The Wars with Iraq and Iran
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The way we treat you is the measure of our own liberties.Truer words were never spoken -- unfortunately, actions speak louder than words.
-- Judge William Young, when sentencing Richard Reid, the shoe bomber
[T]he 82nd Airborne Division members routinely beat, tortured and abused detainees in 2003 and early 2004.Fishback's superiors were not willing to act on his complaints about not keeping to Geneva Convention standards. Military intelligence wanted the detainees "softened" for interrogation.Fishback said he witnessed detainees being stripped, deprived of sleep, exposed to the elements and "forced into uncomfortable positions for prolonged periods of time for the express purpose of coercing them into revealing information other than name, rank and service number."
[O]ne of the sergeants told [Human Rights Watch], "We would give them blows to the head, chest, legs and stomach, pull them down, kick dirt on them. This happened every day." [T]he sergeants said they saw soldiers break prisoners' legs.
The 82nd Airborne is one of the most storied units in the U.S. military. [...] In such a unit, evidence of a significant breakdown in discipline would call into question the Army's contention that previously disclosed abuses did not reflect systemic problems.
Remember the guy who got on a plane with a bomb built into his shoe and
tried to light it?
Did you know his trial is over? Did you know he was sentenced? Did you
see/hear any of the judge's comments on TV/Radio? Didn't think so.
Everyone should hear what the judge had to say. Ruling by Judge William
Young, US District Court.
Prior to sentencing, the Judge asked the defendant if he had anything to
say.
His response: After admitting his guilt to the court for the record, Reid
also admitted his "allegiance to Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and to the
religion of Allah," defiantly stated "I think I will not apologize for my
actions," and told the court "I am at war with your country."
Judge Young then delivered the statement quoted below
January 30, 2003, United States vs. Reid. Judge Young: "Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court imposes upon you. On counts 1, 5 and 6 the Court sentences you to life in prison in the custody of the United States Attorney General. On counts 2, 3, 4 and 7, the Court sentences you to 20 years in prison on each count, the sentence on each count to run consecutive with the other. That's 80 years. On count 8 the Court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years consecutive to the 80 years just imposed. The Court imposes upon you each of the eight counts a fine of $250,000 for the aggregate fine of $2 million. The Court accepts the government's recommendation with respect to restitution and orders restitution in the amount of $298.17 to Andre Bousquet and $5,784 to American Airlines. The Court imposes upon you the $800 special assessment. The Court imposes upon you five years supervised release simply because the law requires it. But the life sentences are real life sentences so I need go no further. This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes. It is a fair and just sentence. It is a righteous sentence.So, how much of this Judge's comments did we hear on our TV sets? We need more judges like Judge Young, but that's another subject. Pass this around. Everyone should and needs to hear what this fine judge had to say. Powerful words that strike home.Let me explain this to you. We are not afraid of you or any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is all too much war talk here and I say that to everyone with the utmost respect. Here in this court, we deal with individuals as individuals and care for individuals as individuals. As human beings, we reach out for justice.
You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier, gives you far too much stature. Whether it is the officers of government who do it or your attorney who does it, or if you think you are a soldier. You are not----- you are a terrorist. And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not meet with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice!
So war talk is way out of line in this court. You are a big fellow. But you are not that big. You're no warrior. I've know warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal that is guilty of multiple attempted murders. In a very real sense, State Trooper Santiago had it right when you first were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and where the TV crews were, and he said: "You're no big deal."
You are no big deal.
What your able counsel and what the equally able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific. What was it that led you here to this courtroom today?
I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing. And I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you, but as I search this entire record, it comes as close to understanding as I know.
It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose. Here, in this society, the very wind carries freedom. It carries it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So that everyone can see, truly see, that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely. It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf and have filed appeals, will go on in their representation of you before other judges.
We Americans are all about freedom. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties. Make no mistake though. It is yet true that we will bare any burden; pay any price, to preserve our freedoms. Look around this courtroom.
Mark it well. The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. Day after tomorrow, it will be forgotten, but this, however, will long endure. Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done. The very President of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.
See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag stands for freedom. And it always will.
Mr. Custody Officer. Stand him down."
Patriotism has become a hollow, partisan notion in our country. It's been in the name of patriotism that we've turned our young soldiers into scapegoats and fodder. The betrayal of the young in the name of patriotism is a staggering fact of our post-9/11 response.- AR[Dwight D] Eisenhower's [...] warned against "the disastrous rise of misplaced power" in America - exactly the kind that has since come into being. [...] That's the irony, of course. We've created for ourselves the disaster an enemy might have liked to create for us. That was the essence of the Eisenhower warning. We've sacrificed democratic values. What accounts for Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo? What accounts for the abandonment of basic American principles of how you treat accused people? We've abandoned this fundamental tenet of American democracy ourselves! We didn't need an invading force to take away this one chief pillar of the constitution. We took it down ourselves.
We Americans are full of our sense of ourselves as having benign imperial impulses. That's why the idea of the American Empire was celebrated as a benign phenomenon. We were going to bring order to the world. Well, yes ... as long as you didn't resist us. And that's where we really have something terrible in common with the Roman Empire. If you resist us, we will do our best to destroy you, and that's what's happening in Iraq right now[.] [...] [T]he way we destroy people is not only by overt military power, but by writing you out of the world economic and political system that we control.
- James Carroll
Lest we forget:
For a running tally of deaths and wounded soldiers in the Iraq war, see:
[icasualties.org].
Casualties include 1877 (US); 2071 (US and coalition); 13877 US
servicepeople have been wounded.
Michael Jay, permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, warned [Tony Blair] that the invasion was a "key driver of recruitment to extremist organisations". Mr Blair and Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, have repeatedly sought to play down the role of the war in motivating the July attacks on London[.]How was that again, Mr. Bush... the war on terror, or the war to create terror? But let's stay the course, Mr. President, it gives our boys overseas something to do.The letter, dated 18 May 2004, warned: "British foreign policy and the perception of its negative effect on Muslims globally plays a significant role in creating a feeling of anger and impotence among especially the younger generation of British Muslims. This seems to be a key driver behind recruitment by extremist organisations."
[There are] rumors that Vice President Cheney (yes, Vice President Cheney) has ordered up contingency plans for a large-scale air assault on Iran using not only conventional weapons but also tactical nuclear weapons to take out hardened underground nuclear facilities. The action would be framed as a response to a terrorist act--whether sponsored by Iran or not--on the United States. According to former CIA operative Philip Giraldi, senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are appalled that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked attack but, sadly, no one wants to jeopardize a career by posing objections.Which puts in context the recent small news item about Iran being at least a decade away from nuclear weapons:
The leaking of conclusions allegedly from the newest NIE [National Intelligence Estimate] on Iran, to the effect that it will be ten years before Iran can acquire nuclear weapons means only that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Israel's Sharon may have to think up slightly different pretenses for going after Iran than they thoughtHey, it worked once, why not again? Remember, don't ask questions, support our troops!- Bill Christison, former senior official of the CIA [article]
"Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Rove said Wednesday night. "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war."- RHRove, President Bush's chief political adviser, spoke at the state Conservative Party's annual dinner. He praised the conservative movement's success, calling it "the guiding philosophy for the White House, the Senate, the House."
The CIA believes the Iraq insurgency poses an international threat and may produce better-trained Islamic terrorists than the 1980s Afghanistan war that gave rise to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, a U.S. counterterrorism official said on Wednesday.Bush must be from the government, here to help.A classified report from the U.S. spy agency says Iraqi and foreign fighters are developing a broad range of deadly skills, from car bombings and assassinations to tightly coordinated conventional attacks on police and military targets, the official said.
Iraq has become a magnet for Islamic militants similar to Soviet-occupied Afghanistan two decades ago and Bosnia in the 1990s, U.S. officials say.
President Bush justified the invasion of Iraq in part by charging that Saddam Hussein was supporting al Qaeda. A top U.S. inquiry later found no collaboration between prewar Iraq and the bin Laden network.
The secret way to war and
In Iraq's insurgency, no rules, just death
A briefing paper prepared for Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and his top advisers eight months before the US-led invasion of Iraq concluded that the US military was not preparing adequately for what the memo predicted would be a ''protracted and costly" postwar occupation. [...]So the nay-sayers and Bush critics were right all along. But what good is it having been right after the toy is broken?In its introduction, the memo, ''Iraq: Conditions for Military Action," says US ''military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace," but adds that ''little thought" has been given to ''the aftermath and how to shape it. [...]
British officials who had just returned from Washington said Bush and his aides believed war was inevitable and were determined to use intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and his relations with terrorists to justify invading Iraq.
The ''intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," said the memo, an assertion attributed to the chief of British intelligence[.]
[...] Blair's aides were not just concerned about Washington's justifications for invasion, but also believed that the Bush team lacked understanding of what could happen in the aftermath.
Complete memo is available at
Asia Times, here
The memo includes two following tidbit on the legality of the exercise:
US military planning unambiguously takes as its objective the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime, followed by elimination if Iraqi WMD.- ARUS views of international law vary from that of the UK and the international community. Regime change per se is not a proper basis for military action under international law.
"When Clinton lied, no one died."The obvious corollary would be: "When Bush lied, 1685 US Troops died; more are dying today, 6/9/2005."
(Figures from:
icasualties.org/oif/
(not counting 12861+ US Wounded)
(See also:
www.lunaville.com
WASHINGTON -- March 22 -- President Bush stated yesterday regarding Terri Schiavo: ``This is a complex case with serious issues but, in extraordinary circumstances like this, it is always wise to err on the side of life.''- RH
US Military Dead: 1,516, US Troops Wounded: 11,344, Iraqi Soldiers &
Insurgents Dead: approx. 24,000, Iraqi Civilians Dead: Estimates range
from 16,100-100,000.
The tab so far is $146.6 billion, which could have paid for 2 years
worth of food for half the hungry people in the world AND a
comprehensive global AIDS treatment and prevention program AND clean
water and sanitation throughout the developing world AND childhood
immunizations for all children in the developing world.
The Bush plan to privatize Social SecuritySee: http://www.sourcewatch.org/.U.S. Social Security privatization is top of the neo-conservative agenda, following the re-election of George W. Bush in the 2004 Presidential election. Three strands of the debate are moves to protray the existing system as being 'in crisis', conservative attacks on AARP, which opposes privatization of the system and a campaign supporting it by the Alliance for Retirement Prosperity (ARP), a group was launched by Republican stalwarts such as Jack Kemp and Dick Armey.
As the Bush administration pushes to privatize the current Social Security system in the United States, we've compiled a number of articles about people and groups supporting the campaign.
I don't think that anyone who has not suffered the pain of losing a child
should have the power to send thousands of young men and women into a war like
the one we are in now.
If they had a child that was in the armed services and would be fighting on
the front lines, in the streets of Baghdad or Fallujah, would they have tried
more diplomatic ways to "find the weapons of mass destruction"? Isn't that the
reason we went there or was it to spread democracy for the safety of the free
world. Where are all of our friends from their free countries?
The cost so far is, in dollars: $150,000,000,000; $150 Billion, with a B.
And the government has just asked the Congress for another $80 Billion.
The cost so far in US Servicemen and service women: over 1409 killed;
over 10,000 wounded.
Panel participants included, to Ted Koppel's right, literally and
figuratively: Richard Perle, aka The Prince of Darkness, former Pentagon
policy adviser (resigned February 2004), former Likud policy adviser,
media manager, international investor, op-ed writer, talk show guest,
think tank expert, and ardent supporter of the war in Iraq. (see:
Richard
Perle bio) and Sen George
Allen (R, VA) who repeated the Republican line.
To Ted's left were former Ambassador to Iraq Joe Wilson, and Rep. Marty
Meehan (D, MA).
Meehan, just back from a week touring the area, wants our troops out
ASAP after the election. Wilson concurs but said it will take quite a
while, and perhaps the troops in Iraq can be given an international
appearance by getting troops from France and Germany. Wilson suggested
the Iraqi oil will be the driver. Koppel pointed out that the oil was
supposed to help pay for the war, but has not at all.
Perle and Allen wanted to "stay the course".
The French Ambassador to the US said 1. France will help train an Iraqi
gendarmarie, but 2. the French president, Jacques Chirac, will not
commit any French troops to Iraq.
The audience included wounded soldiers, active-duty soldiers; National
Guard soldiers on involuntary active duty, survivors of those killed,
and many others. There was no announced spokesman for the White House,
although they had been asked to send a representative.
The sense of the audience, judging by most who spoke and the applause
after comments, was anti-war, although patriotic to the US, if not to
Bush.
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