Bob Morris @ May 10th 2004 09:42 - Category: Unfiled ;
A hero retires from public service
Nelson Mandela gives farewell speech to parliament
As he stepped down from the platform for the very last time, the assembly chamber erupted into applause, chanting and singing.
Bob Morris @ May 10th 2004 09:39 - Category: Unfiled ;
More prisons where torture happened?
Reports are surfacing now of similar treatment at another U.S. detention center in Iraq called Camp Bucca. According to these reports, Iraqi prisoners in Camp Bucca were beaten, humiliated, hogtied, and had scorpions placed on their naked bodies.
Bob Morris @ May 10th 2004 09:00 - Category: Unfiled ;
Army Times says Rumsfeld should resign
The independent Army Times newspaper, read widely in the U.S. military, on Monday suggested Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top Pentagon civilian and military leaders should be removed over the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal.
“This was not just a failure of leadership at the local command level. This was a failure that ran straight to the top. Accountability here is essential — even if that means relieving top leaders from duty in a time of war,” the private weekly newspaper said in an editorial.
“The entire affair is a failure of leadership from start to finish. From the moment they are captured, prisoners are hooded, shackled and isolated. The message to the troops: Anything goes.
Bob Morris @ May 10th 2004 08:58 - Category: Unfiled ;
Red Cross report describes abuse in Iraq
The Red Cross has made a point, these past few days, of saying the abuse and torture was NOT isolated because it was “too widespread” for that.
A Red Cross report disclosed Monday said coalition intelligence officers estimated that 70-90 percent of Iraqi detainees were arrested by mistake and said Red Cross observers witnessed U.S. officers mistreating Abu Ghraib prisoners by keeping them naked in total darkness in empty cells.
The report by the International Committee of the Red Cross supports its allegations that abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers was broad and “not individual acts” — contrary to President Bush’s contention that the mistreatment “was the wrongdoing of a few.”
The agency said arrests allegedly tended to follow a pattern.
And keep in mind as you read the following that 70-90% of those ‘arrested’ in such vicious ways were blameless and arrested by ‘mistake” (a nice code-word, it seems to me, for deliberate terrorizing of the populace by an out of control bunch of thugs acting on orders.)
“Arresting authorities entered houses usually after dark, breaking down doors, waking up residents roughly, yelling orders, forcing family members into one room under military guard while searching the rest of the house and further breaking doors, cabinets and other property,” the report said.
“Sometimes they arrested all adult males present in a house, including elderly, handicapped or sick people,” it said. “Treatment often included pushing people around, insulting, taking aim with rifles, punching and kicking and striking with rifles.”
Even Tony Blair appears to be losing his stomach for Bush’s war.
U.K.’s Blair backs Red Cross release of Iraq report.
Bob Morris @ May 10th 2004 00:23 - Category: Unfiled ;
The worst is yet to come
Mr.
Rumsfeld told the Senate panel that photos and videos yet to be
released, apparently depicting rape, a severe beating, and in one case
a smiling soldier posing with a dead body, were more “blatantly sadistic” than those already seen.
For
Rumsfeld to call them “blatantly sadistic”, they must be nearly
psychopathic. It also means they can’t stop the photos from being
released. That means they’re losing their grip on power.
The
Washington Post quoted several senior American military officers today
as saying that the United States was prevailing militarily in Iraq but
failing, perhaps disastrously, to win Iraqis’ support.
This
is Pentagon doublespeak, like what we heard in Vietnam, “we had to
destroy the village to save it.” What lunacy. Instead of saving the
villages, of course, the US lost the war. And while history doesn’t
repeat itself, it does rhyme…
Torture. By US soldiers.
One
of the new photographs shows a young soldier, wearing a dark jacket
over his uniform and smiling into the camera, in the corridor of the
jail. In the background are two Army dog handlers, in full camouflage
combat gear, restraining two German shepherds. The dogs are barking at
a man who is partly obscured from the camera’s view by the smiling
soldier.
Another
image shows that the man, an Iraqi prisoner, is naked. His hands are
clasped behind his neck and he is leaning against the door to a cell,
contorted with terror, as the dogs bark a few feet away.
Other photographs show the dogs straining at their leashes and snarling at the prisoner.
In
another, taken a few minutes later, the Iraqi is lying on the ground,
writhing in pain, with a soldier sitting on top of him, knee pressed to
his back. Blood is streaming from the inmate’s leg. Another photograph
is a closeup of the naked prisoner, from his waist to his ankles, lying
on the floor. On his right thigh is what appears to be a bite or a deep
scratch. There is another, larger wound on his left leg, covered in
blood.
NBC News later quoted U.S. military officials as saying that the unreleased
photographs showed American soldiers “severely beating an Iraqi
prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi prisoner, and
‘acting inappropriately with a dead body.’ The officials said there
also was a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi
guards raping young boys.”
The rot goes to the top
No
amount of apologetic testimony or political spin last week could mask
the fact that, since the attacks of September 11th, President Bush and
his top aides have seen themselves as engaged in a war against
terrorism in which the old rules did not apply. In the privacy of his
office, Rumsfeld chafed over what he saw as the reluctance of senior
Pentagon generals and admirals to act aggressively.
Bob Morris @ May 10th 2004 00:19 - Category: Unfiled ;
One year in prison?
Jermey Sivits was “charged with conspiracy to maltreat subordinates and detainees, dereliction of duty for negligently failing to protect detainees from abuse, and cruelty and maltreatment of detainees,”
If convicted, Sivits faces a year in military prison.
ONE YEAR? Hey, here in the US, with all the gittin’ tough on crime, if someone was charged with what he is charged with, the possible sentence would be decades, not a mere one year. The Pentagon appears engaged in some serious wrist-slapping, indeed.
Six U.S. officers have received career-ending reprimands
The Pentagon feigns horror at what happened, loudly proclaims they will get to the bottom of it, yet their actions show otherwise - they appear to want officers to walk and a few enlisted soldiers to get minor sentences - with accompanying show trials, of course.
Doesn’t sound like justice to me. Doesn’t sound like they want a real investigation either.
From Baghdad Burning (by an Iraqi woman in Baghdad)
People are seething with anger- the pictures of Abu Ghraib and the Brits in Basrah are everywhere. Every newspaper you pick up in Baghdad has pictures of some American or British atrocity or another. It’s like a nightmare that has come to life.
People are so angry. There’s no way to explain the reactions- even pro-occupation Iraqis find themselves silenced by this latest horror. I can’t explain how people feel- or even how I personally feel. Somehow, pictures of dead Iraqis are easier to bear than this grotesque show of American military technique. People would rather be dead than sexually abused and degraded by the animals running Abu Ghraib prison.
And through all this, Bush gives his repulsive speeches.
Betrayed by images that reveal our racism, Robert Fisk
First, 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.
Beatings were common, says US soldier
Three U.S. military policemen who served at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison said on Thursday they had witnessed unreported cases of prisoner abuse and that the practice against Iraqis was commonplace.
“It is a common thing to abuse prisoners,” said Sgt. Mike Sindar, 25, a National Guardsman with the 870th Military Police Company based in the San Francisco Bay area. “I saw beatings all the time.
Kerry grows a spine!
Sign John Kerry’s petition for Rumsfeld to resign
Bob Morris @ May 10th 2004 00:12 - Category: Unfiled ;
Warren Buffett joins George Soros to defeat Bush.
That means two multi-billionaires will bring their considerable clout, huge wealth and influence, to insure that George Bush is not re-selected.
At the core of their stand are Bush’s tax policies, such as estate tax repeal. Both men have publicly stated that they believe any tax cut plans for the rich will alienate the middle classes and do nothing to improve job creation.
But Soros says he has also been motivated by Bush’s foreign policy, once commenting that it was “destroying my business”. He believes that the Iraq war is damaging US interests abroad. He wrote recently: “When President Bush says, as he does frequently, that freedom will prevail, he means that America will prevail. In a free and open society, people are supposed to decide for themselves what they mean by freedom and democracy, and not simply follow America’s lead.
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