The Secret File of Abu Ghraib

New classified documents implicate U.S. forces in rape and sodomy of Iraqi prisoners

The new classified military documents offer a chilling picture of what happened at Abu Ghraib — including detailed reports that U.S. troops and translators sodomized and raped Iraqi prisoners.

The files make clear that responsibility for what Taguba called “sadistic, blatant and wanton” abuses extends to several high-ranking officers still serving in command positions.

During the Muslim holy period of Ramadan, Hilas saw Spc. Charles Graner Jr. and an unnamed “helper” tie a detainee to a bed around midnight. “They . . . inserted the phosphoric light in his ass, and he was yelling for God’s help,” the prisoner testified. Again, the same female soldier photographed the torture.

Read the whole thing, there’s much more. 
 
From Body and Soul

But here’s where hope flies in: This silence can not last. I’ve just been watching Hersh’s ACLU speech and in many ways it’s a horrible experience. Even more heartbreaking than Hersh’s description of children being tortured and women begging to be killed, is the sense of defeat that almost seems to overtake him as he repeats a number of times that he doesn’t know what we can do if we don’t manage to get rid of this administration. But half an hour into his speech, Hersh gets a huge, and I think grateful, applause from this:

The boys were sodomized, with the cameras rolling, and the worst above all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking — that you’re government has. And they’re in total terror it’s going to come out. It’s impossible to say to yourself, “How did we get there? Who are we? Who are these people who sent us there?”… And so we’re dealing with an enormous, massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there and higher, and we have to get to it, and we will — we will, I mean, you know, there’s enough out there…

Listening to the determination in Hersh’s voice on the second “we will,” and the audience gratitude for that determination, I realized that the only reporters worthy of the name are the ones who believe that their work has important consequences, and that ultimately, if “there’s enough out there” the truth is going to come out. And I am very grateful for a reporter who has that faith.

The truth on this must come out.

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Now THIS is different

Nancy Reagan to Bush: ‘We don’t support your re-election’

The widow of former President, and Republican icon, Ronald Reagan has told the GOP she wants nothing to do with their upcoming national convention or the re-election campaign of President George W. Bush.
 
Nancy Reagan turned down numerous invitations to appear at the Republican National Convention and has warned the Bush campaign she will not tolerate any use of her or her late husbands words or images in the President’s re-election effort.

“Mrs. Reagan does not support President Bush’s re-election and neither to most members of the President’s family,” says a spokesman for the former First Lady.

The Case Against George W. Bush

By Ron Reagan, writing in Esquire.

The Bush team cannot expect a cabal of right-wing justices to once again deliver the White House. Come November 2, we will have a choice: We can embrace a lie, or we can restore a measure of integrity to our government. We can choose, as a bumper sticker I spotted in Seattle put it, SOMEONE ELSE FOR PRESIDENT.

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Bye, Mike

Unheralded Briton Danny Williams has produced one of the biggest upsets in the history of boxing, knocking out former world champion Mike Tyson in the fourth round.

And somewhere, lawyers began trying to figure out how Tyson could pay off $38 million in debt when his price will surely plunge after such a devastating defeat.

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Australia gets drunk, wakes up in North Atlantic

After what witnesses described as an all night blinder during which it kept droning on about how it was always being bloody ignored by the whole bloody world and would bloody well stand to do something about it, Australia this morning woke up to find itself in the middle of the North Atlantic.

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Pigs at the trough. Corruption and fraud in Iraq by US corporations.

A comprehensive examination of the U.S.-led agency that oversaw the rebuilding of Iraq has triggered at least 27 criminal investigations and produced evidence of millions of dollars’ worth of fraud, waste and abuse, according to a report by the Coalition Provisional Authority’s inspector general.

The report is the most sweeping indication yet that some U.S. officials and private contractors repeatedly violated the law in the free-wheeling atmosphere that pervaded the multibillion-dollar effort to rebuild the war-torn country.

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Kerry’s speech

I was surprised. Given the general view of Kerry as glum and too serious, well, he was relaxed, smiling, and confident. No, he’s not much different on the war. But on domestic issues like jobs, health care, and schools, there are genuine and  huge differences. There was touchie-feelie feel-good stuff, but also seriously bared fangs. Kerry can go the distance and can punch as hard as Bush, maybe much harder, I’ve no doubt of that now. And Edwards will destroy Cheney in the debates.

Tough message aims at those outside arena

John Kerry accepted the nomination of his party Thursday night with a speech more muscular than any Democratic presidential nominee has given at a convention in four decades.

Some quotes

I want an America that relies on its own ingenuity and innovation — not the Saudi royal family.”

–

I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war. I will have a Vice President who will not conduct secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws. I will have a Secretary of Defense who will listen to the best advice of our military leaders. And I will appoint an Attorney General who actually upholds the Constitution of the United States.

–

And it is time for those who talk about family values to start valuing families.

You don’t value families by kicking kids out of after school programs and taking cops off our streets, so that Enron can get another tax break.

We believe in the family value of caring for our children and protecting the neighborhoods where they walk and play.

And that is the choice in this election.

Full text

See what he did there, took several of Bush’s key issues and turned them against Bush, summing up each in one sentence. Nice.

No, I’ve not gone soft in the head for Kerry. But unlike Dukakis or Gore, Kerry will be going for the jugular. And that, fellow progressives, is good news for us all.

Plus, he, unlike Bush, appears to have actual ideas, he gets the “vision thing”, he rallied the troops. Actually, “rallied” is an understatement, the audience was ecstatic, they were going fucking nuts, and it wasn’t staged.

From Blogging of the President

Pat Buchanan thought Kerry knocked it out of the ballpark. So did the Frank Luntz focus group. The health care proposals, and keeping jobs in America sent both the Democrat/Independent and the Republican lines way way up, quite literally off the charts. And in my household, always a tough room to play, tonight Kerry turned us into true believers.

It was a quite amazing speech, it really was…

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How is this different from Bush’s foreign policy?

John Edwards, in his speech to the DNC

We will double our Special Forces, and invest in the new equipment and technologies so that our military remains the best equipped and best trained in the world. This will make our military stronger so we’re able to defeat every enemy in this new world.

The Democrats appear to want the iron fist in the velvet glove rather than what we have now, which is the iron fist in the iron glove. Small comfort indeed to whoever might be getting punched, and no reason to think anything substantive will change.

And together, we will ensure that the image of America — the image all of us love — America, this great shining light, this beacon of freedom, democracy and human rights that the world looks up to, is always lit.

Lord, what a bunch of warm and fuzzy feel-good hooey! The rest of the planet, it is safe to say, views America in decidedly more mixed terms.

The Democrats clearly want everyone to like them. Smile! Be happy! Then Vote for Kerry!

The Bitter Shack of Resentment has this admirable description of the Democratic platform.

I know I never bothered to apply for a blogger press pass to the DNC 2004 in Boston, which pretty much explains why I’m sitting here on my couch in San Francisco completely without baton welts on my forehead.

But I have been closely following the vast quantities of keystrokes emanating from that fair city, and after much thought, I have established for myself a clear idea of what the Democratic platform this year is.

They are pro-good and anti-bad.

And the irony is, such a strategy might well elect Kerry!

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US soldiers on trial for Iraq murders

GI: pushing Iraqis in river was ordered

One of four soldiers charged with pushing two Iraqi civilians into a river, where one of them drowned, says he was ordered to do so and told what to say to officials looking into the death, an Army investigator testified Wednesday

In another case, a US Army captain is facing a murder charge

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Our Prez is on drugs?

From the always entertaining Capitol Hill Blue comes,

Bush is taking powerful anti-depressant drugs to control his erratic behavior, depression and paranoia, Capitol Hill Blue has learned

Tubb prescribed the anti-depressants after a clearly-upset Bush stormed off stage on July 8, refusing to answer reporters’ questions about his relationship with indicted Enron executive Kenneth J. Lay.

“Keep those motherfuckers away from me,” he screamed at an aide backstage. “If you can’t, I’ll find someone who can.”

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This is one donation I won’t be making

The Lynndie England Defense Fund

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The old “blame the computer” trick, eh?

A computer crash erased detailed records from Miami-Dade County’s first widespread use of touchscreen voting machines, raising again the specter of election troubles in Florida, where the new technology was supposed to put an end to such problems.

And they didn’t have a backup? Uh, huh…

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GOP Senator criticizes Bush for Iraq War

Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee criticized the Bush administration on Tuesday for a “host of mistakes” in its postwar reconstruction of Iraq, saying the country is less secure than before and that basic infrastructure is still not working.

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Iraqi says General Karpinski witnessed abuse

In a videotaped deposition from Iraq played Tuesday, Saddam “Sam” Saleh Aboud said he endured beatings at the prison. During one session, his hood was removed and he said he saw Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski.

Karpinski has consistently claimed she knew nothing about the tortures - even though she was in charge.

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More on DNC “Free Speeech Zone”

Protest zone draws ire

Furious that protesters are being shoehorned into an enclosed space, lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Lawyers Guild said they will ask a federal judge to open up or move the zone.

Protestors, sensibly, are ignoring the internment camp and taking it to the streets instead.

The official Democratic response?

So far, the Dems have shown only their contempt for the plight of their detractors. “People had the opportunity long ago to speak to their delegates,” said a press aide for the convention committee. “There are plenty of other ways to make your voice heard other than protesting.”

How Republican of them…

From someone who was at the cage

A word of advice: Do not make the mistake of making your first visit to the free speech zone on your day of protest. It will be too late to realize what you are getting into.

It’s crazy to think that this is happening in Boston, a city that fronts a reputation of being a cradle of constitutional values.

By giving free speech an unacceptable location, the City of Boston has unwittingly declared that the entire city is now a free speech zone.

The Bl(A)ck Tea Society  agrees!

Oh, if you’re in Boston now, don’t walk, look or stop…

Basically, Vijay Shah, of Cambridge, told us later, he was detained for “walking, looking, and stopping.”

Bush will do the same, if not worse in NYC

When President Bush travels around the United States, the Secret Service visits the location ahead of time and orders local police to set up “free speech zones” or “protest zones,” where people opposed to Bush policies (and sometimes sign-carrying supporters) are quarantined. These zones routinely succeed in keeping protesters out of presidential sight and outside the view of media covering the event.

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DNC2RNC. Democracy Uprising

Starting June 30, nearly two hundred activists will walk 258 miles from the Democratic National Convention in Boston to the Republican National Convention in New York City. It’ll take about a month, and they will cross four states.

The website is DNC2RNC.org. The Mad Hatter Indymedia Center in Connecticut will provide continuing coverage. 

AlterNet comments

The message behind the Democracy Uprising! march is that real democracy doesn’t just take place at conventions and in the voting booths, but rather through grassroots movements and individual communities.

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Major oil deposit found off Cuba

Drilling of an exploratory well in Cuba’s virgin Gulf of Mexico waters that could make the Communist nation an oil exporter and undermine the U.S. embargo has been completed.

The senior Cuban official said Repsol was analyzing samples to determine their quality and whether commercial production would be feasible.

Repsol believes up to 1.6 billion barrels of oil may be located where the drill bit went down 18 miles off the northwest coast of Cuba in waters one mile deep.

Yet another reason for the Bushies to invade?

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The Democratic National Convention

Zzzzz. What a snoozer. Maybe that’s the point. Be optimistic, appeal to the mainstream, and do nothing even vaguely controversial or even thought-provoking.

The attack dogs will be set loose soon enough.

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The Google IPO

Don’t.

Google says its 26.4 million shares will likely cost between $108 and $135 apiece, according to a pre-IPO filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

This is way way too expensive and the price will drop substantially as the stock gets shorted into oblivion.

“It’s priced for ultimate perfection,” says one Google investor, who plans on selling quickly after the offering.

But if you must. 

However, chant this mantra first, “the stock is not the company, the stock is not the company.” Google the company is wonderful, Google the stock at say, $120, will be a sinking stone. At that price, the upside potential is tiny, the downside risk is enormous.

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Google gets MyDoomed

Even the biggest and most prepared websites can get blown offline by a virus. In this case, a new variant of the MyDoom virus uses Google and other search engines to find email addresses to send itself to.

Update your antivirus program and don’t click on anything in weird emails.

The subject and body of infected messages vary, but normally refer to bogus security warnings ostensibly from a user’s own administrator. This social engineering ruse, although by no means new, helps explain MyDoom-O’s wildfire spread.

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Vote To Impeach ad in Boston Globe today!

The entire national and world media are in Boston this week for the Democratic National Convention. By placing a full-page ad in the Boston Globe, the Impeach Bush campaign will not only reach a large New England audience but most of the world media.

Bush and Cheney “committed violations and subversions of the Constitution of the United States of America in an attempt to carry out with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes and deprivations of the civil rights of the people of the United States”

They have:

1) Seized power to wage wars of aggression, acts defined as the supreme international crime in the Nuremberg Judgment, in defiance of the U.S. Constitution.

2) Lied to the people of the U.S., to Congress, and to the U.N., about the war and occupation concealing the real reason for the attack.

3) Ordered and directed the violent overthrow of sovereign states, disappearances, kidnappings, torture, assassinations, summary executions, and murders.

4) Threatened to wage first strike nuclear war against even non-nuclear countries.

5) Trashed the Bill of Rights and fundamental freedoms of the American people and others everywhere by acting to strip U.S. citizens of their constitutional and human rights.

Read the whole thing (pdf)

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“Free Speech Zone” at DNC in Boston

Photos taken from inside the cage, which is surrounded by double chain link fencing, razorwire, and covered with netting.

That’s a sniper outside the cage.

More photos

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Rocket Fuel: A Food Group!

Rocket fuel has been found in milk in California, and experts can’t agree on whether it might be bad for kids. And you thought Ronald “Ketchup is a vegetable” Reagan was bad….

From The Bitter Shack of Resentment

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What’s wrong with security at the DNC in Boston

James Atkinson, a recognized security expert, posted criticized the Boston DNC security, noting on numerous inept security procedures.

The Feds then apparently retaliated by shutting down Atkinson’s Yahoo listserv. and, according to the InfoWarrior listserv, demanded from Yahoo “copies of all list members, and copies of the thousands of messages and postings that were made to the list, plus a history of everything he had ever subscribed to or posted.”

Touchy, touchy…

From a later posting by James Atkinson:

The FBI warnings about an unconfirmed threat targeting the media was bogus, and was just a way to get the media to shut-up about, to stop complaining about, and stop reporting on, the weak security at the convention. Essentially the government is trying to convince them that they could save their own butts by being silent.

Sadly, by journalists being cowed into not reporting on the problems with bad security, they are allowing the government to get away with ridiculously poor security, which in turn is actually increasing the threat to the journalists’ safety.

InfoWarrior concludes with:

A lesson our government has yet to learn — even after the renewed interest in security theory post-911 — is that security through obscurity does not work.  Neither does saying “trust us, but don’t ask any questions.”

Sadly, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

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And the Democratic Convention theme song is…

You heard it here first, the song of the convention is Johnny B Goode. Get it? John Kerry, John Edwards. Go Johnny go!

Via Scripting News

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