hate anger rage

[cxt]

Akil

Just in case your actually interested in a more accurate view of veterens.

You might check out:

www.sid-ss.net/mil/vv-myths.htm

Pay special attention to the Statistics page.

As well as the other related links.

[Akil Todd Harvey]

I guess maybe we were torturing them after all.....

How did they spin it?

1) It was not really torture
2) It was just an occasional torture and always for a good cause
3) It was just a few rogue idiots working alone, no orders from higher ups
4) And certainly the abuses of Abu Ghraib occurred only at that one prison, not at any other prisons

5) Thus it was not systematic......

Seems pretty sytematic to me, but what do I know, I am a self confessed liberal, aren't there laws against liberals???????

Akil

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... -headlines

By Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer

After American Taliban recruit John Walker Lindh was captured in Afghanistan, the office of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld instructed military intelligence officers to "take the gloves off" in interrogating him.

The instructions from Rumsfeld's legal counsel in late 2001, contained in previously undisclosed government documents, are the earliest known evidence that the Bush administration was willing to test the limits of how far it could go legally to extract information from suspected terrorists.







The Pentagon and Congress are now investigating the mistreatment of inmates at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in late 2003 and trying to determine whether higher-ups in the military chain of command had created a climate that fostered prisoner abuse.

What happened to Lindh, who was stripped and humiliated by his captors, foreshadowed the type of abuse documented in photographs of American soldiers tormenting Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

At the time, just weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. was desperate to find terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. After Lindh asked for a lawyer rather than talk to interrogators, he was not granted one nor was he advised of his Miranda rights against self-incrimination. Instead, the Pentagon ordered intelligence officers to get tough with him.

The documents, read to The Times by two sources critical of how the government handled the Lindh case, show that after an Army intelligence officer began to question Lindh, a Navy admiral told the intelligence officer that "the secretary of Defense's counsel has authorized him to 'take the gloves off' and ask whatever he wanted."

Lindh was being questioned while he was propped up naked and tied to a stretcher in interrogation sessions that went on for days, according to court papers.

In the early stages, his responses were cabled to Washington hourly, the new documents show.

A Defense Department spokesperson said Tuesday evening that the Pentagon "refused to speculate on the exact intent of the statement" from Rumsfeld's office to the military authorities interrogating Lindh.

"Department officials stress that all interrogation policies and procedures demand humane treatment of personnel in their custody," the spokesperson said. "The department is committed to searching further to ascertain the original source of the comment brought to their attention by The Times."

Lindh, who pleaded guilty in return for a 20-year federal prison sentence for aiding the Taliban, was a young Northern California Islamic convert who joined the Taliban army before Sept. 11, attended a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan and was captured soon after U.S. troops invaded the country.

While Lindh was being interrogated in Afghanistan and later aboard a ship, senior Bush administration officials were strategizing on how to handle other prisoners being rounded up in Afghanistan, with an eye toward flexibility in interrogating them.

In a series of memos from late 2001 to early 2002, top legal officials in the administration identified the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a safe haven offshore that would shield the secret interrogation process from intervention by the U.S. judicial system.

The memos show that top government lawyers believed the administration was not bound by the Geneva Convention governing treatment of prisoners because "Al Qaeda is merely a violent political movement or organization and not a nation-state" that had signed the international treaty.

However, the memos also show that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell warned the White House that a tougher approach toward interrogation "will reverse over a century of U.S. policy and practices in supporting Geneva Conventions and undermine the protections of the law of war for our troops, both in this specific conflict and in general."

The tenor of these administration memos on the handling of prisoners in the earliest stages of the U.S.-declared war on terrorism was similar to a legal "working paper" by administration lawyers in March 2003. It concluded that the president had the authority to allow any interrogation tactics that he thought would protect the American public, including torture, according to government documents. The Pentagon this week said that the paper was part of an internal administration debate and was not a policy that was carried out.

In the Iraq war that began in March 2003, administration officials said that the military would abide by the Geneva Convention. But in January of this year, a dismayed U.S. military guard turned over photographs depicting physical abuse and humiliation of inmates at Abu Ghraib.

Six Army prison guards are awaiting courts-martial in the Abu Ghraib scandal. A seventh has pleaded guilty.

The Pentagon, although condemning the behavior, has blamed it on a handful of low-level soldiers violating Army regulations. But the Department of Defense and the Senate Armed Services Committee are investigating how high up in the chain of command responsibilities for the abuses lie.

In the case of Lindh, U.S. intelligence officers first tried to interrogate him on Nov. 25, 2001, after he and other Taliban soldiers were captured by U.S. allies known as the Northern Alliance and taken to the town of Mazar-i-Sharif. There, CIA agent Johnny "Mike" Spann used an interrogation tactic of warning Lindh that he might die.

According to a video aired days after Lindh's capture, Spann asked him, "You believe in what you're doing here that much, you're willing to be killed here?"

Another CIA officer, identified as Dave Tyson, told Spann within Lindh's hearing that "he's got to decide if he wants to live or die, and die here. We're just going to leave him, and he's going to … sit in prison the rest of his … short life. It's his decision."

Lindh, then 20, did not respond. Shortly after, an uprising broke out. Spann was killed — the first U.S. fatality of the war — and Lindh was shot in the leg.

Lindh was recaptured, and over a series of interrogations — at a school at Mazar-i-Sharif, at Camp Rhino in Afghanistan and aboard a Navy ship — he was kept in harsh conditions, stripped and tied to a stretcher, and often held for long periods in a large metal container, the government and defense agreed during his legal battle.

In court hearings and legal papers, his attorneys complained that he was deprived of sleep and food, that his leg wound was not treated, and that for 54 days he was neither allowed legal assistance nor told that his father had retained lawyers on his behalf in San Francisco.

Lindh's lawyers declined to comment on the matter this week, noting that a provision of his 2002 plea agreement stated he would not bring up the conditions under which he was held overseas.

The military, in contrast, has maintained in previous court documents that Lindh was treated well and that he was read his rights under the Miranda law against self-incrimination.

But the new records raise new questions.

According to the government documents, when Lindh was first under interrogation at the schoolhouse, authorities realized that as an American he was drawing the attention of the Defense and Justice departments. There was some initial discussion of whether Lindh, as an American, should be advised of his right against self-incrimination before military intelligence officers talked to him.

One Army intelligence officer said in the documents that he had been advised that "instructions had come from higher headquarters" for interrogators to coordinate with military lawyers about Lindh.

"After the first hour of interrogation, [the interrogator] gave the admiral in charge of Mazar-i-Sharif a summary of what the interrogators had collected up to that point," the documents say. "The admiral told him at that point that the secretary of Defense's counsel has authorized him to 'take the gloves off' and ask whatever he wanted."

The Army intelligence officer responded that if a "criminal investigator" wanted to later question Lindh, "that was fine."

But in the meantime, the officer said, he was "interested in tactical information. He was in the business of collecting [intelligence] information, not in the business of Mirandizing."

The officer did ask to be faxed a Miranda form, according to the documents, "but he never got it. He never gave Lindh a Miranda warning."

Rumsfeld's legal counsel is not named in the documents. The office was headed by William J. Haynes II.

On Dec. 14, 2001, Haynes' deputy, Paul W. Cobb Jr., told Lindh's San Francisco lawyers that "our forces have provided him with appropriate medical attention and will continue to treat him humanely, consistent with the Geneva Convention protections for prisoners of war."

But court documents suggest that Lindh was treated much as the prisoners later were at Abu Ghraib. Along with nudity and the sleep and food deprivation, Lindh was allegedly threatened with death. One soldier said he "was going to hang." Another "Special Forces soldier offered to shoot him."

At other times, soldiers took photos and videos of themselves smiling next to the naked Lindh, another image eerily similar to the Abu Ghraib photos.

Such actions appear to be in violation of the Geneva Convention, which requires that prisoners have adequate clothing, food and sleep and not be threatened or subjected to degrading treatment.

As the interrogation of Lindh was going on, officials in Washington were privately working out details for handling other prisoners from Afghanistan.

On Dec. 28, 2001, John Yoo, then deputy assistant attorney general, told Haynes at the Pentagon that Guantanamo Bay was a perfect place for detainees because it was not a part of the sovereign United States and therefore not subject to the federal courts. But, Yoo cautioned, "there remains some litigation risk that a district court might reach the opposite result."

The holding of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay without charge or a court hearing has been challenged by several defense lawyers, and the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule this month on whether the government went too far.

[Bill Glasheen]

Akil

Interesting...

I have a few questions.

If the following is true (by the very aticle you supplied)...

Lindh, who pleaded guilty in return for a 20-year federal prison sentence for aiding the Taliban, was a young Northern California Islamic convert who joined the Taliban army before Sept. 11, attended a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan and was captured soon after U.S. troops invaded the country.

...then consider the following.

* Did he commit a crime as a citizen of the United States, and therefore should have been read his Miranda rights?

* Was he an enemy combattant and citizen of Afghanistan, and therefore subject to rules of the Geneva Convention?

* Was he neither of the above? If so, should he have been Mirandized, or was the United States bound by the Geneva Convention in treating him?

* What would be the standard treatment for such individuals in countries where your heart lies? In Saudi Arabia, for example.

If you have the answer to these questions, then perhaps you should have a law degree and be working for an international law firm. As I see it, most of what this article reports is the struggle of the U.S. in figuring out how to handle terrorists that do not represent the country where they foment their anarchy.

I'd like your opinions here.

I'd also like the opinions from others. IMO, I think everyone is operating in unknown territory here.

- Bill

[cxt]

Akil, Akil, Akil

Again, big difference between claims/alligations and actual abuse.

See, just cause a person makes a claim does not make it true.

In addition there is a difference between what is a person "feels" is too much and what is allowed under international law.

Very different things.

"Systematic" interesting word, here are some recent actions--you tell me if any of the following should be considered "systematic?"

-Radical Musliums fly plane loads of innocent civs into two blgds also filled with innocent civs

-Radical Muslium kidnap and murder Pearl

-Radical Musliums Kidnap and behead civ Berg

-Radical Musliums take 20 + Hostages, kill all the non-Musliums

-Radical Musliums murder Irish camraman and British reporter.

-Radical Musliums post statement on Al Queda linked website promising attacks upon Western targets--reffering to them as "infidels" and "non-belivers"

-Radical Musliums attack carload of innocent civs--murder the occupants, drag the bodies thu the street--then hang them up, mutulate them further--then set fire to the bodies

-Radical Muslium "ransack" Chinese Buddhist shrine in Thailand

-Radical Musliums behead Chinese Buddist in Thailand

-Radical Musliums raid Thai army camp to "steal guns" (Jan 4)

-Radical Musliums launch "orchestrad attacks upon goverment offices" in Thailand )April 28.

-Radical Musliums blow up nightclub full of innocent people in Bali

-Radical Musliums blow up 100's of innocent people in Spain

-Radical Musliums drag policemans body out of his grave and burn it.

-Radical Musliums blow up Jewish Synagouge in Turkey

-Radicial Musliums DRESSED AS WOMEN-hurl grenades at police in Arabia

-Radical Musliums blow up truck carring food

-Radical Musliums blow up Mosque

-Radical Musliums blow up Kurdish Party member

-Radical Musliums pant roadside bomb in Iraq that kills 11 Iraqis

-Radical Musliums smuggle deadly poisen Ricen into England as part of a mass murder plot

-Radical Musliums blow up busload of women and childern--the families of Indian soldiers on vaction with their husbands and fathers.

-Radical Muslium cleric orders his followers to murder man who disagrees with him

-Radical Musliums rig roadside bomb useing Sarin nerve gas shell

-Radical Musliums call for the destruction of the "Zionest Entity" ie Isreal.

I'd keep going but my fingers are getting tired.

So does this mean that muder, violence, and brutallity is "systematic" in the relgion of Islam??

I would say NO!!!!!!!

You can't defame an entire relgion because of the actions of a misguided few that are perverting the very intent of the Islam.

Problem is Akil, you seem to disagree--your posting and arguing that the actions of a few SHOULD be seen as "systematic" of the whole.

Can't agree with that.

That would mean that all the worlds Musliums-the vast majority of which are deeply opposed to violence would be gulity of the actions the Radicals.

Thats both not just logically flawed and grossly innacurate, its just plain WRONG.

I just can't support any line of arguement that would defame millions of followers of Islam because of the actions of a radical few.

[Akil Todd Harvey]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... home-world

By Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on Sunday blamed mistakes in data collection, not political considerations, for a "very embarrassing" State Department report that said terrorist attacks worldwide had decreased in 2003 when, in fact, they had risen significantly.

On Sunday TV talk shows, Powell acknowledged that the State Department's annual "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report, issued with great fanfare April 29, was badly flawed.

He said he was convening an interagency meeting today to determine why the 199-page report contained so many mistakes and omissions, including several terrorist attacks on Nov. 11 that killed 62 people in Turkey.

"Very embarrassing. I'm not a happy camper on this," Powell said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "We were wrong…. We're going to get to the bottom of it tomorrow" and reissue the report as soon as possible.

"It's not a political judgment that said, 'Let's see if we can cook the books.' We can't get away with that now," Powell said on ABC's "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos. "Nobody was out to cook the books. Errors crept in."

The Times reported Wednesday that State Department officials were scrambling to revise and reissue the report after questions were raised about errors that were apparent from the department's own data.

The turnabout represented the first time the State Department has had to significantly rewrite the report since it was first ordered up by Congress two decades ago as the government's authoritative reference tool on worldwide terrorist activity, trends and groups.

As issued, the report said the number of terrorist attacks had declined by 45% since 2001, dropping to its lowest level in 34 years. At the time, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage said the report offered "clear evidence" that the Bush administration was prevailing in the fight against global terrorism.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) said in a May 17 letter to Powell that the report had excluded several major attacks and other readily available information that, when added, showed terrorist attacks were at their highest levels in decades, not their lowest.

"This manipulation may serve the administration's political interests," Waxman wrote, "but it calls into serious doubt the integrity of the report."

Powell said the revised report would reflect a sharp increase in terrorist acts in 2003. And he said he had called Waxman personally to assure him that the Bush administration's efforts to publicize successes in its counter-terrorism policies had no influence on the report's contents.

Powell said State Department and CIA staffers worked through the weekend to determine what went wrong in the data collection process. He said he would meet with his staff and representatives of the CIA and other counter-terrorism agencies today "to find out how these numbers got into the report."

Powell said the State Department had received its terrorism statistics for 2003 from the new Terrorist Threat Integration Center, which brings together analysts from the CIA, FBI and other agencies. In prior years, the CIA provided the data.

"When you look at it in hindsight now … all sorts of alarm bells should have gone off. All sorts of, as I say to my staff, circuit breakers should have dropped when we saw this data, and they didn't," Powell said on "Meet the Press." "But I don't think there was anything political or policy driven about it."

Powell stopped short of blaming the CIA. "I'm not saying it is responsible until I sit down with all of the individuals who had something to do with this report," he said.

A State Department official said Powell was unhappy with the CIA and the threat center for providing faulty information — and even angrier at his senior aides for the report's omissions.

"There's a lot of blame to go around," the official said. "The question he's asking is, 'Why didn't you guys question this?' "

Powell also declined to comment on whether his department's release of the flawed report undermined his own credibility, particularly in conjunction with his embrace of the CIA's prewar intelligence on Iraq, which he now concedes was also flawed and inaccurate.

Tim Russert, the host of "Meet the Press," asked Powell: "Why shouldn't the American people lose all confidence in the information their government is giving them from the CIA about weapons of mass destruction, about terrorism, and who knows what else?"

Referring to the prewar intelligence on Iraq, Powell said, "Well, we've got to get to the bottom of that."

[Akil Todd Harvey]

By Nicholas Von Hoffman

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/com ... t-opinions

When my son and his California National Guard unit were sent to Iraq, I thought about hanging a yellow ribbon in front of my house. "Support the troops" has a different meaning when your kid is one of them. I could not decide if hanging the ribbon by the door was supporting him or supporting the war. Eventually, I decided not to; I didn't see what good it would do.

He and his comrades need all the support they can get, but not in the form of ribbons. He needs support from the people who sent him there. In the months since he has been in Iraq, he has repeatedly mentioned a shortage of ammunition and gun lubricants in his letters home.

This comes on top of his concern that he and his fellow soldiers were inadequately trained for what they are dealing with in Iraq. He writes of too little time on the firing range honing combat skills, lack of preparation for urban warfare and equipment ill suited for their mission. When it comes to guns, bullets and such, a parent has no support to give.

But it's not just equipment and training. Judging from my son's letters, the soldiers are often short of everyday items of every sort. Lip balm against the desert winds, sunscreen, socks and T-shirts are on the list. He asks for dried fruits, nuts, canned meat, razors, shaving cream and snuff, which he does not use but says is valuable for bartering. The list is long, but sending the items on it is the only way his family has found to support its trooper.

He writes that many of his fellow soldiers do not have family or friends for this kind of support. I've mentioned this to people and I am touched at the number who have been sending monthly packages to soldiers they know only through my son.

He and his friends are grateful — not only for the food and toiletries but for knowing they are not forgotten. This is a little war, and as time goes on, it and the names of the fallen float toward the bottom of the news. As one of my son's buddies has written, "The thing is, people are still dying. But now we are dying in garrison. We are sitting and waiting for the next rocket to land on our heads. We take losses, but nothing is gained. So what now?"

I don't know. In his letters, my son steers clear of the big picture: He doesn't say much about the overall war, and he doesn't generalize about morale. He says that the big events of the day that catch our attention here at home are far-away flashes.

A letter written home by a soldier friend of his suggests something similar: "Anything that happened before the last time one of your brothers (or sisters ) in arms was killed in action is old news. Anything that happened before the last time you personally were called on to give your life for your country and are still alive not because you didn't answer the call, but because the bullets missed (this time), is old news. Around here, news gets old pretty fast."

Like all parents, I still see my son as a little boy whom I read Dr. Seuss to, the child whom we tried to protect from ugliness and evil, the youngster whose eyes saw only what was right and happy with the world. Those eyes have now seen indescribable events, and to the extent I am able, I support him in having to bear those experiences.

My son was called up and sent overseas for the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Since then he has gotten married and become a middle-aged man, like so many guardsmen. His service is a great hardship for him and his family, but he does not complain, though he knows how unequally the sacrifices for this dubious combat have been apportioned. He does his soldier's duty and I support him in that, even as I try to decide if it is worse to turn on the news or keep it off. Either way, those of us who love him think about him all the time, and for now that is the only support we have to give.

[Akil Todd Harvey]

sayeth CXT whom I usually ignore, but made an exception, this time.....

See, just cause a person makes a claim does not make it true.

This is very true, my friend. Do you remember me saying the same thing about our claims of WMD leading up to the war?

We claimed that Iraq had WMD and we have yet to find anything recent, in volume, or a real threat (not some stuff that Rumsfeld sold em in the 80's).......

Akil

[cxt]

Akil

You know I really don't why I bother trying.

You have repeatdly demonstrated an utter inability to defend your (well lets be accurate here--your posting of OTHER peoples work)

You refuse to answer any questions put to you.

Yet you expect other folks to answer YOUR questions.
Which we make a good faith effort to do.

You refuse to even stick around and stand up for what you do post--ie other folks statements and work.

The only thing can think of is "slow day."

So in answer to your question, (which by the way has been asked and answered multiple times)

Iraq was invaded due to non-complience with specific agreements made at the end of the 1st Gulf War.

WMDs were only a PART of the agreement. Granted that was the one the government focused on.

Other things that DID turn out to be dead on accurate;

1-Support of international terrorism-both in terms of financial support, material support and given them a place to "hide out"

2- Danger to the entire region--invaded Iran and Kuwait.

3-Butchery of 100,000's of his own people--this one alone was good enough for me.

4- Saddam was activly working on a WMD's program--well to be accurate he THOUGHT he was. His own guys were lying to him--no way we could have known that prior.

But the fact of the matter is that Iraq was invaded due to Saddams failing to live up to his end of the bargin he made at the end of the 1st Gulf War.

WMD's were only one (pretty good one) of the reasons we invaded.

Oh, did you happen to catch the Sarin nerve gas shell that was recently used as part of a roadside bomb.

You might make a note that as per his agreement he was suppoesed to have gotten rid of ALL his WMD's not SOME, or ALMOST ALL--BUT ALL-as in every last shell--which he clearly did not do.

So you lose this point as well.

In addition--on your post.

Logically inconsistant--if CLAIMS alone are enough--you reference the claims made about WMD's that turned out to be inaccuarte.

A1-Are you NOW saying that the abuse CLAIMS are EQUALLY INNACURATE?
Thereby agreeing with me that claims alone prove nothing.

A2-Are you agreeing that we don't know about claims until we investigate?
Thus justifying the need to invade Iraq in order to get to the truth.
Other wise how would we really KNOW.

Sad as it might be, soldiers are seldom perfectly trained and equiped for combat--especially Natl Guard.

Not right of course--but its not unusual.

Going back as far as the War of the Roses, troops have frequantly complained of a training, equipage, and condiditons in the field--my grandfather sure did during WW2.

Does not make it right--but thats scarcely new.

[Bill Glasheen]

I have a general question here I'd like other to comment on. Is it Akil and his choice of what to post, or is the LA Times as liberal and anti-republican as the Washington Post?

Just wondering... Whenever I read something, I like to consider the source. The Post is the Post. Rush is Rush, etc.

BTW, I saw the ORIGINAL Powell interview. He said it like he saw it - They goofed. No sidestepping the issue.

Good man, that Colin Powell. Doesn't make excuses.

- Bill

[Akil Todd Harvey]

Hey Bill,

The Times gets the rep for being "liberal" which, to my knowledge, has yet been outlawed, although we have demonized it to a great extent.........I used to get some awesome articles with liberal leanings from the Orange county register.......Never got a single comment about how liberal they are.......OC being famous for its conservatives........

Defending cruelty can be a career booster in Bush's administration.

By Robert Scheer

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/com ... t-opinions

What a revelation to learn that the Justice Department lawyer who wrote the infamous memo in effect defending torture is now a U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judge. It tells you all you need to know about the sort of conservative to whom George W. Bush is turning in his attempt to pack the federal courts.

Conservatives once were identified with protecting the rights of the individual against the unbridled power of government, but this is not your grandfather's conservatism. The current brand running things in D.C. holds that the commander in chief is above all law and that the ends always justify the means. This has paved the way for the increasingly well-documented and systematic use of torture in an ad hoc gulag archipelago for those detained anywhere in the world under the overly broad rubric of the "war on terror."

Those still clinging to the hopeful notion that photographic evidence of beatings, dead detainees, sexual degradation and threats of electric shock were all the work of a few twisted reservists aren't reading the newspapers. Press accounts are following the paper trail up the chain of command to a heated and lengthy debate inside the White House about how much cruelty constitutes torture.

On Sunday, the Washington Post published on its website an internal White House memo from Aug. 1, 2002, signed by then-Assistant Atty. Gen. Jay S. Bybee, which argued darkly that torturing Al Qaeda captives "may be justified" and that international laws against torture "may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations" conducted under President Bush. The memo then continued for 50 pages to make the case for the use of torture.

Was it as a reward for such bold legal thinking that only months later Bybee was appointed to one of the top judicial benches in the country? Perhaps he was anointed for his law journal articles bashing Roe vs. Wade and legal protection for homosexuals, or for his innovative attack on the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, which provides for the popular election of U.S. senators. But it's hard to shake the notion that his memo to Counsel to the President Alberto Gonzales established Bybee's hard-line credentials for an administration that has no use for moderation in any form.

This president has turned his war on terror into an excuse for undermining due process and bypassing Congress. For Bybee and his ideologue cohorts, however, the American president is now more akin to a king, and legal or moral restraints are simply problems that can be overcome later, if anybody bothers to question the tactics: "Finally, even if an interrogation method might violate Section 2340A [of the U.S. Torture Convention passed in 1994], necessity or self-defense could provide justification that would eliminate any criminal liability."



In fact, though, this was an argument of last resort for Bybee, whose definition of torture "covers only extreme acts … where the pain is physical, it must be of an intensity akin to that which accompanies serious physical injury such as death or organ failure…. Because the acts inflicting torture are extreme, there is [a] significant range of acts that, though they might constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, fail to rise to the level of torture."

Bybee's generous standard should bring comfort to the totalitarian governments that find the brutal treatment of prisoners a handy tool in retaining power or fighting wars. Even Saddam Hussein, who always faced the threat of assassination and terrorism from foreign and domestic rivals, can now offer in his defense Bybee's memo that his actions were justifiable, on the grounds of "necessity or self-defense."

When confronted by the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee with the content of Bybee's torture defense, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft responded that the memo did not guide the administration. Yet, the Bybee memo was clearly the basis for the working group report on detainee interrogations presented to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld a year later. And if Bybee's work was rejected as reprehensible, why was he rewarded — with Ashcroft's deepest blessings — with a lifetime appointment on the judicial bench only one level below the Supreme Court?

Frighteningly, the Bybee memo is not some oddball exercise in moral relativism but instead provides the most coherent explanation of how this administration came to believe that to assure freedom and security at home and abroad, it should ape the tactics of brutal dictators.

[Akil Todd Harvey]

Sgt. Provance, who yearns for combat rather than intelligence work, says he has suffered for blowing the whistle on abuse.

No need to cover up what is clearly only the work of a few lone wolfs working independently, right?


Jeffrey Fleishman, Times Staff Writer
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... ines-world

HEIDELBERG, Germany — Sgt. Samuel J. Provance III began his Army career as a brush-cut idealist determined to join the Special Forces. He ended up in a military intelligence unit assigned to Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, where he heard stories about U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees.

The 30-year-old Pennsylvania native said he grew troubled that prisoners were harassed, ridiculed, stripped naked and beaten. He spoke out to military investigators and last month stunned the Army when he disobeyed an order and became the first military intelligence soldier to discuss the abuse with newspapers and television stations.

Provance says he broke ranks because he believed the military was trying to cover up the scandal. Now, as the story shifts away from him, his experience is quietly turning into a cautionary tale about the price of becoming a whistle-blower. Fellow soldiers avoid him. His security clearance has been yanked. And there's a possibility that Provance, who once studied to be a preacher, could end his Army days in disgrace with a court-martial.

"You can't imagine the stress after I spoke out," said Provance, a member of the 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion. "I felt the world just fall on my shoulders. I logged on yahoo.com news, and there I was in the top story block. Oh my God! The e-mails started coming. The first one I got was from a retired military police officer. He wrote, 'Thanks for doing the right thing.' About an hour later I got another one that said, 'You're a sorry soldier.' "

The sergeant's choice to betray Army orders seems rooted in a confluence of naivete and a disenchantment with military protocol and the opaque rules and loyalties that govern the realm of military intelligence. Provance speaks in a near-whisper, but he possesses a steely defiant streak — at Bible college he challenged the existence of God. At the same time, he reveres the spirit of the combat soldier; the name "Caesar" is part of his e-mail address.

Military officials, including commanders in the 302nd battalion and the 205th Intelligence Brigade, declined to comment on the sergeant's case because of the Abu Ghraib investigation.

A senior Pentagon official investigating the prison scandal, Army Maj. Gen. George R. Fay, interviewed Provance in early May in Darmstadt, Germany. Provance ran the Abu Ghraib classified computer network and was not present during prisoner interrogations. But he told investigators it was common knowledge that intelligence interrogators encouraged mistreatment that included depriving prisoners of sleep, limiting food and stripping detainees naked to humiliate them.

In a sworn statement, Provance also said a military intelligence soldier, Spc. Armin J. Cruz, "was known to bang on the table, yell, scream and maybe assaulted detainees during interrogations in the booth."

"This was not to be discussed," Provance said in the statement. "It was kept 'hush, hush' by individual interrogators."

Provance later testified at a military hearing in Baghdad that Spc. Hanna Slagel had told him that guards "made [male detainees] wear women's panties, and if they cooperated, some would get an extra blanket." Provance signed an order from his commander, Capt. Scott Hedberg, not to disclose his testimony, including statements he made in a report by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba in February.

That report was eventually leaked to reporters, and Provance gave interviews to ABC News, the Washington Post, Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times and other news organizations. The military whistle-blower statute protects soldiers who report abuses to members of Congress and military investigators, but it does not cover disclosures to the media.

When asked why he chose to jeopardize his career, Provance said: "I started getting bothered because innocent people were being held and they were getting lost in the system, and the military wanted to keep it secret. The abuse was being done by more than just a few bad apples. I don't think military investigators had any interest in finding out how many people were involved."

Military investigators asked Provance why he failed to disclose what he knew after he arrived at Abu Ghraib last fall. Fay, Provance said, told him, "You could have busted this thing wide open" if he had alerted officials earlier. The Army has informed Provance that he could face charges for not quickly divulging abuse allegations.

"I didn't come forward earlier because I didn't see anything," Provance said. "It was just things I had heard. If somebody denied it, I'd have looked pretty stupid. I'd be the boy who cried wolf."

He said he spoke up when he believed that other soldiers interviewed by military officials at Abu Ghraib were recounting similar stories.

The other day, Provance sat in an Italian restaurant in downtown Heidelberg. He wore bluejeans and a T-shirt streaked with the name of the rock group Nine Inch Nails. With a trace of Southern drawl, he spoke about the circumstances that led him to the Army.

Provance was born in Fayetteville, Pa., and raised in Williamsburg, Va., by his mother and stepfather, a former Marine who managed a hospital storeroom. He said he moved out on his own at 16, living in a motel and working as a stock boy in a department store. He received a high school general equivalency diploma in 1992, took a job at a Dunkin' Donuts outlet and attended Green Springs Pentecostal Chapel.

With the aim of becoming a preacher, Provance enrolled in Holmes Bible College in Greenville, S.C. He stayed three years, quitting, he said, after raising too many questions about faith and fundamentalism.

"I was kind of like the rebel," he said. "I needed reasons for things, and they questioned my faith. I didn't want to become a drone. I left."

In 1998, Provance joined the National Guard in Clemson, S.C. A year later, he enlisted with the active-duty Army and was assigned to the air missile defense unit of the 101st Airborne Division at Ft. Campbell, Ky. His dream was to join the Special Forces, but he scored low in physical training and navigation.

"I was pretty devastated," he said. "That was to be everything in my military career. I got bitter. But then I began to see things from their rationale."

Provance was reclassified as a military intelligence analyst, and in November 2002 he joined the 302nd battalion under the V Corps in Heidelberg. The 302nd shipped to Kuwait in February 2003 and arrived in Iraq two months later. Provance said he thought he would enjoy the intrigue of intelligence work but quickly discovered he wasn't suited for his unit's internal politics and lacked training on several computer programs.

"From the get-go, I had problems with them," he recalled. "The intelligence guys didn't care about the 101st Airborne. They didn't care about Special Forces. They were all about computers and PowerPoint presentations. To me, they were less soldiers and more analysts in uniforms."

After disagreements with his commanding officer, Provance was transferred to another platoon. "I complained to the Army inspector-general about my superior officer," he said. "There was nobody sticking up for me."

Last September, Provance and other members of his unit were assigned to Abu Ghraib to replace soldiers who were killed and wounded in mortar attacks.

It was there, he said, that interrogators told him and others about widespread mistreatment of Iraqi detainees. "I didn't know at the time," Provance said, "how humiliating that is for Arab men to be naked. I just know I couldn't strip someone buck naked. I always thought, 'What if I were a prisoner? Could I endure that?' "

After he informed investigators of the alleged abuse, Provance said he felt he was being penalized for telling the truth. He went public, he said, when he suspected that the military was limiting its investigation to low-ranking military police at Abu Ghraib and not probing the involvement of interrogators and higher-level officers.

"All the proper military channels are broken," he said. "Doing it inside the Army doesn't get it done. It only gets me hurt. Military intelligence as I've experienced it is shady and under the table. Nothing is honest and straightforward."

Provance's military future is uncertain, and he acknowledges that his career may be over. He has found support from people he's never met. Former Vice President Al Gore mentioned Provance's name in a speech condemning the abuse at Abu Ghraib. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, is following Provance's case.

"It is important every military member understand that not only is it the right thing to report misconduct, it is required as part of their duty," read a statement Graham sent to the Stars and Stripes newspaper. "In speaking with Sgt. Provance, I sought to assure him that in providing testimony before a court-martial, he was doing his legal duty."

Sometimes, Provance said, he believes his troubles will go away and he'll be reassigned to a combat unit, far from the layered, confusing world of military intelligence.

"I want a combat posting," he said. "To me, that's the Army I know is true."

[Bill Glasheen]

Uhh, Akil, it isn't a "Bush" or "Republican" thing.

Ever heard of a liberal Harvard lawyer by the name of Alan Dershowitz?



Dershowitz: Torture could be justified

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Following the capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the question has become whether the senior al Qaeda leader will reveal key information about the terrorist network. If he doesn't, should he be tortured to make him tell what he knows?

CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer posed this question to noted author and Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz and Ken Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch.

- Bill

[Akil Todd Harvey]

Yeah Bill,

I have little faith in the actions of democrats, a wee bit more than that of the neocons........

This is what we did to our own guy.....of course, that was when they (the brute squad) were told he was one of them (and it has not been proven yet, which means we can continue to deny that it is even plausible, if not likely to have occurred..........cxt's logic says that if you can't prove a tree fell in the forest, then it can be extrapolated that trees do not fall in forests without further proof. And finally, a picture depicting trees falling in forests is not sufficient proof that trees fall in all forests............

By David Zucchino, Times Staff Writer

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... -headlines

GEORGETOWN, Ky. — Shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Sean Baker reenlisted in the Kentucky National Guard. He considered himself a patriot, he says, and felt a strong call to serve his country.
Baker, 37, a Persian Gulf War veteran, was disappointed when his unit wasn't activated. So he volunteered for another Kentucky National Guard unit assigned to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where as a military policeman he guarded detainees accused of being Talibs and Al Qaeda members.   
   
 There, early on the morning of Jan. 24, 2003, Spc. Baker says, he was choked and beaten by fellow MPs on the steel floor of a 6-by-8 prison cell during a botched training exercise. Since then, he claims, the military has abandoned him.
Baker says he volunteered to put on an orange prison jumpsuit and portray an uncooperative detainee in a training drill. But the five-man MP "immediate response force" sent in to extract him was not told of the exercise. According to Baker's lawyer, the soldiers were told that Baker was an unruly detainee who had been doused with pepper spray after assaulting a sergeant.
Four MPs slammed Baker to the floor, he says, then choked him and pounded his head at least three times against the floor. Gasping for breath, he managed to spit out a code word — "red" — and to croak: "I'm a U.S. soldier! I'm a U.S. soldier!"
But the beating continued, according to Baker, until the jumpsuit was yanked down in the struggle, revealing his military uniform. Only then did the MPs realize that they had been beating an American soldier — causing a traumatic brain injury, Baker alleges.
"What happened to me is something that should never have happened to any American soldier," Baker wrote in an e-mail response to questions from the Los Angeles Times. "I pray it will never happen again."
Honorably discharged with a medical retirement in April, Baker spends dreary days inside a nondescript duplex in central Kentucky, unable to work because of what he says are seizures caused by the beating. He is taking nine prescription medications for seizures and headaches, his lawyer said. He has yet to receive disability payments promised by the military.
"The way the military treated Sean is unconscionable — and the way they continue to treat him is even worse," said attorney Bruce Simpson.
The military at first said Baker's medical discharge was not related to the beating at Guantanamo. Last week, the military reversed itself, saying the incident was partly responsible for his discharge.
Lt. Col. Jim Marshall, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command, said that an internal investigation in February 2003 concluded that no one was liable for Baker's injuries and there was no need for a criminal inquiry. Another spokeswoman, Maj. Laurie Arellano, said the investigation concluded that Baker's injuries were a "foreseeable consequence" of the drill.
Marshall said procedures had been reviewed to prevent future injuries. "While it is unfortunate that Spc. Baker was injured, the standards of professionalism we expect of our soldiers mandate that our training be as a realistic as possible," he said.
Members of immediate response forces are "handpicked based on maturity, common sense and judgment," Marshall said, adding that they were trained to use the minimum force necessary.
According to Simpson, the military has suggested that Baker was beaten because he resisted attempts to extract him. Simpson said Baker simply followed orders to pose as an uncooperative detainee.
"They're blaming him for resisting, as if it was his fault for provoking a beating," he said.
Simpson said the Pentagon had not responded to his requests for Baker's military and medical records. But after the lawyer and Rep. Ben Chandler (D-Ky.) complained about Baker not receiving disability payments, they were told by the military Monday that he qualified for 100% disability and would receive his first check within 10 days.
Baker said someone should be held responsible.
"I never thought my military career would end as a result of a beating which I sustained at the hands of my fellow troops," he wrote. "Someone in charge should have known better."
Simpson said Baker and other National Guard MPs at Guantanamo were summoned from their posts at 2 a.m. and asked to volunteer for a training exercise involving MPs from the 303rd Military Police Company of Michigan. Baker assumed it was another "quarter time" walk-through drill, in which soldiers had previously acted out the roles of detainees while wearing U.S. military uniforms.
But this was the first time Baker had heard of soldiers being asked to wear a prison jumpsuit. Even so, when no one volunteered, he raised his hand.
The officer in charge "actually ordered me to put on the uniform of my enemy," Baker told WLEX-TV of Lexington, Ky., which first reported his allegations. "I was reluctant, but he said: 'You'll be fine. Put this on.' So I did."
Baker, who is 6 feet, 1 inch tall and weighs about 225 pounds, said he was ordered to crawl under a prison bunk and refuse to come out. He said he assumed that the MPs taking part knew it was a drill.
When the response force rushed into the cell, Baker said, the MPs dragged him out, slammed him face down, pinned his arms, twisted his legs behind his back and locked him in a painful chokehold.
"One of the individuals got up on my back and put pressure on me," Baker said. "I could not breathe, and I began to panic a little bit."
The soldier slammed his head against the steel floor while choking him, Baker said. A translator shouted at Baker in Pashto, an Afghan language, apparently believing he was a Taliban detainee, Simpson said.
In addition to the alleged brain injuries, Simpson said, Baker was cut on his temple and was treated at the prison.
A military physical evaluation board report of an examination Baker underwent in September 2003 cited his "service-connected disability" and said that Baker's "TBI [traumatic brain injury] was due to soldier playing role of detainee who was noncooperative and was being extracted from detention cell in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during a training exercise."
Baker was treated at four military hospitals, including a 48-day stay at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, before his discharge. Arellano, the military spokeswoman, said in late May that the Walter Reed treatment was unrelated to Baker's prison injuries. But the military since has conceded that Baker's hospitalization was for those injuries, spokesman Marshall said.
According to Simpson — who said he had obtained portions of the military's internal investigation — the MPs reported that they had been told Baker was a troublesome detainee who had assaulted a sergeant and refused to leave his cell.
Two of the MPs reportedly told investigators that before the incident, they gave a videotaped description of their mission to a team member, who taped the exercise. A sergeant in Baker's unit, the 438th Military Police Company, attempted to retrieve the tape but was told it had been lost or misplaced, Simpson said.
Marshall said response teams were aware that their actions typically were taped, with the video reviewed to ensure that minimum force was applied to detainees. However, a military spokesman at Guantanamo said that because only actions against actual detainees — not exercises — were taped, it was not likely that a video existed of the drill involving Baker.
While Baker was being treated at the hospital at Guantanamo, Simpson said, he was visited by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the prison commander at the time. He said Miller promised that those responsible for Baker's beating would be dealt with under military law.
Simpson said he was contacted last week by Criminal Investigation Division investigators from Ft. Knox, Ky., who said they were told to interview Baker and investigate the incident because of recent media coverage. The agents planned to interview Baker today, Simpson said.
Since Baker's discharge, his family — wife Renee and 14-year-old son Sean Jr. — has been living on Renee's income as a restaurant hostess. He did not go public with his allegations until he was contacted last month by the Kentucky TV station.
After the TV segment, Simpson has not allowed Baker to be interviewed. Baker did respond via e-mail.
"Sean is not a whiner or a complainer," Simpson said. "He hasn't demanded that I sue somebody. All he wants is help getting his disability checks."
After Baker's case became public, the local sheriff said that Baker had been forced to resign as a part-time Scott County sheriff's deputy in 1992 following a series of incidents that included unprofessional actions in a traffic accident.
"I do not enjoy talking about what happened to me at Guantanamo Bay," Baker wrote in his e-mail. "In my heart, I still consider myself a soldier. I am honored to have served my country."

[/b]

[Akil Todd Harvey]

We were told what a boondoggle the oil for fod program was......Now we have Halliburton and they are spending our money like there is some massive surplus in government funds........Ooooops, that surplus of government funds that Bush inherited upon his entrance to the white house has been long forgotten by now, all we have left is this massive deficit hole, larger even than the one created by Reagan/Bush (hard to believe)......

By T. Christian Miller, Times Staff Writer
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... g-hallibur

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon may have wasted billions of dollars in Iraq because of a lack of planning and poor oversight, top congressional and Defense Department investigators said Tuesday.
David M. Walker, head of the General Accounting Office, told a congressional panel that Defense Department planners had failed to adequately determine the needs of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and to effectively oversee the billions of dollars' worth of contracts issued.   
   
 Though Pentagon officials blame any mistakes on the pressure of the war's early days, the investigators said they had found ongoing waste in the contracting process a year after the invasion was launched in March 2003. In remarks to reporters, Walker speculated that the total losses from waste could amount to "billions."
"There are serious problems, they still exist and they are exacerbated in a wartime climate," Walker told members of the House Government Reform Committee, which is charged with preventing waste, fraud and abuse in the government.
Tuesday's testimony by the GAO, Congress' investigative arm, and the Defense Contract Audit Agency, the Pentagon's auditor, presented the most complete picture to date of the U.S. military's decision to pay private contractors billions of dollars to help wage the war and rebuild Iraq.
Though much of the contracting was done well, the agencies said, military contract managers and the companies they oversaw were frequently overwhelmed by the magnitude of the tasks in Iraq.
The agencies singled out a contract awarded to Halliburton Co. — a Houston-based oil services giant that supplies food, housing and other logistics services to the military — as a particularly egregious example of both poor oversight by the government and overcharging by the company.
For example, a GAO report says, the military did not develop adequate plans to support its troops in Iraq until May 2003, two months after the invasion, when Halliburton was ordered to supply more dining facilities and housing. Since then, Halliburton's contract to supply the troops in Kuwait and Iraq has been adjusted by the Army more than 176 times, or more than once every two days.
In addition, reservists with no more than two weeks' training were overseeing the contract at one point, said Neal Curtin, the GAO director charged with investigating Halliburton and other companies with logistics contracts. Even now, the Pentagon has only twice as many overseers monitoring contracts in Iraq as it did in Bosnia-Herzegovina, although it is spending 15 times as much money.
Other U.S. government actions also came under fire Tuesday.
The GAO found that most of the biggest contracts awarded without bidding in the early days of the war were justified by their emergency nature. But in some instances, the investigators said, Pentagon officers overstepped their authority by issuing billion-dollar jobs under existing contracts without putting the work out to bid, as required by law.
Pentagon procurement officials said significant progress had been made in Iraq, with new bridges, water systems and power stations up and running. But they acknowledged that mistakes were made, especially in the aftermath of the invasion.
"Have we accomplished this tremendous mission without missteps? No, we have not," said Tina Ballard, the Army's head of contracting.
As for Halliburton, which has Iraq contracts worth up to a total of $18.2 billion, Pentagon auditors believe the company has been billing taxpayers for millions of meals never served to U.S. troops. The auditors have recommended that the government withhold nearly $200 million in payments until the dispute is settled.
In a related development, the Army recently renegotiated a contract Halliburton had with a Kuwaiti company to provide meals. By contracting directly with the Kuwaiti company, the Army cut 40% off the cost.
"Halliburton is a company whose business base expanded extremely rapidly" after it won contracts for work in Iraq, said Bill Reed, the head of the audit agency. "They were not adequately prepared to keep pace."
The findings by unbiased sources add fuel to Democrats' efforts to draw attention to Halliburton, which was run by Vice President Dick Cheney from 1995 to 2000.
Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), one of Halliburton's fiercest critics, demanded that the committee probe more deeply into the links between Halliburton and Cheney.
Investigators testified that there had been no evidence that Cheney influenced the award of any contract to his former company, but Waxman said more investigation was necessary.
He cited recent revelations that a Pentagon political appointee had informed Cheney's chief of staff about a decision that led to a Halliburton subsidiary, KBR, winning a $7-billion contract to restore Iraq's oil infrastructure.
"Halliburton is gouging the taxpayer, and the Bush administration doesn't seem to care," Waxman said.
But Halliburton officials defended their actions in Iraq, saying they strongly disagreed with the auditors' contention on overbilling for meals.
"We expected there would be attempts before the end of June to deflect attention from the progress being made in Iraq, but we didn't think so much of it would originate here at home," Wendy Hall, a Halliburton spokeswoman, said in a statement. "It is one thing to learn through experience, as we have, that war is difficult, but another to find that critics are using the war for purely political purposes."
San Diego-based Titan Corp., which employed two people identified in the investigation into the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, also came under fire.
Auditors found that Titan was failing to keep track of its workers' hours, and they recommended withholding up to $4.9 million from the company's contract to supply translators to occupation forces in Iraq.
Titan also recently refunded the government $178,000 paid for the services of two workers named in the prison scandal. Titan officials said that although the company had yet to be informed of employee wrongdoing, it made the refund in case the government made that finding.
"We don't know what the investigation will entail, so we took the measure to be conservative," said Ralph "Wil" Williams, a Titan spokesman.

[cxt]

Akil

Heres a good questions for you.

Where are all the articles you have posted on the beheading of prisoners by our opponents?

Where are the articles you have posted on the treatment ie. cold blooded murder of prisioners in the hands of our opponents?

Where are the articles concerning the in-depth invistagations of prisioner abuse on the part of the folks we are fighting??

Oh, thats right ONLY the USA is held to any kind of "proper behavior" standards in your view.

No crime, no matter how awful is worth your comment--AS LONG AS IT DOES NOT INVOLVE A WESTERN NATION.
In which case its worthy of ad nausm posts

Equally--no crime is to great for you to OVERLOOK--AS LONG AS ITS A NON-WESTERNER THAT COMMITS IT.
Which means you don't talk about it, mention or respond to it.

From any rational, moral, ethical, intellectial position--thats just plain dishonest.

Your bigotry is both clear and little sad--esp in that you both asking and being asked direct question and not having the courage to actually respond to or answer them.

My "logic" ( and your articles) show that we are taking steps to correct the problem--thanks for showing that so clearly!!!

If only our opponents were making an equal attempt to behave as human beings.