Torture: why is anyone shocked?

This is purely a rant....I am sitting here about as furious as I can be that anyone can act surprised about the fact that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice all knew that Justice Department-authorized torture was taking place. Everyone I know was aware that this torture was authorized at the highest levels.

From the NYTimes: In a series of high-level meetings in 2002, without a single dissent from cabinet members or lawmakers, the United States for the first time officially embraced the brutal methods of interrogation it had always condemned.This extraordinary consensus was possible, an examination by The New York Times shows, largely because no one involved — not the top two C.I.A. officials who were pushing the program, not the senior aides to President George W. Bush, not the leaders of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees — investigated the gruesome origins of the techniques they were approving with little debate.

I am particularly infuriated about the officers that were demoted and the enlisted personnel that were imprisoned for crimes that were actually NOT crimes-- in the legal sense, that is-- because those actions were approved by the Bush Administration. Yet no one-- not Bush, Cheney or anyone else-- stepped forward to defend them. They ALLOWED these people to suffer for them.

The lawyer for Charles Graner, currently serving a ten year sentence, plans to seek a presidential pardon. More info on possible appeals can be found at the Guardian.

Now, I understand that the "just following orders" excuse didn't cut it at the Nuremberg trials. But I do believe that the culture of the military makes it very difficult to do so. What do you think?

Some can't forget, some won't forget: prisoner abuse damages all involved

"SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Army Pvt. Brandon Neely was scared when he took Guantanamo's first shackled detainees off a bus. Told to expect vicious terrorists, he grabbed a trembling, elderly detainee and ground his face into the cement — the first of a range of humiliations he says he participated in and witnessed as the prison was opening for business.

Neely has now come forward in this final year of the detention center's existence, saying he wants to publicly air his feelings of guilt and shame about how some soldiers behaved as the military scrambled to handle the first alleged al-Qaida and Taliban members arriving at the isolated U.S. Navy base." Read the rest of Mike Malia's AP story here. Photo from (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

I'd bookmarked the following photos from Abu Ghriab in Iraq some time ago and found them again for this post. I found that the passage of time made them harder, not easier, for me to look at-- as if these nightmare images when seen in the middle of a nightmare are less shocking than when seen in the cold light of day. Anti-War.com.

How easy to want to look ahead, to forget what's happened. But that would just be crazy. So let me again point to a Care2 Petition to Call for a Special Prosecutor for Bush War Crimes. If you feel the same way, sign it.

Compare and Contrast

From The F Word, Contemporary UK Feminism

Don't let Bush and his pals get off easy

Do you think Bush and his co-conspirators should be able to steal away quietly, write books, get jobs with major corporations, and otherwise profit from their illegal actions?

I don't. It makes no sense to me that we should allow our chief elected and appointed officials to commit mayhem and then just move on as if nothing has happened. It's a kind of insanity. They should be held accountable for their actions, which damaged civil liberties, killed thousands of innocents, hurt the U.S. reputation-- but there's one word that haunts me the most:

torture torture torture torture torture torture torture torture torture torture

There's a petition up at the Care2 Petition Site calling on the new Attorney General to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate war crimes. Here's the text of the letter, and if you want to sign, go to the Petition Site.

Dear Attorney General Eric Holder,

We the undersigned citizens of the United States petition you to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in torture and other war crimes.

In the final days of their administration, President Bush and Vice
President Cheney admitted they authorized "enhanced interrogation" of prisoners, specifically including waterboarding. But "enhanced
interrogation" is simply a euphemism for torture, which was so severe that it caused the deaths of at least 70 prisoners.

As Major General Antonio Taguba, the Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison has stated:

"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

The United States is a representative democracy. The actions of our
government officials are done in the name of its citizens. We are outraged that torture been committed in our name. We urge you to appoint a Special Prosecutor to prosecute those responsible for torture to the fullest extent of the law.

Photo from Takomibibelot's photostream at Flickr.

Bush after the wolves....if only

If only the wolves could go after Bush!

In what the National Resources Defense Council calls a cruel parting shot, Bush has removed Endangered Species Protection from gray wolves in Montana and Idaho.

Bush removed their protection last year, also, and 110 wolves were slaughtered in the aftermath. Remember Hoppy? NRDC and other groups went to federal court and stopped Bush, but now, with only a few days left...

NRDC will be headed back to court next week.

Photo from Harlequeen's photostream at Flickr.

: Bush's poem: Snopes verified this to be true

You've probably all seen Bush's accidental poem, but my friend Lesley Haynes sent me an email today saying that the Urban Legends pages, Snopes, has verified that the following are all real quotes. With all the tears this buffoon has caused us, take a moment to have another laugh at his expense.

Make the Pie Higher

I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen
And uncertainty
And potential mental losses.

Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the internet
Become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?

They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being and the fish
Can coexist.

Families is where our nation finds hope
Where our wings take dream.
Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher!
Make the pie higher!

Immigrants jailed, hidden, shuffled around in Massachusetts

Many people think of correctional institutes-- when they think of them at all-- as sources of jobs and tax money for their economically depressed communities. But for the families of the undocumented, these facilities are black holes, sucking away their loved one.

As a resident of Western Mass. and a member of Arise for Social Justice, I fought long, hard and unsuccessfully with others to attempt to prevent the construction of a new jail for women in Chicopee. At the same time, a new jail was being constructed 40 miles north, in Greenfield. Last month, that jail became "home" to 34 immigrants transfered from the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I. Those inmates were transfered because of the death in Wyatt of an undocumented man last August.

According to the New York Times, the Wyatt facility "offers a rare look into the fastest-growing, least-examined type of incarceration in America, an industry that detains half a million people a year, up from a few thousand just 15 years ago. The system operates without the rules that protect criminal suspects, and has grown up with little oversight, often in the backyards of communities desperate for any source of money and work."

The article goes on to talk about the chilling disappearance of the undocumented who lived in Central Falls. Their families would search for them, only to find they were incarcerated in the same community where they worked and lived.

Back in December Fred Contrada of the Springfield Republican wrote about the transfer of the unauthorized immigrants to the Franklin County House of Correction in Greenfield. He also mentioned that 26 of its own detainees were transfered out to other facilities in Rhode Island to make room for the new. Thus people are separated from their families as they are shuffled from one community to another.

Addendum: In the final hours of the Bush Administration, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey has denied unauthorized immigrants one of the few appeals to deportation that had been open to them, the right to appeal their deportation because of mistakes made by their attorneys in their hearings. You can read more here.

Photo from ProgressIllinois.

The Bailout

Thanks, Jon!

Don't forget Iraq and Afghanistan

As word comes this morning that seven U.S. soldiers have been killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq, time to check in on the loss of life so far in our war on enduring freedom.

4,106 U.S. military personnel have been killed in Iraq; 597 have been killed in Afghanistan. Bush and McCain call this "winning," a term that makes sense only out of context: don't forget that all of our reasons for starting a war in Iraq have been totally discredited: no link to 9/11, no weapons of mass destruction, and no hotbed of Al Qaeda activity (at least until after we invaded.)

Even if some of us think that the war in Afghanistan was justified (funny how Pakistan has gotten off so easily), how much more successful would our policy there be if we had spent more on building hospitals, schools, roads and communications than we have on armed action.

While some but not all of our economic crisis can be blamed on these wars, at the least they've diverted attention from taking care of business at home. When will it be over?

"Wall Street Got Drunk"

You will probably be subjected to a hundred repeats of Bush's "Wall Street got drunk" explanation for our financial malaise at a fundraising event in Houston, but you probably won't get to see CNN's Jack Cafferty, after reporting on the story, shake his head and say, "The death of the intellect at the highest levels of our nation's government is staggering...it's that kind of shallowness that's created an appetite among the American public and overseas for someone like Barak Obama." It was a nice moment.

Bush is only funny if you like your humor black

I can hear arguing from the offices down the hall where I work. Can't quite make out what they're saying until I hear one woman's voice, suddenly louder and filled with frustration.

"Well, I'm gonna vote for whoever the hell can undo the mess Bush has made!"

Then I realize she must be talking to the office manager of the union headquarters down the hall. The office manager, a sweet and kindhearted woman, is so disappointed that Hilary Clinton didn't get the Democratic nomination for president that she's planning to vote for John McCain.

I've talked to her about this myself, even saying, "Is that what you think Hilary would want you to do?"

"I don't care," she said, "it's just not right, it's just not fair she didn't win. They stole the nomination from her."

So what I feel like doing, if McCain wins, is throwing it in her face every time that:

• A soldier is killed in Iraq or Afghanistan
• A storm linked to global warming devastates our coast (or any other country's)
• Unemployment goes up

Well, I won't go on. And I probably wouldn't do it; she's a nice lady. Just completely crazy.

Bush's Memorial

President gives up golf in solidarity with U.S. dead in Iraq War

I'm tempted to let this headline to stand for itself-- but I can't. Supposedly Bush gave up golf in 2003 (but we're just now hearing about it) after being notified, while on the golf course, that a truck bomb had killed 22 soldiers.

And this is supposed to show his compassion and understanding of the depth of suffering that U.S. military and their families have experienced? And what will he give up for the rest of us, who are getting poorer and poorer in this three trillion dollar war? Chocolate bars?