Newsweak
posted by Lowell Brown at 10:17 AM
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The Hedgehog Blog
Political and social observations from two aspiring hedgehogs who love the Isaiah Berlin essay.
Monday, May 16, 2005
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4 Comments:
First AbuGhraib and then reports of Muslim detainees at Gitmo titillated by female interrogators and smeared with fake menstrual blood and THIS is what brings the walls down? I don't buy it. Besides, this (Koran desecration) is old news. What self-respecting neo-con *doesn't* believe and hope detainees' Korans were desecrated?
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, in a U.S. State Dept.-issued press release on May 12, said the Newsweek story isn't a chief cause of the riots: " [H]e has been told that the Jalalabad, Afghanistan, rioting was related more to the ongoing political reconciliation process in Afghanistan than anything else."
http://usinfo.state.gov/usinfo/Archive/2005/May/12-273892.html?chanlid=washfile
Posted by Bernard Goldofsky
Bernard: I don't know how things are on your planet, but here on planet Earth this is seen as a significant mistake by a major news organization. When you come back to visit, ask yourself: Was the story wrong or not? Didn't Newsweek take the extraordinary step of retracting the story, just today? As for your statement about what you assume all neocons must hope and believe, well, on our planet such statements are viewed as pretty silly.
Posted by The Hedgehog
Ok, I'll dumb it down for you so as to avoid confusion.
The International Red Cross reported (widely covered in the American media) in December of 2004 on torture at Gitmo, including Koran desecration.
Dec. 30, 2004, "Released Moroccan Guantanamo Detainee Tells Islamist Paper of His Ordeal," reported the Financial Times. "They watched you each time you went to the toilet; the American soldiers used to tear up copies of Koran and throw them in the toilet. ..." said the released prisoner.
On Jan. 9, 2005, Andrew Sullivan, writing in The Sunday Times of London, said: "We now know a great deal about what has gone on in U.S. detention facilities under the Bush administration. Several government and Red Cross reports detail the way many detainees have been treated. We know for certain that the United States has tortured five inmates to death. We know that 23 others have died in U.S. custody under suspicious circumstances. We know that torture has been practiced by almost every branch of the U.S. military in sites all over the world -- from Abu Ghraib to Tikrit, Mosul, Basra, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
"We know that no incidents of abuse have been reported in regular internment facilities and that hundreds have occurred in prisons geared to getting intelligence. We know that thousands of men, women and children were grabbed almost at random from their homes in Baghdad, taken to Saddam's former torture palace and subjected to abuse, murder, beatings, semi-crucifixions and rape.
(now follow closely)
IOW, Newsweek, whether its story was true or not, didn't perpetrate these previously substantiated actions.
I'll repeat that.
IOW, Newsweek, whether its story was true or not, didn't perpetrate these previously substantiated actions.
We can thank our good friend Alberto Gonzales and the rest of the evil, lying, cynical bastards who are out to win the hearts and minds of Muslim people everywhere.
On January 25, 2002, Gonzales advised Bush that "the war on terrorism is a new kind of war, a new paradigm [that] renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitation on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders some of its provisions quaint." The "quaint" Geneva Conventions are treaties ratified by the United States, and therefore part of the supreme law of the land under our Constitution.
Gonzales also provided Bush with novel defenses against potential war crimes prosecutions that might result from torturing prisoners captured in Afghanistan. The 1996 War Crimes Act says that grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions are war crimes. Thus, the definition of war crimes includes torture, inhuman treatment, and willful killing, as well as outrages against personal dignity. Gonzales advised Bush that he could avoid allegations of war crimes by simply declaring that Geneva doesn't apply to the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
In the spirit of the new paradigm declared by Gonzales here are some pictures taken by our fighting forces in Iraq (along with hilarious captions), the presence of which runs roughshod over some of the "quaint" provisions of the Geneva Convention.
http://www.undermars.com/gallery63.html
http://www.undermars.com/gallery62.html
http://www.undermars.com/gallery61.html
http://www.undermars.com/gallery60.html
http://www.undermars.com/gallery59.html
Posted by Bernard Goldofsky
www.freethemnow.org
At this very moment, 408 Moroccan Prisoners of War are being held against their will by an army called the Polisario Front. Some of these men have been held captive for more than a quarter century—even after the 1991 cease fire which ended the armed conflict over the Sahara Desert. They are regularly tortured, forced to perform slave labor, malnourished and deprived access to medical attention. Please support these Moroccan Prisoners of War by signing this petition for their immediate & unconditional release. www.freethemnow.org
Posted by Carlos
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