Baghdad: Using up my nine lives

"After four months in Baghdad, I was finally able to get out. I am sorry for not updating this journal in a while, but things got very violent and exhausting there for a while. It was all I could to do to just get my pictures made, file and go to sleep. There was little time for calling home of checking email, much less writing all my thoughts down.
I had several close calls myself during that time period as well. About three weeks ago American troops shot up my car for no apparent reason. Alaa and I were approaching what looked like a US checkpoint and when we stopped to wait for a signal from the soldiers on whether we could continue to move forward, two soldiers ran toward us and shot our vehicle destroying our radiator, ac and fan. Four inches higher and this blog would never have been updated again. When I complained to the CPA about the incident, a soldier told me it was probably because of the kind of car we were in - a civilian Chevy caprice made in AMERICA. Ironic, but when you think about it, this shows the anger and distrust felt by US soldiers to the common Iraqi civilian.
Less than a week later, Alaa, Mitch and I were in my apartment having coffee and a car bomb exploded at the entrance to our building. The windows and doors shattered and the room was covered in dust, but we were ok. Mitch ran outside with his cameras to see what had happened, but I was too freaked to go. I just wasn’t prepared to see pieces of people, particularly because this time it would be people I knew. But after a few minutes, I regained my composure enough to go check out the damage. Fortunately, there were very few casualties as it was pretty early in the morning. Only a 12-year-old boy was killed who used to sell cigarettes and candy outside. Unfortunate, but not too bad an outcome when compared to the amount of deaths car bombs usually leave behind. And I will acknowledge that it is a sad day when the death of an innocent kid is not such a terrible thing when compared to expectations."

The Gipper and the Hedgehog: How an "amiable dunce" outsmarted the world.

"The innate and possibly genetically mandated stupidity of Republicans has long been treated as established scientific fact; it is so utterly beyond dispute that even a ninth-grade dropout like Cher, who once thought Mount Rushmore's heads were natural formations, can publicly declare George W. Bush "lazy and stupid" without fear of embarrassment. But however great a moron the current president is said to be, his dimwittedness pales beside that of Ronald Reagan. Even hardened journalists and academics, long resigned to their toil among the ignorant, have recoiled before the feeble-mindedness of Reagan. . . .
Yet if there was an eggplant where Reagan's brain should have been, how did he manage to win the Cold War? How did he bring a victorious end to an ideological and military deadlock that defied Kennedy's best and brightest, Johnson's political cunning, Carter's brilliance (certified not only by his nuclear physics degree but also by an Evelyn Wood speed reading diploma), Eisenhower's strategic prowess, and even Nixon's widely acknowledged (if not always admired) skills as a back-alley fighter? . . .
So how did Reagan do it? The answer, suggests Hoover Institution researcher and Cold War historian Peter Schweizer in his new book, Reagan's War, can probably be found in Isaiah Berlin's essay "The Fox and the Hedgehog." Berlin, musing on an obscure line penned by the Greek poet Archilochus, argued it was a modern typology. Archilochus wrote that the fox knows many things, while the hedgehog knows one big thing. Berlin characterized foxes as running hither and yon, taking actions that are unconnected by any guiding principle and that may even be at odds with one another. "Hedgehogs, on the other hand," writes Schweizer, "relate everything to a single central vision."

Oil: It's business as usual

"With US consumption projected to increase a third over the next 20 years - two-thirds of which will be imported by 2020 - the name of the game is reserves. The bulk of those reserves lie in the Middle East. Among Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, the Persian Gulf states control 65 percent of the world's reserves, or close to 600 billion barrels. In comparison, the US reserves are a little under 23 billion.
Whoever controls these reserves in essence controls the world's economy. Consider for a moment if the US were to use its power in the Middle East and its growing influence in Central Asia to tighten oil supplies to the exploding Chinese economy.
China currently uses only 8 percent of the world's oil, and accounts for 37 percent of consumption growth.
Lest anyone think this scenario is paranoid, try rereading Bush's June 2002 West Point speech, which clearly states that the US will not allow the development of any "peer competitors" in the world. That is what Cheney's energy-policy group meant by making "energy security a cornerstone of US trade and foreign policy".
So what does this have to do with Israel and the occupied territories? Israel may not have any oil, but it is the most powerful player in the Middle East. In the great chess game that constitutes oil politics, there are only two pieces left on the board that might check US plans to control the Middle East's oil reserves: Syria and Iran."

Beating Specialist Baker

"If Sean Baker doesn't sound like an Iraqi name, it isn't. Specialist Baker, 37, is an American, and he was a proud U.S. soldier. . . .
Then in January 2003, an officer in Guantánamo asked him to pretend to be a prisoner in a training drill. As instructed, Mr. Baker put on an orange prison jumpsuit over his uniform, and then crawled under a bunk in a cell so an "internal reaction force" could practice extracting an uncooperative inmate. The five U.S. soldiers in the reaction force were told that he was a genuine detainee who had already assaulted a sergeant. . . .
"They grabbed my arms, my legs, twisted me up and unfortunately one of the individuals got up on my back from behind and put pressure down on me while I was face down. Then he — the same individual — reached around and began to choke me and press my head down against the steel floor. After several seconds, 20 to 30 seconds, it seemed like an eternity because I couldn't breathe. When I couldn't breathe, I began to panic and I gave the code word I was supposed to give to stop the exercise, which was `red.' . . . That individual slammed my head against the floor and continued to choke me. Somehow I got enough air. I muttered out: `I'm a U.S. soldier. I'm a U.S. soldier.' "
Then the soldiers noticed that he was wearing a U.S. battle dress uniform under the jumpsuit. Mr. Baker was taken to a military hospital for treatment of his head injuries, then flown to a Navy hospital in Portsmouth, Va. After a six-day hospitalization there, he was given a two-week discharge to rest.
But Mr. Baker began suffering seizures, so the military sent him to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center for treatment of a traumatic brain injury. He stayed at the hospital for 48 days, was transferred to light duty in an honor burial detail at Fort Dix, N.J., and was finally given a medical discharge two months ago."

The larder is almost bare

"It has been an almost unprecedented run of misfortune: four back-to-back meagre harvests, as heat waves, drought and pestilence took their toll -- something that hasn't happened since at least 1960.
As a result, since the turn of the millennium, the amount of grain held in the world's stockpiles has been falling. At the end of the 2003 harvest, the amount of wheat, corn, rice and other grains had fallen to about 280 million tonnes. In 1999, it was more than 500 million.
That seems like a lot of grain because bakers can make about 2,000 loaves for every tonne of wheat milled into flour. But considering that the grain has to support both the world's human population and its billions of livestock, there is precious little to go around.
Measured against consumption, there is enough grain left in the planetary larder to last for only 59 days, one of the lower figures on record. After it is used up, people will go hungry if the next harvest fails."

Welcome to America

"Somewhere in central Los Angeles, about 20 miles from LAX airport, there is a nondescript building housing a detention facility for foreigners who have violated US immigration and customs laws. I was driven there around 11pm on May 3, my hands painfully handcuffed behind my back as I sat crammed in one of several small, locked cages inside a security van. I saw glimpses of night-time urban LA through the metal bars as we drove, and shadowy figures of armed security officers when we arrived, two of whom took me inside. The handcuffs came off just before I was locked in a cell behind a thick glass wall and a heavy door. No bed, no chair, only two steel benches about a foot wide. There was a toilet in full view of anyone passing by, and of the video camera watching my every move. No pillow or blanket. A permanent fluorescent light and a television in one corner of the ceiling. It stayed on all night, tuned into a shopping channel.
After 10 minutes in the hot, barely breathable air, I panicked. I don't suffer from claustrophobia, but this enclosure triggered it. There was no guard in sight and no way of calling for help. I banged on the door and the glass wall. A male security officer finally approached and gave the newly arrived detainee a disinterested look. Our shouting voices were barely audible through the thick door. "What do you want?" he yelled. I said I didn't feel well. He walked away. I forced myself to calm down. I forced myself to use that toilet. I figured out a way of sleeping on the bench, on my side, for five minutes at a time, until the pain became unbearable, then resting in a sitting position and sleeping for another five minutes. I told myself it was for only one night.
As it turned out, I was to spend 26 hours in detention. My crime: I had flown in earlier that day to research an innocuous freelance assignment for the Guardian, but did not have a journalist's visa."

What is wrong with the Americans?

"Academics who specialize in Iraq are fond of the phrase "the shadow society." The theory says there is a small group of influential families who rule Iraq socially and economically regardless of who rules politically. They are a tight-knit class that has survived the Ottoman and British Empires, the Hashemite monarchy and the various dictators who have come in their place.
Sheik Answar al-Asi is a prominent member of the "shadow society." He is known as the "Emir of the Arabs." Al-Asi is the top man in a hierarchical pyramid of tribes that give allegiance to one leader above a large collection of families, clans and larger tribal groupings. He is the perfect man to try to get an answer to the question: why is the American presence in Iraq failing? . . .
"Where are the contracts that the Americans have promised us? Everything in this country is built by someone else, some foreign company. Why would we help them if they do not share the wealth of our own country?"
Al-Asi describes Iraqis as children outside a candy store gazing in the window, anxious and envious but unable to touch any of the sweets. He is also dismissive of the claim that if the Americans were to leave there would be civil war."

No Real Choice

"The trouble is that Sen. John Kerry, as his campaign has developed, is saying essentially this: I support the same goals as President Bush, but I can pull them off better than he can.
What about those Americans who don't share President Bush's goals? What about those who don't think we should have a policy of pre-emptive war? What about those who think we should just pull out of Iraq now? What about those who think America's borders should be sealed? What about those who believe we should be fair-minded in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian issue instead of giving Israel a blank check?
Well, too bad. You can stay home. Once more, the Democratic Party is proving that it is not really a party of opposition, but rather a tweedledee to the Republican tweedledum. I had some hope and faith in Howard Dean, but unfortunately Kerry has decided to run on the platform "I am not Bush."
That might be OK for fanatic partisans who hate Bush personally and lust to get their hands on all of the presidential patronage. It is, however, a slap in the face to true self-government. The American people are entitled to decide the major policy issues of the day via elections. When both candidates are virtually interchangeable, the people are denied this opportunity, and for all practical purposes, we no longer have a truly democratic country."

SafeHaven.com: Put/Call Ratio Soaring

"In just the past couple weeks, an extremely intriguing anomaly has arisen in the US stock markets. The famous Put/Call Ratio 21-day moving average has soared above 1.00 for the first time in at least a decade! This odd development is vexing bulls and bears alike.
The Put/Call Ratio, or PCR, is a powerful technical trading indicator that monitors the stock and stock-index bets that speculators are making at any given time. Speculators who expect individual stocks or the indices to fall in the months ahead buy put options, derivatives bets which increase in value when prices decline. Speculators who expect rising prices buy call options, which promise hefty payouts on higher prices.
The PCR quantifies the ratio of the daily trading volume in these two opposing bets, granting speculators valuable insights into what the majority happens to be expecting. When the PCR is above 1.00, as today, it literally means that the daily trading volume on puts is higher than calls. Translated into pure sentiment terms, it indicates that the majority probably expects lower prices in the months ahead. And since we humans are naturally bullish, a PCR above 1.00 is an extraordinarily rare event."

The True Cost of Things

"The vast parking lot overflowed, the “deals” crowded like cornucopia in consumers’ carts, and all was well in their world.
Well, sure, there was that “Going Out of Business Sale” sign that appeared in one of the downtown store windows. But only one . . . well, maybe there were two or three after awhile. But no worries. It happens, you know, very sad to see them go, but after all, their prices were always a bit high, so it’s no wonder they went under. The independent bookstore, a fixture for 30 years—the store that people had deeply woven into their life stories—gone. The owners–your neighbors, your friends– moved away, disheartened and disillusioned. The hardware store, that ancient edifice, the old paradigm of personal, knowledgeable customer service—gone. Same with the sporting goods store. One by one, the downtown core, the heart and soul of the business community, dying away. And gradually, as stories of fear and financial failure from friends and acquaintances spread through the town, people finally began to wonder. How did this happen? Why are there no jobs anymore with decent wages? Why are the lines at the unemployment office growing even longer? Why have I lost touch with so many people I used to see downtown every week and share the local news with? Why do I have to drive all the way to the edge of town on a busy stop & go street just to buy something I need?"

Kerry 'Flips Off' Vietnam Vet

"Ted Sampley, a former Green Beret who served two full tours in Vietnam, spotted Kerry and his Secret Service detail at about 9:00 a.m. Monday morning at the Wall. Sampley walked up to Kerry, extended his hand and said, "Senator, I am Ted Sampley, the head of Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry, and I am here to escort you away from the Wall because you do not belong here."
At that point a Secret Service officer told Sampley to back away from Kerry. Sampley moved about 6 feet away and opened his jacket to reveal a HANOI JOHN T-shirt.
Kerry then began talking to a group of schoolchildren. Sampley then showed the T-shirt to the children and said, "Kerry does not belong at the Wall because he betrayed the brave soldiers who fought in Vietnam."
Just then Kerry - in front of the school children, other visitors and Secret Service agents - brazenly 'flashed the bird' at Sampley and then yelled out to everyone, "Sampley is a felon!"
Kerry was referring to an incident 12 years ago when Sampley confronted Sen. John McCain's chief aide, Mark Salter, in a Senate stairwell after McCain repeatedly offended POW families at a Senate POW hearing. Sampley, whose father-in-law at that time was MIA in Laos, followed Salter into the stairwell and, when they emerged, Salter had a bloody lip and a broken nose."

Le Monde: THE OUTLAW BUSH ADMINISTRATION

"Some people will say that no war is clean, that sadism is unfortunately inherent in human nature. But that is precisely why there are rules to protect combatants from individual acts of barbarism, or worse yet, from barbarism sanctioned by the state. Indeed this war above all others is a war of ideas: it loses all legitimacy if civil or military authorities decide to trample on human rights. . . .
A defeat for the United States in Iraq will entail grave consequences. Certainly,certain traditional "allies" of the United States who preferred to accommodate the existence of Saddam Hussein, and who did everything possible to prevent the UN from participating in this war, will bear some responsibility for this defeat. But such a defeat will be a defeat for all of the West and for all Arabs who hope for peace and political pluralism.
But it's even worse than a defeat. The pictures from Abu Ghraib threaten not only the moral authority of America, but our universal values, the first of which is the dignity of every human being. These images create the possibility of a world in which no state, no group, can ever again intervene anywhere in the name of human rights. These images betray all of us and weaken all of us in relation to a common enemy: a global, omnipresent enemy who has declared war on all of us and who neither negotiates nor places any value on human life. That enemy is Islamic totalitarianism."

Iraqi Claims Reasons For US Destroying Village Wedding

" "The American occupation forces knew full well that we were having a wedding party. They intentionally bombed the wedding because the guests included several tribal chiefs and prominent persons from the western part of Iraq. The occupation forces hated the people of this region because they have been helping occupation soldiers to escape from Iraq," said the uncle of the martyred bridegroom, a local Iraqi resident who gave his name as Abu 'Azzam. . . .
Abu 'Azzam told QudsPress, "we were able to smuggle a number of US Army officers who were fleeing from Iraq out of the country. The last operation we carried out was just a few days before the Americans bombed the wedding. In that operation we smuggled 13 American soldiers out of Iraq. But apparently the American forces got wind of what we were doing. They encircled the village and took people in for questioning. It was then that we came to understand that they meant to do us harm, because they were very angry." "

Advertising Damages Mental Health

"One of the best-known advertising ideologues, Jacques Sequeles from the Euro-RSCG agency formulated: "Advertising conquers everything and has become the schoolmaster of our children. They only sit for hours with their teachers but enthusiastically watch the television for a thousand hours. They sit glued or spellbound to our spots. Thus advertising becomes the schoolmaster for life." (6)
The power of pictures of visual communication is also unbroken in adult age. This power of virtual pictures is stronger than logical arguments. Even if you feel elevated above this, the tirade of advertising pictures is still drilled into you.
For that reason, all advertising works with pictures. Successful brands are word-pictures. Everyone knows the Coca Cola logo and the attitude toward life drummed into our heads by countless advertising spots and print campaigns. Everyone knows the Marlboro logo and identifies the logo with freedom and adventure, cowboy-romanticism and austere manliness. With an advertising budget of over 500 million DM (German marks), Telecom managed to convince thousands of fools to buy their worthless shares in a few days.
The first one who knew and used the power of media pictures and corporate identity, quasi-the father of advertising, was Adolf Hitler. No trademark was as well known as the swastika. No marketing campaign was as successful as the Nazis' campaign. While the people were dedicated to blond Aryan beauties, the feeling of happiness according to the Boy Scout style, the cult of the natural and true German, cloudless skies, powerful cars and gigantic, perfectly organized mass events, the opinion of the Fuhrer was echoed in public opinion. The first TV Olympiad of the world bombarded people with strong heroes on posters and statutes. Everyone who didn't correspond to this fascist ideal died in the concentration camps (KZs): Jews, gays, unionists, artists and communists.
Everyone believed this mammoth advertising campaign. No one was open to the logical arguments of resistance. This campaign was so successful that the (radioactively) contaminated today still speak of the Auschwitz lie. So much for the power of pictures and advertising propaganda.
Santa Claus is another, rather harmless example. Why does he wear this red coat? Why does he wear these boots and the red-white pointed cap? Because an American graphic designer drew him this way for Coca Cola many decades ago. Because Coca Cola consistently penetrated this image by spending billions over decades. Red and white as the colors of Coca Cola was a milestone in the history of marketing.
Pepsi strives for higher things. This corporation now attempts to protect a certain blue color as a trademark: Pepsi Blue. "

Blackout gave cities a breath of fresh air

"The blackout that left 50 million North Americans without power in August 2003 had an unexpected benefit - the air became cleaner. As power plants were turned down in south-east Canada and the north-east and mid-west US, levels of pollutants fell, says meteorologist Russell Dickerson. His team from the University of Maryland in College Park flew an aircraft over the middle of the blackout zone 24 hours after the power had gone down. "This was a unique opportunity to explore what would happen to air quality if power station emissions were reduced," he says. The team compared pollution levels over Pennsylvania with those on a similar hot, sunny day the year before. While there was no significant difference in levels of pollutants associated solely with traffic, other pollutants linked with power stations fell dramatically. Sulphur dioxide levels decreased by 90 per cent, there was around half the amount of ozone and visibility increased by 40 kilometres. "

Vanity Fair: Bonesmen ran Iran-Contra

"Many Bonesmen who had become C.I.A. operatives and government officials returned to the Tomb and discussed highly classified matters, as National-Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy reportedly did. "The things that fascinated me at Pat gatherings were the level of penetration ... and how open they were about talking in the Tomb," says a Bonesman who graduated in the 1980s. "They talked about foreign operations at the time, the stuff that became Iran-Contra. The level of trust was startling. It was like once you were trusted enough to get in, people just talked openly."

More quotes to come....

Taliban Told U.S. It Would Give Up Osama - Middleman

"U.S. and Taliban officials met secretly in Frankfurt almost a year before the Sept. 11 attacks to discuss terms for Afghanistan (news - web sites) to hand over Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), according to a German television documentary....
The documentary, broadcast Thursday evening, said the Afghans put forward "several offers" and there was talk of holding further negotiations at the U.S. embassy in Pakistan on where and when bin Laden would be handed over. In fact, no more talks took place before Sept. 11. But negotiations did resume five days after the attacks, in the Pakistani city of Quetta, ZDF said. This meeting has been reported in U.S. media. Mohabbat said the Americans pressed in Quetta for bin Laden's handover within 24 hours, but the Taliban were unable to meet that demand. Within weeks, U.S.-led forces intervened in Afghanistan to drive the Taliban from power and kill, capture or disperse al Qaeda fighters based in Afghan training camps. Bin Laden himself is still at large."

'Toxic dust' on computers linked to diseases

" "Toxic dust" found on computer processors and monitors contains chemicals linked to reproductive and neurological disorders, according to a new study by several environmental groups. The survey, released Thursday by Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, Computer TakeBack Campaign and Clean Production Action, is among the first to identify brominated flame retardants on the surfaces of common devices in homes and offices. Electronics companies began using polybrominated diphenyl (PBDEs) and other flame retardants in the 1970s, arguing that the toxins prevent fires and cannot escape from plastic casings. "This will be a great surprise to everyone who uses a computer," said Ted Smith, director of the Toxics Coalition. "The chemical industry is subjecting us all to what amounts to chemical trespass by putting these substances into use in commerce. They continue to use their chemicals in ways that are affecting humans and other species." "

Apprehension and Frustration: Neo-Cons on the Brink

"If Bush, Cheney, and Rove interfere with the election process, either by postponing the November 2 election because of an unspecified "terrorist" threat or other concocted reason, many in the senior levels of the military are prepared to honor their oath to the Constitution and protect our nation from enemies "domestic." That includes presidents and their staff who want to overturn the Constitution process for their own nefarious purposes.
A long time colleague, a well-known constitutional lawyer, told me that he would support the military taking such unprecedented action against an out-of-control executive branch. A seasoned Washington political observer, well known to television audiences, echoed the lawyer's sentiment - he even called for military trials of Bush, Cheney, and their henchmen after their ouster. Yes, the outrage factor is at an all time fever pitch. In my lifetime, I've seen nothing like it. Yet, it is wholly understandable. Every day the Bush regime outrages us and the world, the gulf widens between the reasoned masses and the perception managers and ideologues who surround the pathetic one in the White House."

An Interview w/Brian Greene: The Universe Made Simple

"Much of Greene's work focuses on string theory, a hypothesis that while as yet empirically unproved, is based on math so nearly perfect that many physicists believe there must be something to it. String theory seems to stand up better in situations like "time zero" than Einstein's relativity theories, which fail when applied to the very first instant of the Big Bang."

Crusade

"Last week, the president met with several members of the religious media. This week, during a trip West, he was scheduled to swing by Colorado Springs to kiss the ring of evangelical powerbroker James Dobson. Finally--and perhaps most impressively--on Thursday The New York Times broke the news that the Bush campaign is working to recruit literally thousands of "Friendly Congregations" to aid its reelection efforts by identifying volunteers willing to distribute campaign materials, facilitate voter registration, and pray for a plague of frogs to paralyze blue-state voting on election day. (Just kidding about that last part.) In Pennsylvania alone, 1,600 churches have been contacted.
This move, at least, captured the attention of Democrats, who promptly fired off outraged emails accusing the Bushies of mixing church and state. The Dems are right to be furious--and terrified. Rove has long vowed to make sure evangelical voters turn out this year in far greater numbers than in 2000."

Richard Rorty: Philosophical Convictions

"Richard Wolin thinks that it is not as easy as all that to separate the conduct of a philosopher from the utility of his ideas, or his moral character from his teachings. A distinguished intellectual historian who teaches at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Wolin believes that the prevalence of "slack postmodernist relativism" is very dangerous. "The postmodern left," he says, "risks depriving democracy of valuable normative resources at an hour of extreme historical need." His book seeks to demonstrate that "at a certain point postmodernism's hostility towards 'reason' and 'truth' is intellectually untenable and politically debilitating." Many of the essays that make up the book focus on the dubious--and sometimes appalling--political stances adopted by eminent post-Nietzschean thinkers. Wolin argues that their political attitudes are closely bound up with their anti-foundationalist philosophical views."

Civil Servants As the Enemy

"In 1969, President Richard Nixon appointed Rumsfeld, a 37-year-old congressman from Illinois, to head the Office of Economic Opportunity, which was responsible for overseeing the War on Poverty. Nixon wanted the agency restructured, and Rumsfeld, with the assistance of his chief aide, Cheney, quickly began bringing in management contractors to do the work of the agency's top civil servants.
In The Shadow Government, a 1976 book about the federal consulting industry, Daniel Guttman and Barry Willner quote Cheney as saying, "Don found himself with a bureaucracy that hated him.... [He] was forced to seek outside help. I remember Don reciting to me the Al Smith statement, 'If I don't look to my friends for help, who do I look to, my enemies?'" "

Pro-war US newspaper admits: Bush is a liar

"An unusually candid article in the May 31 edition of the Washington Post admits that President Bush is engaged in systematic lying to the American public to further his own reelection. The article, on the front page of the major daily newspaper in the US capital, was based on an extensive independent study of Bush’s campaign advertising and the Post’s own review of public statements by Bush campaign spokesmen."

“Why are they doing this to us?”

"He is a well spoken, handsome lawyer, just a year older than I am. He worked as a diplomat who coordinated NGOs and foreign governments in order to bring aid to his country during the sanctions. He was detained and accused of being a spy for Saddam Hussein, even though he is not even a Baathist. He was hung from his ankles for hours in Abu Ghraib, until he passed out. I ask him what else happened to him in there. He pulls up the legs of his trousers to show me two electrical burns on the inside of his knees, and points to two more on his elbows....
Or maybe you haven’t heard all of this already...
Maybe you didn’t hear that the lead CIA man who tortured him referred to himself as “Satan.” Or that while he was praying and reading his Koran female soldiers came in and flashed their breasts at him, then sexually humiliated and abused him."

Media Vows to Pry Open Closed Doors in Washington

"Press efforts to thwart government secrecy are moving forward on two fronts as Washington bureau chiefs unite to more aggressively cover federal government attempts to hide information and the head of Associated Press offers plans for a new open government lobbying center in Washington, D.C.
"We wanted to raise awareness that this is a growing problem for us," says Andy Alexander, D.C. bureau chief for Cox Newspapers and new chair of the American Society of Newspaper Editors' FOI Committee, who is leading the bureau chiefs' effort. "We have a special obligation to be more aware of threats to public information." "

Government's underground data mining

"Some of the highlights of the General Accounting Office report, which represents nearly a year of investigation:
• The Department of Homeland Security is creating an Incident Data Mart designed to assemble data from every state, local, and federal police agency and spot possible terrorist activities. The data mart will sort through logs of incidents, defined as any "event involving a law enforcement or government agency for which a log was created, e.g., traffic ticket, drug arrest, or firearm possession."
• Another data mart is across town at the FBI, which has compiled information from its own files, those of other federal agencies, and public data sources such as LexisNexis and court records. The purpose is "to determine unlawful entry" into the U.S. of potential terrorists.
• Four projects at the Defense Intelligence Agency seem to be the most far-reaching of the lot. Their purpose is to mine "data from the intelligence community and Internet searches to identify foreign terrorists or U.S. citizens connected to foreign terrorism activities."
• Even the Department of Education has a so-called Project Strikeback. That's designed to compare names in the department's databases with records supplied by the FBI and search "for anomalies" indicating "terrorist activities."

UN Says U.S. Soldiers Could Face War Crimes Charges

"Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights Bertrand Ramcharan said U.S.-led occupation forces had committed "serious violations" of international humanitarian law in Iraq (news - web sites) and had ill-treated ordinary Iraqis. In a report for the world body's Human Rights Commission, Ramcharan, a British-trained barrister from Guyana and long-time U.N. official, also said coalition troops were able to act with impunity and urged the appointment of an independent figure to monitor their behavior. In a clear reference to the Abu Ghraib incidents, since when several U.S. male and female soldiers working there have been detained, Ramcharan said "willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment" of detainees was a grave breach of international law. Such acts "might be designated as war crimes by a competent tribunal," he added."

Bush Knew About Leak of CIA Operative's Name

"Witnesses told a federal grand jury President George W. Bush knew about, and took no action to stop, the release of a covert CIA operative's name to a journalist in an attempt to discredit her husband, a critic of administration policy in Iraq....
Sources within the investigation say evidence points to Rove approving release of the leak. They add that their investigation suggests the President knew about Rove's actions but took no action to stop release of Plame's name."

Bush's medical sleight of hand

"According to Dr Paul Zeitz, president and executive director of the Global AIDS Alliance, the Bush administration's recent announcement of new “fast-track” approval of combination drugs for HIV/AIDS “looks great for public relations”. But, Zeitz contends that “Bush is slowing down an internationally recognised, World Health Organisation-run, multilateral approval process forgeneric AIDS medicines”. "

White House's taxing dilemma

"The report said that, through spending cuts and tax increases down the line, the result would be a transfer of up to $113bn (£61.5bn) in wealth from the bottom 80% of US households to the top 20%. This analysis is based on the assumption that the cuts will eventually have to be paid for. It uses two methods to calculate the impact: the first is that each household will pay the same percentage of their income to fund the tax cuts through direct and indirect means, and the second that each household will bear an equal burden for paying for the tax cuts. Households in the middle band of income are getting an average tax cut of $647 per year, but could end up between $230 and $870 worse off, according to the report. The lowest 20% of earners, who get an average tax cut of $19, would end up between $177 and $1,502 worse off, depending on which method of calculation is used. Households earning more than $1m get an average $136,398 tax cut, and would still end up between $59,637 and $134,877 up once the cuts are paid for."

Hiding the gulag

"Rumsfeld must know that getting lawyers to lie to judges, especially Supreme Court justices, is not easy; any lawyer caught doing so would be disgraced and probably disbarred. And he surely realized that if the high court learned of the human-rights violations in Abu Ghraib, it would severely undercut the administration’s requests for near-absolute executive autonomy in the war on terror. It would particularly undermine the government’s position in the Guantánamo case, where the government has argued that the courts should not have authority even to ask what goes on behind the barbed wire. So the OSG was almost certainly kept out of the loop and sent in ignorance to argue the cases before the justices."

Coup d'Etat in Washington and "The Dollar Paper Tiger"

"We bring to the attention of our readers this essay by Professor Andre Gunder Frank, one of the World's leading and most distinguished political economists. "

Artists Subpoenaed in USA Patriot Act Case

"Three artists have been served subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury that will consider bioterrorism charges against a university professor whose art involves the use of simple biology equipment.
The subpoenas are the latest installment in a bizarre investigation in which members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force have mistaken an art project for a biological weapons laboratory (see end for background). While most observers have assumed that the Task Force would realize the absurd error of its initial investigation of Steve Kurtz, the subpoenas indicate that the feds have instead chosen to press their "case" against the baffled professor."

Hold Up on E-voting by Gov. Howard Dean

"There is nothing partisan about the survival of our democracy or its legitimacy. We cannot and must not put the success of one party or another above the good of our entire country and all our people. To the governments of the 50 states, Republican or Democrat, I ask you to put paperless e-voting machines on the shelf until 2006 or until they are reliable and will allow recounts. In a democracy you always count the votes no matter who wins. To abandon that principle is to abandon America. "

The Justice Department's triumphant victory over the Constitution.

"The U.S. Constitution didn't simply hatch out of an egg one morning. Like the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights was largely conceived to correct for failures of earlier systems. In 1603 Sir Walter Raleigh was tried for treason and not permitted to cross-examine his accuser. This, it turns out, engendered unreliable evidence. The Sixth Amendment's confrontation clause was the constitutional remedy for this problem. Unremitting and unwanted prosecutorial interrogation could lead to false confessions. This made for unreliable evidence. The Fifth Amendment was, in part, the constitutional remedy for this. Years of delay prior to trials degraded evidence. The Sixth Amendment's right to a speedy trial was the constitutional remedy for this. Indefinite government detention without charges led to innocent men languishing in prison without recourse. The right to habeas corpus is thus codified in Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution to remedy this. We sometimes forget that the purpose of these and other constitutional protections is not only to let guilty guys roam free (attractive though that prospect may seem), the purpose is also to protect the quality of the evidence used in criminal trials. A conviction based on a tortured confession isn't justice. It's theater."

Did al-Qaida trainee warn FBI before 9/11?

"More than a year before 9/11, a Pakistani-British man told the FBI an incredible tale: that he had been trained by bin Laden’s followers to hijack airplanes and was now in America to carry out an attack.  The FBI questioned him for weeks, but then let him go home, and never followed up.  Now, the former al-Qaida insider is talking....
Khan remains surprised that, to this day, the FBI, CIA and Scotland Yard have never asked for his help in identifying the street address of the Lahore safe house where he and dozens of other men were trained.  He says he saw some identifying signs and might be able to locate it today. “I just surprised because [they] never come back to ask some more things," he said. "[The FBI] believed me, but maybe not seriously.” "

Bush's Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides

"President George W. Bush’s increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader’s state of mind. In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as “enemies of the state.” Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home. “It reminds me of the Nixon days,” says a longtime GOP political consultant with contacts in the White House. “Everybody is an enemy; everybody is out to get him. That’s the mood over there.” In interviews with a number of White House staffers who were willing to talk off the record, a picture of an administration under siege has emerged, led by a man who declares his decisions to be “God’s will” and then tells aides to “fuck over” anyone they consider to be an opponent of the administration."

Mueller Proposes New Intelligence Service Within FBI

"Some members of Congress question whether an agency devoted for decades to law enforcement can make intelligence a mission of equal or greater importance. Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., has been pushing for a new Homeland Intelligence Agency that would have no law enforcement duties or powers.
Edwards said recently, "What we need is a domestic intelligence agency that is focused on fighting terrorism here at home and having a watchdog in place to make sure our freedoms are protected." "

Can Bush Sack The Neo-cons?

"Although the Bush Administration is reluctant to admit it, the United States is facing what is arguably its worst crisis since the Second World War. It is a crisis of leadership, of reputation, of military capability and of moral authority. A radical change of strategy and of high-level government personnel is urgently required, but can the embattled President George W. Bush, whose qualities of mind and character leave much to be desired, bring it about?
Few observers believe he can rise to the challenge. Newsweek this week described the Administration as 'the most foolhardy civilian leadership in the modern history of the United States.' Referring to the war in Iraq, the news magazine wrote that 'American soldiers have been put in the wrong place at the wrong time for the wrong reasons.'"

US navy plans `show of force' off oil-rich West Africa

"A US navy battlegroup is to make a ``show of force'' in the oil-rich waters of the Gulf of Guinea, off west Africa, diplomats said Friday, as Washington hones plans to escape its dependence on unstable Middle Eastern supplies by securing more African crude. The foray by a heavily armed carrier group into the waters off Nigeria, Sao Tome, Equatorial Guinea and other African oil producers, comes at a time when fuel prices are topping the US political agenda and security crises in the Gulf region are pushing demands for greater diversification in energy supplies. An Abuja-based US diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity that the Gulf of Guinea was ``a place where there is not normally an American presence'' and described the operation as ``a show of force.''

Guess who's at super-secret Bilderberg meeting today

"Italy hosts 50th-anniversary confab of mysterious society of world leaders. Here is the partial guest list of the current meeting obtained by WorldNetDaily – which includes Senators John Edwards, D-N.C. and Jon Corzine, D-N.J., Henry Kissinger, Richard Perle, Melinda Gates (wife of Bill Gates), David Rockefeller, Timothy F. Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Donald Graham, chairman and CEO of the Washington Post Company, and even Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition.... Some observers are even speculating that President Bush will make an appearance at this year's event, just as Bill Clinton did at the group's 2000 meeting. By coincidence, it just happens that Bush will be in Italy over the weekend …"

Enron Tapes Should Be Nail in Coffin of Schwarzenegger

"These tapes are like an alarm clock that should wake you out of the dream that deregulation can work... (Lawmakers who passed the first deregulation) did not have the benefit of these tapes or the blackouts or bailouts or bankruptcies that came along with energy deregulation. These tapes lay out the foul and indecent truth that unregulated energy companies will never deliver reliable electricity because they are paid more when energy is scarce and the supply unreliable. You cannot ignore these warnings," FTCR's letter concluded.

U.S. has the highest rate of mental illness

"Mental illnesses including anxiety disorders and depression are common and undertreated in many countries, both developed and developing, with the highest rate found in the United States, according to a study of 14 countries.
Based on face-to-face diagnostic surveys in the homes of 60,463 adults, the study found that mental ailments affect more than 10 percent of people queried in more than half the countries surveyed.Nigerians appeared to have the lowest prevalence of mental illness, 4.7 percent, but the researchers think the actual number is probably much higher as residents of the violence-prone West African nation may be hesitant to confide in strangers. The highest rate was found in the United States, with 26.4 percent."

The NASCAR Nazi

"America is a wonderfully resilient country, but I don’t know if it could recover from another four years of Bush degrading our democracy and coarsening our spirit. Since when did torture become okay with us? When did rights and justice come to be viewed as impediments to our way of life? When did premeditated pre-emptive murder become a righteous cause? We are on the slope to depravity, led by a NASCAR Nazi who talks about Jesus while acting like a Roman emperor."