“We want our teachers to be trained so they can meet the obligations, their obligations as teachers. We want them to know how to teach the science of reading. In order to make sure there’s not this kind of federal — federal cufflink.”
— Bush at the Fritsche Middle School, Milwaukee, March 30, 2000.
Say what?
Man, he should really seek permission before speaking.
blood pressure dropping, high fever said to be due to urinary infection, lights on, drs there, giving him antibiotics, per MSNBC, all crusadenets appear to have gone wall to wall.
I went back to BBC World News as a defense against atonal noise news. I care about the Pope, but I do not need to hear endless discussion about his health and treatments.
Well, BBC WN is discussing subjects like Iran, the price per barrel of oil, age discrimination in the U.S., and more. The English are so quaint.
per CNN domestic TV
Yes, isn’t news like that just so veddy English and quaint. So glad we don’t have anything so quaint and unforward thinking here.
The Pentagon’s Secret Stash
The images, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress, depict “acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel, and inhuman.” After Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) viewed some of them in a classified briefing, he testified that his “stomach gave out.” NBC News reported that they show “American soldiers beating one prisoner almost to death, apparently raping a female prisoner, acting inappropriately with a dead body, and taping Iraqi guards raping young boys.” Everyone who saw the photographs and videos seemed to shudder openly when contemplating what the reaction would be when they eventually were made public.
But they never were. After the first batch of Abu Ghraib images shocked the world on April 28, 2004, becoming instantly iconic–a hooded prisoner standing atop a box with electrodes attatched to his hands, Pfc. Lynndie England dragging a naked prisoner by a leash, England and Spc. Charles Graner giving a grinning thumbs-up behind a stack of human meat–no substantial second round ever came, either from Abu Ghraib or any of the other locations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay where abuses have been alleged. ABC News broadcast two new photos from the notorious Iraq prison on May 19, The Washington Post printed a half-dozen on May 20 and three more on June 10, and that was it.
“It refutes the glib claim that everything leaks sooner or later,” says the Federation of American Scientists’ Steven Aftergood, who makes his living finding and publishing little-known government information and fighting against state secrecy. “While there may be classified information in the papers almost every day, there’s a lot more classified information that never makes it into the public domain.”
It’s not for lack of trying, at least from outside the government. Aftergood, for example, sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the Defense Department on May 12, asking generally for “photographic and video images of abuses committed against Iraqi prisoners” and specifically for the material contained on three compact discs mentioned by Rumsfeld in his testimony. The Defense Department told him to ask the U.S. Central Command, which sent him back to Defense, which said on second thought try the Army’s Freedom of Information Department, which forwarded him to the Army’s Crime Records Center, which hasn’t yet responded. “It’s not as if this is somehow an obscure matter that no one’s quite ever heard of,” Aftergood notes.
Officials have given two legal reasons for suppressing images of prisoner abuse: “unwarranted invasion of privacy” and the potential impact on law enforcement….link
mixed feelings on this. I think those pictures are so inflammatory that they would motivate people to take revenge on innocent people like me.
But, covering them up also allows the behavior to continue.
I don’t know what I want.
The reality is that those pictures are already burned forever in the minds of the survivors, and every person who loved the victims, and every person in every nation, and that list of nations keeps getting longer, who knows that tomorrow, it will probably be their own loved one, or themselves.
Rule of law. If we truly believe in that there is no choice. There can be no coverup.
attributed to Sir Thomas Moore
I don’t necessarily agree that a failure to show all the pictures amounts to a cover-up. We don’t need to see them all. But we do need to act with seriousness about prosecuting those involved, their superiors, when they were complicit, etc.
so they should be able to see it, as documentation that their money was and continues to be spent according to their wishes and desires.
However, that is an internal matter for the US.
Regarding prosecution of all participants, authors, masterminds, henchmen, financiers, and the complicit, I agree that it would have been preferable for that to occur voluntarily, as would have been an immediate and abrupt change of government, policy, cessation of aggression, repatriation of gunmen, etc. but a different choice was made.
If we are to hold individuals responsible then the all of the evidence must be presented in an open court, otherwise we undermine the concept of justice. Withholding the totality of the evidence will only feed conjecture and innuendo on the part of those who profess guilt – “they didn’t show the bad stuff” – or those who profess innocence – “they didn’t show anything”. That ill serves justice in our eyes and in the eyes of the world.
by it’s very nature probably invented the phrase ‘unintended consequences’…which everyone who signs off on war should know or be made to realize.
My understanding from various reports including Lindsey Graham was that there were over 2000 pictures.(and videos). While the public might not need to see all 2000 I think they should see a whole lot more than what has trickled out.
The only way much of the general public will realize how wrong, illegal and horrific this is, is to have these pictures made public so they rise up and demand that people are held accountable.
That will be the only way this country could get any sort of honor back…to prosecute to the fullest everyone involved. That means starting at the top. That’s the only way the rest of the world will even begin to take us seriously on any kind of human rights issues.
The truth is always cleaner in the short run and the long run.
Uhoh … the angry brother is coming up to the mike (on FOX)
I went to BBC World News but got sucked back in .. oh well .. it won’t last long
makes my head hurt. To this day I still can’t believe that someone that inherently stupid and bull-headed was elected to lead our country. Especially the stupid part. ELECTED. We the people had a choice, and we sent him there TWICE. What a combination–fervent religious conviction, tunnel vision, an IQ of like 82, and power. The man never really held down a job, dissed out on his “service” in the Guard, is incapable of off-the-cuff coherent speech, but he is a two-term president. My dog is more qualified–and my wife voted for him twice. Excuse me, I feel the need to vomit.
related to absolutely nothing:
Oregon teen on Interstate 205 caught driving 142 mph
OREGON CITY, Ore. — State trooper Matt Klare’s beat is Interstate 205, and he’s used to clocking drivers who are cruising along at 10, 15, even 20 miles over the posted 55 mile per hour speed limit.
But 87 miles over the limit? That’s another story.
Klare clocked Ryan Allan Champ, 19, of Oregon City, driving 142 mph early yesterday, the second fastest stop ever record by the Oregon State Police. (The record is 159 mph, set in 1993 on the Astoria Megler Bridge.)
When Klare caught up with Champ and his souped-up 1992 Honda Civic at a stoplight, “He told me he was going 140,” Klare said.
Klare said Champ was driving without insurance and with a suspended license.
According to Klare, Champ said he was trying to catch up to someone who had thrown a bottle at his car.
Champ was arrested on an accusation of reckless driving and taken to Clackamas County Jail. The charge carries a maximum penalty of up to one year in jail and a fine of $6,250, police said.
even with all 4 squirrels giving their best effort in the trusty Saturn, I think I top out at about 96… maybe I need a Civic. Who knew? I wonder what kinda mileage one gets at 142 miles an hour…
Fuck Manny Ramirez AND his Bushisms.
Not a Manny fan eh? I think Curt’s stumping for Bush woulda riled you up more…
better now? 😛
I adore the driver’s name: Champ.
So thats why he doesn’t read, he thinks it’s science and we all know how Bush feels about science.
But I am stumped on the ‘federal cufflink’ part…or he had notes written on his cufflink?
Booman, are you getting your quotes from that Bushism calendar? I had one last year, every day a new quote..wish I hadn’t thrown it out but used most of it for scratch paper. To think he could have that many quotes that made no sense is pretty awesome and they have them for more than one year-different quotes I believe-which is unbelievable in itself. Even for that bloody idiot.
Just think if he gave regular press conferences..making me head hurt, have to stop writing now.
No need to comment or rate or recommend. Just please take the poll here on whether you agree with the decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan at the end of WWII. I am really curious as to what the netizens here think and my sample is far too small.
I already did.
Thanks, I meant people who hadn’t. ; )
is going to pled guilty to a misdemenor for those files he inadvertently? took …..this was like a short breaking news brief…for shits sake what with Tom the godfather delay running around and all the Enron crooks hanging around and and and we get Sandy Berger as some wild eyed criminal…as reported by the fucken Brit Hume…I am feeling really cranky today …between all the drama queens about Terry Schaivo(making pizza milkshakes)…and Mel Gibson saying last night it’s all a big conspiracy to kill off people so the government doesn’t have to pay out so much in SS..he’s really gone off his nut.
But hey Sandy Berger after all this time is going to cop a plea…which means the government had obviously kept up their stupid investigation of him….bloody dangerous bastard that he is right.
Maybe the real difference between liberals and rightwingers is that we liberals are all too willing to feel (and plead) guilty while the ‘wingers are all too certain that we liberals are the only guilty ones.
Italy’s Premier Silvio Berlusconi, proud of his new hair implants, said on Thursday the procedure was justified by his obligations to “represent the country on the international scene”.
abc.net.au