Responsibility vs. Accountability at Abu Ghraib

[shereads]

I watched one of the medal ceremonies from Athens this morning, and learned that I've been robbed: I can no longer enjoy watching the U.S. flag raised and its anthem played before an international audience. You can almost feel the distrust, the skepticism, the fear and resentment. You have to wonder how many people are watching this young American accept an award, and seeing another young face, beaming with pride, beside a pyramid of naked prisoners.

The people whose leadership gave us Abu Ghraib as an indelible symbol of the USA are typically among the vocal proponents of an amendment to ban burning the flag. They understand the value of symbols so well, when it serves their own interests. Now that the flag has been irrevocably degraded, Mr. Rumsfeld claims "responsibility," but we're given 7 low-ranking officers and MPs to represent GWB's promised "era of accountability."

In separate Washington Post stories, we find it confirmed that no person of high rank will stand court martial for Abu Ghraib and that Mr. Rumsfeld will not testify as requested by the attorney for one of the accused MPs; and that the blame for Abu Ghraib extends to the upper levels of government and the Pentagon. I'm exhausted from wondering why these people never receive so much as a slap on the hand, much less justice.

Officials Say Inquiry Also Confirms Prisoners Were Hidden From Aid Groups

By Josh White and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 24, 2004; Page A01


An Army investigation into the Abu Ghraib prison scandal has found that military police dogs were used to frighten detained Iraqi teenagers as part of a sadistic game, one of many details in the forthcoming report that were provoking expressions of concern and disgust among Army officers briefed on the findings.

Earlier reports and photographs from the prison have indicated that unmuzzled military police dogs were used to intimidate detainees at Abu Ghraib, something the dog handlers have told investigators was sanctioned by top military intelligence officers there. But the new report, according to Pentagon sources, will show that MPs were using their animals to make juveniles -- as young as 15 years old -- urinate on themselves as part of a competition.

"There were two MP dog handlers who did use dogs to threaten kids detained at Abu Ghraib," said an Army officer familiar with the report, one of two investigations on detainee abuse scheduled for release this week. "It has nothing to do with interrogation. It was just them on their own being weird."

Speaking on the condition of anonymity because the report has not been released, other officials at the Pentagon said the investigation also acknowledges that military intelligence soldiers kept multiple detainees off the record books and hid them from international humanitarian organizations. The report also mentions substantiated claims that at least one male detainee was sodomized by one of his captors at Abu Ghraib, sources said.

"The report will show that these actions were bad, illegal, unauthorized, and some of it was sadistic," said one Defense Department official. "But it will show that they were the actions of a few, actions that went unnoticed because of leadership failures."

The investigative report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay focuses on the role of military intelligence soldiers in the prison abuse. It will expand the circle of soldiers considered responsible for abuse beyond the seven military police soldiers already facing charges, officials said, to include more than a dozen others -- low-ranking soldiers, civilian contractors and medics. Sources have said that the report also criticizes military leadership, from the prison and up through the highest levels of the U.S. chain of command in Iraq at the time.

One Pentagon official said yesterday that Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, then the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is named in the report for leadership deficiencies and failing to deal with rising problems at the prison as he tried to manage 150,000 troops countering an unexpected insurgency. Sanchez, however, will not be recommended for any punitive action or even a letter of reprimand, the source said. About 300 pages of the 9,000-page report will be released publicly, according to Army officials.

Another report regarding the prison abuse, commissioned by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, is expected to be released this afternoon. That independent commission, chaired by James R. Schlesinger, a former defense secretary, will be critical of the guidance and policies set by top Pentagon and military officials as they worked to get more useful intelligence from detainees in Iraq, said a source familiar with the commission's work.

The Schlesinger report is not expected to implicate high-level officials by name, but it would be the first report to link the abuse at Abu Ghraib to policies set by top officials in Washington. The Fay report, by contrast, does not point a finger at the Pentagon and instead assigns most of the blame to military intelligence and military police who worked on the chaotic grounds of the overcrowded and austere Abu Ghraib.

Rumsfeld had not been briefed on the commission's findings as of yesterday, a Defense Department source said, and the commission likewise has not briefed members of Congress, who have been anticipating the reports for months. Initially, the Schlesinger commission was slated to take 45 days, and Rumsfeld suggested that it consider limiting itself to reviewing the work of other investigations. But the commission hired a staff of more than 20 people and conducted dozens of interviews, taking more than two months to complete its work.

The reports are part of several investigations into U.S. detainee operations around the world, and so far they have expanded the scope of culpability beyond the seven MPs charged in connection with the most notorious incidents of abuse, such as stacking naked detainees in a pyramid, posing them in mock sexual positions and beating them. Pentagon officials said yesterday that the abuse came not as the result of direct orders but rather as "off-the-clock mischief" that arose from vague instructions and a general lack of oversight.

The core conclusion of the Fay report, said one general who is familiar with it, is that there was a leadership failure in the Army in Iraq that extended well beyond a handful of MPs. "There's a vacuum there," he said. "Either people knew it and turned a blind eye, or they weren't paying attention."

In particular, top leaders failed to give proper attention to reports from the International Committee of the Red Cross that decried conditions at Abu Ghraib, reported allegations of abuse and raised warning flags about detainees being hidden from them. Top Pentagon officials have denied keeping detainees from the ICRC, but the Fay report will concur with an earlier Army investigation that cited the prison for keeping "ghost detainees."

"This report will address the ghost-detainee problem, and it was an outright policy violation," said one Pentagon official familiar with the report. "It did happen, and accordingly it is still being investigated."

Another officer at the Pentagon said he felt that the latest revelations, including the use of dogs to frighten juveniles, were some of the most worrisome of the scandal. He said one particular worry at the Pentagon is how the use of dogs against Arab juveniles will be viewed in the Middle East.

"People know that in war, you know, you have to break eggs," he said. "But this crosses the line."

Staff writer Bradley Graham contributed to this report.

`````````````
Senior Pentagon Officials Share Blame for Abuses, Panel Says
Civilian Experts Reviewed Events at Abu Ghraib

Reuters
Tuesday, August 24, 2004; 2:33 PM


Top Pentagon officials and the military command in Iraq contributed to an environment in which prisoners were abused at Abu Ghraib prison, according to a report released Tuesday by high-level panel investigating the military detentions.

The outside four-member panel headed by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger found that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff failed to exercise proper oversight over confusing detention policies at U.S. prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"Command failures were compounded by poor advice provided by staff officers with responsibility for overseeing battlefield functions related to detention and interrogation operations," the report said. "Military and civilian leaders at the Pentagon share this burden of responsibility."

The panel did not find that Rumsfeld or military leaders directly ordered abuse such as stripping prisoners naked and sexually humiliating them. It said, however, that the abuses were not carried out by just a few individuals, as the Bush administration has consistently maintained.

Schlesinger said there were 300 cases of abuses being investigated, many beyond Abu Ghraib. "So the abuses were not limited to a few individuals." He said there was "sadism" by some Americans at Abu Ghraib.

"It was a kind of animal house on the night shift" at the jail, he added.

The report said prisoner interrogation policies in Iraq were inadequate and deficient, and changes made by Rumsfeld between December 2002 and April 2003 in what interrogation techniques were permitted contributed to uncertainties in the field as to what actions were allowed and what were forbidden.

The report said an expanded list of more coercive techniques that Rumsfeld allowed for Guantanamo "migrated to Afghanistan and Iraq, where they were neither limited nor safeguarded."

The Schlesinger panel, named by Rumsfeld in May to look into the abuse and how effectively the Pentagon addressed it, also includes former Defense Secretary Harold Brown, former Florida Republican Rep. Tillie Fowler and retired Air Force Gen. Charles Horner, who led the allied air campaign in the 1991 Gulf War.

Echoing an earlier investigation headed by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, the Schlesinger panel said the "weak and ineffectual leadership" of Army Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade at Abu Ghraib, "allowed the abuses at Abu Ghraib."

In a statement released by the Pentagon, Rumsfeld said the panel provided "important information and recommendations that will be of assistance in our ongoing efforts to improve detention operations."

In addition, a separate Army investigation headed by Maj. Gen. George Fay faulted Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, at the time the top U.S. commander in Iraq, for leadership failures for not addressing troubles at Abu Ghraib, a senior Army official said. The Schlesinger panel, too, faulted Sanchez.

The Fay report, to be released on Wednesday, found Sanchez and his staff were preoccupied with combating an escalating insurgency and did not focus on the festering problems at Abu Ghraib, the Army official said.

The report also found that Army military intelligence soldiers kept a number of prisoners, dubbed "ghost detainees," off the books and hidden from the International Committee of the Red Cross, the official added. It also found a small number of military police used dogs to menace teen-age Abu Ghraib detainees.

Seven Army reservists from the 372nd Military Police Company already have been charged with abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The Fay report implicates about two dozen more low-ranking soldiers, medics and civilian contractors in the Abu Ghraib abuse, and about half of them will be recommended for criminal proceedings, the Army official said.

"These are illegal, unauthorized, mischievous, sadistic activities happening outside the purview of interrogations," the Army official said.

But the Fay report maintains that the abuse was perpetrated by a few soldiers, but went unchecked as a result of military leadership deficiencies, the Army official said.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters in Crawford, Texas, "Remember, we said early on that it's important that those who were responsible for the appalling acts at Abu Ghraib are held accountable. And it's also important to take a broad look and make sure that there are no systemic problems."

In Mannheim, Germany, a U.S. military judge ruled that Rumsfeld could not be forced to testify in the court martial of a sergeant charged in the abuse.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Unfortunately, we've had our eyebrows raised for a long time. Abu Ghraib was just the straw that FINALLY made Americans understand what that facial expression means.

But, the first step towards recovery is to admit you have a problem.

USA is aware that the rest of the world doesn't believe all the words about "the greatest democracy in the world", "the world's greatest country", "land of the free, home of the brave", etc, etc.

Now, the questions is, those that realize that USA ISN'T such a great country as politicians claim it is - are you going to change your politics, or are you going to bake another apple pie and try to forget about all the footage?

 

[Wildcard Ky]

It's a sham. You notice the one thing that's never mentioned in either report? The CIA.

I'm even more convinced now that the CIA was behind a lot of what went on due to the fact that they are never mentioned. It seems to me that a lot of people are going to get nailed for this (some rightfully so) in an attempt to protect the CIA and their operatives in the area.

These reports would have us believe that there were mass amounts of detainees, i.e. suspected terrorists, many different interrogations, yet the CIA isn't involved in the slightest? How could we possibly be interrogating thousands of people and the CIA not have any involvement worth even mentioning?

This whole thing stinks of a cover up. Not just a cover up of higher level military officials, but of the entire intelligence community.

 

[Pure]

Hi Sher,

If you've ever seen pics from the Philippines early in this century, (i.e. mass graves for the little brown folk) you know that slaughter for empire is a US trait. Same for torture of prisoners.

Generally no one 'pays,' but if so, it's a few underlings.

BTW, there are some interesting stories of physicians' complicity, in the present case.

Just continue to work (not fight) for peace and justice.

 

[shereads]

Wild, if any administration is going to risk its own to help protect the CIA, it won't be the one that outed Joseph Wilson's wife, putting her informants and co-workers in danger as revenge, a warning to other agents, or both.

Wilson is in town tonight for a book signing, and if I hadn't worked late I had planned to go. This man, called a hero by Bush I and now labeled a wild-eyed liar by the White House of Bush II, because he insisted on speaking the truth about the phony WMD. Joseph Wilson is the proof that Bush/Cheney didn't mistakenly accept flawed information about WMD. They demanded information to justify what they wanted to do, and they punished Wilson for calling them on the lie.

These weren't thousands of terrorist suspects and Saddam's confidants. Many of them were were just civilians who fought an invading army on the streets of their city, unwilling to take our word for it that we were there for their own good. They were brutalized with the implicit permission of their Commander in Chief and his Sec. of Defense, both of whom had publicly dismissed the need for the U.S. to be bound by such formalities as the Geneva Conventions at Guantanamo. If it's okay to set aside basic decency in Guantanamo, why should Iraq be different? Hadn't GWB had spent months painting the Iraqis as somehow complicit in 9/11?

In Hunter Thompson's new book he writes that GWB has made him miss Richard Nixon, who until now was Thompson's personification of twisted mediocrity. "In two years," he writes, "he took this country from prosperity and peace to flat-broke and at war. That's a long way to fall."

A hell of a long way. And he retains the loyalty of half the electorate. Amazing.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Ask Ollie North why no one of merit will be held responsible. Face it the bad guys own the system. The "alternative" is so pussy-footed that they spend all their energy on the defensive on obviously spurious claims. And well, fuck it all. Our politicos have no right to do to our country what they have done for the last umpteen years. The uncouth isolationists giving America a bad name in the tourist havens is no help either.




I liked the medal ceremonies. I go to the people no different really (plus look at how many dykes and gays are in the field that NBC tries desperately to ignore the innuendos and huge kisses and hugs of) from any other people. See athletes from different countries focused not on the politics of nationalistic and religious hate, but a simple sport.

Plus, I've been rooting for all the Greek competitors along with the Americans (I'm such a sucker for the plucky underdog home team ).




So fuck Abu Ghraib. What we've seen on American news is nothing. The rest of the world knows that we raped little boys in front of their weeping mothers there. And "real americans TM" don't care what happens to non-whites, non-hets, women, or people evil enough not to live in USA and vote Republican. All this election will prove is what most of us suspect. It no longer matters what a president does, the sides will split evenly to follow and the country is held in the thrall of morons who don't read the paper because it's "so depressing". Fuck it all.


I'm tired of feeling evil because of a corrupt system that ignores my vote (i don't live in a "swing state"), because of morons whose grasp of foreign affairs would be the basis of a Jim Carrey movie, or because of the actions of psychotic sadists.


I AM AN AMERICAN as it should be, fuck America as others have destroyed it. Let me cheer for that flag. It was not by my hand that it was dragged through dirt.

 

[minsue]

*standing and applauding*

 

[oggbashan]

Geneva Convention

When the US announced that the Geneva Convention did not apply to the invasion of Iraq the message was sent that the rules of warfare would be broken.

That message was heard by the US personnel as well as the Iraqis. What was intended I don't know. What was implied was that anything goes in treatment of prisoners.

And who said that the Geneva Convention didn't apply?

Og

 

[patrick1]

I am much less shocked by Abu Ghraib than by Guantanamo Bay. I'm a Brit who's often advocated the American virtues of 'due process' and 'Constitutional rights' to my we-can-manage, we-dont-need-it-all-written-down fellows.

So while I feel Abu Ghraib is one of those dirty consequences of being at war, Guantanamo Bay is a terrible, systematic denial of the most minimal rights. It scars every critique an American or Brit might make of other regimes, if we hold people without trial, without representation, and torture them, and authorise that at the highest level.

Most European democracies have had to grapple with terrorism, and have introduced various forms of detention over the past 40 years. But I don't feel they've ever stooped so low as Guantanamo Bay. To abdicate the moral high ground: how do you justify the next, supposedly 'moral', action?

 

[shereads]

Did you have to bring Jim Carrey into this? Now I'm not only ashamed of the war, but ashamed of Jim Carrey.

Thanks a lot!

Ask Ollie North why no one of merit will be held responsible. Face it the bad guys own the system. The "alternative" is so pussy-footed that they spend all their energy on the defensive on obviously spurious claims. And well, fuck it all. Our politicos have no right to do to our country what they have done for the last umpteen years. The uncouth isolationists giving America a bad name in the tourist havens is no help either.




I liked the medal ceremonies. I go to the people no different really (plus look at how many dykes and gays are in the field that NBC tries desperately to ignore the innuendos and huge kisses and hugs of) from any other people. See athletes from different countries focused not on the politics of nationalistic and religious hate, but a simple sport.

Plus, I've been rooting for all the Greek competitors along with the Americans (I'm such a sucker for the plucky underdog home team ).




So fuck Abu Ghraib. What we've seen on American news is nothing. The rest of the world knows that we raped little boys in front of their weeping mothers there. And "real americans TM" don't care what happens to non-whites, non-hets, women, or people evil enough not to live in USA and vote Republican. All this election will prove is what most of us suspect. It no longer matters what a president does, the sides will split evenly to follow and the country is held in the thrall of morons who don't read the paper because it's "so depressing". Fuck it all.


I'm tired of feeling evil because of a corrupt system that ignores my vote (i don't live in a "swing state"), because of morons whose grasp of foreign affairs would be the basis of a Jim Carrey movie, or because of the actions of psychotic sadists.


I AM AN AMERICAN as it should be, fuck America as others have destroyed it. Let me cheer for that flag. It was not by my hand that it was dragged through dirt.

 

[shereads]

To abdicate the moral high ground: how do you justify the next, supposedly 'moral', action?

Simple: you pronounce that you're doing God's will and that the atrocities are just a few isolated incidents. You court-martial the ones who get caught on camera, and apologize on television to prisoners who are nowhere within view of a TV set.

Patrick, I agree that Guantanamo is where this started. Abu Ghraib is more powerful as a symbol because of the photographs.

Guantanamo seems to have become a sort of Constitutional Law Laboratory where Bush/Cheney/Ashcroft can experiment to see just how much power the Executive Branch can take for itself, using 9/11 and the open-ended War on Terror as a rationale. The existence of the prison at Guantanamo is itself a loophole that a child could see through. The Geneva Conventions were written to apply to prisoners of war who had been evacuated from the field of battle, since obviously the presence of a battle would make it impractical to observe the finer points of the agreement.

By keeping these "detainees" off of U.S. soil and classifying them as witnesses and persons of interest rather than p.o.w.s, the administration can turn the exception into the rule: We aren't abusing prisoners of war, we're questioning witnesses on an emergency basis. The emergency just happens to be continuing for an unknown number of years, maybe decades.

On a case by case basis, the twisted rules can be made to apply to U.S. citizens, as well. Habeus corpus is no longer an inalienable right; it's one granted to us by the Justice Department if they don't suspect us of any terrorist associations. Cross that indistinct line, and you can be locked up indefinitely without being charged with a crime.

Isn't it amazing what can be accomplished in four short years, if you're shameless?

 

[shereads]

deleted double post

 

[shereads]

Re: Geneva Convention

When the US announced that the Geneva Convention did not apply to the invasion of Iraq the message was sent that the rules of warfare would be broken.

That message was heard by the US personnel as well as the Iraqis. What was intended I don't know. What was implied was that anything goes in treatment of prisoners.

And who said that the Geneva Convention didn't apply?

Og

Rummy and Bush on separate occasions, when questioned about the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, dismissed the Geneva Conventions as irrelevent in the War on Terror - which is of course, so open-ended that it can be made to include any Enemy of the State. I remember the press conference when Bush snapped that he couldn't care less about the treatment of terrorists (meaning prisoners of the Afghanistan war). Rumsfeld said that the Geneva Conventions would be followed "in spirt," but not to the letter at Guantanamo. Left open to interpretation by 25-year-old MPs who have a tendency to sadism or are just caving to peer pressure, was exactly what was meant by "the spirit" versus "the letter" of the conventions. Is it okay to pull out fingernails if you don't pull them all out? Who knows.

I don't think either man ever said anything to that effect about Iraq, where we are there as liberators and to win the hearts and minds of the people. In Iraq, they are guilty of ignoring the Red Cross complaints of abuse and rumors - now confirmed - that some prisoners were hidden during Red Cross inspections. In fact, their shock over the Abu Ghraib photographs must have been just that - shock that photos existed, not that these abuses were taking place. They were described in a written report that had been in Rumsfeld's hands and in Bush's possession for weeks.

Since we know from O'Neill's book and other sources that the President doesn't read written reports but relies solely on oral presentations from his advisers, he was as ignorant of the abuses as he chose to be until the photos were made public.

 

[shereads]

Ask Ollie North why no one of merit will be held responsible. Face it the bad guys own the system. The "alternative" is so pussy-footed that they spend all their energy on the defensive on obviously spurious claims. And well, fuck it all. Our politicos have no right to do to our country what they have done for the last umpteen years. The uncouth isolationists giving America a bad name in the tourist havens is no help either.




I liked the medal ceremonies. I go to the people no different really (plus look at how many dykes and gays are in the field that NBC tries desperately to ignore the innuendos and huge kisses and hugs of) from any other people. See athletes from different countries focused not on the politics of nationalistic and religious hate, but a simple sport.

Plus, I've been rooting for all the Greek competitors along with the Americans (I'm such a sucker for the plucky underdog home team ).




So fuck Abu Ghraib. What we've seen on American news is nothing. The rest of the world knows that we raped little boys in front of their weeping mothers there. And "real americans TM" don't care what happens to non-whites, non-hets, women, or people evil enough not to live in USA and vote Republican. All this election will prove is what most of us suspect. It no longer matters what a president does, the sides will split evenly to follow and the country is held in the thrall of morons who don't read the paper because it's "so depressing". Fuck it all.


I'm tired of feeling evil because of a corrupt system that ignores my vote (i don't live in a "swing state"), because of morons whose grasp of foreign affairs would be the basis of a Jim Carrey movie, or because of the actions of psychotic sadists.


I AM AN AMERICAN as it should be, fuck America as others have destroyed it. Let me cheer for that flag. It was not by my hand that it was dragged through dirt.

Okay. But what are you going to do to change things? If you know what's being done in your name and do nothing to bring about a change, then it continues by your hand.

 

[shereads]

But, the first step towards recovery is to admit you have a problem.

USA is aware that the rest of the world doesn't believe all the words about "the greatest democracy in the world", "the world's greatest country", "land of the free, home of the brave", etc, etc.

Now, the questions is, those that realize that USA ISN'T such a great country as politicians claim it is - are you going to change your politics, or are you going to bake another apple pie and try to forget about all the footage?

As for you, young lady, we aren't all one person over here, with the same politics. More than half of voters tried to stop this crew of zealots from taking power. That we failed doesn't mean they speak for us or act on our behalf; it just means we didn't try hard enough.

I'm not surprised that we're imperfect. I never imagined that the world looked to us as its wise and benevolent big brother. I couldn't care less about being the "greatest country," but it doesn't mean there's no greatness here.

The world isn't all black and white, and all "politicians" aren't inheritently corrupt. There are statesmen, even compromised ones, in this country as in others.

It's not all apple pie and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and four years of perverted democracy doesn't wipe out all the good we've done in the world, which is substantial.

Don't make me come over there.

Also: our basketball team can beat the daylights out of any number of Swedes, and make you balance their beer cans on your heads. Now that's greatness!

 

[oggbashan]

I'm not surprised that we're imperfect. I never imagined that the world looked to us as its wise and benevolent big brother. I couldn't care less about being the "greatest country," but it doesn't mean there's no greatness here.

The world isn't all black and white, and all "politicians" aren't inheritently corrupt. There are statesmen, even compromised ones, in this country as in others.

It's not all apple pie and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and four years of perverted democracy doesn't wipe out all the good we've done in the world, which is substantial.

Those of us in the AH who are not US citizens know that there is dissent in the ranks over Iraq and other US foreign policies.

What concerns me, and others who are friends of the US, is the lack of apparent understanding within the US of the impact of US actions and policies in the wider world. Even before Afghanistan and Iraq many counties and people hated the US with a virulence that is almost unbelievable - not because of their governments' propaganda but because of their perception of the US as an entity raping the rest of the world to ensure that US citizens could continue to use the world's resources profligately.

From the viewpoint of a subsistence farmer in Africa the wealth of the poorest US citizen seems to be an unattainable dream. Such envy is easily turned into hatred. Any unpopular regime can divert civil unrest by creating an external threat - that threat is often the US.

The same applies to the citizens of the UK and most of Western Europe. We too are hated for what we have and will not share. We cannot claim clean hands because we in our time were just as rapacious.

The US flag is a powerful symbol but to some it is the sign of an unprincipled bully robbing the poor to feed the rich. It will take a long time and hard work to change the attitudes of peoples. Currently the US does not seem to be trying.

Og

 

[shereads]

The same applies to the citizens of the UK and most of Western Europe. We too are hated for what we have and will not share. We cannot claim clean hands because we in our time were just as rapacious.

I'm going to make a tour of povery-ridden third world countries and hand out candy as soon as I find a rental car agency in each that guarantees the air conditioning in the Hummer. Want to ride shotgun, Og?

 

[Guest]

YOU WANT THE TRUTH?!

YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

YOU WANT ME ON THAT WALL!

YOU NEED ME ON THAT WALL!

 

[shereads]

YOU WANT THE TRUTH?!

YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

YOU WANT ME ON THAT WALL!

YOU NEED ME ON THAT WALL!

Do that thing with your eyebrows. That's what makes it work.

 

[OldnotDead]

Update on Wilson

Wild, if any administration is going to risk its own to help protect the CIA, it won't be the one that outed Joseph Wilson's wife, putting her informants and co-workers in danger as revenge, a warning to other agents, or both.

Wilson is in town tonight for a book signing, and if I hadn't worked late I had planned to go. This man, called a hero by Bush I and now labeled a wild-eyed liar by the White House of Bush II, because he insisted on speaking the truth about the phony WMD. Joseph Wilson is the proof that Bush/Cheney didn't mistakenly accept flawed information about WMD. They demanded information to justify what they wanted to do, and they punished Wilson for calling them on the lie.

. . .
A hell of a long way. And he retains the loyalty of half the electorate. Amazing.

Sher,

A little factual detour while I divert the thread.

Wilson's version of events has been crimped a little bit as a result of both the Brits investigation, our own Senate review and confirmation of the information from the 9/11 commission itself.

Typical of much of the media, though, since retractions rarely make good copy, is that this little blip of correct information is now ignored.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/0722thur1-22.html

This is one of the better summaries.

 

[Guest]

Re: Update on Wilson

largely had originated from British intelligence sources.

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!

 

[shereads]

Re: Update on Wilson

Sher,

A little factual detour while I divert the thread.

Wilson's version of events has been crimped a little bit as a result of both the Brits investigation, our own Senate review and confirmation of the information from the 9/11 commission itself.

Typical of much of the media, though, since retractions rarely make good copy, is that this little blip of correct information is now ignored.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/0722thur1-22.html

This is one of the better summaries.

Yeah, the Brits gave us the yellow cake uranium letter, too. They've been an invaluable source of information. And let us not forget that the White House was allowed to edit the 9/11 commission report. Of this list, Wilson is the one source that isn't made suspect by a motive to lie, a history of lying, or being beholden to the White House.

 

[Pure]

Old not dead said,

Sher,

A little factual detour while I divert the thread.

Wilson's version of events has been crimped a little bit as a result of both the Brits investigation, our own Senate review and confirmation of the information from the 9/11 commission itself.

Typical of much of the media, though, since retractions rarely make good copy, is that this little blip of correct information is now ignored.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarep...22thur1-22.html

This is one of the better summaries.

Surely you jest. The "summary" is an attack on Wilson's credibility that could have come from Rove himself. Is there any reason to think Arizona Republicans have an unbiassed view of the matters.

The simple point is that, although Bush provided for "cover" in attributing the 'yellow cake' report to the Brits, there were good reason not to believe it-- i.e., Brit and American experts who could say, "That's horsehit." But all nay sayers were left out of the loops, in the lead up to the war.

It's plain to everyone but you and Karl Rove and Rummy that the President used every means to scare the public, and had Powell use (and abuse) his credibility for the same purpose.

The issue of 'truth' or 'evidence' was sidelined by Cheney, Rummy et al. Or to put it less generously they were (and are) liars. Actually Bush may NOT be a liar, since that presupposes he comprehends the situation and knows the truth. He no more lies than does a ventriloquist's dummy.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

The Sad Sad Truth

Okay. But what are you going to do to change things? If you know what's being done in your name and do nothing to bring about a change, then it continues by your hand.

What am I or what can I?

The truth of the matter is that I can do whatever I want to protest the turns of events and it won't matter one iota to the world. If I vote, my vote is discounted because my district is gerrymandered and my state is locked to one party. Thus, voting is out.

If I march and wave my sign in peaceful protest, I am referred to as a wanna-be hippie and my opinion is discounted by a press currently unsympathetic to protest. Thus, protest is out.

If I rant a long speech on a forum, or argue a point persuasively, or publish an article about why certain things are bullshit, I only preach to the choir. Nothing changes. Thus, spreading the word is out.

If I donate money to a candidate, I give him less than the bosses who own him. My values are ignored. Thus, donation is out.

If I volunteer, I feel really dirty because they make us act like fuckin' used car salesman. Thus, volunteering is out.

If I blow up something, my protest is ignored and fear of people like me will be used to usher in reforms against exactly what I'm after. Not to mention, I don't do killing people even accidentally unless they have done something directly to threaten my life or the life of my friends and family. Thus, booms are out.

If I set myself on fire, I'm accused of copying protesting buddhist monks, plus I'm arrested for committing suicide. Thus, pyres are out.

The truth is there is nothing I can do. The only people like me with power of change are those that live in swing states like yours. The betrayal from the people of the 60s has eliminated all other roads to progress, except of course the drastic one of threatened revolution. I do not know if I could motivate that one or if I could keep the message together long enough to transport it into our corrupted government.

 

[shereads]

Re: The Sad Sad Truth

So anything with a downside is out.

I can see your point, honey. Nobody who's read the chilling account of that day at Kent State when the National Guardsmen panicked and hurled insults at the protesters could blame you for wanting to avoid scorn and frustration. Some of those kids were so embarrassed and frustrated, they fell to the ground and played dead.

Luc, my less-than-satanic friend, if being "referred to as a wannabe hippie" is your idea of a good reason not to protest, and if you can't see a point in arguing your views because you'll face rejection and frustration, then you're absolutely right. Your generation of Americans mighta as well sit this one out.

If you had said you were afraid of being arrested, losing your job, being made to wear an armband or kicked out of the country, you'd have been in good company. Nobody should have to throw his life away for a lost cause; people do, and sometimes they beat the odds, but I can't pretend I'd be one of them. But Jesus, honey, if all it takes to make you give up is the thought that it won't be easy...I don't even believe that.

It's been a crappy four years for people who hate bullies and hypocrites, Luc. The worst four years I can remember since Vietnam and Watergate. We were lucky that things got easier for a while, after that. You grew up not knowing the worst about the nature of some people who seek and take power. Now you know, and you're right to be disgusted. But it isn't likely to get better on its own. And if you leave it to others, you're part of the problem. You can decide to fold up the tents and line up for your wrist tattoo, or you can at least be willing to take a little flack for what you believe.

You will. You have it in you. That's so obvious about you: the strength of your passion. It's just afraid to come out right now. It doesn't know its own power. It will. It has to.

We can't all be young again, Luc. You're all the hope we have.

What am I or what can I?

The truth of the matter is that I can do whatever I want to protest the turns of events and it won't matter one iota to the world. If I vote, my vote is discounted because my district is gerrymandered and my state is locked to one party. Thus, voting is out.

If I march and wave my sign in peaceful protest, I am referred to as a wanna-be hippie and my opinion is discounted by a press currently unsympathetic to protest. Thus, protest is out.

If I rant a long speech on a forum, or argue a point persuasively, or publish an article about why certain things are bullshit, I only preach to the choir. Nothing changes. Thus, spreading the word is out.

If I donate money to a candidate, I give him less than the bosses who own him. My values are ignored. Thus, donation is out.

If I volunteer, I feel really dirty because they make us act like fuckin' used car salesman. Thus, volunteering is out.

If I blow up something, my protest is ignored and fear of people like me will be used to usher in reforms against exactly what I'm after. Not to mention, I don't do killing people even accidentally unless they have done something directly to threaten my life or the life of my friends and family. Thus, booms are out.

If I set myself on fire, I'm accused of copying protesting buddhist monks, plus I'm arrested for committing suicide. Thus, pyres are out.

The truth is there is nothing I can do. The only people like me with power of change are those that live in swing states like yours. The betrayal from the people of the 60s has eliminated all other roads to progress, except of course the drastic one of threatened revolution. I do not know if I could motivate that one or if I could keep the message together long enough to transport it into our corrupted government.