Nepal, Zone of Peace, 2

FRESH PROTESTS IN NEPAL DESPITE CURFEW

KATHMANDU, April 9 (Reuters) - Thousands of angry Nepalis tried to storm a state hospital on Sunday, burned government vehicles and clashed with riot police despite a curfew aimed at stopping pro-democracy rallies.

A woman, wounded in police firing in a town south of the capital Kathmandu, died on Sunday, a doctor said.

Three people, including the woman, were wounded at Narayanghat, about 150 km (95 miles) from Kathmandu, when troops fired at protesters demanding King Gyanendra end his absolute rule.

"She died this morning," Bhojraj Adhikary, a doctor at a local hospital, told Reuters by phone.

It was the second death in shooting by government forces on protesters during a four-day anti-monarchy strike across the poor Himalayan kingdom that started on Thursday.

Tension was rising in Narayanghat, witnesses said, adding that a curfew had not stopped people from coming out on the streets.

In the western tourist resort town of Pokhara, thousands of people tried to storm a state hospital where the body of a man shot dead by troops on Saturday was taken, witnesses said.

The crowd burned some security posts in the area and clashed with riot police who tried to stop them for violating a curfew.

"Thousands of people are out on the streets. There is high tension here," said Keshav Lamichhane, a local journalist.

The late King Birendra first declared Nepal to be a "Zone of Peace." In 1991, Birendra responded to a people's revolution marked by massive peaceful protests, and established a constitutional monarchy and democracy in Nepal. In fact, Nepal became the first country democratically to elect a Marxist-Leninist government; in a subsequent election, it was the first Marxist-Leninist government democratically to be thrown out.

The current king, Gyanendra, came to the throne through a violent series of carefully orchestrated events. Last year, he seized power and overthrew democracy. With luck, Gyanendra will be overthrown and democracy re-established.


More here.

Photo:AP

Official No Blood for Hubris Mental Health Interlude

Yuh, okay, so I used to number these, but I'm too lazy to go back and count. Maybe it's interlude number six. Who cares? I need a break. How about you?


His closest advisors came to visit Dubya at the White House one evening and found him slamming down beers and whooping it up. They were astonished, since he had given up drinking years ago. When asked why he was off the wagon, Dubya replied that he was celebrating finishing a jigsaw puzzle. They smiled and told him that wasn't much of an accomplishment. "Ah, but you're wrong. I did it in record time!" When asked what that record was, he replied that he had finished it after only 6 months. Again, they told him that wasn't that great. "Oh yeah?" said the commander in chief, "Well, the box says 3-5 YEARS!"

George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush were dragging the deer they had just shot back to their truck. Another hunter approached, pulling his along, too.

"Sirs, I don't want to tell you how to do something," he said, " But I can tell you that it's much easier if you drag the deer the other way. Then the antlers won't dig into the ground."

After the third hunter left, they decided to try it. A little while later George said to George, "You know, that guy was right. This is a lot easier!"

"Yeah," says George, "but we're getting farther from the truck."

Cheney gets a call from his "boss", Dubya.

"I've got a problem," says Dubya.

"What's the matter?" asks Cheney.

"Well, you told me to keep busy in the Oval Office, so, I got a jigsaw puzzle, but it's too hard. None of the pieces fit together and I can't find any edges."

"What's it a picture of?" asks Cheney.

"A big rooster," replies Dubya.

"All right," sighs Cheney, "I'll come over and have a look."

So he leaves his office and heads over to the Oval Office. Dubya points at the jigsaw on his desk.

Cheney looks at the desk and then turns to Dubya and says, "For crying out loud, Georgie - - put the corn flakes back in the box!"

Extremists overthrow the US government, and they start rounding up important American politicians to execute. A firing squad is convened and Al Gore, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush are all marched to a wall to be shot. As the extremists are loading their guns, Al Gore thinks, "Hmm. I've got to cause a diversion so I can get away." He yells "Oh, no. A TORNADO!!" and points behind the firing squad. As the extremists turn around to see if there is a tornado approaching, Al Gore jumps over the wall behind him and runs away.

The firing squad turns their attention back to the two men who are left. C linton quickly observes how well Gore's ruse has worked and yells "EARTHQUAKE!!" As the firing squad frantically looks for a place to take cover, Clinton jumps over the wall and he, too, escapes.

The firing squad resumes their stance and proceeds to take aim at George W. Bush. Dubya, believing that he, too, can create a diversion, frantically searches his mind for another natural disaster to use. Smiling to himself, he yells "FIRE!!"

Nepal, Zone of Peace

From the Guardian:

HUNDREDS ARRESTED IN NEPAL PROTEST

Hundreds of demonstrators were arrested in Nepal today after students fought pitched street battles with police, hurling stones and setting the central post office on fire. Home minister, Kamal Thapa, said that 751 people had been arrested and 115 were taken to prison under a tough public safety law that allows authorities to jail people without charge for 90 days.

"The government is using minimum force to control the situation. The government has made adequate arrangements to ensure the security of the people. There is no need for people to be scared and we are doing what we can to foil the protest," he told the AP news agency.

The protests happened on the second day of a strike called by an alliance of seven political parties to protest against King Gyanendra, who seized power a year ago.

Police fought the protestors with tear gas and batons. Students at Kathmandu's Tribhuwan University ransacked the dean's office and briefly took several officers hostage. . . Days before the strike, the government banned all forms of public protest in Kathmandu.

The photo above is of current King Gyanendra, who seized absolute power in Nepal last year. Gyanendra, once known as "The Black Prince," came to the throne under unusual circumstances, due to the timely massacre of virtually the entire Nepalese Royal family save several relatives of the current king.

Jai Nepal!

photo: Gopal Chitrakar/Reuters

Child Abuse Prevention Month -- And Miss America By Day

April is Child Abuse Prevention Month.

In acknowledgment thereof, we might talk about the Republican Homeland Security pedophile guy, Brian Doyle, who went sex-trolling for adolescent girl children via the internet.

We might talk about all the bruised, beaten, starved and neglected unwanted children, but we've already talked a lot about them (scroll on down).

Or we might talk about Miss America of 1958.

That would be Marilyn Van Derbur, who was the victim of child abuse. The Miss America who was incested by her own pedophile father, and who, at 69, still suffers the consequences.

Americans don't like to talk about child physical abuse, much less child sexual abuse, much less incest. We prefer to be oblivious, like the South Dakotans who support a rapist's right to breed -- even an incestuous rapist's right to breed.

That's why, as part of Child Abuse Prevention Month, I think it's good to bring Miss America's story to the fore.

Her father was a rich and powerful man. His name was Francis S. Van Derbur, but his friends -- and he had many -- just called him "Van." He owned mortuaries and made himself a millionaire.

He was a socialite, a philanthropist, a renaissance man who recited poetry from memory -- and a rapist of children who violated his own daughter hundreds of times.

"Terror was my nightly blanket," Van Derbur writes in her award-winning autobiography, Miss America By Day. . .

When Van Derbur talks about child molestation, her demeanor is fierce, and her turquoise eyes burn with a natural-born warrior's zeal for battle. She rattles off shocking statistics like this: "One in six boys and one in four girls are sexually violated before the age of eighteen in this country; fourteen-year-olds comprise the greatest number of sex offenders of any age group. If those statistics don't frighten you, you are in total denial."

Or sums up the feelings of victims of child molestation like this: "We stay shamed by acting ashamed, when we have nothing to be ashamed of. Together we must say to every violator, 'The child may be mute today, but someday the child will speak her name and your name. The children will speak every single name!'"

More on Ms. Van Derbur here. More on Child Abuse Prevention Month at the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information, here.

child abuse
incest
Bushist family values

Fly the Tortured Skies of [the] United --- [States of America]

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORTS MORE DETAILS RE: U.S. TORTURE FLIGHTS

Amnesty International today released a new report which exposes a covert operation whereby people have been arrested or abducted, transferred and held in secret or handed over to countries where they have faced torture and other ill-treatment. The report describes how the CIA has used private aircraft operators and front companies to preserve the secrecy of "rendition" flights. . .the CIA has exploited aviation practices that would otherwise require their flights to be declared to aviation authorities. The report lists dozens of destinations around the world where planes associated with "rendition" flights have landed and taken off -- and lists private airlines with permission to land at US military bases worldwide.

Amnesty International has records of nearly 1,000 flights directly linked to the CIA, most of which have used European airspace; these are flights by planes that appear to have been permanently operated by the CIA through front companies. In a second category, there are records of some 600 other flights made by planes confirmed as having been used at least temporarily by the CIA. . .

"The US Administration has tried to circumvent the ban on torture and other ill-treatment in many ways. The latest evidence shows how the Administration is manipulating commercial arrangements in order to be able to transfer people in violation of international law. It demonstrates the length to which the US government will go to conceal these abductions," said Amnesty International Secretary General, Irene Khan.

The report uncovers part of the mystery surrounding the practice of renditions. Secrecy surrounding rendition operations means it is impossible to know how many people have been arrested or abducted, transferred across borders, held in secret detention or tortured in the 'war on terror'. Information from governments themselves indicates that numbers are likely to be in the hundreds. . .

"Most victims of rendition were arrested and detained illegally in the first place. Many were abducted, denied access to any legal process and have subsequently "disappeared". All of those interviewed by Amnesty International described being tortured or otherwise ill-treated."

"The callous and calculated multiplicity of abuses is shocking. People captured have been subjected to a range of abuses of human rights by a number of governments acting in collusion, and all of this has been shrouded by secrecy and deceit," said Ms Khan.

"The report shows not just how arrest and extradition procedures have been ignored, the ban on torture and other ill-treatment has been disregarded, but also how aviation practices have been undermined: in essence the rule of law has been put aside."

Amnesty International cautioned that states that tolerate these flights landing on their territory and companies that carry them out, may find themselves complicit in serious human rights abuses. . . The Egyptian prime minister noted in 2005 that the US has transferred some 60-70 detainees to Egypt alone, and a former CIA agent with experience in the region believes that "hundreds" of detainees may have been sent by the US to prisons in Middle Eastern countries. The USA has acknowledged the capture of about 30 "high value" detainees whose whereabouts remain unknown, and the CIA is reportedly investigating some three dozen additional cases of "erroneous rendition", in which people were detained based on flawed evidence or confusion over names.

.
Lawless George, at it again. Spreadin' democracy, spreadin' torture, it's hard work. More here.

Reichwingers Re-Victimize Kidnap Victim Carroll

American journalist Jill Carroll was released by her Iraqi captors, but not by the Reichwing American Taliban, which came out against her in full force.

From Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post, to Imus in the Morning minions Bernard McGuirk and Charles McCord, to the shrieky Little Green Footballers on the Internet, and Ultimate Yellow Elephant Jonah Goldberg, you'd think Carroll was the bloodthirsty re-morphing of Osama Bin Laden.

Via Think Progress: From Imus In The Morning, 3/31/06

Don IMUS: She’d have made a bigger dent had she hit the ground because, than she ordinarily would have, because she put on 20 pounds.

MCCORD: Put on 20 pounds while in captivity, yeah.

MCGUIRK: And why, do we suspect?

IMUS: Well, why do you suspect?

MCGUIRK: She’s carrying Zarqawi’s baby. No doubt about it.

IMUS: Man, you are a such a, you’re a…

MCGUIRK: Did you hear her comments yesterday? She’s wearing the terrorist headgear, and everything points to that.

IMUS: Well, we don’t know. That initial interview — she was taken directly from captivity to that location to conduct an interview with an Arab broadcasting outlet. I think she probably was circumspect in what she was saying, don’t you think Charles?

MCCORD: Well, it is well known that her sympathies lie with the Arab community, not only in Iraq, by the way, but across the region, as pointed out by the Jordan Times in a couple of editorials who had called for her release, saying that they were "silencing a pro-Iraqi voice and harming the Arab and Iraqi cause." The Jordan Times wrote, "She is more critical of U.S. policies than many Arabs."

IMUS: Are we suggesting she’s in lock-step with the terrorists?

MCGUIRK: Something smells.

MCCORD: No, not in lock-step with the terrorists, but she certainly is in lock-step with Arab causes.

IMUS: Well, probably not her, because one of the things she said they did was let her take showers all the time, so.

MCCORD: The Times writing, "She doesn’t just like Arab culture, she loves it. Jill makes one of the best ambassadors Arabs could ever hope for." That during the time of her captivity when they were editorializing there in Amman, Jordan for her release . .

MCCORD: Apparently according to Baghdad’s New Sabba news, "She loves Iraq and went by the name while in Iraq, not of Jill, but rather Zanaib."

MCGUIRK: She’s Taliban Janie, this girl. Taliban Jill or whatever. . .

MCGUIRK: Well except for the fact that she seems overly sympathetic. There’s something wrong. Something stinks.

MCCORD: Well, that was her position.

MCGUIRK: Again she’s wearing the terrorist headgear. She’s saying nice things about them.

IMUS: It’s not terrorist headgear, you moron.

MCGUIRK: It’s just traditional Arab garb, I would say.

IMUS: Thank you, Charles.

MCGUIRK: And I’m alleging she’s carrying Zarqawi’s baby.

How vile and sexist can they get? Plenty. Making fun of her weight, then saying it's because she's now pregnant. Oh, and by Zarqawi. Carroll might not then measure up to the famed Bill Napoli South Dakota rape test: sodomized virgins only need apply.

Feh. What rock do these guys keep crawling out from under?

(Update here where Ms. Carroll surprises no one but Jonah Goldberg, the Imuses, and the reichwing hysterics, that her TV interview was conducted under the watchful eyes of three gentlemen with machine guns.)

(On a similar note, refresh your recollection here: "She Didn't Act Traumatized Enough.")

Jill Carroll
Howard Kurtz
Imus in the Morning

Anton Scalia's Id--Coming Out of the Closet

It's a Sicilian thing. Lucky no one but Fat Anton speaks-a-da Sicilian. Oh wait. No, everyone understands that kind of language.

A Herald reporter asked the justice how he responds to critics who might question his impartiality as a judge given his public worship.

The judge paused for a second, then looked directly into my lens and said, "To my critics, I say,'Vaffanculo!'" punctuating the comment by flicking his right hand out from under his chin, Smith said.

The Italian phrase means "(expletive) you." Then the judge said, "Don't publish that!"

Say, can you say--consciousness of guilt?


American Bar Association Model Code of Judicial Conduct

CANON 2

A JUDGE SHALL AVOID IMPROPRIETY AND THE APPEARANCE OF IMPROPRIETY IN ALL OF THE JUDGE’S ACTIVITIES (More at Roger Ailes).


More here.

Update: The Catholic Church's newsletter, The Pilot, fired the freelance photographer who let the picture become public. Covering up for pedophile priests, covering up for Scalia's obscenity--what would Jesus think?

Scalia
obscenity
Catholic Church

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

Personally, one feels definitely sure that Jesus Christ definitely would torture definitely naked men who are seemingly covered in their own feces. Thanks to their Christian captors. You know, the values guys. And gals.

See how very quaint are the Genevas? To wit:

humane treatment of prisoners of war

Prisoners of war must be humanely treated at all times. Any unlawful act which causes death or seriously endangers the health of a prisoner of war is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions. In particular, prisoners must not be subject to physical mutilation>, biological experiments, violence, intimidation, insults, and public curiosity. (Convention III, Art. 13)

Prisoners of war must be interred on land, and only in clean and healthy areas. (Convention III, Art. 22)

Prisoners of war are entitled to the same treatment given to a country’s own forces, including total surface and cubic space of dormitories, fire protection, adequate heating and lighting, and separate dormitories for women. (Convention III, Art. 25)

Prisoners of war must receive enough food to maintain weight and to prevent nutritional deficiencies, with account of the habitual diet of the prisoners. Food must not be used for disciplinary purposes. (Convention III, Art. 26)

Prisoners of war must receive adequate clothing, underwear and footwear. The clothing must be kept in good repair and prisoners who work must receive clothing appropriate to their tasks. (Convention III, Art. 27)

Prisoners of war must receive adequate medical attention. (Convention III, Art. 30)

Prisoners of war must receive due process and fair trials. (Convention III, Art. 82 through Art. 88)

Collective punishment for individual acts, corporal punishment, imprisonment without daylight, and all forms of torture and cruelty are forbidden. (Convention III, Art. 87)

Kkeep in mind--there's more fun spring pix yet to come. The Department of Defense has pretty much given up trying to hide them, as others in the military who view the Geneva Conventions as non-quaint, have been leaking said pics and videos to the media.

When the DOD was still actively trying to prevent the world from seeing the effects of Rummy's "gloves-off-green-light-for torture" policy, their lawyers used this precious rationale:

Attorneys for the government had argued that turning over visual evidence of abuse would violate the United States' obligations under the Geneva Conventions, but the ACLU, supported by experts in international law, said that obscuring the faces and identifiable features of the detainees would address any potential privacy concerns.

Yes, just like the reichwing blowhard spinners said, it's not the actual torture and humiliating treatment that violates the Geneva Conventions, but the showing of the pictures that's the problem. Yes, and they're so concerned all of a sudden about not violating the quaint Genevas. A late enlightenment.

My favorite part has always been the Bushists' deliberate creation of an absolutely new species of humans--that would be sub-humans: "the terrists" -- who no longer deserve humane treatment, because they're just, well, insufficiently human.

(You know, sort of like Jews seemed to Hitler. Like educated people seemed to the Khmer Rouge. They just ain't yoo-man).

There is this little problem about the ritually polluted victims being sacrificed at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib turning out to be not Osama-types at all but goat-herders and truckers in fact, but well never mind. Someone's got to be the container of our psychologically-projected evil, do they not?

You betcha.

It's Spring. Must Be Time for Bubble Boy's Bloody Iraq Civil War.

Bubble Boy said it couldn't be done. Bubble Boy said he knew best, and civil war just wouldn't happen. He still says it. Big Dick said the whole thing was in its "last throes." However, sadly,it is the gentleman in the picture above who is in his last throes, along with increasing numbers of his countrymen. Shia killing Sunni, and Sunni killing Shia.
From Healing Iraq,, an Iraqi blog.

Someone shouts: "Drag the Wahhabi," while another describes him as a "bastard." They pause a moment to search for a wire, then they dump him on the side of the road. Another militiaman suggests they bury him. "What do you mean bury him?" the gang leader snaps back with indignation. "Leave him here to the dogs." Then they joke about his underwear and cover the corpse with a cardboard.

Note that life looks absolutely normal in the surroundings. You can see children running about, stores open, religious holiday flags and even a traffic jam. Perhaps Ralph Peters will happen to drive by with an American army patrol and enjoy the scene of children cheering for the troops, while wondering where his civil war is, dude.

Meanwhile, the rising young Shi’ite cleric Yassir Al-Habib, like most of his Islamic counterparts, is just learning how to soar himself to stardom and popularity: by calling for more death and mayhem. Our friend laments the fact that the government has failed to protect the Askari shrine and the cellar of the Imam Al-Mahdi, which he believes is of higher standing with Allah than Jerusalem.

His solution? "Let's send an army of the faithful to liberate Samarra and cleanse it from the rotten Nawasib" (a derogatory term used by fundamental Shia to describe Sunnis, very much like the Rafidha or 'rejectionist' stigma used by some Sunnis when they refer to Shia. Nawasib literally means 'those who set themselves against the household of the prophet.') On second thought, let's cleanse all of Iraq from those infidel scum. He goes on to say that we should destroy all their filthy mosques. We are able to if we are just given the chance. Let's just have another holy war.

Preznit Toad-Exploder, he who tortured and killed innocent sentient beings in his youth, is carrying on this youthful tradition in adulthood. Through his arrogance and through pure spite, he decided to start a big fat war--so he could be a War Preznit. So he could finally show up his Father.

But Father knew best. And now Bubble Boy's not just a War Preznit, but a Defeat Preznit. Not merely defeated in war, but defeated at home, having sunk his own country into moral and fiscal bankruptcy.

Way to go, Bubble Boy. Do you sleep at night? If so, how? Why should you?

Hat tip to DC Tom.
Bush
Iraq War
Cheney
Iraq Civil War

It's Spring. Must Be Time to Shoot/Club Some Baby Seals. So Where's Cheney?

Canada hunters start killing seals, tempers flare

OFF CANADA'S EAST COAST (Reuters) - Canadian hunters started shooting and clubbing harp seal pups on Saturday at the start of an annual hunt that is the focus of a tech-savvy protest by animal rights groups. This year, 325,000 young seals will be killed on the ice floes off the East Coast where the animals gather.

Unusually warm weather means the floes are a fraction of their normal size and thickness, prompting hunters to kill the seals individually rather than clubbing them to death en masse as they cluster on the ice in pools of blood.

More here. Also,revisit "Cheney's Canned Hunts: Killing for Fun."

Lawless George's Little My Lai: Civilian Massacre in Haditha

"I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head," one child was quoted by Time as saying. "Then they killed my granny."

RESIDENTS SAY BODIES IN VIDEO FROM US RAID

A video provided by Hamourabi Human rights group shows covered bodies, which Hamourabi says are of a family of 15 shot dead in their home, possibly by US Marines, in Haditha, Iraq. A video of civilians who may have been killed by US Marines in an Iraqi town in November showed residents describing a rampage by US soldiers that left a trail of bullet-riddled bodies and destruction. (Full story here.)

A copy of the video, given to Reuters by Iraq's Hammurabi Organisation for Monitoring Human Rights and Democracy, showed corpses lined up at the Haditha morgue. The chief doctor at Haditha's hospital, Waleed al-Obaidi, said the victims had bullet wounds in the head and chest.

Most residents interviewed by Reuters in Haditha echoed accusations by residents in the video that US Marines attacked houses after their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb.

They said the Marines opened fire on houses. "I saw a soldier standing outside a house and he opened fire on the house," said one resident, who did not want to be identified.

Time magazine has published allegations that US Marines killed civilians in Haditha after one of their comrades was killed by a roadside bomb. It published detailed accounts by people in the town, west of Baghdad. A criminal inquiry into those deaths was launched last week. . .

On November 20, US Marines spokesman Captain Jeffrey Pool issued a statement saying that, on the previous day, a roadside bomb had killed 15 civilians and a Marine. In a later gun battle, US and Iraqi troops had killed eight insurgents, he added.

US military officials have since confirmed to Reuters that that version of the events of November 19 was wrong and the 15 civilians were not killed by the blast but were shot dead. . .

The video given to Reuters shows bodies piled in the back of a white pickup truck outside the morgue. Among them was a girl who appeared to be about three years old.

One man wept and leaned against a wall as he identified a relative and other residents inspected bodies in the morgue. One man's face had been torn apart by bullets, while a blackened corpse was missing legs and forearms.

Leaders perforce establish the tenor of their times, whether it be a "peace and prosperity" outlook, like Clinton's and Carter's, or the aggressive, fake macho, feckless, reckless, gloves off, anything goes outlook of Lawless George Bush.

When torture is ok, then massacres become ok. Ok?

Your tax dollars at work.


(Current WaPo story here.)
Bush
torture
Cheney
Haditha massacre

How Many Chappaquid-Dicks Does it Take to Screw in a Lightbulb? Hell, Cheney Can't Even Turn the Lights ON by Himself

Once again, I'm not making this up. I don't even have to.

The list below, courtesy of the Smoking Gun, outlines the very personal needs of our very Big Dick Cheney.

The lights need to be turned ON.

The TVs need to be turned ON. To Fox News. All of them.

If poor in America have no bread and no jobs and no health care but must have government-forced maternity and no housing or hope, why then, let Mrs. Big Dick suck down some cheese-eating-surrender monkey Perrier water!
Oh, and the Little Emperor is quite willing receive "gifts." Seems to expect them, even.

Ohh?
-----
Cheney
GOP=Greedy Old Pricks

Official No Blood for Hubris Mental Health Interlude

Yeah, ok, we're having a lot of mental health interludes. So sue me. These are dark times. Better yet, watch Will Ferrell on TransBuddha as Bush.

Will Ferrell - Bush on Global Warming on Transbuddha

This Just In: Buddhism is "Satanic"

"Satanic." Yep. Thus spake the President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. I can't make this stuff up. I don't even have to.



[above: A statue of the Buddha, a statue not unlike the Buddhas of Bamiyan, Afghanistan, prior to the other Taliban fundamentalists blowing it up for being oh, well, you know, Satanic or something. Go figure.]


Southern Baptist Theological SeminaryVets
Rev. Al Mohler
Christian grace
PTSD

New Bushist Money-Saving Tactic: Send Vets With PTSD Right Back Into Battle

Gee, why would the Defense Department send depressed, suicidal, suffering vets with post-traumatic stress disorder back into battle?

So they'll die, and then they'll save money by not having to pay any more for physical and/or mental health treatment? Can you say--heinous?

How about this? How about higher-ups instructing doctors to underdiagnose deliberately--so troops can be sent back for another tour, and then later be denied proper mental health care.

(We've seen this before: see, First We Maim Your Minds, Then We Dump You. It's Hard Work, here. Oh and then there's "You Break 'Em, You Fix 'Em -- Unless You're a Bushist," here.)

Besides bringing antibiotics and painkillers, military personnel nationwide are heading back to Iraq with a cache of antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications. . . The redeployments are legal, and the service members are often eager to go. But veterans groups, lawmakers and mental-health professionals fear that the practice lacks adequate civilian oversight. They also worry that such redeployments are becoming more frequent as multiple combat tours become the norm and traumatized service members are retained out of loyalty or wartime pressures to maintain troop numbers.

Sen. Barbara Boxer hopes to address the controversy through the Department of Defense Task Force on Mental Health, which is expected to start work next month. The California Democrat wrote the legislation that created the panel. She wants the task force to examine deployment policies and the quality and availability of mental-health care for the military.

"We've also heard reports that doctors are being encouraged not to identify mental-health illness in our troops. I am asking for a lot of answers," Boxer said during a March 8 telephone interview. "If people are suffering from mental-health problems, they should not be sent on the battlefield."

Stress reduces a person's chances of functioning well in combat, said Frank M. Ochberg, a psychiatrist for 40 years and a founding member of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.

"I have not seen anything that says this is a good thing to use these drugs in high-stress situations. But if you are going to be going (into combat) anyway, you are better off on the meds," said Ochberg, a former consultant to the Secret Service and the National Security Council. "I would hope that those with major depression would not be sent."

. . [m]edical officers for the Army and Marine Corps acknowledge that medicated service members – and those suffering combat-induced psychological problems – are returning to war. And anecdotal evidence, bolstered by the government's own studies, suggest that the number could be significant.

A 2004 Army report found that up to 17 percent of combat-seasoned infantrymen experienced major depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder after one combat tour to Iraq. Less than 40 percent of them had sought mental-health care.

A Pentagon survey released last month found that 35 percent of the troops returning from Iraq had received psychological counseling during their first year home.

That survey echoed statistics collected by the San Diego Veterans Affairs Healthcare System. The system has found that about 33 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffer from schizophrenia, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The various studies apparently didn't consider the effects of multiple combat tours, though psychiatrists agree that the greater people's exposure to combat, generally the higher their risk of suffering mental illness. . .Joe Costello, a mental-health counselor at the Vista Veterans Center, said emotionally scarred troops are routinely redeployed and that most want to go back to the war zone.

"I see it every day," said Costello, who mainly treats reservists.

Buttressing the idea that large numbers of service members are medicated, more than 200,000 prescriptions for the most common types of antidepressants were written in the past 14 months for service members and their families, said Sydney Hickey, a spokeswoman for the National Military Family Association. . .

Mental-health care for service members and the Defense Department's efforts to keep the mentally ill in uniform are becoming national issues, said Steve Robinson, director of the National Gulf War Resource Center in Silver Spring, Md.

Robinson said three Army doctors have told him about being pressured by their commanders not to identify mental conditions that would prevent personnel from being deployed.

"They are being told to diagnose combat-stress reaction instead of PTSD," he said. "That does two things: It keeps the troops deployable and it makes it hard for them to collect disability claims once they get out of the military."

Robinson contends that the Pentagon is trying to control its spending on mental-health disabilities.

Between 1999 and 2004, disability payments to veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder rose to $4.3 billion from $1.7 billion nationwide, according to a report by the Department of Veterans Affairs' inspector general.

Overall, service members' mental health is a hot-button subject because it goes to the cost of the war in dollars and lives, said Joy Ilem, an assistant national legislative director for the organization Disabled American Veterans.

"The (Department of Veterans Affairs) is very worried about the political implications of PTSD and other mental issues arising from the war," Ilem said. “They are talking about early outreach and treatment, but they are really trying to tamp down the discussion."

Cmdr. Paul S. Hammer deals with such issues daily.

Hammer, a psychiatrist, is responsible for the Marine Corps' mental-health programs during this deployment rotation. He confirmed that Marines with post-traumatic stress disorder and combat stress are returning to Iraq, though he would not say how many.

Hammer said deciding who is deployed is often anguishing.

Persons in power sending others into combat who lack combat experience: Preznit Toad-Exploder, Five Deferments Cheney. Those lacking empathy: Toad-Exploder, Cheney, Rummy. Those leading the US further and further into moral and fiscal bankruptcy: all of them. All of them.


Full story here

Photo: agony of war, Vietnam, 173 Airborne.
Vets
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Bush

Alice Miller: The Origins of Torture

Exerpts from an article by world-renowned author and psychologist Alice Miller:

Many people have claimed to be appalled by the acts of perversion committed by American soldiers on ADULT people, Iraqi prisoners. . . .
It is definitely a good thing that light has been cast on the situation and that the media have exposed this lie for what it is. Basically it runs as follows: We are a civilized, freedom-loving nation and bring democracy and independence to the whole world.

Under this motto, the Americans forced their way into Iraq with devastating results and still insist that they are exporting cultural values. But now it turns out that alongside their bombs and missiles the well-drilled, smartly dressed soldiers are carrying a huge arsenal of pent-up rage around with them, invisible on the outside, invisible for themselves, lurking deep down within, but unmistakably dangerous.

Where does this suppressed rage come from, this need to torment, humiliate, mock, and abuse helpless human beings (prisoners and children as well)? What are these outwardly tough soldiers avenging themselves for?

And where have they learnt such behavior? First as little children taught obedience by means of physical "correction," then in school, where they served as the defenseless objects of the sadism of some of their teachers, and finally in their time as recruits, treated like dirt by their superiors so that they could finally acquire the highly dubious ability to take anything meted out to them and qualify as "tough."

The thirst for vengeance does not come from nowhere. It has a clearly identifiable cause. The thirst for vengeance has its origins in infancy, when children are forced to suffer in silence and put up with the cruelty inflicted on them in the name of upbringing. They learn how to torment others from their parents, and later from their teachers and superiors.

It is nothing other than systematic instruction by example on how to destroy others. Yet many people believe that it has no evil consequences. As if a child were a container that can be emptied from time to time. But the human brain is not a container. The things we learn at an early stage stay with us in later life.

In my recent book . . . I pointed out that in 22 American states children and adolescents can be beaten, humiliated, and sometimes exposed to outright sadism without this having any legal consequences. . . The scandal in Iraq shows what becomes of these children when they reach adulthood. The perverted soldiers are the fruits of an education that actively instills violence, meanness, and perversion into young people.

The media quote psychological experts who contend that the brutality displayed by the American soldiers is a result of the stress caused by war. It is true that war unleashes latent aggression.

BUT TO BE UNLEASHED IT HAS TO BE ALREADY THERE.

It would be impossible for individuals who have not been exposed to violence very early, either at home or at school, to abuse and mock defenseless prisoners. They simply couldn't do it. We know from the history of the last World War that many conscripted soldiers were able to show a human face, even in the stress of war, if they had grown up without being exposed to violence. Many accounts of the war and the conditions in the camps tell us that even such extreme stress will not necessarily turn adults into perverted individuals.

Perversion has a long, obscure history invariably rooted in the childhood of the individual. It is hardly surprising that these histories are usually concealed from the eyes of society. People who have been taught to obey by having violence inflicted on them have very good reasons to avoid being reminded of the sufferings they went through in childhood and prevent the suppressed facts from ever emerging into the light of day. . .

It is not true that we all carry in us the "beast," as some psychological experts claim. Only people who were treated in a perverse way, but deny the fact, will seek scapegoats on whom they can unconsciously take out their rage, telling in interviews they did it only "just for fun" (exactly as their abusing "innocent" parents might have declared). Or they destroy themselves by taking substances to ease the pain.

Children, of course, are unable to bear the pain of their victimization or understand that crime is being committed to them. But as adults they can learn to sympathize with the wounded child and, by becoming conscious, they can free themselves (and the world) from the "beast" within.

Preznit Toad-Exploder, Rummy, Cheney. Lynndie England. Dogbeater Dobson. Graner. What have they all in common?




Alice Miller is the author of many books, translated into 21 languages, including For "Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence". Complete article here.
[photo: dying horse in Iraq nomorebush.premiumfinder.com]
unwantedness
child abuse
torture
Abu Ghraib

Father Wants To Divorce his Little Daughter

From the Sydney Morning Herald, here:

Father wants to divorce his seven-month-old daughter

SEVEN-MONTH-OLD Elizabeth Wells has never been held in her father's arms, and if he has his way she never will be.

In what could be a landmark case in the US, Matt Dubay, a computer programmer, is asking the courts to absolve him of all the responsibilities of fatherhood.

Mr Dubay's lawsuit has the backing of the National Centre for Men, activists who say that equal opportunities have swung too far in favour of women.

For Mr Dubay, 25, news that he was about to become a father was an unwelcome shock. It followed a night spent with a student, Lauren Wells, who he claims told him that she was infertile and using contraception. The apparent contradiction of those remarks did not fully hit Mr Dubay until several weeks later, when Ms Wells, 20, told him she was pregnant.

While the relationship soon foundered, his former girlfriend said she was keeping the child and, when the baby was born last August, she began legal proceedings to ensure that her former boyfriend paid his way in bringing up their daughter.

Faced with a court order for $US500 ($690) a month in child support, Mr Dubay said not paying was his constitutional right.

"I don't believe men have any say … [they are] simply ignored," he said from his home in Saginaw, Michigan. After learning that Ms Wells was pregnant, Mr Dubay said he talked to her about an abortion or having the baby adopted, but she ruled out both. "I painted a very clear picture at that point that I was not ready to be a father," he said. "I was not ready to be a part of the child's life."

His lawsuit, filed in a federal court, says that men who face fatherhood without their consent should be able to opt out of their responsibilities. While it does not seek to force women to have an abortion or give up their babies for adoption, it claims that women have the right to pursue either option if they do not want to bring up a child on their own.

The founder of the National Centre for Men, Mel Feit, said: "Men are routinely forced to give up control, forced to be financially responsible for choices only women are permitted to make, forced to relinquish reproductive choice as the price of intimacy.

"A man must choose to be a father in the same way that a woman chooses to be a mother," Mr Feit said.

Ms Wells said in a statement through her lawyer on Saturday that "my focus is on providing a nurturing home for our baby".

Saying that she was disappointed in Mr Dubay's decision, she added: "I believe that life begins at conception and blossoms. I take responsibility for my acts and will do my best as an adult and mother to protect and provide for our daughter."

Mr Dubay has met his daughter just once, when both attended a clinic for blood tests that proved he was her father. He admitted it was "difficult to look away" when the baby was in the room, but he believes it would disrupt her life if he assumed any other duties of parenthood. "I still, to this point, believe that it isn't right to be part of the child's life. An unwilling parent is not good for a child."

I agree that an unwilling parent is not good for a child, so he may as well just stay out of the little girl's life. I see no reason why he shouldn't foot his part of the bill, however, for this unintended pregnancy. He didn't have to carry the child to term, placing his own life at risk, nor, apparently, will he be doing any of the rest of the work of child-rearing. His initial participation was certainly equal.

Presumably Mr. Dubay understands in general the law of cause and effect?


unwantedness
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Official No Blood for Hubris Mental Health Interlude

Day after day. Samsara. (Not the perfume). Torture, war, poverty, stupidity, hubris, blah blah birth, death, sickness, old age, passion, aggression, ignorance. Sometimes one just needs a break.

"Last night, Jessica Simpson turned down an invitation to meet President Bush at a fundraiser. Yeah, Bush said he invited Simpson because he likes being around people who challenge him." --Conan O'Brien

"President Bush was clearing brush at his ranch when he was scratched by a tree. That's a switch, a tree harming a Republican, when does that ever happen? I guess Bush has cut down so many trees they're starting to fight back now" --Jay Leno

"President Bush's approval rating is not good. A new Gallup poll puts it at just 36% which is a new low for his presidency. He is just slightly more popular than herpes now." --Jimmy Kimmel

"I know the country has been mired in deficit spending and it's been terrible burden on the country in terms of interest payments. Good news today out of Washington. They haven't paid down the debt or come up with any program to do so. What they did is raise the limit of debt we can go to to $9 trillion. It sends a great message to the kids: Hey, are you getting an F? Don't study harder, make the grading curve go out to K. Then your F looks like a C." --Jon Stewart

'In response to a request by the 9/11 commission, the White House agreed to declassify the president's daily intelligence briefing from August 6th titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." The commission also wants to see the August 20th briefing, "No Seriously Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States," and also from August 26th, "Mr. President, Please Put Down the Game Boy, Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States."' —Tina Fey

"Earlier today, the Pentagon launched the biggest air attack in Iraq since 2003. The White House said the attack will continue until President Bush's approval rating goes above 40%." --Jay Leno

"We're coming up to the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. I'm not sure how Bush is going to mark the occasion. I think we can rule out landing on an aircraft carrier and declaring mission accomplished." --Jay Leno

"Mexican President Vincente Fox announced that they have discovered oil under the Gulf of Mexico. In a related story, President Bush accused Mexico of having weapons of mass destruction." --Jay Leno

"Rumors are that the reason Dick Cheney didn't say anything about the hunting accident for about 24 hours was because he had been drinking. And I'm thinking, well jeez, he was probably drinking when we planned the invasion of Iraq." --David Letterman

"President Bush said that Bill Clinton has become so close to his father, he is like a brother. Which is great because it gives the first President Bush the smart son he never had." --Jay Leno

Bubble Boy's Big Bad Karma: His Legacy "Will Please Only Bin Laden"

The following are excerpts from an interview with As'ad AbuKhalil, professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, and visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

The repercussions of the Iraq debacle are very likely to affect more places in the Middle East, not less. There is now an explosion, literally, of militant fanatical groups that are bent on destroying the ties of amity and brotherhood between Sunnis and Shia. One can see that this was effective.

The latest International Crisis Group [report] points out the cynical and destructive ways by which the US administration manipulated Iraqi social, sectarian, ethnic, and tribal divisions for its own sake.

Bush, far from being remembered for establishing democracy in Iraq, will most likely be remembered as the man who brought ayat allahs' rule to Iraq, next door to Iran.

Ironically, the model of "democracy" and "secularism" that [George] Bush and the neo-conservatives were planning in Iraq had degenerated into a model of mayhem, pillage, and plunder, and the ayat allahs rule in all but name.

Bush, far from being remembered for establishing democracy in Iraq, will most likely be remembered as the man who brought ayat allahs' rule to Iraq, next door to Iran.. . .Far from seeing evidence of rejuvenation of democracy, one can argue that authoritarian rule in the Middle East has been consolidated due to Bush's doctrine . . . .

One also notices that in all three cases that the Bush administration focused on as showcases of the Bush doctrine - Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq - societies are standing on the verge of civil war. . .

I have no doubt years from now people in the West and East will look back and remember George Bush as the most incompetent and most unwise US president ever.

[Bush's] legacy in the Middle East will grow more horrifically. It will be seen that he has unleashed destructive forces in the Middle East, and has consolidated the rule of most authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. . . . He has also contributed to the rising conflict between Arabs/Muslims and Western governments.

His contribution in that regard will only please Osama bin Laden.

Why are we unsurprised?



Full story here.

Also see, here,"Bubble Boy Wastes Blood and Treasure to Install Medievalist Islamic Theocracy" and "Bubble Boy Brings Back Burqas" all the way from last August, here.

Bush
Iraq War
Photo: Reuters

While We're On the Subject of Hurting Others

The "Reverend" James Dobson beats his own dachshund and recommends whipping toddlers. With real whips. Does that work for you?

(Extra credit: what's the name of the Dachshund Dobson proudly beat? For what crime was the puppy beaten?)













Here's what happens to an unwanted, unloved infant. More here. Does this outcome work for you?

Whaddaya think? Are children better off wanted, or unwanted? Does adding another baby with about as much forethought as if one were picking up an extra carton of milk work for you?


Here's Democracy on the march, below. Read all about it--in the complete Abu Ghraib files--the Salon story here.

Does this work for you?











The Naziest part of these last three photos is that the American troops--who by the way are installing Democracy in Iraq--are deliberately causing painful wounds, then stitching them up, all ready to inflict the painful wounds again.

And giving a big thumbs up, and a hearty grin!


Spread that democracy, girls and boys! Spread it far and wide!


Abu Ghraib
torture

Mad Cow, Alabama

ALABAMA COW TESTS POSITIVE FOR MAD COW DISEASE

WASHINGTON - A cow in Alabama has tested positive for mad cow disease, the Agriculture Department confirmed Monday, the third case in the U.S. . .

A routine test last week had indicated the presence of the disease. Results were confirmed by more detailed testing at a government laboratory in Ames, Iowa, Clifford said.

U.S. investigators have found two previous cases of mad cow disease. The first was in December 2003 in a Canadian-born cow in Washington state. The second was last June in a cow that was born and raised in Texas.

Different types of tests indicated the presence of mad cow disease. Two versions of the initial "rapid" screening test suggested the cow had the disease, and a more detailed Western blot confirmed that finding.

Full story here.

Now, why am I thinking that if we had a government that didn't have a death-wish by Grover Norquistian bathtub drowning, maybe there would have been strict regulations in place that would have prevented these THREE cases of mad cow in the United States? And however many more to come?

And if we had a party in charge that believed in regulations and the rule of law, as opposed to believing in the Conservo-American Idol, Deregulation, which pretty much means believing in greed-fueled lawlessness? As in Enron, and, all the rest of the windfall profits over people industries? Ring a bell?


Oh, but that would be a nannystate, and we don't want to be pussy girlie nannystaters, do we? No, we prefer the every man for himself, social Darwinian (although we don't believe in Darwin), survival of the fittest, cull the weak from the herd (unless they're braindead and on life support), muy macho, I don't need no stinkin' regulations culture of life "'n" death from preventable diseases.

(Pound on chest here, making simian noises).

People who don't believe in government--all the neo-con krypto-anarchists--shouldn't be in government.

"If they have no wonks, why, then--let them clear brush!"


mad cow disease
Grover Norquist

Somebody Fix This Guy Up, Quick

Soulful-looking, thoughtful (well, kinda) blue-eyed, libertarian male conservative NY Times columnist who once dated funny centrist NY Times redhaired single female columnist writes column suggesting that if gay marriage can be furthered by the acceptance of polygamy, then polygamy's ok with him.

And if the specter of legalized polygamy is the best argument against gay marriage, let the wedding bells ring.

Hunh? Can you say "non sequitur"?

Is he still pining for Maureen Dowd, or what? Does he need a vacation in Hawaii?

Why is he obsessed with unmarried college-educated females?

What does gay marriage have to do with polygamy?

Please, shouldn't we all, having had his sore plight pluck at our heart-strings, take up a collection to get John Tierney a contract with some nice professional Jewish matchmaker (see below)? To find him Ms. Right, so he can get over Maureen? So we don't have to read any more wierd columns?








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The first round of voting for the Koufax Awards closes tomorrow, March 13. Link with Wampum, above, to vote. (Full disclosure: this blog has been nominated in these categories: Best New Blog, Best Blog Deserving of Wider Recognition, and Best Post).
John Tierney

Censure Bush? Nah. A Scolding's Just Not Good Enough. Send him to Club Gitmo.

Senator Russ Feingold is calling for the formal censure of Preznit Toad-Exploder.

"What the president did by consciously and intentionally violating the Constitution and laws of this country with this illegal wiretapping has to be answered."

He added, "Proper accountability is a censuring of the president, saying, 'Mr. President, acknowledge that you broke the law, return to the law, return to our system of government.'"

Mr. Feingold, who spoke on the ABC News program "This Week," said he planned to introduce legislation on Monday that would censure President Bush and condemn his authorization of the eavesdropping program.

We respectfully disagree. A simple scold just doesn't go far enough. Torture, on the other hand, which Bubble Boy has made as American as apple pie, would go far enough--too far--because that's what torture's all about.

We've said it before, and now we're saying it again--send the guy to Gitmo. For good.

It's the least he can do to atone for his sins. You know, driving the country into moral AND fiscal bankruptcy. Plus the torture thing, the breaking the law spying thing. Hey--it's Lent. Let's get on with it.

Clueless on Compassion

Roman Catholics I admire: Thomas Merton, Pope John XXIII, St. Francis of Assisi, among others.

Roman Catholics I don't admire: Torquemada, church pedophiles, church homophobes, cruel nuns and priests who created and ran the Magdalene homes, William A. Donohoe, that blowhard from the Catholic League, and the guy above, the president of Catholic Charities of Boston, whose religious sensibilities are more offended by other people's sexuality than by the carnage of the Iraq war.

This latest story is just so bizarre: rather than allow gays and lesbians to adopt children, the Roman Catholic Church-affiliated Catholic Charities in Massachusetts is SHUTTING DOWN ITS ADOPTION SERVICE.

What a frickin' joke.

For their church members they forbid birth control, they forbid abortion (though this has nothing to do with their priestly and nunly labor shortage--no one is really interested in cheap labor, are they?). If the Catholic Church had its way, we'd all be bowing to their religious dictates--think Griswold vs. Connecticut.

Now the church is letting us know that they'd rather have kids languish in foster homes than give up their phobias about homosexuality. Compassionate? Christian?

Meanwhile, the very same Catholic Church is still hiding their long history of harboring and cosseting pedophile priests who sexually abused defenseless children over decades.

Theme: protecting pedophile priests, that's ok. Cruelly abusing and mistreating kids in slave-like conditions, that's ok. Intruding into the private lives of adults, that's ok. Helping abused and neglected children find adoptive homes, not ok.

Perverted, is it not?

I'm glad they're getting out of the child welfare system. I trust their abilities in caring for children about as far as I can spit.

What would Jesus say? I mean, He was so BIG on homophobia, and so SMALL on, like, love thy neighbor as thyself, was He not? He liked the Old Testament stuff so much that that He never bothered to create a testament of His very own, now, did He?

Never mind.

It all reminds me of one of my favorite Betty Bowers bumper stickers:

MY PEDOPHILE PRIEST SUPPORTS TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE

Full story here.

CATHOLIC CHARITIES TO HALT ADOPTIONS OVER ISSUE INVOLVING GAYS

BOSTON --The Boston Archdiocese's Catholic Charities said Friday it would stop providing adoption services because state law allows gays and lesbians to adopt children.

The social services arm of the Roman Catholic archdiocese has provided adoption services for the state for about two decades, and said it would discontinue once it completes its contract with the state. It said that the state law allowing gays to adopt runs counter to church teachings on homosexuality.

"The world was very different when Charities began this ministry at the threshold of the 20th century," the Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, president of Catholic Charities, and trustees chairman Jeffrey Kaneb said in a joint statement. "The world changed often and we adapted the ministry to meet changing times and needs. At all times we sought to place the welfare of children at the heart of our work.

"But now, we have encountered a dilemma we cannot resolve," they said.

The state's four Catholic bishops said earlier this month that the law threatens the church's religious freedom by forcing it to do something it considers immoral.

Eight members of Catholic Charities board later stepped down in protest of the bishops' stance. The 42-member board had voted unanimously in December to continue considering gay households for adoptions.

Catholic Charities has been involved in adoptions for about a century, but has had a contract with the state for the past two decades. Its contract with the state expires June 30.

In the past two decades, Catholic Charities has placed 720 children in adoptive homes. Of those 720 children, 13 were placed with same-sex couples, Catholic Charities said. Since 1977, the state Department of Social Services has contracted with Catholic Charities to provide special needs adoption services to children with severe emotional and physical needs.

"We recognize the complexity of the issue, and we are aware of the debates which have swirled around it, Hehir and Kaneb said in the statement. "As an agency, however, we simply must recognize that we cannot continue in this ministry."

Fine by me. I'm all for a little more separation of church and state.



Catholic Charities
Catholic League
Bush

Free Speech? What Stinkin' Free Speech?

PROFESSOR BELIEVES FBI GRILLED HIM FOR HIS POLITICAL BELIEFS

What? There must be some mistake. Democracy's on the frickin' MARCH, dude!

Full, lovely story, here.

A Pomona College professor who is an outspoken critic of U.S. policy in Venezuela was questioned yesterday by two agents from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in what he calls an act of intimidation.

The detectives visited Miguel Tinker-Salas during his office hours at about 2:40 or 2:45 pm Wednesday. They questioned him for about 20 minutes in his office at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif. The detectives identified themselves but their names are being withheld at the request of the FBI. . . .

"They were fishing,” says Tinker-Salas, "to intimidate and silence those who have a critical analysis of U.S. foreign policy."

After they left, several students outside Tinker-Salas' office told him the detectives had asked them about his background, his classes and his politics, and even took note of the cartoons on his door.

Tinker-Salas says the detectives told him this was part of a larger policy to interview people on various campuses. . . . He says the agents who visited him did not interview the other Venezuelan-born professor at Pomona College. . .

A Latin American and Chicano histories professor, Tinker-Salas believes he was targeted as a result of his outspoken politics regarding the U.S. policy toward Venezuela and Latin America. . . .

According to the ACLU of Colorado, the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, which operates across the country, is violating First Amendment rights by equating nonviolent protest with domestic terrorism.

"The FBI is unjustifiably treating nonviolent public protest as though it were domestic terrorism," said Mark Silverstein, Legal Director of the Colorado ACLU, following the release of new documents obtained from the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on Dec. 8, 2005.

"The FBI’s misplaced priorities threaten to deter legitimate criticism of government policy while wasting taxpayer resources that should be directed to investigating real terrorists."

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, major dudes and dudettes: YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK.


FBI
freedom of speech
Bush