Guantanamo hunger strikers

i saw a quick headline on a msnbc clicker, and that was the end of that. Till i came across this link.

http://www.infowars.com/articles/ps/gtmo_h...ube_torture.htm

Guantanamo hunger strikers say feeding tubes employed as torture

AP | October 20 2005

Prisoners on hunger strike at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, reported troops force-fed them with dirty feeding tubes that have been violently inserted and withdrawn as punishment, said declassified notes released Wednesday by defence lawyers.

The repeated removal and insertion of the tubes has caused striking prisoners to vomit blood and experience intense pain they have equated with torture, the lawyers reported to a U.S. federal judge after visiting their clients at the base in eastern Cuba.

Prisoners said they were taunted by troops who said the treatment was intended to persuade them to end the hunger strike that began Aug. 9, the lawyers wrote in affidavits filed as part of a lawsuit in federal court in Washington seeking greater access to prisoners at the high-security jail for terror suspects.

Lt.-Col. Jeremy Martin, a military spokesman for the Guantanamo detention centre, said all detainees in the hunger strike are closely monitored by medical personnel and mistreatment is not tolerated, though he did not know the specific procedures for handling the feeding tubes.

"Detainees...are treated humanely," Martin said.

"Claims to the contrary are wholly inaccurate and blatantly misrepresent the excellent work being done here by honourable military and civilian professionals."

Guantanamo officials have said this latest hunger strike began with 76 detainees protesting against their confinement. Defence lawyers have cited other reasons as well, including complaints about food and water, alleged abuse by guards and interrogators and their desire to either face trial or be released.

Yousef al Shehri, 21, of Saudi Arabia, told his lawyers guards removed a nasal feeding tube from one prisoner and reinserted it into another without cleaning it first.

"These large tubes...were viewed by the detainees as objects of torture," lawyer Julia Tarver, whose firm represents 10 Saudi detainees, said in an affidavit.

"They were forcibly shoved up the detainees' noses and down into their stomachs."

At Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. military holds about 500 detainees suspected of terrorist activities. Martin said 25 detainees are on hunger strike, including 22 who are being force-fed.

The number participating in the strike reached a high of 131 in mid-September when detainees refused meals to commemorate the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States, Martin said.

Most detainees participating in the hunger strike are not confined to hospital beds and are permitted to exercise, take showers, send and receive mail, visit the detainee library and practise their religion, he said.

Defence lawyers who have visited the prison in recent weeks said their clients have lost substantial weight, appeared listless and depressed - and have insisted they will maintain the protest until conditions improve or they are released. A judge has not yet ruled on their request for increased access to the detainees and their medical records.

Notes of meetings between lawyers and their clients at the detention centr eare classified until they have been reviewed by the military and cleared for release.

Joshua Colangelo-Ryan, a lawyer for six men from Bahrain, said one of his clients, Isa al Murbati, has lost about 50 pounds as a result of the hunger strike.

"There's nothing in my mind that he intends to stop the hunger strike," said Colangelo-Ryan, who returned from Guantanamo on Monday.

Tarver, who returned from the base Oct. 2, said two of her clients were being force-fed and unable to walk.

"It's quite a drastic situation," she said.

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I'm sure theres more on a google search

The best part is this...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...07/ixworld.html

The Bush administration pledged yesterday to veto legislation banning the torture of prisoners by US troops after an overwhelming and almost unprecedented revolt by loyalist congressmen.

The mutiny was the latest setback for an administration facing an increasingly independent and bloody-minded legislature. But it also marked a key moment in Congress's campaign to curtail the huge powers it has granted the White House since 2001 in its war against terrorism.

The late-night Senate vote saw the measure forbidding torture passed by 90 to nine, with most Republicans backing the measure. Most senators said the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal and similar allegations at the Guantanamo Bay prison rendered the result a foregone conclusion.

The administration's extraordinary isolation was underlined when the Senate Republican majority leader, Bill Frist, supported the amendment.

The man behind the legislation, Republican Senator John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner in Vietnam, said the move was backed by American soldiers. His amendment would prohibit the "cruel, inhumane or degrading" treatment of prisoners in the custody of America's defence department.

The vote was one of the largest and best supported congressional revolts during President George W Bush's five years in office and shocked the White House.

"We have put out a Statement of Administration Policy saying that his advisers would recommend that he vetoes it if it contains such language," White House spokesman Scott McClellan warned yesterday.

The administration said Congress was attempting to tie its hands in the war against terrorism.

The veto would be Mr Bush's first use of his most extreme legislative option. But senators pointed out that a presidential veto can be overturned by a two-thirds majority in both houses.

For now the amendment's fate depends on negotiations between the Senate and the lower chamber, the House of Representatives, which is more loyal to the administration.

But senators said they were confident that most of the language would survive and that the issue could pose an extremely awkward dilemma for the president.

The amendment was attached to the $440 billion (£247 billion) defence spending bill and if Mr Bush vetoes the amendment, he would have to veto the entire bill.

That would leave America's armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan short of cash as early as the middle of next month.

Well, I guess the Guantanamo prisoners better fucking EAT, like they have been instructed to do. Feeding tubes through the nose and down the esophagus are not the worst alternative, believe me. A long time ago, they fed people through tubes inserted RECTALLY up through the colon into the small intestine if the patient has suffered extreme damage to the face/esophagus/epiglottis and could not swallow.

Nowadays they usually go with a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) tube, which is inserted surgically, through the mouth and down the esophagus and into the stomach, and pulled through a small surgical wound with the use of an endoscope. The patient then has a permenant feeding tube protruding through the side of the abdominal wall which need not be removed. Of course, in the case of the Guantanamo prisoners, once it was put in, they would have to be kept in four-point restraints to keep them from trying to remove it all the time. That would really suck. I can't see them going to all that trouble unless it was a high-ranking official or someone who had information they REALLY wanted badly.

If I was being held in Guantanamo, I'd do as I was told. Shit can always get worse, always.

These guys are probably being placed in four-point restraints to keep them from fucking with the nasogastric tube, then fed liquid nutrition. The tube is probably then removed and after an hour or two (once the enteral nutrition is digested) then the prisoner is released from restraints. This is, more or less, how severely nutritionally deficient anorexic and bulimic patients are fed if they cannot eat normally enough to keep from dying. It's very unpleasant for the patients, but what the fuck. EAT, and nobody will have to force-feed you.

If the patient is really weak, they might resort to parenteral nutrition (IV drip) to get them strong enough to put in a PEG tube.

Of course, the easiest thing would just be for them to tell the S-2 what they want to know, then Abdul could go home, and back to herding goats or whatever he was doing in Iraq before he was taken prisoner.

The problem with the Gitmo prisoners is that they lack imagination. They just have no idea how much more fucked up things can get.

U.S. Marine Corps brig guards are too humane to allow prisoners to starve themselves to death. They are very patient, and will be glad to force-feed Iraqi prisoners for YEARS to keep them alive so that they can one day return safely to their homes and families. Semper Fi, Abdul. And bon appetite.

Originally posted by KaBar2@Oct 30 2005, 04:07 AM

Well, I guess the Guantanamo prisoners better fucking EAT, like they have been instructed to do. Feeding tubes through the nose and down the esophagus are not the worst alternative, believe me. A long time ago, they fed people through tubes inserted RECTALLY up through the colon into the small intestine if the patient has suffered extreme damage to the face/esophagus/epiglottis and could not swallow.

 

Quoted post

If they want to starve to death, let them.

Kabar you're an evil fuck.

I think kabar is one of those right-wing wierdos who talks tough about war and militarism, but never been or ever knew anyone who was in the service. the closest he ever got to combat was when he walked by the army recruiting center next to the local quiznos, which he drove 2 blocks to in his SUV...

What many people don't realize is that as many as 90% of those prisoners are there purely by circumstance when the streets were swept after an incident.

^^yeah Villian it's a horrible situation, one without much structure or accountability and situations and misteps like this just prove that yes, unless someone does something now, things will get much worse before they get better..

Originally posted by John Birch@Oct 30 2005, 12:35 PM

I think kabar is one of those right-wing wierdos who talks tough about war and militarism, but never been or ever knew anyone who was in the service. the closest he ever got to combat was when he walked by the army recruiting center next to the local quiznos, which he drove 2 blocks to in his SUV...

Quoted post

Kabar is a former anarchist liberal trainhopper / hobo turned hitler youth republican late in life. I'm pretty sure he hasn't been in the military.

Kabar is a fraud. He's just some rightwing douchebag that comes on here with his phony story of how he was this "anarchist/Hippie/hobo/protester" who got straightened out by the Marines. And tries to convert kids into beleiving his fascist dickhead propoganda.

I can't beleive there are people on here naive enough to fall for it.

fuck Kabar.

chea////

LOL. SF1 you are just too much fun on the internet, no shit. "An evil fuck." LOL LOL LOL. Guy you just have no idea how horrible people can be to one another, really. And whenever I try to explain it to you, you go off on a tangent about how I'm a fraud, etc. The part you don't like is that I'm NOT a fraud, and you don't like the truth, apparently.

I am not going to recite my bona fides any more on here. Nobody else has to, so fuck it, I won't either. I've posted it all before, if anybody cares to know, go fucking look it up.

They are not going to let any important intelligence assets in Gitmo kill themselves. THEY KNOW INFORMATION THAT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT INTENDS TO GET OUT OF THEM. And they will either tell the S-2 what they want to know, or life will really begin to suck. Horrible medical ways to feed people so that they cannot starve themselves are just the start.

Obviously, if the detainee is in four-point restraints with a PEG tube through his abdominal wall, he can't get up to piss or take a dump. So that means he's got to have a rubber Foley catheter up his penis into his bladder, with the balloon inflated with sterile water, attached to a urine collection bag. I've inserted many of them, in ten years as a nurse, in surgical patients, people that are paralyzed, women about to give birth and so on. Properly done, it's uncomfortable, but not unbearable. The thought of it is pretty awful though, and I'll bet the Gitmo prisoners would not care for it one bit.

The bowel elimination thing is usually handled with a type of adult diaper called "Chuks" or a bedpan, depending on the situation, but if somebody has elimination problems sometimes they wind up with a colonostomy--their large intestine is attached directly to the outside and their shit collects in a plastic bag glued over the stoma (hole) with a sponge-rubber ring. Now, you talk about life being fucked up? Living with a colonostomy has to be just about as bad as it gets, outside of being paralyzed or a burn patient.

I tell you the truth, before I would submit to any of this shit, I would TELL THEM WHAT THEY WANT TO KNOW.

Wouldn't you? I sure as fuck would.

And John Birch--you're wrong, I served a tour in the Marines in an infantry battalion, so nyaah, nyaah, nyaah. Then I served a year in a National Guard tank battalion (tanks are fun to drive and the guns are fun to shoot, but in actual war, they suck because they are so vulnerable.) And then I served about six or seven years in the Texas militia, where we actually trained harder than I did in the Marines, and did stuff that was a shitload more interesting. The regular armed forces is boring as hell, although I did enjoy armorer's school and working in a battalion armory for three years.

People keep saying things to me on here like "Oooh, you're so old, why are you even on a grafitti web site anyway?" It's because I enjoy baiting all the whiners so much. That, and corresponding with the guys on here who enjoy learning new shit. And for those of you who don't, "Oh well." I guess you'll find some other thread and some other poster that you like better, eventually. In the meantime, 12 oz. is plenty entertaining. Maybe one in twenty-five or thirty 12 oz.ers cares to know what I care to teach. I stick around for them. I try not to flame anybody or resort to ad hominem attacks, I try not to use bad language too often, and I state my opinions, just like everybody else on here. What the heck is so wrong with that? I don't agree with lots of shit on here, but I only bitch about it about every fifteen minutes or so.

yea, shit...all they need to do is cooperate. it doesn't matter that the authority is completely illegitimate. just bend over and deal with it, then, like every fairy tale, you'll get that happy ending we told you you'd get. basically.

Poeisis, you clearly don't understand the situation, guy. Thay WILL TALK. The only question is, when? So they can spend years in a dog cage getting force fed with a tube, or they can tell the CIA what it wants to know. You guys seem very upset by the fact that they are being harshly treated and relentlessly interrogated. Believe me when I tell you---this is the "humane" version of interrogation. All they would have to do is turn the regular line company Marines loose on the prisoners and things would get far, far worse, without any prompting whatsoever from the CIA and military intelligence handlers.

The only reason they are being treated this well is that the authorities higher up in the chain of command insist that they be handled according to the regulations.

I was subjected to much worse treatment in Escape and Evasion school than these terrorist pricks are receiving. These guys are receiving no electric shock, no beatings, no deprivation of food or water, no sleep deprivation, no being doused in water 24-7, no "water treatment." No genuine torture of any kind. I'm willing to bet cash money that the brig guards are being as professional and restrained as they can manage under the circumstances.

Under genuine torture, EVERYBODY TALKS. Everybody. The very fact that these guys are still holding out proves that they are not being tortured.

I also believe that the facility at Camp X-ray is a "Potemkin village." It's the detention facility that the press is told about and everybody focuses on. Somewhere else in the world (probably Egypt) there are other (or probably several, in different countries), genuine interrogation facilities where the real bad boys are sent, that is run by the CIA or some other intelligence organization. The CIA has a reputation far in excess of any they've earned. The ones I have met were just kind of so-so impressive. I met two guys in 1976 whom I thought were either FBI or CIA, in armorer's school. They had the demeanor of officers, they did not associate with the enlisted troops, and of whom my armorer student buddy the SEAL once said "They're spooks, gotta be." They had the civilian rank of GS-12, which is the same as a Marine Corps captain. They were kind of snotty (like I said, "officers") but not exactly gifted in the weapons repair arena. Their civilian haircuts stood out like a sore thumb in a school full of soldiers, Marines and Navy SEALS.

There were also two CIA guys involved in surveilling the IWW Fast Food Workers organizing drive in State College, PA in about 1972 or so. They sent a female former Sorbonne student into the organizing group to infiltrate, but she ratted them out to her boyfriend the Wobbly, and the IWW turned the tables on the CIA, and we started watching them watch us. The whole organizing attempt had an air of amateurish futility until the CIA showed up. Word that they were there spread quickly and energized the Wobblies. It was like "Wow! If the CIA thinks this is important enough to infiltrate, we must be on the right track!" The IWW still got defeated in the elections, but they fought the good fight. Everybody was amazed to have their Big Brother fantasies made flesh and blood, and everybody wanted to go help "watch the watchers." The Sorbonne infiltrator, BTW, was a gorgeous chick who wound up having a breakdown and going to a psychicatric hospital.

What was this about? I forget.

well, 'guy', your arguments always hinge on the loosey-goosey notion that everyone in iraq that lifts a finger of opposition, or in detention, MUST be a terrorist, or that the US military, regardless of the tonnage of facts supporting the opposite, is legal and righteous to do whatever the talking heads say is okay. that's killer.

i don't really see the grand vision there is in torturing, detaining and generally depriving people of basic rights when absolutely squat has been proven/disproven about their status. jose padilla, a US citizen, has now been detained, without any charges for 3 and a half years now. so, your argument would be, just untie the hands and let the torture run free, then we'll see some charges?

KaBar, you are so on point. A lot of these younger guys rely on their internet spook web rings and UC Berkeley liberal rags for all their information (See SF1)

Your calm, collected insight is a welcome break from the constant litany of "Fuck Bush" "Down with the U.S. Government" and other baseless arguements born of "Young Urban Activist Weekly"

....do the crime, do the time

'do the crime do the time'? gitmo detainees are suspects. it's not a 'baseless' claim..until there are charges laid and they are put before a US court of law, they are not guilty of a damn thing, no matter how much you guys wish they were. torturing them really keeps the US on the moral high ground it works so hard to maintain. i guess the pentagon needs to buck up and send down a few hundred copies of kubark so shit can start getting sorted.

btw, nice lapdance.

Originally posted by KaBar2@Oct 31 2005, 07:40 PM

Poeisis, you clearly don't understand the situation, guy. Thay WILL TALK. The only question is, when? So they can spend years in a dog cage getting force fed with a tube, or they can tell the CIA what it wants to know.

Quoted post

Just out of curiosity fuck wad.--->

You claim to be a Vietnam vet, what is your position on the NVA/VietCongs treatment of our soldiers that were POW?

SF1, would you be so kind as to show me the post where I claimed to be a Vietnam vet? I have never claimed any such thing.

I was a Vietnam War PROTESTOR, and I hated the war in Vietnam. During the Vietnam War I spent years of my life travelling from demonstration to demonstration. I got tear gassed a few times, and roughed up by the cops a couple of times and had a couple of punch-ups with the Klan. It didn't seem like we were getting anything accomplished at the time (the government was not responding) but after the U.S. role in Vietnam drew to a close, I became increasingly uncomfortable with my stance on Vietnam.

I probably have an FBI file as thick as a phone book. Maybe more than one.

I had serious doubts that the Marines would take me, but they were so hard up for recruits in 1976, they were taking everybody--sick, lame and lazy; blind, crippled and crazy. I did notice that when I got to Boot Camp at San Diego that the government had thoughtfully provided me with a "best friend" in my platoon who was curiously interested in anarchist politics. I truly liked the guy. His "name" was Peter Ainsworth, and he was almost certainly an agent of either the Defense Intelligence Agency or the Naval Intelligence Service. He knew a tremendous amount about the Marine Corps, and told me his father was a Drill Instructor, which I believed for about a tenth of a microsecond. At graduation, his family did not attend. This would be ABSOLUTELY UNHEARD OF within the U.S. Marine Corps. Had his father actually been a Marine, he would have attended his son's Boot Camp graduation even if he had to crawl there naked through ten miles of razor wire.

My buddy Ainsworth was a plant. But I still liked the guy, and he was a damned good Marine. Can you imagine going to Boot Camp TWICE just to keep tabs on some anarchist wack job? No fuckin' way, Jose'. Not me. National Security or not, I still wouldn't do it. Well, I might do it, but I would bitch to high heaven, LOL.

I enlisted in October of 1976 and served in the Marine Reserves from Feb 1977 until July of 1978. I then "augumented" from the Marine Reserves to active duty for a three-year enlistment, from July 1978 until July 1981, well after the Vietnam War was long over. I was on Okinawa with the Third Marine Division when Ronald Reagan took office, at the end of the 444 days of captivity for the Marine Security detail and male Embassy staff in Tehran, Iran. It looked as though we were about to be launched into Iran ( my battalion was the Primary Air Contingency Battalion for the western Pacific at that time) but due to Lt. Col. Oliver North's clever little arrangement with the Iranians, it proved to be unnecessary. Never before had the Marine Corps slogan, "The Few, The Proud, the Dead on the Beach..." seemed so appropriate. We all heaved a big sigh of relief and went out to Kin Ville to get drunk and flirt with Filipina hookers.

The saying goes "They also serve who only stand and wait." Well, given the choice between getting shot to pieces at the Tehran Airport or "standing and waiting" in an Okinawa whorehouse, I choose Sunny Japan. Although some of my fellow Marines expressed displeasure at the order to stand down, I was not at all unhappy.

I learned a lot in the Marines. I am proud to have served. I am not in the slightest bit disappointed that I was not sent anywhere to kill people, but if I had been sent, this former conscientious objector, former member of the War Resister's League, former anarchist war protestor would have gone and done his duty. The world is filled with people that would kill Americans without so much as a thought. We live the life we live mainly because somewhere out there tonight, there are U.S. soldiers guarding us. Probably guarding us as they peruse the latest issue of Penthouse or Hustler, but I bet the kid's rifle is clean.

If you can't understand that, then you can't. So be it. But I understand, even if you choose not to.

I still have mixed emotions about the Vietnam War, but very few about my service in the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps is a hard way to make a living. It's lonely, and stressful, and doesn't pay well. But it's one of those life experiences that despite how fucked up it was, I'm still glad I did it.

I have a neighbor who was wounded during the battle of Khe Sanh, outside the wire on a ground patrol. He was a nineteen-year-old Marine lance corporal in a rifle platoon. He got hit in the stomach by a 7.62x39mm bullet from an AK47. Many of his platoon were either killed or captured with him. The Vietnamese hog-tied him to a long bamboo pole and carried him into captivity. Vietnamese doctors operated on him in an open-air hospital. He was nursed back to health by his fellow POWs. He was tortured for information, but only for a few months, because of his low rank. Remarkably, he does not hate Vietnamese, but he does hate Communists. He is one of the friendliest, kindest guys I know. He spent six years in filthy, stinking, North Vietnamese prisons before he was repatriated. His high-school sweetheart waited SEVEN YEARS for him to come home, many of those years without any word, without even a letter, not knowing if he was dead or alive, only knowing that he was listed as WIA. They married after he got home and are still married today. He is a liberal Republican and a Roman Catholic.

Once when we were talking about it, I told him that I was a anti-war protestor during Vietnam, and asked him if that was a problem. He said, "No, not at all. We both did what we thought was right. It didn't work out all that well for either of us."

Originally posted by SF1+Nov 1 2005, 05:52 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SF1 - Nov 1 2005, 05:52 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-KaBar2@Oct 31 2005, 07:40 PM

Poeisis, you clearly don't understand the situation, guy. Thay WILL TALK. The only question is, when? So they can spend years in a dog cage getting force fed with a tube, or they can tell the CIA what it wants to know.

Quoted post

Just out of curiosity--->

You claim to be a (former Marine) what is your position on the NVA/VietCongs treatment of our soldiers that were POW?

[/b]

sure they will talk

but will any of what they say be true or even relevant to what we are trying to deal with?

NO

we are simply creating more terrorists

WHILE LOWERING OURSELVES TO THEIR LEVEL

for every innocent family that was destroyed by the u.s.' blunt sweep through afghanistan, we have a new terrorist

i seriously marvel at your naivete and ignorance

you really think any of those dudes are still holding worthwhile info?

dude, if your idiotic opinions didn't make me laugh by so perfectly embodying what is wrong with this country, i'd be crying

you and everything you support will bring your sick ideals home to roost

the only question is when..right?

It's really amazing, "the war on terrorism" As they call it. Most americans recognise it is wrong on one level or another.

Even the ones who support and defend the war and its motives eventually will admit it is just another economic power move that they think is necessary to stay on top. Lets just all admit that the American government goes to war to secure it's economic and strategic positioning in the world and thats pretty much the long and short of it. I mean, Yeah there's a fine tuned media machine designed to divert your attention away from all that...... oh, and plenty of cool gadgets, grown up toys and a starbucks in every shopping center so the majority of the people will just sing themselves to sleep , humming their favorite tune in their new ipod sipping on a caramel frappaccino behind the wheel of their spinny rim custom thingamajigganutt hollerin out the window at shorty wop , like hootie hoo! , dude. So go ahead , finance away, complain about the war , complain about the terrorists, complain ,complain, and still do nothing about it.

-Youre still a slave to economics, at sonic speeds of a comet watch em suck up all the dollars while you vacuum up the vomit. - an anonymous poet named dawood

i'm all for straight talk.

Me too. Here's what I think. Saddam Hussein was a useful pawn when the U.S. was supporting him in his eight-year war against Iran. When we no longer needed him, he was considerably less useful.

He may have been suckered into attacking Kuwait, which used to be an Iraqi province. Our ambassador apparently was told to give him the impression that if he attacked Kuwait, it was a-okay with us. We invaded Kuwait, liberated the place, and allowed the Saudis to drive through the city first like conquering heroes when they actually did very little fighting. Then we chased the Iraqis back into Iraq and bombed the ever-loving crap out of them, knocking out their radar and eliminating 95% of their air force and air defense capabilities. Then we rolled up their static defenses, teacupping scores (if not hundreds) of third-rate Russian T-72 tanks. Mainly for bullshit geopolitical nonsense reasons, Bush ordered Schwartzkopf to halt the invasion before we got to Baghdad. This was a serious error, but we did it to please our new Muslim pals, who were pissed to see the U.S. military crush the shit out of the Arab world's most powerful, most loudmouthed dictator's forces in less than 100 hours. Bush should have listened to Schwartzkopf and FLATTENED Baghdad. Then, with Saddam hanging on by a thread, we pack up all our shit and go home. Poof. Gone. Just like that.

Ten years later, we get to do the whole thing over again. Again, Iraq lasts about as long as an ice cream cone on a summer day. Only this time, we unseat the government and let the people go nuts for a couple of weeks.

There is some crazy shit going on in Iraq. For instance, why is it that the U.S. forces don't blow up every stash of military ordnance that they come across? Why is it that the Iraqi government has such a difficult time dealing with routine matters like getting the power running reliably, or providing clean water to Iraqi cities and towns? I think it has to do with the level of corruption and the unbelieveable degree of "Look out for Number 1" that goes on there.

I think we need about three times as many troops there as we have at present. The neo-cons really screwed up on this particular point. It's like politicians cannot seem to remember the lesson from the last war: LET THE COMMANDERS ON THE GROUND CALL THE SHOTS. The White House doesn't know dick about suppressing a guerrilla war in Iraq. They should leave it to the officers in charge.

Why is it that the forces that support a constitutional republic seem to have such a difficult time taking the war to the enemy? We should be using an overwhelming amount of force wherever we go, so that resisting is completely futile. We should be POURING money, jobs-creating investments, locally purchased food staples by the ton, medical care, schools, highway reconstruction, etc., etc., into all the quiet, peaceful provinces of Iraq. Why aren't we? I don't know.

well, once again i disagree. we just have fundamentally different views on this shit, although i agree completely with your last sentence.

i personally think more troops in iraq would be a total dud move. the real

problem in iraq is the US occupation. that's the core of the problem for iraqi's and the region, AND americans. you can't

keep a military occupation going in iraq, it's never going to get better, either at

current levels(incidentally, i believe levels are the highest yet), or with an increase of troops. the reason is the type of culture in iraq, and the history of

western meddling in their country. westerners seem to think that maybe iraqi's don't know their own history acutely or somethin'...

we are not talking about some soft assed, couch potato westerners being occupied, we're

talking iraq, the place that went through a hellish war with iran, then got smoked

by the US, then got it's neck broken by sanctions, then got re-invaded and shit kicked as a laughably meek foe, illegally and based on deceit, whilst the occupying forces engaged in torture, called in airstrikes on villages of innocent

people 'by accident', used napalm, and has essentially turned iraq into a collapsed, failed state spiralling out of control at ever increasing momentum. whew, that was a long sentence.

more troops, death and destruction is going to bring the war right back to america. unfortunately the other option will leave iraq impoding into a full blown

death fest which may become a tornado across the region. what a great situation. i don't really have any idea what the hell is supposed to fix this monumentally fucked war...perhaps the occupying forces should pull back a bit and force the iraqi's to step up and take care of their shit while they have the chance.

some other iron-fisted goon will step up and become the new brutal dictator of iraq, but since democracy for iraq was a completely fraudulent war aim to begin with, it will be perfect, as long as western oil giants control the spigot.

I do agree with the last bit about the spigot. The Oil companies are definately running it. Tonight on my way home from work, I stopped to buy gas at $2.59 a gallon, and a little over a half-tank cost me about $39.

They are shitting in the punch bowl, though. The time will come when people will just say "Fuck cars. From here on out, I ride a bicycle or the bus." I'm just about there right now.

yep, bikes rule. i try to bike everywhere, and fortunately my city is

very bikable, which is nice.

the scary thing is i'm not so sure there is going to be a backlash.

around here the gas prices are equally atrocious, but it doesn't seem

to have made much of an impact on all the hummers and SUV's i see

everywhere. i can't fathom how you can own an SUV

and throw so much money into your tank every week. it's retarded.

seriously though folks

didn't Pol Pot do the deed of teaching the universe that people will say anything (true or untrue) if they are tortured enough?

are we unable to learn from the mistakes of others?

after they closed the baltimore tunnels because of some fals info given by a detainee in europe a couple weeks ago, are idiots still clinging to the idea that prisoners are hodiing onto treasure troves of potential plots?

damn, now that's some alliteration for dat ass.

i can't wait until the oil runs out

i'm gonna have a party

Did you hear about the guy who is going on trial for selling a nuclear weapon that never existed. He was a middle man in a nuclear weapon smuggle being led on by a CIA agent that was telling him he could buy a nuclear missle (that of course didn't exist) Then , they eventually arrested him for conspiring to sell terrorists a nuclear missle (again, that never existed) Because he was dealing with the CIA , who had no missle. (did I mention there was no missle?)

Oh , well, torture em, maybe he knows some REAL missle men! Yes! Good idea, sarge.