They will even lie about those who consider themselves patriotic. The spin must not reveal the ugly truth.


From the NewYork Times [LINK]

Pat Tillman, for example, was a popular N.F.L. player who, in a burst of patriotism after Sept. 11, gave up a $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army Rangers. He was sent first to Iraq, and then to Afghanistan, where he was shot to death by members of his own unit who mistook him for the enemy.

Instead of disclosing that Corporal Tillman had died tragically in a friendly fire incident, the Army spun a phony tale of heroism for his family and the nation. According to the Army, Corporal Tillman had been killed by enemy fire as he stormed a hill. Soldiers who knew the truth were ordered to keep quiet about the matter. Corporal Tillman's family was not told how he really died until after a nationally televised memorial service that recruiters viewed as a public relations bonanza.

Mary Tillman, Corporal Tillman's mother, told The Washington Post:

"The military let him down. The administration let him down. It was a sign of disrespect. The fact that he was the ultimate team player and he watched his own men kill him is absolutely heartbreaking and tragic. The fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting."

Thanks to bartcop and E Boyd

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're 30 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude." She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be a Democrat."

"I am," replied the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me."

The man smiled and responded, "You must be a Republican."

"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you're going. You've risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, then you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met but, somehow, now it's my fault."

Thank you Juan Cole. Thank you.

Apparently, there is no background sourcing of the disrespecting of the Quran at Guantanamo. Thus Newsweek is being heavily pressured to recant, and is then being portray as the excuse for why the Afghani's are revolting. It's because of the falsehoods written about by those bad ole liberal reporters at Newsweek.

Wait, stop the presses ...

This from a Lexis-Nexis search-

The Denver Post, January 9

HEADLINE: Nightmare of Guantanamo.... U.S. prison camp in Cuba has become legal black hole, reporter says:

"They were punched, slapped, denied sleep, had seen other prisoners sexually humiliated, hooded and forced to watch copies of the Koran being flushed down toilets. Eventually the pressure proved too much - they gave false confessions that the British intelligence service, MI5, later showed to be untrue. Upon their return to the United Kingdom they were released without being charged."

Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia), January 3, 2005
HEADLINE: Koran prayer torture claim

LONDON -- A British detainee claims he was tortured at Guantanamo Bay for reciting the Koran when talking was banned.

Moazzam Begg told lawyers he was tortured using the strappado, in which a prisoner is suspended from a bar with handcuffs, Britain's Observer newspaper said.

Mr Begg alleged he had been shaven several times against his will and a guard had said on one such occasion: "This is the part that really gets to you Muslims isn't it?""

Financial Times (London, England), Oct 28, 2004
HEADLINE: Four Britons held at Guantanamo sue US government

In August Mr Ahmed, Mr Rasul and Mr Iqbal issued a 115-page dossier accusing the US of abuse, including allegations that they were beaten and had their Korans thrown into toilets.

USA TODAY, October 18, 2004
HEADLINE: Spy case was a 'life-altering experience' for airman

Al Halabi says he did not witness any treatment of prisoners that has now been called into question as abusive. But he says he saw things at Guantanamo that disturbed him. He says guards would purposely mishandle the Koran "just to see the detainees' reaction."

Daily News (New York), August 5, 2004
HEADLINE: ABUSED AT GITMO, FREED BRITS CHARGE

"They would kick the Koran, throw it into the toilet and generally disrespect it," Asif Iqbal wrote.

The Independent (London), August 5, 2004
HEADLINE: FATHER CALLS FOR SON'S RELEASE AFTER CAMP DELTA TORTURE CLAIMS BEGG DEMANDS SON'S RELEASE AFTER TORTURE CLAIMS AT CAMP DELTA TORTURE

In the report, released in New York, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul - the so-called Tipton Three - said one inmate was threatened after being shown a video in which hooded inmates were forced to sodomise each other. Guards allegedly threw prisoners' Korans into toilets, while others were injected with drugs, it was claimed.

The San Francisco Chronicle, JUNE 20, 2004
HEADLINE: THE FILE: PRISON ABUSE;

Prisoners have been forced to strip naked -- nudity is a violation of Muslim principles; forced to commit actual or simulated sex acts; prevented from sleeping; threatened with dogs; hooded; given electric shocks; beaten with fists, chains, boots and other objects; forced to maintain painful positions for hours; kept in frigid isolation rooms; subjected to loud music, strobe lights and diets of bread and water; urinated on and prevented from praying or reading the Koran.

The Observer, May 16, 2004
HEADLINE: Inside Guantanamo Bay

'THEY HAD already searched me and my cell twice that day, gone through my stuff, touched my Koran, felt my body around my private parts. And now they wanted to do it again, just to provoke me, but I said no, because if you submit to everything you turn into a zombie.

The Guardian (London) - Final Edition, May 14, 2004
HEADLINE: Guantanamo abuse same as Abu Ghraib, say Britons

According to a source, who has interviewed them in secret since their release, they were initially too ashamed to talk about it, and are only now starting to give details. The source said: "They are embarrassed about talking about it because they feel humiliated. We have had an account that their religion was used against them, that a copy of the Koran was brought in front of them and pages torn out."

The Observer, March 14, 2004
HEADLINE: World Exclusive: Inside Guantanamo: How we survived jail hell

As Muslims, they were shocked when in repeated 'shakedown' searches of the sleeping tents, copies of the Koran would be trampled on by soldiers and, on one occasion, thrown into a toilet bucket. Throughout their stay at Kandahar the guards carried out head-counts every hour at night to keep the prisoners awake.

The Washington Post, March 26, 2003
HEADLINE: Returning Afghans Talk of Guantanamo; Out of Legal Limbo, Some Tell of Mistreatment

The men, the largest single group of Afghans to be released after months of detainment at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, gave varying accounts of how American forces treated them during interrogation and detainment. Some displayed medical records showing extensive care by American military doctors, while others complained that American soldiers insulted Islam by sitting on the Koran or dumping their sacred text into a toilet to taunt them.

--by Ari Berman [Link]


map of Uzbekistan, and Central Asia

"Such people must be shot in the forehead," Uzbekistan dictator Islam Karimov once said of political dissidents. "If necessary, I'll shoot them myself." When not personally gunning down his opposition, Karimov keeps busy by instructing his security forces to boil, rape or asphyxiate political prisoners.

Luckily for Karimov, he's a key US ally in the war on terror. The brutal events of last week only confirmed that awful reality. For months the Uzbek government had incarcerated 23 businessmen in the eastern city of Andijan on trumped-up charges of supporting an obscure Islamist group. Last week, militants stormed the prison and freed the prisoners. When thousands of demonstrators, emboldened by the jail break, assembled in Andijan's town square to protest their country's climate of repression, corruption and poverty, Karimov travelled to the city and instructed his soldiers to open fire on the crowd. Violence soon spread to the border with Kyrgyzstan, as soldiers allegedly targeted women and children. Anywhere from a few hundred to 745 people are reported dead.

The Bush Administration's response to the butchery was both comical and sad. "We have some concerns about human rights in Uzbekistan, but we are concerned about the outbreak of violence, particularly by some members of a terrorist group freed from prison," Scott McClellan said. "The people of Uzbekistan want to see more representative and democratic government, but that should come through peaceful means, not through violence."

How peaceful change will occur when the US has supplied Karimov with $500 million in military aid and waived human rights requirements for military and non-proliferation assistance is anyone's guess. Shortly after 9/11, Uzbekistan granted the US a crucial air base to use for the war in Afghanistan.

The Bush Administration then began funneling $79 in aid to Uzbek security forces at the same time the State Department was condemning "torture as a routine investigation technique." When Colin Powell tried to cut off $18 million in additional aid for the security forces, General Richard Myers protested, and forced Powell to restore $7 million.

And just two weeks ago, the New York Times reported that the CIA had sent at least a dozen suspected terrorists to Uzbekistan for interrogation via a secret rendition program. "In my view, we shouldn't let any single issue drive a relationship with any single county," Myers said, dismissing human rights concerns. "It doesn't seem to be good policy to me."

Meanwhile, on a recent trip to Europe, Bush appeared even more divorced from reality than usual. "We will not repeat the mistakes of other generations, appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability," he said in Latvia. Then again, this is the man who once told the New Yorker, "No president has ever done more for human rights than I have."

If you did not witness or hear Parliamentary member Galloway speak yesterday, follow the link here. It is a real-player 4 megabyte file, and might take a minute to download for a 56k modem.

--"At long last, senator, have you no shame"

Remarks as prepared for delivery:

The hour of decision has come for our nation's Senate. In the debate that has begun, the Republican majority that holds the reins of power will have to make a choice.

They will have to choose between their partisan interests or the people's interests.

Between upholding our liberties and rights or overturning 200 year old protections.

Between continuing to abuse the power the American people have lent them or using that power on behalf of everyday Americans who are looking for a fair break.

When Americans think of a scary person in a black robe, they should be thinking of Darth Vader, not Republican choices for judges. But what the Republican leadership is attempting to do is to pack the courts with judges far out of the mainstream of American values.

To do so they want to scrap rules that have been in place since our nation's beginning that give every Senator the right to speak their mind and say their piece. They are demanding a power no president has ever had: the ability to all-but personally hand out lifetime jobs to judges without giving the other party any say.

That's too much power for one person. That's too much power for one President. That's too much power for one political party.

Our Constitution says the Senate should give "advice and consent." Not advice as long as we agree with everything President Bush wants. Not consent as long as we rubber-stamp the most extreme elements of the Republican agenda.

These checks and balances were put in place by our founding fathers. And they are there for a reason: to prevent any political party from abusing its power.

Look at the facts: more than 60 of President Clinton's nominees to be judges never were allowed an up-or-down vote. In contrast, we have approved 208 out of President Bush's 218 nominees. That's the best record any president has had in a quarter of a century. But its not enough for George Bush and the Republican leaders.

We've approved 95 percent of their picks. But that's not enough for them. They want 100 percent. They want it all. All the say. All the control. All the power. It's their way or the highway. But that's not the American way.

The Washington Republicans are on a quest for absolute power...and we all know what that brings. Their corruption and abuse of power is already here for all Americans to see. House Republican leader Tom Delay is a walking symbol of what's wrong with Washington DC.

At a time when gas prices are going through the roof and families are cutting back on summer vacations, George Bush and Dick Cheney are trying to line the pockets of big oil and walking hand-in-hand with the Saudi princes.

And while health care costs are rising, pensions are sinking, and our economy is stuck in place, Washington Republicans are wasting our time by trying to pay off the far right.

We are a nation at war. And the American people want their leaders to be focused on achieving progress, not playing partisan games.

Fifty years ago this Spring, a US Senator in the majority party wrote that "Fanatics and extremists are always disappointed at the failure of their government to rush to implement all their principles." But that the job of leaders is to follow the "course of their conscience."

Those were the words of John F. Kennedy in "Profiles in Courage." Now comes a time of testing for our own time. In the coming days, we will see who our nation's leaders of courage are today. I ask Republicans who believe in liberty and limited government to join us in taking a stand against this abuse of power.

Its time that the Republican leaders in Congress stopped silencing people's voices and began hearing the voices of Americans who are calling on us to live up to our nation's promise.

The same nameless individual has other incongruous ideas that need to be dismantled.

"1)The US can pretend that it isn't the stablizing force in the world, bend over, and wait for a chaotic ball of Islamic fundamentalists, Islamic dictatorial leaders, and terrorists to fight each other and create a worldwide nuclear and terrorist disaster. (AKA -The US can watch how events like WWII took place where people new damn well that there was a threat and decided to wait for a huge military struggle)."

2) The US can admire the dreams of peace but realize that those are not shared by everybody and that sometimes guns DO get a point across better than Hare Krishna peace walkers, especially when a huge group competing against American society (aka hollywood culture, weed smokers, corporations, rock music, beer, porn, short skirts, religious freedom, etc, etc) is all about killing to get its way. (we do TRULY grasp the counterproductive nature of terrorism that includes blowing one's self up in the name of narrow, pointless causes in order to kill people that stand in the way don't we????) If so, perhaps it isn't too bad of an idea to protect our great society from that.

The US isn't pretending. We are not the stabilizing force in the world. We are the destabilizing force. Who is selling all the arms to those terrorists, who sold that WMD to Saddam in the 1980's, who set up the Iranian nuclear reactors that the administration is now bitching about ... who? Go research all of the defense contractors feeding at the trough, and then go listen to Eisenhower's last Presidential speech when he warned about the Defense industry complex.

Who aided and abetted the Taliban and the Mujahhedan in Afganistan during the 1980s? Who has been fostering dictatorial regimes throughout the world in the 2oth century?

Why is it the multinational corporations who are pushing the bad foriegn policy decisions of our government?

This is called blowback. Do not presume that Iraqi's love us for our presumed moral endeavor? Remember how this was supposed to be a "cakewalk" and how the Iraqi's were all going to throw us roses?

They had to stage the toppling of Saddam's statue. They are not however staging the massive protests in Baghdad and Afganistan over the last month.

Why are contractors getting kidnapped and killed? Could it be that they are seen as invaders?

And what the hell do you mean by #2?

What are you talking about sitting and waiting. How many warnings did Bush- co get about the bin Laden problem? How many times does the FBI and the CIA have to get called off of the scene by the White House because Cheney was busy drawing up plans for the invasion of Iraq in April of 2001 -- 3 months before 9- 11. September 11th never had to happen. They let it happen to pursue their fucked up foreign policy agenda.

And if the world wants us to stabilize the world, how come no one is helping us out by providing troop support and funds? It's our kids and our money that are getting spent. The world did not invite us.

This is not a crusade for democracy and peace versus an evil religious cult. This is about a power grab, a coup d'etat that is being seen as an invasion of a defenseless country.

How come the military could surround the ministry of oil with tanks but do nothing while the museums and nuclear ministry were ransacked?

Do we have to kill them all in order that they may be free?

Who are we protecting our society from? The only hordes of fundamentalists threatening our nation our on the far-right neo-con hypocrites.

This war is a front for a hidden agenda by the cabal that is currently in the white house. We have been lied to, and we are still being lied to for reasons other than the noble ones that are credited.

A certain nameless individual posted the following one day. It is a three- sentence belief system. I will respond after the quote.

All living things, including people, are competitive and always will be. Free market competition is the heart of what makes America prosper. Sometimes corruption goes too far, but it is better than having government be the one to take your money and fuck it up.

But it's the situation that creates the competition.

You are looking at primitive psychology like a game that has wins and loses. Life is not about wins and loses. Life is about eating, shiting, and sleeping. Once there is no concern about eating, shiting, and sleeping, psychology evolves into a satisfied animal state which is more complex than you indicate.

And market (or open system of economic exchange) is a construct of laws, standards, and traditions established by the people in the community or a government of a region. To call this "free" and imply that the government is disconnected from the "free market" is ridiculous. We the people decide how we want to have a market of goods and services to be exchanged. Someone will be deciding how the game is played if government is not. Last time I checked however, it took years of law suit and government regulation to mitigate toxic chemical dumping, unhealthy food, and securities fraud.

What makes America prosper is the government. From the very first 50 years of our nation, Western lands were given to or sold by the government to promote the "filling up" of the West. All of our technologies and mechanisms of business were either fostered or out-right engineered by government interaction. Social Security eliminated senior-citizen poverty and put money into the economy. Telephone, Radio, service become universal because of government regulation which forced these businesses to provide fair, inexpensive service to all communities. Railroads, the interstate system, automobiles, the airline industry, computers, and so on, were all nurtured by actions that either originated from or were coordinated through the government.

You don't know your history my friend.

You think the government just takes your money. It's not the taking of the money that is the problem. It's the spending. Some things are so important for our society and economic well-being that it is more efficient to collect taxes and pay for it. There has never been any other way in history.

Entrepreneurs have insight and work ethic, but they still operate in a land with a strong government that provides resources and infrastructure. That way an entrepreneur is not burdened with all of the costs of doing business.

I suggest you read a book by Robert Kuttner called "Everything For Sale" which discusses the history of what we now call the "free market."

Don't you remember all of the whining the moaning and self-righteous carping by neo-cons about the UN Oil for Food scandal

[from The London Guardian]

A report released last night by Democratic staff on a Senate investigations committee presents documentary evidence that the Bush administration was made aware of illegal oil sales and kickbacks paid to the Saddam Hussein regime but did nothing to stop them.

The scale of the shipments involved dwarfs those previously alleged by the Senate committee against UN staff and European politicians like the British MP, George Galloway, and the former French minister, Charles Pasqua. ...the Senate report found that US oil purchases accounted for 52% of the kickbacks paid to the regime in return for sales of cheap oil - more than the rest of the world put together.

"The United States was not only aware of Iraqi oil sales which violated UN sanctions and provided the bulk of the illicit money Saddam Hussein obtained from circumventing UN sanctions," the report said. "On occasion, the United States actually facilitated the illicit oil sales."

That's right it was actually United States own companies that did most of the corruption -- at the connivance of the neo-con Bush administration.

And there is more.

The neo-cons like to harmonize all together about big menacing(here it comes) Liberal media. Well, if the media is so liberal, how come the Downing Street memo has received little coverage, and was second rated to the bizarre all day breaking story of a "Runaway Bride." The story of a young girl chasing a delusion is the story all day, not the Prime Minister memo of meeting with the Bush Administration of July 23rd, 2002 that said..

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

But don't you think the liberal media would blasting this everyday all week?

Ignorant people rant and rave, but never have so many done so with such graver consequences. Damn all of you.