An American ‘martyr’ is being hailed in the Sunni Triangle for restoring peace to a town where soldiers now fight only water leaks

Here is an important story in today's edition of The Times of London, about how one American soldier's efforts in Iraq have paid off.

Travis Patriquin was killed in Iraq in December, but his legacy lives on in Ramadi.

This article may influence your view of what is possible throughout Iraq with the right guidance.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article2358061.ece

You can also hear commentary on this article on today's episode of "The World" from PRI at:

http://www.theworld.org/wma.php?id=083107full

911 Revisted Movie

Please check out this site and watch the video. Consider the evidence for yourself.

Try to keep an open mind. I welcome comments on this topic.

http://www.911revisited.com/video.html

The Black Sites - Jane Mayer - The New Yorker

Here is a link to a must-read article written by Jane Mayer in this week's New Yorker Magazine.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mayer

Honor the Fallen

See the faces and read the stories of those killed during the last several years since the beginning of Operations IRAQI FREEDOM and ENDURING FREEDOM.

http://www.militarycity.com/valor/honor.html

Website with War Statistics

http://www.militarytimes.com/projects/flash/4000/

The grim statistics.

Jailed 2 Years, Iraqi Tells of Abuse by Americans

From an article in the New York Times
By MICHAEL MOSS and SOUAD MEKHENNET

...

"But as the morning light grew, the American guards moved Mr. Ani, a 31-year-old father of two young children, methodically toward freedom. They swapped his yellow prison suit for street clothes, he said. They snipped off his white plastic identification bracelet. They scanned his irises into their database.

Then, shortly before 9 a.m., Mr. Ani said, he was brought to a table for one last step. He was handed a form and asked to place a check mark next to the sentence that best described how he had been treated:

“I didn’t go through any abuse during detention,” read the first option, in Arabic.

“I have gone through abuse during detention,” read the second.

In the room, he said, stood three American guards carrying the type of electric stun devices that Mr. Ani and other detainees said had been used on them for infractions as minor as speaking out of turn.

“Even the translator told me to sign the first answer,” said Mr. Ani, who gave a copy of his form to The New York Times. “I asked him what happens if I sign the second one, and he raised his hands,” as if to say, Who knows?

“I thought if I don’t sign the first one I am not going to get out of this place.”"

...

The Full Article

Analysis Is Bleak on Iraq’s Future

From The New York Times:

February 3, 2007

Analysis Is Bleak on Iraq’s Future

By MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 — The release on Friday of portions of a bleak new National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq’s future left the White House and its opponents vying over whether its findings buttressed their vastly different views about how to arrest the worsening sectarian chaos there.

The assessment, by American intelligence agencies, expressed deep doubts about the abilities of Iraqi politicians to hold together an increasingly balkanized country, and about whether Iraqi troops might be able to confront powerful militias over the next 18 months and assume more responsibility for security.

The analysis, the first such estimate on Iraq in more than two years, described in sober language a rapidly unraveling country in which security has worsened despite four years of efforts by the administration.

President Bush acknowledged last month that his strategy had failed so far.

Bush Iraq Plan Is Condemned by Senate Panel

By JEFF ZELENY

Published: January 25, 2007

Smuggler’s Plot Highlights Fear Over Uranium

By LAWRENCE SCOTT SHEETS and WILLIAM J. BROAD

Published: January 25, 2007

Stability, not democracy...

Rice Speaks Softly in Egypt, Avoiding Democracy Push

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

Published: January 16, 2007

Some quotes from the article linked above:

Cellphone videos posted on the Internet showed the police sodomizing a bus driver with a broomstick. Another showed the police hanging a woman by her knees and wrists from a pole for questioning. A company partly owned by a member of the governing party distributed tens of thousands of bags of contaminated blood to hospitals around the country. And just 24 hours before Ms. Rice arrived, the authorities arrested a television reporter on charges of harming national interests by making a film about police torture. The reporter was released, but the authorities kept the tapes.

Ms. Rice, who once lectured Egyptians on the need to respect the rule of law, did not address those domestic concerns. Instead, with Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit by her side, she talked about her appreciation for Egypt’s support in the region.

It was clear that the United States — facing chaos in Iraq, rising Iranian influence and the destabilizing Israeli-Palestinian conflict — had decided that stability, not democracy, was its priority, Egyptian political commentators, political aides and human rights advocates said.

5 Years in Limbo...

Some at Guantanamo Mark 5 Years in Limbo
Big Questions About Low-Profile Inmates

By Carol D. Leonnig and Julie Tate

Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, January 16, 2007; Page A01

Quotes from the article linked above:

"I never had a war against the United States, and I am surprised I'm here," Ruhani told his captors during his first chance to hear the military's reasons for holding him, three years after he arrived at Guantanamo. "I tried to cooperate with Americans. I am no enemy of yours."

Now prison and prisoner are forever linked, joined by hasty decisions made in war and trapped by that fateful beginning.

Insurgent TV channel Iraq's newest cult hit Michael Howard in Baghdad Monday January 15, 2007 The Guardian

Today's Headlines

Sometimes reading the headlines can really give you a wake-up call...

From CNN.com

U.S. official:
Chinese test missile obliterates satellite


From NPR.org:

...senators also wanted to know if there's anything to growing talk of a possible U.S. attack on Iran. Former U.S. Centcom commander Gen. Joseph Hoar would not dismiss that possibility. "I don't know why you have two carrier battle groups in the Gulf," Hoar said, "when fixed-wing air — while an essential part of any campaign — doesn't require a lot of airplanes on a day-to-day basis; and why you would have an admiral in charge of Centcom when you have two essentially ground combat operations going in two separate campaigns."

Hoar said those discrepancies "would all indicate to me that there's something moving right now towards Iran."

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Sen. Joseph Biden said he plans to redraft the use-of-force legislation to make clear it does not authorize an attack on Iran.

Court to Oversee Wiretap Program - USA Today

The following is from today's USA Today website:

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration said Wednesday that it will allow an independent court to oversee its controversial surveillance program in which the National Security Agency has electronically eavesdropped on Americans and others without obtaining court warrants.

It's about time...

Over 34,000 Civilians Died in Iraq Last Year

The following information comes from an article in this morning's New York Times by SABRINA TAVERNISE.

Iraqi Death Toll Exceeded 34,000 in '06, U.N. Says.

According to a UN report released yesterday, more than 34,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in violence last year, that is an average of 94 Iraqis died every day. About half the deaths occurred in the capital. A majority died from gunshot wounds, execution-style, killings that are a common method for both Sunni and Shiite death squads.

Most of the deaths are due to violence between Sunnis and Shiites, which was virtually unheard of in the early years of the war. Military commanders have acknowledged that they underestimated the seriousness of the sectarian killings, which took off after the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra last year drew Shiites into the war. Up until then, Sunni militants had done most of the killing. Now, the capital is mired in violence, as the two groups fight over territory.

In the shootings, bodies surface days later in sewers and garbage dumps. The report said that most unidentified bodies were found in six neighborhoods of Baghdad, three Sunni — Dora, Rashidiya and Adhamiya — and three Shiite — Sadr City, New Baghdad and the hardscrabble slum of Shuala.

One result, described by the report, is a society in collapse. At least 470,094 Iraqis have fled their homes since February. The number of displaced Iraqis was the highest in the embattled Sunni province of Anbar, where 10,105 families fled, followed by Karbala in the south, Baghdad, and Dohuk in the north.

Iraqi government forces also suffered painful losses. The report cited an Interior Ministry figure of 12,000 Iraqi security forces killed, both the Army and the police, since 2003.The report provided details on the outcomes of a number of mass kidnappings throughout the fall. The attacks seem to be a signature of Shiite militias. Around 70 Iraqis, almost all Sunnis, are still missing after being kidnapped in November from the Ministry of Higher Education in downtown Baghdad. The attack took place on a day when teachers from the Sunni areas of Anbar, Salahuddin and Mosul were visiting.

The kidnappings have completely redrawn the composition of neighborhoods. Sinek, a wholesale market in the heart of Baghdad, once thoroughly mixed, is slowly emptying of Sunnis. Men in uniforms seized around 50 merchants on Dec. 2. About 29 were later released. All were Shiite.

Military Is Expanding Its Intelligence Role in U.S.

Military Is Expanding Its Intelligence Role in U.S.

Just an article that reports some information that I believe everyone ought to be aware of.

A quote from this article in the New York Times:

"Some national security experts and civil liberties advocates are troubled by the C.I.A. and military taking on domestic intelligence activities, particularly in light of recent disclosures that the Counterintelligence Field Activity office had maintained files on Iraq war protesters in the United States in violation of the military’s own guidelines. Some experts say the Pentagon has adopted an overly expansive view of its domestic role under the guise of “force protection,” or efforts to guard military installations.

“There’s a strong tradition of not using our military for domestic law enforcement,” said Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, a former general counsel at both the National Security Agency and the C.I.A. who is the dean at the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific. “They’re moving into territory where historically they have not been authorized or presumed to be operating.”"

From the reporting, it seems that this information is only being sought and utilized in a limited number of cases. That is, I suppose, somewhat comforting.

And, another article worth reading might be this one:
Deletions in Army Manual Raise Wiretapping Concerns

Pentagon Disavows Comment on Detainees

I can't even believe that the comments that are being disavowed were ever made by a government official in THIS country in the first place! Wait a minute... yes I can.

Pentagon Disavows Comment on Detainees

Here is a link to the audio of the interview:
http://www.federalnewsradio.com/emedia/59677.wma

If this doesn't leave you incredulous or make you angry... I don't know if anything about what is going on in our world today will. At least the Pentagon is disavowing his comments.

Here are some quotes from what Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs had to say in this interview:

"Actually you know I think the news story that you're really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request through a major news organization, somebody asked, 'Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there,' and you know what, it's shocking,"

He then names off a list of firms who are representing the Guantanamo detainees.

Afterwards he says:

"I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out."

When asked where the lawyers were getting their funding he responded:

"It's not clear, is it? Some will maintain that they are doing it out of the goodness of their heart, that they're doing it pro bono, and I suspect they are; others are receiving monies from who knows where, and I'd be curious to have them explain that."

About Guantanamo he described it as: "certainly, probably the most transparent and open location in the world"

When commenting on protests regarding Guantanamo, he described the "small little protests around the world" that were "orchestrated by a small group of folks, and they're really quite minor - the media play is much more the actual protests" "my understanding is that it is being drummed up by Amnesty International, and they're trying to get their loyal ardent followers to show up at various locations around the country, my understanding is that these are, you know, a couple dozen here, a couple dozen folks there, but, you know, this is not a popular subject and so the, certainly the left-leaning press will make it look like the Million-Man March."

Listen to the interview here.

Parents Against Peace Symbols

I'm re-posting here a response that I left earlier today on a blog created by a wonderful friend of mine. She had posted the link to the news article (below),
and I wrote what follows in response to that article.

Here is the link to the article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15912456/

My comments:

To the parents of children serving in Iraq who have
been angered by the display of the peace symbol: 

We owe our thanks to the many sons and daughters
throughout the history the United States of America
who have died defending our freedoms, which all too
often are taken for granted. As a member of the United
States Armed Forces, it is my hope that I defend the
right of both those who are in support of our
government's policies and those who stand in opposition
against its policies to voice their opinions and to be
heard in a peaceful manner befitting a free and just
society. Being for peace is truly the highest form of
being "pro-soldier" that I can think of, since being
pro-war always involves sending soldiers into harm's way,
whether the cause for any particular war is justified or
not.

New York Times: U.S. Finds Iraq Insurgency Has Funds to Sustain Itself

A sad article in today's New York Times:

U.S. Finds Iraq Insurgency Has Funds to Sustain Itself

Reaction to Rush Limbaugh's "Club G'itmo"

Reaction to Rush Limbaugh's "Club G'itmo"

I remember getting angry shortly after 9/11 when I read news articles dealing with toys being sold overseas and in the states which depicted scenes of the destruction of the twin towers. I was saddened that there were people in the world who would sink to such a low level to make a profit.

I did a Google search today and discovered that many of the pictures of those toys that I saw a few years ago are gone now or are only posted on websites promoting politically extreme viewpoints. If there is a slant to any of the websites I am linking here, I ask you to please ignore that and pay attention to the pictures of the toys depicted. Consider what your reaction would have been to these toys during the initial weeks and months following 9/11.

A toy called "Laden vs. USA" (language warning).

Bin Laden and the twin towers toy
(and by the way I'm pretty sure that when I saw pictures of this toy on a legitimate news website, it was reportedly being sold in the Far East and not the Middle East)

9/11 Toy that was sold with candy in the U.S.

A report with pictures of the package that toy was found in.


If you are an American you probably would have felt some amount of anger or irritation when these toys first came out. I think that anger is justified in this instance because these toys are profitting from the suffering of thousands of innocent people and trivializing that tragic day by depicting those awful events in the form of a child's toy. I would hope that many of our fellow citizens of the world would share in our feelings of disappointment when viewing these pictures.

If you are not Muslim, and you are not living in the Middle East, I ask you to imagine for a few moments that you are. You know that there are many fellow Muslims from your part of the world being held indefinitely, without any specific charges against them, (many of whom are probably innocent of any crime) in Guantanamo Bay. You don't know who they all are because the names of all the "detainees" have not been released. You have heard the stories of mistreatment which have been reported around the world and you have no way of knowing what the true story is regarding these prisoners and their treatment. You do not know when, if ever, these prisoners will be charged or released. Imagine yourself thinking about Guantanamo Bay in this way and then check out the following links.

Rush Limbaugh has been doing this bit on his show for a month or two about "Club G'itmo" where he advertises a "Resort for Terrorists" complete with all the amenities... you have to see the website to get an idea of what I'm talking about if you haven't heard the show.

Rush's description of the imaginary "Club G'itmo"

Here are some quotes from the initial show in which the "Club G'itmo" idea was presented:

Limbaugh touted "Club G'itmo, the Muslim resort"

Apparently this "G'itmo Gear" is all the rage on his website now:
(read the phrases on the t-shirts for sale in the left hand column)

"G'itmo Gear" at the Rush Limbaugh Store

An example of the type of thing I wouldn't be surprised to hear on Rush's show:

A transcript allegedly taken from the Rush Limbaugh Show
(I didn't hear this one so I don't know for sure).

Here is another t-shirt that I found while doing a search for "Club G'itmo" on the web. I can't tell from the website whether this t-shirt is in any way affiliated with the bit being done on the Rush Limbaugh Show.

T-Shirt for "Club G'itmo" advertising the following on their shirt: Playing Cards - Flushable Toilets - Arrows Pointing to Mecca - Books - Soft Towels - Dandruff Shampoo - Hot Food - Prayer Rugs - Soccer Balls - Clean Sheets - Fruit Baskets - Warm Showers & a Koran

A close-up picture of that shirt

Earlier I asked you to imagine that you were a Muslim from the Middle East while you were viewing these web pages. I ask you now to react as the real you. Are you angered that these products are being advertised and promoted by one of the most popular radio talk show hosts in the United States? (Rush would probably stop me here and correct me saying that he is THE most popular talk show host in the world.) Do we need to pretend that we're in somebody else's shoes in order to be angered when we hear the flippant way that this topic is being dealt with by someone who is so popular in our country? The thing that angers me is that this is being sold as if Guantanamo were a humorous topic, and it is not.

These items seem to be trying to sell the idea that the real question around Guantanamo Bay is how we are treating known terrorists while they are in confinement... and that (as the good Americans that we all know we are) we are treating them better than they probably deserve to be treated. There is so much more going on with Guantanamo Bay that it is infuriating to me to see that issue trivialized in this way.

My concern is that the Guantanamo Bay issue is not anywhere near that cut and dry. The people being held there are not necessarily all terrorists. As fellow citizens of this planet we should all be concerned that any government anywhere can detain us for more than 3 years without charges and without releasing our personal information to the world because that government has decided that it considers us to be a threat.

I make no apologies for the real terrorists. Terrorism should be defeated and terrorists should be captured, charged, and imprisoned. I am not against the killing of a suspected terrorist in cases where officials are clearly acting in self defense when there is extraordinary evidence that the suspect is planning to commit a terrorist act. Of course I would only support such an action as a last resort after a suspect has reacted with violence while officials are conducting a legal search or attempting to apprehend that individual, or in cases where officials are attempting to save innocent lives by stopping an individual who is in the act of committing a terrorist act. With all of that said there has to be a way to deal with officials who make the wrong decisions about when to take a life while trying to protect others. (This brings up the issue of how to deal with potential "trigger-happy" officials who shoot first and ask questions later, and how to prevent terrible mistakes such as the mistake that seems to have occured yesterday in London where an apparently innocent man was shot 5 times in the head and torso... but those issues will have to be dealt with in another article.)

The last three weeks have shown that terrorists operating all over the world, in major cities where suspects are being closely monitored, are trying to make a statement to the people of the world that they are immune to our efforts to eradicate the threat that they represent to the all of us. It is not a question of if, but when we will see the next attacks in the United States. We are fighting a war against terrorists and in many ways the future of the entire world depends on how we chose to deal with this reality.

In a war that we only call a war when it is convenient for us to do so... we should be concerned that it is possible for any government to say that it is not fighting a real war, therefore it doesn't have to afford those detainees all of the rights guaranteed to Prisoners of War.

At a time when the world is struggling to remember that this war does not have to be about religion against religion or civilization against civilization, but rather that it could be a joint effort against all terrorists worldwide who target innocent people wherever they may be... can we as a society afford to be so disrespectful to members of another culture when dealing with a topic that is such a serious cause for their concern?

Two days after some provisions of the Patriot Act were made permanent and others were extended for 10 years, I have to say that I am concerned as a U.S. citizen that my government is not doing enough to ensure that MY freedoms and privacy are protected. If I have to wonder about how our government's power is being used against ME and MY fellow citizens... how much more concern should I feel about those possibly innocent, uncharged foreign detainees that the government has no constitutional mandate to protect?

(see the following articles for more info.)

House Passes USA Patriot Act Extension

The Patriot Act: Alleged Abuses of the Law

I'm afraid to say what I'm thinking... so what I will say is that I sure hope that we get our act together and figure out who we are and what we really stand for as a people before we destroy ourselves and create more terrorists, while giving up the freedoms that we have taken for granted for too long.