[Ninong]

Originally Posted by WHOSYOURDADDY

The question comes down is why would they be making statements they now are not true?

Maybe you're talking about Dick Cheney's statement that the insurgency is in "the last throes?" That's certainly not true. At least General William Webster, the U.S. commander for Baghdad, said exactly that on Saturday: "Certainly saying anything about 'breaking the back' or 'about to reach the end of the line' or those kinds of things do not apply to the insurgency at this point."

So who should we believe? Should we believe Five Deferments "other priorities" Dick or the U.S. commander in Baghdad? One of them is lying.

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by WHOSYOURDADDY

The question comes down is why would they be making statements they now are not true?

Maybe you were talking about Bush telling us there were WMD in Iraq when there weren't.

Maybe you were talking about Bush telling us Saddam had ties to al-Qaida when he didn't.

Maybe you're talking about Cheney telling us Saddam's agents had met with Mohammad Atta in Prague, when they didn't.

Maybe you're talking about Bush telling us Saddam tried to buy yellow cake uranium in Niger, when he didn't. In fact, the documents that that claim was based on are so phony that a third grader could see through them.

Maybe you're talking about Rumsfeld telling us the troops are well equipped, when they aren't. They still don't have enough body armor plates for their vests.

Maybe you're talking about the DOD lying to us about what really happened to Pat Tillman and lying to his parents.

Maybe you're talking about Bush saying that we had to invade Iraq because Saddam was not complying with the UN inspections when he actually was. We would never have gone to war if the UN inspections had continued because they would still be looking for all those WMD.

Maybe you're talking about Bush telling us Mission Accomplished more than two years ago and yet things are even worse now than they were then.

Maybe you're talking about Bush telling us that only six or seven grunts were responsible for a few isolated incidents at Abu Ghraib when that was a big lie.

Maybe you're talking about Bush telling us seven months before the Iraq war that he hadn't yet decided to invade when he had.

[Ninong]

"I'd read the intelligence on WMD for four and a half years, and there's no way that it could sustain the case that the government was presenting. All of my colleagues knew that, too".

He thought about publishing his testimony because he felt so angry. But he was warned that if he did he might be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/...510259,00.html

[Ninong]

DURBIN SAID NOTHING WRONG: I've now read and re-read Senator Dick Durbin's comments on interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay. They are completely, perfectly respectable. The rank hysteria being perpetrated by some on the right is what is shameful. Hugh Hewitt should answer one single question: does he doubt the FBI interrogator who witnessed the appalling treatment of some detainees at Guantanamo? Here's the report:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food, or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold... On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor."

Is Hewitt arguing that the interrogator was lying? Does he believe that the kind of tactics used against this prisoner are worthy of the United States? Does he believe that this happened without authorization? If he were told this story and informed that it occurred in, say, Serbia under Milosevic, would he be surprised? Hewitt should then answer the same question about the 5 detainees which the U.S. government itself has acknowledged were tortured to death by U.S. interrogators, and the scores of others who died in detention during or after "interrogation". Does he deny that this happened? Does he honestly believe that removing the legal restrictions on cruel and inhumane treatment of detainees by our current president had nothing to do with this? Maybe he needs a little refresher on the extraordinary range and scale of the record of abuse that is still accumulating. I'm just amazed that some can view what has happened and their first instinct is to attack those who have criticized it, rather than those who have perpetrated it. It is this administration that has brought indelible shame on America, and it's people like Dick Durbin who prove that some can actually stand up against this stain on American honor and call it what it is. Good for him. Thank God for him.



Andrew Sullivan's bio: http://www.tnr.com/showBio.mhtml?pid=30

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by WHOSYOURDADDY

With the spouting of false rumors and allegtions to what could be consider traitorous statements, that put the very lives of our military and civilian personal lives in jeapordy.

Why are you not making one note or word about those individuals and their negative impact on the lives of those currently over in Iraq?

Why is it traitorous to speak the truth? The truth will set you free.

What about the comments of Karen Meredith that I have copied below? Would she be considered a traitor in your view?

From Karen Meredith of Mountain View, Calif.:

"My only child, Lt. Ken Ballard, was 26 years old when he was killed in Najaf, Iraq, on 5-30-04. My son saved the lives of 60 men that horrible night – they all got to go home to their families. He was one of three soldiers in his battalion killed after they were extended with the First Armored Division.

"After I read the notes from the meeting at Downing Street, I knew that his fate was decided and he was a dead man in July 2002, when that meeting took place.

"How sad that I didn't know then – just two months after he was commissioned an officer in the U.S. Army, just two months after he took an oath to obey the orders of the President of the United States – that his fate was already determined by a corrupt administration. Members of the Bush Administration lied repeatedly to this country when they told us time and again that no decision to go to war had been made.

"And how devastating to know that if the administration had planned for more ground strength, my son might be alive today.

"I belong to a group called Gold Star Families for Peace. The most difficult thing we encounter when we speak out against the war is that most of us are not anti-military and would never malign the soldiers or their service to this country. My son was a fourth-generation Army officer.

"But our members provide witness to the lies that resulted in our children being killed. We are all trying to put some sanity in this world gone mad. "

[Ninong]

Should we believe people like Cheney and Rumsfeld or should we believe the Marine Corps inspector general's report that was submitted to Congress yesterday?


Here's something else you probably won't hear too much about from Cheney or Rumsfeld.

[Ninong]

DURBIN, AGAIN: I'm a little bemused by some of the emails saying that I've gone crazy about Dick Durbin. They're missing an important nuance. If Durbin had said, as Amnesty unfortunately did, that Gitmo was another Gulag, I'd be dismayed and critical, as I was with Amnesty. There's no comparison in any way between the scale, intent and context of the Soviet gulags and Gitmo. If Durbin had said that what was being done there in the aggregate was comparable to Auschwitz or Siberian death camps, the same would be true. But Durbin said something subtler. Now I know subtlety is not something that plays well on talk radio. But in this case, it matters. Durbin focused on one very credible account of inhumane treatment and abuse of detainees (see below) and asked an important question:

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."

So go ahead: answer his implied question. If you had been told that prisoners had been found in this state in one of Saddam's or Stalin's jails, would you have believed it? Of course, you would. In fact, I spent much time and effort before the war documenting the cruel and inhumane conduct of the regime we were trying to destroy - a regime whose cruelty encompassed low-level inhumanity like Gitmos - and, of course, unimaginably worse.



ONE ACT AT A TIME: When you read the account Durbin was citing you notice an important thing: the detainees were thoroughly dehumanized, robbed of any personal dignity, left in extremes of heat and cold, shackled, covered in their own urine and excrement, with one having apparently torn parts of his hair out, and left without food or water for up to 24 sleepless hours. Durbin could have quoted worse incidents - and there are many, far worse cases - but he wanted to ensure that his incident was testified by an FBI official. The moral question that Durbin is absolutely right to raise is a simple one: two years ago, would you have ever believed that the United States would be guilty of such a dehumanized treatment of a prisoner in its care? If the particulars had been changed, would you have believed that such a thing could have happened in a totalitarian regime's prison? Does the way in which human beings have been completely robbed of dignity, treated cruelly and turned figuratively into "barking dogs" shock your conscience? The moral question is not simply of degree - how widespread and systematic is this kind of inhumanity? It is of kind: is this the kind of behavior more associated with despots than with democracies? Of course it is. When a country starts treating its prisoners like animals, it has lost its moral bearings; and, in the case of the United States, is also breaking its own laws (and, in this case, the president has declared himself above the law). I don't know about Hugh Hewitt, Bill Kristol or NR, but I supported this war in large part because I wanted to end torture, abuse and cruelty in Iraq. I did not support it in order, two and a half years later, to be finding specious rhetorical justifications for torture, abuse and cruelty by Americans. I'm sick of hearing justifications that the enemy is worse. This is news? This is what now passes for analysis? They are far, far worse, among the most despicable and evil enemies we have ever faced. Our treatment of their prisoners is indeed Club Med compared to their fathomless barbarism. But since when is our moral compass set by them? The West is a civilization built on a very fragile web of law and humanity. We do not treat people in our custody as animals. We do not justify it. We do not change the subject. We do not accuse those highlighting it of aiding the enemy. We do not joke about it. We simply don't do it. This administration - by design, improvisation, desperation, arrogance, incompetence, and willful blindness - has enabled this to occur. They must be held accountable until this cancer is rooted out for good. It has metastasized enough already.

[schrocat]

The West is a civilization built on a very fragile web of law and humanity. We do not treat people in our custody as animals. We do not justify it. We do not change the subject. We do not accuse those highlighting it of aiding the enemy. We do not joke about it. We simply don't do it.

nice.

[Ninong]

Yeah, Rush is a riot alright. I wonder if he has any T-shirts that say that Abu Ghraib was just "frat hazing." That's what he called it when the story broke.

I'm still waiting to see if he's going to accept the deal the prosecutors offered him. He needs to cop to a single third degree felony count and he would get three years probation and community service. Seems like a slap on the wrist to me but I guess that's because he has no priors. So far he has refused. They could hit him with 10 felony counts if they wanted to get tough.

Rush has an inflated opinion of himself. I couldn't stand him when he was in Sacramento. One poor young woman who was an advertising account rep for a local radio station in San Francisco tried to sell me on buying time on his program. I looked at her like she was out of her mind. "You want me to buy time on Rush Limbaugh's show for the San Francisco market? Are you crazy?" She thought that since our product was very upscale that our customers would be fans of Rush Limbaugh. In an area that gave Bush 15% of the vote in the last election, she thought Limbaugh would be a good fit!

[schrocat]

Rush miscalculated the Schaivo reaction and hasn't caught a break since.

I think the unexpected Arbitron ratings plummet he and Hannity enjoyed last Dec\January was the catalyst for their decision to exploit the whole Terry affair.
The ratings slip was expected and didn't require the extreme slander and outrageous lies the two fine journalists whipped up for their audiences.

oh.... and people getting slowly fed up with his steady diet of poorly constructed and poorly timed 8th grade humor doesn't help

He better pray she runs...(and I'm sure he does.)

[Ninong]

Have you seen the latest approval ratings on Dubya and the Governator?

Dubya's overall job approval numbers have slipped to the mid 40's, which is only a drop of about five points but Ah-nult's job approval numbers have dropped from the high 60's to the low 30's. The latest poll gives him 31% overall job approval from all adults in California and 37% from registered voters. As recently as February, he had 54% approval from registered voters. A year ago his approval rating was 67%, in a state with more Democrats than Republicans.

I guess there's no need to rush that bi-partisan effort to amend the Constitution to allow a foreign born U.S. citizen who has been here at least 20 years to run for President.

Bush's recent polls numbers are really shocking. On his handling of Iraq, he's down to 37%. On his handling of Social Security, he's at 25%. On a side note, the approval numbers for Congress are really low, too, but the Republicans are lower than the Democrats. Somehow or other I don't think most Americans think that the Terri Schiavo matter or the percentage of Senators required to invoke cloture are the most pressing issues of the day.

[Ninong]

The prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has joined the British medical journal, The Lancet, in criticism of U. S. treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...acodalogin=yes

I wonder if all those doctors are Democrats? Most of the doctors I know are Republicans? Maybe these are the liberal Democrats Karl Rove said want to provide therapy to the terrorists? Yeah, I'll bet that's it. I'll bet all of the doctors are now liberal Democrats.

America: Still no Dr. Mengele!



Karl Rove, looking so macho and patriotic!

[schrocat]

Is it just me?

Or does that couple look like they wish they were at another parade?

[Ninong]

Top five Gitmo falsehoods

In recent weeks, the debate over the Pentagon detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has garnered increased coverage on cable and network news programs. But as Media Matters for America documents below, conservative media figures have often attempted to downplay the severity of the alleged abuses at Guantánamo, dismiss every detainee as a terrorist unprotected by international law, and distort criticism of the Bush administration's detention policy.

Falsehood #1: Abuse at Guantánamo is "minor," allegations are based on "rumor"

Conservative commentators have repeatedly attempted to dismiss the alleged detainee abuse at Guantánamo as unsubstantiated or harmless. But these claims ignore firsthand accounts by FBI agents and human rights monitors that paint a much grimmer picture of detainee treatment at Guantánamo.

In a series of emails and letters, which the American Civil Liberties Union first obtained in December 2004 through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, FBI agents described graphic instances of abuse by interrogators at Guantánamo that the agents personally witnessed. In one email, an FBI agent described the interrogation methods employed by Department of Defense officials as "torture techniques." An email by deputy assistant FBI director for counterterrorism T.J. Harrington detailed several agents' accounts of abusive treatment, including one in which a female sergeant "grabbed detainee's thumbs and bent them backwards and indicated that she also grabbed his genitals." Worse, the sergeant warned that past interrogations had left other "detainees curling into a fetal position on the floor and crying in pain." Harrington also included an account of a detainee being "subjected to intense isolation for longer than three months ... in a cell that was always flooded with light," which led to him showing signs of "extreme psychological trauma (talking to non existent people, reporting hearing voices, crouching in a cell covered with a sheet for hours on end).' " A third FBI document described a detainee "chained hand and foot to the floor" and subjected to food deprivation and temperature extremes. "The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor with a pile of hair next to him," the FBI agent wrote. "He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night."

Further, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has described prisoner abuse at Guantánamo. The New York Times, which first obtained a memo that summarizes the confidential report of the ICRC, reported that the Red Cross delegation cited the use of "temperature extremes, persistent noise, and 'some beatings.' "

Falsehood #2: All Guantánamo detainees are confirmed terrorists

Numerous media figures have stated or suggested that the prisoners held at Guantánamo are all terrorists. On the June 21, 2004, edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly stated, "From what I understand, they had -- they took most of [the Guantánamo detainees], like 95 percent of them, off the battlefield, number one. So what the heck were they doing there?"

More recently, Fox host John Gibson asserted that "We have 520 terrorists where we want them, with our boot on their neck." [Fox News' The Big Story with John Gibson, 6/15/05]

But the Pentagon's decision to release numerous Guantánamo detainees suggests that many were not terrorists. In a letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Matthew Waxman reportedly wrote that, as of April 2005, "167 [Guantánamo] prisoners had been released and 67 had been transferred to the custody of other countries." The 167 detainees released were presumably found not to be terrorists, as in the cases of Abdul Rahim and Mamdouh Habib. Both men were captured in Pakistan following September 11, 2001. The U.S. later transferred them to Guantánamo, where they remained for more than two years, accused -- but never charged -- of involvement in terrorist activities. In 2005, the United States released them without charge.

Falsehood #3: The Geneva Conventions apply only to prisoners of war

Numerous media figures have defended the harsh treatment of Guantánamo detainees by claiming that the Geneva Conventions apply exclusively to prisoners of war (POWs). Though many legal scholars agree that Al Qaeda detainees are not entitled to POW status under the Third Geneva Convention, which details protections specifically for POWs, the Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV) grants different protections to non-POWs.

But the U.S. Army's own field manual states that GCIV protects "all persons who have engaged in hostile or belligerent conduct but who are not entitled to treatment as prisoners of war."

Even the White House has acknowledged that the Geneva Conventions grant protections to some detainees who are not POWs. On May 7, 2003, the White House announced that President Bush had revised his earlier determination and decided that the conventions would apply to the suspected Taliban (but not Al Qaeda) detainees held at Guantánamo even though they are not POWs. Then-press secretary Ari Fleischer explained:

FLEISCHER: Although the United States does not recognize the Taliban as a legitimate Afghani government, the President determined that the Taliban members are covered under the treaty because Afghanistan is a party to the Convention. Under Article 4 of the Geneva Convention, however, Taliban detainees are not entitled to POW status.

Falsehood #4: Enemy combatants do not qualify for protection under the Fourth Geneva Convention



Some conservatives have disputed whether the Guantánamo detainees even qualify for protections under GCIV. Their common argument is that GCIV applies specifically to civilians, thereby excluding so-called "illegal enemy combatants."

Again, the Army's field manual recognizes GCIV protections for non-POWs "engaged in hostile or belligerent conduct."

Further, the ICRC -- the organization that pioneered the concept of international humanitarian law and has monitored compliance with the Geneva Conventions for more than 140 years -- concluded in a 2003 legal analysis that "unlawful combatants" are entitled to protections under GCIV, citing its 1958 analysis of GCIV, which stated:

Every person in enemy hands must have some status under international law: he is either a prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third Convention, a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention, [or] a member of the medical personnel of the armed forces who is covered by the First Convention. There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can fall outside the law. (Commentary: IV Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Geneva, 1958)

Falsehood #5: Detainees captured on the "battlefield" are not criminal defendants, so they have no right to petition U.S. courts



A June 22 Washington Times editorial warned, "If the critics are right, and detained terrorists have an inalienable right to access U.S. courts, then they have created a new standard -- one which has no precedent in the Geneva Conventions, the Constitution or U.S. history."

But it is not merely "critics" who have taken the position that the detainees "have access to U.S. courts"; the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that detainees have the right to challenge the legality of their detentions in federal court. In Rasul v. Bush, the high court ruled that the "United States courts have jurisdiction to consider challenges to the legality of the detention of foreign nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities and incarcerated at Guantánamo Bay."

Conservatives also have attempted to paint opponents of the Bush administration's detention policy as advocates of granting detainees the full due process rights that U.S. citizens enjoy. The Times, for example, referred to "the current effort to treat Guantanamo detainees like American criminals, with full access to our courts." In fact, while "critics" have frequently argued that detainees must have some legal recourse to challenge their detention, Media Matters for America found no instances of human rights groups or elected officials arguing that the detainees have the same constitutional rights as U.S. citizens or that they deserve the same treatment as "American criminals."

http://mediamatters.org/items/200506230006

[schrocat]

Is Dick Cheney the New 'Baghdad Bob'?
Is it just me, or is Vice President Cheney, who repeated Thursday that the Iraq insurgency is in its final throes, starting to sound like former Saddam spokesman, "Baghdad Bob"? Is it time to start calling him "D.C. Dick"?

-Greg Mitchell

[Ninong]

From www.crooksandliars.com --


As Bush prepares to calm our fears about Iraq tonight.

In 1999, George W. Bush criticized President Clinton for not setting a timetable for exiting Kosovo, and yet he refuses to apply the same standard to his war.

George W. Bush, 4/9/99: "Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is.” And on the specific need for a timetable, here’s what Bush said then and what he says now:

George W. Bush, 6/3/99: “I think it’s also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn.”

VERSUS

George W. Bush, 6/24/05: “It doesn’t make any sense to have a timetable. You know, if you give a timetable, you’re — you’re conceding too much to the enemy.”


P.S. -- We all remember Operaton Allied Force. That was the NATO military operation led by NATO's Supreme Allied Commander, General Wesley Clark, that saved millions from 'ethnic cleansing.'

P.P.S. -- Some Republicans were urging that we not get involved in that problem in Bosnia because "we were brought up as Christians." You see, it was the Christian Serbs who were 'cleansing' the Bosnian Muslims. Some Republicans were of the opinion that we had no business getting involved on the side of the Muslims.

Typical of those Republicans who felt that way was Rep. Randy Cunningham:

“Now we need to take a look at who befriended us. . . . While the Serbs, since before King Peter I, had been rooted in democracy, the United States has supported the Croatians and the [Bosnian] Muslims . . . .”


“Why can’t we have a debate on the House floor for the first time on the Balkans and the Serbian position, and I am going to do that, ladies and gentlemen.” “The first thing we can do, I think, is to pray because we were brought up as Christians. . . . The United States needs to stay out of the war crimes issue. . . . be very careful that you don’t, in hysteria, charge a patriot and make that individual into a criminal who is not, because that is just as big of a crime.”

This is the invididual Randy Cunningham said we should not make into a criminal. We should have stayed out of the war crimes issue. Milosevic was obviously just a good Christian patriot.

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by Ninong

The prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has joined the British medical journal, The Lancet, in criticism of U. S. treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...acodalogin=yes

I wonder if all those doctors are Democrats? Most of the doctors I know are Republicans? Maybe these are the liberal Democrats Karl Rove said want to provide therapy to the terrorists? Yeah, I'll bet that's it. I'll bet all of the doctors are now liberal Democrats.

America: Still no Dr. Mengele!



Karl Rove, looking so macho and patriotic!

Here is another doctor who is definitely speaking out about torture. I don't know if he's a Democrat or a Republican. All I know is that he was Presidential Physician to President George H. W. Bush for four years:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...063001680.html

[WHOSYOURDADDY]

I see that simply allegations of so called abuse is constantly being pushed. State the Facts. Where is the abuse as alledged?

The facts do not support the liberial biasness that is noted here and by the choices of articles. Maybe Bagdad Bob is actually Ninong and those who choose to push unsupported alegations and fantasy.

Here are the real facts.

The Mirror attacks the US for the treatment of the prisoners, saying things like "For 167 of the 168 hours in a week their world is a cramped 8ft x 6ft 8in cell." Of course that isn't that bad. I've lived in smaller rooms. I didn't enjoy it, but I wasn't there because I was involved in the murder of 3,000 people -- I was there because I chose to be (military service - Army).

I find it interesting that Horologium says "And here's a news flash for you—they're prisoners of war! Conditions are not supposed to paradisal." This, of course, is not true. The detainees at Gitmo are not POWs -- the Administration refuses to classify them as such. They're "battlefield detainees" and the Administration swears up and down that the Geneva Conventions don't apply.

Even so the prisoners seem to be treated pretty well, even getting 2,700 calories a day -- more, I think, than my daily caloric intake. As Horologium points out, they're probably the best treated prisoners of war in history. Never has such a spotlight been shown on the treatment of POWs (or "detainees") and often we see photographs from Vietnam or World War II of prisoners bound with duct tape, their faces covered in tape. We don't see that at Gitmo.


So where is the torture and abuse that is being claimed at Gitmo?


Maybe those who live in CA might actually come to the east coast and visit
Norfolk Naval Station (which is the HQ Command) for GITMO and open your eyes to what is really going on (abuse by prisoners to their military guards and visitors). Oh but thats right, political liberals really don't care about the truth or finding out what the truth really is.

[schrocat]

The abuse was described in an FBI report. Not a shadowy liberal website.

Senator Dirigible quoted from it. Remember?

How would visiting the visitors center of NNS in Norfolk do anything to shine light on a detention center in Cuba?

[schrocat]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americ...itmo.shepperd/

"We saw no evidence of mistreatment, nor would one expect to on a planned visit. We didn't talk to detainees, rules prevent it, but the Red Cross does. They have unfettered access."


So I would guess a Red Cross assesment could be a pretty good gauge.