Stone Cupid Real - blog

US General Accuses Bush Administration of War Crimes

noreply@blogspirit.com (Julie CHRISTENSEN) — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:22:06 -0700

Wednesday 18 June 2008
by: Matt Renner and Maya Schenwar, t r u t h o u t | Report

Abu Ghraib 37 (2005), by artist Fernando Botero
Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba (now retired) served as the deputy commanding general for support for the Third Army for ten months in Kuwait during the early days of the Iraq occupation. In a statement released today, he bluntly accuses the Bush administration of war crimes and lays down a challenge for prosecution.

In 2004, Taguba released a classified report detailing abuses committed at Abu Ghraib Prison. The "Taguba Report" (executive summary) urged Pentagon officials to follow up on its findings by enforcing adherence to the Geneva Conventions in interrogations.

Taguba retired in January 2007, later alleging that Pentagon officials had ordered him to retire for being "overzealous" in his criticisms of the military.

In light of ongoing Congressional investigations into so-called harsh interrogation techniques, and on the heels of Congressman Dennis Kucinich recently issuing articles of impeachment accusing President Bush of, among other offenses, authorizing torture, we present Taguba's latest statement for your consideration.

The full Physicians for Human Rights report outlining the medical evidence of torture perpetrated by the United States can be read at their website.

Thanks again, t r u t h o u t |

Switching to Peace - Japanese Style

noreply@blogspirit.com (Julie CHRISTENSEN) — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:30:00 -0700

Thursday 22 May 2008

by: Ann Wright, t r u t h o u t Perspective

photo
Mount Fuji, Japan, is an international icon of tranquility.
(Photo: T. Yamamoto)

I've been speaking throughout Japan for the past 14 days on issues of war and peace and the Japanese Constitution. That Constitution was imposed by the United States after World War II and mandated the Japanese government and people abandon war. Article 9 of their Constitution says:

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. (2) In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

On my last evening in Japan, I spoke in Nago, Okinawa, the southernmost island of Japan and the most US-militarized. After the talk, in contrast to most evening meals, Hisae Ogawa (the organizer of my visit) and I had dinner with five men, all my age, 61 or so, Vietnam veteran age - except they were not Vietnam veterans, nor veterans of any war.

After World War II, Japanese men (and women) have been spared the obligation of serving in any wars. Because their Constitution (written by Americans) says war is not the Japanese national doctrine for resolving international disputes or for ensuring their national security, the Japanese people have been given 60 years of peace.

I was struck by the questions of the Japanese men - only one generation removed from their fathers, who fought to expand economic resources for the Japanese emperor and empire in the late 1930s and 1940s.

These men questioned why young men and women of the United States would join the US military when it was fighting a war for economic resources (oil - their words) and a war based on lies (their words.) The Japanese men were amazed by the levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (80 percent) in Iraq war veterans, and were astounded by the Veterans Administration's cover up of the number of suicides by veterans (18 per month, or 216 per year, and 12,000 per year attempting suicide). They also questioned why any woman would join the military when statistics reveal one in three women in the military will be raped by fellow service members during their enlistment.

I responded that, despite an unpopular war, some young men and women find the US military their only option for jobs and future education. Military recruiters flood high schools, and there are few other options for many with marginal grades, much less a criminal record.

The Japanese society has moved from one of the most militaristic and warlike in the 1930s and 1940s to, now, a nation at peace despite the Bush administration's pressure on the Japanese government for military and financial contributions…

President Bush Committed Political Treason Today

noreply@blogspirit.com (Julie CHRISTENSEN) — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:05:04 -0700

By Will Bunch
<a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/President_Bush_committed_treason_today.html" target="blank">The Philadelphia Daily News</a>

Thursday 15 May 2008

I've seen a lot of sad things in American politics in my lifetime - the resignation of a president who became a national disgrace after he oversaw a campaign of break-ins and cover-ups, another who circumvented the Constitution to trade arms for hostages, and yet is now hailed as national hero. And those paled to what we have seen in the last seven years - flagrant disregard for the Constitution, the launching of a "pre-emptive" war on false pretenses, and discussions about torture and other shocking abuses inside the White House inner sanctum.

But now it's come to this: A new low that I never imagined was even possible.

President Bush went on foreign soil today, and committed what I consider an act of political treason: Comparing the candidate of the U.S. opposition party to appeasers of Nazi Germany - in the very nation that was carved out from the horrific calamity of the Holocaust. Bush's bizarre and beyond-appropriate detour into American presidential politics took place in the middle of what should have been an occasion for joy: A speech to Israeli's Knesset to honor that nation's 60th birthday.

But here's what he said:

JERUSALEM (CNN) – In a particularly sharp blast from halfway around the world, President Bush suggested Thursday that Sen. Barack Obama and other Democrats are in favor of "appeasement" of terrorists in the same way U.S. leaders appeased Nazis in the run-up to World War II.

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," said Bush, in what White House aides privately acknowledged was a reference to calls by Obama and other Democrats for the U.S. president to sit down for talks with leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said in remarks to the Israeli Knesset. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American Senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

As a believer in free speech, I think Bush has a right to say what he wants, but as a President of the United States who swore to uphold the Constitution, his freedom also carries an awesome and solemn responsibility, and what this president said today is a serious breach of that high moral standard.

Of course, there are differences of opinion on how America should handle Iran, and that's why we're having an election here at home, to sort these issues out - hopefully with respect and not with emotional and inaccurate appeals. Not only is the president's comment a gross misrepresentation of Barack Obama's stance on the issue, but ironically, it comes just a day after his own Secretary…

Did the US Supreme Court Just Elect John McCain?

noreply@blogspirit.com (Julie CHRISTENSEN) — Fri, 2 May 2008 12:27:33 -0700

By Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
The Free Press

Wednesday 30 April 2008

The US Supreme Court has just dealt a serious blow to voters' rights that could help put John McCain in the White House by eliminating tens of thousands of voters who generally vote Democratic.

By 6-3 the Court has upheld an Indiana law that requires citizens to present a photo identification card in order to vote. Florida, Michigan, Louisiana, Georgia, Hawaii and South Dakota have similar laws. Though it's unlikely, as many as two dozen other states could add them by election day. Other states, like Ohio, have less stringent ID requirements than Indiana's, but still have certain restrictions that are strongly opposed by voter rights advocates.

The decision turns back two centuries of jurisprudence that has accepted a registered voter's signature as sufficient identification for casting a ballot. By matching that signature against one given at registration, and with harsh penalties for ballot stuffing, the Justices confirmed in their lead opinion that there is "no evidence" for the kind of widespread voter fraud Republican partisans have used to justify the demand for photo ID.

Voting rights activists have long argued that since photo ID can cost money, or may demand expensive trips to government agencies, the requirement constitutes a "poll tax." Taxes on the right to vote were used for a century to prevent blacks and others from voting in the south and elsewhere. They were specifically banned by the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1964.

But the Court's lead opinion, written by Justice Stevens, normally a liberal, said that though rare, the "risk of voter fraud" was nonetheless "real" and that there was "no question about the legitimacy or importance of the state's interest in counting only the votes of eligible voters." The burden of obtaining a voter ID, said the court, was not so difficult as to be deemed unConstitutional. Ohio election protection Attorney Cliff Arnebeck believes Stevens joined the decision to divide the Court's conservative majority, and to leave the door open for further litigation.

But there is no indication the corporate media or Democratic Party will be pursuing significant action on this issue any time soon. Though the Kerry Campaign solicited millions of dollars to "protect the vote" in 2004, it has not supported independent research into that election's irregularities. In the King-Lincoln Civil Rights lawsuit, in which we are attorney and plaintiff, 56 of Ohio's 88 counties destroyed ballot materials, in direct violation of federal law. There has been no official legal follow-up on this case, no major media investigation, and no support from the Democratic Party either to investigate what happened in Ohio 2004, or to make sure it doesn't happen again in 2008. The issue has yet to be seriously raised by the major Democratic candidates despite the fact that it could render their campaigns moot.

This latest Supreme Court decision is yet another serious blow to voting rights advocates - and probably to the Democratic nominees…

They're at it again, cuz our short-term memory sux

noreply@blogspirit.com (Julie CHRISTENSEN) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:23:30 -0700

Pentagon Pundits Still Clogging the Airwaves...

There's a widget to call your congresspeople HERE