Lawless Bush's Sick Trifecta of Shame: Losing Three Wars At Once

Like all those who somehow never expect the Spanish Inquisition (though clearly Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam are all suited up in their Cardinal's berrettas and gowns, ready to rush in, crucifixes a-blazing), Bush never seems to expect the trifecta, does he?

You know, I remember campaigning in Chicago and somebody said, would you ever spend a deficit? And I said, only if we're at war or we had a recession or there was a national emergency. Little did I realize we'd get the trifecta. (Laughter.)" -- 3/1/02 -- The Marriott Hotel, Des Moines, Iowa

Hyuk. Hyuk.

He didn't expect planes to be flown into buildings.

He didn't expect Katrina.

Can we expect the Decider-er to be waking up from his unexpecting slumber anytime soon?

Never mind.

Let's just talk about Bubble Boy's wars.


Iraq is a mess. Afghanistan's a mess.

Now experts admit that Bubble Boy is losing the war on terrorism, too.

What percentage of experts on terrorism say so?

Eighty-four percent.

US LOSING WAR ON TERROR, EXPERTS SAY


WASHINGTON - The United States is losing its fight against terrorism and the Iraq war is the biggest reason why, more than eight of 10 American terrorism and national security experts concluded in a poll released yesterday.

One participant, a former CIA official who described himself as a conservative Republican, said the war in Iraq has provided global terrorist groups with a recruiting bonanza, a valuable training ground and a strategic beachhead at the crossroads of the oil-rich Persian Gulf and Turkey.

"The war in Iraq broke our back in the war on terror," said the former official, Michael Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris, a popular book highly critical of the Bush administration's anti-terrorism efforts. "It has made everything more difficult and the threat more existential."

Scheuer is one of more than 100 national security and terrorism analysts surveyed by Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank.

Asked whether the United States is "winning the war on terror," 84 percent said no and 13 percent answered yes. Asked whether the war in Iraq is helping or hurting the global anti-terrorism campaign, 87 percent said hurting. Eighty-six percent said the world is becoming "more dangerous for the United States and the American people.

More here. Link to Foreign Policy re: the Terrorism Index, here.



torture
war on terror
Bush
Geneva Conventions

Whee. It's Our First Blogiversary!

A whole year of blogging about the pro-atrocity crowd, the pro-torture crowd, about Bush screwing over Vets with PTSD, Bush screwing over soldiers by cheating them of equipment, of money, of treatment, and sending sick soldiers back into battle.

A year of blogging on George Bush morally and fiscally bankrupting the country as he tries Norquistianly to shrink it to a size where, like a NaziCon Andrea Yates, he can drown it in a bathtub.

A year of complaining about blowhard wankers like Anchor Child Poster Child Mickey Malkin and "Can't Tell A Loofah From a Felafel" dirty old man Bill O'Reilly.

A year wondering about the sexuality of Karl Rove, wondering why a grown man would call himself "Scooter," and trying to get AmericaBlog's net-posted lurid porno pix that JimmyJeffGannon Guckert put up of himself on purpose permanently erased from my brain. Eee-ew.

We were pleased and surprised to have been nominated for several Koufax Awards (Best New Blog, Best Post, Wider Recognition). We were neither pleased nor surprised by the general direction of the country, as the shrieky Bushists drive their fascist bus over a cliff.

How about a stroll down Memory Lane for some Golden Oldies? (Yeah, try and stop me.)

"Bubble Boy Brings Back Burqas," here.

"Bubble Boy Wastes Blood and Treasure to Install Medievalist Theocracy In Iraq," here.

"Robertson Calls For Chavez Murder: God's Sixth Commandment Not Good Enough for Anti-Christ-ist Crackpot Right," here.

"Pissing On the Post-Born: The Third-Worlding of America," here.

"Blonde Blowhard Blog-Slagger Flip-Flops: Slobbered Over Right Blogs, Now Slags Blogs Left," here.

"We Can't Care for the Children We Already Have (Andrea Yates Edition)," here.

"SERFIN' U-S-A!!" here.

"Canned Hunts: Killing for Fun," here.

"Lawless George's Little My Lai: Civilian Massacre at Haditha," here.

"The Pro-Atrocity Crowd: Deja Vu All Over Again," here.

"It's Spring. Must Be Time for More All-American Abu Ghraib Torture/Humiliation Pix," here.

Not to mention the Official No Blood for Hubris Mental Health Interlude Number Two, Bush Discovers Faith-Based Gravity.

Many thanks to all our constant readers, and to the inconstant ones, as well.


(Cake credit: Melissa Vaughn.)

torture
Vets with PTSD
Bush
Geneva Conventions

Neck Deep in the Big Muddy, And the Big Fool Said To Push On

Waist Deep in the Big Muddy

(Pete Seeger)

It was back in nineteen forty-two,
I was a member of a good platoon.
We were on maneuvers in-a Lou-zianna,
One night by the light of the moon.

The captain told us to ford a river,
That's how it all begun.

We were -- knee deep in the Big Muddy,
But the big fool said to push on.


The Sergeant said, "Sir, are you sure,
This is the best way back to the base?"

"Sergeant, go on! I forded this river
'Bout a mile above this place.
It'll be a little soggy but just keep slogging.
We'll soon be on dry ground."

We were -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

The Sergeant said, "Sir, with all this equipment
No man will be able to swim."

"Sergeant, don't be a Nervous Nellie!"
The Captain said to him.
"All we need is a little determination;
Men, follow me, I'll lead on."

We were -- neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.


All at once, the moon clouded over,
We heard a gurgling cry.
A few seconds later, the captain's helmet
Was all that floated by.
The Sergeant said, "Turn around men!
I'm in charge from now on."
And we just made it out of the Big Muddy
With the captain dead and gone.

We stripped and dived and found his body
Stuck in the old quicksand.
I guess he didn't know that the water was deeper
Than the place he'd once before been.

Another stream had joined the Big Muddy
'Bout a half mile from where we'd gone.
We were lucky to escape from the Big Muddy
When the big fool said to push on.


Well, I'm not going to point any moral;
I'll leave that for yourself
Maybe you're still walking, you're still talking
You'd like to keep your health.

But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on;
We're -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.


Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.

Waist deep!
Neck deep!
Soon even a
Tall man'll be over his head! We're
Waist deep in the Big Muddy!
And the big fool says to push on!


(Tomorrow marks our first blogiversary. We're celebrating with song today. Who knows what we shall celebrate with tomorrow?)


More here.

Rumsfeld
Iraq War
Bush
Geneva Conventions

Rove, Lies, and Videotape. And Don't Forget Those Non-Existent WMDs

Hey! Did you know that the sky is falling?

No, really, it is!

Senator Sanatorium says so! He says we really did find those pesky WMDs for which we said we went to war, and killed a whole lotta people!

Wow! Sanatorium's so in the loop! Coulda fooled me!

Coulda fooled the Pentagon, too, which disavowed Senator Sanatorium's tale soon after. Oh well. See Santorum's fake WMD story disavowed by Pentagon, via Think Progress.

More fun stories:

"Annoyed Bush Calls European Critics 'Absurd'" via the Sydney Morning Herald.

Naughty Old Europeans suggest US is more of a threat to world stability than 'Axis of Evil.' Hunh? Time to bring back 'Freedom Fries' and 'Freedom Toast,' and add on 'Freedomburgers."

Plus, the ever-vigilant CitizenSpook on the continuing mysterious saga of Rove/Fitzgerald/Plame/Libby: might Fitzgerald spokesman Randall Samborn's verbal curlicues carefully conceal a guilty plea by Rove?

Hmm.

Fitzgerald
Plame
Rove
Libby

None Dare Call It Polo

Up for more American atrocities, are we?

Why, certainly. Let's discuss Bush's War and the Genghis Khan-ization of America. You can't call it polo, because there weren't any horses, but you sure can call it sick.

So sick it makes the pro-torture lobby's shriekiest argument fall flat on its--well, face. You know, the old "they behead people so that makes it ok for us to torture them."

Oh, but we're the beheaders now.

An excerpt from Peter Laufer's new book, here, via AlterNet.

We was going along the Euphrates River," says Joshua Key, a 27-year-old former U.S. soldier from Oklahoma, detailing a recurring nightmare -- a scene he stumbled on shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

"It's a road right in the city of Ramadi. We turned a real sharp right and all I seen was decapitated bodies.

The heads laying over here and the bodies over here and U.S. troops in between them. I'm thinking, 'Oh my God, what in the hell happened here? What's caused this? Why in the hell did this happen?'

We get out and somebody was screaming, 'We fucking lost it here!' I'm thinking, 'Oh, yes, somebody definitely lost it here.'"

Joshua says he was ordered to look around for evidence of a firefight, for something to rationalize the beheaded Iraqis.

"I look around just for a few seconds and I don't see anything." But then he noticed the sight that now triggers his nightmares.

"I see two soldiers kicking the heads around like a soccer ball. I just shut my mouth, walked back, got inside the tank, shut the door, and it was like, I can't be no part of this. This is crazy.

I came here to fight and be prepared for war but this is outrageous. Why did it happen? That's just my question: Why did that happen?"

He's convinced there was no firefight that led to the beheading orgy -- there were no spent shells to indicate a battle.

"A lot of my friends stayed on the ground, looking to see if there was any shells. There was never no shells, except for what we shot.

I'm thinking, Okay, so they just did that because they wanted to do it. They got trigger happy and they did it.

That's what made me mad in Iraq. You can take human lives at a fast rate and all you have to say is, say, 'Oh, I thought they threw a grenade. I thought I seen this, I thought I seen that.' You could mow down 20 people each time and nobody's going to ask you, 'Are you sure?' They're going to give you a high five and tell you that you was doing a good job."

This is what Bush's war has done to our young men and women, who will now come home and live among us.

Happily ever after?


torture
Rummy
Bush
Geneva Conventions

Curiouser and curiouser . . . .

Some say official Bushist fascist slime-meister Karl Rove's indictment was indeed in place, just as reported, and had been sealed.

Some say that there are indications, via the comments of Fitzgerald spokesman Randall Samborn, that something unusual then may have occurred.

Some say that, the Rove indictment being in place, Dirty Bush and his justice-suppressors then got some Republican activist judge hack, a Federal Magistrate, to expunge it, making it appear that the whole thing was a mere kerfuffle, a nothing to see here, move on moment in the collective national consciousness.

Some say that:

Lawyers and staff tied to the Fitzgerald Investigation are now in revolt.

They are reporting that Karl Rove was indicted by the Grand Jury in Washington, D.C. for perjury and obstruction of justice and the indictments were recorded and handed to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.

Some say that, having thus far successfully suppressed the Rove prosection, Dirty Bush's team has turned to getting Libby off the hook as well.

Some say that Scooter "What Kind of Name is That for A Grown Man?" Libby is getting ready to receive a timely pardon from Dirty Bush.

Some say the corruption of this Orc administration, like their penchant for starting wars for fun and profit, will never end.


Rove
Libby
Bush
Cheney

Luckily There's No Such Thing as Global Warming, I Mean, Global Climate Change, I Mean, Whatever It Is, Fearful Leader Can White It Out, Can He Not?

THAWING ICY PLAINS A THREAT AS ROT SETS IN

ANCIENT woolly mammoth bones and grasslands locked in a 1 million-square-kilometre stretch of Siberian permafrost are starting to thaw, with the potential to unleash billions of tonnes of carbon and accelerate global warming, Russian and American scientists have concluded.

"It's like taking food out of your freezer … leave it on your counter for a few days and it rots," said a University of Florida botany professor, Ted Schuur, describing the process in which bacteria convert decaying animal and plant matter in the soil into carbon dioxide, methane and other harmful greenhouse gases.

The study, published in yesterday's issue of the journal Science, concluded that while other global warming researchers were factoring carbon reserves in the ocean, and in current soils and vegetation on the earth into their calculations, they had overlooked vast amounts of carbon trapped in permafrost in the northern plains of Siberia and central Alaska.

If all the permafrost thawed and was released as heat-trapping carbon dioxide, it could nearly double the 730 billion tonnes of carbon now in the atmosphere, the scientists said. . .

"It's like finding a new continent under the earth," said the lead author, Sergey Zimov. He said the vast, carbon-rich area had been buried over many millenniums by a unique layer of windborne "loess" dust that covered bones of mammoth, bison, sabre-toothed tiger and abundant grasses they fed on, then froze about 10,000 years ago into permafrost.

The research team also found that carbon stored over tens of thousands of years could bubble up from thawed soil in as little as 100 years.

No sense thinking that far ahead, eh, Bubble Boy?


Full story here.

[Update: More fun here.]


global warming
environmental degradation
Bush
pro-pollution

Roll Over, Turd-BLOSS-om!! --- Or, Federal Indictment "06 cr 128" -- (Sealed vs. Sealed)

Hath yet the fat lady sung?

Methinks not.

Tum ti tum ti tum ti tiddly tum.

Mayhap the best is yet to come.


[Update: this is an interesting take. As is this, both from Citizenspook.

Excerpt:

[T]he Grand Jury has the Constitutional authority to return either, but as our system developed certain habits of procedure, charges brought exclusively by the Grand Jury became regularly classified as PRESENTMENTS as opposed to charges brought directly by the U.S. Attorney which are commonly referred to as INDICTMENTS.

Somebody with clout needs to ask Luskin if Rove is the subject of any PRESENTMENTS by the Fitzgerald Grand Jury. Because if the Grand Jury returned charges in the form of PRESENTMENTS, then Luskin and Corallo could steadfastly deny that any INDICTMENTS have been returned against Rove.]

Lawless Bush IS -- Vlad the Impaler!!

In the olden days, people put other people's heads on spikes.

This was earlier in Western civilization.

(This gentleman on the left is Vlad the Impaler. Go Google him. He did that stuff a lot.)

On the right below, we have the late Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. He hasn't been literally impaled, but rather literarily impaled--his head is now on a Bushist propaganda spike.

Isn't that like, SO Western civilized?

I so appreciated having this guy's corpse pic splashed across the front page of both my morning newspapers, so that I could share this virtual impalement with my children and other unsuspecting innocents, those who have been so carefully protected from seeing the heinous photos of flag-draped coffins of American war dead.

I'm so glad our hero George Bush is protecting Western civilization through virtually impaling enemies via propaganda death pix in contravention of those pussy Genevas, and torturing people in contravention of those pussy Genevas, and disappearing people to secret prisons in contravention of those pussy Genevas, and holding people without trial in contravention of general pussy laws and stuff.

I also think it's so interesting that even though a 500 lb. bomb fell on this guy, he didn't get smashed to smithereens. Shouldn't we be bombing little village houses with bigger bombs?

I also think it's interesting that a guy like Zarqawi who was FIRED TWO MONTHS AGO BY THE IRAQI INSURGENTS is getting such big-deal press in the US, who have completely ignored the him getting sacked story, which ran in Al Jazeera long ago.

It must be so useful to have a boogieman, so we can keep the little Bushist fascist Bush-hugging kiddies in their footed flannel jammies scared of the scarey terrist dark, is it not?

Ooh. Someone quick give all the little scaredy kiddies a big "Boy George Will Protect You!" hug, and send them off to bed.


(Ed. note--Without their suppers.)




torture
Zarqawi
Bush
Geneva Conventions

Now Suicide Is an "Act of War"? Tell me another. Please.

No kidding.

George Orwell couldn't make this up, Stanley Kubrick and Terry Southern couldn't make this up. They don't have to. The war-is-peace, pollution-is-cleanliness, torture-is-next-to-Godliness, atrocity-is-all-American, up-is-downist, Big Brother Loves You Bushist fascists are on the march again.

Here's a US military man who calls the recent triple suicides at Gitmo an "act of war."

THE commander of the US Joint Task Force Guantanamo, Rear Admiral Harry Harris has described the overnight suicide of three inmates "as an act of war". Three foreign prisoners were found dead overnight after hanging themselves with clothing and bedsheets in the first deaths at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since the prison opened in January 2002, US defence officials said.

The military said two Saudis and one Yemeni were found unresponsive and not breathing in their cells by guards and that attempts to resuscitate the detainees failed.

They were pronounced dead by a physician at Guantanamo, which holds just under 500 foreigners captured mainly in the US war against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

The suicides have thrown a spotlight on the camp that has drawn widespread criticism against the Bush administration from foreign countries, including some allies, and human rights advocates.

Navy Rear Admiral Harry Harris, commander of Guantanamo, described the suicides were an act of warfare.

"They are smart. They are creative, they are committed. They have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us," Rear Adm. Harris said.

Asymmetrical warfare, eh?

Does that mean that, in order to preserve martial symmetry, we can expect that Bubble Boy and Rummy and Big Dick will be taking their own three lives together anytime soon?

As vengeance? In reprisal?

Just asking . . .


Full story here.

Guantanamo
torture
Rumsfeld
Bush
Harry Harris

Give Me Liberty, Or Give Me Death -- Club Gitmo-Style

THREE GITMO PRISONERS COMMIT SUICIDE

The US Army has announced that three as-yet-unidentified Guantanamo detainees died early this morning local time in apparent multiple suicides. An official investigation is already underway.

These are the first suicides confirmed among prisoners at Guantanamo Bay since the facility housing US terror suspects at the naval station there was opened in 2002.

A US Southern Command statement released in Miami says:

Two Saudis and one Yemeni, each located in Camp 1, were found unresponsive and not breathing in their cells by guards. Medical teams responded quickly and all three detainees were provided immediate emergency medical treatment in attempts to revive them.

The three detainees were pronounced dead by a physician after all lifesaving measures had been exhausted. The names of the deceased are not being released. The State Department notified and is in ongoing discussions with the governments of Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

The remains of the deceased detainees are being treated with the utmost respect. A cultural advisor is assisting the Joint Task Force to ensure that the remains are handled in a culturally and religiously appropriate manner.

The U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) has initiated an investigation, per standard operating procedure, to determine the cause and manner of death.

In May, two detainees attempted to commit suicide by ingesting pills . . . Other detainees have participated in prolonged hunger-strikes in apparent protest of their treatment and indefinite detention without trial.

Via the Jurist.

Guantanamo
torture
suicide
Bush
Geneva Conventions

Iraq Insurgents Fire Zarqawi -- Reposted from April 2006

ZARQAWI SACKED FOR "MISTAKES"

Iraq's resistance has replaced Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as political head of the rebels, the son of Osama bin Laden's mentor has said in Jordan.

Hudayf Azzam, 35, who claims close contacts with the fighters, said on Sunday: "The Iraqi resistance's high command asked Zarqawi to give up his political role and replaced him with an Iraqi, because of several mistakes he made. . . Azzam said he regularly receives "credible information on the resistance in Iraq. He said al-Zarqawi had "made many political mistakes," including "the creation of an independent organisation, al-Qaeda in Iraq".

"Zarqawi also took the liberty of speaking in the name of the Iraqi people and resistance, a role which belongs only to the Iraqis," Azzam said.

As a result "the resistance command inside and outside Iraq, including imams, criticised him and after long discussions demanded that he be confined to military action."

"Zarqawi's role has been limited to military action. Zarqawi bowed to the orders two weeks ago and was replaced by Iraqi national Abdullah bin Rashed al-Baghdadi."

Isn't it inspiring to know that some incompetent people actually get fired for having been incompetent?

Full story here via Al-Jazeera.

Zarqawi
Iraq

Moms, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Sadists

PENTAGON SET TO DROP GENEVA CONVENTION
Geneva Conventions Helped Protect These US Soldiers in WWII

Via the Sydney Morning Herald

THE Pentagon is pushing for its new policy on prisoner detention to omit a key tenet of the Geneva convention that bans "humiliating and degrading treatment," marking a potentially permanent move away from international human rights standards.

Military officials say the decision follows a lengthy debate within the US Department of Defence, but will not become final until the Pentagon makes the new guidelines public, a step that has been delayed. . .The process has been beset by controversy and coincides with growing criticism of US detention practices and the conduct of US forces in Iraq.

For decades it was US military policy to follow minimum standards set out in the Geneva conventions for treating prisoners. But in 2002, President George Bush suspended sections of the Geneva conventions for alleged al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

His order superseded military policy in effect at the time, touching off debate over US obligations under the accords that intensified after reports of abuses at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. . . The prisoner directive was due to be released in April with the Army Field Manual on interrogations. These were delayed following objections from other parts of government. The main stumbling block involved common Article 3 of the Geneva conventions, which bans torture and cruel treatment of all prisoners, whether unlawful combatants or traditional prisoners of war.

Military lawyers and some Pentagon officials wanted the redrawn version of the document to include this provision, but were opposed by the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, and by the Pentagon's intelligence arm, government sources said.

Mr Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington, and the defence undersecretary for intelligence, Stephen Cambone, argued it would restrict the US's ability to question prisoners.

Senior Pentagon officials believe common Article 3 creates an "unintentional sanctuary" that could allow al-Qaeda members to avoid telling interrogators what they know.

The question occurs: who would Jesus humiliate and degrade? Shall we ask James "Dogbeater" Dobson? Pat "The Assassin" Robertson? Dirty Bush? Dirty Dick?

I'd like to send some of these Bushist sadists to a tropical sanctuary called Gitmo. Makes me want to submit them to humiliating and degrading treatment until they disclose why they lack the capacity to tell right from wrong.

But that would be wrong.

Right?

torture
Pentagon
Iraq War
humiliating and degrading treatment
Bush, Cheney, Rummy
moral bankruptcy

How's That 'Hearts and Minds' Thing Going, George?

FURIOUS IRAQ DEMANDS APOLOGY AS US TROOPS ARE CLEARED OF ISHAQI MASSACRE

AMERICA'S alliance with the new Iraqi government was plunged into major crisis last night as the country's prime minister and its people reacted with fury to the US military clearing its forces of killing civilians during operations against insurgents.

Iraqi leaders vowed to press on with their own probe into one of the most notorious American raids against extremist fighters, in the town of Ishaqi, rejecting the US military's exoneration of its forces.

Adnan al-Kazimi, an aide to prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, said the government would also demand an apology from the United States and compensation for the victims in several cases, including the alleged massacre in the town of Haditha last year.

The escalation in tensions comes as sources at the Foreign Office confirmed that the British Government is also urging the Americans to co-operate fully with comprehensive investigations into the deaths at both Ishaqi and Haditha.

A report filed by Iraqi police accused US troops of rounding up and deliberately shooting 11 people - including five children and four women - in a house in Ishaqi, before blowing up the building. Video footage revealed by the BBC appeared to show the aftermath of US action in Ishaqi, including a number of dead adults and children with what experts claimed were clearly gunshot wounds.

But following its own inquiries into the Ishaqi operation, the Pentagon enraged Iraqi officials by issuing a statement declaring that allegations that US troops "executed a family ... and then hid the alleged crimes by directing an air strike, are absolutely false". . . Police in Ishaqi say five children, four women and two men were shot in the head, and that the bodies, with hands bound, were dumped in one room before the house was blown up.

"We have it from more than one source that the Ishaqi killings were carried out under questionable circumstances," al-Kazimi said yesterday. "More than one child was killed. This [US] report was not fair for the Iraqi people and the children who were killed."

Al-Maliki, who took office two weeks ago at the helm of a US-backed national unity government, is battling a widespread public perception that US troops can shoot and kill with impunity and Iraqi leaders are too weak to do anything about it. Last week he criticised coalition forces for what he described as habitual attacks against civilians.

"Ishaqi is just another reason why we shouldn't trust the Americans," said Abdullah Hussein, an engineer in Baghdad. "First they lied about the weapons of mass destruction, then there was the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal and now it's clear to the world they were guilty in Haditha."

A tribal leader in Ishaqi said it was clear that US forces were above the law in Iraq.

"We expect the American soldiers to commit any crime to control this country," added Sarhan Jasim, 55.

Human rights minister Wijdan Michael said her ministry would send a fact-finding commission to Ishaqi in the next few days.

A Foreign Office insider confirmed last night that the British Government had become increasingly concerned about the series of allegations against US forces.

"It must be stressed that there is no conclusive proof that any of these allegations are true," she said. "But we have to be aware of them, and the Americans have to be aware of them and we are impressing upon them the need to investigate them to everyone's satisfaction whenever they arise.

"We only need to remember the incidents of abuse at Abu Graib and how damaging they were. It is in no one's interests to have these things going on."

The Ishaqi incident was one of a handful involving civilian deaths being investigated by the US military, including the deaths of two dozen civilians in the town of Haditha on November 19 last year. . .

Al-Maliki this week condemned the suspected massacre in Haditha as a "terrible crime" and demanded that the United States hand over the files on the investigation. . .one man in the town, 40-year-old Obeid Kamil, said that US soldiers had a "licence to kill" Iraqi civilians.

"Their action is always to open fire and kill people, which is proof that they are afraid," he said.

Link to Scotland on Sundayhere.

massacre
Ishaqi
Iraq War
Bush
Al Maliki

"Bush" Means Having to Say You're Sorry -- When You Clearly Aren't

Here's another total crock.

More media whore lapdog White House stenography courtesy of the ever-gullible Washington Post.

Click on the link, and see the Bushists running so hard to stay in the same old place. The Bushist fascist spin machine is putting it out that Bubble Boy has had a change of heart, he's listening so hard to other points of view, he's so sowwy that he said some stupid things, he's going to be a good boy from now on.

Except for that little Oedipal war thing. He's not sowwy about that yet.

Oh, and he's not sowwy about that torture thing. Or the disappearing people to secret prisons thing.

Or the bankrupting America thing. Or the poisoning the air, the water, the earth, and civil discourse thing.

He's a little sowwy about the massacre thing, the thing he first learned about in the press (just like Scooter Libby first learned about Valerie Plame, what a coinkidink!)

Puh-leeze. Pass the Compazine.



Washington Post

The Pro-Atrocity Crowd: Deja Vu All Over Again

See this little boy?

The one who's maybe three, four years old, being held up by his Daddy?

Guess what? This little tyke actually puts terror into the heart of all reichwingers, including, particularly, reichwing blowhard Mrs. Michelle "Mickey" Maglalang aka Malkin!

Did you know that the mere existence of this photograph of this little kid makes it okay in Mickey's mind for Marines to put bullets through the head of a two-year old?

'Cause Mickey's skeered. Yup, so it is, here.

HADITHA MARINE: INSURGENTS USE KIDS
By Michelle Malkin · May 31, 2006 09:30 PM

Seattle's KING 5 TV nabbed a must-see interview with one of the Marines injured at Haditha on Nov. 19. (Big hat tip noted below to Red Hot Cuppa Politics.)

The Marine is Lance Cpl. James Crossan, who rode in the passenger seat of the Humvee that was struck by an IED. The driver was Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, whose body was split in two by the attack. Lance Cpl. Crossan suffered a broken back, shattered bones, and perforated eardrums.

You should watch the entire interview (we've got a four-minute segment over at Hot Air) and then you should compare it with the selective MSM coverage--which is hyping the parts that damn the Marines most and ignoring the full context of Lance Cpl. Crossan's remarks. I've transcribed a significant portion for you here:

Crossan: We used to go out on patrols and have the little kids count the patrols and all that stuff and we couldn’t really do anything except grab them and throw them inside their houses…

KING 5 TV interviewer: Why would you do that? Because you were afraid that the kids were scouting for the insurgents or you thought they were in danger?

Crossan: There are little kids that scout for ‘em. ‘Cuz later that day we, along the main road there, we cut behind a few buildings and the next patrol that went out got hit. And that little kid that was just there and there was people all around. But the day that I got hit they were planning a major attack and it got spoiled, so, and there was like 20 some people, insurgents, that were gonna attack the cop that day.

Then we got hit by an IED and the cops sent out a squad of Marines, and the insurgents just started attacking then, just right off the bat and we just foiled it. We were just driving back from the cop. I remember taking a left and then a right, and then remember waking up from the ground for a split second. And then waking up in the helicopter and then finally knew what happened in the hospital.

KING 5: So after you were injured, also tell me, you lost one of your guys. What can you tell me about him?

Crossan: We lost Lance Col. Miguel Terrazas. He was a good guy. He was from El Paso, Texas. And he was my point man. He was pretty much the guy I went to if I needed anything.

KING 5: Was he driving the Humvee at the time?

Crossan: Yes he was.

KING 5. And so you were sitting next to me?

Crossan: Yes, I was in the passenger side. I know in my heart if I was there, I possibly could have stopped what happened, so. ‘Cuz I know that the other team leaders and even staff sergeants…they both, they all kinda, listened to me and I just gave ‘em ideas and all that stuff. Things just went smoother. But I just don’t know.

KING 5: How do you feel about the villagers involved? Um, you know, do you have emotion as you think about them or not really?

Crossan: No. Because half of them were bad guys. You just never know, so. It really didn’t cross my mind.

KING 5: There are reports of, you know, little children being killed and women being killed.

Crossan: Little kids I can see being bad and even some of the women, but just over there, you just can’t tell who the bad guy was...

Now, Lance Cpl. Crossan does suggest that Marines crossed the line (the part of the interview that will become the most publicized), though it should be kept in mind that he had been helicoptered from the scene and did not witness the alleged atrocities:

Crossan: ...And I know they [the Marines] did something irrational and they’re gonna get the consequences put on them.

KING 5: You think there are other instances like this that have happened with perhaps your squad or other squads?

Crossan: Probably yes in the Marine Corps and in the Army.

KING 5: Why do you think so?

Crossan: Things happen every day that you just don't hear about. You, I don't know, America only hears about the bad things over there. And they don't hear any of the good things. America just doesn't understand.

I think they [the Marines] were just blinded by hate, when they see T.J. (Terrazas) blown to pieces and me stuck underneath the wheel not knowing what happened. And they just lost control. Bad things happen.

If you watch the interview, you'll note the KING 5 interviewer sounding perplexed about the idea of children being used by the insurgents. I suggest she and other MSM reporters shocked, shocked by this concept familiarize themselves with LGF's Palestinian child abuse slideshow.

Then Mickey puts up a couple of pix gleaned from righwing blog LGF, including the one above, of scary scary little tykes that we need to be scared of.

See, according to the pro-torture, pro-atrocity crowd, if there are pix of scary little tykes, it makes it okay to put a bullet in a 2 year old's head. And into the heads of grannies and grampies. 'Cause, like, maybe they're bad, see? Maybe they're hiding those pesky WMDs. Better to be safe than sorry, eh, Mickey?

I mean, it's always something.

If it's not: those bad jihadis take their three-year olds to demonstrations, therefore the three year olds are jihadis, so we can kill them

Then, it's: these bad jihadis take their three-year olds to demonstrations, and the three year olds will grow up to be jihadis, so we can kill them

And the all-purpose: justa few bad apples

Followed by the: war is hell

And: war is hell (therefore we can kill anyone we feel like)

Followed by Bush's Plame outing deja vu: only heard about it from the media, ongoing investigation, ongoing investigation, someone someone someone will be punished sooner or later never mind

Followed by: nothing to see here, move along (plus or minus -- missing white woman? global-climate-change-totally-unrelated killer weather? man bites um, whatever?

For those of you too little, like this terrifying saber-toothed jihadi toddler pictured, actually to remember My Lai, remember -- although several hundred non-combatant villagers there were executed by their American executioners, no one did hard time for this atrocity. No one.

You see, for the chicken Mickey Malkins of the world -- atrocities, like torture, just don't count.

Moms, don't let your babies grow up to be Malkins.







Recent Time story here. And here.

MIchelle Malkin
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