 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Forums - The lounge
Subject: "I didn't know you couldn't......"
Pages: 1 ... 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Original Message Date: 28-Apr-04 @ 09:41 PM Edit: 28-Apr-04 | 09:42 PM - "I didn't know you couldn't.......
...punch POWs in the face!?!"
this is absurd! what kind of fucking dolts do we have in the military anyhow?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/27/60II/main614063.shtml
this is absurd! what kind of fucking dolts do we have in the military anyhow?
quote
Abuse Of Iraqi Prisoners Probed
April 28, 2004
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt tells Dan Rather he is "appalled" by what happened in a Baghdad prison.
"If we can't hold ourselves up as an example of how to treat people with dignity and respect, we can't ask that other nations do that to our soldiers."
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt
Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Chip Frederick, one of the soldiers now facing court martial, described to Rather what he saw in the Iraqi prison. (Photo: Staff Sgt. Chip Frederick )
(CBS) A few weeks ago, the U.S. Army announced that 17 soldiers in Iraq had been removed from duty, and six of them were facing court martial for mistreating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the infamous prison where Saddam Hussein and his henchmen tortured and executed Iraqis for decades.
60 Minutes II has obtained photographs of what was happening in Abu Ghraib. The photos show American soldiers mistreating Iraqi prisoners.
In his Wednesday morning briefing, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said the photographs may be shown in Dan Rather's report on 60 Minutes II, Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
The discovery of the photographs by the Army led to an investigation which concluded that there were problems at the prison from the general in charge of the prison, to the military police guarding the prisoners. An investigation into abuse claims started in January, after a U.S. soldier came forward with allegations and evidence of abuse.
Kimmitt, in an interview conducted by satellite from Baghdad, told Correspondent Dan Rather: "We're appalled...these are our fellow soldiers, these are the people we work with every day, they represent us, they wear the same uniform as us, and they let their fellow soldiers down....We expect our soldiers to be treated well by the adversary, by the enemy...and if we can't hold ourselves up as an example of how to treat people with dignity and respect, we can't ask that other nations do that to our soldiers."
Kimmitt says even though charges have been filed against the six soldiers, a more general investigation continues into how prisoners are interrogated at the prison. One of the soldiers who is now facing court martial, Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Chip Frederick, described to Rather what he saw in the Iraqi prison.
"We had no support, no training whatsoever, and I kept asking my chain of command for certain things, rules and regulations, and it just wasn't happening," he said.
Frederick is charged with maltreatment, assault and indecent acts for posing for a photograph while sitting on top of a detainee, striking detainees and ordering detainees to strike each other, among other things.
Frederick wrote home to his family about the treatment of prisoners. He said in an e-mail: "We helped getting them to talk with the way we handle them. We've had a very high rate with our styles of getting them to break; they usually end up breaking within hours."
The pictures 60 Minutes II obtained show an Iraqi prisoner who, according to the U.S. Army, was told to stand on a box with his head covered and wires attached to his hands. That prisoner was told that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted. In another photograph, prisoners' bodies were stacked in a pyramid - one body had a slur written in English on his skin.
Despite the charges against American soldiers, Kimmitt says Americans shouldn't lose faith in the military – since the investigation is focused on a small number of soldiers, and doesn't reflect the conduct of the vast majority of U.S. forces.
"Frankly, I think all of us are disappointed by the actions of the few," says Kimmitt. "Every day we love our soldiers but frankly, somedays we're not always proud of our soldiers...It's a small, small minority of people we're talking about here, less than a dozen out of the 150,000 who are serving honorably and proudly over here....The Army is a values-based organization. We live by our values. Some of our soldiers every day die by our values and these acts that you see in these pictures may reflect the actions of individuals but by God it doesn't reflect my army."
Abuse Of Iraqi Prisoners Probed
April 28, 2004
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt tells Dan Rather he is "appalled" by what happened in a Baghdad prison.
"If we can't hold ourselves up as an example of how to treat people with dignity and respect, we can't ask that other nations do that to our soldiers."
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt
Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Chip Frederick, one of the soldiers now facing court martial, described to Rather what he saw in the Iraqi prison. (Photo: Staff Sgt. Chip Frederick )
(CBS) A few weeks ago, the U.S. Army announced that 17 soldiers in Iraq had been removed from duty, and six of them were facing court martial for mistreating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the infamous prison where Saddam Hussein and his henchmen tortured and executed Iraqis for decades.
60 Minutes II has obtained photographs of what was happening in Abu Ghraib. The photos show American soldiers mistreating Iraqi prisoners.
In his Wednesday morning briefing, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said the photographs may be shown in Dan Rather's report on 60 Minutes II, Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
The discovery of the photographs by the Army led to an investigation which concluded that there were problems at the prison from the general in charge of the prison, to the military police guarding the prisoners. An investigation into abuse claims started in January, after a U.S. soldier came forward with allegations and evidence of abuse.
Kimmitt, in an interview conducted by satellite from Baghdad, told Correspondent Dan Rather: "We're appalled...these are our fellow soldiers, these are the people we work with every day, they represent us, they wear the same uniform as us, and they let their fellow soldiers down....We expect our soldiers to be treated well by the adversary, by the enemy...and if we can't hold ourselves up as an example of how to treat people with dignity and respect, we can't ask that other nations do that to our soldiers."
Kimmitt says even though charges have been filed against the six soldiers, a more general investigation continues into how prisoners are interrogated at the prison. One of the soldiers who is now facing court martial, Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Chip Frederick, described to Rather what he saw in the Iraqi prison.
"We had no support, no training whatsoever, and I kept asking my chain of command for certain things, rules and regulations, and it just wasn't happening," he said.
Frederick is charged with maltreatment, assault and indecent acts for posing for a photograph while sitting on top of a detainee, striking detainees and ordering detainees to strike each other, among other things.
Frederick wrote home to his family about the treatment of prisoners. He said in an e-mail: "We helped getting them to talk with the way we handle them. We've had a very high rate with our styles of getting them to break; they usually end up breaking within hours."
The pictures 60 Minutes II obtained show an Iraqi prisoner who, according to the U.S. Army, was told to stand on a box with his head covered and wires attached to his hands. That prisoner was told that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted. In another photograph, prisoners' bodies were stacked in a pyramid - one body had a slur written in English on his skin.
Despite the charges against American soldiers, Kimmitt says Americans shouldn't lose faith in the military – since the investigation is focused on a small number of soldiers, and doesn't reflect the conduct of the vast majority of U.S. forces.
"Frankly, I think all of us are disappointed by the actions of the few," says Kimmitt. "Every day we love our soldiers but frankly, somedays we're not always proud of our soldiers...It's a small, small minority of people we're talking about here, less than a dozen out of the 150,000 who are serving honorably and proudly over here....The Army is a values-based organization. We live by our values. Some of our soldiers every day die by our values and these acts that you see in these pictures may reflect the actions of individuals but by God it doesn't reflect my army."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/27/60II/main614063.shtml
Message 102/147 07-May-04 @ 10:16 PM Edit: 07-May-04 | 10:17 PM - RE:
paraphrasing Rumsfeld's testimony during the Senate Arms Committee....
"these acts are not indicitative of US moral character....I would say that they were unpatriotic"
wait a fucking minute! How are these acts not indicitive of the US moral character. In the face of GLOBAL protest, world wide dissent, we still chose to force american ideals and principles down the throat of an entire nation. the only people cool with it there on the real are the fucking Kurds.... and that's only because they are scrunchend between two enemies all of the fucking time, Iran and Saddam. not to mention we've been flying war planes over "kurdistan" for almost 15 years, keeping them nice and safe from the aforementioned...
moral character my ass!
don't agree, and the bombs will begin to fall....especially if you're of a dark complexion!
"these acts are not indicitative of US moral character....I would say that they were unpatriotic"
wait a fucking minute! How are these acts not indicitive of the US moral character. In the face of GLOBAL protest, world wide dissent, we still chose to force american ideals and principles down the throat of an entire nation. the only people cool with it there on the real are the fucking Kurds.... and that's only because they are scrunchend between two enemies all of the fucking time, Iran and Saddam. not to mention we've been flying war planes over "kurdistan" for almost 15 years, keeping them nice and safe from the aforementioned...
moral character my ass!
don't agree, and the bombs will begin to fall....especially if you're of a dark complexion!
Message 103/147 08-May-04 @ 10:10 AM - RE:
didnt you mean to say turks? they are the ones fighting an unofficial "secret" war on kurds and the ones who charged in with tanks and special forces into kurd teritory as soon as usa atacked iraq... and the ones who said they wont let usa fly their planes over their teritory until they promise kurds wont get their own republic after the war... oh wait... they are NATO, so thats ok then 
Message 104/147 08-May-04 @ 10:47 AM - RE:
there's a kurdish kebab shop just up the road from me ... mmmm .. kebabs.
what was that about coaches?
oh yeah, rumsfeld, what a kunt.
what was that about coaches?
oh yeah, rumsfeld, what a kunt.
Message 105/147 11-May-04 @ 04:42 AM - RE:
this excerpt pretty-much names four individuals
most-likely-responsible for providing orders to abuse at abu ghraib.
we're not talking about the fall-grunts who are being court-martialed for following instructions.
we're talking about those who are most-likely gonna make the slip because they're either 1) private contractors with loose-connections ...or 2) getting higher up the command-chain and therfore closer-to-home:
"Specifically, I suspect that COL Thomas M. Pappas, LTC Steve L. Jordan, Mr. Steven Stephanowicz, and Mr. John Israel were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib (BCCF) and strongly recommend immediate disciplinary action as described in the preceding paragraphs as well as the initiation of a Procedure 15 Inquiry to determine the full extent of their culpability."
Furthermore, General Taguba goes into some detail, describing the key role played by this gang of four in permitting and even orchestrating the abuse. Of Pappas, Commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade and the Commander of FOB Abu Ghraib, Taguba recommended a reprimand for failing to supervise the troops that were, at least theoretically, under his command. As for Lt. Col. Jordan, former Director of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center attached to the 205th MI Brigade, Taguba advised not only a reprimand but also that Jordan be relieved of his command.
The two "civilian" contractors, John Israel and Steven Stephanowicz, who share the blame with Pappas and Jordan, are the most intriguing characters in this fast developing drama, and the most mysterious. We know everything about Lynndie England – the "trailer park girl in the eye of the storm," as the UK Mirror puts it – the "pixie-ish" Appalachian girl who appears in so many of the photos, giving a thumbs up and grinning idiotically, looking every inch the born victim. But who the heck is John Israel? We don't even know who employs him. As one news report notes:
"The other contractor implicated, John Israel, identified as a civilian translator assigned to the same brigade, is described in one place in the Army report as a CACI employee and in another as an employee of Titan, which provides translators for the Army throughout Iraq."
The New York Times reports:
"Ralph Williams, a spokesman for the Titan Corporation in San Diego, said Tuesday that John Israel, one of the contract employees implicated in the prison abuse scandal, worked for a Titan subcontractor that he would not name."
Hmmmmmmmmm…..
A wide-ranging Google search turns up only two references to individuals who may or may not be the mysterious John Israel: This one, based on the email address alone. And this one, located on a Yahoo website/mailist devoted to discussing the role-playing computer games Twilight 2000 and Merc 2000.
Mr. Stefanowicz (news accounts consistently misspell his name "Stephanowicz," as does the Taguba report) is less mysterious but no less intriguing. This is due in large part to the efforts of his mother, Jean Campbell, and the U.S. Department of Defense, which used her story as propaganda to support the war effort. In a piece distributed by the Armed Forces News Service and featured on the DoD's propaganda website, Stefanowicz's Mom is depicted as a paragon of patriotic virtue:
"Jean Campbell's son, Navy Petty Officer Steven Stefanowicz, is on active duty with the U.S. Navy in the Middle East. She is championing his service by uniting service members' mothers in her home state.
"Campbell, of Telford, Pa., joined the Blue Star Mothers and set up a chapter of the nonprofit service organization. She hopes to spark a chain reaction with chapters forming in every county."
The Taguba report describes Stefanowicz as a "civilian Contract Interrogator" employed by CACI, and attached to the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade. Taguba goes on to accuse him of having "made a false statement to the investigation team regarding the locations of his interrogations, the activities during his interrogations, and his knowledge of abuses."
Stefanowicz had been living in Adelaide, Australia, for some reason, although he had earlier served as a reservist, and is quoted by an Australian newspaper, a week after the 9/11 terrorist attacks:
"'It was one of the most incredible and most devastating things I have ever seen,' he told an Australian newspaper the week after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. ;I have been in constant contact with my family and friends in the U.S., and the mood was very solemn and quiet. But this is progressing into anger.'"
A whole lot of anger, apparently.
As in the case of John Israel, we don't even know who employs Stefanowicz. According to the Philadelphia Daily News:
"What's more, CACI International steadfastly refuses to even say whether Stefanowicz really does work for the Arlington, Va.-based defense contractor - refusing to return several phone calls and an e-mail from the Daily News. In a lengthy conference call with investment analysts yesterday morning, top executives insisted that one of two men named in news accounts - Stefanowicz and John Israel - in fact does not work for them. A company executive - it wasn't clear from the call which one - did say that one of the named employees was still on the payroll and 'by all accounts doing a damned fine job.'"
You figure it out!
As far as anyone knows, both Stefanowicz and John Israel are still stationed at Abu Ghraib, but, incredibly, the former is now telling his friends that he's coming home – no, not back to the small town outside Philadelphia where he was brought up, but to Australia, where he worked for 18 months in the "information technology" field and where his fiancée lives. As The Australian reports,
"[Stefanowicz] wrote to an Adelaide friend on Thursday, saying he wanted to leave Iraq: 'It's safe to say I've seen enough for a lifetime here in Iraq and it's definitely time to come home,' the 35-year-old said in an email. …'He's coming back to Australia shortly – he feels like Adelaide is his home,' said one acquaintance from the IT industry.'"
It's all so very casual: a likely war criminal is going to just get on a plane and sashay over to Australia, where he'll take up where he left off and marry the girl of his dreams, his "anger" over 9/11 apparently abated.
Will Stefanowicz get away with it? Will the U.S. authorities allow him to just run off, and take refuge in Australia or some other country, getting off scot-free while poor slobs like Sivits, Trailer-Park Lynndie, and the other fall guys get the book thrown at them?
If Stefanowicz is allowed to flee Iraq, without being arrested either by the Americans or the Iraqis, then we have the right to ask: who and what is being protected here?
That top U.S. officials knew and approved of how the detainees were "softened up" for interrogation is now coming out. Stefanowicz and John Israel, the two "civilian" contract employees, played key roles in all this, and are likely the primary links to high-ups. Yet their role is being steadfastly ignored, and one of them is being allowed to sneak away quietly – while their instruments, a bunch of clueless kids who did as they were told, take the rap.
The cover-up proceeds apace, with our brain-dead "mainstream" media criminally complicit. Whether this is through incompetence or intention is hard to discern, and hardly worth wondering about: after all, the net effect is the same. As Martha Frederick, wife of one of the accused, trenchantly remarked:
"Those who are responsible are standing behind the curtain and watching him take the fall for it. It's almost like being a pawn in a chess game."
If the Abu Ghraib defendants are pawns in a game, then who are the players? Whose hidden hands manipulate their destinies, like so many expendable pieces on a chessboard?
Everything about this war has been shrouded in secrecy and covered over by a thick layer of lies and subterfuges. The "Office of Special Plans," the "White House Iraq Group," and other ad hoc semi-clandestine operations, set up by the neocons in the dark bowels of the national security bureaucracy, went outside regular channels and operated as essentially independent entities. This war and its disastrous aftermath were engineered, reports Bob Woodward in his new book, Plan of Attack, by the Vice President and his neoconservative Praetorian Guard in a veritable coup d'etat:
"Powell felt Cheney and his allies – his chief aide, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith and what Powell called Feith's 'Gestapo' office – had established what amounted to a separate government."
Could that "separate government" have sent its agents to Iraq – in the form of "private" contractors – and carried out its own military policy in the name of fighting the "war on terrorism" – by terroristic means? Inquiring minds want to know….
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
Okay, so we're getting pretty near the end of our fundraising effort, and, as you probably know, we've upped our goal by 10,000 bucks this time around, in hopes of hiring a news editor. As of this writing, it isn't at all clear to me that we'll make it. Oh, sure, we'll have enough to get along in the same old way. But – you know what? – tha
most-likely-responsible for providing orders to abuse at abu ghraib.
we're not talking about the fall-grunts who are being court-martialed for following instructions.
we're talking about those who are most-likely gonna make the slip because they're either 1) private contractors with loose-connections ...or 2) getting higher up the command-chain and therfore closer-to-home:
"Specifically, I suspect that COL Thomas M. Pappas, LTC Steve L. Jordan, Mr. Steven Stephanowicz, and Mr. John Israel were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib (BCCF) and strongly recommend immediate disciplinary action as described in the preceding paragraphs as well as the initiation of a Procedure 15 Inquiry to determine the full extent of their culpability."
Furthermore, General Taguba goes into some detail, describing the key role played by this gang of four in permitting and even orchestrating the abuse. Of Pappas, Commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade and the Commander of FOB Abu Ghraib, Taguba recommended a reprimand for failing to supervise the troops that were, at least theoretically, under his command. As for Lt. Col. Jordan, former Director of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center attached to the 205th MI Brigade, Taguba advised not only a reprimand but also that Jordan be relieved of his command.
The two "civilian" contractors, John Israel and Steven Stephanowicz, who share the blame with Pappas and Jordan, are the most intriguing characters in this fast developing drama, and the most mysterious. We know everything about Lynndie England – the "trailer park girl in the eye of the storm," as the UK Mirror puts it – the "pixie-ish" Appalachian girl who appears in so many of the photos, giving a thumbs up and grinning idiotically, looking every inch the born victim. But who the heck is John Israel? We don't even know who employs him. As one news report notes:
"The other contractor implicated, John Israel, identified as a civilian translator assigned to the same brigade, is described in one place in the Army report as a CACI employee and in another as an employee of Titan, which provides translators for the Army throughout Iraq."
The New York Times reports:
"Ralph Williams, a spokesman for the Titan Corporation in San Diego, said Tuesday that John Israel, one of the contract employees implicated in the prison abuse scandal, worked for a Titan subcontractor that he would not name."
Hmmmmmmmmm…..
A wide-ranging Google search turns up only two references to individuals who may or may not be the mysterious John Israel: This one, based on the email address alone. And this one, located on a Yahoo website/mailist devoted to discussing the role-playing computer games Twilight 2000 and Merc 2000.
Mr. Stefanowicz (news accounts consistently misspell his name "Stephanowicz," as does the Taguba report) is less mysterious but no less intriguing. This is due in large part to the efforts of his mother, Jean Campbell, and the U.S. Department of Defense, which used her story as propaganda to support the war effort. In a piece distributed by the Armed Forces News Service and featured on the DoD's propaganda website, Stefanowicz's Mom is depicted as a paragon of patriotic virtue:
"Jean Campbell's son, Navy Petty Officer Steven Stefanowicz, is on active duty with the U.S. Navy in the Middle East. She is championing his service by uniting service members' mothers in her home state.
"Campbell, of Telford, Pa., joined the Blue Star Mothers and set up a chapter of the nonprofit service organization. She hopes to spark a chain reaction with chapters forming in every county."
The Taguba report describes Stefanowicz as a "civilian Contract Interrogator" employed by CACI, and attached to the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade. Taguba goes on to accuse him of having "made a false statement to the investigation team regarding the locations of his interrogations, the activities during his interrogations, and his knowledge of abuses."
Stefanowicz had been living in Adelaide, Australia, for some reason, although he had earlier served as a reservist, and is quoted by an Australian newspaper, a week after the 9/11 terrorist attacks:
"'It was one of the most incredible and most devastating things I have ever seen,' he told an Australian newspaper the week after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. ;I have been in constant contact with my family and friends in the U.S., and the mood was very solemn and quiet. But this is progressing into anger.'"
A whole lot of anger, apparently.
As in the case of John Israel, we don't even know who employs Stefanowicz. According to the Philadelphia Daily News:
"What's more, CACI International steadfastly refuses to even say whether Stefanowicz really does work for the Arlington, Va.-based defense contractor - refusing to return several phone calls and an e-mail from the Daily News. In a lengthy conference call with investment analysts yesterday morning, top executives insisted that one of two men named in news accounts - Stefanowicz and John Israel - in fact does not work for them. A company executive - it wasn't clear from the call which one - did say that one of the named employees was still on the payroll and 'by all accounts doing a damned fine job.'"
You figure it out!
As far as anyone knows, both Stefanowicz and John Israel are still stationed at Abu Ghraib, but, incredibly, the former is now telling his friends that he's coming home – no, not back to the small town outside Philadelphia where he was brought up, but to Australia, where he worked for 18 months in the "information technology" field and where his fiancée lives. As The Australian reports,
"[Stefanowicz] wrote to an Adelaide friend on Thursday, saying he wanted to leave Iraq: 'It's safe to say I've seen enough for a lifetime here in Iraq and it's definitely time to come home,' the 35-year-old said in an email. …'He's coming back to Australia shortly – he feels like Adelaide is his home,' said one acquaintance from the IT industry.'"
It's all so very casual: a likely war criminal is going to just get on a plane and sashay over to Australia, where he'll take up where he left off and marry the girl of his dreams, his "anger" over 9/11 apparently abated.
Will Stefanowicz get away with it? Will the U.S. authorities allow him to just run off, and take refuge in Australia or some other country, getting off scot-free while poor slobs like Sivits, Trailer-Park Lynndie, and the other fall guys get the book thrown at them?
If Stefanowicz is allowed to flee Iraq, without being arrested either by the Americans or the Iraqis, then we have the right to ask: who and what is being protected here?
That top U.S. officials knew and approved of how the detainees were "softened up" for interrogation is now coming out. Stefanowicz and John Israel, the two "civilian" contract employees, played key roles in all this, and are likely the primary links to high-ups. Yet their role is being steadfastly ignored, and one of them is being allowed to sneak away quietly – while their instruments, a bunch of clueless kids who did as they were told, take the rap.
The cover-up proceeds apace, with our brain-dead "mainstream" media criminally complicit. Whether this is through incompetence or intention is hard to discern, and hardly worth wondering about: after all, the net effect is the same. As Martha Frederick, wife of one of the accused, trenchantly remarked:
"Those who are responsible are standing behind the curtain and watching him take the fall for it. It's almost like being a pawn in a chess game."
If the Abu Ghraib defendants are pawns in a game, then who are the players? Whose hidden hands manipulate their destinies, like so many expendable pieces on a chessboard?
Everything about this war has been shrouded in secrecy and covered over by a thick layer of lies and subterfuges. The "Office of Special Plans," the "White House Iraq Group," and other ad hoc semi-clandestine operations, set up by the neocons in the dark bowels of the national security bureaucracy, went outside regular channels and operated as essentially independent entities. This war and its disastrous aftermath were engineered, reports Bob Woodward in his new book, Plan of Attack, by the Vice President and his neoconservative Praetorian Guard in a veritable coup d'etat:
"Powell felt Cheney and his allies – his chief aide, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith and what Powell called Feith's 'Gestapo' office – had established what amounted to a separate government."
Could that "separate government" have sent its agents to Iraq – in the form of "private" contractors – and carried out its own military policy in the name of fighting the "war on terrorism" – by terroristic means? Inquiring minds want to know….
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
Okay, so we're getting pretty near the end of our fundraising effort, and, as you probably know, we've upped our goal by 10,000 bucks this time around, in hopes of hiring a news editor. As of this writing, it isn't at all clear to me that we'll make it. Oh, sure, we'll have enough to get along in the same old way. But – you know what? – tha
Message 106/147 11-May-04 @ 06:38 PM - RE:
this is just another example of the hubris of america in general.........
===========================================================
Senator 'Outraged by Outrage' at Prison Abuse
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As others condemned the reported abuse of Iraqi prisoners, U.S. Sen. James Inhofe on Tuesday expressed outrage at the worldwide outrage over the treatment by American soldiers of those he called "terrorists" and "murderers."
"I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment," the Oklahoma Republican said at a U.S. Senate hearing probing the scandal.
"These prisoners, you know they're not there for traffic violations," Inhofe said. "If they're in cellblock 1-A or 1-B, these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands and here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals."
Coalition military intelligence officers estimated that about 70 percent to 90 percent of the thousands of prisoners detained in Iraq (news - web sites) had been "arrested by mistake," according to a report by Red Cross given to the Bush administration last year and leaked this week.
The report also said the mistreatment of prisoners apparently tolerated by U.S. and other coalition forces in Iraq involved widespread abuse that was "in some cases tantamount to torture."
In heated remarks at odds with others on the Senate committee who took aim at the U.S. military's handling of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, Inhofe said that American sympathies should lie with U.S. troops.
"I am also outraged that we have so many humanitarian do-gooders right now crawling all over these prisons looking for human rights violations, while our troops, our heroes are fighting and dying," he said.
Inhofe, who visited Iraq in March, is described on his senatorial Web site as a leading conservative voice in the Senate, advocating "common sense Oklahoma values including less government, less regulation, lower taxes, fiscal responsibility and a strong national defense."
=========================================================
let someone stick a fucking glowstick in his ass and see how he likes it!
===========================================================
Senator 'Outraged by Outrage' at Prison Abuse
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As others condemned the reported abuse of Iraqi prisoners, U.S. Sen. James Inhofe on Tuesday expressed outrage at the worldwide outrage over the treatment by American soldiers of those he called "terrorists" and "murderers."
"I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment," the Oklahoma Republican said at a U.S. Senate hearing probing the scandal.
"These prisoners, you know they're not there for traffic violations," Inhofe said. "If they're in cellblock 1-A or 1-B, these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands and here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals."
Coalition military intelligence officers estimated that about 70 percent to 90 percent of the thousands of prisoners detained in Iraq (news - web sites) had been "arrested by mistake," according to a report by Red Cross given to the Bush administration last year and leaked this week.
The report also said the mistreatment of prisoners apparently tolerated by U.S. and other coalition forces in Iraq involved widespread abuse that was "in some cases tantamount to torture."
In heated remarks at odds with others on the Senate committee who took aim at the U.S. military's handling of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, Inhofe said that American sympathies should lie with U.S. troops.
"I am also outraged that we have so many humanitarian do-gooders right now crawling all over these prisons looking for human rights violations, while our troops, our heroes are fighting and dying," he said.
Inhofe, who visited Iraq in March, is described on his senatorial Web site as a leading conservative voice in the Senate, advocating "common sense Oklahoma values including less government, less regulation, lower taxes, fiscal responsibility and a strong national defense."
=========================================================
let someone stick a fucking glowstick in his ass and see how he likes it!
Message 107/147 11-May-04 @ 06:47 PM - RE:
SOLDIERS TRY TO SCRAPE BY, CONTRACTORS RAKE IN THE DOUGH: The average income for a military household is about $3300 a month. The president has tried to reduce the modest monthly stipend that soldiers get for working in imminent danger from $225 a month to $150 a month. Private contractors, however, rake in up to $1500 a day. Industry can afford to pay excessive salaries because up to 30 percent of the $87.5 billion supplemental appropriations law passed in November will find its way to private contractors.
Message 108/147 11-May-04 @ 07:12 PM - RE:
In many ways SOME of the terrorists are right in their philosophy... NOT IN THEIR methods, I need to make that clear, I don't support killing anyone!
But... the US shouldn't be all one nation. the idea that you guys outside of the US can read what that representative from Oklahoma says and assign it to all americans proves it for me. Oklahoma is a very different place than where I live, I've traveled all over the States, and there are VERY different cultures in this country... disparate and real differences, that are fundamental in the way we view our roles in the world... I'm not pretending that culturaly I'm superior, just different...
and maybe, that's just not OK that the rest of the world has so many nations, and North America has three... especially considering that one of those three is a virtual slave state to one of the others... (my apologies to Mexican Nationalists!)
There's a reason American struts the Earth with conceit and disregard for EVERY other nation... we ARE too powerful, too comfortable, too strong!!! We don't want to depend on anyone else, for anything else... it's the gated community mindset on a global scale!
It's seated in fear, the need to be the strongest, the winningest and the wealthiest, cause we're so god damned afraid of the alternative. We're happy to bomb brown people, beat the crap out of naked, defenseless young men in leather hoods!!! Anything to make us feel safer!
I try to imagine what the parents of those kids in the pictures must think. When those were babies, did they understand that they would raise them up to be monsters in service to their parents' greed, laziness and fear?!
I dunno
e
But... the US shouldn't be all one nation. the idea that you guys outside of the US can read what that representative from Oklahoma says and assign it to all americans proves it for me. Oklahoma is a very different place than where I live, I've traveled all over the States, and there are VERY different cultures in this country... disparate and real differences, that are fundamental in the way we view our roles in the world... I'm not pretending that culturaly I'm superior, just different...
and maybe, that's just not OK that the rest of the world has so many nations, and North America has three... especially considering that one of those three is a virtual slave state to one of the others... (my apologies to Mexican Nationalists!)
There's a reason American struts the Earth with conceit and disregard for EVERY other nation... we ARE too powerful, too comfortable, too strong!!! We don't want to depend on anyone else, for anything else... it's the gated community mindset on a global scale!
It's seated in fear, the need to be the strongest, the winningest and the wealthiest, cause we're so god damned afraid of the alternative. We're happy to bomb brown people, beat the crap out of naked, defenseless young men in leather hoods!!! Anything to make us feel safer!
I try to imagine what the parents of those kids in the pictures must think. When those were babies, did they understand that they would raise them up to be monsters in service to their parents' greed, laziness and fear?!
I dunno
e
Message 109/147 11-May-04 @ 10:29 PM - RE:
Zazza
Posts: 1502
Link?: No link
File?: No file
'We don't want to depend on anyone else, for anything else..'
Like oil for instance?
Like oil for instance?
Message 110/147 11-May-04 @ 10:36 PM - RE:
precisely... right now we do a bit... but only a bit... We may not own oil production around the globe, but over the last 50 years we have insured that we control the vast majority of it.
The idea behind invading Iraq was to have a huge military base presense in the middle east... why? so we can control the governments there. why? because they produce oil...
We don't want to have to play by the rules! We don't want to have to be fair!
And, with the way things are today, we don't have to!
e
The idea behind invading Iraq was to have a huge military base presense in the middle east... why? so we can control the governments there. why? because they produce oil...
We don't want to have to play by the rules! We don't want to have to be fair!
And, with the way things are today, we don't have to!
e
Pages: 1 ... 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
There are 147 total messages for this topic
Reply to Thread
You need to register/login to use the forum.
Click here to Signup or Login !
[you'll be brought right back to this point after signing up]
Back to Forum
