MotherJones.com | News: "Orwell meets Kafka The U.S. runs a global system of injustice, purposely mounted in the legal and moral dark. May/June 2004 IssueBy Tom Engelhardt"

... and justice for all. Photo «courtesy» of t r u t h o u t.

My apologies to Juan José Millás, but I just gotta let my non-spanish-speaking brethren in on this (courtesy of Altavista's Babel Fish Translation):

An ingenuous one
Juan José Millás
I did not saw to anybody shake the newspaper in the air horrified before the idea that everything was allowed. And nevertheless, the news said that the legal advisers of the White House had elaborated a report that adjusts like a glove to the spiritual measures of Bush, and according to which the torture is just when the president by antonomasia orders. This man, that or had the life of its subjects (and its subjects we are all the inhabitants of the planet) when it came to him in desire, could not nevertheless take the nails to them, empalar them or apply to them current without the danger to face the rigors of the law, which was, obviously, a contradiction. For a year, thanks to that report of high moral seam, have not been having limits in which it talks about the use, to the manipulation or the partition of the bodies of his same types. What disproportion between the amount of being able and the shortage of scruples.
Everything is allowed. I did not saw to anybody running by the streets shaking with horror the leaf of the newspaper. I did not do it either, by fear to perhaps seem ingenuous or to give the impression that she was not of return. But he was not it, that one is the truth, I am not it. How it was going to imagine, after the centuries, that I belong to a culture without moral limitations, I have been months fighting not to accustom to me to Guantánamo, Powell, Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice; making exercises so that the alarms go off to me when I hear call political errors to pure crimes; forcing to me to that the end hairs are put whenever I open the family album and I see England soldier playing the dogs with an Arab... And now it is that all that was written in the Tables of the Law.
Everything is allowed. In fact, days ago, the Pope, that shares with Bush the representation of Dios, SA, in the Earth, received its partner, by that let itself decorate at the end of "cordial" interview. The same Pope that excomulga to violet children whom they dare to abort, accepts medals of the author of a manual which it attributes on the creatures competitions that would put the meat of hen to the very same Creator. I am an ingenuous one, yes, and am terrified, but I do not want that innocence nor the fright take off to me neither.
Published in the Friday 11 June 2004 issue of El País.

If I find some moments I'll make it a bit more reader-friendly. But I hope you get the gist of it. Peace.

JUNE 11 - 17, 2004 Reagan's Curtain Call

MARC COOPER sheds no tears as he tells the truth about Ronald Reagan. JOHN POWERS dissects the master of image. HAROLD MEYERSON remembers the day Reagan crowned Pali High’s homecoming queen and then, 15 years later, fired the nation’s air traffic controllers. STEVEN MIKULAN lines up in Simi Valley for a 90-second glimpse of the casket. And NIKKI FINKE recalls her days as Reagan’s jinx and reminds us that Bonzo was double-dealing and selectively forgetting long before Iran-Contra. + David Corn: No Fall Guy: Ex-CIA Chief George Tenet left plenty of incriminating clues pointing to George Bush’s blunders on Iraq. BY DAVID CORN

While soldiers are dying in Iraq, Dick Cheney's old company Halliburton has defrauded the government of millions and charged for meals for the troops which were never delivered. Today, we're trying to raise $1.1 million to air a new ad in swing states that calls the Bush White House on its cronyism with Halliburton. Can you contribute to get it on the air?

Dear MoveOn member,

There are lots of reasons that things are going south in Iraq. President Bush alienated
the international community, lied to the world about the threat of
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, failed to plan for reconstruction .
. . and the list goes on. But there's another less talked-about reason
that things are turning out so badly: President Bush and Vice President
Cheney simply can't resist a chance to help their corporate friends
make a buck, even when it undermines the troops.

Today, we're launching
a new ad to call the Bush Administration on its ties to the
scandal-plagued company Halliburton. In just a year in Iraq,
Halliburton employees have accepted $6 million in illegal kickbacks
(1), the company overcharged taxpayers millions for gas (2), and
charged hundreds of millions of dollars for meals for our troops that
were never delivered (3). It's a perfect example of how Bush and
Cheney's taste for corporate cronyism has weakened our country and cost
taxpayers billions.

We know from polling
that for many people the Halliburton debacle illustrates a core
weakness in the Bush program, and helps convince independent voters to
vote against Bush. That's why it's so important that we get this ad,
which hammers that point home, in front of as many people as possible.
If we can raise $1.1 million, we can run the ad deep for a week in a
number of the key "battleground" states. Please contribute what you can
to help us get it on the air today at:

http://www.moveonpac.org/donate/halliburton.html?id=2927-3261555-nI9v7TRaAbVzQcB6wlOTxw

On that page, you can also read a full script of the ad and take a look at the story boards.

Revelations regarding
Halliburton's unethical and at times illegal behavior continue to pop
up at a regular pace. But perhaps more worrisome are indications that
the Bush administration isn't just turning a blind eye to Halliburton's
corrupt business practices -- it's actively helping the company along.
For example, Time Magazine exposed last week that newly disclosed
internal Pentagon emails suggest that the office of Vice President Dick
Cheney was instrumental in sealing an $18 BILLION no-bid contract for
the Vice President's former company (4).

Nor does Halliburton's
track record end at fraud. In a Pentagon audit, Halliburton was warned
that its food service facilities which serve our troops in Iraq were
dangerously unsanitary, with "blood all over the floor" of its
kitchens, "dirty pans," and "rotting meats ... and vegetables." (5) As
Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) put it, Halliburton is ultimately "a
company that arrogantly is overcharging when they can get away with it
and not providing the quality of service that they agreed to do." (6)

Vice President Dick
Cheney still holds hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of stock
options in the company.(7) So it's hardly surprising that the
Administration's response has been anemic, even when faced with clear
evidence that the company is bilking taxpayers.

That's why we need to get this ad on the air. Can you contribute to make that happen? Go to:

http://www.moveonpac.org/donate/halliburton.html?id=2927-3261555-nI9v7TRaAbVzQcB6wlOTxw

Sincerely,


--Eli Pariser

  MoveOn PAC

  June 10th, 2004

Footnotes:

1. Halliburton admits $6m kickbacks

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3425043.stm

2. Halliburton: $61M Overcharge?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/12/politics/main588216.shtml

3. Halliburton Grilled Over Meals

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/02/eveningnews/main597566.shtml

4. Time reports Cheney hand in contract

http://www.iht.com/articles/522594.html

5. Contractor served troops dirty food in dirty kitchens

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2003/12/14/2003079545

6. See 5, above.

7. Cheney may still have Halliburton ties

http://money.cnn.com/2003/09/25/news/companies/cheney/?cnn=yes

PAID FOR BY MoveOn PAC

P.O. Box 9218, Berkeley, CA 94709

t r u t h o u t - Bernard Weiner | Bush's 2004 Scandals for Dummies: "Bush's 2004 Scandals for Dummies By Bernard Weiner The Crisis PapersTuesday 08 June 2004"

JUNE 4 - 10, 2004 David Corn Kerry’s Baggage What’s gone right — and wrong — in the campaign so far Dissonance Who’s on First? The Baghdad Hand (Over) Job by Marc Cooper On Head Over Heels Bush and Kerry’s Soft Spots by John Powers

I could not resist...









... and this: President George Bush unveils Stealth-Fighter-On-A-Stick

Dissonance Our Exit Strategy The delusional Bush, his quagmire and November by Marc Cooper MAY 28 - JUNE 3, 2004

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

t r u t h o u t | 05.27

Chalabi 'Boasted of Iranian Spy Link'
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/052704A.shtml

Al Gore | Bush Has Humiliated Us
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/052704B.shtml

New York Times Apologizes for Its Iraq Coverage
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/052704C.shtml

Army: Abuse of Captives More Widespread
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/052704D.shtml

"U.S. Pulling Out All Stops to Preempt War-Crimes Prosecution"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/052704E.shtml

Who Would Try Civilians of U.S.? No One in Iraq
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/052704F.shtml

Bush Muzzles Officials as Parks Fall into Disrepair
http://www.truthout.org/environment.shtml

Patrick Sabatier | The Narrow Path
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/052704H.shtml

Bush's Plan Gets Tepid Response from Europe, Iraq
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/052704I.shtml

Andy Rooney | Our Darkest Days Are Here
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/052704J.shtml

Occupation Made World Less Safe, Pro-War Institute Says
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/052704K.shtml

Uri Avnery | The Rape of Rafah
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/052704L.shtml

Click to SUBSCRIBE -> mailto:join-three-to@lists.truthout.org
Go direct to our HomePage : http://www.truthout.org

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

From the Al-Asharq Awsat paper, a pro Saudi, London based newspaper. Caption reads "Coming Changes." (Photo: The Washington Post) Courtesy of t r u t h o u t

What Bush Should Have Said His Iraq speech was only a year late: By Fred Kaplan, Posted Tuesday, May 25, 2004, at 1:51 PM PT

Subject: What do you think about Iraq?

Dear MoveOn Member,

Yesterday, President Bush tried to respond to mounting criticism of his management of the crisis in Iraq. The American people were looking for a sign that Bush understands the situation and is adapting American policy to the realities on the ground. But in this speech, the administration just repackaged failed U.S. policy as a five-step plan. They obviously don't get it. We've got to do better.

First, of course, we're demanding accountability from the Bush administration. We're demanding a change in leadership at the Pentagon. Without this change, nothing in U.S. policy will change. But the problem remains: even with new leadership, how do we get out of this disastrous situation?

Most of the people we've talked with share two conflicting instincts: (1) that the U.S. occupation must end before Iraq can move forward but (2) that we have a responsibility to the Iraqi people to protect them from a descent into civil war. The Bush administration has failed to project any plan ending the U.S. occupation, and instead is focusing on an almost meaningless June 30th turn over of "soveriegnty." Recently, two mainstream policy analysts, James Steinberg and Michael O'Hanlon, made an interesting proposal in a Washington Post Op Ed, a call to "set the date" for the end to the U.S. occupation. We've attached the Op Ed below.

What do you think? We'd like to know where people stand, so that we can craft our campaigns going forward. Let us know what you think at:

http://www.moveon.org/iraqsurvey.html

Do you support immediate withdrawal? Do you support setting a date certain to end the military occupation? Or do you support President Bush's call to "stay the course"? Or do you see a better way to proceed?

Steinberg and O'Hanlon make the case that setting a date to pull out would (1) dampen the popular support for insurgency by demonstrating good American intentions, and (2) allow the establishment of indigenous Iraqi security forces, with international support, to avoid civil war between Shiites and Sunnis, which could grow into a broader Middle East crisis. The importance of a timetable is even more important now that it has become clear to everyone, and especially the Iraqis, that Bush's June 30th turnover of "sovereignty" is a sham.

The Bush administration's lack of a credible plan is almost shocking. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz recently told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: "We don't know what it will be," he said. "We've had changes, as you know, month by month. We've had several different plans."

Setting a real date for pulling out, and sticking to it, will almost certainly be opposed by the neoconservatives who have gotten us into this mess. Although they say that the occupation is about establishing freedom and democracy, their geopolitical calculus is far more cynical. Their agendas include long-term military bases, significant influence over Iraqi oil policy, and unrestricted foreign investment in Iraq. They still haven't faced the reality of the situation they've created.

Please help by letting us know what you think. Thanks for everything,

Sincerely,
--Wes Boyd
Tuesday, May 25th, 2004

P.S Here's the Washington Post Op Ed:

Set a Date to Pull Out
The danger is not that we will cut and run
but that the Iraqis will insist that we get out.
By James Steinberg and Michael O'Hanlon
Tuesday, May 18, 2004

American policy in Iraq faces a crisis. Mainstream U.S. political leaders, including President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry, have continued to insist that we must "stay the course" and that "failure is not an option." But these slogans are not enough to rescue a failing policy. The success of our mission has depended from the outset on the perception by the Iraqi people that our presence is necessary to secure their own future. Today that premise is increasingly in doubt.

Unless we restore the Iraqi people's confidence in our role, failure is not only an option but a likelihood. Critical to achieving our goal is an announced decision to end the current military deployment by the end of next year, following the Iraqi adoption of a constitution, together with greatly intensified training for the Iraqi security forces. Otherwise, the issue may well be not how long we want to stay but how soon the Iraqis kick us out.

From the beginning the administration's strategy assumed that the United States would be welcomed as "liberators" by most Iraqis. Yet the failure of the U.S.-led provisional authority to provide basic security for many, and the slow pace of reconstruction, has eroded support for our presence. The Abu Ghraib outrages and the recent escalation of fighting have further undermined our position. A majority of Iraqis now believe their country is worse off than before Saddam Hussein was overthrown, according to a recent poll.

This dramatic loss of support undermines the legitimacy of our continued military presence. It also makes our task of stabilizing the country nearly impossible.

The problem is compounded by our own ambivalence about the political transition in Iraq. Although we defined our mission as liberation, we have been deeply reluctant to trust the Iraqi people to set their own course. From the decision to install a handpicked interim governing council, to our initial reluctance to support early elections for the limited authority we plan to grant the transition government after June 30, the message is that we will not permit self-determination in Iraq until Iraqis choose a government that meets our goal: a Western-style democracy broadly supportive of U.S. interests in the region.

That objective was wildly ambitious even before the military operation began; today it is simply unattainable in the near term. The more we talk about staying "as long as it takes" the more it appears we are trying to impose our vision on Iraq -- further alienating the Iraqi public. The danger is not that we will cut and run but that the Iraqis will insist that we get out, leaving behind a security vacuum that could ignite civil war and wider regional strife.

How can we avoid such a disaster? First, we must make clear that our military presence in Iraq is designed to permit the Iraqis to freely choose their own future -- even if it is not fully to our liking. We should indicate not just that we will leave if asked but that we will ourselves plan to end the deployment of coalition forces following the election of an Iraqi government and the adoption of a new constitution next year. We should make clear that we (as part of a wider international coalition) would be prepared to stay beyond that time -- but only at the request of the new Iraqi government, and as part of a new, U.N.-sponsored mandate on terms that are acceptable to the new Iraqi government and to us.

Second, we must be clear about our legitimate security interests in Iraq. We have a right to insist that a new Iraqi government not threaten peace and security -- by developing weapons of mass destruction, harboring terrorists or attacking other nations. And we should certainly seek to use our influence to encourage a tolerant, pluralist society. But because this is a responsibility Iraq owes to all, not just us, we should shift the focus away from the United States as the enforcement arm of the international community to Iraq's neighbors and others that share these interests, including NATO and the United Nations. We should begin by convening a major international summit on Iraq, involving not only Western allies but also Arab leaders and Iraqis, at the time of the NATO summit next month in Istanbul. And we should invite the International Atomic Energy Agency to play a role in ensuring that a new Iraqi government does not pursue weapons programs.

Third, we should accelerate the training and equipping of new security forces for Iraq. Less than 10 percent of the necessary numbers of soldiers and police have been properly trained to date. Filling this vacuum is critical to the success of this strategy, because indigenous forces are far more likely than foreign forces to succeed in defeating the residual Baathist and foreign fighters in Iraq. If Arab countries and NATO devoted just 10 percent of their police and military training capacity to Iraqi forces, we could complete an intensified training process by next year.

Some will see this as cut-and-run. It is not. Unlike the case with most previous stabilization missions, our own enduring commitment to success in Iraq is beginning to work against us. It breeds cynicism among Iraqis that we are like the colonialists of old, planning to stay indefinitely to keep our hands on their oil and to use Iraq for our own, broader foreign policy objectives. The lesson of our history is that our best partners are those who freely choose to be. We must give the Iraqis the opportunity to seize that possibility for themselves.

James Steinberg was deputy national security adviser in the Clinton administration and is vice president and director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution; Michael O'Hanlon is a senior fellow there.

The time is now.

Subject: Anybody But Bush Update: Bay of Goats
From: msanger@aol.com Add to Address Book
Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 21:30:47 -0700


((((((((((((((((( Anybody But Bush Update: Bay of
Goats )))))))))))))))))

May 23, 2004


------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.anybodybutbush.info/archives/000229.html



------------------------------------------------------------------------

By MAUREEN
DOWD
Published: May 23, 2004

So let me get this straight:

We ransacked the house of the con man whom we
paid millions to feed us
fake intelligence on W.M.D. that would make the
case for ransacking the
country that the con man assured us would be a
cinch to take over
because he wanted to run it.

And now we're shocked, shocked and awed to
discover that a crook is a
crook and we have nobody to turn over Iraq to,
and the Jordanian
embezzler-turned-American puppet-turned-accused
Iranian spy is trying
to foment even more anger against us and the U.N.
officials we've
crawled back to for help, anger that may lead to
civil war.

The party line that Paul Bremer was notified
about the raid on Ahmad
Chalabi's house after the fact is absurd. The
Iraqi police, who can't
seem to do anything without us, were just
proxies. We were going after
the very guy who persuaded us to go after Saddam,
the con man the naïve
neo-cons cast as de Gaulle; the swindler who sold
himself to Dick
Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz as Spartacus.

One diplomat from the region grimly cited an old
Punjabi saying: "It's
very bad when grandma marries a crook, but it is
even worse when she
divorces the crook."

Mr. Chalabi's wealthy family was swept out of
Iraq in a coup in 1958
and he spent much of his life plotting a coup to
take back his
homeland, a far-fetched scheme that took on life
when he hooked up with
Mr. Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Doug Feith, who
had their own dream of
staging a coup of American foreign policy to do
an extreme Middle East
makeover.

The hawks dismissed warnings from their own
people — such as the Bush
Middle East envoy Gen. Anthony Zinni — that the
Iraqi National Congress
was full of "silk-suited, Rolex-wearing guys in
London." As General
Zinni told The Times in 2000: "They are pie in
the sky. They're going
to lead us to a Bay of Goats, or something like
that."

The C.I.A. and State Department, too, grew
disgusted with Mr. Chalabi,
even though State paid his organization $33
million from 2000 to 2003.

Cheney & Company swooned over Mr. Chalabi because
he was telling them
what they wanted to hear, that it would be simple
to go back and
rewrite the Persian Gulf war ending so that it
was not bellum
interruptus.

The president and his hawks insisted that only a
"relatively small
number" of "thugs," as Mr. Perle told George
Stephanopoulos last month,
were keeping the country from peace. Mr. Perle
said the solution was
"to repose a little bit of confidence in people
who share our values
and our objectives . . . people like Ahmad
Chalabi." The neo-cons still
think he can be Churchill.

On Thursday, an Iraqi judge, Hussain Muathin,
also lamented the actions
of "a small number of thugs." But he was
announcing warrants for the
arrest of thugs around Mr. Perle's own George
Washington, Chalabi
henchmen suspected of kidnapping, torture and
theft. Didn't we sack
Saddam to stop that stuff?

Now we're using Saddam's old generals to restore
order — reversing the
de-Baathification approach that Mr. Chalabi
championed — while Mr.
Chalabi snakes around like a bus-and-truck Tony
Soprano, garnering less
trust than Saddam in polls of Iraqis.

A half-dozen dunderheads who thought they knew
everything assumed they
could control Mr. Chalabi and use him as the
instrument of their
utopian fantasies. But one week after getting cut
off from the
$335,000-a-month Pentagon allowance arranged by
his neo-con buddies, he
glibly accepts the street cred that goes with
bashing America. And he
still won't give us all of Saddam's secret files,
which he confiscated
and is using to discredit his enemies.

Going from Spartacus to Moses, he proclaims to
America, "Let my people
go" — even as he plays footsie with the country
that once denounced the
U.S. as the Great Satan.

On Friday at Louisiana State University,
President Bush told graduates:
"On the job and elsewhere in life, choose your
friends carefully. The
company you keep has a way of rubbing off on you
— and that can be a
good thing, or a bad thing. In my job, I got to
pick just about
everybody I work with. I've been happy with my
choices — although I
wish someone had warned me about all of Dick
Cheney's wild partying."

Mr. Bush thought he was kidding, but too bad he
didn't get that warning
before Dick Cheney took the world on such a wild
ride.

E-mail: liberties@nytimes.com

--
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David Corn: Conquest games: Just when Iraq gets ugly, neocons talk of taking over the world. Why are these people so nuts?

Dear MoveOn member,

It's time to raise the stakes in our demand that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld be fired. We need your help today to put a powerful new TV ad on the air.

We now know Rumsfeld personally approved a policy that "encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners," violating their fundamental human rights under the Geneva convention.1 Our new ad will help make sure everyone in the country knows about Rumsfeld’s direct responsibility for the prisoner debacle, but to air it we need your help. Here's the script:

The screen pans slowly up the Statue of Liberty, ultimately revealing that her head is hooded. The narrator says:

"They said we were going to Iraq to bring American values: democracy, liberty, justice. But something has gone terribly wrong."

"It's been reported that Donald Rumsfeld initiated a plan that encouraged the physical coercion and sexual humiliation of prisoners, violations of international law. Rumsfeld has placed the men under his command in even more danger."

"Why hasn't George Bush fired this man?"

Click here to help us put this ad on the air:

https://www.moveon.org/hooded/

New evidence of Rumsfeld's responsibility for the torture at Abu Ghraib prison is surfacing daily,2 and on Tuesday his top deputy admitted seriously miscalculating the Iraqis' willingness to put up with the American occupation.3 Yet President Bush still refuses to remove Rumsfeld from his post.

Although Bush has apologized to the world for the torture, every day Rumsfeld keeps his job sends the opposite message -- that Americans don't mind all that much.

Every day Rumsfeld stays, Iraq grows more volatile, increasing the danger to our troops. Every day he stays, Iraqis who work with us are killed, recently including the president of the Iraqi Governing Council. And every day Rumsfeld stays, potential terrorists harden in their anger toward America. Yet, in the face of this snowballing disaster, Bush's posture boils down to an arrogant "so what?".

It's time to make our demand for accountability impossible for Bush to ignore. We're taking our campaign to the next level, beginning with this TV ad. We'll also run radio and print ads soon, and next week we'll hold constituent meetings with dozens of key Senate and House offices, calling for Rumsfeld's ouster.

Michael Berg, whose son Nicholas was recently beheaded in Iraq, said: "I can't stand even more than those murderers who took my son's life, those who sit and make policies to end lives and break the lives of the still living."4

We need your help today to jump-start our campaign to fire Rumsfeld. Click here to help get our ads on the air:

https://www.moveon.org/hooded/

Every time we ask for your help, you step up. Thank you, more than we can say.

Sincerely,
--Carrie, Joan, Noah, Peter, and Wes
The MoveOn.org Team
Thursday, May 20th, 2004

Footnotes:

1. THE GRAY ZONE, How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib, by Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker

2. These recent stories reinforce this:
Soldier Says Intelligence Directed Abuse
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/20/international/middleeast/20ABUS.html?hp
Officer Says Army Tried to Curb Red Cross Visits to Prison in Iraq
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/19/politics/19PAPP.html

3. Washington Post: U.S. Faces Growing Fears of Failure: Wolfowitz Concedes Errors as Damage Control Continues

4. Statement of Michael Berg, father of Nicholas Berg, to the U.K.'s Stop The War Coalition, May 16th, 2004

THE GRAY ZONE: by SEYMOUR M. HERSH How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib. of 2004-05-24 Posted 2004-05-15"

Hey there, check out for a huge load of article links to keep you buzzing on a Irak/U.S. aggression information high. Bzzzzzzzzzz. Peace

((( Anybody But Bush Update: Iraqi prisoner
prefers Saddam's torture )))

May 03, 2004


------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.anybodybutbush.info/archives/000224.html



------------------------------------------------------------------------

by ttagaris
Mon May 3rd, 2004 at 02:37:09 EST

I really wish this headline came from The Onion,
or maybe Mad Magazine,
but it doesn't; the article comes from the
Associated Press.

When I read quotes like this, I begin to worry:

"Al-Shweiri said that while jailed by Saddam's
regime, he was
electrocuted, beaten and hung from the ceiling
with his hands tied
behind his back.

"But that's better than the humiliation of being
stripped naked," he
said. 'Shoot me here,' he added, pointing between
his eyes, 'but don't
do this to us."

read
the associated press article


Diaries :: ttagaris's diary ::

Now, I was in the United States Marine Corps, and
I really don't want
to pass judgement on anyone committing these acts
against Iraqis,
whoever they may be.

In my eyes, the vast majority of people that I
served with were great
people, some of the best I have ever met in my
life, and I am proud to
have served with each and every one of them.

What gives me pause, and makes me sad above all
else, is the
transformation many of our men and women must
have gone through since
arriving in Iraq. The people I served, I could
not fathom
participating in acts such as these.

While I have never served in combat, I know we
have all heard from
friends, relatives, or accounts on television and
through conversations
on-line about how you come back a changed person.
The experience of war
and death up-close is so powerful, that it
demands a mental
transformation as a defense mechanism.

I can't help but shake the feeling that these
troops that tortured
Iraqis are not just a few bad apples, but these
are just a small
handful of the good apples that have have gone
rotten after exposure to
the horrors of war.

I can't speak for the friends that I served with,
maybe they wish to
stay in Iraq. The last I heard they were digging
graves every day from
the time they woke up, until they were done for
the day. I can't
imagine that job doing any help for the fragile
mind of a young man
10's of thousands of miles away from home,
watching death up-close
every day. I would like them to come home.

Tim