Politics November 2005
11/29/2005 Politics / Human rights. New Whistle blowerreports: Torture still routine in Iraq
"Here's a story that will disappear until bloggers start talking about it. Only PBS Frontline and Democracy Now! have dared to interview U.S. interrogator Tony Lagouranis,
who reports widespread torture and abuse throughout Iraq."
"...when the units would go out into people's homes and do these raids, they would just stay in the house and torture them. Because after the [ Abu Ghraib ] scandal, they couldn't trust that, you know, the interrogators were going to do "as good a job," in their words, as they wanted to. ... They were using things like … burns. They would smash people's feet with the back of an axe-head. They would break bones, ribs, you know.
... I saw good, clean detention facilities and I saw detention facilities that were out of control. And it all came from the leadership. It wasn't because they got lucky and got good privates in there; that wasn't it. ...
"Lagouranis was given the task of searching Iraqi casualties for intelligence information. At one point, he says he was ordered to go through the pockets and personal effects of 500 dead Iraqis."
His story is that many innocent people are getting locked up where they are then physically and psychologically abused. He makes an interesting point that sadistic behavior is a basic human trait. Experiments (see this, and this) with ordinary people show that cruelty and abuse will be expressed when conditions are right unless strong leadership or inner motivation stops it.
11/28/2005 Politics. Another right-wing conspiracy theory proven true
Are any outrageous conspiracy theories about republicans are true? Yes. The republican chairman of the House Intelligence subcommittee on terrorism and human intelligence just confessed.
"[Republican] Representative Randy Cunningham of California resigned from Congress today
after admitting to a federal judge that he had taken $2.4 million in bribes from a military contractor. ... Cunningham, 63, made a brief and tearful announcement to a group of reporters outside a federal courthouse in San Diego after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery. ... Mr. Cunningham's resignation is the latest blow to Republicans dealing with other ethics investigations. [ See: Tom DeLay, Bill Frist and Lewis Libby. ] - nyt
"I was not strong enough to face the truth," Cunningham said in a news conference outside the federal courthouse, his voice breaking. "The truth is I broke the law, concealed my conduct and disgraced my office." - mr
Quite significant. You might admire his honesty but if he wasn't caught one assumes he would have continued to conspire and to profit from war and inside information. Who still is?
11/28/2005 Politics / Human Rights. EU warned on 'secret CIA jails'
"The European Union's top justice official has warned that any EU state found to have hosted a secret CIA jail could have its voting rights suspended. ... Spain, Sweden and Iceland are looking into separate reports that CIA planes stopped in their territory while transporting terror suspects. " - bbc
11/22-11/23/2005 Politics. Bush plot to bomb Arab paper stopped by Tony Blair?
One of the two of these is true: 1. Bush joked with Tony Blair about bombing a TV station, or 2. Bush actually proposed bombing and killing civilians at a TV station.
"... Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al-Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a "Top Secret" No 10 memo reveals. But he was talked out of it at a White House summit [ April 16, 2004 ] by
Tony Blair, who said it would provoke a worldwide backlash. ... A Government official suggested that the Bush threat had been "humorous, not serious". But another source declared: "Bush was deadly serious, as was Blair. That much is absolutely clear from the language used by both men."
... The No 10 memo now raises fresh doubts over US claims that previous attacks against al-Jazeera staff were military errors. In 2001 the station's Kabul office was knocked out by two "smart" bombs. In 2003, al-Jazeera reporter Tareq Ayyoub was killed in a US missile strike on the station's Baghdad centre." - mirror
"The newspaper cited the "Top Secret" memo as saying that Bush had been angered by how the channel had covered the US offensive on the western Iraqi city of Fallujah in April 2004." - adnki
A memo does exist, but is now blocked by British from release. The official stand is that it was a joke and claims to the contrary are outlandish, but ...
"The government has warned media organisations they are breaking the law if they publish details of a leaked document said to show U.S. President George W. Bush wanted to bomb Arabic television station Al Jazeera." - reuters
In other words, it would be a crime to reveal this possible evidence of Bush targeting civilians.
11/25/2005 Politics. Torture claims 'forced US to cut terror charges'
Interesting. A tide has turned. The wind has shifted.
"The Bush administration decided not to charge Jose Padilla with planning to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a US city because the evidence against him was extracted using
torture on members of al-Qaida, it was claimed yesterday.
...The CIA has never publicly acknowledged it is detaining Mr Mohammed and Mr Zubaydah. It is not known where they are being held. But it was reported last month the CIA was using secret detention centres in eastern Europe, possibly in Poland and Romania, for interrogations, thus beyond the reach of US law.
... Internal reviews by the CIA have raised questions about the treatment and credibility of the two men. The New York Times said one review, completed in spring last year by the CIA inspector general, found that in the first months after his capture Mr Mohammed had suffered excessive use of "waterboarding", a technique involving near drowning which entails the detainee being strapped to a board and then submerged." - guardianuk
In other words, some good people in the CIA are sick of dirty deeds done by others in the organization or by their contractors. About frigging time! We are supposed to be the good guys. We must set high standards for human rights. PS. The above picture does not depict an interrogation technique.
11/24/2005 Politics / Blog. Dirty bombs, dirty deeds.
We must seek the truth with courage and with open minds based on the evidence. If statements by tortured men form the entire Bush case, was the "dirty bomb" story itself perhaps false? What of the frightening possibility that the story was manufactured by lying thugs with the ultimate goal of getting the power to randomly lock up US citizens without trial?
With the power to label anyone a "terrorist" and then detain that person for life without trial in a secret prison, a gang of criminals at the top could do any number of crimes ... and could then lock up all the witnesses and anyone else who protested. In other words, they could make it a crime to point out their crimes. That would be the end of democracy. I hope you people all understand what is at stake ... and how close we are to that edge. I mean, come on, after three years of investigation there's no physical evidence against Padilla?
Most importantly, do you realize that a dirty bomb might be cleverly disguised as R2-D2!?
"Almost three and a half years ago, the Bush administration announced that it had arrested a Chicago-born man named Jose Padilla while he was entering the United States to explode a "dirty bomb" and blow up apartment buildings. The attorney general,
John Ashcroft, said Padilla was a Qaeda-trained terrorist so dangerous that he was being tossed into a Navy brig
and the key was being thrown away. The administration hotly defended its right to hold Padilla without legal process because he was declared an unlawful enemy combatant, one of the new powers that President George W. Bush granted himself after 9/11. The administration fought the case up to the Supreme Court. Padilla's plot was thwarted, the Justice Department claimed, only because of the government's ability to hold suspected terrorists in secretive prisons where they were sweated, to put it mildly, for information. The "dirty bomb" plot supposedly was divulged by a top Qaeda member who had been interrogated 100 times at one such location." - iht
11/8/2005 Politics / Human Rights. Probe sought in Leak About CIA-Run Secret Prisons / US using chemical weapons in Iraq / Horrors of war.
WASHINGTON -- With pressure mounting on the administration over its detainee policies, Republican House and Senate leaders today sought a Congressional probe into who leaked
information on the existence of CIA-run secret prisons abroad to the Washington Post.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) circulated a letter asking the intelligence committees to "immediately initiate a joint investigation into the possible release of classified information to the media," about the existence of the prisons. ...
The request came as Democrats continued to demand an independent inquiry into allegations of detainee abuse and into the administration's handling of pre-war intelligence, and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) continued his fight to issue clear instructions to U.S. military and intelligence personnel banning cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners." - LATIMESSomeone let on about their human bondage and torture games. Now they want revenge on the whistleblower. A Plamegate replay. The neocons consider it a crime to tell on their crimes.
Sadly, the crimes continue. Is American soldier Jeff Englehart correct about US use of white phosphorus on civilains in Iraq? The US denies using it on civilians, "It confirmed, however, that U.S. forces had dropped MK 77 firebombs." The full version of the documentary is beyond disturbing. It shows, among other things, Iraqi civilians killed by our chemical weapons. MK77 melts bodies. It eats skin to the bone, but leaves clothes. Damn this makes me sick. We humans just aren't evolving. Our technology has improved, but we use it to create unspeakable horrors. Stop using my taxes for this BS. I support our troops not having to kill civilians. Bring them home.
11/7/2005 Politics. Bush admits to torture, most people misunderestimate him.
Bush recently stated "We do knot toture" but this was incorrectly translated.
"Anything we do to that end in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law," Bush said. "We do not torture. And therefore we're working with Congress to make sure that as we go forward, we make it possible, more possible to do our job." - alertnet
What is this knot toture? Is it related to waterboarding perhaps? Is Bush once again being honest in a way that is so scary people refuse to hear his real words? Try this on: Bush wants Congress to make it more possible to do the job of knot torturing, whatever it is.
I like the Fark blurb on this story: "Bush declares "U.S. does not torture," thereby invalidating photo evidence to the contrary."
11/16/2005 Politics. White phosphorus: A weapon for the witch hunt.
"The Pentagon's admission - despite earlier denials - that US troops used white phosphorus as a weapon in Falluja last year is more than a public relations issue - it has opened up a debate about the use of this weapon in modern warfare." - bbc
Some humans excel at cruelty, don't they? I've said all along that for the Bush gang of neocons, terrorists (a label they use for insurgents) are the new witches. Accused witches were once tortured to get "confessions" ... and then what do you do with a witch who has confessed? Right, that's what is going on in our name today: burning people alive. I wish it was a bad sick joke, but it isn't. End this disgusting war.
11/12/2005 Politics. Bush slips, admits terrorists are aliens.
Does it make sense for a group to wage war against itself? No. Then what are we to make of this line in Bush's latest pro-war scare speech?
"The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity." - GW Bush.
Let's assume, just for fun, that Bush is sane. In that case, there is only one logical conclusion: Bush knows something we don't. He knows that the terrorists are not human beings! Therefore, Bush is telling us, in code, that "they" are aliens.
The only other alternative is that the president is so mentally ill that he completely dehumanizes any of his fellow humans who disagree with him to the point that he does not even include them in his species.
There is little moral difficulty for some people in the killing of non-humans. This type of thinking is that of psychopaths. Or perhaps you'd feel more comfortable believing that Bush is ... an alien. When he talks about "the terrorists", is he really speaking in code about his own secret alien group's agenda to wipe out humanity?
Whatever the explanation we now have another truly bizzare Bush statement to ponder. Non-human terrorists are at war with humanity! Who knew?
11/1/2005 Politics / World News Rioting in Paris, sixth night of rioting.
"Unrest spread across the troubled suburbs around Paris on Tuesday for a sixth night as
police clashed with angry youths and scores of vehicles were torched in at least nine towns.
In Aulnay-sous-Bois - one of the worst-hit suburbs - police wearing riot gear fired rubber bullets at gangs of youths who torched 15 cars and set ablaze mounds of garbage to impede the advancing riot police". - ndtv"The rioting in Clichy-Sous-Bois, north-east of Paris, was triggered by the deaths last Thursday of the teenagers, aged 15 and 17, who were accidentally electrocuted as they hid from police in a power substation. " - telegraph
Terrible. The worst thing I saw was that the Eiffel Tower was closed due to a strike the entire time I was visiting.
11/4/2005 Politics. Cheney's new Chief of Staff: David Addington, Advocate of Torture
Libby is indicted (pdf) on 5 felony counts. Addington's role in the Plame-gate is in question.
"Addington ... advocated enlarging presidential powers; He kept Cheney's meetings with corporations over energy policy a secret; He was the primary author of an August 2002 opinion from the Justice Department that said torture might be justified in some cases. He's currently fighting to exempt the CIA from a proposal by Senator John McCain to ban cruel and inhuman treatment of enemy combatants." - msnbc
"Addington is a hardcore neoconservative. He helped author the policy papers justifying torture, and the papers sidelining the Geneva Conventions which led to the Abu Ghraib disaster. He promotes the argument that suspects may be held without access to any judicial review whatsoever, an unconstitutional theory by any degree. His view as to the executive branch is that it should be supremely powerful ..." - nndb
11/3/2005 Politics / Human Rights. Eastern European countries deny hosting secret CIA prisons
"Several Eastern European countries Thursday denied the existence of secret CIA prisons on their soil following a report in a U.S. newspaper stating that the U.S. was secretly holding
terrorist suspects in former Soviet bloc states. ... according to a report in Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper, a Boeing 737 with the registration number N313P landed at the small Szymany airfield in northern Poland, on September 22, 2003, en route from Kabul, Afghanistan. The plane belonging to a private U.S.-based transport company has been mentioned in international media reports on CIA covert operations, although the CIA has not confirmed it used the plane, the paper reported." - mc, times, ch4, forbes
"... I notice that the administration now is pushing hard to get Congress not to approve the John McCain proposal, supported by 90 out of 100 senators, that we not resort to torture. This administration is insisting that we resort to torture, which I think is a profound change in our basic moral values, just one of many." - former president Jimmy Carter
Sick, revolting, disgusting. Mentally ill persons who imprison and torture fellow humans must be stopped. Impeach the bastards. Hmmm. A 737 jet huh? They have those? Interesting. (see below) Hey, isn't this the same organization which had a plane into building exercise on 9-11? Strange coincidences, that's all, right?
11/1/2005 Politics / 9-11 Conspiracy Junk. Wrong Jet Engine?
Have you heard this one? According to an article on Rense, an engine from flight UA175 which hit the South World Trade Center Tower on 9-11-2001 was photographed on the street (below). Problem: That engine comes from a 737 jet ... but UA175 was a 767.
So, to believe the non-conspiracy story, you have to believe that 1) the photo below is not real, or 2) it is not really a CFM56 (how would I know?), or 3) the CFM56 is found in both the Boeing 737-200 and the 767-200 series, 4) someone planted the wrong engine to confuse people (perhaps Satan himself), 5) uh, uh...
An interesting claim, certainly. I always wondered why anyone caught taking pictures at the WTC crash site had their cameras confiscated and their pictures deleted. I assumed it was to protect the families of the dead from additional anguish, but perhaps someone was hiding something?
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