Abuse Washington Post: Iraqi Prisoners Controversy Washington Post photo gallery Murtha: Iraq 'Unwinnable'The pictures are appalling, the words devastating. As a wounded Iraqi crawls from beneath a burning truck, an American helicopter pilot tells his commander that one of three men has survived his night air attack. "Someone wounded,'' the pilot cries. Then he received the reply: "Hit him, hit the truck and him.'' As the helicopter's gun camera captures the scene on video, the pilot fires a 30mm gun at the wounded man, vaporising him in a second.
British and most European television stations censored the tape off the air last night on the grounds that the pictures were too terrible to show. But deliberately shooting a wounded man is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions and this extraordinary film of US air crews in action over Iraq is likely to create yet another international outcry.
American and British personnel have been trying for weeks to persuade Western television stations to show the video of the attack. Despite the efforts of reports in Baghdad and New York, most television controllers preferred to hide the evidence from viewers. Only Canal Plus in France, ABC television in the United States and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation have so far had the courage to show the shocking footage. UK military personnel in the Gulf region have confirmed that the tape is genuine.
Signaling a new, more aggressive line against the Bush administration's policy on Iraq, Rep. John Murtha (Pa.), the House Democrats' most visible defense hawk, will join Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) today to make public his previously private statements that the conflict is "unwinnable."
May 5 - Top U.S. air polluters are closely tied to Bush fundraising, pollution policymaking processA long-standing taboo in popular local American cable television networks was broken this week. A pro-Palestinian group aired for the first time a number of short, sharp, catchy and extremely moving 15-second advertisements seeking to deliver a simple message to a largely pro-Israeli American public: Palestinians are human beings too.
A Wretched New Picture Of America: Photos From Iraq Prison Show We Are Our Own Worst EnemyAs Rules Are Relaxed, Sulfur Dioxide and Carbon Dioxide Pollution Go Up; Key States Include AL, FL,GA, IN, KS, MI, MN, MO, NM, OH, PA, TN, TX, WV and WI.
The nation's top polluters, as measured in terms of mercury, sulfur dioxide (SO2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, are power plants owned by corporations that are tightly allied with the Bush Administration in terms of both campaign contributions and pollution policymaking, according to a new study from two nonprofit and nonpartisan groups, the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) and Public Citizen. The report finds that sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide pollution both rose from 2002 to 2003, posing higher risks to Americans in terms of asthma attacks, lung ailments, premature death and, in the case of mercury, heightened risk of neurological damage to children.
FAS Project on Government Secrecy Secrecy News: TORTURE REPORT MAY HAVE BROKEN CLASSIFICATION RULES -- ABU GHRAIB AND THE FAILURE OF STRATEGIC INFLUENCE -- CONGRESS PERFORMED CLASSIFICATION POLICY REVIEW (OR NOT) Wages Don't Figure in Rebound: As Profits Soar, Employees Say Good Times Haven't Reached Them Spencer Ackerman: Iraq'dAmong the corrosive lies a nation at war tells itself is that the glory -- the lofty goals announced beforehand, the victories, the liberation of the oppressed -- belongs to the country as a whole; but the failure -- the accidents, the uncounted civilian dead, the crimes and atrocities -- is always exceptional. Noble goals flow naturally from a noble people; the occasional act of barbarity is always the work of individuals, unaccountable, confusing and indigestible to the national conscience.
This kind of thinking was widely in evidence among military and political leaders after the emergence of pictures documenting American abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison. These photographs do not capture the soul of America, they argued. They are aberrant.
This belief, that the photographs are distortions, despite their authenticity, is indistinguishable from propaganda. Tyrants censor; democracies self-censor. Tyrants concoct propaganda in ministries of information; democracies produce it through habits of thought so ingrained that a basic lie of war -- only the good is our doing -- becomes self-propagating.
U.S. Resident Claims Torture by TroopsSORRY FOR WHAT?: No apology? Does the president understand the damage that the torture revelations represent for our national interests? Look at what he said in his ten-minute interviews with Arab TV:
"People in Iraq must understand that I view those practices as abhorrent. They must also understand that what took place in that prison does not represent the America that I know."
They "must understand"? Why? Because President Bush, reviled in the Arab world, says so? What we need to do is to demonstrate that these "practices"--you know, torture--are abhorrent, by opening up all our detention facilities around the world to international human rights inspection. Every passing day is filled with more and more agonizing stories about abuse suffered by Iraqis (and even U.S. residents in Iraq) at the hands of U.S. forces.
David E. Sanger: On the RoadTORONTO, May 4 -- A U.S. resident has alleged in a legal claim that he was tortured by U.S. troops in Iraq in April 2003 while held as a prisoner at Camp Bucca, a U.S. detention center in Umm Qasr.
Hossam Shaltout, 57, charged in the complaint that he was arrested that April outside the Sheraton hotel in Baghdad. He was then handcuffed, and soldiers beat him with their open hands, fists and shoes, according to the pleading, filed with the U.S. Army Claims Office on April 30. The word Canadian was written in black marker on his white shirt, the claim says. Shaltout is described in the filing as an Egyptian-born Canadian citizen with U.S. permanent resident status.
The dirty little secret of President Bush's bus tour is that he didn't spend much time on the bus.
An hour or so on Tuesday was all he logged, though that seemed plenty for the startled residents of some small towns in rural parts of Ohio, who had never seen a motorcade quite like this one. After all, it is not every day you see three buses moving along on back roads, preceded and followed by Chevy Suburbans carrying men with large guns, and helicopters overhead. One woman who was mowing her lawn ran indoors, leaving the lawn mower idling in her yard.
Indians claim they were abused in Iraq's US military campsAs he did in Michigan on Monday, the first leg of a two-day, nearly 300-mile campaign bus tour, Bush acknowledged the despair faced by unemployed workers in Ohio and assured them that the U.S. economy is on an upswing.
[...]
Tuesday's bus tour, about 60 miles through western Ohio, actually includes two airplane flights -- one from Detroit to Toledo and another from Toledo to Dayton. His first two stops -- Maumee and Dayton -- are in counties Al Gore won in 2000. The last two stops -- Lebanon and Cincinnati -- are in counties that Bush won easily.
Exchanging Air Force One for an eight-wheeler emblazoned with the slogan "Yes, America can," is one way to get his face before the voters. Supporters greeted him with campaign signs and stickers on their lapels that said "Viva Bush," but outside the recreation center, a demonstrator waved a sign that read "End the occupation."
Sonali Kolhatkar: How to Stop the War: Demostrate Against John KerryOne man, Hameed, said they were taken to a US military camp in Mosul where they were told that they had been bought to work in the kitchen, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported.
"We were slaves in the American kitchens. We barely got two hours of sleep. Any slip-ups and we were tortured for days," Hameed said.
While Hameed alleged they were often used as shields when Iraqi militia attacked their camp, his brother Shahjahan said they were forced to cook pork despite being Muslim.
Ready or not, it's go for launch Joseph Wilson: The Cult That's Running the CountrySomewhere at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, a public-affairs officer is awaiting his fate. This still-unnamed but totally clueless representative of the Air Force Air Mobility Command apparently never got the memo saying that the Pentagon and White House wanted No Pictures (Got that? No Pictures!) of flag-draped caskets arriving at Dover Air Force Base from Iraq. He didn't quite understand that the American people cannot be trusted with absorbing the consequences of war. Had he just bucked that pesky Freedom of Information Act request one or two more levels up the chain of command, he would not now be contemplating his transfer to ... well, the 732d is in Alaska and the 729th no doubt has a place for him in the Azores.
The poor soul has plenty of company in newsrooms across the country, where red-faced editors are kicking themselves over one Russ Kick, a self-styled "information archeologist" from Tucson, Ariz. Through pluck and luck, Kick pried loose 361 moving Air Force photos that have already become iconic images of the Iraq war. Once again, the Internet, in this case a tiny site called thememoryhole.org, scooped major news organizations.
Shock new details of torture by US troops Warnings of abuse in Iraq's prisons that were ignoredPatrick Graham was the first journalist into Falluja after the US ended its siege of the city on Friday. In this compelling dispatch, he reveals the devastation and the hurt left behind
America's Deep, Dark SecretPhotographs of American and British troops humiliating prisoners could change the public mood across the world. But the coalition has brushed aside similar complaints for six months
Study: Shoppers Deserting SupermarketsOne of the deep, dark secrets of America's past has finally come to light. Starting in the early 1900s, hundreds of thousands of American children were warehoused in institutions by state governments. And the federal government did nothing to stop it.
The justification? The kids had been labeled feeble-minded, and were put away in conditions that can only be described as unspeakable.
Now, a new book, "The State Boys Rebellion," by Michael D'Antonio, reveals even more: A large proportion of the kids who were locked up were not retarded at all. They were simply poor, uneducated kids with no place to go, who ended up in institutions like the Fernald School in Waltham, Mass.
How does the international law community deal with this [the U.S. invasion of Iraq]? That's quite interesting. In fact, if you have the time, I would suggest reading professional journals like The American Journal of International Law. When something like this takes place, the international law professionals have a complicated task. There is a fringe that just tells the truth: Look, it's a violation of international law. But most have to construct complex arguments to justify it as defense counsel. That's basically their job, defense counsel for state power.
They say that the Security Council doesn't have the military force to carry out the will of the community of nations, so therefore it implicitly delegates this to states that do have the force, meaning the United States. And therefore, the U.S., by invading Iraq, under a communitarian interpretation of the Charter, was in actuality fulfilling the will of the international community. It's irrelevant that 90 percent of the world's population and almost all states bitterly condemned it.
This is a large part of the academic profession: to make up complex, subtle arguments that are childishly ridiculous but are enveloped in sufficient profundity that they take on a kind of plausibility. The basic principle is that the losers have to confess, not the victors. When they do it, it's a crime. When we do it, it's not. And more generally, it's the defeated who are tried, not the victors. Every one of these trials, almost without exception, is victors' justice. Sometimes they're legitimate, but that's kind of incidental.
Torture at Abu Ghraib More focus on Cuba embargo than terror trail is questionedWASHINGTON - John Negroponte, the Bush administration's nominee to become Washington's first ambassador to Iraq since last year's invasion, was talking about how much ''sovereignty'' the country's new government will enjoy after Jun. 30, when U.S. military forces will remain in control of security.
Evidence of Iraqi torture presented four months agoA Treasury Department report acknowledging that it has only four employees chasing Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein's money and nearly two dozen chasing Cuba embargo violators brought withering criticism on the federal agency Thursday.
''The magnitude of the discrepancy is just stunning,'' said Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., a member of the bipartisan Cuba Working Group, which favors lifting U.S. restrictions on travel to the island.
''We're chasing old ladies on bicycle trips in Cuba when we should be concentrating on using a significant tool against shadowy terrorist organizations,'' he added.
Lack of training, stress are blamed in abuse of Iraqis Families of the 372nd tormented by stories of POW abuses in Iraq Torture not isolated incidentIn January, as reported by Ekklesia, Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) presented the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq with a dossier of statistical data compiled from seventy-two case studies of the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees, including torture.
"Shocking" Abuse Of Iraqi Prisoners By U.S. Under Spot Anger over US abuse of Iraqi prisoners Arab TV Shows Iraq Abuse Photos Photos of abused Iraqi prisoners on Arab channels Blair appalled at pictures of apparent mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners Blair 'appalled' at PoW photosLondon - The torture of Iraqi prisoners by United States and British soldiers is "not an isolated incident", the human rights organisation Amnesty International (AI) said on Friday.
More agents track Castro than bin Laden"Why should we hear about body bags and deaths," Barbara Bush said on ABC's "Good Morning America" on March 18, 2003. "Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"
WASHINGTON -- The Treasury Department agency entrusted with blocking the financial resources of terrorists has assigned five times as many agents to investigate Cuban embargo violations as it has to track Osama bin Laden's and Saddam Hussein's money, documents show.
Pelosi: 'Administration Must Give an Honest Appraisal Maureen Dowd: Guns and Peanut Butter Court must put brakes on grab for power Dems Ignore Negroponte's Death Squad Past, Look to Confirm Iraq Appointment U.S. Pressures Qatar to Restrain TV Outlet U.S. Airs Critical Views of Arab TV Powell rips Al-Jazeera coverage at US-Qatar dialogue Qatar asked to curb Al Jazeera US Wants Al-Jazeera Held BackIn addition, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says Rice contradicted what the administration has said about the transfer of power at the end of June.
Pelosi says Rice there would be a transfer to "full sovereignty for Iraq." She says Rice resisted using the phrase "limited sovereignty."
Iraqi pipeline attacks go unreportedThe European Union Foreign Ministers said Monday that they would not recognize any changes to the 1967 borders other than that agreed upon by the parties concerned in the Middle East.
The top diplomats stressed that no public statement on final status issues should influence negotiations by imposing pre-set solutions. In recommendations issued on the sidelines of the Public Affairs and Foreign Relations Council, the Ministers underlined that the issue of the Palestinian refugees and right to return, are part of final status negotiations which, according to the roadmap, require a final and comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Death Squad Ambassador: Senate Hearings Begin on Negroponte Iraq Appointment American patriotsInsurgent attacks on Iraq's oil infrastructure, added to the damage caused by U.S. forces during the war last year, are helping to cripple economic and other reconstruction efforts in that strife-torn country, U.S. intelligence officials told United Press International.
The result is that Iraq's oil production, which was projected by the Bush administration to double and be used to pay for the costs of the war, has not served that purpose because exports are down from 2.5 million barrels a day to around 1.5 million barrels a day, according to these sources.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has disputed this. In recent congressional testimony, he declared, "Today Iraqi oil revenues go to the Development Fund for Iraq, where it helps to build new infrastructure and a new future for the Iraqi people."
And he gave the current Iraqi export level as 2.5 million barrels a day, or "pre-war levels."
"Simply not accurate," said Gal Luft, director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and publisher of the online newsletter, Energy Security.
"Iraq's oil exports are not up at pre-war levels because of incessant pipeline attacks."
Lack Of Armor Claims TroopsAmerican patriots should celebrate. Begin organizing the parades. Make sure you display large images of destruction and killing in Fallujah. You may use the caption: "Muslim Fags (or Faggots) take this." You know that your celebrated Top Guns wrote this very phrase on many of the missiles on fighter jets before embarking on bombing missions in Afghanistan during that celebrated war of revenge that was supported by 93 % of Americans.
Secret Service Investigates Teen's Art Project Depicting Bush As DevilA USA Today/ CNN/ Gallup poll released last week indicated that 41 percent of respondents said they thought ''only Bush" would do a good job handling terrorism, while 20 percent said ''only Kerry" would. On the situation in Iraq, 40 percent indicated ''only Bush," while 26 percent indicated Kerry. Those numbers come in one of the most troublesome news cycles for the Bush administration, as the Sept. 11 commission hearings and the rising violence in Iraq have raised questions about Bush's conduct on both issues.
Diplomats blast Blair for "U.S." foreign policyPROSSER, Wash. -- One drawing showed President Bush's head on a stick. Another depicted Bush as a devil launching a missile.
The drawings by a 15-year-old boy in Prosser, Washington, were enough to prompt some questions from the Secret Service.
Agents questioned the teen after being called by police. The boy's art teacher told school officials about the drawings, and they called police.
The boy was not arrested but the school district has taken disciplinary action.
DJ Iraqi Delegation Says US Used Cluster Bombs In FallujahLONDON (Reuters) - A roll-call of former British diplomats has blasted Tony Blair and says it is time for the prime minister to start influencing America's "doomed" policy in the Middle East or stop backing it.
In an unprecedented letter signed by 52 former ambassadors, high commissioners and governors -- the top ranks of British diplomacy -- Blair was urged to sway U.S. policy in the region as "a matter of the highest urgency".
The diplomats, among them former ambassadors to Iraq and Israel, told Blair they had "watched with deepening concern the policies which you have followed on the Arab-Israel problem and Iraq, in close cooperation with the United States.
"We feel the time has come to make our anxieties public, in the hope that they will be addressed in parliament and will lead to a fundamental reassessment," said the letter, sent to Blair on Monday and made available to Reuters.
College Leader 'Disappointed' by CheneyAMMAN (AP)--A spokesman for an Iraqi delegation from the violence-gripped city of Fallujah Monday accused U.S. troops of using internationally banned cluster bombs against the city and said they had asked the U.N. to mediate the conflict.
Mohammed Tareq, a spokesman for the governing council of Fallujah and a member of the four-person delegation, said U.S. military snipers were also responsible for the deaths of many children, women and elderly people.
"In Fallujah, the American troops killed at least 800 people and wounded 1,800," Tareq told reporters. "We want to inform the world about the massacres and the human rights violations by the Americans in our city."
FULTON, Mo. - Westminster College's president said Monday he was so "surprised and disappointed" by Vice President Dick Cheney's attacks on John Kerry during a speech that he is inviting the Democrat to visit for a reply.
Related Items
His hunting partners, as usual, included Charles Pickering Sr., the federal judge who President Bush recently elevated to the U.S. court of appeals, and his son, Rep. Charles "Chip" Pickering Jr., a four-term Republican member of Congress.
Two years ago, as the justice who oversees legal appeals from the deep South, Scalia played a key role in a messy congressional redistricting fight and helped ensure that the younger Pickering held onto his House seat.
Many believe Hussein backed terrorMuch has changed in the year or more since the US began its military action in Iraq. But one thing has changed very little: the beliefs in the American public that just before the war, Saddam Hussein s Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda and had weapons of mass destruction. These beliefs have been evidenced in numerous polls conducted by other organizations, as well as by PIPA/Knowledge Networks.
Most believe Hussein supported al-Qaida, poll finds: Majority in U.S. also think Iraq had or was developing banned weapons.A majority of Americans believes claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorism, a poll shows, but those beliefs are contradicted by the evidence collected so far.
A new poll shows that 57 percent of Americans continue to believe that before the war with Iraq, Saddam Hussein gave ''substantial support'' to al Qaeda terrorists, despite a lack of evidence of that relationship.
In addition, 45 percent of Americans have the impression that ''clear evidence'' was found that Iraq worked closely with Osama bin Laden's network, and a majority believe that before the war Iraq either had weapons of mass destruction (38 percent) or a major program for developing them (22 percent).
WASHINGTON -- A new poll shows that 57 percent of Americans continue to believe that Saddam Hussein gave "substantial support" to al-Qaida terrorists before the war with Iraq, despite a lack of evidence of that relationship.
In addition, 45 percent of Americans have the impression that "clear evidence" was found that Iraq worked closely with Osama bin Laden's network. And a majority believe that before the war Iraq either had weapons of mass destruction (38 percent) or a major program for developing them (22 percent).
There's no known evidence to date that these statements are true.
Related Items:
In Unreliable Sources, authors Martin Lee and Norman Solomon noted that "when a research team from the communications department of the University of Massachusetts surveyed public opinion and correlated it with knowledge of basic facts about US policy in the region, they drew some sobering conclusions: The more television people watched, the fewer facts they knew; and the less people knew in terms of basic facts, the more likely they were to back the Bush administration."
Chris Floyd: Suicide BomberOn April 8, the U. S. Senate received the President's nomination for a new Archivist of the United States -- historian Allen Weinstein. For most Americans, this is an obscure post. But the Weinstein nomination has rightly been gathering increasing attention.
Indeed, within the archival and historical communities, the nomination has sent sirens screaming and bells clanging. No fewer than nine professional organizations that deal with government records have expressed concern -- faulting Weinstein for his excessive secrecy.
As I have argued in my latest book, President Bush has had a problem with excessive secrecy for quite awhile. As Governor of Texas, he made sure to block any later access to his gubernatorial records. As President, he has tried to seal off the government from scrutiny in numerous ways.
[...]
Bush's Earlier Texas Trick To Hide His Gubernatorial Records
Texas has one of the nation's strongest public information laws. But Governor Bush wanted to keep his papers secret anyway. Accordingly, in 1997, he sought and obtained a change in Texas law to help him do so.
The new law allows the governor to select a site for his papers other than the Texas State Library -- as long as it is in Texas. But the governor must first consult with the state's library and archives commission to make certain any alternative arrangement satisfied the state's open access law.
When Bush became president-elect, however, he simply sent his papers and records with no consultation whatsoever to his father's presidential library at Texas A&M University -- known as the most secretive of all the existing presidential libraries.
Former CIA agent speaks at ButlerANN ARBOR, Mich. -- At prestigious universities around the country, from flagship state colleges to the Ivy League, more and more students from upper-income families are edging out those from the middle class, according to university data.
[...]
More members of this year's freshman class at the University of Michigan have parents making at least $200,000 a year than have parents making less than the national median of about $53,000, according to a survey of Michigan students. At the most selective private universities across the country, more fathers of freshmen are doctors than are hourly workers, teachers, clergy members, farmers or members of the military -- combined.
[...]
Over all, at the 42 most selective state universities, including the flagship campuses in California, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan and New York, 40 percent of this year's freshmen come from families making more than $100,000, up from about 32 percent in 1999, according to the Higher Education Research Institute. Nationwide, fewer than 20 percent of families make that much money.
[...]
In 2000, about 55 percent of freshmen at the nation's 250 most selective colleges, public and private, were from the highest-earning fourth of households, compared with 46 percent in 1985, according to the institute, which is based at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Pentagon Deleted Rumsfeld CommentEx-marine and former CIA spy operative Robert David Steele spoke to a handful of students and faculty in the University Club on Tuesday afternoon. The event was part of a "pro-bono" speaking tour that Steele is currently doing throughout both the United States and overseas.
While addressing a number of international current affairs, Steele's main focus was stressing the need to bring "open-source intelligence" (OSINT) to the forefront of the American public.
"[People] are just sleepwalking through the destruction of America [and if they] don't wake up, we're basically going to have the country sold out from under us," he said.
Steele criticized the lack of awareness amongst Americans, especially in regard to all of the wars and conflicts going on in the world outside of the Middle East.
"We've got to get in touch with reality -- there are 29 wars being fought right now, that are killing over a thousand people each."
[...]
"I do not underestimate the ignorance of the U.S. government... Washington does not want to be smart; Washington wants to get rich on the side and that's out of your pocket," Steele said.
But, he maintains, unless the American public does not wake up and begin to inform themselves, whatever happens will be of their own making. "You're given the government you deserve."
Basra bombs kill dozensThe Pentagon deleted from a public transcript a statement Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld made to author Bob Woodward suggesting that the administration gave Saudi Arabia a two-month heads-up that President Bush had decided to invade Iraq.
India's advice to the U.S.: Invest in yourself Turning People into Profits: Wal-Mart's Magic NumbersRichard Falk, the Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and a Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at UCSB, will give the second keynote talk. Falk will discus "Visionary American Leadership and the Remaking of World Order" at 2 p.m. on Saturday. Falk's recent books include "The Great Terror War" (2002), "Human Rights Horizons" (2002), and "Religion and Humane Global Governance" (2001). In 2001, he served on a three-person United Nations Human Rights Inquiry Commission in Palestine and previously served on a similar body in Kosovo.
Senate Armed Services Cmte. Hearing on Operations in Iraq & Afghanistan (CSPAN video)$2,200,000,000: Total dividends Wal-Mart plans to pay its shareholders this fiscal year, after a 44% dividend increase announced March 2, 2004
$23,000,000: Average annual compensation for Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott, 2000-2003
$4,500,000: Average annual compensation for previous Wal-Mart CEO David Glass, 1995-2000
$70,000 to $150,000: Bonuses (coming on top of typical base salaries exceeding $50,000) commonly earned by Wal-Mart store managers in 2002 as incentives to increase their own store's annual profit, with profit increases coming largely through holding down labor costs
$9.68: Average hourly living wage as defined by 22 of the U.S. cities and towns that passed living wage ordinances between 2000 and 2004
$9.60: Average hourly wage Wal-Mart could pay if one-third of its current profits were diverted to pay its U.S. employees instead
$9.54: Average hourly wage Wal-Mart could afford to pay if it raised its prices an average of 1%
$9.32: Average hourly wage Wal-Mart could pay if the current annual dividend going to its stockholders were diverted to pay its U.S. employees
$8.00: Approximate nationwide average hourly wage for Wal-Mart employees
$6.25: Starting wage for a cashier at the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Salina, Kansas, 2003
$0.31: The legal hourly minimum wage in China
$0.23: Average hourly wage at 15 Chinese factories making clothing, shoes, and handbags to be sold at U.S. Wal-Mart stores, 2001
73: Average number of hours worked per week by employees at those 15 factories
Highlights
United Press International: Analysis: Bush flipflops on Iraq crisis Woodward defends book about Bush war strategy Robert Fisk: Iraq power handover 'a fraud' General says Fallujah a "rat's nest" that needs to be dealt withWhitehall's private anger won't abateGeneral Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, charged that insurgents were violating a ceasefire, putting women and children in the line of fire, and using Red Crescent ambulances to smuggle in arms and ammunition.
"We went in because we had to to find the perpetrators and what we found was a huge rat's nest that is still festering today. It needs to be dealt with," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee
With God on His Side ... By invoking a higher power, Bush sidesteps pesky constitutional issues.Well, we have waited, and there is no sign of any British influence on US policy on Iraq, or anywhere else. Far from it, we are accomplices in the quagmire. And behind the Blair rhetoric, there is deep unease in Whitehall.
It was evident from the start. Just before the invasion of Iraq, Britain's most senior military officer at the time, Admiral Sir Michael (now Lord) Boyce, issued a directive to his commanders in the field to negotiate with senior Iraqi officers. The idea was for senior figures in the Iraqi army and Republican Guard to help maintain law and order under the supervision of senior British - and American - officers. British commanders were instructed to deal with Ba'athists on the grounds that the restoration of the country could not proceed very far without them.
Boyce's directive was torn up by Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, who ordered the dismissal of the entire Iraqi army and insisted that no member of the Ba'athist party should be engaged in any way by the occupying forces. Over a year later, the US rulers of Iraq now recognise this was a huge mistake as they appeal to officers from Saddam's former army for help.
Their beliefs are bonkers, but they are at the heart of power: US Christian fundamentalists are driving Bush's Middle East policy Kerry, Bush court Jewish vote as a keyIn contrast, the younger Bush vocally disdains world opinion and international bodies like the United Nations, seeming instead to relish his role as an avenging Christian crusader who seeks -- under the guiding hand of the Almighty -- to cleanse the Arab world of "evildoers."
Gee, Why Do They Hate Us?''I have a 100 percent record, not a 99, a 100 percent record of sustaining the special relationship and friendship with Israel,'' Kerry told the crowd, adding that he would ''end this sweetheart relationship with a bunch of Arab countries'' that allows money to flow to terrorists.
CAIRO, April 19 (IslamOnline.net) -- Parts of Iraq's neutralized nuclear reactor have been resettled somewhere in the far-reaching country, an Iraqi scientist told IslamOnline.net Sunday, April18 .
"This can help the United States find a way out of the current limbo of failing to come across a sniff of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction," the central rationale of the U.S.-led war one year ago, said the source, who asked not to be named.
Material and equipment from the facility, some 40 kilometers from Baghdad, have also disappeared and been looted under the watchful eye of the U.S.-led occupation troops, well-placed sources here told IOL.
Backed by U.S. warplanes, gunmen disembarked frequently from unidentified jets in the location of the Osirak reactor, looting some of its material, the sources at the Iraqi Atomic Agency (IAA) said.
"None Of Your Business"
They noted that some IAA scientists reported the incident to the U.S.-led occupation authorities, asking for a protection to the facility and its depots.
The request fell on deaf ears as a U.S. Let. Gen. told the scientists "it is none of your business", according to the source.
"They [the gunmen] were instructed by someone from his KIA and tampering with the reactor under U.S. protection," another Iraqi scientist, who requested anonymity, told IOL.
"I myself happened on some non-registered materials in the reactor." he added. "We complained umpteen times to the U.S. occupation troops, who eventually denied us access to the facility."
An Iraqi translator working for the occupation troops confirmed the incident, claiming that the gunmen were Israelis.
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President Bush Calls for Renewing the USA PATRIOT ActGeorge W. Bush says he's been praying for fewer casualties in Iraq.
How incredibly immense of the "bring it on" president. There's no substitute for resolute, concrete leadership, even if the praying comes between decisive bouts of hooking bass on the Crawford ranch back-40 while Americans and Iraqis are slaughtered in ever greater numbers.
[...]
The few reporters who have evaded American efforts to bar outside witness to the massacre describe scenes of women and children in pools of blood, next to a pile of severed limbs.
Other witnesses told how American tanks invaded Baghdad's Sadr City, indiscriminately blasting homes, obliterating kids together with their parents.
Motorists were incinerated in their cars when hit by U.S. missiles launched by those liberating helicopters.
The American occupiers and their Iraqi stooges condemn reporting of the carnage as an incitement to violence.
"I thank the good Lord for protecting ... innocent Iraqis who suffer at the hands of some of these senseless killings by people who are trying to shake our will," says pious Bush, who claimed in a 2003 Mideast trip to have been following orders from his saviour to attack Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bush also tells us we should thank the Lord and His U.S. proxy for preventing any more mass graves being dug in Iraq.
That godly mind meld has assured Bush and the rest of the rapturous that at least 25,000 Iraqi military and civilian deaths in the past year wouldn't constitute a mass grave.
Ruth Rosen | Bush Mobilizes WomenWe will never show weakness in the face of these people who have no soul, who have no conscience, who care less about the life of a man or a woman or a child. We've got to do everything we can here at home. And there's no doubt in my mind that, with the Almighty's blessings and hard work, that we will succeed in our mission.
Americans around Falluja are Deaf to Humanitarian Emergency Bremer Is Increasing Pressure for a Quick End to Iraqi Uprisings Bush taps Negroponte as Iraq ambassadorOn Sunday, April 25, an expected 1 million marchers will stream into the streets of the nation's capital for what is billed as the "March for Women's Lives." The last large pro-choice march drew 750,000 people in 1992.
Bush Scolds Spain for Iraq Troop Pullout"John Negroponte is a man of enormous experience and skill. That's why I'm comfortable in asking him to serve in this very difficult assignment," Bush told reporters on Monday in the Oval Office.
Tomgram: Mike Davis on the Pentagon's urban war planningSen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, also deplored Spain's move.
``I regret Prime Minister Zapateros decision,'' Kerry said. ``Spain and all the world have an interest in rebuilding an Iraq that is not a haven for terrorists and a failed state. I had hoped the prime minister would have reconsidered his position, and I hope that in the days ahead the United States and the world can work with him to find a way to keep Spain engaged in the efforts in Iraq.''
Iraq is Not Vietnam. It May Become Worse.The Mogadishu debacle of 1993, when neighborhood militias inflicted 60% casualties on elite Army Rangers, forced U.S. strategists to rethink what is known in Pentagonese as MOUT: "Militarized Operations on Urbanized Terrain." Ultimately, a National Defense Panel review in December 1997 castigated the Army as unprepared for protracted combat in the near impassable, maze-like streets of the poverty-stricken cities of the Third World.
As a result, the four armed services, coordinated by the Joint Staff Urban Working Group, launched crash programs to master street-fighting under realistic third-world conditions. "The future of warfare," the journal of the Army War College declared, "lies in the streets, sewers, high-rise buildings, and sprawl of houses that form the broken cities of the world."
Israeli advisors were quietly brought in to teach Marines, Rangers, and Navy Seals the state-of-the-art tactics -- especially the sophisticated coordination of sniper and demolition teams with heavy armor and overwhelming airpower -- so ruthlessly used by Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza and the West Bank.
Artificial cityscapes (complete with "smoke and sound systems") were built to simulate combat conditions in densely populated neighborhoods of cities like Baghdad or Port-au-Prince. The Marine Corps Urban Warfighting Laboratory also staged realistic war games ("Urban Warrior") in Oakland and Chicago, while the Army's Special Operations Command "invaded" Pittsburgh.
Today, many of the Marines inside Fallujah are graduates of these Urban Warrior exercises as well as mock combat at "Yodaville" (the Urban Training Facility in Yuma, Arizona), while some of the Army units encircling Najaf and the Baghdad slum neighborhood of Sadr City are alumni of the new $34 million MOUT simulator at Fort Polk, Louisiana.
This tactical "Israelization" of U.S. combat doctrine has been accompanied by what might be called a "Sharonization" of the Pentagon's worldview. Military theorists are now deeply involved in imagining how the evolving capacity of high-tech warfare can contain, if not destroy, chronic "terrorist" insurgencies rooted in the desperation of growing megaslums.
To help develop a geopolitical framework for urban war-fighting, military planners turned in the 1990s to the RAND Corporation: Dr. Strangelove's old alma mater. RAND, a nonprofit think tank established by the Air Force in 1948, was notorious for war-gaming nuclear Armageddon in the 1950s and for helping plan the Vietnam War in the 1960s. These days RAND does cities -- big time. Its researchers ponder urban crime statistics, inner-city public health, and the privatization of public education. They also run the Army's Arroyo Center which has published a small library of recent studies on the context and mechanics of urban warfare.
The 9/11 Commission: Justice's Blind Spot Why Your Tax Cut Doesn't Add Up: Behind the promises to save you money, a hidden agenda is at work, with a stealth tax to pay for it allThe damage to U.S. prestige in the world for its illegal invasion of Iraq is already done. The danger now is that in his desperation to "avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat," the repudiation of his entire presidency, and a generation-long disdain for U.S. military power, Bush will resort to apocalyptic barbarism. This is exactly what Nixon did trying to salvage "peace with honor" in Vietnam. It is this temptation that only the American public can force Bush to resist.
New York Times | Bad New Days for Voting RightsWASHINGTON - In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.
One of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center. In another exercise, jets performed a mock shootdown over the Atlantic Ocean of a jet supposedly laden with chemical poisons headed toward a target in the United States. In a third scenario, the target was the Pentagon -- but that drill was not run after Defense officials said it was unrealistic, NORAD and Defense officials say.
McKinney: 9/11 Probe to Justify Comments Journalist Shares War SecretsIt has been years since the bad old days when Southern blacks were given "literacy tests," and voting rights activists were beaten and killed. But blacks, Hispanics and Indians are still regularly discouraged from voting, often under the guise of "ballot integrity" programs that are supposed to be aimed at deterring fraud at the polls.
Minority vote suppression tears at the fabric of American democracy. It persists, however, for a simple reason: in close elections, when some minority groups are strongly identified with a single party, it can be the difference between winning and losing. In 2002, the Indian vote in South Dakota helped Senator Tim Johnson win by just 528 votes.
Marine Corps Snipers Aim to Strike Fear: With their 'One bullet, one kill' motto, the sharpshooters try to clear the streets and undermine insurgents in Fallouja, Iraq.SEATTLE, April 16 -- In a report analyzing the economics of protecting a threatened fish in the Pacific Northwest, the Bush administration this month deleted all references to possible monetary benefits.
Bush Began to Plan War Three Months After 9/11: Book Says President Called Secrecy Vital Drugs found on Colombian flagship (BBC News, 17 April 2004)"It's a sniper's dream," he said in polite, matter-of-fact tones. "You can go anywhere and there are so many ways to fire at the enemy without him knowing where you are."
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Marine sniper teams are spread in and around the city, working night and day, using powerful scopes, thermal imaging equipment and specially modified bolt-action rifles that allow them to identify and target armed militants from 800 yards or more.
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"Sometimes a guy will go down, and I'll let him scream a bit to destroy the morale of his buddies," said the Marine corporal. "Then I'll use a second shot."
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"The first time you get the adrenaline rush afterward," he said. "During the shooting, you have to take care of your breathing. It felt good to do my job, good to take a bad guy out."
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Will Telegraph staff have to sign Israel pledge?What we do routinely in the imperial west, wrote Richard Falk, professor of international relations at Princeton, is propagate "through a self-righteous, one-way moral/legal screen positive images of western values and innocence that are threatened, validating a campaign of unrestricted violence". Thus, western state terrorism is erased, and a tenet of western journalism is to excuse or minimize"our" culpability, however atrocious. Our dead are counted; theirs are not. Our victims are worthy; theirs are not.
Outsourcing the war: With more private contractors dying and disappearing in Iraq, some begin to question the rules of engagement. Gunmen Rule in a City Gripped With Fright Robert Fisk | By Endorsing Ariel Sharon's Plan George Bush Has Legitimised Terrorism Paul Krugman | The Vietnam Analogy Patrick Sabatier | No Truce New Woodward Book Alleges Secret Iraq War Plan Warnings Ignored, Says Retired MarineTelegraph journalists could have to adhere to a string of publishing principles - including registering support for the state of Israel - if German publishing giant Axel Springer takes over the newspaper.
CIA Warned of Attack 6 Years Before 9/11 Text of Bush, Blair press conferenceRetired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni wondered aloud yesterday how Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld could be caught off guard by the chaos in Iraq that has killed nearly 100 Americans in recent weeks and led to his announcement that 20,000 U.S. troops would be staying there instead of returning home as planned.
"I'm surprised that he is surprised because there was a lot of us who were telling him that it was going to be thus," said Zinni, a Marine for 39 years and the former commander of the U.S. Central Command. "Anyone could know the problems they were going to see. How could they not?"
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"I think that some heads should roll over Iraq," Zinni said. "I think the president got some bad advice."
U.S. deploys loud music, insults in FallujahQ: (Egyptian President) Hosni Mubarak is saying the new U.S. policy on the West Bank could escalate violence. How do you respond to his concerns?
BUSH: Yes, I think this is a fantastic opportunity. You know, the fact that (Israeli Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon said, We're going to withdraw from territory, is a historic moment. And it creates a chance for the world to come together to help develop a Palestinian state based upon a solid foundation, a foundation where the institutions are bigger than the people, just like our respective governments are founded.
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The United Nations (UN) Committee against Torture has condemned the hooding and blindfolding of suspects during interrogation as incompatible with the absolute prohibition of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment contained under the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture).1 The prohibition of torture and other cruel or inhuman treatment is also contained under the Geneva Conventions applicable to prisoners of war and any other persons hors de combat.
Hooding - the placing of a bag or sack over an individual's head and securing it so that it cannot be removed - is a practice with an ugly history. It is not only inhuman and illegal; it is also often the harbinger of further rough treatment.
Many detainees have alleged they were tortured and ill-treated by US and UK troops during interrogation. Methods reported often include beatings; prolonged sleep deprivation; prolonged restraint in painful positions, sometimes combined with exposure to loud music; prolonged hooding; and exposure to bright lights. Virtually none of the allegations of torture or ill-treatment has been adequately investigated.
Americans Told to Leave Saudi Arabia Telling Bush he has got it wrong is what Blair must do CIA warned of attacks in 1995, officials say Blair backs Israeli pullout plan AP: Book Alleges Secret Iraq War Plan QUREIA: I'LL QUITAT LEAST President Johnson was human enough to tell the press in a 1967 news conference: "I go to bed every night feeling that I have failed that day because I could not end the conflict in Vietnam."
The Crack-UpApril 16, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia was threatening to resign yesterday because he said President Bush had damaged the prospects for reaching a final peace agreement with Israel.
Why does Kerry sound like Bush?And what a sickening spectacle these "leaders" presented last weekend: George W. Bush and Tony Blair piously kneeling in prayer on Easter Sunday, pledging their fealty to Jesus Christ and His teachings of mercy and lovingkindness -- while ordering missile strikes on crowded cities, while filling hospitals with the mutilated bodies of young children, while shoveling fat war profits to their cronies and contributors. Only the most craven, bootlicking sycophant could fail to be revolted at the hypocrisy of these murderous cynics. They're a perfect match in moral idiocy for their crack-brained brother-in-arms, Osama bin Laden.
Their chest-beating pronouncements about "staying the course" and "seeing it through" are just so much rag-chewing nonsense. The way to rectify a crime is not to keep doing it -- or in John Kerry's ludicrous formulations, to keep doing it in some different, "better" way -- but simply to stop doing it. The illegal invasion was a crime, the occupation is a crime, and if you would not be a criminal, you must stop committing crimes.
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As for the "leaders" who committed this crime, there is only one thing left for them to do now, only one way for them to serve the people they have betrayed so vilely and stupidly. All of them -- Bush, Blair, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Geoff Hoon, Richard Perle, the whole sick crew -- should pick up a rifle and go to the front lines in Fallujah and Baghdad. Let them take the places of the young men and young women who signed up as soldiers to defend their country or make a better life for themselves -- not to become pawns and killers for the Hitlerite ambitions of the blood-soaked fools who threw them into this quagmire.
Yes, Hitlerite ambitions: dreams of global dominance, fetishes of militarism, fantasies of superiority, and the willingness to impose your self-serving vision of "universal truth" -- in this case, the rapacious crony capitalism that Bush has officially named "the single sustainable model of national success" -- at the barrel of a gun. That's what lies behind this madness.
U.N. Envoy Sees Hope Amid Trouble for IraqFALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) On a rooftop overlooking Fallujah's industrial wasteland, Lance Cpl. Tom Browne pokes his machine gun muzzle out of a hole in a barrier wall, singing to himself to pass the time.
In the street below, the corpse of an insurgent suspect lies baking in the sun. Browne, from Boston, says he has killed several rebels, probably Iraqis, so far.
``I don't even think about those people as people,'' he says.
Envoy urges interim Iraqi government Bush Rips Up the Road Map: Sharon wins 'historic' backing for plan to evacuate Gaza - but hold on to West Bank control Growing Worry in DC -- What if US Fails in Iraq? 'We need a Plan B, and I'm not sure we yet have a Plan B,' says one expert Annan Adviser Attacks American Occupation and Bremer's Tactics Venezuelan Leader, in Fiery Speech, Blames US for Iraq Chaos Nearly 1 in 5 US Counties Have Unhealthy Air-EPA A Proud Army Parent Believes Bush Misled Us About Iraq War"I would like to renew here the expression of my deep sorrow for the loss of life and the destruction that has befallen Fallouja, parts of Baghdad and other places up and down the country," Brahimi told a news conference in Baghdad.
"The collective punishments are not acceptable, cannot be acceptable, and to cordon off and besiege a city is not acceptable," he said. "There is no military solution to the problems and -- the use of force, especially of excessive use of force, makes matters worse."
CNN to Al Jazeera: Why Report Civilian Deaths? Kerry debates anti-war activist in New York: Bush campaign scolds Democrat over stand on Iraq Hear no evil, read no evil, speak drivel: Bush's press conference shows just how ill-informed he is about Iraq"If the members of the Congress could set aside politics for just one moment, and simply represent the people who elected them, they would impeach the president and remove him from office. They would end funding for this occupation."
Bush, in fact, does not read his President's Daily Briefs, but has them orally summarised every morning by the CIA director, George Tenet. President Clinton, by contrast, read them closely and alone, preventing any aides from interpreting what he wanted to know first-hand. He extensively marked up his PDBs, demanding action on this or that, which is almost certainly the likely reason the Bush administration withheld his memoranda from the 9/11 commission.
"I know he doesn't read," one former Bush national security council staffer told me. Several other former NSC staffers corroborated this. It seems highly unlikely that he read the national intelligence estimate on WMD before the Iraq war that consigned contrary evidence and caveats that undermined the case to footnotes and fine print. Nor is there any evidence that he read the state department's 17-volume report, The Future of Iraq, warning of nearly all the postwar pitfalls, that was shelved by the neocons in the Pentagon and Vice-President Cheney's office.
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The ultimate revelation was Bush's vision of a divinely inspired apocalyptic struggle in which he is the leader of a crusade bringing the Lord's "gift." "I also have this belief, strong belief that freedom is not this country's gift to the world. Freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face of the earth we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom." But religious war is not part of official US military doctrine.
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He walks into the Oval Office in the morning, Bush said, and asks Card: "what's in the newspapers worth worrying about? I glance at the headlines just to kind of (get) a flavor of what's moving," Bush said. "I rarely read the stories," he said.
US Military 'Pressuring' Journalists Army Strategist Criticizes Bush Administration Conduct of Iraq War US Vets, Military Families March for End to War in Iraq Academic stars join a push against plan for bioterrorism lab Intense Battles Continue in Fallujah Ashcroft Ignored Terrorism, Panel Told New York Times | Mr. Bush's Press Conference Panel Says Bush Saw Repeated Warnings Bush's plea of ignorance Arab TV brings Iraqi civilian toll to airwaves Ashcroft's Efforts on Terrorism Criticized: Ex-FBI Official Doubted Priorities Bush Looks Past Means, Focuses on Ends in IraqBAGHDAD, Iraq - If U.S. forces arrest or kill Shia Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the reverberations will be felt far beyond Iraq.
Al-Sadr could become the newest martyr for Shia from Lebanon to Pakistan, scholars say. And if U.S. troops have a bloody confrontation with al-Sadr's militia in the holy city of Najaf, it could set the United States toward a collision with the world's 150 million Shia Muslims.
Deaths of Scores of Mercenaries Not Reported U.S. Stalls on Ratifying Sea Pact Chomsky and Parenti: Buying into the Neoliberal Shell GameOne constitutional expert who closely monitors the United Nations says it is obvious where the blame lies.
''It is clear that the United States and France violated the U.N. charter as well as the 1973 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Internationally Protected Persons, with respect to their criminal treatment of President Aristide'', says Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law.
Boyle told IPS that Aristide still remains the lawful president of Haiti, a member state of the United Nations. He said Annan should have publicly taken that position, and the Security Council should have demanded Aristide's immediate return to Haiti.
''The fact that they did not demonstrates the continuing and further degradation of the Office of the Secretary-General, the U.N. Secretariat and the Security Council under this current regime of U.S. hegemony,'' said Boyle, author of 'Destroying World Order.'
Just days prior to Aristide's flight from Haiti the Security Council denied his request for military intervention to quell the uprising, but it authorised an international military force just hours after he left the country.
Boyle said it is important for CARICOM to take the matter to the 191-member U.N. General Assembly, ''in order to uphold the integrity of the U.N. Charter, which Annan and the Security Council have repeatedly failed and refused to do.''
Boyle also urged the Caribbean nations and other states to sue both the United States and France for violating the 1973 Convention before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague, ''in order to have the World Court as well condemn what these two malefacting states have done to Haiti and President Aristide, and to secure his return to Haiti by means of an ICJ order.''
''The alternative is even more international chaos and anarchy, and a continuing gradual descent into world war -- like what happened to the League of Nations in the 1930s,'' Boyle added.
John Kerry: A Strategy for IraqRemarkably, I still receive email from people who tell me it will be "irresponsible" to vote for Nader over Kerry, or to not vote at all because there is absolutely no choice, the race is rigged, it's a neoliberal shell game.
This "irresponsibility" charge is not only irritating, it displays a truly amazing degree of stupidity and, dare I say it, brainwashing. The ABB ("Anybody But Bush") folks have jettisoned their principles simply to get rid of Bush, a tragic mistake since Kerry will continue Bush's policies, especially his foreign policy.
Bush conveys the high stakes and lack of options A Prime Time to Ask The President QuestionsWhile we may have differed on how we went to war, Americans of all political persuasions are united in our determination to succeed. The extremists attacking our forces should know they will not succeed in dividing America, or in sapping American resolve, or in forcing the premature withdrawal of U.S. troops. Our country is committed to help the Iraqis build a stable, peaceful and pluralistic society. No matter who is elected president in November, we will persevere in that mission.
Transcript: President Bush answers questions on Iraq, 9/11 attacks and war on terrorism. Bush Lite: Chomsky's Low Carb Poison Clear Skies No More for Millions as Pollution Rule ExpandsAfter the news conference, CBS News anchor Dan Rather said Bush had come across as "steady, competent and forceful" while answering questions but that he delivered his opening statement "in a rather flat monotone," perhaps intentionally. It was a peculiar performance; Bush would look down, read a sentence, look up, look around, pause slightly, then look down and read another sentence.
9/11 Panel Is Said to Offer Harsh Review of AshcroftSAN ANTONIO, April 8 - More than half the nation's population lives in or around areas that violate clean air standards, according to a list to be released on April 15 by the federal government.
Troops in Iraq Strain to Hold Lines of Supply Martin Sieff | When Puppets Pull the StringsWASHINGTON, April 12 -- Draft reports by the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks portray Attorney General John Ashcroft as largely uninterested in counterterrorism issues before Sept. 11 despite intelligence warnings that summer that Al Qaeda was planning a large, perhaps catastrophic, terrorist attack, panel officials and others with access to the reports have said.
Ashcroft Says Counterterrorism Was Insufficient Well Before 9/11Ahmed Chalabi, the neocons' choice to run Iraq, appears to have been responsible for the disastrous decision to move against Muqtada al-Sadr.
Why did they do it? It seemed a safe bet to the civilian echelon policymakers at the Department of Defense when they approved Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer's fateful decision to close down the newspaper of Muqtada al-Sadr and to arrest an aide to the young firebrand Shiite cleric. Even after Shiite Iraq had erupted into fury over the moves on Saturday, April 3, top-level Pentagon policymakers were privately still convinced it was all a storm in a teacup.
Snares and DelusionsBASRA -- Fifty days after the first reports that the U.S. forces were unloading weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in southern Iraq, new reports about the movement of these weapons have been disclosed.
Senator, Iraq Is No VietnamIn his Saturday radio address, George Bush described Iraqi insurgents as a "small faction." Meanwhile, people actually on the scene described a rebellion with widespread support.
Just like the Russians in Grozny, the Marines last week were supported by tanks and attack helicopters, but the end result was entirely different. U.S. forces did not bomb the city indiscriminately. The Iraqis fought well but were massacred. According to the latest body count, some 600 Iraqis died and another 1,000 were wounded. The Marines lost some 20 men.
The Marines are far better trained, of course, but the Iraqis were fighting in their hometown. The decisive difference between the two sides was the extensive use of a computerized command, control and targeting system by the U.S. military. Satellites, manned and unmanned aircraft collected precise information on enemy and friendly movements on the battlefield night and day.
Modern U.S. field commanders have real-time access to this system, allowing them to monitor the changing situation on the battlefield as no commander in the history of war has been able to do. This technology has greatly enhanced the effectiveness of aerial bombardments in the last decade. And now the nature of house-to-house combat has changed as well.
The more accurate historical analogy to the current war in Iraq is not Vietnam but, say, the battle at Omdurman, Sudan, in 1898, when Horatio Herbert Kitchener, a British field marshal, crushed the Sudanese forces of al-Mahdi by bringing machine guns to bear against the enemy's muskets and spears. Today the United States has the capability and the technical superiority to fight and win colonial wars against numerically superior enemies.
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Last modified: Wed Oct 13 21:08:03 CDT 2004