short notes:
will brady's ruminations
will brady's ruminations
2008-01-11
iraq quagmire
Some updates and observations
250,000 Civilians Dead in Bush's War. Juan Cole at Informed Comment gives specifics when the corporate jingo media doesn't even reflect upon this dire fact.
Pentagon rush to drug up returning soldiers? Now, there's a solution! Keep traumatized service persons doped up and numb after returning back from taking part in thankless battle. Keeps the mental illness industry in business, and the powers that be get to give a big kick back to the drug companies that help finance their road to power. Nice!
The smart soldiers are leaving the ranks of the military. Washington Monthly reports that Andrew Olmsted's final post. Serviceman Olmsted wrote about his observations of the war in Iraq for almost 5 years. This final post was put up by a friend, written last July with the intent that he be shared after he died. He was killed by sniper fire on 3 January 2008. He often said he did not want his death to be used for political ends. He commented regularly on politics, the war in Iraq and about Military conflict. He discontinued blogging on his own site in February 2007 after it was pointed out to him that he had been "...blogging in violation of a Department of Defense directive that restricts how much political activity soldiers may be involved with..."
He was a thoughtful writer. He is remembered in a post on Obsidian Wings, where he posted under the pseudonym G'Kar. Although I believe he would say he died without remorse, his loss, is in fact, one more tragedy in the littered battlefield. Godspeed Andrew.
"I think it's a good thing to realize that this pain has been felt by thousands and thousands (probably millions, actually) of other people all over the world. That is part of the cost of war, any war, no matter how justified. If everyone who feels this pain keeps that in mind the next time we have to decide whether or not war is a good idea, perhaps it will help us to make a more informed decision. Because it is pretty clear that the average American would not have supported the Iraq War had they known the costs going in".
a quote from Andrew Olmsted's last post
a quote from Andrew Olmsted's last post
250,000 Civilians Dead in Bush's War. Juan Cole at Informed Comment gives specifics when the corporate jingo media doesn't even reflect upon this dire fact. Pentagon rush to drug up returning soldiers? Now, there's a solution! Keep traumatized service persons doped up and numb after returning back from taking part in thankless battle. Keeps the mental illness industry in business, and the powers that be get to give a big kick back to the drug companies that help finance their road to power. Nice! The smart soldiers are leaving the ranks of the military. Washington Monthly reports that "...the top uniformed and civilian leaders at the Pentagon who think hardest about the future of the military have a more fundamental fear: young officers are leaving the Army at nearly their highest rates in decades. This is not a short-term problem, nor is it one that can simply be fixed with money. A private-sector company or another government agency can address a shortage of middle managers by hiring more middle managers. In the Army's rigid hierarchy, all officers start out at the bottom, as second lieutenants. A decline in officer retention, in other words, threatens both the Army's current missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its long-term institutional future."
Andrew Olmsted's final post. Serviceman Olmsted wrote about his observations of the war in Iraq for almost 5 years. This final post was put up by a friend, written last July with the intent that he be shared after he died. He was killed by sniper fire on 3 January 2008. He often said he did not want his death to be used for political ends. He commented regularly on politics, the war in Iraq and about Military conflict. He discontinued blogging on his own site in February 2007 after it was pointed out to him that he had been "...blogging in violation of a Department of Defense directive that restricts how much political activity soldiers may be involved with..."He was a thoughtful writer. He is remembered in a post on Obsidian Wings, where he posted under the pseudonym G'Kar. Although I believe he would say he died without remorse, his loss, is in fact, one more tragedy in the littered battlefield. Godspeed Andrew.
ABOUT THE IMAGE: I did this painting after Dubya's Daddy's war in 1991. It is part of a larger set entitled "Culture of Violence" |
Labels: andrew olmsted, death tolls, drugging soldiers, iraq quagmire
¶ 03:06 1 comments
2007-12-14
torture
Would you trust this man with your children? John Kiriakou [former leader of the CIA team that captured Al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah] said by using the torture technique of water boarding he got his captive to talk in less than 35 seconds.
He looks so earnest. On ABC News this week he said "Like a lot of Americans, I'm involved in this internal, intellectual battle with myself weighing the idea that waterboarding may be torture... and I struggle with it."
This isn't your average frat-boy hazing mind you. Waterboarding is a harsh interrogation technique that involves strapping down a
prisoner, covering his mouth with plastic or cloth and pouring water over his face.
The prisoner quickly begins to inhale water, causing the sensation of drowning. Of it's infamy Rear Adm. John Hutson (USN Ret.) testified before Congress recently that, “Other than, perhaps the rack and thumbscrews, water boarding is the most iconic example of torture in history. It was devised, I believe, in the Spanish inquisition. It has been repudiated for centuries.”
I have no doubt that some shall call Kiriakou a hero. Not to me. Torture, though used through human history is of questionable value in achieving fair results. How much, I venture to guess, would Mr. Kiriakou "struggle" with this if he had been subjected to waterboarding himself.
Would you trust this man with your children? John Kiriakou [former leader of the CIA team that captured Al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah] said by using the torture technique of water boarding he got his captive to talk in less than 35 seconds.He looks so earnest. On ABC News this week he said "Like a lot of Americans, I'm involved in this internal, intellectual battle with myself weighing the idea that waterboarding may be torture... and I struggle with it."
This isn't your average frat-boy hazing mind you. Waterboarding is a harsh interrogation technique that involves strapping down a prisoner, covering his mouth with plastic or cloth and pouring water over his face.
The prisoner quickly begins to inhale water, causing the sensation of drowning. Of it's infamy Rear Adm. John Hutson (USN Ret.) testified before Congress recently that, “Other than, perhaps the rack and thumbscrews, water boarding is the most iconic example of torture in history. It was devised, I believe, in the Spanish inquisition. It has been repudiated for centuries.”I have no doubt that some shall call Kiriakou a hero. Not to me. Torture, though used through human history is of questionable value in achieving fair results. How much, I venture to guess, would Mr. Kiriakou "struggle" with this if he had been subjected to waterboarding himself.
THANKS TO: Bad American / Politics as Usual for covering this subject.
Labels: atrocities, iraq quagmire, torture, waterboarding
¶ 20:17 0 comments
2007-07-04
a dour fourth
"America is the only legal country which admires the breaking of rules,
provided this action is of an exceptional order"
provided this action is of an exceptional order"
Jean Cocteau, diary entry dated July 1952
PICTURE CREDIT: The Village Voice collage from the article GOP Gets Bolder. Prepare to Be Crushed
Labels: corruption, injustice, iraq quagmire, perjury, treasonable offenses
¶ 12:05 0 comments
2007-02-27
bilps + updates
income disparities: The Dreamer ponders how it is that some folks can afford $100,000 entertainment systems while others live in abject poverty. I wonder about this myself.
poverty and wealth: Common Dreams reports that since the coming to power of Bush the Second the number Americans living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high. Since 2000, the number of severely poor has grown "more than any other segment of the population," according to a recent study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Income disparities, disproportionate burdens in costs of living foisted atop the poor, and lack of basic services such as health care, only serve to make this picture even grimmer.
Small comfort for us on the eve of what Alan Greenspan says is the beginning of a period of economic turbulence. The Dow dropped 416 points today. [Thanks to Officialssay]
global budgets: An old curmudgeon wonders if Social Security is going bankrupt how can we continue to pay for our military adventures in Iraq?
bible belt geography: The neocons continue to push their agenda to divide the Middle East into a bunch of weakened nations likely easily pushed around by oil companies and natural resource barons. So goes the reporting by researcher Seymour Hersh in the latest edition of the New Yorker.
gay rights: Is Cuba becoming more accepting than USA? From USA Today: "We have to abolish any form of discrimination against those persons," said Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly. "We are trying to see how to do that, whether it should be to grant them the right to marry or to have same-sex unions."
Alarcon said he expects Cuba's communist government will soon enact a law to do one or the other. "We have to redefine the concept of marriage," he said. "Socialism should be a society that does not exclude anybody." Unlike, say, a Fundie dominated United States. [Thanks to Towleroad]
flat earth society: Dinosaurs roamed the Earth only 6,000 years ago and apparently, they traveled aboard Noah's Ark. According to Answers in Genesis there is a explanation as to how those huge dinosaurs fit on the Ark.
income disparities: The Dreamer ponders how it is that some folks can afford $100,000 entertainment systems while others live in abject poverty. I wonder about this myself. poverty and wealth: Common Dreams reports that since the coming to power of Bush the Second the number Americans living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high. Since 2000, the number of severely poor has grown "more than any other segment of the population," according to a recent study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Income disparities, disproportionate burdens in costs of living foisted atop the poor, and lack of basic services such as health care, only serve to make this picture even grimmer. Small comfort for us on the eve of what Alan Greenspan says is the beginning of a period of economic turbulence. The Dow dropped 416 points today. [Thanks to Officialssay]
global budgets: An old curmudgeon wonders if Social Security is going bankrupt how can we continue to pay for our military adventures in Iraq?
bible belt geography: The neocons continue to push their agenda to divide the Middle East into a bunch of weakened nations likely easily pushed around by oil companies and natural resource barons. So goes the reporting by researcher Seymour Hersh in the latest edition of the New Yorker. Partition would leave Israel surrounded by “small tranquil states,” said Shia leader in Lebanon, Nasrallah. “I can assure you that the Saudi kingdom will also be divided, and the issue will reach to North African states. There will be small ethnic and confessional states,” he said. “In other words, Israel will be the most important and the strongest state in a region that has been partitioned into ethnic and confessional states that are in agreement with each other. This is the new Middle East.”Newsblog Moon of Alabama notes further that these plans are nothing new and have been promoted and plotted in neo-conservative circles for some time now, including in the Armed Forces Journal. Although commentator Ralph Peters claims that political re-alignment in the Middle-East would be nothing more than moving around borders that had been created by "self-interested Europeans in the 19th and early 20th century. Thank goodness there are no self-interested Americans meddling with borders and boundaries. That would be awful.
gay rights: Is Cuba becoming more accepting than USA? From USA Today: "We have to abolish any form of discrimination against those persons," said Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly. "We are trying to see how to do that, whether it should be to grant them the right to marry or to have same-sex unions."Alarcon said he expects Cuba's communist government will soon enact a law to do one or the other. "We have to redefine the concept of marriage," he said. "Socialism should be a society that does not exclude anybody." Unlike, say, a Fundie dominated United States. [Thanks to Towleroad]
flat earth society: Dinosaurs roamed the Earth only 6,000 years ago and apparently, they traveled aboard Noah's Ark. According to Answers in Genesis there is a explanation as to how those huge dinosaurs fit on the Ark. Although there are about 668 names of dinosaurs, there are perhaps only 55 different “kinds” of dinosaurs. Furthermore, not all dinosaurs were huge like the Brachiosaurus, and even those dinosaurs on the Ark were probably “teenagers” or young adults.You decide. [From Conservapedia, a new compendium of information developed by 58 home-schooled geniuses who obviously know more than everybody else.]
Without getting into all the math, the 16,000-plus animals would have occupied much less than half the space in the Ark (even allowing them some moving-around space).
Labels: creationism, Cuba, dinosaurs, gay rights, iraq quagmire, neocons, poverty, wealth
¶ 20:06 2 comments
