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Outrage over Iraqi prison torture (Combined)


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This is a a PSYOP used to counter our public opinion of the american torturing the iraquis.They came out with it just in time...now we are pissed at the boogie men " al queda", instead of at our own treatment of iraqui prisoners. Conveniently it was released on May 11..

Nick bergs parents filed suit against the US govt. for holding him in detention,the released him, and then 1 day later he came up missing..

WW3....they want to get it started.

 

always have to look at who benefits...

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Guest BROWNer

re: 'doing something'..

kind of irrelevant now, but back when bush was warming everyone

up for the invasion, i posted a thread with contacts to US congress

officials and others. phone #'s and all that...i wonder if anyone actually

called..those were pissy days..

hey villain, you think you're a conspiracy nut, maybe cleansheets will

start posting more again. btw, cleansheets, could you elaborate on your

theory?

mainstream news..i understand what you mean in an overall sense, but keep in

mind that an absolute ton of information has come directly from the mainstream

news outlets. also so-called alternative news sources have an odd habit of

making it known they are 'alternative', but then their site either has a bunch

of links that they've selected from mainstream sources, or within articles they

source out or write themselves are major points and corroboration from..big news. i know you know all this already...but..just feel i have to point it out, becuz i hear alot of people flat out trash mainstream news. i think generally speaking, people get their

news from places that tend to reflect and reinforce their own assumptions and world view. i don't know if that's a good or bad thing or on the mark..but..

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The film was released with impecible timing-goal to counteract the damage caused by the release of the prison torture flix.now the people are only saying how horrible it was of "supposed al queda" members to do such a horrible thing..oh..and the prison stuff..well maybe it was justified since the did that to..gasp..an american. So now we have more traumas being caused to americans used to justify our crusade through the middle east. Iran is next..like Ihave said all along.watch.Anyhow..read this article..pay attention to pragraph 8 where it states he was held by us authorities and his parents were visited to this event, released, then suddeny captured...and executed.

 

http://www.pennlive.com/newsflash/pa/index...30077760820.xml

 

*** note the above article is mainstream***

 

Those hooded al quedas seem to have big beer bellies, don't they?...anyhow....oh yeah it is conveniently happens on May 11th too...march 11th....april 20th.......patterns anyone???.....back to our mind control operations here...

 

the search for osama continues..:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

wheres waldo?

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Here's a slew of dailykos articles that summed up how I feel:

 

I'm losing faith in my country.

by Mike S

Fri May 7th, 2004 at 13:58:26 EST

 

Recently I have found myself getting more and more depressed. I was raised by two people who taught me right from wrong with no mitigating circumstances. When I got in trouble there was never an excuse like, "he did it first," or "he is worse than me." What was wrong was wrong. Both of my parents had very hard childhoods. My fathers family was dirt poor and my mother came from an abusive home. Yet rather than wallow in self pity and taking the easy way out of blaming whatever they did on their childhoods, they strove to better themselves and those around them.

I was born in 1965. My father was an Air Force reservist and had top security clearance with the government. In the early 60's he was sent to Viet Namn as an "advisor." He spent much of my youth traveling the world with none of us knowing where he was, not even my mother. The rumor in my extended family was that he was CIA.

 

Ten years ago he and I took a road trip on Route 66 because it was something he had wanted to do his whole life. He had terminal cancer and the end was very near. We sat in a bar one night and discussed the good and bad things that had happened in our lives. I asked him what he did for all of those years, and he said all he could tell me was that he was not CIA. I asked him what he did in Viet Namn and he got a very grave look on his face. He said that it was all still classified, but he knew all of what had hapened there. There was pain in his voice and on his face. He had a deep love for this country and passed that on to me.

 

The love I have for this country is because of my parents and so many people I have met in my life. These people believe as I do. That we were given a gift by the people who founded this country and that is a gift that should be praised and shared. We have a duty to do what we can to help as many people as we can. When we see someone who is down, we should give them a hand to get themselves back up. And when we see someone do wrong, we should point it out and help it get corrected.

 

These days I keep hearing phrases like "Saddam was worse" and "They didn't appoligise to us." People have forgotten what we are and what we stand for. I don't want to be less bad than someone else. I don't want to excuse what I do because someone is worse. I want people to look at me and my country and say "That is the way it should be."

 

As much as I dislike and distrust Bush, the one thing I can say for him is he has not given these excuses. He has come out and said that what happened is wrong. Whether he means it and will do something about it is another matter that we will see in the future. But I can tell you this. It hurts like hell that a man I have so little respect for has come out with a better statement than a man I have defended for my entire year here at dKos. When someone from my party who rode with the freedom riders to correct an injustice comes out with the excuses I heard him use, I find myself losing faith even more.

 

-Mike S http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/5/7/145826/5591

 

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A moment of peace

by kos

Mon May 10th, 2004 at 15:17:33 EST

 

Amidsts all the war, death and chaos our incompetent leader has perpetrated against the world, it was quite an experience to spend time in the Guatemalan national palace and its peace museum.

Guatemala experienced the bloodiest of the Central American civil wars, with an estimated 200-300,000 dead over three decades. That war ended in 1996 after a long and arduous peace process, one aided by the oft-maligned United Nations and the involvement of El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras -- all nations recovering from their own bloody conflicts.

 

For Americans not directly involved in a war (even Bush's War), war is an abstraction. We have become so desensitized to it thanks to Hollywood, video games and the nightly news. We hear things such as, "only one person died in the attack" and we think, "phew, it was just one." But every death is a tragedy of epic proportions, touching dozens if not hundreds or thousands. This country rightfully mourned 3,000 dead in the 9-11 attacks, yet doesn't consider the deaths of thousands of foreigners to be worth any consideration. But they hurt just as bad.

 

Bush's War has many casualties, but one of them has been the concept of "peace". It's seen as a matter of weakness, or appeasement, of anti-Americanism. So it was emotionally overwhelming for me to spend time in a place that celebrated peace. Various displays commemorated the ravages of war, others paid tribute to the nations of the world that lent their support in Guatemala's efforts for peace -- a true coalition of the willing.

 

Peace wasn't a weakness. It wasn't appeasement. It was a search for the highest ideal. A search that ultimately proved to be successful.

 

In Guatemala's national palace, the peace accords were commemorated with the following sculpture:

 

http://www.dailykos.net/images/peace.JPG'>

 

Every day, a new white rose is placed on those two hands. The rose symbolizes another 24 hours of peace. Baby steps in a nation and region long ravaged by proxy wars and internal conflict.

 

I quietly wept as I gazed upon the sculputure. I wept for Guatemala, the pain for its losses and for hope for its future. I wept because it reminded me of the long path to peace in my own El Salvador. And I wept for my own United States, where peace is now a dirty word, where torture, death and human rights abuses are dismissed in a matter befitting Saddam Hussein, and where our leaders seek war and foment chaos.

 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/5/10/161733/420

 

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Why Berg was murdered

by kos

Tue May 11th, 2004 at 23:16:37 EST

 

So what does the Berg murder tell us? That the prison torture scandal led to the killing? Not even close. Terrorists (and al-Zarqawi is undoubtedly one) don't need such excuses to do their dirty work.

The lesson is that not finishing the job in Afghanistan and invading Iraq with no good rationale gave Al Qaida and similar groups time to catch their breath, reorganize, and direct their efforts against a conveniently near target -- Iraq. This is the neocon "flypaper" theory in all its glory. It's working. The neocons WANTED it this way.

 

And they got it. Congratulations.

 

And in the process, the killing of thousands of innocent men, women and children by errant American bombs, artillery shells, mortars, and bullets have swelled the recruiting offices of every militia and terrorist organization in the Mideast, in and out of Iraq. Congrats with that as well. You can't have flypaper if you don't have an enemy shooting at you. So we energized our existing enemies and gave rise to new ones who didn't seem to understand that "collateral damage" is acceptable in war.

 

And the abuse of Iraqi prisoners -- up to 90 percent of which could be innocent according to the Red Cross -- just added fuel to the fire.

 

So no, the prison abuse didn't cause Berg's horrific murder. Bush's (inept) War, in all its glory, did. The Neocon agenda, in all its folly, did. The war cheerleaders now trying to use this for propaganda purposes, in all their idiocy, did.

 

Congrats. Your war spirals ever out of control. Good luck trying to wash the blood out of your hands.

 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/5/12/01637/8395

 

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<span style='color:black'>It sickens me to see us lose our moral credibility. The only good reason for this war is now gone. We were going to go and overthrow this tyrant, end this oppression and torture and murder. Sure it was going to be hard, sure it was going to be costly, but in the end a net good was going to be done by ending this horrid oppression. All we did was take that tyranny and evil and put it under new management and that makes me sad and disappointed.

 

What makes me even more depressed is the way the republicans reacted to it. Basically they're all saying this: since brown people brought down the WTC and fight against americans, it's OK to bind brown people naked in cold dark rooms and humiliate them in ways that are the ultimate degradation in that culture, it's OK to have trained dogs attack brown people, and it's OK to convince someone that they're going to be electrocuted as long as they're brown, young, and male.

 

Rush Limbaugh says that this is like a frat stunt, that these guys needed to "blow off some steam" by beating and humiliating powerless prisoners who are probably innocent. Is he [still] on crack? I wonder how he would feel if I tied up him naked and threatened him with a pit bull, or told him I was going to have his mother and sister raped. I don't think he'd think it was funny if i took a 70 year old woman like his mother, strapped a harness on her, and rode her like a donkey.

 

Rush, this isn't funny. Abu Gharib is not a frat house, iraqis did not have anything to do with 9/11, and this kind of behavior is wrong. I don't give a shit what "they" did to us, this isn't about that. What happened in that prison was wrong, and we need to hold the people who perpetrated it responsible.

 

I think about the thousands of kids who joined the army so they could go to college and i'm sad. I think of all the dads, moms, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, boyfriends, girlfriends, aunts, uncles, and friends that have died for a lie in iraq and i'm sad. I think of all the good people in the army who have to be associated with these assholes (not just the people in abu gharib, everyone who let that shit happen all the way up to rumsfeld and bush) and i'm sad. I think of all the innocent people in iraqi prisons and guantanamo bay and i'm sad (the red cross says that up to 90% of the people in abu gharib are innocent and wrongly imprisioned). I think of so many things that make me sad and angry and ashamed and I wish for one thing: Peace.

 

After all this I think the only solution is peace. Peace isn't an end that you reach through violence, peace is the means and the end. Peace is noble, peace is just, and peace is holy in the most basic human way.</span>

 

edit* the black text is me writing.

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From Kevin Drum:

... So here's the summary:

  • The Pentagon, of course, says it was just a few bad apples. They are the only ones who seem to believe this.
     
  • Hersh says it was the Pentagon's idea and CIA resisted.
     
  • Newsweek says the Pentagon and the CIA were on board, but the State Department resisted.
     
  • A variety of sources say it was the Pentagon's idea and the JAG corps resisted.
     
  • Time says the Pentagon ran the program and Congress was kept out of the loop even when they asked about it.

 

The bottom line seems to be that everyone is claiming they either didn't know what was going on or else did their best to fight the harsh interrogation program at Abu Ghraib, but lost out in the end to Pentagon zealots and the White House. Either this is true or else the entire city of Washington DC is in full-blown CYA mode. At this point it's hard to tell which.

 

Still, one thing at least seems to be clear: this was clearly the Pentagon's baby. How far other agencies either resisted or cooperated with them remains to be seen.

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this is just how war is.all parties are corrupt in some way shape or form. the media either is not informed, or they are informed and choose not to make it available to the public. but no matter what, our government knows whats going on, but they dont care because they are cold hearted and that is how the world is. this shit has been going on for a long time, and if you didnt know that, your disrespecting yourself, dont be so naive. this shit is not going to stop, its war, everything goes down, these pictures aint shit, imagine what they didnt flick. there are no rules in war, either you suck it up and accept it or complain and be bitter.and fuck being bitter.

 

nut.

no association.

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Guest BROWNer

another interesting piece: http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen05102004.html

 

The Israeli Torture Template

 

Rape, Feces and Urine-Dipped Cloth Sacks

 

By WAYNE MADSEN

 

With mounting evidence that a shadowy group of former Israeli Defense Force and General Security Service (Shin Bet) Arabic-speaking interrogators were hired by the Pentagon under a classified "carve out" sub-contract to brutally interrogate Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, one only needs to examine the record of abuse of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israel to understand what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld meant, when referring to new, yet to be released photos and videos, he said, "if these images are released to the public, obviously its going to make matters worse."

 

According to a political appointee within the Bush administration and U.S. intelligence sources, the interrogators at Abu Ghraib included a number of Arabic-speaking Israelis who also helped U.S. interrogators develop the "R2I" (Resistance to Interrogation) techniques. Many of the torture methods were developed by the Israelis over many years of interrogating Arab prisoners on the occupied West Bank and in Israel itself.

 

Clues about worse photos and videos of abuse may be found in Israeli files about similar abuse of Palestinian and other Arab prisoners. In March 2000, a lawyer for a Lebanese prisoner kidnapped in 1994 by the Israelis in Lebanon claimed that his client had been subjected to torture, including rape. The type of compensation offered by Rumsfeld in his testimony has its roots in cases of Israeli torture of Arabs. In the case of the Lebanese man, said to have been raped by his Israeli captors, his lawyer demanded compensation of $1.47 million. The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel documented the types of torture meted out on Arab prisoners. Many of the tactics coincide with those contained in the Taguba report: beatings and prolonged periods handcuffed to furniture. In an article in the December 1998 issue of The Progressive, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb reported on the treatment given to a 23-year old Palestinian held on "administrative detention." The prisoner was "cuffed behind a chair 17 hours a day for 120 days . . . [he] had his head covered with a sack, which was often dipped in urine or feces. Guards played loud music right next to his ears and frequently taunted him with threats of physical and sexual violence." If additional photos and videos document such practices, the Bush administration and the American people have, indeed, "seen nothing yet."

 

Although it is still largely undocumented if any of the contractor named in the report of General Antonio Taguba were associated with the Israeli military or intelligence services, it is noteworthy that one, John Israel, who was identified in the report as being employed by both CACI International of Arlington, Virginia, and Titan, Inc., of San Diego, may not have even been a U.S. citizen. The Taguba report states that Israel did not have a security clearance, a requirement for employment as an interrogator for CACI. According to CACI's web site, "a Top Secret Clearance (TS) that is current and US citizenship" are required for CACI interrogators working in Iraq. In addition, CACI requires that its interrogators "have at least two years experience as a military policeman or similar type of law enforcement/intelligence agency whereby the individual utilized interviewing techniques."

 

Speculation that "John Israel" may be an intelligence cover name has fueled speculation whether this individual could have been one of a number of Israeli interrogators hired under a classified contract. Because U.S. citizenship and documentation thereof are requirements for a U.S. security clearance, Israeli citizens would not be permitted to hold a Top Secret clearance. However, dual U.S.-Israeli citizens could have satisfied Pentagon requirements that interrogators hold U.S. citizenship and a Top Secret clearance. Although the Taguba report refers twice to Israel as an employee of Titan, the company claims he is one of their sub-contractors. CACI stated that one of the men listed in the report "is not and never has been a CACI employee" without providing more detail. A U.S. intelligence source revealed that in the world of intelligence "carve out" subcontracts such confusion is often thecase with "plausible deniability" being a foremost concern.

 

In fact, the Taguba report does reference the presence of non-U.S. and non-Iraqi interrogators at Abu Ghraib. The report states, "In general, US civilian contract personnel (Titan Corporation, CACI, etc), third country nationals, and local contractors do not appear to be properly supervised within the detention facility at Abu Ghraib."

 

The Pentagon is clearly concerned about the outing of the Taguba report and its references to CACI, Titan, and third country nationals, which could permanently damage U.S. relations with Arab and Islamic nations. The Pentagon's angst may explain why the Taguba report is classified Secret No Foreign Dissemination.

 

The leak of the Taguba report was so radioactive, Daniel R. Dunn, the Information Assurance Officer for Douglas Feith's Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Policy (Policy Automation Services Security Team), sent a May 6, 2004, For Official Use Only Urgent E-mail to Pentagon staffers stating, "THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS CLASSIFIED; DO NOT GO TO FOX NEWS TO READ OR OBTAIN A COPY." Considering Feith's close ties to the Israelis, such a reaction by his top computer security officer, a Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP), is understandable, although considering the fact that CISSPs are to act on behalf of the public good, it is also regrettable..

 

The reference to "third country nationals" in a report that restricts its dissemination to U.S. coalition partners (Great Britain, Poland, Italy, etc.) is another indication of the possible involvement of Israelis in the interrogation of Iraqi prisoners. Knowledge that the U.S. may have been using Israeli interrogators could have severely fractured the Bush administration's tenuous "coalition of the willing' in Iraq. General Taguba's findings were transmitted to the Coalition Forces Land Component Command on March 9, 2004, just six days before the Spanish general election, one that the opposition anti-Iraq war Socialists won. The Spanish ultimately withdrew their forces from Iraq.

 

During his testimony before the Senate Armed Service Committee, Rumsfeld was pressed upon by Senator John McCain about the role of the private contractors in the interrogations and abuse. McCain asked Rumsfeld four pertinent questions, ". . . who was in charge? What agency or private contractor was in charge of the interrogations? Did they have authority over the guards? And what were the instructions that they gave to the guards?"

 

When Rumsfeld had problems answering McCain's question, Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, the Deputy Commander of the U.S. Central Command, said there were 37 contract interrogators used in Abu Ghraib. The two named contractors, CACI and Titan, have close ties to the Israeli military and technology communities. Last January 14, after Provost Marshal General of the Army, Major General Donald Ryder, had already uncovered abuse at Abu Ghraib, CACI's President and CEO, Dr. J.P. (Jack) London was receiving the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah's Albert Einstein Technology award at the Jerusalem City Hall, with right-wing Likud politician Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski in attendance. Oddly, CACI waited until February 2 to publicly announce the award in a press release. CACI has also received grants from U.S.-Israeli bi-national foundations.

 

Titan also has had close connections to Israeli interests. After his stint as CIA Director, James Woolsey served as a Titan director. Woolsey is an architect of America's Iraq policy and the chief proponent of and lobbyist for Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress. An adviser to the neo-conservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs, Project for the New American Century, Center for Security Policy, Freedom House, and Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, Woolsey is close to Stephen Cambone, the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, a key person in the chain of command who would have not only known about the torture tactics used by U.S. and Israeli interrogators in Iraq but who would have also approved them. Cambone was associated with the Project for the New American Century and is viewed as a member of Rumsfeld's neo-conservative "cabal" within the Pentagon.

 

Another person considered by Pentagon insiders to have been knowledgeable about the treatment of Iraqi prisoners is U.S. Army Col. Steven Bucci, a Green Beret and Rumsfeld's military assistant and chief traffic cop for the information flow to the Defense Secretary. According to Pentagon insiders, Bucci was involved in the direction of a special covert operations unit composed of former U.S. special operations personnel who answered to the Pentagon rather than the CIA's Special Activities Division, the agency's own paramilitary group. The Pentagon group included Arabic linguists and former members of the Green Berets and Delta Force who operated covertly in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan. Titan also uses linguists trained in the languages (Arabic, Dari, Farsi, Pashto, Urdu, and Tajik) of those same countries. It is not known if a link exists between Rumsfeld's covert operations unit and Titan's covert operations linguists.

 

Another Titan employee named in the Taguba report is Adel L. Nakhla. Nakhla is a name common among Egypt's Coptic Christian community, however, it is not known if Adel Nakhla is either an Egyptian-American or a national of Egypt. A CACI employee identified in the report, Steven Stephanowicz, is referred to as "Stefanowicz" in a number of articles on the prison abuse. Stefanowicz is the spelling used by Joe Ryan, another CACI employee assigned with Stefanowicz to Abu Ghraib. Ryan is a radio personality on KSTP, a conservative radio station in Minneapolis, who maintained a daily log of his activities in Iraq on the radio's web site before it was taken down. Ryan indicated that Stefanowicz (or Stephanowicz) continued to hold his interrogation job in Iraq even though General Taguba recommended he lose his security clearance and be terminated for the abuses at Abu Ghraib.

 

In an even more bizarre twist, the Philadelphia Daily News identified a former expatriate public relations specialist for the government of South Australia in Adelaide named Steve Stefanowicz as possibly being the same person identified in the Taguba report. In 2000, Stefanowicz, who grew up in the Philadelphia and Allentown areas, left for Australia. On September 16, 2001, he was quoted by the Sunday Mail of Adelaide on the 911 attacks. He said of the attacks, "It was one of the most incredible and most devastating things I have ever seen. I have been in constant contact with my family and friends in the US and the mood was very solemn and quiet. But this is progressing into anger." Stefanowicz returned to the United States and volunteered for the Navy in a reserve status. His mother told the Allentown Morning Call in April 2002 that Stefanowicz was stationed somewhere in the Middle East but did not know where because of what Stefanowicz said was "security concerns." His mother told the Philadelphia Daily News that her son was in Iraq but she knew nothing about his current status.

 

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist. He served in the National Security Agency (NSA) during the Reagan administration and wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth. He is the co-author, with John Stanton, of "America's Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II." His forthcoming book is titled: "Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black Ops, and Brass Plates."

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Apparently they started taking the kids, nephews, wives, and family of wanted suspects to them/use as leverage with their parents.

 

 

ttp://haloscan.com/tb/patriotboy/108468020362113570

 

Two young sons of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks, are being used by the CIA to force their father to talk.

 

Yousef al-Khalid, 9, and his brother, Abed al-Khalid, 7, were taken into custody in Pakistan in September when intelligence officers raided a flat in Karachi where their father had been hiding.

 

[link has about 5 more examples with sources]

 

Remember the part before the war when all those stories about torturing kids in front of their parents came out? Remember that? We're supposed to be better than this.

 

http://webpages.charter.net/micah/repjesus10.gif'>

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Originally posted by Nekro

 

After all this I think the only solution is peace. Peace isn't an end that you reach through violence, peace is the means and the end. Peace is noble, peace is just, and peace is holy in the most basic human way.[/color]

 

This is very poetic.

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Originally posted by Nekro

I cannot wait until those pictures and video leak out, I figure it's only a matter of time. It's time for people to know what's going down over there and why.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/5/16/161220/753

why would you want that?? i may be wrong but the way I see it that doesn't produce anything positive for iraq or the US. yea it'll show Americans as corrupt hypocrites and yadah yadah but it will also infuriate more Iraqis which isn't good for Iraqis or the US. The more unstable Iraq is the longer our soldiers have to stay over there. The longer they stay over there the more they get killed. They more they get killed the more desperate the gov becomes and the harder we retaliate. And that only produces more dead Iraqi civilians.

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can all these blowhards for bush please fucking stop using the "well the people of iraq are still better off and our country is better the iran or the saudis, blah blah" defense...its driving me fucking crazy...for the love of god who in their right mind would even make a comparison...no one is making such claims, so their answer is nothing more then an end round of stating the obvious...

 

damn it...

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From Kevin Drum:

 

AS BIG AS WATERGATE?....In Slate, Fred Kaplan says Abu Ghraib may be the biggest scandal to hit Washington since Watergate:

Bush knew about it. Rumsfeld ordered it. His undersecretary of defense for intelligence, Steven Cambone, administered it. Cambone's deputy, Lt. Gen. William Boykin, instructed Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who had been executing the program involving al-Qaida suspects at Guantanamo, to go do the same at Abu Ghraib. Miller told Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who was in charge of the 800th Military Brigade, that the prison would now be dedicated to gathering intelligence. Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy, also seems to have hada hand in this sequence, as did William Haynes, the Pentagon's general counsel. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, learned about the improper interrogations—from the International Committee of the Red Cross, if not from anyone else—but said or did nothing about it for two months, until it was clear that photographs were coming out. Meanwhile, those involved in the interrogations included officers from military intelligence, the CIA, and private contractors, as well as the mysterious figures from the Pentagon's secret operation

 

That's a lot more people than the seven low-grade soldiers and reservists currently facing courts-martial..

And of course the investigation of the Valerie Plame affair may be winding up soon too. Sounds like it's going to be a hot summer in DC this year....

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Guest BROWNer
Originally posted by Poop Man Bob

Sounds like it's going to be a hot summer in DC this year....

 

yes!

 

*NO!

 

From the White House, a nightmare scenario

 

White House officials say they've got a "working premise" about terrorism and the presidential election: It's going to happen. "We assume," says a top administration official, "an attack will happen leading up to the election." And, he added, "it will happen here." There are two worst-case scenarios, the official says. The first posits an attack on Washington, possibly the Capitol, which was believed to be the target of the 9/11 jet that crashed in Pennsylvania. Theory 2: smaller but more frequent attacks in Washington and other major cities leading up to the election. To prepare, the administration has been holding secret antiterrorism drills to make sure top officials know what to do. "There was a sense," says one official involved in the drills, "of mass confusion on 9/11. Now we have a sense of order." Unclear is the political impact, though most Bushies think the nation would rally around the president. "I can tell you one thing," adds the official sternly, "we won't be like Spain," which tossed its government days after the Madrid train bombings.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/040524/...24whisplead.htm

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Mainstream news is catching on..

 

ABCNews: 'Definitely a cover-up' at Abu-Ghraib

 

http://a.abcnews.com/media/WNT/images/abc_wnt_witness_040518_nh.jpg'>

Military intelligence analyst Sgt. Samuel Provance told ABCNEWS that the sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison began as a technique ordered by military intelligence interrogators.

 

 

‘Definitely a Cover-Up’

Former Abu Ghraib Intel Staffer Says Army Concealed Involvement in Abuse Scandal

 

By Brian Ross and Alexandra Salomon

 

May 18, 2004 — Dozens of soldiers — other than the seven military police reservists who have been charged — were involved in the abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, and there is an effort under way in the Army to hide it, a key witness in the investigation told ABCNEWS.

 

"There's definitely a cover-up," the witness, Sgt. Samuel Provance, said. "People are either telling themselves or being told to be quiet."

 

Provance, 30, was part of the 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion stationed at Abu Ghraib last September. He spoke to ABCNEWS despite orders from his commanders not to.

 

"What I was surprised at was the silence," said Provance. "The collective silence by so many people that had to be involved, that had to have seen something or heard something."

 

Provance, now stationed in Germany, ran the top secret computer network used by military intelligence at the prison. He said that while he did not see the actual abuse take place, the interrogators with whom he worked freely admitted they directed the MPs' rough treatment of prisoners.

 

"Anything [the MPs] were to do legally or otherwise, they were to take those commands from the interrogators," he said.

 

Top military officials have claimed the abuse seen in the photos at Abu Ghraib was limited to a few MPs, but Provance says the sexual humiliation of prisoners began as a technique ordered by the interrogators from military intelligence.

 

"One interrogator told me about how commonly the detainees were stripped naked, and in some occasions, wearing women's underwear," Provance said. "If it's your job to strip people naked, yell at them, scream at them, humiliate them, it's not going to be too hard to move from that to another level."

 

According to Provance, some of the physical abuse that took place at Abu Ghraib included U.S. soldiers "striking [prisoners] on the neck area somewhere and the person being knocked out. Then [the soldier] would go to the next detainee, who would be very fearful and voicing their fear, and the MP would calm him down and say, 'We're not going to do that. It's OK. Everything's fine,' and then do the exact same thing to him."

 

Provance also described an incident when two drunken interrogators took a female Iraqi prisoner from her cell in the middle of the night and stripped her naked to the waist. The men were later restrained by another MP.

 

 

Pentagon Sanctions Investigation

 

Maj. Gen. George Fay, the Army's deputy chief of staff for intelligence, was assigned by the Pentagon to investigate the role of military intelligence in the abuse at the Iraq prison.

 

Fay started his probe on April 23, but Provance said when Fay interviewed him, the general seemed interested only in the military police, not the interrogators, and seemed to discourage him from testifying.

 

Provance said Fay threatened to take action against him for failing to report what he saw sooner, and the sergeant fears he will be ostracized for speaking out.

 

"I feel like I'm being punished for being honest," Provance told ABCNEWS. "You know, it was almost as if I actually felt if all my statements were shredded and I said, like most everybody else, 'I didn't hear anything, I didn't see anything. I don't know what you're talking about,' then my life would be just fine right now."

 

In response, Army officials said it is "routine procedure to advise military personnel under investigative review" not to comment.

 

The officials said, however, that Fay and the military were committed to an honest, in-depth investigation of what happened at the prison. But Provance believes many involved may not be as forthcoming with information.

 

"I would say many people are probably hiding and wishing to God that this storm passes without them having to be investigated [or] personally looked at."

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