The Red Cross Warned Bush, Rumsfeld Last Spring

Remember all those old prisoner of war movies where the best hope for the prisoners was the moral authority of the Red Cross? Fear of the Red Cross representative was portrayed one of the few things that sometimes deterred the Nazis, or the Japanese captors from the worst prisoner abuses. Of course, in the movies, nothing could deter the worst Nazis from abusing prisoners.

According to Balkinization, it looks like Bush and Rumfeld preferred to emulate to play the bad Nazi characters who could not be deterred by the Red Cross:

The Red Cross repeatedly warned the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department in confidential reports and closed-door meetings since last spring that U.S. troops were abusing inmates at various military-run prisons in Iraq.

This revelation is perfectly consistent with the Bush-approved leaks from the White House that chided Rumsfeld for not warning Bush that the photos were on the way. The fact that prisoners had been tortured wasn't treated nearly as seriously as failing to prepare for the political ramifications.

Posted 7:54 PM      

ACS Fights Back

Law.com has a great story about the American Constitution Society's attempts to counter the deleterious effects of the extremist Federalist Society on the nation's law school campuses. Of course, the Federalist Society is best known for the unrelenting efforts of its underground "elves" to harass President Clinton through sexual innuendo and related lawsuits.

More power to the American Constitution Society. Their influence is badly needed. Their second annual convention will be held June 18-20 in Washington, DC. They deserve the support of every American concerned about the increasing domination of the American legal establishment by right wing extremists.

Posted 11:52 AM      

Clark Nails Republican Hypocrisy

Thanks to TAPPED for the link to Wes Clark's comments:

"Republicans have tried to use this event to question [Kerry's] patriotism and his truthfulness, claiming he has been inconsistent in saying whether he threw away his medals or ribbons. This is no more than a political smear. After risking his life in Vietnam to save others, John Kerry earned the right to speak out against a war he believed was wrong. Make no mistake: it is that bravery these Republicans are now attacking."

Republican attacks on the patriotism of a genuine hero like John Kerry are a disgrace. People who make such attacks have no shame and no god but the pursuit of political power.

Posted 7:37 PM      

Is Torturing Prisoners Now Bush Administration Policy?

George Bush tried to make it sound like those responsible for torturing Iraqi prisoners in violation of the law of war were merely a few low-level renegades. Sy Hersh's expose in The New Yorker gives a very different impression. It appears to have been a deliberate, high level policy choice. Here's one quote from the must-read Hersh article:

Specialist Sabrina Harman, one of the accused M.P.s, testified that it was her job to keep detainees awake, including one hooded prisoner who was placed on a box with wires attached to his fingers, toes, and penis. She stated, “MI wanted to get them to talk. It is Graner and Frederick’s job to do things for MI and OGA to get these people to talk.”

MI = "military intelligence."
OGA = "other government agencies," including the CIA.

Hersh also notes:

The photographs tell it all. In one, Private England, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, is giving a jaunty thumbs-up sign and pointing at the genitals of a young Iraqi, who is naked except for a sandbag over his head, as he masturbates. Three other hooded and naked Iraqi prisoners are shown, hands reflexively crossed over their genitals. A fifth prisoner has his hands at his sides. In another, England stands arm in arm with Specialist Graner; both are grinning and giving the thumbs-up behind a cluster of perhaps seven naked Iraqis, knees bent, piled clumsily on top of each other in a pyramid. There is another photograph of a cluster of naked prisoners, again piled in a pyramid. Near them stands Graner, smiling, his arms crossed; a woman soldier stands in front of him, bending over, and she, too, is smiling. Then, there is another cluster of hooded bodies, with a female soldier standing in front, taking photographs. Yet another photograph shows a kneeling, naked, unhooded male prisoner, head momentarily turned away from the camera, posed to make it appear that he is performing oral sex on another male prisoner, who is naked and hooded.

Such dehumanization is unacceptable in any culture, but it is especially so in the Arab world. Homosexual acts are against Islamic law and it is humiliating for men to be naked in front of other men, Bernard Haykel, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at New York University, explained. “Being put on top of each other and forced to masturbate, being naked in front of each other—it’s all a form of torture,” Haykel said.

Legalities aside, the Administration's torture policy has seriously degraded our national security. Bush's mismanagement of his war from Day 1 has given young Arabs a reason to fight to the death in any future conflict, provided those who would like to torture Americans with plenty of incentive to do so, and perhaps worst of all, given al Qaeda a gigantic recruiting boost. Enough is enough.

Posted 11:42 AM      

The New New Iraqi Flag

uggabugga describes the newest Iraqi flag design:

"It was supposed to take care of problems raised by the first flag redesign: a figure of an Iraqi prisoner with a hood over his head, standing on a box and with wires connected to his hands, two light blue stripes representing broomsticks used to beat and sodomize captives, and a third yellow stripe to symbolize the urine that was directed at their heads."

According to the Washington Post this morning, the torture may not have been the action of a few renegade soldiers, as Bush tried to portray it recently, but rather a deliberate policy of U.S. intelligence. Bush's Iraq mess just keeps getting uglier and uglier. His ill-considered invasion has now given al Quaida new martyrs and a gigantic recruiting boost.

Posted 10:42 AM      

UNELECTABLE-BUSH

UNELECTABLE-BUSH runs a great web site. The T-shirts aren't bad, either.

Posted 10:21 AM      

Torturing Iraqi Prisoners

The key point about torturing of Iraqi prisoners is that it makes the anti-American terrorist movement, which, by the way, is not, and never has been, headquartered, in Iraq--yet--so much stronger. It's great propaganda to support the America-as-the-Great-Satan theme. It's particularly pathetic considering how Rumsfeld, etc. shot off at the mouth about Iraq TV broadcasting images of American soldiers during what we now nostalgically view as the "major combat operations" phase of the war--you know, the part where our soldiers weren't dying as fast as they are today, back when flight suits and carrier photo ops were all the style rage.

As Talking Points Memo points out, the Pentagon's limp excuses don't wash. Once again, we see that Bush's policies have made us less secure, not more secure. My granny Alberta has better strategic vision than George W.

Posted 4:33 PM      

Watching the Watchers

Watching Justice is a great new web site with a worthwhile mission:

"Watching Justice is a non-partisan, watchdog website that monitors the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), offering regularly updated and comprehensive information to the public about how the DOJ administers justice in America."

Couldn't have come at a better time.

Posted 7:32 PM      

Bush: Stop Hiding Behind Skirts

Talking Points Memo has some free advice for Kerry:

Don't get mixed up on the details. Take this directly to the president. Tell him to turn over a new leaf in life and stop being a coward. If the president wants to attack or question your war record or what you did after the war, tell him to do it himself. No special deals, no hidden help from family retainers, no hiding behind Karen Hughes. Tell him, for once, to fight his own fights.

Posted 8:18 PM      

Presidential Buns

TalkLeft has some comments on Presidential Buns:

"Thanks to the release of Bush and Kerry's Vietnam-era military records, we now know more than we ever thought we'd needed to know about the condition of their buttocks.

"John Kerry suffered multiple sharpnel wounds to his buttocks when an enemy mine detonated near his swift boat. Despite the wounds and intense sniper fire from both riverbanks, Kerry rescued a fellow soldier who had fallen overboard and earned a Bronze Star for his valor.

"George Bush developed a hemorrhoid while flying a Texas Air National Guard jet to protect the shores of South Padre Island.

Is there any doubt about whose buttocks should be in the Oval Office on January 21, 2005?"

Posted 8:51 AM