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
torture
Haditha
Bush
Haditha massacre

First We Maim Your Minds, Then We Dump You, Part Three: Haditha Massacre Version

Video photo: Bodies of Haditha massacre victims are loaded onto trucks (Hammurabi Human Rights Group)

MARINES WITNESS MASSACRE AFTERMATH
Receive sub-standard care for PTSD

Via Raw Story/AP:

HANFORD, Calif. (AP) - Two Marines were severely traumatized when told to photograph the corpses of men, women and children after members of their unit allegedly killed as many as two dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians, their families said Monday.

Lance Cpl. Andrew Wright, 20, and Lance Cpl. Roel Ryan Briones, 21, both members of the Marine unit based at Camp Pendleton, photographed the scene in the western Iraqi city of Haditha with personal cameras they happened to be carrying the day of the attack.

Briones later had his camera confiscated by Navy investigators, his mother said, while Wright's parents said their son was cooperating with the Navy investigation, but declined to comment further.

"It was horrific. It was a terrible scene," Briones' mother, Susie, said in a tearful interview Monday with The Associated Press at her home in California's San Joaquin Valley.

She called the incident a "massacre" and said the military had done little to help her son, who goes by his middle name, deal with his post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I know Ryan is going through some major trauma right now," said Susie Briones, 40, an academic adviser at a community college. "It was very traumatic for all of the soldiers involved with this thing. . . ." Lance Cpl. Briones told his mother he saw the bodies of 23 dead Iraqis.

Susie Briones got a panicked call that day from her son, who said he did not see the shootings but was told by his supervisors to go into the houses and remove the bodies. He brought along a digital camera that his mother had given him before he left for Iraq. One of the bodies was a little girl who had been shot in the head, Susie Briones said. "He had to carry that little girl's body," she said, "and her head was blown off and her brain splattered on his boots."

Briones' best friend, Lance Cpl. Miguel "T.J." Terrazas, had been killed earlier that day by the roadside bomb. He was still grieving when he was sent in to clean up the bodies of the Iraqi civilians, his mother said.

Ryan Briones told the Los Angeles Times that he'd been interrogated twice by Navy investigators while in Iraq. He turned over his digital camera but did not know what happened to it after that.

"They wanted to know if the bodies had been moved or tampered with," said Briones, who has not been interviewed by Navy investigators since he returned from Iraq in April.

Susie Briones said her son has been seeing a private psychiatrist and been treated for post-traumatic stress disorder since his return. She criticized his military care, saying all his military doctors did was give him sleeping pills and antidepressants.

Wright also photographed the scene, according to his parents, Frederick and Patty Wright. They said their son was an innocent victim who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. . . Wright told his parents about the incident soon after it happened. He was distressed, and they reassured him the incident would be investigated and that it wasn't his fault.

The Wrights said Naval Criminal Investigative Service had "all his information," but did not give further details. They declined to say whether he witnessed the killings or what he thought of the allegations against other members of his unit.

He was under so much pressure because of the investigation that he had consulted with an attorney, they said. . .On Monday, both Marines were back at Camp Pendleton, near Oceanside, where base officials said several members of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division were being confined during the investigations. . .Nicholas Grey, a second lieutenant in the Marine Reserves based at Camp Pendleton, said the case will result in a loss of credibility for the Marines and increase Iraqi anger.

"It will make it a lot harder for the Marines," he said.

Yes, it will.

So, shrieky Bushists who disbelieve in alleviating human suffering, doesn't this story just warm the cockles of your heart? Isn't it rich? Isn't it interesting how quickly this version of the AP story disappeared from the internet? Are we getting ready to slag the so-called "trauma industry" again? Nothing to see here. Move along.


Original Time article here.

Haditha
Haditha massacre
Vets
PTSD

Memorial Day, 2006: Bush Screwing the Troops

Bubble Boy. Boy George. CoWard Bush. Preznit Toad-Exploder.

Whatever you call him, he's the real deal.

Sending suicidal troops back into battle, cutting Defense Department costs by cutting troops' services, armor, and treatment.

Here's some recent stories: Bush killing Vets by cutting back medical treatment; Bush cutting back mental health treatment for troops, failing to refer 80% of troops who screen positive for PTSD.

It's not just Bush, though: it's part of the whole Bushist fascist let-them-eat-cake thing.

We really deeply care about blastocysts--once you're born, you're on your own, into Darwin's jungle all the way.

We really deeply care about blastocysts, and we don't give a crap about actual suffering.

A recent report in USA TODAY noted that "only about one in five Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who screen positive for combat-related stress disorders are referred by the Pentagon for mental health treatment."

Full story here.

Veterans home sues Rumsfeld over substandard care

Sixteen residents of the U.S. Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington D.C. this week filed a class-action suit against the government and the facility, alleging budget cuts by the Defense Department have resulted in poor medical care.

More than 1,000 residents cannot get prescriptions and regular doctor checkups due to service cuts since the Defense Department installed new management, the suit claims. Because of the cuts, the number of deaths at the home increased from 59 in 2000 to 131 in 2003, according to the suit, which was filed on behalf of all residents.

Full story here.

Vets
Bush

In Cold Blood: Dirty Bush's Little My Lai

From the Independent, UK:

The massacre and the Marines

US troops could face death penalty for what is seen as potentially the worst war crime since Iraqi invasion

US Marines could face the death penalty after one of their number took horrific photographs of a massacre in Iraq on his mobile phone, The Independent on Sunday has learned.

The photographs, seized by the US Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), show many victims shot at close range in the head and chest, execution-style, according to sources who have seen them. One image shows a mother and young child bent over on the floor as if in prayer. Both have been shot dead.

Similar photographs taken by a Marines intelligence team which arrived on the scene later show that soldiers "suffered a total breakdown in morality and leadership, with tragic results", according to a US official quoted by the Los Angeles Times yesterday.

The killing of more than 20 Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha last November, first reported in the IoS two months ago, has become an international scandal after evidence from two official investigations was shown to Congressmen in the past 10 days. Democrat John Murtha, a former Marines colonel who has retained close links to the military despite his denunciation of the Iraq occupation, said Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood".

Eyewitness accounts by local people and a video shot by an Iraqi journalism student had already called into question the Marines' version of events in Haditha just over six months ago. But the photographs by American forces could prove the crucial piece of evidence in an investigation that is now expected to result in charges of murder, dereliction of duty and making false statements against up to a dozen Marines.

According to reports in the US, military prosecutors may seek the death penalty for those found guilty of murder. Three Marines officers have already been relieved of duty, and more may be disciplined in a separate investigation into whether there was a cover-up after the killings.

The official account of what happened in Haditha on 19 November has gradually unravelled since the initial claim that one Marine, 20-year-old Lance-Corporal Miguel Terrazas, and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed when a roadside bomb went off next to a convoy of Humvees passing through the town.

Gunmen "attacked the convoy with small-arms fire", a statement added, and the Marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding one. It appears that the wounded man later died, bringing the number of Iraqis killed to 24. The Marines did not begin to change their story until an Iraqi human rights group obtained the journalism student's video, which showed that no Iraqis were killed in the bomb explosion. The houses where they died were bullet-riddled inside, but had no external marks, casting doubts on the soldiers' claims that there had been a firefight.

After Time magazine took up the story, an infantry colonel was sent to Haditha for an inquiry which concluded that the 15 civilians, including several women and six children, died as a result of the Marines' actions rather than the bombing. But at this stage the deaths were called "collateral damage".

As the IoS reported on 26 March, the Marines were still claiming then that the nine young men who died - five in a taxi close to the scene of the bombing, plus four brothers in a nearby house - were armed fighters. One military spokeswoman blamed them for the deaths of the other 15 Iraqis, because they "placed non-combatants in the line of fire as the Marines responded to defend themselves".

Details emerging from the official investigation since then have confirmed the IoS report that all the Iraqis killed were civilians, and that all the shooting that day was by the Marines. According to local people, the rampage lasted three to five hours, and one man shot by the Marines was allowed to bleed to death for hours while his pleas for help were ignored.

The Marines involved have since been rotated back to their home base of Camp Pendleton, California. The LA Times said yesterday that most of the fatal shots appeared to have been fired by only a few of the Marines, possibly a four-man "fire team" led by a sergeant, according to officials familiar with the investigation. The same sergeant was suspected of filing a false report, blaming the bomb explosion for most of the deaths and claiming that Marines entered the Iraqis' homes in search of gunmen firing at them.

The incident is now being described as potentially the worst war crime since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, comparable to the Abu Ghraib scandal and reminiscent of the massacre of several hundred Vietnamese villagers at My Lai in 1968. But peace campaigners say the findings raise the prospect that other incidents reported to have involved the killing of "insurgents" actually involved the death of civilians.

Andrew Murray, chair of the Stop the War Coalition, said: "It's clear that what happened in Haditha is a war crime. It would be idle to think this is the first war crime that has been committed in the last three years. It must be assumed that more of this is going on."

Hmm. Do you think that Lawless George's failure to follow US laws, his support for torture, his conflation of vengeance for 9/11 with toppling Saddam, his support for disappearing people and detaining them without trial might have helped create a morality-free atmosphere in which lawlessness became permissible, even desirable?

Full Independent UK story here
NBFH March coverage here
Original Time article here. Current story, here.

Little My Lai
pro-atrocity crowd
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When What Goes Around Comes Around

(hat tip to Emmaho)

Reprise: Lawless George's Little My Lai: Civilian Massacre at Haditha

Gee, how do you prepare a population for the knowledge that their troops have intentionally massacred civilians?

If you're the Vietnam swiftboat people, you just try to pretend that nothing bad ever happened, and you keep up shrieking that way for forty years.

Or, you could be more of a man, and just own up to it, could you not?

Our Haditha story, from March here.
Current story, here.

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Official No Blood for Hubris Mental Health Interlude

"This week President Bush made a surprise visit to Afghanistan. The president said he heard it was a good place for an embattled leader to disappear into the mountains." --Tina Fey

"The President will follow up his speech by going to the Arizona border, which is historic. It will be the first time he's actually ever shown up with a National Guard unit." --Jay Leno

"President Bush said catching a 7.5 pound fish was his best moment since becoming president. You know the sad thing, a lot of historians would agree with that." --Jay Leno

"No, he was fishing on his ranch. He has a manmade lake that is artificially stocked with fish, and let's not forget the scuba divers who are under there who actually put the fish on the hook for him. And then Cheney comes over and they literally shoot fish in a barrel. The part I love is that he says he caught a 7.5 pound perch, when the biggest perch on record is 4.3 pounds. Bush lied and a fish died, that's all I have to say. And Cheney went even further. He said when they pulled the fish out of the water it greeted them as liberators." --Bill Maher

"President Bush has picked FOX newsman Tony Snow to be his press secretary. Snow once said that President Bush was an embarrassment, a leader who has lost control of the federal budget, and the architect of a listless domestic policy. Good thing for Snow Bush doesn't read the newspapers." --Jay Leno

"It is astounding, is it not, that the president, who was always so incestuously linked to oil companies for years and years is suddenly shocked, shocked, at what's going on. But I'm not surprised that Bush has no recollection of how gas prices got so high. He has no recollection of doing cocaine and that was right under his nose" --Bill Maher

"June 1st is the start of the hurricane season. President Bush is already stockpiling excuses." --David Letterman

"I don't think President Bush fully understands this immigration thing. Like today, when they asked him about amnesty, he said it's horrible when anyone loses their memory." --Jay Leno

"Bush said today canceling [the ports deal] sends a bad message to the Arab world. You know, not like invading their countries, putting them on leashes, making them masturbate, but bad." --Bill Maher

"Did you hear about this? According to a recent poll, three out of five Americans believe George W. Bush should be impeached. And when he heard that, the president said, 'Cool, I love peaches.'" --David Letterman

"President Bush's childhood home was turned into a museum. ... After hearing about it, President Bush said, 'I hope they got rid of the scary thing under my bed.'" --Conan O'Brien

"Did you know former President Garfield could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other at the same time? That was Garfield. When President Bush heard about it, he said, 'We had a talking cat for president?'" --Jay Leno

"Bush's overall approval ratings have hit an all-time low ... If Bush's numbers don't improve, he could become the first president held back and forced to repeat his presidency." --Tina Fey

"President Bush met with the Prime Minister of Belgium and things got tense when the Prime Minister demanded the U.S. close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. President Bush quickly replied, 'The prison is closed. That's how we keep them in there.'" --Conan O'Brien

The Selfish, Sanctimonious, Narcissistic Rightwing Catholic Church -- Oh, and I did I mention selfish, selfish, selfish?

Where's Pope John the 23rd when you need him? Where's Thomas Merton? What has become of all the church's good guys?

Yes, I understand that the current Roman Catholic Church has a big-time cheap labor shortage problem, but -- hey, can't you guys keep that to yourselves?

Get this.

A Commencement Turns Ugly

When people cry at graduation, it’s supposed to be the happy kind of tears.

That wasn’t the case Saturday at the University of St. Thomas, when the student speaker at the Saint Paul, Minn., institution’s graduation ceremony used his address to denounce as "selfish" those women who use the birth control pill. St. Thomas has been divided this semester by a debate over whether the Roman Catholic institution was correct to ban unmarried employees traveling together with students from sharing a room, so issues of sexual morality have been front and center at the institution. The student speaker also denounced as selfish those unmarried couples covered by the policy who had wanted to share a room with a partner.

Students and family members were shocked by the speech — and some left their own graduation in tears. Others booed or shouted. Still others are angry that the university administrator who followed the student speaker appeared to many to endorse his views. The university denies that, and the St. Thomas president and the student speaker have apologized. While St. Thomas officials said that they hope the apologies will put the matter to rest, many students and faculty members doubt that can happen.

A portion of the controversial speech has been posted online at YouTube (be forewarned that several loud expletives from audience members are also audible). The speaker is Ben Kessler, who was elected by students and faculty members as "Tommie of the Year," earning the right to address his fellow graduates. Kessler was a 4.0 student and a star on the football team. He is moving to Rome to study for the priesthood.

In his speech, Kessler asked about the couples who traveled with St. Thomas students and who set off the debate over the travel policy. The issue gained the attention of St. Thomas administrators when a choir director who is lesbian wanted to take her partner and their son on a class trip to France, as married couples on university travel had done in the past. Not only was that trip barred, but the university started barring those traveling with students from sharing rooms with their partners if they were not married — whether the relationships were straight or gay. Kessler said that those wanting to share rooms were "selfish" . . . He then went on to call using birth control selfish, and specifically cited only one form of birth control: the pill.

Yes, sir, failing to bear children who will become abused and/or neglected is indeed the height of selfishness.

It is far better for the Church to be ordering more children brought into the world with all the forethought one might give to, say, ordering another glass of milk.

One may be sure that the compassionate Jesus would certainly agree, would He not?

Video here at YouTube.

[Update: here's the miscreant's apology. Will the Church's official apology be far behind? Yes, it will. Meanwhile, take a gander at a few of their canned propaganda messages supporting forced maternity, here. It's really awful.]

Read These (And Weep) -- Arthur Silber on Alice Miller

Noticed the sadism underlying the current administration's policies, have you? It's not an accident.

Noticed that funny stuff about James Dobson beating his dachshund to punish it for behaving like a dog? Noticed that stuff about Dobson recommending adult males to shower naked with little boys? Noticed that stuff about George Bush torturing animals in his youth? Noticed how Rummy doesn't know what torture is, and how Cheney knows, but doesn't care?

There's a theme happening. Please take time to read Arthur Silber's very important work.

Linkthrough here.

Instilling Obedience and Denial in Childhood: A review of two news stories that reveal our culture's preoccupation with the irrelevant and/or the trivial, a discussion of some of the reasons such stories are not deserving of any serious attention whatsoever -- and concluding with a horrifying news story that received almost no notice at all but most certainly should have, a story that serves as an introduction to the importance of Alice Miller's work about commonly accepted child-rearing practices and their consequences. . .

Mel Gibson, A Public Case Study in Obedience and Denial: A summary of Miller's major thesis, and an examination of Mel Gibson and fundamentalist religious belief more generally as one kind of example of the mechanisms that Miller discusses. . .

The Demand for Obedience: A review of the fundamentals of Miller's work, including her definitions of "poisonous pedagogy" and of a "helping witness," with some autobiographical details to make the latter concept clearer. I also examine the psychological dynamics underlying articles by David Brooks (condemning "narcissism" and calling for a return to "a creedal order") and Joseph Farah (condemning homosexuality, as he frequently does, specifically on the grounds that God has condemned it: "There is a reason most people frown on homosexuality. It is not prejudice. It is not bias. It is not irrational. It is because God has pronounced it wrong, immoral, abomination, sin."). . .

And many more essays. Well worth a look.

Feeding Scooter to the Sleen ("Scooter"? What kind of name is that for a grown man?)

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

CIA OFFICERS WILL TESTIFY THAT LIBBY LIED ON LEAK

WASHINGTON - Two top CIA officials will bolster prosecutors' charge that Vice President Cheney's chief aide lied to them, court papers show.

Prosecutors say disgraced Cheney chief of staff Lewis (Scooter) Libby learned CIA spy Valerie Plame's identity from, among others, agency officials who will be called to testify at his trial for perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice.

The U.S. alleges he learned about Plame from one of the CIA officials when he went after dirt on her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Wilson shattered a pillar of President Bush's rationale for war - that Iraq was seeking to build a nuclear weapon.

Both CIA officials - including a top architect of the 2003 Iraq invasion - discussed Plame with Libby a month before columnist Robert Novak blew her cover in July 2003, prosecutors charge.

Libby has said journalists told him about Plame - not Cheney or the six witnesses named so far by prosecutors.

Until recently, the CIA officials' identities were kept secret by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who did not name them in Libby's October indictment.

But subsequent documents allege Libby asked top CIA official Robert Grenier on June 11 why the agency sent Wilson to Niger to see if Iraq tried to buy uranium. Grenier replied that Plame was an agent and "believed responsible" for arranging her husband's trip.

The other official was Craig Schmall, a CIA briefer whom Libby complained to about the Wilson trip on June 14, court files allege.

Grenier, the CIA's station chief in Islamabad, Pakistan, helped stage the successful U.S. attack on the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks. . . This year, as CIA Counterterrorist Center chief, Grenier oversaw the failed missile strike aimed at Al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman Al-Zawahiri. Shortly afterward, Grenier was demoted.

But Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief, said Grenier lost his job over his "concerns about aggressive interrogations [of terrorist detainees] at secret sites."

Full story here.

BUSH MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY (FOR HAVING IMPRISONED INNOCENT MEN FOR FIVE YEARS)

KUWAITI COURT SETS FREE FIVE EX-GITMO DETAINEES

KUWAIT - A Kuwaiti court on Sunday cleared five Kuwaitis of charges of belonging to Al Qaeda and ordered the former inmates of the US’s Guantanamo Bay prison freed immediately, judicial sources said.

They said the five, who returned to the Gulf Arab state in November, were also cleared of charges of fighting a friendly state, a reference to the United States. "The Criminal Court ruled today that the five detainees who were held at Guantanamo are innocent and it ordered that they be set free immediately," one judicial source said.

The prosecution plans to appeal the ruling, the sources added. Adel Al Zamel, Saad Al Azmi, Mohammad Al Daihani, Abdullah Al Ajmi and Abdulaziz Al Shimmari were among some 500 prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay since the 2001 US-led war that ousted Afghanistan’s Taleban rulers following the September 11 attacks on the United States.

'This ruling underscores what we were sure of all along, that our sons are innocent," Khaled Al Odah, head of a detainees support committee, told Reuters after the verdict. 'They have been imprisoned unjustly for years at the American base and there’s a stark breach of international and humanitarian laws by the American administration," he added.

Via Khaleej Times.

Gitmo
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Surprise! Hayden Feeds Rummy to the Sleen

Bush's choice for CIA chief blasts Rumsfeld

A SPECIAL intelligence unit set up by the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, before the invasion of Iraq selectively used intelligence to support the White House's claim of clear links between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaeda.

General Michael Hayden, President George Bush's choice to head the CIA, told the Senate intelligence committee on Thursday the Pentagon's controversial Office of Special Plans disregarded intelligence that suggested there was no real connection between the Iraqi leader and the terrorist organisation.

General Hayden's comment came during his confirmation hearing and was the first time a senior Bush Administration official has said intelligence was selectively used to support the view that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and close links with al-Qaeda.

More at the Sydney Morning Herald.

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Likewise, I'm Sure (Plus More Fun Stuff)

(Photo via Rising Hegemon).

UPDATE ON THE ROVE INDICTMENT STORY
By Marc Ash

For the past few days, we have endured non-stop attacks on our credibility, and we have fought hard to defend our reputation. . . .I spoke personally yesterday with both Rove's spokesman Mark Corallo and Rove's attorney Robert Luskin. Both men categorically denied all key points of our recent reporting on this issue. . . .

We can now report, however, that we have additional, independent sources that refute those denials by Corallo and Luskin. While we had only our own sources to work with in the beginning, additional sources have now come forward and offered corroboration to us.

We have been contacted by at least three reporters from mainstream media - network level organizations - who shared with us off-the-record confirmation and moral support.

When we asked why they were not going public with this information, in each case they expressed frustration with superiors who would not allow it.

I love the media whore media. Do not you?

Meditation: Increases Brain Size -- (Shrinks Ego?)

MEDITATION FOUND TO INCREASE BRAIN SIZE

People who meditate grow bigger brains than those who don't. Researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found the first evidence that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brains. Brain scans they conducted reveal that experienced meditators boasted increased thickness in parts of the brain that deal with attention and processing sensory input.

In one area of gray matter, the thickening turns out to be more pronounced in older than in younger people. That's intriguing because those sections of the human cortex, or thinking cap, normally get thinner as we age.

"Our data suggest that meditation practice can promote cortical plasticity in adults in areas important for cognitive and emotional processing and well-being," says Sara Lazar, leader of the study and a psychologist at Harvard Medical School. "These findings are consistent with other studies that demonstrated increased thickness of music areas in the brains of musicians, and visual and motor areas in the brains of jugglers. In other words, the structure of an adult brain can change in response to repeated practice."

The researchers compared brain scans of 20 experienced meditators with those of 15 nonmeditators. Four of the former taught meditation or yoga, but they were not monks living in seclusion. The rest worked in careers such as law, health care, and journalism. All the participants were white. During scanning, the meditators meditated; the others just relaxed and thought about whatever they wanted.

Hmm. Increases brain size -- perhaps by shrinking ego? Quick, someone throw a lifesaving zafu to Rummy, Big Dick, Turdblossom, Bubble Boy, and all the rest of them!

(Hat tip to DC Tom. More here.)>