Torture of children & other human beings in U.S. Gulags

Apparently, children are being tortured at Guantanamo Bay.

This reminds me of the reports regarding children who were sodomized at Abu Ghraib.

The reports comport with comments that atrocities are being committed against adults on the UK colony of Diego Garcia, which is run as a U.S. naval and military base and concentration camp in the Indian Ocean. Activities there have been described by FBI director Robert Mueller as follows, that the techniques used there by CIA interrogators "violate all American anti-torture laws and would be prohibited in criminal cases of the most serious kind".

Anyone who doubts that the U.S. War OF Terror prison system compares with a Gulag, should read here about how Solzhenitsyn described torture and prisoner treatment in Soviet gulags, and compare it to these statements (one) (two) (three) on American gulags.

And, like their Soviet predecessors, the American torturers threaten to send some of their victims to places even worse, through the process of extraordinary rendition.

(Thanks to Tom at This Modern World for the Solzhenitsyn tip).

Desecration

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a constitutional amendment to outlaw the burning of the American flag. They had to do it this way, because, you see, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled flag burning is a legal expression of dissent.

Apparently, unbeknownst to the world at large, there must have been some outbreak of flag-burnings. And what image is the AP providing to illustrate the story? A file photo from Bush's second inauguration. If that's the most recent instance that can be cooked up, then perhaps this isn't as much of a crisis and the Republicans fear.

Either that, or this is an attempt by Republicans to appeal to their base while unifying their party. After all, there are even rumblings within the GOP that Bush should come up with a timeline to withdraw from Iraq.

So how best to tug at the heart strings of Americans, and get them to make this a priority? Well, Republican Congressman Randy Cunningham (R-California) had this to say:
"Ask the men and women who stood on top of the Trade Center. Ask them and they will tell you: pass this amendment."

I'm not sure to whom Representative Cunningham's referring. It could have been this guy, but more likely, he's trying to suggest that one should talk to people perched atop the New York World Trade Center, awaiting rescue, following the attacks of the 11th of September, 2001. Of course, there were no such people, since the doors to the roof were locked. But I suppose mere historical truth is unimportant, when one is shamelessly grandstanding on the corpses of the murdered. Also, I suppose it's hard to stay focused when facing scrutiny for what appears to be a festering corruption scandal.

In any event, I guess Cunningham meant to suggest that the victims of the attack would be primarily concerned with flag burning. Perhaps the Congressman is overlooking the clear, vocal demands made by the attack's survivors, and the relatives of the slain, for a proper investigation of the attacks. The pathetic commissions and investigations that have happened so far have failed to meaningfully address the questions that the direct victims of the attack have quite reasonably advanced. I am unaware of any comparable statement from this group, nor any similar group of 9/11 victims, imploring that something be done about the scourge of flag burning.

Of course, conservatives have grown fond of trotting out the dead of 9/11, and rhetorically riding their cadavers like some Frankenstein hobby horse whenever there's political advantage to be gained. Karl Rove on Wednesday said, "Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies." Imagine the silliness of liberals, thinking that there might be some value to understanding the situation, so that meaningful action could be taken. How stupid to try to comprehend something and approach it intelligently, when it's so much easier to simply lash out in wrath!

And when did Rove make these remarks? On Wednesday, the same day he denounced Senator Dick Durbin, who was cowed into retracting his perfectly sensible comments about the travesties occurring in the name of the United States.

Another quote from the CBS story about the retraction:

On Tuesday, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley - a fellow Democrat - added his voice to the chorus of criticism, saying, "I think it's a disgrace to say that any man or woman in the military would act like that."

Personally, I think it's a bigger disgrace that men and women in the military are being given orders to act like that.

That's a bigger desecration to the U.S., and its flag, than any symbolic protest could ever be.

______
Thanks to Roy & his commenters at alicublog for helping inspire this post.

National_Insecurity

OK, I don't know if I can deal with this much irony, but the Dept. of Homeland Insecurity has now decided that whenever we ride the subways, we need to be spying on our fellow-travelers. Or something like that.

If Orwell hadn't been cremated, he'd be spinning in his grave.

See this link for more details.

As one anonymous comment put it:

"Socialist Realism" becomes "Authoritarian Post-Modernism"

Downing Street Memo - Action Alert!

Representative John Conyers is demanding accountability from the White House in connection with revelations from the Downing Street Memo.

Signatures are being collected to force the issue. I urge everyone to visit this link, and sign the petition.

Drowning in rose petals

The reliably biting wit of Roy Edroso deconstructs an article about how things in Basra, Iraq are, predictably, much worse since the invasion. Nonetheless, Steven Vincent, author of the National Review article, manages to end his story on an improbably optimistic note, for which Roy takes him to task.

In case you're wondering how the Iraq war is going, check Edroso's post, as well as Vincent's article.

Senator Clinton to press: "Let's get some spine"

Senator Hillary Clinton has thrown a gauntlet, saying "I mean, c'mon, toughen up, guys, it's only our Constitution and country at stake," she said. "Let's get some spine." She points out that the current Republican leadership is dauntless, in the worst way:

"There has never been an administration, I don't believe in our history, more intent upon consolidating and abusing power to further their own agenda," Mrs. Clinton told the audience at a "Women for Hillary" gathering in Midtown Manhattan this morning.

"I know it's frustrating for many of you; it's frustrating for me: Why can't the Democrats do more to stop them?" she continued to growing applause and cheers. "I can tell you this: It's very hard to stop people who have no shame about what they're doing. It is very hard to tell people that they are making decisions that will undermine our checks and balances and constitutional system of government who don't care. It is very hard to stop people who have never been acquainted with the truth."

Click for story. From New York Times (registration required).

Significantly, the Senator used the inclusive phrase, "let's" in her comments. That suggests that it's not just the press, but also the Democratic Party in Congress, who need to forcefully challenge the Bushies. I hope both press and politicians hear and respond to her cry.

Fox, hen house, etc.

If you were selecting someone to run the White House Council on Environmental Quality, whom would you pick to preserve Earth's precious resources and help keep industry from running roughshod over the common person?

If you were Bush, you'd pick an energy industry lobbyist, trained as a lawyer, from the American Petroleum Institute.

Then, you'd have him bowdlerize official reports written by people who, unlike the appointee, have actual scientific training.

In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.

The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase "significant and fundamental" before the word "uncertainties," tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust.

Link at the New York Times (registration required), via the indispensable Cursor.

The Lie of the Land

The evidence keeps piling up that W.'s war of choice in Iraq is exactly that: a war he chose to go into, rather than trying to avoid the conflict.

Robert Parry has a nice summary of recent developments.

For additional evidence, one might add:

• In 1999, Bush told the man who'd been selected as his official biographer of his intention to invade Iraq, in other words, W. had voiced this intent even before being Court-appointed to his first term in the Oval Office. He said he was interested in doing this so as not to be a single-term President. Unfortunately, it seems to have worked.

• Bush's epithet-riddled utterance about the Iraqi strongman, made Bush's position clear to Senators in early 2002, even while W. still pretended to seek a diplomatic solution.

• Once taking office, Bush immediately began looking for excuses to invade Iraq.

• Rumsfeld's immediate response to the attacks on the U.S. on Sept. 11 of 2001, was to ask his staff about the possiblility of using the atrocity as a pretext to invade Iraq.

• By September of 2002, before Bush had any authorization from Congress to attack Iraq, and well before the "official" start of the war, the U.S. and its British ally had already begun a massive assault on Iraq. This also shows that Bush's supposed time that he began the war, was just as much a fiction as his "Mission Accomplished" 'end' of the war.

Click the links above, or do some research on your own into this, and you'll undoubtedly find much more evidence that supports the position of those who opposed the war. It's easy, and it's important.

"If Watergate Happened Now..."

Jonathan Alter at Newsweek nails what's been rattling around my head the last couple days.

Michael Jackson vs. W.

Apparently, a number of people have been hanging around outside the Michael Jackson courtroom, making their opinion known about him; a number of them are protesting that he is innocent of all charges.

I'll admit that I'm not clear on how these people would know whether he's guilty or not, but there they are. I'm tempted to think that maybe these people are merely trying to get their faces on TV, but for some of these fans, it's clear that the devotion to Michael is more than skin deep.

My point is, W.'s voters in the last election are a lot like the parents who've been sending their kids over to play with Michael the last couple of years. I'm not saying that Michael's guilty; I really don't know that he is. But I know that I wouldn't trust the future of my family to someone who's been repeatedly accused of child abuse.

Nor would I trust the future of a nation to a man who's been repeatedly accused of human rights abuse.

I'm just saying.

You're either with us, or...

The U.S. is apparently in no hurry to extradite the alleged terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who is wanted in connection with the bringing down of a Cuban airlier in 1976, killing 73 passengers. Though he was twice acquitted of this crime in Venezuela, he was jailed, awaiting a prosecutor's appeal, when he escaped in 1985.

Now, the U.S. ambassador to the Venezuela is saying that Carriles is innocent until proven guilty, a standard that the U.S. does not abide by in its own gulags .

Maybe I missed something, but wasn't it Afghanistan's "refusal" to extradite Osama bin Laden for his alleged involvement with terrorist airliner attacks, that the U.S. used as a pretext in invade Afghanistan?

This case will bear close watching, as Venezuela prepares to offer more information and a formal request of extradition.

Of course, it's possible that Luis Posada Carriles is innocent. Then again, it's also possilble that the U.S. will be slow to pursue a character with as embarassing a past as his.